That's nice. I always thought the Prius REALLY needed to clean up it's act......
I wonder how the hydrogen to be consumed by the Prius's will be produced? Wouldn't it be ironic if the hydrogen was produced through the consumption of fossil fuels? Wouldn't it be ironic if the amount of energy in the fossil fuel consumed was greater than the energy derived from the hydrogen. Yes, that WOULD be ironic....
Unless you can collect hydrogen by passive means (ie a solar cell electrolyzing water), you must use energy to make hydrogen (Ch 4, Chemistry of Petrochemical Processes, authors, Matar, S.; Hatch, L.F.). And yes, in theory that energy can come from a nuclear plant. However, unless you are in France, that proportion of energy is very low. Metal hydrides will hydrolyze in nature. Energy must by used to make them. How else do you get hydrogen, cryogenic freezing followed by subambient distillation? That requires a whole lot of energy. Enzymatic photosynthesis?, maybe in the future. For now, I see a hydrogen economy as a bluff. A way to trick the consumer into thinking that they are green and saving the environment and in the meantime, separating the consumer from his/her money by charging the consumer a premium for the fuel cell car.
It is as simple as Electrictroy said. Without marketing and fudge factor statistics, show me and demonstrate to me a simple energy balance from the START, and maybe I'll convert my opinion. Indicate where the hydrogen comes from and the source of energy that is used to make the hydrogen. If the net balance of CO2 produced by the making of the hydrogen (coal burning, natural gas burning, accessory power to the nuclear plant, etc.) is less than direct combustion, I'll buy in.
We are talking about Hydrogen, just because today's batteries can hold only enough energy for 180 mile range and also takes 8 hours to charge. Anyway those Hydrogen vehicles will also have a battery that gives the 1st 20 mile range. So electricity will still be used irrespective of the hydrogen economy.
As for the source of hydrogen, initially it will be coal & nuclear with renewable gaining their share later. For those who beleive that renewables are expensive, already Wind based electricity is cheaper than Oil based.
That may be true. The problem is wind generation will only work in a very few places. The average windspeed needs to be 9 mph to operate the generator. Many suitable locations are in prime vacation properties and being rejected by local property owners. It is going to be difficult to get more than a couple percent out of wind. For hydrogen to ever be viable we will probably need to use nuclear. That is not a popular choice either.
- being produced - being compressed into a tank - being moved around the country - being compressed into the gas station - being transfered to your car - being converted to electricity (in your car)
The end result is you use MORE energy than you get back. I hear many people say, "Ethanol uses more energy to make, than you gain from burning it." The exact same argument applies to Hydrogen use.
Ethanol sales are surging because CA has mandated adding it to our gas in place of that nasty old MTBE. E85 vehicles get about 25% less MPG than if they burn unleaded. It would be much more expensive if we were not subsidizing it to the tune of 51 cents per gallon. It is good for the farmers, not sure if it has the longterm benefits that are needed. I don't think it can be produced at a profit for a while. If Gas hits $3 per gallon it may be a viable alternative.
Oil refiners can receive a government subsidy of as much as 51 cents a gallon for ethanol, with total subsidies of about $1.85 billion last year, the Renewable Fuels Association estimates. Congress is considering a federal mandate for ethanol use, which would replace a requirement that gasoline contain specified levels of oxygen-boosting additives.
You think, Oil is not subsidized. It is, billions are spent on policing the Persian Gulf.
Absolutely, that lifetime agreement was signed with the Saudi's in the 1940s by none other than Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was supposed to guarantee us cheap oil. Not sure if it has panned out for the USA.
The Brazilians use oil to make ethanol, so they end up spending more energy making ethanol, than they get back burning it. (i.e. spending 1.1 watts to make 1 watt of ethanol).
Hydrogen has the same flaw. It's not sustainable w/o oil input.
I wonder how much pollution the Brazilians dump in the atmosphere when they burn millions of acres of sugar cane. That was a factor in losing the sugar cane industry in Hawaii, along with cheaper labor in third world countries.
I have yet to read a credible study that Ethanol is energy positive. Biodiesel is much more environment friendly as the tractors that till the fields are run on biodiesel, all of which is GHG neutral.
If Hydrogen pollutes more. When the oil runs low, people will realize there is still a 150 year supply of coal to generate electricity, to make hydrogen.
My point is that people are considering hydrogen because it is an alternative fuel. In my opinion, if electric only vehicles were practical, they would be popular. But you will always have that problem of generating the electricity.
Use hydrogen production to run fuel cells for homes?
Question: if the production of hydrogen consumes more energy (regardless of whether the source of that energy is renewables, nuclear, or fossil fuel derived) than the hydrogen itself produces in a fuel cell, then why not power the home directly by the energy that WOULD have been expended in hydrogen production????
In other words, why build a nuclear plant to generate hydrogen for running fuel cells for homes, when the nuclear plant can simply provide power to the existing electric grid and accomplish the same thing without the losses associated with hydrogen production/storage/transportation/etc.?
Enough of this fumbling around in the dark, looking for new "someday" technology!!!! Imagine parking your car in the sun, and it automatically fills its fuel tank, with a clean burning H20 exhaust fuel. Imagine this can be done in a modified gasoline engine vehicle. Imagine that this fuel could be used in a slightly more modified piston engine, operating as a two stroke , getting TWICE as many power strokes. I'm talking about Hydrogen Peroxide, a fuel the Germans used to power a submarine in 1945, a fuel that was injected into jet engines, since it requires NO atmospheric O2 to burn. A fuel that can be made in two catalytic reactions, from H2 and free O2. AND, this is NO someday science. Twenty minutes in a library, or with a High School Chemistry teacher, can fill in all the details. This could also turn all of the Third World into fuel producing countries, since they have only sunshine as a natural resource. Or, your car could produce its own fuel, using the sun to produce H2, and then using an Anthroquinone/Hydroquinone/Peroxide catalytic reation. OR, your garage would have a water heater sized fuel factory. Or, you could purchase this fuel from a station at the corner. The DOWN SIDE is that no one will become a Billionaire doing this. The process cant be patented, and money drives the fuel business. Thats why the Hybrid/Fuel cell/ Hyrogen Car science is bustling right along. Sad, isn't it??
Hmmmmm, let's see: use solar power to generate hydrogen.
First of all, H2 doesn't exist simply floating around in the air. Typically, H2 is married to oxygen to form H2O (otherwise known as 'water').
To get the hydrogen divorced from the oxygen in water (typical process is electrolysis) requires energy. In fact, if the process was 100% efficient, it would take 39.4 kilowatt hours to generate 1 kilogram of H2. However, the process (on an industrial scale) is only about 70% efficient so you actually need closer to 56.3 kilowatt-hours to generate that 1 kg of H2.
So, 56.3 kilowatt-hours of energy (in some form) is expended to generate 1 kg of H2 for use in a car. How much energy to you get out? Not 56.3 kwh; the maximum enegy potential is actually 39.4 kwh. However, the MOST EFFICIENT means to convert the H2 directly back into useful energy (the fuel cell) is only around 70% efficient itself, so figure on deriving only about 27.6kwh from that 1 kg of H2.
