Car Tech forum: What do you think of hydrogen fuel cell cars?

The mileage on a tank is currently very short. In fact with most electric cars beating out the range of the hydrogen car on one tank you wonder why not all EV?

EV means no new infrastructure or new fueling stations. But hydrogen and car fueling is REQUIRED to keep the flow of taxes going to "gov" as well as the other usual companies in business.

Watch "Who killed the electric car?" for more clues.

Bob

While I agree with you that gasoline needs to be replaced AND that hydrogen will be the answer some day, I believe you need to mention that "some day" is still very far off in the future. It's like how today we're being told by the car companies that hydrogen is about 15 years away... but we've been told that by them 10 years ago.
One thing you didn't mention - infrastructure. Just that one point will require at least 15 years. Another drawback to hydrogen is efficiency. You briefly glossed over this in your "Hydrogen Production" bullet. But if memory serves me correct, the overall "well" to wheel efficiency is even less efficient than a internal combustion engine. Currently, the majority of hydrogen is created by converting natural gas and that is creating even more green-house gasses than gasoline. Yes, someday we will be able to create hydrogen from sunlight and water directly and so efficiency won't affect the amount of green-house gasses. But that is still a long time off (after the 15 years of infrastructure setup).
As I've said, I'm all for replacing gasoline combustion engines. But the answer is not YET hydrogen. Hybrids like the Prius are already a good first step. The next one should be plug-in hybrids like the upcoming Chevy Volt (a series hybrid - meaning the wheels are only driven by electric motors). It uses battery energy for the first 40 miles driven (after a night's charge via the plug). Afterwards, the battery is charged with an on-board generator while being driven. With a car like that, 95% of driving (most people's daily commutes) will not be using any gasoline. It also doesn't suffer from the range issues of current pure electric cars. Plus, it's much much more efficient than hydrogen (meaning less cost for the energy). Finally, plug-in hybrids will be available at a VERY comparable price to current cars in the next couple of years. Heck, you can even get one today if you want (buy a Prius and get Calcars to convert it to a plug-in for you for $10k extra).
The hydrogen revoultion might not ever happen. Even if it does, it'll be a long time in the future. Most environmentalists and electric car enthusiasts refer to the possible Hydrogen future as the "Hydrogen Hype". It's like parents (car and oil companies)promising their 3-year old (us) he'll get a bike in 15 years. But by the time he's 18, he'll be able to drive a car.

Hello, I missed that there was a forum connected to this column. I'll reprint an email exchange I had this morning with the author.


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Mr. Cunningham,

You might look at MIT's magazine: http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18301/ Clearly one article is only one view. However, MIT's Technology Review has a whole section on hyrdogen, and virtually all of it is negative. Contrast the views of true scientists and technologists with those of the PR/wishful thinking crowd.

Saying that researchers are looking into different ways to make hydrogen is like saying researchers are looking into a perpetual motion machine. Hydrogen does not occur naturally. It has to be manufacured. The immutable laws of thermodynamics result in the process consuming more energy than it produces. Today, tomorrow, forever. End of story. If scientists manage to make hydrogen by using some sort of molecule-cracking device that changes that, then we won't be using hydrogen. Cold fusion will then be a reality and we will have more power than we will ever need.

I'll repeat: Hydrogen is a battery, nothing more. Where is the energy coming from?






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From: Wayne Cunningham [mailto:Wayne.Cunningham@cnet.com]
Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 10:52 AM
To:
Subject: RE: Driving It: Why hydrogen will fuel future cars

I invite you to make your arguments in our forum:
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-7811_102-0.html?forumID=78&threadID=242811&messageID=2457992

And I stand by my statements in the column that 1) researchers are looking into different ways to make hydrogen, and 2) hydrogen fuel cells have been shown to give cars more range than current battery technology.

Thanks for reading CNET Car Tech,
Wayne

________________________________________
Wayne Cunningham
Senior Editor
CNET Car Tech
http://cars.cnet.com




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Mr. Cunningham,

Your article is spot on in one respect: "Critics point out that it takes more electricity to create the hydrogen then it will generate in a fuel cell." This is why hydrogen is not an energy source. The energy still has to come from somewhere. Where?

There has been much written about hydrogen as an "energy source" recently. Virtually none of the articles give any consideration to this fundamental question. Take a look at Wired Magazine's breathless cover story on hydrogen last year. Pages written on the wonders of hydrogen, but like your article not a word on the source of the energy.

Hydrogen does not exist in nature. It must be manufactured. It is the equivalent of a battery, merely a means to store energy temporarily. The only reason to consider it would be if creating, transporting and pumping hydrogen would be more efficient than the alternative means of temporarily storing energy, such as batteries. Is it? Your column says nothing.

Hydrogen cars are the current darling-child of those who don't think very deeply, such as automakers PR departments and politicians. There are few serious scientists who think hydrogen is the answer, except those on the payroll of the above.

You can do better than this.

