Nissan's hydrogen-fueled X-TRAIL FCV fuel cell vehicle.
Image: Donbraco, courtesy Flickr.
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Dear EarthTalk: How is it that hydrogen can replace oil to run our cars? There seems to be a lot of controversy over whether hydrogen can really be generated and stored in such a way to be practical?
-- Stephane Kuziora, Thunder Bay, ON
The jury is still out on whether hydrogen will ultimately be our environmental savior, replacing the fossil fuels responsible for global warming and various nagging forms of pollution. Two main hurdles stand in the way of mass production and widespread consumer adoption of hydrogen “fuel cell” vehicles: the still high cost of producing fuel cells, and the lack of a hydrogen refueling network.
Reining in manufacturing costs of fuel cell vehicles is the first major issue the automakers are addressing. While several have fuel cell prototype vehicles on the road—Toyota and Honda are even leasing them to the public in Japan and California—they are spending upwards of $1 million to produce each one due to the advanced technology involved and low production runs. Toyota hopes to reduce its costs per fuel cell vehicle to around $50,000 by 2015, which would make such cars economically viable in the marketplace. On this side of the Pacific, General Motors plans to sell hydrogen-powered vehicles in the U.S. by 2010.
Another problem is the lack of hydrogen refueling stations. Major oil companies have been loathe to set up hydrogen tanks at existing gas stations for many reasons ranging from safety to cost to lack of demand. But obviously the oil companies are also trying to keep customers interested in their highly profitable bread-and-butter, gasoline. A more likely scenario is what is emerging in California, where some 38 independent hydrogen fuel stations are located around the state as part of a network created by the non-profit California Fuel Cell Partnership, a consortium of automakers, state and federal agencies and other parties interested in furthering hydrogen fuel cell technologies.
The benefits of ditching fossil fuels for hydrogen are many, or course. Burning fossil fuels like coal, natural gas and oil to heat and cool our buildings and run our vehicles takes a heavy toll on the environment, contributing significantly to both local problems like elevated particulate levels and global ones like a warming climate. The only by-product of running a hydrogen-powered fuel cell is oxygen and a trickle of water, neither of which will cause any harm to human health or the environment.
But right now 95 percent of the hydrogen available in the U.S. is either extracted from fossil fuels or made using electrolytic processes powered by fossil fuels, thus negating any real emissions savings or reduction in fossil fuel usage. Only if renewable energy sources—solar, wind and others—can be harnessed to provide the energy to process hydrogen fuel can the dream of a truly clean hydrogen fuel be realized.
Stanford University researchers in 2005 assessed the environmental effects of three different hydrogen sources: coal, natural gas, and water electrolysis powered by wind. They concluded that we’d lower greenhouse gas emissions more by driving gasoline/electric hybrid cars than by driving fuel cell cars run on hydrogen from coal. Hydrogen made using natural gas would fare a little bit better in terms of pollution output, while making it from wind power would a slam-dunk for the environment.
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52 Comments
Add CommentNice little propaganda piece. Tell me again why it's the oil companies' job to produce non-oil based sources of energy?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's the reality. It takes more energy to make hydrogen than you get from it, it's low density, difficult to store and not very practical. Instead of wasting time on hydrogen, look into technologies for creating artificial gasoline. After all, it's a pretty simple hydrocarbon chain. It's got good energy density and stores well.
Hydrogen that escapes storage into the atmosphere will either react with one of the gases in the atmosphere (oxygen, nitrogen, ozone) to form water or ammonia, or will escape the atmosphere into space. Reacting with ozone doesn't sound so good, and escaping into space doesn't sound good either.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydrogen production, storage and transport are particularly inefficient at present.
In addition to hydrogen fuel cells, there are fuel cells that can consume gasoline, diesel, kerosine, methanol, ethanol, ammonia, propane, and methane. Each of these is more transportable than hydrogen, and several are much less energy-intensive to produce. A gasoline fuel cell powerplant combined with a hybrid-electric is much more efficient than a gasoline-electric hybrid powered by an internal combustion engine.
"Nice little propaganda piece. Tell me again why it's the oil companies' job to produce non-oil based sources of energy? "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this===========================
They have no obligation. Neither does the general population have an obligation to support or allow the self-interested goals of destructive Corporations.