The problem is, all 27.6kwh can't go just into propelling the car. The H2 must be compressed to be useful. The amount of compression typically ranges from 4000psi upto as high as 10,000psi (which is what GM is shooting for). It takes energy to compress the gas. This varies depending on how much the H2 is compressed (it also takes energy to liquify the H2 which is the approach that BMW favors).
All told, the initial investment of 56.3 kwh to generate the 1 kg of H2 only generates about 17-18 kwh of energy used to actually motivate the car. According to Southern California Edison, the typical passenger vehicle would require 0.46 kwh per mile driven. Therefore, assuming 1 kg of H2 can be converted to (being somewhat optomistic) 20kwh, then 1 kg of H2 could be used to drive about 44 miles.
Now, lets look at solar panels. It takes energy to produce a solar cell. Well, how much energy does it take to produce a solar cell compared to how much energy a solar cell produces? I've seen times as high as 8 years worth of energy from a solar cell just to make up for the energy spent in manufacture.
Okay - enough about that. But how much solar panel would I need to generate the 56.3 kwh of energy to produce the 1kg of H2 necessary to drive 44 miles? Typical photovoltaic cells produce 125 watts per square meter of area (this is an efficiency of only about 12-15% of the sun's energy. Some lab prototypes can approach 30% efficiency). So, to generate enough H2 to travel 44 miles using the energy from 8 hours of direct sunshine, one would need a panel of approximately 450 square meters.
450 square meters and 8 hours of direct sunshine for one car to drive 44 miles. Nice try.
Think cars powered by fuel cells are in the far future? Think again! We've got nearly 30 photos and captions that provide broad insight into the beginning of the Ninth Grove Fuel Cell Symposium--and they seem to paint a rosy picture. I love the cute little Microcab, personally! Our story captures the details--and if you're interested, we'll be tracking the story all week at our new fuel cell-related site--ExtremeFuelCells.com.
"Mercedes is showing off their F600 Hygenius. It is a research / concept vehicle which experiments with an alternative fuel: Hydrogen. Based loosely on the A-series, it adds a bit of futuristic flair, too. Hydrogen driven Mercedes!
The vehicle is powered by a hydrogen cell, which delivers more than 115 horsepower. According to Mercedes, the engine manages to have a range of more than 250 miles, and runs an equivalent of 97 miles per gallon. In addition, the vehicle has zero emissions.
"By developing the fuel cell, we are creating a new basis for supplying energy in tomorrow's vehicles which will make a further lasting improvement to their environmental compatibility.", said Dr Thomas Weber, Head of Development at the Mercedes Car Group."
But what about the emissions generated in the production of hydrogen? Unless you've got an oversupply of clean, non-emission generating renewable energy (lots of nukes perhaps?), the hydrogen required can only be produced through the burning of additional fossil fuels.
It takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than you get out in a fuel cell. What I would like to know is how much energy does it take to produce the hydrogen to get that car to go 250 miles compared to how much gasoline it would take to do the same thing?
In other words, if that car could get 97mpg using gasoline in a conventional drivetrain, it would need 2.58 gallons of gas to cover the 250 miles. How much gasoline equivalent would need to be consumed to generate the required hydrogen?
Just what IS the attraction of hydrogen fuel-cell cars?
There are no sources of free hydrogen for us to use. Energy MUST be expended to create the hydrogen. What is the source of the energy you would use? Do we have a huge overabundance of renewable clean energy we don't have a current use for? If not, then all you are doing with hydrogen fuel-cell cars is to transfer the burning of fossil fuels from the car to a power plant producing hydrogen.
And since it takes MORE energy (substantially more energy) to PRODUCE the hydrogen (and then compress it or liquify it) than you get out of a fuel cell, the net effect is the consumption of MORE fossil fuels by using it to produce hydrogen than you would use if you just used the fossil fuels directly in a hybrid powertrain.
So how are hydrogen powered vehicle a step forwards?
First, hydrogen is right now MOSTLY derived from fossil fuels. But it does not HAVE to be that way.
The energy needed to convert stored energy into hydrogen for use in vehicles CAN BE created by clean energy sources like solar and wind generation. But that infrastructure is FAR behind in the capacity we would need to power a fleet of nationwide hydrogen vehicles.
Right now, most production IS done with fossil fuels, and is planned for such production in the immediate future.
That's NOT good.....but hopefully in the time it takes the car manufacturers to bring down the costs of the fuel cell system itself, the clean conversion infrastructure will improve.....can we hope for that anyway?
"Nuclear’s new supporters allege that the dangers have always been grossly exaggerated by opponents — a fact largely based upon ignorance of the details and an unfamiliarity with the subject matter. There is really no reason for us to worry at all because, although nuclear energy is apparently too complicated for the layman to understand, according to the experts it is the least polluting means of generating electricity. Thus it is extremely suitable for the new hydrogen age that, according to optimists, is ushering in the end of the current age of fossil fuels."
"Can it be created with nuclear energy? Pardon my ignorance."
All that's needed for the creation of hydrogen is electricity. At issue is the source of the electricity.
We can talk all we want about seriously upgrading the infrastructure to produce abundant amounts of clean electricity from renewable resources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, etc.). But the fact remains that despite the use of more and more alternative energy sources, this use doesn't even keep up with CURRENT increases in demand.
Therefore, if a large-scale conversion was made from current technology (be it diesel or hybrids) to hydrogen powered fuel-cells, the question remains, where do you get the additional electrical power to generate the hydrogen? The only RATIONAL answer I see is either additional nuclear plants or additional fossil-fuel power plants.
I keep hearing talk about the 'zero' emissions of fuel-cells. I KNOW that the emmissions at the tailpipe are zero for fuel-cell technology. But one has to consider the total emissions in the entire process to know if hydrogen-based technology offers any real improvement.
Look at it this way - with a gasoline hybrid, this is one stage of efficiency loss in the conversion of fossil fuel into forward motion.
But with a hydrogen fuel cell, there is some efficiency loss in burning fossil fuel to generate electricity, there is a second stage of energy loss in using the electricity to produce the hydrogen (and compress/liquify it for actual use), and there is a third stage of efficiency loss in the conversion of the hydrogen in a fuel cell into forward motion.
So unless someone can convince me that the hydrogen fuel-cell route ultimately consumes less fossil fuel (and produces less emmissions) despite at least 3 stages of efficiency loss, than just simply burning the fuel directly in a hybrid powertrain, I think that hydrogen fuel-cell technology is a step backwards in reducing the emissions from or consumption of fossil fuels.
The ONLY way that I think fuel-cell technology has a future in the mainstream is with more nuclear plants.
Rorr's comments can't be overlooked. The reality for the US is that hydrogen will take more energy to make than it can create. Automakers are currently trying to use the logic: hybrid = fuel savings (and thus a consumer spends $25,000 for a new car) instead of less weight = fuel savings (and thus a consumer spends $12,000 for a new car). Hydrogen is generated primarily either through the cracking of hydrocarbons or the electrolysis of water. Either way takes a ton of energy. That energy can come from nuclear power, however, the only country set up well with nuclear power is France. Therefore, you must do one of several things. 1. Convince US corporations and the government that nuclear reactors are needed and desired in the US. They have hazards and will cost a ton of money to an almost bankrupt US economy. Additionally, with the current outsourcing nonsense, no company will foot the construction bill in the US, they will demand government subsidies. Conclusion: barring rioting and looting in the streets, it ain't gonna happen or if does it will probably be too late. 2. Wait for "someone else" to make a miracle electrolysis catalyst that makes water decompose or wait for "someone else" to develop some type of photovoltaic cell to transfer solar energy directly to water and decompose it. Conclusion: This ain't likely either.
