Quote:
Originally Posted by elhigh
NOTE: I am not an engineer, physicist or chemist. I'm halfway smart and am paraphrasing several articles I've read on the subject. I may have missed some finer points but I'm confident I got the meat of the matter correct.
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I believe you misread my post. What I said was: "You can probably generate hydrogen at home cheaper than the equivalent energy of gasoline." I meant that amount of money you need to pay for electricity would be less than the amount of money you pay for the equivalent amount of gasoline.
You can check all these assumptions via some wikipedia page, probably.
Conversion efficiency for simple electrolysis is about 70%
The amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline is 33.557 kw-hr (which is about the same as 1 kg of hydrogen). So it requires about 48 kw-hr to produce 1 kg of hydrogen. The hydrogen gas equivalent to 1 gallon of gasoline costs 48 times whatever a kw-hr costs where you live.
Today's pump price for gasoline in the USA is $3.654 per gallon.
US electrical rates vary over a wide range. Here in Los Angeles this month I pay 17.8 cents per kw-hr, so a gallon equivalent of hydrogen is about $8.55. vs ($4.13 at the pump) But if you are an industrial user in Oklahoma your equivalent cost for hydrogen is $2.61. But even a residential customer in Washington state sees $4.18 per gallon equivalent. You can produce hydrogen cheaper than you can buy gasoline, if you live in the right place.
-mort