If they don't want to support the best goals of society, let them suffer the consequences.
Hydrogen will become a viable fuel over time. The sooner, the better.
Energy density problems are not as critical with urban, short haul, vehicles where particulate exhaust is particularly damaging.
My previous post was truncated. Repeating:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydrogen should be thought of as a way to store and transport energy, but a lot of the popular press presents it as a source, which it is not. If the only eco-friendly way to generate hydrogen is from eco-friendly electricity, then the question ought to be whether hydrogen is the best way get that electrical energy to the driving wheels of a vehicle. A good battery can do that well, progress on the technical and safety issues is much more advanced, and the delivery infrastrucure is in place. In the face of all that, I don't see why government should push hydrogen --- or batteries either, the economic rewards to successful battery makers are enough without a prize or a subsidy.
It takes more energy to make electricity than you get from it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt takes more energy to charge a battery than you get from it.
The arguement that it takes more energy to make hydrogen than you get from it , is a rediculous.
Should we stop using electricity in our homes because it takes more energy to make it than we can get out of it? Of course not.
Even if hydrogen (from coal electricity) = equal to gasoline cars in pollution, there are benifits of using hydrogen. First, we are less reliant on foriegn oil, and Second, coal power plants' pollution levels can be regulated much better than millions of individual privately owned cars.
With nuclear, solar, wind, or any of the other non-greenhouse gas forming methods of electricity generation, hydrogen cars have great benefits over gasoline powered cars. This use of electricity-hydrogen would also encourage the growth of these eco-friendlier electrical generation methods.
What about nuclear power to power the process, or tidal wave power, there is a way, doom and gloom this can't be done, that can't be done, tidal power if people are so afraid of nuclear power.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI first heard of the possible benefits of hydrogen when I was a freshman college student--some 20 years ago. Scientific American, at that time, even had an article speaking to its possible uses as an alternative to coal, gas, oil and nuclear. The adage that the more things change the more they stay the same seems to be apt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the externalities of fossil fuel consumption (i.e. carbon emission, particulates, Middle East conflict etc) were paid for directly by the consumer, then the benefits of solar/wind/tidal/geothermal -> hydrogen -> fuel cell would be self-evident and beneficial change would occur rapidly. Significantly the costs of these permanent energy sources will not be changing (N.B. they are all zero) over time which significantly reduces the risks of investing in this infrastructure. Where are America's famed risk-taking entrepreneurs? We shouldn't need government to get involved. There's gold in them thar hills...go get it!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article skims over the subject really. I hope no-one is taken in by the notion that there are only two problems to overcome: the cost of a fuel cell car and a refilling infrastructure. Can a car be made without oil? What is the possible practical scale of hydrogen production? What are the storage problems, both in the car and at the production facility? What are the problems with transporting hydrogen?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiscurrentsupply says it's ridiculous to consider the energy return, simply because he or she has been used to having such an energy supply, in electricity. That is not an argument, since it could be that such an energy loss in the conversion could ultimately be unsustainable (that is, there will be a limit as to how much electricity we can produce at such losses, and it may well start to decline). Wasting energy seems unsustainable to be, but who knows, maybe we'll find another fantastic energy source that we can afford to waste, the way we've wasted fossil fuels.
Hydrogen is not a panacea for continued happy motoring. We need to look at our problems as a whole instead of trying to fix this or that problem, associated with having too many people consuming too much of the earth's resources.
