Posted on 03/07/2005 10:45:56 AM PST by JeffersonRepublic.com
United Nuclear is currently in final testing, and will shortly be producing Hydrogen Fuel Systems & Hydrogen generators for several late model, fuel injected, Gasoline powered vehicles.
Powering a vehicle by Hydrogen is by no means a new idea, and in fact, almost all automobile manufacturers are currently developing a new generation of vehicles that run on Hydrogen as opposed to Gasoline. This new generation of vehicles are essentially electric cars that use a Fuel Cell instead of a battery to run the electric motor. Using a chemical process, Fuel Cells in these new vehicles convert the stored Hydrogen on board, and the Oxygen in the air, directly into electricity to power their electric motors. These new vehicles are very efficient, and in fact are more efficient than any internal combustion engine. The problem is that these new vehicles are years away from production, are very expensive, and converting to using Hydrogen fuel in this manner requires you to buy a new ( and expensive ) vehicle. All Hydrogen/Fuel Cell systems currently under development by large manufacturers have you purchase Hydrogen as you would Gasoline. Our system comes with its own "in-home" Hydrogen generator which allows you to manufacture fuel yourself at near zero cost. Our Hydrogen conversion is an intermediate approach that simply converts your existing vehicle to burn Hydrogen or Gasoline. The Gasoline fuel system remains intact and is not modified. This allows you to switch between running on Gasoline or Hydrogen at any time. The engine itself is only slightly modified, the conversion makes substantial changes to the computer & electrical system, ignition and cooling systems. Since they never have to be removed, Hydrogen fuel storage (Hydride tanks) can be installed in virtually any available space within the vehicle.
(Excerpt) Read more at unitednuclear.com ...
“I believe that electrolosis is more expensive than "reforming" methane or alcohol to yield H2 and CO2. The "home hydrogen" units that I have seen convert natural gas. TANSTAAFL.”
Interesting link, thank you.
I wonder if some of the cost could be recouped by selling the Oxygen rather then release it into the atmosphere. There is already a thriving market for oxygen. It’s used at hospitals and you see older people carting around oxygen canisters all the time. Maybe it could be picked up at curbside like your recyclable garbage. Just a thought.
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
http://www.nrel.gov/ncpv/hotline/pdf/hydrogen_economy.pdf
Doesn't put the kibosh to H2, just shows some engineering facts that drive the eventual infrastructure.
Hydrogen may not be the best solution, but there seems to be some progress being made.
If they really want it to succeed, give a 10 year moratorium on taxes for vehicle sales, and no income tax on workers involved in the creation of the vehicles and the hydrogen generating devices for ten years, and it'll get done. Government funding of research will just ensure that it will never get done.
How would anyone know you filled up at home?
| 8 | “The Hydrogen generator is either powered by solar panels on the roof of your house...at virtually no cost” |
In reading your responses on this thread, you seem to believe that it is possible to use solar to generate the hydrogen and at zero cost.
OK, time for a pop quiz on solar power.
Using the most advanced solar technology currently available...
--Boot Hill
It seems to be automatic after there is sufficient heat to start the release of the Hydrogen from the metal hydride storage tanks.
Hydrogen has a wider combustion range as well as burning faster, hotter, and leaner than gasoline so there must also be(at least) a chip modification to the vehicle's onboard computer for those factors.
There is probably a gasoline only switch as well, that controls the flow of heated coolant to the Hydrogen tanks.
It also seems to me that the gasoline motor could be used to generate some Hydrogen as you drive and routed to the hydride storage tanks for later use.
“This is a serious quiz Holtz. If you're really serious about the use solar, these elementary facts are critical in determining the energy efficiency and economic sense of the proposal.”
O.K. I’ll bite, but I never said that hydrogen is free or could be produced for free. In fact, I believe that to produce hydrogen and use it in your car will be more expensive. But if everyone used it, the scale of economic would bring the cost down greatly. Maybe then, after considering all the cost involved in producing gas, would the two be comparable.
Time for the quiz teacher!
1. & 2. You picked the most expensive energy source used in America in order to justify your reluctance to listen to any new ideas. Although I’m sure that if we choose to only use solar panels to fuel our cars the price would drop drastically. It is certainly high; it is not so high that the idea should be dismissed entirely. Remember that in 1970, the cost of PV was $100 per watt (in 1970 dollars), compared to less than $5 today. In inflation adjusted dollars, a decline of a factor of over 100. Cost of the technology continues to decline.
It is quite reasonable to expect that, especially if PV enters extremely large-scale production, cost will drop dramatically. Even after considering this I would still think if we were to switch to hydrogen cars, we would use- coal, nuclear, solar, wind …etc to produce it.
Think about the huge cost of anything mass produced today. I’m sure you have a lot in common with the buggy makers of the late 1800’s. I can hear them saying how much money will these roads, fuel stations, blah, blah, blah.
Screw them and screw the nay sayers, IT’S CALLED PROGESS!
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
Volumetric energy density in watthours per liter:
Gasoline....9000 Wh/l
LNG.........7216 Wh/l
Propane.....6600 Wh/l
Ethanol.....6100 Wh/l
Liquid H2...2600 Wh/l
150 Bar H2...405 Wh/l
"..you do have to consider the contained weight of an energy delivery system. A gas tank adds relatively little weight to the gasoline it contains. But it is enormously unlikely you would be able to contain an equivalent 13 pounds of hydrogen in any 26 pound tank. Thus, the real-world contained energy density of hydrogen by weight is typically a lot worse than gasoline.
