[Land-speed] Gasseous Hydrogen as Fuel...

[drmayf]

After watching the you tube video on the BMW effort for a hydrogen 
powered car, one question kept jumping up in my head.  Their method of 
just using H2 to replace gasoline seems to me to be a good short term 
solution. But I am always puzzeled by the statements that the only by 
produced is water, just plain old water. But it seems to me, that if you 
are also using the Oxygen from the atmosphere, you get all sorts of 
other gasses into the combuston chamber as well. Stuff like Nitrogen.  
Doesn't the buring of fuel with oxygen in the combustion chamber create 
enough heat to form the nitrides  and oxides of nitrogen?  Aren't those 
pollutants? Also, don't you still have the odd drop of oil that gets 
burned in the chamber as well? For sure most of the other junk may be 
greatly reduced but some is always produced, don't you think? Heck, if 
it does not burn stoichometically then maybe you get some other strange 
pollutants... like maybe Skip's ammonia as a by product. Or not. Just 
may be swapping one set of pollutants for a different set. Ditto for 
methanol. Burning alcohol generates some stuff far worse that what we 
are producing now.  

Maybe the interim solution is not to completely replace gasoline but to 
supplement it with H2, especially in the stop and go situations. 
Although it is gonna cost a lot becasue of the low energy density of the 
fuel.

Still....

mayf