I’m waiting for the day when I can drive past any gas station with my middle finger up, regardless of they are selling.
Thy Hydrogen economy can’t get here fast enough!
Who do you think will own the hydrogen fueling stations you dream of?
What energy source will be used to produce the hydrogen? Hydrogen doesn't exist in significant quantities in the world unless chemically bonded in other more stable molecules like water and methane. It takes another energy source like coal, oil, natural gas or nuclear to produce hydrogen. At most hydrogen plants today, Natural Gas is the economically source of hydrogen. You should think of hydrogen as a battery, not an energy source. And actually, ethanol (because of its large energy requirement to produce it) is little more than an energy storage medium as well.
==> “Th(e) Hydrogen economy can’t get here fast enough!” <==
I hate to burst your bubble, but Hydrogen is the real fraud. The good things about it are really good, but the bad things are truly awful. Hydrogen (as fuel) is useful only for either stationary or “cost is no object” applications, like piped natural gas or the space shuttle.
I am repeating below some facts about fuels that clarify the non-utility of hydrogen for transportation.
1. Petroleum hydrocarbons are the second most abundant source of hydrogen on Earth, after the oceans.
2. Gasoline is a mixture of hydrocarbons - chemically similar molecules, all with a straight or branched chain of carbon atoms, plus a number of attached hydrogen atoms. Collectively, all can be represented by the generic formula:
H - (CH2)n - H
where “n” can be any number up to perhaps 40 or so. The lightest is Methane (CH4), the major component of natural gas. Carbon has an atomic weight of 12 and Hydrogen 1, so Methane has a molecular weight of 12 + 4 = 16, 25% of which (by weight) is Hydrogen.
3. Propane, which can be liquefied at ambient temperatures and relatively low pressure, is C3H8, with a molecular weight of 12 x 3 + 8 = 44, and is 18% Hydrogen by weight.
4. Gasoline is a mixture of medium weight liquid hydrocarbons, but can reasonably be represented (on average) by Octane, C8H18, which has a molecular weight of 8 x 12 + 18 = 114, and is 15.8% Hydrogen by weight.
5. One “mole” of Hydrogen gas at Standard Temperature and Pressure (STP = 68F, 14.7PSI) has a volume of 22.4 liters (6 gallons) and weighs 2 grams. Liquid Hydrogen has a specific gravity of 0.070. This means 1 liter would weigh 70 grams, and 22.4 liters would weigh 1568 grams.
6. Six gallons of gasoline would weigh approximately 6 x 8 x .75 = 36 pounds, x 16 oz/lb x 25.4 grams/oz = 14,360 grams. 14,360 x .158 = 2269 grams of Hydrogen, in the same space, without compression.
7. 2269 / 2 = 1135, x 14.7 = 16,677 PSI pressure required to achieve the same density of Hydrogen in the same size tank. This would be 2269 / 1568 = 1.45 times as dense as LIQUID Hydrogen, and beyond current production technology.
8. Low molecular weight hydrocarbons are the most efficient way to store Hydrogen that God ever designed, and if you want something better, you should ask Him to do it. According to His rules, the fuel of the future will not be much different from what we use today, whether we continue to find and refine it, or manufacture it from other sources of Carbon and Hydrogen.
NOTE: I realize that I used a mixture of units, but I wanted to use familiar terms and measures where possible for clarity, while using constants and characteristics that would be easy to verify.