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 ...
If I remember the old article from back then, they found they could run any gasoline engine on hydrogen, and get about 75% or so of the power as gas. The neat thing is that hydrogen produces so little friction that they had to put abrasives into the oil to get it to break in. Engines run purely on hydrogen might last a long time. Except this web site mentions the corrosiveness of high temp steam is something I hadn't heard of before. Perhaps that's the gotcha in this.
Why some people say it takes "20 years" to convert to hydrogen I'll never figure.
Did you count the number of tanks in each of the cars?
--fortunately, there are always sensible posters on these hydrogen threads--
LOL, yes it is the same guy. Any publicity is good publicity (I guess).
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L.
Heinlein ping.
However, the point robertpaulsen made is still specious. A tank filled with metal hydrides is not explosive, unlike a half full tank of gasoline. The Hindenberg contained lighter than air hydogen gas and that stuff is combustible. One interesting side note, however, is that when the airship exploded the hydrogen burned off almost instantly. People were burned by the falling debris of the ship, not the hydrogen. In any case, the technology described here is not at all the same.
The sticking point, as always, will be cost. Cost of converting the vehicle, the investment required for the home based hydrogen generator they say they can supply, and the amount / cost of electricity needed if it's going to be supplied from your normal household power supply.
The article seems to emphasize a solar power alternative so I'd suspect it would cost a heap to run the generator off anything but solar or a windmill.
yeah I was wrong. Did a little bit more back research. sorry
LOL... saw that one too.. ;)
One could also argue that government subsidies and favors (ANWR) have fomented much of the dependence. If the government got out of the business of favoring one industry over another or one company over another, I think the market would find a way to handle many of these crises.
Look at the recent logic applied to airlines, car companies and computer companies... we need the government to provide tax-payer backed loans to support them because they are American icons. BS. If the government got out of the way, the market would solve the REAL problems quickly. The only companies that die are those that should.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the government kept airlines afloat in a difficult time. The problem is, the protection and help they were given prolonged the agony they were already in. Many of them still went into bankruptcy... they just took our money with them. If left to its own devices, the market would have corrected the imbalances.
This is the mode of less capitalistic societies. The favoritism and short-sidedness of the few kills the industriousness of the many and creates the conditions for crisis... and people turn right back to the source of the problem for the solution.
"Generating the hydrogen fuel in the first place is, at this time, cost prohibitive. When they work out the kinks, then maybe it has a chance."
Exactly, it's not that I'm against the idea of hydrogen-powered cars - I'm not. It's just that I'm a realist. The best bet for large amounts of non-polluting relatively cheap power would seem to be nuclear, especially with the progress that has been made in reactor design over the last 30 or 40 years. But the same greenies who harangue us about greenhouse gasses will never approve of more nuclear power plants. Given reasonably priced electricity and ever-rising costs of fossil fuels (both monetary and geo-political), this may eventually become cost-efficient.
Not every fuel cell runs using that chemistry. There are many different chemistries.
But yes, despite the progess that's been made in reducing Pt loading in PEM cells, it's still not easy to come by and it is susceptible to permanent damage from impurities in the H2 stream.
Um, I'm not going to hold my breath on this one.
Well, the big problem is that one of these shows is completely full of kooks and the other is only on late-night radio. ;)
"True. Hydrogen fire burns so hot the flame is almost invisible, so the hydrogen burning at the same time is not visible in the photo."
Also hydrogen is very light and burns above the fuel source where as gasoline is heavy and burns on the ground. The people who died in the airship die from jumping or having the structure of the ship land on them. The people who stay in the ship were swamped with water from the hydrogen burning above the ship. If you ever see the footage of the accident watch the ground carefully, and you will see rivers of water coming down.
Holtz
JeffersonRepublic.com
The great thing about producting hydrogen from grid electricity is that you can start/stop the process at will. Which means you can take off-peak electricity and produce hydrogen.
Electricity from "base load" plants is something like twice as energy efficient as "peaking plants" that are started up to handle daytime use. See all those street lights out there? They aren't out there so much to light the streets, but were promoted at cut rate prices by the electricity companies to get something from the excess power at night.
If we had a "real" hydrogen economy, where all that electric power was soaked up by hydrogen production at night, and ALL electric plants were "base load" plants, I'd bet our overall energy efficiency would be pretty good. I'm sure there's an energy loss in the conversion to H2, but making up for it by using large efficient plants to produce the original electricity is a good thing.
And then there's nuclear.
We could take OPEC back to the sand ages, if we REALLY wanted to.
I dont give a damn about my gas powered SUV, I want a cheap way to make my house a humongrous furnace during the winter season... Last gas bill was $400 for an 1800 sq ft house
The saving I get from that will do nicely during the winter.
and at the other end of those electrodes is a big-ass coal-burning power plant (or more and more common, natural gas). Hydrogen is not an energy source. There are no vast deposits of hydrogen anywhere (maybe outer space?). Until we solve the problem with power generation, fossil fuels are the only game in town (hydroelectric is tapped-out, solar is expensive, nuclear is controversial, dilithium crystals are rare...)
Yah, but the dead weight of the tank is a lot greater for a hydride storage system than a liquid or carbon-fiber compressed gas storage tank.
Early H2 vehicles will have to have Honda Insight-like ruthless weight control, if they're going to have the performance Americans tend to expect from their cars.
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