BMW Unveils World's Fastest Hydrogen-Powered Car

Yahoo / Reuters ^ | Sep 23, 2004

[Mike Darancette]

Goeschel said he wasn't considering registering it for next year's racing circuit.

I'll wonder what the acceleration and torque for this engine is.

[July 4th]

The Germans don't have too good a record with hydrogen...

[Crazieman]

See, thats a silly fear about hydrogen fueled cars. You're already driving around in a huge bomb. No difference at all.

[Weirdad]

You can convert most cars to run on hydrogen. Of course H2 (hydrogen) when oxidized with O2 (oxygen) makes H2O (water) and hence the comment that the exhaust is steam. However the air we breath is 80% N2 (nitrogen) and when you throw that into the mix at high pressures and temperatures you end up with small amounts of HNO2 and HNO3, nitrous acid and nitric acid. These compounds over time are rather hard on the engine parts, and that's a problem that is going to need to be solved.

Of course, if you are getting your hydrogen in the first place by hydrolyzing water into its component hydrogen and oxygen, you could just save the oxygen and burn that instead of air. But then instead of just being a rolling bomb with a tank of hydrogen, you've got even worse potential for an explosion if those two tanks got together. Some stages of the Apollo boosters were fueled by liquid hydrogen being thrown together with liquid oxygen!

[Cobra64]

PARIS (Reuters) - German luxury carmaker BMW unveiled the world's fastest hydrogen-powered car at the Paris auto show on Wednesday, dubbed the H2R, capable of exceeding 300 kilometers (185 miles) per hour.

Pathetic. Does BMW want me to go get my M5 from 'Paris." The French are incable of producing anything other than prostitutes. IMOHO.

[SeerSucker]

WOW .... Sign me up ......

.... But what will I do with all the free oil / gas I just went to war for ....

Oh, nevermind, Skerry can use it in the SUV his family owns .... hahahaha

[Cobra64]

Good point. I missed that piece of latent history. Thanks.

[Crazieman]

Yeah, but we already drive around in rolling firebombs. =)

[Weirdad]

Gasoline is not a gas (as opposed to a liquid) and is not pressurized. If the car is fueled by pressurized hydrogen gas then if that tank ruptures then in addition to the explosive effect of the rupture of the tank itself, you get much more of a "fuel-air mixture" to ignite. It's not a trivial concern, but I think that it can be managed, though I am not sure that the issue has been solved satisfactorily yet.

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

The Kerry Campaign has an unlimited supply of gas.

[ApplegateRanch]

No difference only if your using propane.

There is a big difference between an ambient pressure liquid fuel, and a high pressure, liquified gas.

I doubt the H2 is actually liquified in this case, but you can bet it is highly pressurized to pack enough into a resonably sized tank.

[Richard Kimball]

Hydrogen is obtained either from fossil fuels such as natural gas or by applying electrical power to water molecules. Ecologically, the problem of finding a regenerating source of primary energy remains.

While this car is cool, I thought the problem with hydrogen was ALWAYS production costs to generate an adequate supply of hydrogen. Please humor me, because I was a Fine Arts major, and I know there are some brilliant hard scientists on FR. My understanding was that the bond between the oxygen and hydrogen molecules in water was so strong that it took more power to extract the hydrogen than the hydrogen produced when used for fuel. If natural gas was the source, we're still dependent on fossil fuels.

I've read of some interesting experiments in producing methane from sewage and dead plants, but I wasn't aware of any methods that had been made commercially feasible.

Are there any Freeps who can enlighten me on this issue? Have I missed something?

[greasepaint]

So what.
An internal combustion engine can use for fuel:
propane, hydrogen, natural gas,
the vapor of gasoline, the vapor of methanol, etc.

[ozzymandus]

How come I don't hear anything about alcohol-fueled cars anymore? That was "the wave of the future" during the gas shortages of the '70s.

[Richard Kimball]

After my last post, I remembered Google is my friend, and found this.

It's a link to an explanation of the BMW hydrogen fuel system. It DOES use liquid hydrogen, which is -253 degrees F. This introduces another problem, as cryogenics have their own set of safety issues. However, they believe that they can generate hydrogen from water using solar power and that they have a prototype of a completely safe refueling station. Be pretty cool if it works.

[103198]

The company cautioned, however, that while the cars don't pollute, production of hydrogen as a fuel does entail pollution.

Hydrogen is obtained either from fossil fuels such as natural gas or by applying electrical power to water molecules. Ecologically, the problem of finding a regenerating source of primary energy remains.

Nuclear power should be the hydrogen production means. Currently I believe the lowest cost method of hydrogen production is to use natural gas (remove H from it). The second lowest cost method is to use nuclear power and one of at least four (electrolysis, steam-methane reforming, thermochemical, or hybrid) processes to create hydrogen. I will argue that by using breeding technology, fuel reprocessing, and proper isolation and burn-up technique's, nuclear is environmentally benign and renewable.

[ALWAYSWELDING]

That's funny

[Finalapproach29er]

LMAO

[stboz]

This is just so "not news." No infrastructure. No efficient means of production.

Loser, all the way.