I think Hydrogen powerede cars are an impractical red herring, dreamt up by the powers that be to make us think there's progress when in fact they will never materialise, in the meantime we will coontinue to purchase and burn vast quantities of oil, from which they make vast profits. Steam powered vehicles pre-existed internal combustion engines and can be powered by the cheapest solar power on earth plants. Evry country on earth could produce its own green fuel and there woiuld be no dependence on a few for oil. But the powers that be wouldn't want that would they?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts obvious that the corporate giants which control the planets economy are also in charge of world governments, and the stupid idea of a GROWTH ECONOMY . The theory is very simple - A growing population ensures a continuous flow of consumption insuring economic growth. In China and India the people just breed. In the West we encourage immigration. Well at 6.7 billion people, this model of human management is doomed to failure. In truth, what the world needs to do is redesign our cities so that we can reduce the number of motor vehicles on the road. Logically, substituting oil burning combustion engines with hydrogen, electric, or even steam is not a solution to the planets problems. Everyone should remember that 40% of a automobiles carbon cost comes from its manufacturing. Can you imagine how much energy will be needed over the best century if every adult in China and India is allowed to own a car, or 2. Can anyone imaging the ecological mess of an additional 2 billion motor vehicles pumping out greenhouse gasses. If everyone was smart and instead invested into new efficient city designs where public transport was supplied for everyone, with no need for personal car ownership, the problem of an environmental meltdown would disappear within the life span of the next generation. THE TRUTH is that the whole idea of the Suburb is doomed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeems like the Genepax MEA system solves all that as they have figured out how to extract hydrogen cheaply from water:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.genepax.co.jp/en/
Driving a personal vehicle for day to day transportation is unethical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnter Your Comment Here.Safe Nuclear Power and Green Hydrogen FuelDec 11, 2005 ... Think about that – fuel cell vehicles need expensive-to-produce hydrogen to run on – this reactor could make hydrogen as a byproduct. ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswww.physorg.com/news8956.html - 30k - Cached - Similar pages
The introduction to this article, and most other hydrogen fuel articles, are at best misleading. But deep in this article the real problem is finally discussed, i.e. pollution associated with obtaining hydrogen. We should never say hydrogen power is pollution free because the total hydrogen fuel cycle currently generates pollution at the same order of magnitude of current fuel cycles! Hydrogen might have a future role to play in making low pollution energy sources available for use in cars etc. and we should leave it at that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswe can use water as a source of hydrogen to operate cars . This idea is important as we can use seas and oceans water as in the coming years , it is expected that sea and oceans water s levels will increase due to earth warming that lead to ice dissolving at the north and south poles of the earth so we can overcome this problem. note that using water as an alternative source of energy on a wide scale ,would provide us with a non pollutant source of energy and also low price source of energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't think it is a good idea to use sea or ocean water as resouce to power our vehicles. Hydrogen cars require pure water, not like water in ocean with great salt contained. Scientists have invented many ways to trun ocean water into drinkable water, but they all required a lot of fundation and many facilities. It is not a easy job. Therefore, this idea is far from practical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthink it over
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisby applying distillation methodsof the sea water , so it will be able to operate cars . note that in the coming years , there will be a sharp shortage of the pure water used in drinking purposes. I would like to thank kent for his commemt .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder if anyone here has taken the time to build a fuel cell. I just did in about 2 weeks of part time work and experimenting (it is my first one). It costed less than 300 dollars (you could find cheaper ones on ebay, but it was my first time). Besides being a fun project, the beauty is that you can simply burn your own water. I think this idea kind of shoots down transportation of hydrogen and infeasibility of the hydrogen refilling network. As for safety, by having a small tank of water (a gallon of water will get you somewhere over 1000 miles depending on your car if you purely burn the hydrogen and no gasoline) and by producing the hydrogen only as you need it, it is very safe. You can even plug in a blow off valve that you barely need because there is so little hydrogen in your car at any given time. This way, your valve will pop open in your trunk when something goes wrong and very little hydrogen is actually igniting. One criticism may be that your engine pistons could rust if you use a pure hydrogen system. The solution is that you get your pistons coated with ceramic (which may cost less than 1000 dollars)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven that you own a car:
-Cost of hydrogen hybrid that you refuel yourself = 300 + build time
-Cost of pure hydrogen car that you refuel yourself = 1300 + build time
at this point in time,hydrogen is being produced in small amounts by tapping into the zero point energy field...with less inventors being murdered and less upstart companies bought out and suppressed,there still maybe hope for the survival of the human race
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMany of the comments in this thread show a lack of understanding of the article. Fuel cells do not involve combustion, pistons, or a supply of any kind of water. Think of a fuel cell as a battery that, like all batteries, produces an electric current from a chemical reaction. Whereas ordinary batteries contain a fixed amount of reactants that are built in at the factory, a fuel cell has a constant supply of new material to react; thus it never goes dead or needs to be recharged.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike most articles on hydrogen-powered vehicles, this one fails to mention the other alternative that is being worked on and already in very limited production: liquid hydrogen-powered vehicles. Buses in Iceland and the BMW Hydrogen7 are examples of production vehicles already using liquid hydrogen and today's technology. Certainly, storing liquid hydrogen in large enough quantities to meet the needs of long range between fill-ups and the infrastructure to delivery liquid hydrogen is still in its nascent stages, but so was the gasoline-based infrastructure when the car was a recent invention.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe point is we need to be looking at lots of alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Using solar power to break water into hydrogen and oxygen is one method to achieving a green source of hydrogen and utilizing the existing natural gas and gasoline delivery pipeline is a possible option for creating the hydrogen delivery infrastructure necessary for widespread adoption of liquid hydrogen vehicles.
