my new hero

[whyBish]

Any fuel that we have to synthesize will, by definition, require more energy put in than we get out of it.
-Jester
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Yeah, but if you are getting your energy inputs for free, who cares?

<Energy input from free source (solar/tidal/wind)> - <energy lost in processing/transportation/ inefficiency> = bingo :P

But you are also correct about people forgetting the energy balance. Some people over here are pushing hydrogen cars, forgetting that the electricity to split the molecules has to be geenerated (which means that the problem is not creating hydrogen, but creating the energy to create hydrogen) Like you point out, people over here seem to forget that hydrogen is a very dirty fuel if your electricity is coming from coal fired power plants :(

Having solar panels on cars is inefficient compared to having large scale solar farms. The only potential benefit of a solar panel on a car would be for an electric (not hydrogen) powered car that can power itself solely from the direct (non-stored) input (which I'm guessing is essentially impossible). Without the benefit of direct drive, you are going to have to take the inefficiency hit of having a storage device (battery or hydrogen tank) so you might as well mass produce the energy / fuel.