If a hydrogen economy occurs, it will be due to one of two things. 1. A true miracle innovation. Something that has never really occurred in the history of mankind (equivalent to curing cancer). 2. A more likely scenario will be that some corporation(s) suckered the US public into pseudoscience nonsense (ie didn't show simply energy balance calculations that you do in first year chemical engineering courses) and successfully ripped off the US economy while still having a net zero reduction in CO2 emissions.
But I just want to point out that having enough Hydrogen to power a few hundred thousand cars is FAR different than using Hydrogen as the primary fuel in the US Economy.
Having sufficent infrastructure and supply to have Hydrogen cars as a viable low emission alternative fuel vehicle is NOT beyond the realm of possibility - if it were, NO ONE would be working on Hydrogem Fuel Cell cars......:D
Your point is well taken that producing, compressing and transporting Hydrogen is a big part of the equation. What you're missing is that we need something to power cars and not stationary power.
I'd be the first to agree that for stationary energy sources it's silly to convert existing energy into hydrogen and then back to energy except in extreme cases.
The same could be said for any created source of fuel. Some of your numbers aren't totally accurate but I'll skip most of that, just to say that electrolysis, which is what you base your energy calculations on isn't the most popular way to produce hydrogen.
If we were creating gasoline from scratch the production cost would be astronomical. Currently we're harvesting millions of years of production. What Hydrogen represents is the conversion of harvesting energy to creating energy in a mobile and storable form.
Currently if you have a solar panel up you store the energy in batteries. To compare Hydrogen to the energy from the panel isn't fair, the fair method is to compare the Hydrogen to the battery because that's what it basically is. For a home or over the grid you can potentially use most of the energy from solar as it's created but you can't get a 100% usage and you definitely can't use that energy in a car effectively.
You can gassify Coal and get cheap energy but coal is a harvested material. Sooner or later that's going to run out. Still, I think your point is valid that in the short run we should be looking to converting coal to fuel for cars and I think we are, just like we're looking at bio-fuels. They're all ways to make fuels to power cars.
The difference between all bio-fuels, including gasoline, coal and methane is that it's foreseeable that someday there will be an environmentally harmless method of producing energy such as wind, solar, fusion or even nuclear that can't be converted to gasoline or anything like it but can be easily converted to Hydrogen through the electrolysis of water. Not efficient for most home use but efficient for use in automobiles.
If that comes about, which I think is a definite possibility, then sticking with converted coal or bio fuels will be less economically valid and much less environmentally valid.
We're looking for a future where energy is created more cleanly and cheaply than it is today and where that energy when it can't be directly created inside a car can be converted to something that will power a car. Gassification of coal definitely doesn't cover that and neither do bio-fuels, Hydrogen does and that's exciting from my perspective because it's the only hope given in existing science for a zero-polluting power source for cars.
That it isn't financially or infra-structurally viable today doesn't mean that it will never be. That's what excites us and makes us want to push for Hydrogen, the possibility that we will be producing zero-emission fuel for automobiles.
There are more untapped clean energy sources than solar cells that we already know exist. Tapping into them should be our priority and even if they're not efficient today and we lose money we have to decide whether the cost difference is worth it. It's not too far out of worth it now and every year it will become less so.
Well, many European countries generate a LOT of their electricity via Nuclear power. So they are well placed to convert to hydrogen energy.
The entire point is to get away from fossel fuel plants, and that includes electricity to power those electric vehicles, or plug-in hybrids, or just the fossel fuel we put into an ICE.
I don't see that one fossel fuel burn is better than another. The search for hydrogen conversion is in some respects the search for a clean source of energy (to produce the hydrogen).
Don't forget solar power, wave power, hydro electric power...
"We're looking for a future where energy is created more cleanly and cheaply than it is today and where that energy when it can't be directly created inside a car can be converted to something that will power a car. Gassification of coal definitely doesn't cover that and neither do bio-fuels, Hydrogen does and that's exciting from my perspective because it's the only hope given in existing science for a zero-polluting power source for cars."
Agree with this. My only problem is with the timing; we seem to be hell bent on developing the hydrogen fuel-cell technology first........and then tapping into those alternate clean energy sources to the point where we have an overabundance of clean/cheap (renewable?) energy. We end up with a public clamoring for fuel cell cars with the idea that they are producing 'zero' emissions....but we don't yet have the background infrastructure in place to generate large amounts of clean/cheap energy that make the whole scenario viable. So what happens? We build more 'conventional' power plants to produce the hydrogen to meet the new demand. Cart before the horse IMO.
NO ONE would be working on Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars
I think if you look into this hydrogen research you will find government subsidies are the major source of revenue. So far the only cars on the road are the Honda fuel cell cars in So CA & Nevada. Has there been an update on how they are working? What I read they are powered by converting Natural Gas to Hydrogen. That is the simple way to get hydrogen for fuel cells. With Natural Gas prices doubling where does that leave those driving Honda's experimental cars? Also those Honda's are still close to a million dollars to build. That is a long way from the $25k it will need to be for anyone to buy a Civic fuel cell car.
I agree that zero emission is nice as long as it is zero emission from manufacturing to recycling. I'm sure that is not the case. Spewing toxic chemicals into the air and rivers of China so we can drive a zero emission car in So Ca. is not an environmentally sound option.
Hydrogen from natural gas is only one way and electrolysis another. That's a whole side issue and one of the more exciting things about hydrogen, the many ways it can be produced.
All prototype cars have a high cost. You can't have a mold built for a side panel for one car and have it be cheap, you can't buy a specially developed electric motor from a vendor at production cost.
The cost to produce is one of the hurdles they've got to overcome but exaggerating in either direction is bad. It doesn't cost a million for a fuel cell, you can look them up and see but the costs for the ones that go into a car if they were made in production wouldn't be over $10,000, they're saying it's like triple or so over a conventional engine. The tanks to store hydrogen are way way more expensive than typical gas tanks but not astronomical.
The rest of the whole car is just electronic car parts with no experimental to them. They cost a ton of money to build in a one off car but almost nothing in production.
I'm not saying it's a sure thing and there are no obstacles by any means. There are a lot and any one might be enough to shut this down but so far I haven't seen any sign that there are obstacles we can't overcome. Just the opposite in fact, we're seeing some great improvements that will lower the cost of fuel cells and on board storage.
Production of Hydrogen is what I consider to be the biggest challenge. We need to find a way to produce and deliver hydrogen that won't just shift the burden from gasoline to some other depletable fuel source.
Even if we did shift it though and it all was roughly equal we'd be better off. If we are spewing chemicals and the net result is exactly the same and we're spending somewhere even close to the same in cash for the same convenience then we eliminate the need to deal with Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
They cost a ton of money to build in a one off car but almost nothing in production.