Whether fuel cell technology will improve and decrease in cost enough to make these cars more attractive or liquid hydrogen storage and delivery hurdles are overcome remains to be seen. We may see both types of vehicles during an interim period as we move to other technologies. Articles like this are remiss if they fail to include any mention of liquid hydrogen as a potential option since those vehicles have internal combustion engines, can switch between gasoline (if that's all that's available) or hydrogen when it's available. At least when hydrogen is being consumed, the exhaust product is plain old water.
And yes, liquid hydrogen is safe. It does not pool and slowly evaporate like gasoline so the risk of explosion is actually less when there's an accident. The Hindenburg burst into flames due to the extremely flammable shellac on its canvas skin, not the rapidly escaping and very quickly consumed hydrogen.
For those of you who don't think this is a viable option, go back to the first page and read - Inside the Solar-Hydrogen House: No More Power Bills--Ever - If I were to build the system now, the batteries would go and all of the energy from the solar panels would be dedicated to the electrolysis of water, producing hydrogen. Electrolysis is the easy part, it occurres at just 1.23 volts so in order to get a useable amount of hydrogen either takes a long time or a high amperage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe needs of my totally electric house would be provided by a motor generator set with a controled ourput that meets the demand and no more increasing my energy efficiency by reducing waste.
A fuel cell powered atuo is far more efficient than one driven by an ice - internal combustion engine - . The problem is the membrane which so far is either very expensive or less efficient but easily beats the efficiency of an ice. An ice only benefits from a small amount of the energy available in the fuel. It escapes in the form of heat escaping mainly through the exhaust pipe. But that's only the beginning. Most of the remaining energy is used up when the car accelerates. If you are driving youir car through a city, you lose the energy when you hit the brakes to stop at the next intersection. You get very little use of the energy available in a gallon of gasoline!
So if even an inefficient hydrogen powered car beats a gas powered one hands down, why are we arguing about this? Why are you demanding an efficiency from a hydrogen powered than you don't demand from the auto you're driving? It just might be that we're all drinking the Kool-Aid that the petroleum industry has been giving us.
Hydrogen contains far less energy per fuel tank than gasoline. At the moment you would have to pull a tanker trailer of hydrogen behind your car if you were going on a long trip.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSorry about that guys! This is my first post here and I didn't realize that I needed extra returns to make a paragraph.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNonsense! The Honda FCX Clarity goes 600 miles on each fillup. Go to one of Honda's websites and see for yourself what you're missing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNonsense! The Honda FCX Clarity goes 600 miles on each fillup. Go to one of Honda's websites and see for yourself what you're missing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI REPEAT hydrogen fuel produce more greenhouse gases than a gasoline powered car. Fact water vapor is a greenhouse gas. This is why CO2 was declared a greenhouse gas by the EPA and the enviro's instead of a pollutant, so that they can still taxes us when we switch over. See it doesn't matter what you do it will be wrong and taxed and thats one of the many reasons why global warming is a tool for taxing weather it exist or not .
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe effects of water vapor as a greenhouse gas are not fully understood by scientists. Being as water vapor turns into clouds that then block sunlight and turn into rain. Furthermore,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso @WASanford, the FCX clarity gets ~270 miles per tank.
http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/refueling.aspx
Read your own sources please (but to clarify I still think that's plenty to be viable).
