Posted on 06/28/2005 10:18:21 PM PDT by calcowgirl
•...There are now about 30 hydrogen fueling stations across the country ... But Spallino counts at least four on his way to work, including one at Honda's U.S. headquarters in Torrance and another at Los Angeles International Airport.
Hey, John! FYI, LAX is not on the way from Redondo Beach to Irvine.
Pray that you're not around when a large SUV or truck rams the FCX and you have a hydrogen containment failure.
Bridge! We have a Warp core breach in progress!
Actually, hydrogen gas (which is what you'd get if you have a breach) is notably more flammable than propane, and it's just a bit more flammable than gasoline vapors. A warm piece of metal can set off H2 gas.
Propane is a known quantity, and it is carried in large, heavily constructed tanks *inside* a vehicle. They are not allowed to be mounted under the vehicle for obvious reasons. That said, at least once a year here in Texas, some cowboy's truck or city vehicle that's been converted to natural gas gets in an accident and there's a relatively large explosion. The latest one was a Dallas cop car, IIRC.
Nuclear reactors would solve that problem. You still wouldn't get out more than you put in, but then you could take the energy produced by the reactor and convert it to a storable, portable form that does not involve batteries and can be refilled on demand.
On the road again...
http://www.wnbiodiesel.com/
So basically he has to fillup everyday?
Yeah woeks until the hydrogen mines run out.
By the way I know that hydrogen gas escapes if you get a breach. I am not an idiot.
There is a new way to store hydrogen, one company has come up with it. It uses a metal hydrides that absorb hydrogen and solves two problems. The first is the problem of not being able to get enough hydrogen inside a tank of reasonable size. The second is the volatility of the gas as you have pointed out, this method will not release hydrogen upon a breach of the container. It takes a heat source to release it, such as an electric heater on the tank, which is designed in such a way as to preclude large amounts of hydrogen escaping.
Here is the link to an article about it.Hydrogen storage
Nah... he can just have his assistant do it. All for the cause of promoting the Hydrogen Highway.
(His boss was on Arnie's Economic Advisory committee).
Isn't biodiesel "ethanol"? I hear it's much more expensive than gasoline and is only used as a supplement mixed into gasoline.
It wouldn't be a very big explosion. A wet one if it maintained density. A propane car is way more dangerous.
Biodiesel is not ethanol. Ethanol is pure grain alcohol (think Everclear).
Biodiesel is vegetable oil that has been treated with caustic soda, methanol and a bit of heat and agitation to convert it into a fuel that can be burned in a DIESEL engine.
The exhaust smells like french fries.
It works well according to many sources, but has gumming problems at lower temperatures.
But there isn't a oil shortage, and oil doesn't come from dinosaurs or fishy things that decay. The suggestion that petroleum might have arisen from some transformation of squashed fish or biological detritus is surely the silliest notion to have been entertained by substantial numbers of persons over an extended period of time.
It defies the laws of physics; the laws of thermodynamics prohibit spontaneous evolution of liquid hydrocarbons in the regime of temperature and pressure characteristic of the crust of the Earth, one should not expect there to exist legitimate scientific evidence that might suggest that such could occur, there exists no such evidence.
Petrolium is a renewable resource that begins it's formation deep within the earth via an abiotic process.
http://www.gasresources.net/DisposalBioClaims.htm
http://www.gasresources.net/ThrmcCnstrnts.htm
http://www.gasresources.net/AlkaneGenesis.htm
http://www.gasresources.net/index.htm
I'll drive my v8, you can freeze in a battery car.
Gads man,
They were experimenting with metal hydrides for hydrogen storage for busses in LA in the 70's.
A van powered by hydrogen went through death valley and the storage medium was borax. It was detailed in Car and Driver, years ago.
This is not new tech, but old tech, resurfacing.
Thanks for the new stuff though.
DK
It is old tech, but the thing is it has been improved lately and is being used in several vehicles. I don't know if the honda uses it or not. They have gotten the weight of the hydrides down to a point where it is commercially feasible to use them. This will probably be the future of hydrogen development. Everthing else is impractical, or dangerous.
"If they are handing over the keys to a working car that they are planning on commercially producing, then we'll be very excited," said Gail Ruderman Feuer, senior attorney for the environmental group the Natural Resources Defense Council."
The "greenie watermellons" are so excited about this wonderful car. I wonder how excited they will get when they find out that disposal of the toxic batteries and other goodies necessary for propulson will create another huge ecological mess? Hummmmmmmmmm?
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