That may be. If they can sell a Civic size fuel cell for $25k it may go. It just may not go very far. It will have the same limitations as the CNG & Electric vehicles. I believe I read that the one running around So CA has a 180 mile range. The limiting factor is still the tank. Add to that the recent up swing in the cost of Natural Gas. The only possible solution is Nuclear Power to produce hydrogen. I think I read how many times our current capacity we would have to have for hydrogen production. Solar cells in their present form are a negative. Takes more energy to produce than the electricity it provides over the life cycle of the solar cell. Wind is limited to a very few areas. Many of the likely spots suffer from a bad case of NIMBY. I like geo-thermal. Many of the likely areas for geo-thermal are taboo for environmental or superstitious reasons. I think hydrogen is a black hole we are throwing money into. All the proponents see are $$$$ or zero emissions. Not a lot of practical logic or common sense involved. The person that figures out how to extract hydrogen from water with little energy expended will be the hero. Are we any closer today than 50 years ago?
quote gagrice-"Are we any closer today than 50 years ago?"-end quote
The debate will continue as to how we will provide the energy to produce the hydrogen. And who knows if we are any closer than 50 years ago?
What matters is that the R&D is there right now, and the attention is focuse on the problem in a way which it has NEVER been before. America and the world together are working on this issue, and with that many great minds, either it will be figured out or it wont, but the odds are that it WILL be solved.
In the meantime, we have the Hybrids to carry us along, thank gosh !!! :shades:
We are way closer than we were 50 years ago, and that's with just straight production of Hydrogen. One of the values of electrolyzing Hydrogen from water is that it's so simple and not a new idea.
The cost of the Car itself is a fixed cost, you pay for it once. That's an entirely separate issue than the cost of fuel and it's not at all fair to project that the cost of the car will go up because the cost of Natural Gas (NG) goes up. It's two issues that are separate totally and while we have to fix them both they're not linked to eachother directly.
If the car costs 35k then that's what it costs. Right now NG is high so the cost of fuel will go up but it's still reasonable compared to gasoline. The cost of a 100 miles worth of fuel by all accounts is roughly the same for Natural Gas versus Gasoline even with the increase, at least the difference is in percentage points and not multiples.
Even so I agree we have to compare them with the dollar amount in mind as well as environmentally. The cost basis that we have now for comparing gasoline usage in cars to Hydrogen usage in cars is basically the cost of taking power from the outlet in your house and converting it through electrolysis into Hydrogen for use in your car.
It's hard to track down the cost of that because you always get bogged down in the efficiency numbers, but it's roughly about $6/gallon equivalent, depending on who you ask. Efficiency of energy doesn't matter at all because we're talking about the cost of fuel for a mobile application and not a stationary one.
Even at $6 it's not a huge stretch to think that we'll get to the cost of a gallon of gasoline to reach $6 because we're not making any more. In the forseeable future the cost of Hydrogen through production is easily within the range of the cost of gasoline.
I think that bio-fuel and the like compared to both has a bright future, and coal gassification too. I think just ignoring the whole situation and saying that Hydrogen will never work when there are so many promising technologies that could lead to a cleaner and cheaper future through Hydrogen would be much more foolish than exploring those possibilities.
The federal budget towards researching Hydrogen production is almost nothing. There's a bunch toward fuel cells and a smaller amount for hydrogen storage but the amount dedicated toward Hydrogen production wouldn't encourage anyone into the business.
There's a bunch toward fuel cells and a smaller amount for hydrogen storage but the amount dedicated toward Hydrogen production wouldn't encourage anyone into the business.
Good point. Classic case of getting the cart before the horse. Without the cheap hydrogen the rest are just lab experiments.
I thought most of the hydrogen in use for cars was produced by natural gas. I know the fuel cell generators used in remote Alaska are tied into the gas lines.
I think you're right that conversion of Natural Gas is by far the most common method to commercially produce Hydrogen.
I understand why they're focusing on the Cells and storage because they're more immediately a problem. I mean, you could start selling cars now if you had fuel cells and storage that were economically feasible and use the Natural Gas conversion to get the fuel for a while. I agree that it's short sighted to base the hydrogen future on Natural Gas supplies.
Now, when somebody asks me to describe a 'puff-piece', I'll have a ready example.
No discussion WHATSOEVER about vehicle mileage or range. No discussion WHATSOEVER about the source of the hydrogen.
The only thing I learned from that article is that Honda convinced the hydrogen supplier to construct a new refueling station close to the FCX family (which hasn't opened yet due to concerns from the local Fire Dept.), and that the FCX family must refuel at Honda's NA headquarters (which is conveniently closeby).
Hmmmm, actually I learned something else. If Honda went through the trouble of having the supplier build a refueling station just for the host family, even though Honda's own refueling station was nearby, it would seem that real-world RANGE is a real concern. Particularly when the host driver says "I go to the market in it, I take the girls to school in it, I take them to soccer, just little one-mile jaunts here and there."
That's nice that Honda's guinea pig is good for little one-mile jaunts.
It's better to have a VERY LIMITED fuel cell car as an "on the road experiment" rather than have nothing at all.
Rome was not (nor the first automobile of any evolutionary advance) built in a day.
But here are some Honda FCX specs for you:
Complete Car Maximum Speed 93 mph (150km/h) Vehicle (curb) Weight 3,713lbs (1684kg) Driving Range 220 miles (355km) Seating Capacity 4 adults Motor Maximum Power Output 80hp (60kW) Maximum Drive Torque 201lb-ft (272Nm) Motor Type AC synchronous Fuel Cell Stack Stack Type PEFC (Polymer Electrolyte Fuel cell - Ballard) Power Output 78kW Power Storage Honda Ultra Capacitor Fuel Fuel Type Compressed hydrogen gas Storage Method High-pressure hydrogen storage tanks Hydrogen capacity 3.75 kg @ 5000 psi
Well, I agree that you've got to start somewhere and that manufacturer's can't simply go from theorectical to economically practical in one fell swoop. I just had an issue with the way the article was written.
3.75 kg hydrogen capacity? I've been under the impression than 1 kg of hydrogen has roughly the energy equivalence of 1 gallon of gasoline. If this is true, and IF the vehicle range is 220 miles, that would be the equivalence of roughly 60mpg. Pretty decent, especially given the vehicle's weight but I'm curious about REAL-WORLD numbers (the whole point behind getting the FCX into the hands of an end-user).
Now, for some 'hard numbers' related to hydrogen production from electrolysis (rather than the conversion of fossil fuels in the form NG to hydrogen).....
First and foremost I want to point out that these people have an agenda. The don't want hydrogen to work. They make electrostatic and Magnetic Indution Disk Dynamos. The don't make Hydrogen, they're not developing Hydrogen dependant systems. The very reason that they're publishing this report is because they don't want Hydrogen to be successful.
Next I want to look at some of their numbers and point out inconsistencies. One that jumps right out is the energy potential of Gasoline compared to Hydrogen. Gasoline definitely does have more energy stored within each molecule but they ignore the fact that Hydrogen is lighter than Gasoline and that it more efficiently transfers energy from tank to wheels.