There is lots of methane hydrate lying around at the bottom of many seas. Professor Rice (see Journal of Energy Resources Technology Dec 2003 and a further paper elsewhere) has shown that this can yield hydrogen and sequestered carbon dioxide returned to the bottom of the sea. Why a fuel cell is needed instead of using it like a conventional gas engine I do not know.

The last report I read was the tank runs dry in about a week.

Storage appears to be an issue in some tanks.

Bob

First the energy cost to make hydrogen isn't negated by solar power. That's a clean power source but it still has a cost that has to be factored into the bigger picture.

CFCs. The key probelm with those was that they were stable. They did not react with air and dust etc. at the lower levels of the atmosphere. When they got high enough to interact with Ozone UV light broke the molecule apart relasing the chlorine. That free Chlorine then becomes a problem. If Hydrogen did react at lower levels like CFC's dont'. It's not so much a problem.

Lastly, I like the concept of a closed system. Water to Hydrogen/Oxygen, to Water all in the car. Plug it in and let the system cycle. Stick a solar panel on the roof of a car if you don't need to travel much and you would never even need to plug the car in at all. If it ever leaks...fix the leak pour in water and you are back in business.

I think the real future will be a mix of things. We will probably always have frenchfry grease to recycle. We will always have electricity to plug in a car. Fuel cells are viable. Then the real issue becomes the right car for the job. Commuting may be one kind of car. Long back country trips another. The Work Truck another still and so on.

All you need are ions, any Ion would do (including H+ and OH-) ...Salt is merely one source. However a lot of good points.

Tell that to anyone thinking of using an appliance while Bathing...

"AMTR"

This is a commonly screwed up fact but America does not rely on Arab oil as much as we are lead to believe by our great leaders such Dick and George. We only get about 15% of our oil from the Middle East. Our largest source of foreign oil is Canada, our second largest, Mexico and our third largest is Venezuela. And we're also pretty good at producing it ourselves. So when you say "free from Arab oil," it sounds as if it had a rope around our neck and it was just cut. That's just not the case.

It will not free us from Arab oil.
Hydrogen will not jump start a new industry, it will just be another product for energy/oil companies to sell.
It will require less power to run an electric car from nuclear power, than to make hydrogen with the power and run the car on hydrogen. Why bother? Just drive an electric car then. Save you some money and use less power.

Electric has some huge issue. I would never buy one with a max distance of 80 to, if I'm lucky, 100 miles. Forget that. My statement wasn't that I thought Electric is the way to go, I just pointed out that it would be vastly better than Hydrogen. Why make hydrogen with electricity, when you could just as easy use the electricity to start with.

Big oil has nothing to do with it. Even with tons of money, if I make a 100 mpg engine and choose to make cars with it, they can't do jack. Government can though. And politicians have invested interest in keeping oil a problem. They can't set themselves up as the solution to a problem, unless there's a problem to be a solution to. How would congress pass millions of tax payer money out to hydrogen political supporters, if imported oil isn't a problem? Government is the ultimate evil, yet most see it as the solution which is what they want. So they pass laws that prevent oil exploration and prevents drilling where we know oil is, so that there is an oil import problem and they say "vote for me, I'll fix this!" Even though they caused it.

Ted Turner is not going to help you. Ted Turner paid off dozens of Democrats (and I'd bet some Republicans too) in order to get them to re-enact subsidies. One of the biggest of these government hand outs of our tax money, is the Ethanol subsidizing. Ted rakes in millions every year to grow corn for Ethanol. Oil is needed to make Ethanol. He's not going to shoot his own foot off by supporting something that would kills his government hand outs, and tick off his partners in the auto industry.

I had hoped you were joking, but you never know on this forum. I don't know that we're being screwed really. But clearly in every situation, companies take advantage of governmental stupidity.

Oil dropping $7 dollars a barrel doesn't mean much. You have to realize that the price curves, take a while to reach the consumer. If the price drops $10 right now, it takes how long for a boat full of oil to get here? It takes how long to transport it across the country? It takes how long for it to be refined into gas? It takes how long for the truck to fill up at the refinery and distribute it to all the gas stations?

In other words, do not ever expect gas prices to fall the next day after the price on a barrel drops a little today. It could take 2 weeks to a month before you see it. Also remember that little station you buy gas from, most of them are all independent from the company.

Lot of people don't know this, but the store manager at the store you buy from has more say over the price than the company does. I worked at one, and pretty much, the manager walked in and said raise the price or lower the price depending on how much the other stores were charging. Marathon never called us up and told us how much to charge, it was literally the managers progative.

So if you see a station in the boonies charging 50 cents more a gallon, it's not BPs fault, it's just the manager knows he's the only station for 10 miles and wants to make some extra cash.

Ok, let's think this through real quick. Why would prices go up fast and drop slowly? Try the switch places method, where you put yourself in the place of a gas station owner.

Three quick illustrations, 2 with prices going up, 1 going down. You own a gas station on a street corner, and there's another station across the street.

