Riding Along with Hydrogen Powered Test Cars

Terry Olaes

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
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GM and other makers have been testing their next-gen hydrogen-powered vehicles in a very limited fashion at markets that have a hydrogen fueling facility. This article takes a look at the programs and how some of the participants are faring.

Automakers say the tests show the cars can perform like a conventional vehicle, bolstering their argument that a network of fueling stations are needed. There are 61 operational hydrogen fueling stations in the United States, according to the National Hydrogen Association, and nearly half are located in California.
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Hasn't it already been determined that hydrogen is a terrible, inefficient, and expensive fuel source for vehicles?
 
Hydrogen isn't even a fuel source, because elemental hydrogen doesn't exist on this planet. Hydrogen's a manufactured product, and the energy to produce it must come from some other source. Which of course, is mainly fossil fuels. Even the raw materials are fossil fuels since most hydrogen is produced from natural gas. Let's not forget what a nightmare hydrogen transport and storage is, either. Like BMW's fancy hydrogen burning car . . . its high tech fuel tank can keep a snowball frozen for years, but the hydrogen will still leak right through it over a few weeks.

And then there's the ultimate white elephant, fuel cells. No alternative to platinum currently exists, and the world's entire known platinum reserves are sufficient to replace a little over half of the vehicles currently on the road with fuel cell equivalents. Once.

So yeah, fuel cell vehicles are sexy high tech, utterly unscalable beyond the tech demonstrator level, and great for PR and attracting venture capital from investors who don't understand science. Fuel cells are a cost-is-no-object battery equivalent, suitable for a few aerospace and military applications where nothing else will serve. As the basis of a mythical "hydrogen economy", utter bullshit.
 
Heading from the article:

A Glimpse at Oil-Free Driving

Riiiight... 'cause we're now using beef tallow and whale blubber for lubricants, and all the plastic bits on the car are made from recycled soda bottles.

Nuclear power is the only answer that makes long-term sense. With sufficient numbers of nuclear plants in place, generation of hydrogen as a fuel, a la BMW, becomes more feasible. I would guess that it's easier to engineer a solution to the storage longevity issue than a lot of other problems currently facing our society.

Like rls669 said, using fossil fuels to generate the electricity to do any of the other work doesn't solve the problem, it just moves the point of consumption.

With sufficient amounts of (relatively) cheap electricity from nuclear power, obtaining hydrogen from cracking water molecules becomes a viable alternative to sourcing it from methane.
 
I remember seeing all these prototypes at the SAE convention, all I'd like to say is NO THANKS! There are many other alternatives which are better and safer/cleaner alternatives that also does not involve me sitting on massive tanks of hydrogen.
 
I say that hydrocarbon fuels will win in the long run for automobiles. It's the most practically efficient and least damaging to the environment of all energy sources.

No, that's not a bold stupid statement either, it's reality. Take for instance electric cars...the batteries used today have had a disastrous effect on the ecology (look in canada where the prius batteries are made.) Add to that, you have to produce the electric power, converting from some form of mechanical energy to electrical energy, then you have to store it (batteries suck at efficiency), then control it (another efficiency loser) and convert it back to mechanical energy (the biggest efficiency loser). Basically every step in the production, storage and use of electrical energy for propulsion includes it's own 20-80% efficiency loss, to the point the actual output energy that does the work of moving the car is likely 5-10% of all the energy consumed in the process.

As for hydrocarbons...all I have to say is LS9.com and greenfuelonline.com (Both are negative carbon footprint...heck just burning the gas gets you carbon credits). These two aproaches use biological methods to produce fuel (biological processes are the most efficient type of process in existance, by the way.)

The algae method effectively is a very efficient biological solar energy conversion process...it uses biology to convert solar energy into chemical energy to create useable fuels. You can't get more efficient than that.

As for oil drilling, we damn well should plan to start more drilling...it will save our economy even if the actual production takes 10 years. This is mostly because the mere thought ot the US producing it's own oil causes the mid east to reduce the price per barrel so we keep buying from them.

We should also make more nuclear power plants. It's the electricity used in buildings/housing/infrastructure that consumes 60% or more of the oil we import. We can replace that with nuclear plant produced electrical energy.

PS: I did not throughly proof read this...if there are mistakes, don't waste your time to mention it, for some reason my ability to edit my posts does not exist here.
 