Sorry it cut off...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFurthermore, fuel cell vehicles could be equipped with a 'water catching' system (akin to a catalytic converter on a gas automobile) that could effectively complete the water cycle of the vehicle.
you are partly correct. yes water vapor will become clouds and cause rain, far more than many cities get naturally thus changing the landscape. The vapor will also have a negative impact in parts of the country that spend months in freezing cold, think frozen highways. Your other solution of capturing the vapor won't work due to the size of the container needed for the vapor to return to liquid form, if it was that simple we could do the same to carbon based fuels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just watched "Who killed the electric car" and I have to agree with you wholeheartedly that this is so obviously a propaganda piece. Hydrogen would be more expensive than what we have now and is not a cut and dry solution to our foreign oil dependence. I personally believe this push toward hydrogen power is a mere distraction while the oil companies suck the last couple trillion dollars worth of oil from our pockets. There are already viable electric cars, but some big people in high places do not like the idea of being displaced by current technology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis whole topic is blown out of proportion. At $4/gal and 12k average miles per year, a typical car with 29mpg costs $1.7k/year in fuel. That's less than 5% of a typical person's income. No one should be overly concerned about this except long haul truck drivers and some industrys. It seems whenever gas goes up, eveyone complains excessivly as if they've just lost half of their income or something. If we want to rid dependence on oil, which we've been trying to do for years, its a multi-tiered and overly expensive process. Synthetics need to be developed that do not depend on crude oil. Plastics, rubbers, medicines, etc, all need to be derived from coal or plant based materials that are in widespread domestic availability, without tropical dependence, as natural rubber is. Second, alternative fuels are necessary that have an area density to support extensive growth, eg. not with current ethanol, and that also are volitle at room temperature and are able to be used in existing internal combustion engines (ICE) without significant modification. The reason is relatively simple. Lets just assume for a minute that we suddenly have a massive supply of clean hydrogen with perfect distribution. It'd be relatively useless without replacing every existing ICE, a time-perfected engine, with a hydrogenated or electric/fuel cell version. That massive demand for hydrogen fuel cells or new ICEs will inflate prices of raw materials and final products for years. We need to keep energy and environmental goals separate. The only base-load green power that exists today is geothermal, and it is still in research for deep/dry well basis, so you can forget about wind, solar, and tidal until you find a real base-load solution to carbon emissions, which makes up a relatively small portion of greenhouse gas. Storing hydrogen during production and burning it during down time is useless. You're better off with a rack of batteries or capicators for that matter. Right now utilities depend on pumped storage or gas-powered generators to meet peek demand since coal and nuke take a long time to reach full power. If plug-in eletric cars were in mass use, they could supply peek demand power and stabilize the power demand/supply curve, but you can't bank on consumers to have their cars plugged in, and willing to discharge, during the peek usage times. I think new nuclear power and plug-in hybrids with backup gas generators is the best solution with current tried and tested technology. An electric car with a 20mi battery range supplemented with gas after that iswin
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEven if the hydrogen were generated 100% renewably, why bother with an inefficient middle-man like hydrogen? Just drive an electric car - the maximum amount of energy will go into your drive, avoiding the wasted cost of generating a secondary fuel. The only reason there's so much emphasis on hydrogen is that it requires so much processing and infrastructure that the oil companies could control it like gasoline. But electric vehicles powered directly off a renewable grid eliminates them entirely.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy fuel cells? German auto makers made a production level car running on liquid hydrogen, which was just as safe in an accident as a gasoline car. They did this over 3 years ago. Yes, producing hydrogen is not cheap right now, but it is foolish to list that as a negative. The by product of such an engine - water, is far safer than a gasoline engine. Artificial gasoline will still produce the same green house gases, so it is no savings for our environment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydrogen has to be "manufactured" some way. We could build a few thousand coal, oil and gas plants to do it if our goal is to dramatically increase the carbon foot print, oops that isn't what you wanted. Having personally worked on solar and run the numbers, it isn't even the correct order of magnitude to even start. France has 56 nuclear power plants that provide roughly 80% of their electricity ( which is 35% of their energy needs) The USA has just over 100 nuclear power plants which contribute about 20% of the electricity needs, unnoticed, chugging away polluting nothing for 40 years. Now, it is important to note the USA is much larger than France ( in terms of energy here) and all nuclear power plants don't generate the same amount of electricity. If the USA builds about 400 (overestimation on purpose) modern nuclear power plants that generate 3GWh, all oil, coal, and gas would not be needed anymore. CARBON FOOTPRINT ZERO" Now, what does that imply? We need to rebuild the aging power grid anyway, so while we are doing it anyway, we build it to take 15-20 times as much power, which we will need to do in the future anyway at some time. If you want Hydrogen fuel cell power that iinfrustructure must be build anyway. Finally, we get a nice extra benefit from nuclear in this way, cheap hot water heating in the winter. One can change the outflow temperature of the heat exchanger to be 120 in the winter instead of 78 degrees farenheit ( roughly, don't quote me) to have a second recapture of energy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNuclear power has proven to be the SAFEST of all power sources, not the most dangerous as some would believe: people die of Radon every year in the thousands from coal plants, people die of accident on oil platforms, oil refineries, gas explosions in the thousands every years. People die in the tens of thousands from auto accidents every year.