There’s a lot of wasted energy in a combustion engines. You’ll notice that they never compare the efficiency of the energy produced and transferred to the wheels of a car with a combustion engine compared to the energy of Hydrogen to the wheels of a car with a fuel cell. That’s because the numbers jump much closer to an even match and they don’t want that.
Whether or not Electrolyzing water helps the environment doesn’t even enter into the calculation of cost comparison, but that’s all they mention, because they don’t want to look at the possiblities because it would support Hydrogen. I’ll be glad to stick to pure cost in this discussion because I think it’s close enough to warrant a closer look at Hydrogen as a fuel for cars.
In their calculations they take the worst case efficiency without heat reclamation and worst case heating to come up with their formula. Even so their cost to electrolyze an amount of Hydrogen equal in energy to a gallon of Gasoline is $4.45. This is worst case, right from our home electricity, out of the plug. That’s without Solar panels, and no propeller blades chopping up migrating birds.
This is the worst case scenario in every possible way they could set it up and still it’s not so bad that I can’t look at it and see the price of gasoline and Hydrogen coming closer and closer together. They’re pretty quick to include the inefficiency of Fuel Cells but they fail to mention any inefficiency of gasoline combustion engine. Even at worst case, with worst method of hydrogen production it seems worth looking into.
They try to make it look worse than that showing extraneous calculations about efficiency but the bottom line is that even by their numbers you can produce an energy equivalent amount of hydrogen to a gallon of gas for $4.45.
That’s completely ignoring the whole environment issue and just looking at straight cost. If you factor in the possibility that alternate stationary fuel sources might become more efficient the straight cost might well favor Hydrogen even without considering the environment.
A nearby official Honda fueling station could be 20 miles away. It's not necessarily uncalled for to want a closer fuel station without considering range. I wouldn't want to go 20 minutes and just coming back home would be 10 percent of the fuel.
Range will go up almost certainly in Fuel Cell cars, this is still an experimental car. I see nothing but hope in anything I've seen although I still have some skepticism about the durability of Fuel Cells.
Comments
Plan to replace gas-electric prius with hydrogen-electric. Sounds nice.
How?
I wonder how the hydrogen to be consumed by the Prius's will be produced? Wouldn't it be ironic if the hydrogen was produced through the consumption of fossil fuels? Wouldn't it be ironic if the amount of energy in the fossil fuel consumed was greater than the energy derived from the hydrogen. Yes, that WOULD be ironic....
How else do you get hydrogen, cryogenic freezing followed by subambient distillation? That requires a whole lot of energy. Enzymatic photosynthesis?, maybe in the future. For now, I see a hydrogen economy as a bluff. A way to trick the consumer into thinking that they are green and saving the environment and in the meantime, separating the consumer from his/her money by charging the consumer a premium for the fuel cell car.
It is as simple as Electrictroy said. Without marketing and fudge factor statistics, show me and demonstrate to me a simple energy balance from the START, and maybe I'll convert my opinion. Indicate where the hydrogen comes from and the source of energy that is used to make the hydrogen. If the net balance of CO2 produced by the making of the hydrogen (coal burning, natural gas burning, accessory power to the nuclear plant, etc.) is less than direct combustion, I'll buy in.
As for the source of hydrogen, initially it will be coal & nuclear with renewable gaining their share later. For those who beleive that renewables are expensive, already Wind based electricity is cheaper than Oil based.
Would that be in certain small, selected markets or is that generally true industry wide? I'm also curious about the source of that information.
That may be true. The problem is wind generation will only work in a very few places. The average windspeed needs to be 9 mph to operate the generator. Many suitable locations are in prime vacation properties and being rejected by local property owners. It is going to be difficult to get more than a couple percent out of wind. For hydrogen to ever be viable we will probably need to use nuclear. That is not a popular choice either.
- being produced
- being compressed into a tank
- being moved around the country
- being compressed into the gas station
- being transfered to your car
- being converted to electricity (in your car)
The end result is you use MORE energy than you get back. I hear many people say, "Ethanol uses more energy to make, than you gain from burning it." The exact same argument applies to Hydrogen use.
Troy
Ethanol wastes energy is false.
Brazil has millions of vehicles running on Ethanol. So does the states of mid-west.
But its expensive to make, however at gas price of $1.8/gallon, it is equal to E85.
Hey, today gas costs $2.1/gallon. No wonder, E85 sales are surging.
Ethanol sales are surging because CA has mandated adding it to our gas in place of that nasty old MTBE. E85 vehicles get about 25% less MPG than if they burn unleaded. It would be much more expensive if we were not subsidizing it to the tune of 51 cents per gallon. It is good for the farmers, not sure if it has the longterm benefits that are needed. I don't think it can be produced at a profit for a while. If Gas hits $3 per gallon it may be a viable alternative.
I dont know where you got the magic figure of 51 cents.
If Brazilians were subsidizing, their economy should have gone bankrupt since more than 1/2 of their vehicles are running on E95.
You think, Oil is not subsidized. It is, billions are spent on policing the Persian Gulf.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-0503240323mar24,1,657342.story?coll=chi-busines- s-hed&ctrack=2&cset=true
Absolutely, that lifetime agreement was signed with the Saudi's in the 1940s by none other than Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was supposed to guarantee us cheap oil. Not sure if it has panned out for the USA.
False, the ethanol is not energy positive.
The Brazilians use oil to make ethanol, so they end up spending more energy making ethanol, than they get back burning it. (i.e. spending 1.1 watts to make 1 watt of ethanol).
Hydrogen has the same flaw.
It's not sustainable w/o oil input.
troy
I wonder how much pollution the Brazilians dump in the atmosphere when they burn millions of acres of sugar cane. That was a factor in losing the sugar cane industry in Hawaii, along with cheaper labor in third world countries.
I have yet to read a credible study that Ethanol is energy positive. Biodiesel is much more environment friendly as the tractors that till the fields are run on biodiesel, all of which is GHG neutral.
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/business/technology/12013693.htm
My point is that people are considering hydrogen because it is an alternative fuel. In my opinion, if electric only vehicles were practical, they would be popular. But you will always have that problem of generating the electricity.
appoglize if this is already post on this board.
Good basic info
Best bet for the fuel cell to power fixed loads. Homes/etc.
Question: if the production of hydrogen consumes more energy (regardless of whether the source of that energy is renewables, nuclear, or fossil fuel derived) than the hydrogen itself produces in a fuel cell, then why not power the home directly by the energy that WOULD have been expended in hydrogen production????
In other words, why build a nuclear plant to generate hydrogen for running fuel cells for homes, when the nuclear plant can simply provide power to the existing electric grid and accomplish the same thing without the losses associated with hydrogen production/storage/transportation/etc.?
First of all, H2 doesn't exist simply floating around in the air. Typically, H2 is married to oxygen to form H2O (otherwise known as 'water').
To get the hydrogen divorced from the oxygen in water (typical process is electrolysis) requires energy. In fact, if the process was 100% efficient, it would take 39.4 kilowatt hours to generate 1 kilogram of H2. However, the process (on an industrial scale) is only about 70% efficient so you actually need closer to 56.3 kilowatt-hours to generate that 1 kg of H2.
