Car Tech: What do you think of hydrogen fuel cell cars?
- 4/12/07 2:04 PM
It's about time we get our heads of the [Arabian] sand
by benoddo - 4/16/07 10:24 AM In reply to: What do you think of hydrogen fuel cell cars? by wcunning
I'm all for hydrogen as a fuel. It lifts the space shuttle to orbit so there is great potential for it as a terrestrial fuel as well. Although I am not a fan of a hydrogen fuel cells in cars. I'd prefer BMW's approach of refitting an internal combustion engine to burn hydrogen instead of gasoline. The reason is safety.
No matter which fuel is used in a hybrid vehicle the hazards are great in the event of a crash. Not so much which fuel is safer, but how do rescue personnel extract you from an electrically powered car with hundreds of amps coursing through the vehicle. I've read where firefighters were reluctant to use the jaws of life to extract a crash victim from their mangled hybrid in fear of accidentally cutting through our a high amperage power cable. Now couple that with the possibility of leaking hydrogen gas. Creating a spark could be disastrous.
Also I am a fan of the good old manual transmission. My control of the vehicle extends beyond my right foot and steering wheel. It has made me a better driver, a more attentive driver, and less likely to be bored or drowsy behind the wheel. Hybrids, or electrically powered cars don't offer that level of control.
The myth of Hydrogen
by Bill F. - 4/16/07 10:45 AM In reply to: It's about time we get our heads of the [Arabian] sand by benoddoDid you know that General Motors once had a working fuel cell that worked on gasoline? Apparently there were some technical challenges with the impurities in gasoline but they had them worked out. The webpages that discussed this have since disappeared.
Do you want to know why we don't have a gasoline powered fuel cell automobile, which, based on fuel cell efficiencies would essentially double fuel mileage (none of that nasty waste heat from the combustion engine)? Because the California Air Quality Board said No. Because it didn't eliminate CO2 which they consider to be a pollutant.
Ask yourself. Where would we be right now if GM was hitting the marketplace with a Gasoline Fuel cell car. No excess weight from hauling all those batteries. No new fuel delivery infrastructure. No dependence on foriegn oil because frankly, this sort of fuel could be generated domestically. No need for new electricity.
How the state of California gets to dictate science makes me crazy. Electricity is generated from fossil fuels. Therefore electric cars are run on fossil fuels. Hydrogen is made by reforming Natural Gas (which is a fossil fuel, and also hard to come by) therefore hydrogen cars are fossil fuel cars.
So use less gasoline or .. well don't use less.
Great choice there. Ultimately it would be nice but until solar cells can convert sunlight to electricity at the rates only seen in science fiction, and we can store it for days at a time, solar is a joke when it comes to solving this problem. The same with wind. If you want electric cars I suggest you start building Nuclear reactors.
And there are some interesting designs out there for those. Safe and cheap to build and run. Its time to drag ourselves back into the 21st century and take the lead on this. Hydrogen, solar and wind are last centuries ideas. I would spend money on lots of different technologies, particularly those aimed at increasing the efficiencies of solar cells, electric motors, and LED's. The name of the game is using electricity without making waste heat.
Bill F.
BMW Hydrogen 7 follies
by albizzia - 4/21/07 12:25 AM In reply to: It's about time we get our heads of the [Arabian] sand by benoddoThe Hydrogen 7 has a 30 gallon liquid H2 tank as well as a 16.7 gallon gasoline tank - and no trunk space left to speak of.
The Hydrogen 7 travels a mere 120 miles on 1 tank of liquid H2, so likely will be running on cheaper gasoline most of the time.
Fuel cells are expensive, but they are also twice as efficient as IC engines - a serious consideration for a bulky expensive fuel like H2.
Hydrogen is not flammable
by socalguy81 - 4/16/07 12:33 PM In reply to: What do you think of hydrogen fuel cell cars? by wcunning
One major misunderstanding that people have when comparing gasoline to hydrogen is that it is believed they are both "flammable". This is simply not the case. Gasoline is flammable. Hydrogen is EXPLOSIVE. Whereas a stable liquid, like gasoline, can be safely stored in a thin-walled metal or plastic fuel tank, the fear of an explosion requires hydrogen to be stored in thick, heavy containers, such as was mentioned in the article (kevlar). Furthermore, gasoline is a nice dense liquid at ambient temperatures, providing lots of energy per unit volume, while hydrogen is a gas at ambient conditions, with very little energy per unit volume necessitating that it is compressed, again increasing the risk of explosion if the tank fails. And to get hydrogen to a liquid state requires cooling it to extremely low temperatures (-423F) adding cost, energy input, and other potential issues.
I am not advocating we stick with gasoline, but there are many other alternatives to hydrogen out there with far lesser issues to resolve. For instance, batteries already exist that would allow electric vehicles to travel over 300 miles (Li-ion), and they are far less expensive than the millions of dollars that go into making a fuel cell car.
