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Skepticism and Hydrogen Cars
It's true that if you react hydrogen with oxygen, it forms water and gives off energy. However, there are no known sources of pure hydrogen on earth -- hydrogen is bonded to something else, like carbon (in the form of methane or other hydrocarbons) or oxygen (in the form of water). You'd have to spend as much energy to extract hydrogen from methane (which is already a viable energy source!) or water as you would get by reacting the hydrogen in a fuel cell: You're not producing energy; you're just moving energy from one form to another.
True, hydrogen would be a good way to store energy produced by windmills, photovoltaic cells or other renewables. However, the amount of energy we can get from renewables is still rather low and much more expensive than other sources of energy. Viable ways (that are both effective and inexpensive) of producing hydrogen must be researched before hydrogen cars are realized. And this may take several decades!
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