[POLL] Would you drive a hydrogen-powered vehicle?
 

Yes, no, maybe so? Why or why not?

I voted "unsure/time will tell" but...

Would I drive one...absolutely. The "but" comes in with how far along the technology is at the time, how much the car costs, availability of fueling stations, etc it offers. Obviously, I'm not going to drop $30k+ on a new hydrogen car if it's not worth the money but show me a hydrogen car priced well with a solid fueling station infrastructure and I'm game.

I wouldn't drive a car for which there are no/limited refueling stations.

The places I drive for work & play I sometimes have to carry a fuel can because there often aren't even gasoline stations, I couldn't imagine having to cruise around the desert in search of a hydrogen station.


Ideally I would want a steam powered car... then anything that burns is my fuel. how about a diesel/gas/ethanol/methanol/hydrogen/cng/lpg/electric/solar/acetone/SVO/bellybuttonlint powered car eh?

Not unless they showed me that its a viable form of energy. H2 does not occur anywhere naturally that is harvestable. You have to use energy to create H2. So, unless I could see numbers side by side that said it takes less energy/carbon to make and use X amount of H2 vs gas I'm not on board.

Yes, I'm also reluctant. However, I remember how people talked about how hybrids were unproven, etc etc and it turned out to be an unnecessary worry.

Hydrogen would be nice if they could make it practical enough. Mainly, they need to find a better way to make hydrogen. Maybe they could use rectifying antennas near existing radio stations to power the electrolysis of water. Using a source of energy that is currently being wasted sounds like a great idea.

Making it is just too inefficient. It'll be about double the cost of the electricity used to make it, so that's double whatever I would pay anyway. On top of that, available fuel cells just aren't cost competitive w/ available battery tech, even if they are lighter. Right now, storage costs for a pack that can degrade to 50% capacity, for instance in a PHEV like the Volt, are at ~10-15c/kWh. Until fuel cells can approach that, they're dead in the water IMO.

I would like to drive one. But I don't know if I would want one because of how inefficient hydrogen production is. And the filling stations will have to be much more convenient. So far there is one in D.C. that is within driving distance of my house.

SVOboy -

I said no. Hybrids still have a gasser infrastructure. I like the idea of the Amory Lovins pie-in-the-sky model where cars would refuel at work and run during peak load to feed electricity back to the grid, but that requires a sea change that I don't see on the near horizon.

CarloSW2

I said time will tell. The infrastructure would cost many, many billions. If you use centralized h2 manufacturing, you'll be transporting how many hundreds of millions of cubic feet of h2 on the highway every day? Safe storage is also an interesting issue. Perhaps on-site/on-demand production at filling stations would be better, but the initial capital investment for the filling station owners would be huge. Mom-and-pop filling stations wouldn't be able to do it. HOWEVER, if some new technology comes along, making either the on-site/on-demand production cheap and easy or eliminate the safety issues with transport and storage, then I can see it happening. And I'd have no qualms about driving an H2 car.

Hydrogen is a major greenhouse gas, and the hardest to handle of our fuel options. If it is a by-product of other work, and not needed as a reactant, I'd run it through a fuel cell on-site.

No, i wouldnt.

It probably costs (And will for a long time) more money and time and energy to create the hydrogen than you get out of it.

Id prefer electric, even with limited range at least the infrastructure to refill exists almost everywhere.

I'm unsure. Mostly because i don't know the figures. There's also the political agenda to consider. Who benefits from this? Who doesn't?
Re: battery powered cars, who benefits there? Who doesn't?
I could drive a battery car and have to replace the batteries in 3 to 4 years. Thats a few k. Maybe 4k? Then i have to charge it. Ideally,thats with PV. Thats got a limited lifespan. All to be factored in. Then theres the "greenness" of the batteries, or lack of.

But, bottom line, the total cost. I forsee being fleeced at the pump, yet again, if i refuel with H2.
Because the powers that be are NOT going to let us enjoy life too much are they?
You can talk all day about emissions but if it costs too much to go anywhere then we will not go anywhere. Where's the Big Oil bottom line there then?

My bottom line is this:

Is this to save the world or save our pockets?

We can all retreat back to the caves and do both. Or we can fall into the "Manmade Global Warming" debate and hand over our entire earnings to some multinational, so they can try "save" the world. I don't doubt that we have added to the fire but i do doubt that it has been that much. I definitely believe that there is a certain amount of scaremongering going on, with regards to the "hydrogen economy" and EV cars in general.
If there was a Hubble Telescope battery available for an EV car then 'd be onto it like a shot! But i don't like the prospect of blowing a few k on a new battery pack every 3 to 4 years. The tech is there but "WE" can't have it. Typical.
I think they are laughing at us.

ollie

Voted "Time will tell".