First situation, gas prices slowly rise over the last 2 days: What are you going to do? If you raise your price first, you'll lose customers to the station across the street. So you hold out and hope they raise their prices first. They are doing the same thing. Eventually you snap realizing you are going to lose to much money, and jump the price up. The other station does the same after you. So even though it seems like a sudden jump in price, it actually happened over several days.

Second situation, a spike in gas prices. Now you have a 10K gallon tank under your shop. You filled it for $2 a gallon and sold half of it. So you spent $20K and have $10K back. You just heard on the news crude oil jumped in price. You call up you gas broker who informs you the next shipment will cost $2.50/per gallon.

So the next shipment will cost $25K and you only have $10K. Are you going to just raise the price to $2.50 a gallon? Heck no, you only have 5000 gallons left. You'd only get $12,500 from it, plus the $10,000 you already got. Now you only have $22,500 when the next shipment costs $25K... where do you get the extra $2,500 from? Your pocket, you own the station, you get to pick up the short fall. Are you going to do that? Not a chance. Instead you are going to jack the price up as high as you can without losing too many customers, to make up for that short fall.

Third situation, prices of oil have gone down. You are selling for $2.50/per gallon. The station across the street is selling for $2.48/pg. You call up your broker who informs you the next shipment will only be $2.20 per gallon. So what do you do? Drop to $2.20 a gallon? What for? You only need to be cheaper than the station across the street. Then you can still be the cheapest, still get all the customers and extra business, plus make a tidy profit to make up for the money you lost in the first 2 situations.

This is why prices at the pump tend to rise quickly, and drop slowly.

Finely, let us discuss 'price gouging'. It's amazing to me how people who have not even the slightest clue how the free market, and the oil market works, still think that know exactly what's going on.

You own something somewhere that you treasure. Let's say it's a '56 Chevy. You put time, maybe money, effort, into it. Fix it up, make it pretty, not billion dollar makeover, but a decent car again. Let us say one day you choose to sell it. Because you are a capitalist, you put capital (aka: time, money, effort) into that Chevy, you want extra money for it.

I come along, and I want your Chevy. But I don't want to pay extra for it. So I go running to government, cry about how you are charging so much more for your thing, than I want to pay, demand a law against gouging, and force you to sell your Chevy for how much I want you to. Do you have freedom? Not really, even though you thought you owned that Chevy, I forced you do what I wanted with it.

This is American, a land that's supposed to have freedom. Freedom to bring products to market, and charge as much as you want for your product. Remember it's supposed to be yours... you own it. So if it's your product, you own it, you can charge as much as you want for it. This is the founding fathers of our country... life, liberty, and property.

The only time and place where 'gouging' can really occur is when you are in a life and death situation, and the supplier knowing you will die without their product, charges insane prices. Like oil heaters in the middle of a level three blizzard where people don't have heat.

And worse yet, we have cheaper fuel here than most of the world. UK people pay 4 times as much for a single gallon. Almost $14 dollars a gallon. Why people are crying here in America where we have it so good, is beyond me.

Last of all, if you want to blame someone for high gas prices, blame yourself. We allowed our government to mandate fuel formulations ($) mandate expensive Ethanol ($$) and one full dollar per gallon is taxes ($$$) and better still, by preventing oil companies from drilling, from exploring, from building refineries, we have forced them to import oil ($$$$) So with all due respect... stop calling your representative about 'price gouging'... the person doing the gouging is the one in the mirror.

I just want to inform you that HHO can really be used by our cars, actually we can convert our car so that it can run with water, there are hydro kits and manuals sold through the net, with just proper information and knowledge we can build our own DIY version of <a href="http://gaspricerelief.net">hydrogen cars</a>.
you might also wanna check this out..
http://gaspricerelief.net

This is fruit cakeish. It takes X amount of energy, to move Y amount of weight, Z amount of distance. You can't get a car the drives 3 thousand miles, with 5 people and 2 dogs with 4 suit cases full of clothes, on one drop of "whatever". It's not going to happen. There are laws of physics that do not change just because you want it to.

Hybrids only get 100 MPG when you modify them in unhealthy ways and drive like an idiot. Car companies do not support "plug-in mods" because it harms the batteries. You will void your warranty, and at $3000 a battery pack, you better hope luck is on your side.

A battery powered car will never go as far on one charge as a gas car will go on one tank. We can make electric cars, but not enough people want them to mass produce, which means the cost will be high. And no one is going to buy a car for $30,000 that can only carry 2 people with minimal cargo space, and can only go 80 miles before needing a recharge, and if you go on a trip there will not be any place to charge it.

It's amazing how whiny Americans are. Here we used to walk across the country with mules and horses and covered wagons that acted like a greenhouse in the summer sun, and had no heat in the winter. Yet our ancestor made do and moved forward to create the greatest country in the world. Now, in our AC cooled, power windowed, power seats, power locks, heated side mirror cars, we complain and whine because our Honda Civic with the Bose 6 speaker sound system blasting music out our tinted windows, only gets 35 mile per gallon... awwwwwww poor little American... how sad.

Some of you all need to shut up, and grow up.