NOT ONE PERSON has ever died that I know of in the United States of America from a nuclear power plant's radiation ( which does not get vented) ever in the last 40 years! If you can find one email me, otherwise lets go build and do it, well let's do it anyway: its clean and we have lots of it in this country, because it is safer and less polluting than what we do now!
Sorry for the silly spelling mistakes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article and comments repeat inaccurate perceptions about electric and hydrogen fuels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. The reason society must deploy hydrogen and electric fuels and associated technologies to replace gasoline and diesel fuels is to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions; starting NOW. The only zero-carbon carriers are electricity and hydrogen; in our zero-carbon future these fuels and technologies will complement each other; they are not exclusive.
Like any other fuel hydrogen and electricity must be manudfactured from a primary energy source, fossil, renewable or nuclear. Liquid fuels that emit carbon compounds at the point of use do not significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and therefore do not solve the basic problem.
When electric and hydrogen fuels are made from wind, solar, hydro, ocean current, wave, biomass or nuclear primary energy sources then the only emissions are from embodied energy.
2. Of course it takes more energy to make hydrogen or any other fuel than it yields. This is also true for electricity, alcohols, gasoline and diesel fuel. The relevant criteria are life-cycle emissions and efficiency of the entire energy system; i.e a well-to-wheels analysis. If the performance of the entire system is not considered then any assertion that one pathway is better than another is irrelvent.
3. Hydrogen, stored as liquid or compressed gas, is the ideal fuel for existing internal combustion engines. Thermal efficiency is 34% plus compared to only 22% or so for liquid hydrocarbon fuels, including alcohols. In addition, just as renewable sugar or cellulosic ethanol can be easily blended with gasoline, hydrogen can be easily blended with natural gas to capture immediate benefits of renewable hydrogen fuels while keeping costs reasonable.
4. The statements that hydrogen is not practical because of the high cost of fuel cells or problems with storage ignores the fact that internal combustion engines set up to burn hydrogen or hydrogen-methane blends with compressed gas (5,000 psig) storage are competitive with gasoline vehicles IF they were produced in commercial quantities. H2 ICE vehilces are more efficient and produce near-zero emissions.
5. The major barriers to deployment of hydrogen fueling infrastructure are policy - cultural and economic; not technical. High pressure pipelines, electrolysis, reforming with carbon capture are all commercial technologies. As long as the cost of carbon pollution is zero people have no incentive to stop carbon pollution.
Several people hare mentioned it in their posts, but I think the big question that wasn't discussed in this article was "why mess with hydrogen, instead of just storing the electricity in batteries".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOK, maybe a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle can have a larger range than a battery powered car, but how does the efficiency of the overall systems compare.
An electric car is fueled using the existing electrical network and doesn't require the manning or building of fuel stations. And even ignoring that advantage it is my understanding that the energy losses of charge and discharge cycles for batteries is much lower than the energy loss from electrolysis, compressing the hydrogen for storage in a car's tank and generating electricity from it using the fuel cells.
Any article about the feasibility of hydrogen as a fuel needs to discuss this issue.
I love how people like the author smell some sort of conspiracy with the oil companies. If Hydrogen were profitable, they'd move into it. You were aware that Exxon operates a number of coal mines, right? Apparently, they don't feel coal threatens their "bread and butter" of oil. Maybe that's because it doesn't. Because it's an additional revenue stream. If hydrogen became more profitable than oil, the oil companies would invest in it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuit looking for conspiracies and simply understand market economics.