Couple things that will matter:
Cost
Range
Replacement stuff

All the hybrid tech was just stuff that had already been commercialized for decades being repackaged anyway, so the only question was whether or not OEMs could put it all together and still make a profit. They didn't have a major component (fuel cell) that hasn't been mass produced anywhere, not to mention cost, if production ramps up in the first place.

Hydrogen?!? Oh the humanity!!! :eek:

Would I *drive* one? Sure. Why not?

Would I *buy* one? Right now, no. Don't need a new car right now, and I agree with the concerns about the infrastructure.

My next car will likely be a diesel. The car after that, well, all bets are off. I'm guessing by 2020, there should be some interesting non-internal combustion engine examples worthy of consideration. It's conceivable that H2 could be a serious contender, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it right now.

...would I DRIVE one? Yes!

...but, would I OWN one? No!

...why? because there's (currently) no infra-structure to support Hydrogen fuel, ie: no "gas" stations, storage fields, nor established distribution modalities..

...got a 'spare' Hindenberg available to come deliver Hydrogen gas to you on a lonely interstate ala' Triple-AAA?

Wikipedia says the electricity->H2->electricity efficiency of a fuel cell is 30-50%. That's much, much worse than batteries. Sure, refilling is easier, but the environmental impact of H2 is too large.

Barring a major breakthrough in the efficiency of hydrogen production, such as low-temperature cracking of H2O as a waste-heat recovery process, I favor lithium and lead-acid batteries over hydrogen fuel cells.


http://www.hydrogenhighway.ca.gov/fa...elltowheel.pdf

The above link indicates that if you're using grid electricity to produce hydrogen, HFCV's pollute much more than conventional gasoline-powered cars. Better to buy a gas-sipper and a windmill, than a HFCV.

Hi,

Hydrogen is a storage medium; not a fuel.

I think most of the loss is in the fuel cell turning H2 back into electricity. Recently MIT figured out a nearly 100% efficient way to make H2 from water.

I do not think that hydrogen is a greenhouse gas -- it disperses too quickly to contribute, I think. Methane is huge and of course carbon dioxide.

Storage is tough -- though the recent process to use chicken feathers (with their 8 angstrom hollow tubes!) to store hydrogen much less expensively makes this more plausible. I think hydrogen will need to be produced and stored and dispensed in a single location. Transporting it is very difficult.

Hydrogen cars will also need a battery or ultra-capacitor to store power from regenerative braking. So, I'm not sure that hydrogen can be as useful (or as efficient) as a battery EV, since they are essentially doing the same thing.

If I had my own electrolosys machine that would separate the H2 from the O, and it performed as well as normal cars, yes.

I've been waiting for the United Nuclear Hydrogen kit for awhile now.

United Nuclear - Hydrogen Fuel Systems

They claim that it can do 350+ miles in a hydrogen corvette using solar to provide conversion energy. With the kit you can also run gasoline, so no need to find a hydrogen fueling station.

If all of their claims are true (and if it is ever released) then I will be looking into buying one of their kits when it comes out.

Can you make gasoline from solar energy in your back yard? Well maybe, but not easily or safely, and not with only water as a feed stock.

You can make hydrogen in your back yard with solar energy, and store it.
Yes you can.

Compressing it to high pressures so you can carry enough to get far is an issue, but put a large compressed air tank at say 200 psi, in the trunk, and you can pressurize it directly from the hydrogen generator.
In an efficient light weight vehicle, you should get 30-50 miles on a fill.

A standard gas engine can run nicely on hydrogen if the timing is advanced so it fires on TDC, rather than before TDC like when it is running on gasoline.
You just feed the hydrogen through a needle valve into the intake manifold with an adjustable pressure regulator, and off you go.

I want a fuel that I can make, and hydrogen is one of them.

Granted I could charge batteries with the same electricity and run an electric car, but then I have to make or buy an electric car, and buy and maintain the batteries.
One could also use fuel cells to run the electric car directly.
So many possibilities, and the exhaust is distilled water that you can drink.
Sounds a bit limited but something I can see my self doing if gasoline gets crazy expensive.;)

Why would anyone not?? It is almost free energy, no pollutants, incredible mileage, and tons of torque! It outperforms any gasolione engine known to man.

