Posted on 11/30/2014 9:35:53 AM PST by Olog-hai
The once-distant promise of clean, affordable hydrogen-powered cars is starting to become a reality. Several major automakers, including Toyota, Honda and Hyundai, have started or will soon start selling these cars, which will be more expensive than comparable gasoline models but a lot cheaper than they were just a few years ago. Executives at Toyota say that the cost of making the critical components of hydrogen vehicles has fallen 95 percent since 2008. […]
The broad adoption of hydrogen-powered cars, which emit only water and heat, could play an important role, along with electric vehicles, in lowering emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants responsible for climate change. […]
Most hydrogen today is created from natural gas in a process that generates carbon dioxide. But scientists say fuel cells are still good for the environment, because making hydrogen produces far fewer emissions than burning fossil fuels. Hydrogen could be produced more cleanly by using alternative energy sources like solar and wind power to split water into hydrogen and oxygen atoms. And it can be generated from renewable sources like sewage and animal waste. …
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
So is gasoline.
I didn’t say hydrogen vehicles don’t work.
I said that hydrogen is not a source of energy but (like a battery), a medium for energy-storage.
Methane (CNG) cars have been here for decades. They are affordable, durable (cleanest motor oil you’ll ever see) and with the proper equipment fuelled overnight from your house’s natural gas feed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Civic_GX
I drove a CNG Toyota Camry for 6 years in my work assignment and you couldn’t tell a difference in performance. It is the most sensible way to leverage the US dominance in natural gas production, so of course the infrastructure and government incentives will be steered away into hydrogen boondoggles.
Yes. There is nothing stupider than a liberal. I am now convinced that liberals are stupider than muslims... and that’s a pretty low bar to get underneath. But liberals manage to crawl down there, lower than the bar of muslim stupidity.
Toyota has done testing of the hydrogen storage tanks. They were impenetrable to bullets - even armor piercing.
Yeah, and food stamps are only temporary.
It's not much different than a vehicle with a propane or natural gas tank.
Hydrogen is more easily ignited than gasoline vapor. But, hydrogen rises quickly and disperses. As long as it isn't in an enclosed area, the danger is actually less.
This is an interesting set of pictures showing a hydrogen leak vs. a gasoline leak. The burning hydrogen vents straight up, but the gasoline pools and envelopes the entire car. However, as the article notes, that wasn't a crash test.
Hyundai and GM have performed crash tests:
Hyundai Tucson Hydrogen FCV Prototype FMVSS 301 NHTSA Rear Impact (30 Mph)
A Hydrogen Explosion Rattles Nerves, but Fuel-Cell Cars Have a Good Safety Record
In both cases, the hydrogen tanks in the vehicles did not rupture, or even leak. The "explosion" in the title refers to an accident at a refueling station, not a vehicle.
Toyota has also done crash testing of their Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle (FCHV):
http://www.toyotaaruba.com/readBlob.do?id=134
See the upper right of page 10.
If I went 300 miles as this hydrogen cell is rated to go it would cost me: 300 mi/23.5 mpg= 12.76 gals times $3.20/gal= $40.83
40.83 /300 miles = $0.136per mile. Thirteen and a half cents per mile.
Anyone have any Idea on what the per mile cost is on one of these hydrogen fuel cell cars ? -Tom
The spread of hydrogen-powered personal transportation will come with the opening of the hydrogen mines and the distribution of hydrogen through the gaslines yet to be built.
No matter how far the technology has come, hydrogen is still notoriously difficult to extract, in terms of freeing it from the molecular bonds that hold it, and its relatively high reactivity with any containment vessel it may be put into. The problem with extracting hydrogen from water, is that it requires about as much energy to break the bonds that join hydrogen and oxygen, as the energy yielded when hydrogen recombines with oxygen.
Energy that comes from - electricity. There has to be a primary generator of electricity, be it the sun, or a nuclear power plant, or hydroelectric power, or even (Heaven forbid!) those giant bird Cuisinarts called wind turbines. Coal- or gas-fired power plants would simply defeat the original purpose.
Hydrogen is also a very difficult element to bottle up and transport, as it reacts with the material of a pipeline, forming a metal hydride, or it simply seeps out through the molecular structure of any synthetic material, say like Teflon, or most plastic materials, as the hydrogen is the smallest and lightest of elements, and easily fills in the interstices that exist in virtually every other molecular structure.
If hydrogen is chilled to low enough temperature, it could be transported as a liquid, but cryogenic transport has its own set of problems, like, for example maintaining the sufficiently low temperature of -252.87 C., some 20 degrees above absolute zero.
You said it, friend!
Perhaps this Pike?
“Just let me know when I can pump 22 gallons of distilled water into the tank and produce the hydrogen as needed.”
Guess it won’t happen in KKKalifornia. No water, well except for an entire ocean that is sitting there waiting to have a few desalination plants built that could elevate the population out of poverty as well as or having to pi$$ on a brick.
Gasoline has a lower explosive limit of 1.2 percent, so it’s more likely to “explode” with an ignition source than hydrogen. Hydrogen disperses far more rapidly than gasoline vapor where ventilation is adequate.
Hydrogen’s upper explosive limit is actually 75.0. But where are you going to find an atmospheric condition where you have 75 percent hydrogen?
But where, that is the question (with apologies to both Shakespeare and Hamlet).
Takes 31.7 megajoules (about 30,046 btu) of energy to split a liter of water into hydrogen and oxygen using electrolysis. Now expand that to 22 US gallons (83.3 liters) and you need a little over 2.5 million btu just to produce the available hydrogen.
Ha... That’s nowhere near the Hindenburgh Highway!
The 1st Hydrogen Car rear-end accident
Fuel’s usefulness is primarily a matter of energy density. Hydrogen gas has a poor energy density.
LOL!
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