I was wondering if somebody could give me an answer to something I pondered today.

I saw something about telly about those hydrogen cell powered electric cars today. By combining hydrogen with oxygen they somehow produce an electrical store of 'fuel'. As a result the only emissions said car produces is H20. This reminded me of another fact I read about, that the planet essentially has had the same amount of water since the time it formed, it simply changes states or becomes part of something elses composition. This got me wondering - by artificially instigating this process, are hydrogen fueled cars adding more water to the world? Or am I being amazingly thick?

Just something to think about...

No more water is added. There has always been that much water.

If you think about it there is x amount of water in anyone state at anyone time be it ice, liquid water, water vapour or hydrogen and oxygen molecules waiting to become water.

For all the molecules that join up to make water, somewhere in the cycle are molecular bonds being broken, returning them to their pure elemental states. The amounts are probably never exactly equal (zen water anyone?) but it doesn't make much of a difference if a few thousand more water molecules get made one day but no breaking down of other molecules already in existance does. Like with most earth sciences stuff, it balances out in the long run ha ha

That may not be too clear to understand as i'm not very good at explaining stuff but I hope you get the gyst.

Thing

(who once attempted an OU BSc in geo-science who then thought fuck this, but for some reason can remember the water cycle)

All I can add is that although seventy percent of the world's surface is water, water itself only actually makes up less than 0.02% of the world on the whole so I don't think there'd be much of a potential problem of "excess" water outside of rising sea levels decimating ecosystems. And the Dutch.

There's a Japanese theory - no, seriously - that there maybe five times as much water dissolved in the lower mantle than on the earth's surface. If that proves true, the figure of how much water the planet is made of will have to be revised upwards.
To 0.1%

I think the only things we have to fear are the impact of polar ice caps melting raising the sea levels greatly and the "devastating" impact thus wrought - which in the grand scheme of human survival isn't exactly cataclysmic IMO.


Hell, the world could completely die on it's arse if bees went extinct so just make sure you do your bit for recycling and shit and everything should be cushty.

True and scary about bees though. Albert Einstein reckoned 4 years . . . . . . sounds a bit like the plot of a Hitchcock film