Re: Hydrogen fuel cars...
by rusty268 - 4/17/07 7:48 AM In reply to: What do you think of hydrogen fuel cell cars? by wcunning
I've read all the posts on this topic so far and I would say that everyone has a good come back to why hydrogen will work or won't work... BUT... I think everyone is missing the big picture! Between the government and the big oil companies they are making BILLIONS of dollars per year. I'm sure in one way or another they will manage to keep gasoline run vehicles on the road for YEARS yet to come!!
True but...
by Andy77e - 6/11/07 5:38 PM In reply to: Re: Hydrogen fuel cars... by rusty268You are missing the fact that "they" do not have to do anything to keep gasoline cars on the road.
The whole entire point of this thread from start to finish is... gasonline IS the BEST fuel to use in a car! That's the point! That's why we made cars to run on petrol, it's the best choice!
That's why there are people looking for alternitives, because the other options we have suck. Ethanol is way too expensive and has less energy. Biodiesel is promising but still requires a long of money to make, and requires us to divert food stock to fuel production. Hydrogen is way too difficult to store, too hard to make, and requires way more energy in production than it returns when you use it. Electricity has limited range and requires large heavy battery packs.
So they don't have to "manage" to keep using oil, it's the best default choice.
Where do people come up with this stuff?
by Andy77e - 7/3/07 2:37 PM In reply to: Re: Hydrogen fuel cars... by rusty268Anyone can bring a product to market. Anyone can. You could. I could. We are in a global economy now. A foreign company could bring any product to market.
Now let's say that someone chooses to make an electric car, and sell it. What exactly do you think "big oil" could do about it? Nothing.
Now government? Yes. American idiots have elected officials that do not respect private property, do not respect the laws of the land, commit felonies while in office, have "no controlling legal authority" and pretty much do whatever they want even if it's to drive off the end of a bridge with an under-age intern who dies in the process, and nothing happens to them. So yeah, government can shut anyone down in OUR country, and that's OUR fault. The Tucker was not shut down by Big Three, it was shut down by a liberal mayor of the city that confiscated the warehouse the Tucker was made in, and made it into a homeless shelter.
But there are and have been companies that have and do, build electric cars. If there is a market for it, they will sell it. But the truth is, the market hasn't been there. Perhaps it is not, but in the past it has not, and they have closed up shop and left town. There is one company that as we speak intends to open up shops in the US for electric cars. We'll see what happens when they do. There was a company here in Ohio that shut it's doors for no other reason than their 2 seater electric car with a 60 miles max range, simply didn't sell.
lol, I responded to the same post twice
by Andy77e - 7/3/07 2:39 PM In reply to: Where do people come up with this stuff? by Andy77eand responded with different reasons why it's wrong. It least i didn't contradict myself... I hope lol
Electricity to create hydrogen is expensive
by dtoub - 4/18/07 4:47 PM In reply to: What do you think of hydrogen fuel cell cars? by wcunning
You glossed over the cost of producing hydrogen by implying that solar and hydropower sources of electricity are free. They are not. Solar power is currently very expensive. Hydropower is cheap once dams are build, but dam construction is expensive and has its share of environmental issues. Of course there is also wind power and nuclear power generation but these carry baggage as well. Then there are any number of alternative schemes like wave power (big floats harnessing the power of waves and/or tides, or massive deployent of co-generation capability perhaps turning hydrogen generation into a cottage industry. We can always stick electrodes in citrus friuts or capture static electricity from van de Fraf generators or perhaps even rub the family cat with a resin rod.
Bottom line, I don't think the cost of hydrogen is the non-issue you make it out to be.
Although our lifestyles and geographic dispersion don't lend themselves to it now, public transportation will play a big part in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. We will ultimately begin clustering populations by building up rather than out to increase the convenience of public transportation.
Hydrogen fuel cell: Not a Solution
by arshnar63 - 4/18/07 5:09 PM In reply to: What do you think of hydrogen fuel cell cars? by wcunning
Despite geothermal, hydroelectric, and clean nuclear, the bottom line is that electrical generating plants are, by and large, still dirty and polluting. The amount of electricity in, is, as pointed out, greater than the yield from the fuel cell. Unless you drive only short hops, the current technology (no pun intended) does not permit the range needed. Here in greater Phoenix, the trend is to buy a house in the suburbs, and commute 40 to 50 miles to work! No, to hydro fuel cell, but YES: electric cars are a practical alternative, and everyone has missed the boat on the recharging issue. You do not recharge the darn thing on the road, you pull into a "Station" where ,for a fee, your battery pack is pulled out, and replaced with a fully charged one. The "Station" is a bay of charging battery packs (three uniform configurations for small, med. and large cars) It is the same as getting your bottled water...you don't wait for the driver to full your 5 gal bottle, you EXCHANGE them! The Station makes money on a fee that generates a profit after cost (electrical fees) This would require the automakers to standardize a roll-in, roll-out battery tray, but it would WORK! Remember the only free lunch is SOLAR POWER, which, while we have been told is impractical for some thirty years,
Israel has utilized for a vast array of needs. In fact, they have bought up a lot of the "useless" Solar Energy Patents. That is because
they are smart enough to recognize that SOLAR can WORK!
