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 ...
Goodness!!!! They will emit “heat”????????? What about globull warming? Boycott this technology until these cars look like unicorns and emit only Skittles.
Absolutely right. Hydrogen, at least when produced via the “preferred” hydrolysis method, is in essence a battery.
Do you know if anybody has run the numbers for efficiency of electricity “stored” this way vs. in more typical battery types?
Quite a while back I ran some numbers best I could to compare the energy and emissions of burning fuel directly to generate movement via IC, compared to burning fuel to make electricity, transmit it to charging station, charge battery, then use electric motors to generate movement.
If I remember correctly, the electric car came out slightly ahead, but not nearly as much as the hype would have us believe. The problem is that IC is a one-stage process vs. the electric car, which has at least four stages that lose efficiency at each step. Even if each step is quite efficient, the losses add up.
I suspect a diesel hybrid might be more efficient than a pure-electric car, if we used the highly efficient diesel engines used in Europe.
Hydrogen refined from nat gas is as much a source of energy as any other refined product like butane or propane.
Hydrogen generated by hydrolysis, which is what gets the greenies all excited, IS a battery.
That's only a part of the energy needed. You have to compress the hydrogen considerably to use it. Compressing gases takes a LOT of energy.
Actually there are two major problems.
Extracting H2 costs energy and costs more than you get out.
H2 molecules are so small that Hydrogen leaks are almost impossible to avoid.
Other than that, it works fine
How many Coal fired plants will be required to produce the Hydrogen ? Will the first car be named after the Hindenburg ?
Heck if I know.
Leaving the transportation and storage issues out of it, I’m curious how much energy it would take to produce (by hydrolysis) and compress to usable pressures hydrogen equal in energy potential to 10 gallons of gasoline.
Then you’ve got something vague resembling an apples to apples comparison.
Also am curious the volume this hydrogen tank would take up relative to the 10 gallon gas tank.
But I’m too lazy to run the numbers myself.
Not so. We run high purity hydrogen in our generators to cool the rotors of the generators. Upper explosive limit is 59%.
It if the container were ruptured, the gas would quickly disperse within the air and, if a ignition source is available, would more likely ignite all of the fuel instantly.
FAE bombs function the same way.
Not so with a gasoline in a gas tank. Actually, gasoline has to be atomized in order to burn properly.
With the advances being made by the Chinese, low-cost Thorium energy could be only a decade away.
Let's hypothesize that, ten years from now, Thorium-generated electricity costs 10% per btu what gasoline costs and that the conversion to Hydrogen through electrolysis is 50% efficient. In today's terms, that would mean hydrogen would cost the btu equivalent of $0.60 per gallon of gasoline.
There are no “advances made by the Chinese” that the communists did not steal.
That is true. Since we are content to sit on our duffs, however, we need to look elsewhere for improved living standards.
Nuclear power is the obvious choice for a tool to generate hydrogen from water. But nuke power is in a very difficult position these days, despite the incredible advances in technology.
Of course.
There are also wood-gassers, which home-built units produce hydrogen and methane for combustion at about a 30% loss of power (maybe not that much at higher altitudes). They don’t produce much pollution, but there wouldn’t be enough wood and waste for everyone to use them. They might be a small part of a solution, though, along with several other technologies and human adjustments.
What I remember from compressor stations, the lighter the gas specific gravity, the more waste heat generated in the compression, ie more energy to compress.
Hydrogen, then is more inefficient to compress than natural gas.
Upper explosive limit is 59%.
75%
https://www.mathesongas.com/pdfs/products/Lower-%28LEL%29-&-Upper-%28UEL%29-Explosive-Limits-.pdf
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/explosive-concentration-limits-d_423.html
Both the Germans and the Japanese are pushing hydrogen cars pretty hard while keeping their hand in electric cars. They have no chance of energy independence as long as they depend on oil for internal combustion engine cars.
I don’t think this stuff is a fad. Price/performance for these cars has improved steadily over the last 10 years. Its likely in the next 5-10 price/performance of these cars will meet or beat internal combustion cars. Then their sales volumes will go up parabolicly.
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