So, 56.3 kilowatt-hours of energy (in some form) is expended to generate 1 kg of H2 for use in a car. How much energy to you get out? Not 56.3 kwh; the maximum enegy potential is actually 39.4 kwh. However, the MOST EFFICIENT means to convert the H2 directly back into useful energy (the fuel cell) is only around 70% efficient itself, so figure on deriving only about 27.6kwh from that 1 kg of H2.
The problem is, all 27.6kwh can't go just into propelling the car. The H2 must be compressed to be useful. The amount of compression typically ranges from 4000psi upto as high as 10,000psi (which is what GM is shooting for). It takes energy to compress the gas. This varies depending on how much the H2 is compressed (it also takes energy to liquify the H2 which is the approach that BMW favors).
All told, the initial investment of 56.3 kwh to generate the 1 kg of H2 only generates about 17-18 kwh of energy used to actually motivate the car. According to Southern California Edison, the typical passenger vehicle would require 0.46 kwh per mile driven. Therefore, assuming 1 kg of H2 can be converted to (being somewhat optomistic) 20kwh, then 1 kg of H2 could be used to drive about 44 miles.
Now, lets look at solar panels. It takes energy to produce a solar cell. Well, how much energy does it take to produce a solar cell compared to how much energy a solar cell produces? I've seen times as high as 8 years worth of energy from a solar cell just to make up for the energy spent in manufacture.
Okay - enough about that. But how much solar panel would I need to generate the 56.3 kwh of energy to produce the 1kg of H2 necessary to drive 44 miles? Typical photovoltaic cells produce 125 watts per square meter of area (this is an efficiency of only about 12-15% of the sun's energy. Some lab prototypes can approach 30% efficiency). So, to generate enough H2 to travel 44 miles using the energy from 8 hours of direct sunshine, one would need a panel of approximately 450 square meters.
450 square meters and 8 hours of direct sunshine for one car to drive 44 miles. Nice try.
Think cars powered by fuel cells are in the far future?
Think again! We've got nearly 30 photos and captions that
provide broad insight into the beginning of the Ninth Grove
Fuel Cell Symposium--and they seem to paint a rosy picture.
I love the cute little Microcab, personally! Our story
captures the details--and if you're interested, we'll be
tracking the story all week at our new fuel cell-related
site--ExtremeFuelCells.com.
http://www.extremefuelcells.com/slideshow/Fuel+Cells+Power+/161661_0.aspx
"Mercedes is showing off their F600 Hygenius. It is a research / concept vehicle which experiments with an alternative fuel: Hydrogen. Based loosely on the A-series, it adds a bit of futuristic flair, too.
Hydrogen driven Mercedes!
The vehicle is powered by a hydrogen cell, which delivers more than 115 horsepower. According to Mercedes, the engine manages to have a range of more than 250 miles, and runs an equivalent of 97 miles per gallon. In addition, the vehicle has zero emissions.
"By developing the fuel cell, we are creating a new basis for supplying energy in tomorrow's vehicles which will make a further lasting improvement to their environmental compatibility.", said Dr Thomas Weber, Head of Development at the Mercedes Car Group."
CoolNess !!
True, the vehicle would have zero emissions.
But what about the emissions generated in the production of hydrogen? Unless you've got an oversupply of clean, non-emission generating renewable energy (lots of nukes perhaps?), the hydrogen required can only be produced through the burning of additional fossil fuels.
It takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than you get out in a fuel cell. What I would like to know is how much energy does it take to produce the hydrogen to get that car to go 250 miles compared to how much gasoline it would take to do the same thing?
In other words, if that car could get 97mpg using gasoline in a conventional drivetrain, it would need 2.58 gallons of gas to cover the 250 miles. How much gasoline equivalent would need to be consumed to generate the required hydrogen?
This car is awesome - let's hope they can get one ready in a few years for mass consumption !!!
There are no sources of free hydrogen for us to use. Energy MUST be expended to create the hydrogen. What is the source of the energy you would use? Do we have a huge overabundance of renewable clean energy we don't have a current use for? If not, then all you are doing with hydrogen fuel-cell cars is to transfer the burning of fossil fuels from the car to a power plant producing hydrogen.
And since it takes MORE energy (substantially more energy) to PRODUCE the hydrogen (and then compress it or liquify it) than you get out of a fuel cell, the net effect is the consumption of MORE fossil fuels by using it to produce hydrogen than you would use if you just used the fossil fuels directly in a hybrid powertrain.
So how are hydrogen powered vehicle a step forwards?
That's extremely important benefit #1.
I'll get the rest and get back to you............
First, hydrogen is right now MOSTLY derived from fossil fuels. But it does not HAVE to be that way.
The energy needed to convert stored energy into hydrogen for use in vehicles CAN BE created by clean energy sources like solar and wind generation. But that infrastructure is FAR behind in the capacity we would need to power a fleet of nationwide hydrogen vehicles.
Right now, most production IS done with fossil fuels, and is planned for such production in the immediate future.
That's NOT good.....but hopefully in the time it takes the car manufacturers to bring down the costs of the fuel cell system itself, the clean conversion infrastructure will improve.....can we hope for that anyway?
From this website:
http://www.eupolitix.com/EN/News/200510/dea57cfd-7838-4c7f-8f1a-a578abc27194.htm
All that's needed for the creation of hydrogen is electricity. At issue is the source of the electricity.
We can talk all we want about seriously upgrading the infrastructure to produce abundant amounts of clean electricity from renewable resources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, etc.). But the fact remains that despite the use of more and more alternative energy sources, this use doesn't even keep up with CURRENT increases in demand.
Therefore, if a large-scale conversion was made from current technology (be it diesel or hybrids) to hydrogen powered fuel-cells, the question remains, where do you get the additional electrical power to generate the hydrogen? The only RATIONAL answer I see is either additional nuclear plants or additional fossil-fuel power plants.
I keep hearing talk about the 'zero' emissions of fuel-cells. I KNOW that the emmissions at the tailpipe are zero for fuel-cell technology. But one has to consider the total emissions in the entire process to know if hydrogen-based technology offers any real improvement.
Look at it this way - with a gasoline hybrid, this is one stage of efficiency loss in the conversion of fossil fuel into forward motion.
But with a hydrogen fuel cell, there is some efficiency loss in burning fossil fuel to generate electricity, there is a second stage of energy loss in using the electricity to produce the hydrogen (and compress/liquify it for actual use), and there is a third stage of efficiency loss in the conversion of the hydrogen in a fuel cell into forward motion.
So unless someone can convince me that the hydrogen fuel-cell route ultimately consumes less fossil fuel (and produces less emmissions) despite at least 3 stages of efficiency loss, than just simply burning the fuel directly in a hybrid powertrain, I think that hydrogen fuel-cell technology is a step backwards in reducing the emissions from or consumption of fossil fuels.
The ONLY way that I think fuel-cell technology has a future in the mainstream is with more nuclear plants.
1. Convince US corporations and the government that nuclear reactors are needed and desired in the US. They have hazards and will cost a ton of money to an almost bankrupt US economy. Additionally, with the current outsourcing nonsense, no company will foot the construction bill in the US, they will demand government subsidies. Conclusion: barring rioting and looting in the streets, it ain't gonna happen or if does it will probably be too late.