-Arshnar-
'
Not a Bad Idea at all...
by reformerz - 4/20/07 2:39 AM In reply to: Hydrogen fuel cell: Not a Solution by arshnar63In Norway, the battery in the electric 'THINK' Car is leased by the owner of the car. When it grows weary after 10 years, it can be replaced. That's just as cheap or cheaper than replacing an engine or buying a new car. Here's a reference:
http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/2007/02/new_think_buy_t.html#more
Neat theory
by Andy77e - 6/11/07 8:21 PM In reply to: Hydrogen fuel cell: Not a Solution by arshnar63Is there a system as such that has been tested? One question I have is, how do they make sure that the battery pack you get is at 90%+ of max charge? That is... how do I know that the battery I'm getting isn't worn out and no longer get me my rated range?
Before you answer, let me clairify. Like a PDA battery that has been used for a long time, that battery will no longer get the rated 10 hours of service, but the charger will not know the difference.
So let us say that my electric car is rated at 100 miles a charge. If I go to the station and swap out my battery one day, the battery I get back, might be worn out. I might only get 60 miles out of it, and there's no way of knowing that at station. I do not know of a way to test for that, and the station would only know that the charger said it was charged up. I can see that as being a drawback.
Other than that, by all means. If there's a market for this electric car, then feel free to sell them. I have no interest, but if others do, go for it.
Your last comment was rather dippy. You clearly are not smart enough to realize that the situation in Israel is way different than here. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE knows solar can work. How many haven't used or seen a solar powered calculator? No one thinks solar can not work.
Knowing something isn't pratical is way differnet than knowing it can work. First, Israel uses 6.5 GigaWatts... that's for the whole fr**kin country. The US consumes 425 GW of power. Point being, solar energy has a very real ability of making a difference in Israel, whereas it's not every a fraction of a drop in the bucket to the US.
Further, Israel has very little if any natural resources of it's own. The cost of power and all forms of energy is high because they have to import everything. This makes solar energy more practical, because the conventional forms of power are expensive. Just ask people in California who purchased solar panels. If it wasn't for the State subsidizing (aka taxing money from the poor to pay for solar panels for the middle and upper class) they would have never bought them.
Finely maybe you haven't been to Israel, but it's a bit sunny there. Just a tad bright and hot ya know? Sorta like being in a desert. Yes I'm being humorous. It's a hot dry sunny place. When you have that much sun, you can make a pretty goodly amount of power from a solar array. But most of us in the US have days we can define as "cloudy" and that doesn't work well when your power is dependent on "sunny".
My point here is, Solar energy is in fact impratical for much of the US. I do not have 1 sq/mile of desert around my house with sun shine 355 days a year to power my home. Israelis do. Now in the situations that solar power makes sense in the US, we are using it.
But for me, I'm not retro-fitting my home with solar panels. The cheapest panel makes about 926 Watts an hour. The sun would hit it roughly 5 hours a day summer time, and 3 in the winter, averaged to about 4 hours a day yearly. That's 3.7 KWh a day. Then about half of those days are rainy or cloudy in Ohio. We almost never have a sunny winter day, and spring is the rainy season, so mid summer and fall are about it. That's 673 KWh a year, and I'm being generous.
At 9.6 Cents, the standard rate here, that's $65 dollars saved a year.
And the cost of the system? $9,000. That NINE THOUSAND. If I install it today, 139 years from now, it'll pay for itself. I'd be a complete idiot to do that. Even if I assume it's sunny year round, it still would only save about $130 a year, meaning it would take 70 years to pay off. People only live 70 years on average. Now if that doesn't define what "impractical" means, I don't know what does. But if you want a solar panel, there are places that sell them, by all means blow your money. I don't have 9 grand laying around to buy a system that I'll be dead before it pays for itself.
Now if I was in Israel, and electricity costs a ton more (which it does) and if I had 355 sunny days a year (which they do), then yeah a solar pannel makes good sense.
Why not a super-hybrid
by ubanuba - 4/18/07 6:39 PM In reply to: What do you think of hydrogen fuel cell cars? by wcunning
Couldn't we have a hybrid of sorts using many of the types of tecnologies written about in this thread, minus gas and probably nuclear?
Hydrogen?
by jaynad - 4/18/07 7:16 PM In reply to: What do you think of hydrogen fuel cell cars? by wcunning
If H2 was as available as Propane say, propane would still be better. H2 is too difficult to generate, collect, compress, and store. And H2 has crappy available energy to volume or mass ratio. A 20lb tank of propane has more energy than 100 lbs of H2. Except that the H2 costs more to create/collect, compress, store, transfer/distribute, and use. Appropriate for spacecraft - inappropriate for cars.
Face it - almost impossible to beat a gallon of gasoline from ANY standpoint. Easy to get, easy to transport, and huge energy per volume and mass.
Hydrogen or propane?
by MarkLatarnik - 4/20/07 10:01 PM In reply to: Hydrogen? by jaynadPropane comes from oil fields. Hydrogen from water.
Propane is heavier than air and ligers on the floor of underground garages. Some parking garages do not even allow propane powered vehicles to be parked there.
Hydrogen is much lighter and goes straight into stratosphere.
One tankful of biofuel is produced from corn or wheat, which could feed a man for a year!
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