On the volumetric side, the hydrogen news is worse than all bad. STP hydrogen gas is laughingly pathetic. 2.7 watt hours per liter recoverable as electricity, or 3.3 watt hours per liter as heat. After compression and containment losses, ultra cold cryogenic liquid hydrogen has around one-fifth the energy density of gasoline.
Curiously, there is more hydrogen in one gallon of gasoline than there is in a gallon of liquid hydrogen. This happens because gasoline is denser by more than its hydrogen mole fraction.
At first glance, hydrogen would seem to have some things going for it as an alternate energy resource. Hydrogen burned in oxygen forms only water vapor. Which is a relatively benign pollutant. But when hydrogen is burned in air, more noxious oxides of nitrogen can also result.
In a typical situation, electrolysis takes two or more kilowatt hours of electricity worth ten cents each and converts them into one or fewer kilowatt hours of hydrogen worth less than a penny each. And that is before any fully burdened cost accounting, amortization, storage or processing. Thus... Electrolysis for bulk hydrogen energy is pretty much the same as 1:1 converting US dollars into Mexican Pesos.
At its very best, electrolysis introduces a staggering loss of exergy that dramatically reduces the quantity and value of transformed kilowatt hours of energy. Electrolysis is thus wildly unsuitable when driven from high value electrical sources such as retail grid electricity or any small scale photovoltaics."
No, actually you and the author did that, first when you posted the article and then again when you repeated his extravagant claims several times. And then when faced with two simple questions (post #185) about just how much you really know about the basics of solar power, you degenerated into ad hominems about "screw the nay sayers".
Come on JRC, give that little quiz your best shot, it's only two questions and would only take a few seconds to complete. No shame in not knowing the answers, but there is shame in ducking it.
--Boot Hill
ahhh...but now you need to name the movie I was parodying....probably poorly...but it was funny in my head at the time. :)
I imagine you will say that it is inefficient, but are there advances in the technology that makes it worth looking at for future concideration??
Oh, jeez... I'm not up on movies.
I don't know, "Napoleon Dynamite"? The stuff in the preview/commercials kinda sounds like what you wrote.
bookmark
hehe, no but granted it was not a good parody...
So I Married an Ax Murderer...the scene where Michael Richards goes off about being insensitive..
Registrar WHOIS: Domain Registration Services
Domain Name: UNITEDNUCLEAR.COM
Registrant:
UNITED NUCLEAR
P.O. BOX 851
SANDIA PARK, NM 87047
US
Administrative Contact:
Lazar, Bob unitednuclear@direcway.com
P.O. Box 851
Sandia Park NM 87047 US
505-286-2831
Technical Contact:
Lazar, Bob unitednuclear@direcway.com
P.O. Box 851
Sandia Park NM 87047 US
505-286-2831
Don Lancaster is compares gasoline tanks with tanks holding hydrogen in gas form. Then he shows the energy lose when dealing with hydrogen in liquid form. Both of these arguments are very valid and have held back hydrogen use in vehicles. But the beauty with United Nuclear’s fuel system is that the hydrogen is chemically bonded to hydrides. There is no seepage, and the research is moving very fast on improving the hydride storage system. For example: sodium aluminum hydride, also known as sodium alanate, has the potential to store (bond) more hydrogen then can be stored in liquid form.
Many people continue to point out that it cost energy to produce hydrogen, yes, this is true, but doesn’t it cost energy to explore for oil, drill, pump, ship, refine, store and sell gasoline. It seems ridiculous to shoot down the idea when the technology is moving so fast, just because there is cost involved. There are cost built into everything, but we don’t move forward by sticking our heads in the sand.
Don Lancaster worked very hard and put together some fine research, but technology is passing by him. He must have a look at the hydride storage system because it reduces much of the waste and cost he deplores in the hydrogen system. Think about the cost savings (energy savings) by producing hydrogen at your home, i.e., exploring for oil, drilling, pumping, shipping, refining, storing, gasoline tax, complications in the mid-east and selling gasoline.
It will not be free, but nothing is.
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
"Would you buy hydrogen car technology from THIS guy?"
Some day you might. I found this article concerning Bob Lazar's neighbors (Sandia National Laboratories)-looks like they and GM are fans of United Nuclear. Read below:
snip...
(DOE) Sandia National Laboratories have launched a partnership to design and test an advanced method for storing hydrogen based on metal hydrides, a step toward making fuel-cell vehicles competitive in driving range with gasoline-powered automobiles.
According to a January 7 DOE press release, metal hydrides -- formed when metal alloys are combined with hydrogen -- can absorb and store hydrogen in their structures. When subjected to heat, the hydrides release the hydrogen.
In a fuel-cell system, the hydrogen can then be combined with oxygen to produce electricity.
GM and Sandia have launched a four-year, $10 million program to develop and test tanks that store hydrogen
...end of snip
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
I noticed it's about his "neighbors" (Sandia), not him or his company.
I've heard of slicing the baloney thin, but really......
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