2. Wait for "someone else" to make a miracle electrolysis catalyst that makes water decompose or wait for "someone else" to develop some type of photovoltaic cell to transfer solar energy directly to water and decompose it. Conclusion: This ain't likely either.
If a hydrogen economy occurs, it will be due to one of two things.
1. A true miracle innovation. Something that has never really occurred in the history of mankind (equivalent to curing cancer).
2. A more likely scenario will be that some corporation(s) suckered the US public into pseudoscience nonsense (ie didn't show simply energy balance calculations that you do in first year chemical engineering courses) and successfully ripped off the US economy while still having a net zero reduction in CO2 emissions.
But I just want to point out that having enough Hydrogen to power a few hundred thousand cars is FAR different than using Hydrogen as the primary fuel in the US Economy.
Having sufficent infrastructure and supply to have Hydrogen cars as a viable low emission alternative fuel vehicle is NOT beyond the realm of possibility - if it were, NO ONE would be working on Hydrogem Fuel Cell cars......:D
I'd be the first to agree that for stationary energy sources it's silly to convert existing energy into hydrogen and then back to energy except in extreme cases.
The same could be said for any created source of fuel. Some of your numbers aren't totally accurate but I'll skip most of that, just to say that electrolysis, which is what you base your energy calculations on isn't the most popular way to produce hydrogen.
If we were creating gasoline from scratch the production cost would be astronomical. Currently we're harvesting millions of years of production. What Hydrogen represents is the conversion of harvesting energy to creating energy in a mobile and storable form.
Currently if you have a solar panel up you store the energy in batteries. To compare Hydrogen to the energy from the panel isn't fair, the fair method is to compare the Hydrogen to the battery because that's what it basically is. For a home or over the grid you can potentially use most of the energy from solar as it's created but you can't get a 100% usage and you definitely can't use that energy in a car effectively.
You can gassify Coal and get cheap energy but coal is a harvested material. Sooner or later that's going to run out. Still, I think your point is valid that in the short run we should be looking to converting coal to fuel for cars and I think we are, just like we're looking at bio-fuels. They're all ways to make fuels to power cars.
The difference between all bio-fuels, including gasoline, coal and methane is that it's foreseeable that someday there will be an environmentally harmless method of producing energy such as wind, solar, fusion or even nuclear that can't be converted to gasoline or anything like it but can be easily converted to Hydrogen through the electrolysis of water. Not efficient for most home use but efficient for use in automobiles.
If that comes about, which I think is a definite possibility, then sticking with converted coal or bio fuels will be less economically valid and much less environmentally valid.
We're looking for a future where energy is created more cleanly and cheaply than it is today and where that energy when it can't be directly created inside a car can be converted to something that will power a car. Gassification of coal definitely doesn't cover that and neither do bio-fuels, Hydrogen does and that's exciting from my perspective because it's the only hope given in existing science for a zero-polluting power source for cars.
That it isn't financially or infra-structurally viable today doesn't mean that it will never be. That's what excites us and makes us want to push for Hydrogen, the possibility that we will be producing zero-emission fuel for automobiles.
There are more untapped clean energy sources than solar cells that we already know exist. Tapping into them should be our priority and even if they're not efficient today and we lose money we have to decide whether the cost difference is worth it. It's not too far out of worth it now and every year it will become less so.
The entire point is to get away from fossel fuel plants, and that includes electricity to power those electric vehicles, or plug-in hybrids, or just the fossel fuel we put into an ICE.
I don't see that one fossel fuel burn is better than another. The search for hydrogen conversion is in some respects the search for a clean source of energy (to produce the hydrogen).
Don't forget solar power, wave power, hydro electric power...
Agree with this. My only problem is with the timing; we seem to be hell bent on developing the hydrogen fuel-cell technology first........and then tapping into those alternate clean energy sources to the point where we have an overabundance of clean/cheap (renewable?) energy. We end up with a public clamoring for fuel cell cars with the idea that they are producing 'zero' emissions....but we don't yet have the background infrastructure in place to generate large amounts of clean/cheap energy that make the whole scenario viable. So what happens? We build more 'conventional' power plants to produce the hydrogen to meet the new demand. Cart before the horse IMO.
I think if you look into this hydrogen research you will find government subsidies are the major source of revenue. So far the only cars on the road are the Honda fuel cell cars in So CA & Nevada. Has there been an update on how they are working? What I read they are powered by converting Natural Gas to Hydrogen. That is the simple way to get hydrogen for fuel cells. With Natural Gas prices doubling where does that leave those driving Honda's experimental cars? Also those Honda's are still close to a million dollars to build. That is a long way from the $25k it will need to be for anyone to buy a Civic fuel cell car.
I agree that zero emission is nice as long as it is zero emission from manufacturing to recycling. I'm sure that is not the case. Spewing toxic chemicals into the air and rivers of China so we can drive a zero emission car in So Ca. is not an environmentally sound option.
All prototype cars have a high cost. You can't have a mold built for a side panel for one car and have it be cheap, you can't buy a specially developed electric motor from a vendor at production cost.
The cost to produce is one of the hurdles they've got to overcome but exaggerating in either direction is bad. It doesn't cost a million for a fuel cell, you can look them up and see but the costs for the ones that go into a car if they were made in production wouldn't be over $10,000, they're saying it's like triple or so over a conventional engine. The tanks to store hydrogen are way way more expensive than typical gas tanks but not astronomical.
The rest of the whole car is just electronic car parts with no experimental to them. They cost a ton of money to build in a one off car but almost nothing in production.
I'm not saying it's a sure thing and there are no obstacles by any means. There are a lot and any one might be enough to shut this down but so far I haven't seen any sign that there are obstacles we can't overcome. Just the opposite in fact, we're seeing some great improvements that will lower the cost of fuel cells and on board storage.
Production of Hydrogen is what I consider to be the biggest challenge. We need to find a way to produce and deliver hydrogen that won't just shift the burden from gasoline to some other depletable fuel source.
Even if we did shift it though and it all was roughly equal we'd be better off. If we are spewing chemicals and the net result is exactly the same and we're spending somewhere even close to the same in cash for the same convenience then we eliminate the need to deal with Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
That may be. If they can sell a Civic size fuel cell for $25k it may go. It just may not go very far. It will have the same limitations as the CNG & Electric vehicles. I believe I read that the one running around So CA has a 180 mile range. The limiting factor is still the tank. Add to that the recent up swing in the cost of Natural Gas. The only possible solution is Nuclear Power to produce hydrogen. I think I read how many times our current capacity we would have to have for hydrogen production. Solar cells in their present form are a negative. Takes more energy to produce than the electricity it provides over the life cycle of the solar cell. Wind is limited to a very few areas. Many of the likely spots suffer from a bad case of NIMBY. I like geo-thermal. Many of the likely areas for geo-thermal are taboo for environmental or superstitious reasons. I think hydrogen is a black hole we are throwing money into. All the proponents see are $$$$ or zero emissions. Not a lot of practical logic or common sense involved. The person that figures out how to extract hydrogen from water with little energy expended will be the hero. Are we any closer today than 50 years ago?
The debate will continue as to how we will provide the energy to produce the hydrogen. And who knows if we are any closer than 50 years ago?
