This chart compares the useful transport energy requirements for a vehicle powered from a hydrogen process (left) vs. electricity (right). Image Credit: Ulf Bossel.
Posted on 12/12/2006 3:37:49 PM PST by alnitak
This chart compares the useful transport energy requirements for a vehicle powered from a hydrogen process (left) vs. electricity (right). Image Credit: Ulf Bossel.
Ping.
Interesting article, crystallizes what I have been hearing about the so-called hydrogen economy. However, the door is left open for the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (powered by oodles of wind power of course :-)
BTTT
Hydrogen is a portable power storage method, suitable for use in some vehicles. Looking for ways to point out it's inefficiencies misses the point.
From a systems perspective, Prof. Bossel is correct about the overall efficiencies of hydrogen. The only problem with his analysis is industrialized economies cannot get enough energy from renewables. Nuclear energy will ultimately have to be a huge fraction of the energy mix.
I shudder to think what natural gas for home heating would cost if they start using it to make hydogen for vehicles on a huge scale.
Wires... To my car... Right...
“In a sustainable energy future, electricity will become the prime energy carrier. We now have to focus our research on electricity storage, electric cars and the modernization of the existing electricity infrastructure.”
Hydrogen *is* electricity storage. That it's portable, and gives off zero emissions during it's use is merely a bonus.
The question is: are fuel cells needed? Ulf is fuel cell expert so he has trouble seeing the forest for (his) trees. It is possible to use hydrogen as the combustable in an internal combustion engine. It burns (think of the Hindenberg for a graphic example). In that case there is another tree that doesn't include all the yellow at the bottom. It remains blue. There are currently hydrogen conversions available for cars as kits. There are hydrogen fuel (not fuel cell) vehicles in Japan, and hydrogen fueling stations there.
The advantage of hydrogen as fuel (not as battery component) is that you can fill up your car and continue on your way, just like gasoline.
The disadvantage of fuel cells is that they take time to recharge, just not as much as ni-cads or lead acid batteries.
Hydrogen when combusted makes water. It is a circular process (albeit with lots of energy in at the top) so you are not going to run out of water from using it.
This guy's an idiot. Why does he think the environmentalists call this the "blue planet"? We have all the water we need, as long as we're willing to move it and process it. All it takes is energy, and nukes are the solution to that.
I agree. What we really need is better batteries.
We have enough petroleum to last several lifetimes, if the enviroweenies would just let us at it.
I can't take energy issues even remotely seriously until we first stop wasting untold quantities of fuel each morning busing school kids to remote schools for purely political reasons.
Batteries will always need significant time to recharge. Refueling with hydrogen would be quick.
I'm not claiming H2 is the solution to all the problems of the world, but articles like this and posters that know hydrogen is *not* the answer strike me as agenda driven, or just stubborn people with no vision. Maybe they're right, and maybe they're not, but nobody really knows right now.
Can't wait to get that technology into my 4X4 truck and drive it off-road.
Mazda opens the first hydrogen filling station in Japan. 
Conversion kits to let any car run on hydrogen and still use gas are available. I have not interest or direct experience with these products. Switch2hydrogen.com
NONE OF THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH FUEL CELLS OR THE GENERATION OF ELECTRICITY FROM HYDROGEN.
Doesn't sound safe for enclosed garages.
If we build a bunch of nuclear power plants, I bet hydrogen starts to make a lot more sense.
Yeah---only no such batteries exist. Science has been seeking such technology at least as long as they've been chasing "hot fusion", with a comparable amount of positive result.
The hydrogen economy is inevitable. It will be driven by solar electricity. Hydrogen is simply THE BEST way to store and transmit energy when the generating source is intermittent.
The article itself is a complete strawman.
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