Posted on 08/21/2016 11:27:39 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Hydrogen fuel-cell cars face an uphill battle toward mass adoption.
Both cars and fueling infrastructure need to be made widely available before large numbers of consumers can seriously consider switching from gasoline to hydrogen.
But under certain circumstances, hydrogen could prove very attractive to consumers for one simple reason.
When produced using renewable energy, hydrogen could cost nearly the equivalent of 50-cent-per-gallon gasoline, according to a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
That will only happen if "the stars align" and several factors work in hydrogen's favor, notes industry trade journal WardsAuto noted in a June report on the findings.
The NREL plan assumes large-scale production of hydrogen through electrolysis, but with renewable energy used to provide the majority of electricity in place of fuels that produce high levels of carbon emissions.
Thanks to anticipated emissions standards for power plants and other factors, the NREL anticipates much greater use of renewable energy in the coming decades. Renewable sources could generate as much as 80 percent of U.S. electricity by 2050 using currently-available technology, according to NREL data....
(Excerpt) Read more at greencarreports.com ...
So, said another way, hydrogen cells will work great provided we install a trillion dollars of infrastructure and outlaw all the alternatives.
A cheap, clean alternative fuel already exists: CNG. But that means using natural gas and that’s eeeeeeevillll.
Why bother, unless out of necessity or for specific applications, when hydrocarbons are a heck of a lot cheaper, easier, and safer to utilize as energy, as is, for the most part?
With a hundred and fifty percent county,state and federal taxes on it to bring it right back to three fifty a gallon. Oh yeah, and imagine granny trying to fuel up??
Gasoline is already 50 cents a gallon. Its the 2 dollars of tax the goobermint tacks on
Assuming you read the article, the issue us about the ROI on building wind and solar=powered electrolysis plants. This means you don’t need power transmission lines but creates new issues of how to transport and distribute hydrogen. Storage in metal hydrides has the most promise, but hydrogen is such a small molecule it will leak through places other gasses cannot.
Keep the government out of it and let private industry and private capital decide which technology best meets the needs of people who will actually pay for it.
“Wishful thinking.”
Take away that and they’ve got nothing.
“Makes no sense to me”
Kind of like a Chevy Volt which adds hundreds of lbs of weight and thousands of dollars in cost, so you can go around 35 miles on electricity...or approximately the range of 1 gallon of gas.
How about Tritium? Deuterium?
When hydrogen combusts with oxygen, it released water vapor; a green house gas far more potent than CO2.
Just saying....
As soon as the infrastructure is in place and a significant number of people switch over the subsidies disappear and the taxes start popping up.
Oh yeah, and imagine granny trying to fuel up??
Going back even further, I’ve driven cars with mechanical brakes on them, as opposed to hydraulic. It took legs of steel to stop a car. Amazingly, Granny drove those things, too.
Go back a little further to cars that required a hand crank to start. There were many broken arms resulting from those damn things. Yet, there Granny was.
It’s a good thing we don’t base our technology on what we don’t think Granny can do.
That should be: HUGH MANATEE!
Seriesly!
And practical fusion energy has been 20 years down the road for at least the last 40 years.
I don’t understand.
In these cars, the hydrogen passes through a membrane to generate electricity.
Flush, then fill up: Japan taps sewage to fuel hydrogen-powered cars
http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/
Hydrogen can be manufactured using many different substances.
The price per gallon is only half the story. What are the miles per gallon for hydrogen?
Sounds good. You get “free” hydrogen by electrolysis of water using a solar panel.
Now what? Attach a giant H2 balloon to the back of your car?
No.
So you have to compress the H2 into a tank small enough to fit in the car and propel it some hundreds of miles. Smaller tanks mean more compression.
What runs the compressor? Conventional energy sources.
Found this article:
I tried a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Here’s what it was like.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2014/01/24/i-tried-a-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicle-heres-what-it-was-like/
“Fuel economy obsessives will find lots to like about this car. On a full tank, the Highlander has a range of 300 or 400 miles, according to Chris Santucci, the Toyota engineer sitting in the passenger seat beside me. Filling up takes about five minutes — not much longer than your typical vehicle — but you can go much farther than even today’s best hybrids. The Toyota Prius gets about 50 miles to the gallon; the Highlander gas-electric hybrid gets about 27 under optimal conditions. The hydrogen-based Highlander? Sixty miles per gallon.”
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