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When I sold my car six years ago, I pledged that I would not purchase another until hydrogen fuel cell technology had matured, and a fuel cell car was commercially available. At that time the technology was mirage-like, shimmering on the technological horizon decades away from feasibility.
Honda recently announced that the FCX, a 130hp hydrogen car with a top speed of 100mph, will go into production in 2008. If this happens, Honda will beat Mercedes-Benz's 2012 serialization date and Ford's 2015 estimate into the ground, along with my personal guess at a timeline.
The car is only a one part of a complex equation, however. Hydrogen, a volatile gas at room temperature, is infamously difficult to isolate and transport --- Hydrogen production has been pegged as a process dirtier than fossil fuel rarefication (consuming more energy for the isolation process than is yielded in the finished fuel), and transportation has been deemed impossible due the the highly explosive nature of the gas.
The solution involves a paradigm shift, replacing centralized refineries with a dispersed system of mini-generators proximal to refueling stations. New processes use solar energy to electrolyze water, producing hydrogen and oxygen in a sustainable zero-carbon cycle (where older means of production used fossil fuels [hydrocarbons] as the hydrogen mine, freeing huge amounts of carbon to isolate the hydrogen).
The East Bay Area has two hydrogen generators / fueling stations currently in operation (Richmond and East Oakland), with a third ready to begin construction (in Emeryville near the base of the Bay Bridge). The new Emeryville station will be a solar electrolysis generator, the first of its kind in northern California.
O hai! Hydrogen solvency ahead of schedule. But...but...I'm not ready to own a car again!
Years ago, the iPod brand spearheaded an industry-wide move toward planned obsolescence with the introduction of rapid-discharge devices sans consumer-serviceable batteries. While Apple claimed this move would improve post-consumer waste management by ensuring proper disposal of heavy metal laden batteries, it in fact worsened the situation as people discarded the entire device instead of just swapping out a dead battery.
Now Apple delivers another fantastic money-grabbing mobile power ruse: iPhone batteries that are replaceable, but only at a price. Consumers will be forced to "submit their iPhone to Apple for battery service. The service will cost users $79, plus $6.95 for shipping, and will take three business days" to complete, during which time the consumer has the option of paying almost that much again for use of a rental phone. Do you really think people will do it? Or will they just re-invest in a shiny new iPhone Nano, conveniently set for release around the time iPhone batteries will begin to expire en masse...
Here are three great technologies Apple should fund, technologies which might actually reduce their iWaste quotient, not just boost the bottom line:- Stick in to the sun, Steve. Follow in the footsteps of Chinese technology manufacturer Hi-Tech Wealth, which recently released a
solar-powered cell phone. Personally, I think that the iPhone's glossy top surface would be elegantly restated by a glass+photovoltaic laminate bottom, lending a textural unity to the whole (and denecessitating the strangely out-of-context rubber bum/antenna cover, as silicon and glass don't interfere with RF communications nearly as significantly as metal).
- Give it a sweet tooth. Almost five years ago, Scientific American reported on "a primitive microbial fuel cell that can convert simple sugars into electricity with 81 percent efficiency." In the years intervening, the technology has produced tiny power sources which run "on glucose, flat sodas, sweetened drink mixes and tree sap," are completely biodegradable and expel water as their only waste. Best use for the unavoidable teaspoon of post-drink backwash EVAR!
- Make it shakeable. A newly announced "sugar-cube-sized electric generator that feeds on environmental vibrations [converts] 30% of environmental kinetic energy into electrical power." Though it doesn't provide enough current to power today's mobile phones, when coupled with the trend toward ever lower device wattages, this technology could make such a dance-fueled device feasible in the near future. Finally, something for all of those Apple models to really flail about!