What matters is that the R&D is there right now, and the attention is focuse on the problem in a way which it has NEVER been before. America and the world together are working on this issue, and with that many great minds, either it will be figured out or it wont, but the odds are that it WILL be solved.
In the meantime, we have the Hybrids to carry us along, thank gosh !!!
The cost of the Car itself is a fixed cost, you pay for it once. That's an entirely separate issue than the cost of fuel and it's not at all fair to project that the cost of the car will go up because the cost of Natural Gas (NG) goes up. It's two issues that are separate totally and while we have to fix them both they're not linked to eachother directly.
If the car costs 35k then that's what it costs. Right now NG is high so the cost of fuel will go up but it's still reasonable compared to gasoline. The cost of a 100 miles worth of fuel by all accounts is roughly the same for Natural Gas versus Gasoline even with the increase, at least the difference is in percentage points and not multiples.
Even so I agree we have to compare them with the dollar amount in mind as well as environmentally. The cost basis that we have now for comparing gasoline usage in cars to Hydrogen usage in cars is basically the cost of taking power from the outlet in your house and converting it through electrolysis into Hydrogen for use in your car.
It's hard to track down the cost of that because you always get bogged down in the efficiency numbers, but it's roughly about $6/gallon equivalent, depending on who you ask. Efficiency of energy doesn't matter at all because we're talking about the cost of fuel for a mobile application and not a stationary one.
Even at $6 it's not a huge stretch to think that we'll get to the cost of a gallon of gasoline to reach $6 because we're not making any more. In the forseeable future the cost of Hydrogen through production is easily within the range of the cost of gasoline.
I think that bio-fuel and the like compared to both has a bright future, and coal gassification too. I think just ignoring the whole situation and saying that Hydrogen will never work when there are so many promising technologies that could lead to a cleaner and cheaper future through Hydrogen would be much more foolish than exploring those possibilities.
The federal budget towards researching Hydrogen production is almost nothing. There's a bunch toward fuel cells and a smaller amount for hydrogen storage but the amount dedicated toward Hydrogen production wouldn't encourage anyone into the business.
Good point. Classic case of getting the cart before the horse. Without the cheap hydrogen the rest are just lab experiments.
I thought most of the hydrogen in use for cars was produced by natural gas. I know the fuel cell generators used in remote Alaska are tied into the gas lines.
I understand why they're focusing on the Cells and storage because they're more immediately a problem. I mean, you could start selling cars now if you had fuel cells and storage that were economically feasible and use the Natural Gas conversion to get the fuel for a while. I agree that it's short sighted to base the hydrogen future on Natural Gas supplies.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/02/Autos/fuelcellcar/
Now, when somebody asks me to describe a 'puff-piece', I'll have a ready example.
No discussion WHATSOEVER about vehicle mileage or range. No discussion WHATSOEVER about the source of the hydrogen.
The only thing I learned from that article is that Honda convinced the hydrogen supplier to construct a new refueling station close to the FCX family (which hasn't opened yet due to concerns from the local Fire Dept.), and that the FCX family must refuel at Honda's NA headquarters (which is conveniently closeby).
Hmmmm, actually I learned something else. If Honda went through the trouble of having the supplier build a refueling station just for the host family, even though Honda's own refueling station was nearby, it would seem that real-world RANGE is a real concern. Particularly when the host driver says "I go to the market in it, I take the girls to school in it, I take them to soccer, just little one-mile jaunts here and there."
That's nice that Honda's guinea pig is good for little one-mile jaunts.
Rome was not (nor the first automobile of any evolutionary advance) built in a day.
But here are some Honda FCX specs for you:
Complete Car Maximum Speed 93 mph (150km/h)
Vehicle (curb) Weight 3,713lbs (1684kg)
Driving Range 220 miles (355km)
Seating Capacity 4 adults
Motor Maximum Power Output 80hp (60kW)
Maximum Drive Torque 201lb-ft (272Nm)
Motor Type AC synchronous
Fuel Cell Stack Stack Type PEFC (Polymer Electrolyte Fuel cell - Ballard)
Power Output 78kW
Power Storage Honda Ultra Capacitor
Fuel Fuel Type Compressed hydrogen gas
Storage Method High-pressure hydrogen storage tanks
Hydrogen capacity 3.75 kg @ 5000 psi
3.75 kg hydrogen capacity? I've been under the impression than 1 kg of hydrogen has roughly the energy equivalence of 1 gallon of gasoline. If this is true, and IF the vehicle range is 220 miles, that would be the equivalence of roughly 60mpg. Pretty decent, especially given the vehicle's weight but I'm curious about REAL-WORLD numbers (the whole point behind getting the FCX into the hands of an end-user).
Now, for some 'hard numbers' related to hydrogen production from electrolysis (rather than the conversion of fossil fuels in the form NG to hydrogen).....
http://www.stardrivedevice.com/electrolysis.html
Next I want to look at some of their numbers and point out inconsistencies. One that jumps right out is the energy potential of Gasoline compared to Hydrogen. Gasoline definitely does have more energy stored within each molecule but they ignore the fact that Hydrogen is lighter than Gasoline and that it more efficiently transfers energy from tank to wheels.
There’s a lot of wasted energy in a combustion engines. You’ll notice that they never compare the efficiency of the energy produced and transferred to the wheels of a car with a combustion engine compared to the energy of Hydrogen to the wheels of a car with a fuel cell. That’s because the numbers jump much closer to an even match and they don’t want that.
Whether or not Electrolyzing water helps the environment doesn’t even enter into the calculation of cost comparison, but that’s all they mention, because they don’t want to look at the possiblities because it would support Hydrogen. I’ll be glad to stick to pure cost in this discussion because I think it’s close enough to warrant a closer look at Hydrogen as a fuel for cars.
In their calculations they take the worst case efficiency without heat reclamation and worst case heating to come up with their formula. Even so their cost to electrolyze an amount of Hydrogen equal in energy to a gallon of Gasoline is $4.45. This is worst case, right from our home electricity, out of the plug. That’s without Solar panels, and no propeller blades chopping up migrating birds.
This is the worst case scenario in every possible way they could set it up and still it’s not so bad that I can’t look at it and see the price of gasoline and Hydrogen coming closer and closer together. They’re pretty quick to include the inefficiency of Fuel Cells but they fail to mention any inefficiency of gasoline combustion engine. Even at worst case, with worst method of hydrogen production it seems worth looking into.
They try to make it look worse than that showing extraneous calculations about efficiency but the bottom line is that even by their numbers you can produce an energy equivalent amount of hydrogen to a gallon of gas for $4.45.
That’s completely ignoring the whole environment issue and just looking at straight cost. If you factor in the possibility that alternate stationary fuel sources might become more efficient the straight cost might well favor Hydrogen even without considering the environment.
A nearby official Honda fueling station could be 20 miles away. It's not necessarily uncalled for to want a closer fuel station without considering range. I wouldn't want to go 20 minutes and just coming back home would be 10 percent of the fuel.
Range will go up almost certainly in Fuel Cell cars, this is still an experimental car. I see nothing but hope in anything I've seen although I still have some skepticism about the durability of Fuel Cells.