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Originally Posted by oil pan 4
Yeah $7 worth of natural gas, when I figured up those numbers would have been about 2MMBTU (if you could fill at home). Natural gas pumps at gas stations charge some where around $1.50 per gallon of gasoline equivalent. Natural gas sold at $1.50gge makes the price something like $12/MMBTU. Which is a little expensive, but a lot cheaper than getting your car towed home so you can fill it.
To make enough hydrogen to replace 1 gallon of gasoline (lets say 125,000BTU) you start with something like 2 or 3 times that amount of BTUs in natural gas.
So if you powered a car with the natural gas directly, not only would it cost a tiny fraction of the $ to power it, you would be making far less CO2.
Any CO2 anyone thinks they are saving by using a hydrogen car, has already been produce and released, 2 or 3 times over. Ironic, isn't it?
"The most efficient process for making hydrogen from natural gas" isn't really that efficient.
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But if throw away electricity is available, why not use it? Batteries may or may not give me the performance I need. I outlined a scenario where locally, I can justify a clean and possibly low cost sourcing of hydrogen.
Most of the North American power grid is still fossil fuel. We have argued this point in other threads. Electric cars are cleaner but do shift the emissions. That is all that happens in most municipalities. What it does do is allows us to clean those primary power sources over time.
Hydrogen is a carrier of energy. If that energy comes from low cost renewable sources, it can be stored as a plastic hydride pellet or a hydrocarbon liquid. Iceland produces hydrogen gas via electrolysis because of its considerable geothermal power. If they could store it in a hydrocarbon, it becomes transportable world wide. The pathways are there. The choice to do so is the only question.