markjmd

iTrader: (11)

No, not another supermarket price war, but this stuff:


Hang on to your gas-guzzlers, this could get interesting

PaulC72

Woohoo @£90+to fill ours it cannot come quick enough lol.

Mind you it will either be banned or fuel duty will be 1000000000000000%......

Dedrater

Yeah, 19p a litre for the actual goods, then an instant £1 fuel duty on top of that. The Government would never in a million years lose that revenue stream.

AsifScoob

Sounds too good to be true, no?

Why would the Govt. NEED to tax it anyway? There is presumably a plentiful supply, so no need to 'restrict' demand and no pollution issues, so it appears to have none of the downsides of petrol today.

No need to tax surely?

Surely this would reduce inflation, 'fuel' (geddit?) demand in other areas of the economy and increase social mobility?

Win win, but oh no, they want to tax it!

GlesgaKiss

Presumably the price of hydrogen, 'currently cheaper than oil', will rise fairly rapidly if everyone starts to try and use it in this way? I'm pretty sure supplies of hydrogen (produced in an industrial manner) won't be anywhere near as plentiful as supplies of oil, and I also think I read somewhere that there were problems at the moment with actually producing it on that kind of scale - hence the doubts about the hydrogen fuel cells.

But this sounds very promising at least. The future has to be in some kind of synthetic fuel/oil which doesn't require the use of finite natural resources. I'm surprised there isn't something like that already.

Frosticles

iTrader: (1)

Hydrogen is the single most abundant element on earth and the universe.

David Lock

Plenty of H2O about

Problem at the moment is how to transport neat H and stick it in a car as a liquid as it requires a lot of pressure to liquidise it. So effectively you would be driving around with a small bomb in the back.

But it will be the fuel of the future in a few years IMHO. dl

Nimbus

But you forget, with cheaper fuel, there will be more cars on the road, which leads to congestion. So we will have to pay for congestion reducing measures, such as making the fuel expensive to buy in the first place...

GlesgaKiss

That could have been the problem I was reading about. I know how abundant it is, but I'm pretty sure it's not as easy as it sounds getting it in the form and quantities we want.

PaulC72

We all need hovver cars...save on the tarmac (that don't get put ont he roads) and just think no potholes.

jonc

This new fuel isn't liquid hydrogen, it "...uses nano-structuring to safely encapsulate hydrogen at ambient temperatures and pressures. This sidesteps the requirement for an expensive hydrogen infrastructure."

Whilst hydrogen is the most abundant element it is "locked up" with other elements. Does this 19p also cover the cost of extracting the hydrogen both financially and environmentally? We don't know at the moment. But this technology sounds promising!

urban

iTrader: (1)

Seems fair to me - 220% tax levy

Coffin Dodger

Fortunately petrol isn't very explosive though is it

Rescue Dude

iTrader: (11)

This will never happen.

The oil companies will put the mockers on it.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Surely the Oil companies do not have the power to stifle all developments in alternatives ?

Would have thought these things could go viral through the net if they actually work and people are now p1ssed off enough to take notice of any potentially thing that may alleviate transport costs, personally I dont want to just exist because everything has gone up substantially apart from my salary.

If people want this to happen, it can, my doubt comes from the fact it probably doesnt work. It would be wonderful to see that happen, would shift the balance of power in the world massively, cannot begin to imagine the ramifications, would love to see all the oil sheikhs and Oligarchs get fooked over, buying fleets of Mercs, each in a colour of the rainbow and a personal A380 is obscene and acheived by keeping up over a barrel (litterally).

dunx

iTrader: (3)

Until fusion power is up and running how do we manufacture the Hydrogen gas in the first place ?

Solar farms in the dessert to make the Arabs even richer ?

dunx

P.S. After tax it will be a "green-fingers width" less than petrol.

Leslie

How long do you really think it would remain at that price? I think it would not even appear until the Gov has stacked it up with large lumps of tax and duty!

Les

Jaybird-UK

very interesting article and technology

Mus

iTrader: (2)

too good to be true the government will ruin it and bump the price up.

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

Agreed the govt would no doubt try their damndest to ruin it for everyone by taxing or regulating it to death, but at least this time it would be utterly transparent that they didn't have the slightest excuse to - it gives off no carbon or any other (real) pollution, it has no negative effect at all on our balance of trade deficit, and on top of that it would have the positive benefits of providing a massive boost to a native industry, and saving an absolute fortune in time and money in not having to re-adapt our entire transport infrastructure to using new forms of vehicles if/when hydrocarbon-based fuels run out.

If it really does work the way they're saying it will here, it would be nothing short of a complete game-changer.

jonc

The Government will find a way. Since the only emissions would be water vapour and water vapour is many times more potent as a greenhouse, they will levy a tax to kerb its use!

gbnut

...of course, water will place an additional strain on road drainage and increase the risk of road damage through ice in the winter months

DonNedly

iTrader: (10)

petrol only costs 40p a litre. Its all tax that takes it up to £1.20+ so i doubt we'd be any better off.

DonNedly

iTrader: (10)

and also will it have the required octane rating for my scooby?

AsifScoob

Oh, how can you be such a cynic???

SRSport

Dont forget that even if the government tax it to the same levels as what we pay for petrol now it will make us as a country richer. The money doesnt just disappear, it will take the strain off the country and give other benefits such as lowering VAT etc.

...saying that they'll probably just throw it all away by giving it to the benefit system or something like that.