We should just get electric cars. They beat out all of the other suggestions. Make a battery that last long and we are set.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUm. Your average tank in a 4-door-sedan is approx 10-12 gallons. and a lot of people fill up their car about once a week - at least around here (Quincy, MA, USA). So 10 gal, every wk, every month is 10(gal)*4($/gal)*4(wk/mnth)*12(mnths/yr)=$1920. If it's a 12 gal tank then it's $2304. I can also tell you that most people around here drive about 25-30 miles to get to work, and then the same amount to get back. That's 50-60 miles per day; or 18250-21900 miles per year. Those numbers increase as you get further away from Boston, which is about 12 miles from here. They only start going down when you hit the outlying towns in Western Massachusetts. Not that it matters - the last census put 92% of the Commonwealth population within 50 miles of Boston.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't disagree with your points. But your numbers are a little bit off. Although $2304 is still less than 5% of your average person's incom - true enough. When the first 3 lines of a comment is wrong, most people just dismiss the whole comment without reading it.
In case no one else says it, thanks for posting up here.
Actually there is a downside to Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars - cars whose bydrouct is water vapor. It's called ice. In New England, althought it's not common knowledge you need a special permit to operate a vehicle whose byproduct is water vapor. And it costs a lot. The reason is that in the winter the water vapor turns to ice or fog. Winters here are as bad, if not worse, than anywhere else. No driver here needs/wants the extra hassle.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou'll notice if you do the research, that all these new-fangled hydrogen cars are being tested in California or Nevada. Not here.
Just thought I'd post that here, since it seems no one has brought it up.
I doubt we will make any long distance pipelines for hydrogen. Instead we will make hydrogen for specific applications and locations by electrolysis. Our electrical grid will be the energy distribution network. In situations where energy storage as hydrogen outperforms electrical batteries, hydrogen will prevail. I expect batteries to prevail generally. Robert Heinein, in his novel FRIDAY, explains how excellent batteries would transform our economy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydrogen is efficiently produced as a byproduct using process heat from a nuclear reactor. Nuclear energy is the only technology capable of producing electricity, hydrogen fuel, and fresh, potable water from the same facility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydrogen is efficiently produced as a byproduct using process heat from a nuclear reactor. Nuclear energy is the only technology capable of producing electricity, hydrogen fuel, and fresh, potable water from the same facility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisВ новом енергетическом водородном топливе всегда присутствует углерод как упаковка. Поэтому, водород нужно извлекать из специально приготовленного топлива. Это делается новой технологией симбуляции углеводородов и воды. Это наше достижение.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisand how they are going to produce hydrogen
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe best possible method is electrolysis
which again needs energy
which would be produced from fossil fuels
and is the conversion of energy from one form to another there is always loss
so eventually we would be needing more fossil fuels
all could be explained in one sentence
hydrogen is not a source of energy but just a carrier of energy
its because of people like you who cant get a handel around the fact that its going to happen anyway.it is not cheaper to makke gasoline.not only is there someone already makkking cheap hydrogen but its also at a pressure exceeding 300,000psi and at temperatures above 5,000deg.keep up with the news....................
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisim the guy with the patten
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat if, a way to make hydrogen at the intake manifold of the vehicle, from water, was possible?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat if, using a specific temperature, you were able to apply that specific temperature, or any temperature, for that matter, really fast, before the liquid can boil at the liquid's normal boiling temperature. Taking this liquid to a temperature above the liquid's boiling temperature is possible, because it takes such a long time for any liquid to boil, and a fast application of the heat to the liquid, causes the liquid to go to the temperature being applied, before it boils. Lab tests will prove this.
In taking the liquid above the liquid's boiling temperature, I found the temperature of different liquid molecules in the original liquid, turning those molecules to a gas, while the remaining molecules in the original liquid, remained a liquid. I got a 50% increase in breaking horse power, on two different Dynomometers (that measure engine power to the ground on a vehicle) Being accused of using nitrus oxide by a college auto shop instructor, when he saw the power increase from the white gas I had created, using this process. Now on a smog analyzer, running on this same white gas, I got a 0 parts per million hydrocarbon reading. A 50% increase in power, over gasoline, and no hydrocarbons, created by a specific temperature, using my process, on gasoline, only a molecular structural change could do this to gasoline. See it on You Tube, White Gasoline Vapor, by iambillythekid. Read everything.