You've got to be kidding.
Well maybe, but not easily or safely, and not with tap water as a feed stock.

What if you used a rectifying antenna to get the electricity from radio waves? Then you'll just be using something that was once just wasted, right? No extra load on the grid and you'll be making hydrogen that you can sell. Probably more practical than directly powering the vehicles from the radio waves since it is much easier to do it on a tall, fixed pole with fewer limitations on cost, size, and weight.

Or what if someone figured out how to convert fat into hydrogen? America has a very large surplus of obesity. :) Actually, skip the hydrogen part and develop a fuel cell that runs directly from fat. (see My first official JOTD - CleanMPG Forums )

Hydrogen is actually an indirect GHG gas. It binds to hydroxyl radicals, which would normally act to breakdown other greenhouse gases (methane + OH -> methanol or CO2 and water). Ironically, this action results in water vapor. Water vapor is direct GHG, and a powerful one at that, accounting for about 95% of the GHG effect. But that's one of the little known secrets of the global warming debate. After all, outlawing evaporation from the oceans is going to be an uphill battle.

...so long, little, white, puffy clouds?

...maybe Johnny Rae was right: "The Little White Cloud that C-R-I-E-D"

Except you start reducing the range that radio transmitters can transmit so they have to resort to using more power to transmit. You may not pay for it directly but someone will and some of that cost will find its way back to you.

There is no free lunch

Oh yes, I forgot to chime in on why I wouldn't drive an H2 powered car. The leakage of H2 from storage alone would wipe out the ozone layer if a population the size of california drove H2 powered cars.

Citation needed for that one, please....

These all electric and all hydrogen vehicles are designed for city folks that have short commutes or access to these specialty fuels.

It's not that I wouldn't drive one, it's that I couldn't.

here is a start
Study Says Hydrogen Leakage could Harm Earth's Ozone Layer

I'll look for the more specific one regarding california sized population later.

also note CFCs only damage about 5 to 7 % of the ozone layer

If possible, patent the energy collection device. Then just say something like: "I discovered this strange atmospheric energy phenomenon while experimenting with Tesla coils and here's the patent I got on it. Now I'm using it to help America get off foreign oil dependence."

Even if it's not free energy, it does not load down the grid and reclaims a resource that is currently being wasted. Technically, it would be more efficient to put that electricity into the grid using a grid tie inverter, but generating hydrogen would solve an energy storage problem.

^ Same here.

Also even though hydrogen takes energy to make, I would think that the drilling of oil, transportation to the refinery, refining into gasoline, and transportation of the gasoline to gas stations would take more energy than producing hydrogen locally.

As others have said, hydrogen is not an energy source, but an energy storage medium. Unfortunately, it is about the worst possible storage medium for cars. It might beat giant rubber bands, but not by much.

You start out with something that's inefficient to create. Then add the fact that it's extremely difficult to store. Because the H2 molecule is so small, it seeps through almost anything, often changing the material structure as it goes. (See "hydrogen embrittlement".) To collect a useful quantity, you either have to compress it to high pressures, which takes energy and strong, heavy storage tanks, or you have to liquify it. That again takes energy to cool it to the super-low temperatures needed, and more energy to keep it cold. Then you have to add all this infrastructure to trucks or pipelines...

(Sigh) I suggest doing some basic arithmetic. How much energy goes into even the most powerful commercial radio stations? (Maybe 50 KW, tops.) Spread this energy out over an area of say 50 miles for an FM station, or a couple of thousand for a strong AM station: what's the energy density? Not very much. Ever stop to wonder why radio receivers have amplifiers, or why you have to put batteries in them, or plug them into a wall socket?

Actually, it is possible to extract a surprising amount of energy with a resonant antenna. Especially if it's only a short distance away. (Remember that RFIDs are powered by radio waves from the reader.)

Sure, but the key there is the short distance. Remember your inverse square law? You might also compare the amount of energy actually captured by the RFID device with the amount output by the reader. The key to the system is the sensitivity of the detector in the reader...

Then remember conservation of energy. Say you have a 50 KW radio transmitter: even if you had a 100% efficient source/receiver coupling, how many people could draw 1 KW from that radio broadcast?

http://amasci.com/tesla/tesceive.html
No, I would not expect radio to power all of our transportation, but wouldn't you rather use even a small amount of that 50kW to power some cars instead of just letting it get lost to the environment? Use it or lose it.

If the power receivers are in the cars themselves, they can be programmed to share the power. If it's just one at a hydrogen generation plant, it's even easier since there's only one receiver until some rivals set up a competing plant...