[JTO]

Rick,

I need to chime in. Hugh hits the whole hydrogen-as-fuel debate on the head. None of the chemical formulas you showed mean a damn because the reactants and/or chemical reactions all require a lot of energy to make, or make go. Calcium hydride is a highly reactive compound that doesn't just exist in a rock or something. You have to make it by putting energy into the system (a pile of reactants).

Hydrogen is a neat fuel but if you combust it in air you get NOx, AKA, smog. The only way hydrogen is pollution free in a combustion process is if you also use compressed oxygen to oxidize the hydrogen (or burn). This way, water comes out the tailpipe. Producing compressed oxygen and compressed or liquified hydrogen is damn expensive. With a couple hunderd nuclear reactors, maybe we could have a hydrogen-fueled transportation system. Without that large supply of cheap electricity, we would end up losing ground in terms of energy available. We'd be using much of what we have to split water.

Biofuels, to my mind, are the way to go. No new distribution system, enzymatic systems for ethyl alcohol production are extremely low energy users, plenty of feed stock from agricultural and forest products waste.

My $0.02.
Troy