The Honda FCX is an example of a viable hydrogen vehicle, in fact there's quite a few people testing them in California right now. Hydrogen is simple to make, and it's the most abundant element in the universe. I'd rather be sitting in a hydrogen tank vehicle than a 16 gallon tank of gasoline. But for the home, you can make hydrogen easily from water by using electrolysis from either a solar, natural gas, or electric conversion method. Solar being the cheapest, with four 80-watt solar panels, it would be fine for a single driver, and it would create enough hydrogen from electrolysis to refuel once a week. Natural gas would be the second cheapest option, and it would work pretty darn quick based on the Honda Home Hydrogen Kit tests. Then of course electronic electrolysis would be the most expensive and energy consuming. Anyhow, with the first two options, we'd see a steady fuel price that's cheaper than gasoline/diesel. Hell, we've seen people make their own home-brew hydrogen electrolysis kits that show 30% cheaper fuel than a couple years ago gas prices.
 
^^^ What part of "There isn't enough platinum on the planet to make enough fuel cells" did you not understand?

We lack the natural resources to make hydrogen fuel cell tech a reality. It is a game to see how much can be fleeced from the stupid while not actually doing anything. Bio fuels will be the key to future transportation. The problem is we can't go replacing our food crops for fuel and algae tech isn't there yet. Until it is, compressed air is our best bet for efficient motivation. That isn't without it's problems either. We will be reliant on fossil fuels for some time for lubrication and plastics and even fuel.
 
BallerX said:
^^^ What part of "There isn't enough platinum on the planet to make enough fuel cells" did you not understand?

We lack the natural resources to make hydrogen fuel cell tech a reality. It is a game to see how much can be fleeced from the stupid while not actually doing anything. Bio fuels will be the key to future transportation. The problem is we can't go replacing our food crops for fuel and algae tech isn't there yet. Until it is, compressed air is our best bet for efficient motivation. That isn't without it's problems either. We will be reliant on fossil fuels for some time for lubrication and plastics and even fuel.
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You don't need fuel cells... you can do hydrogen combustion. United Nuclear has made conversion kits that function just as well as gasoline. But, we've only scratched the surface in this arena, so I wouldn't easily dismiss anything. There's no need to get upset or offended. Don't pop a blood vessel. :p
 
BallerX said:
^^^ What part of "There isn't enough platinum on the planet to make enough fuel cells" did you not understand?

We lack the natural resources to make hydrogen fuel cell tech a reality. It is a game to see how much can be fleeced from the stupid while not actually doing anything. Bio fuels will be the key to future transportation. The problem is we can't go replacing our food crops for fuel and algae tech isn't there yet. Until it is, compressed air is our best bet for efficient motivation. That isn't without it's problems either. We will be reliant on fossil fuels for some time for lubrication and plastics and even fuel.
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Did you not read the links I posted?

Bio Gas, Bio Crude...not ethanol and we have the resources to sustain indefinite production with no reduction of any food crops. Why the hell do people not pay attention? I'm not meaning you in particular, but even politicians and environmental whacko's as well.
 
w1retap said:
Anyhow, with the first two options, we'd see a steady fuel price that's cheaper than gasoline/diesel. Hell, we've seen people make their own home-brew hydrogen electrolysis kits that show 30% cheaper fuel than a couple years ago gas prices.
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Why, when Bio Crude and Bio Gas is virtually free and has a negative carbon footprint?

Please, read my post, it's the answer.
 
w1retap said:
conversion kits that function just as well as gasoline.
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How do they solve the hydrogen embrittlement problem? Does their conversion kit include NOx reduction? Those are among the problems that caused the H2 powered vehicles like the BMW and Ford to take so long to develop - H2 powered ICEs have been proposed for decades.
 
BBA said:
This paragraph contains so much BS that I didn't even read the rest of your post. Exactly what "disaster" has befallen Canada due to NiMH battery manufacture? How is it your claims of the extreme inefficiency of electric propulsion doesn't make hybrids less efficient rather than more efficient than conventional?
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http://www.physorg.com/news138179858.html

This development has the potential to create a closed environment which uses solar power to split water. The hydrogen can then be burned with the waste water being returned to the reservoir only to be split into hydrogen again. Effectively, it would be a way to store solar energy without relying on deep-cycle batteries which degrade over time and use toxic chemicals.
 
Michael Daly said:
This paragraph contains so much BS that I didn't even read the rest of your post. Exactly what "disaster" has befallen Canada due to NiMH battery manufacture? How is it your claims of the extreme inefficiency of electric propulsion doesn't make hybrids less efficient rather than more efficient than conventional?
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Did I say anything about hybrids?

My claims were the prioduction of crude and gasoline by biological methods that are basically free and have a negative carbon footprint, making the rest of the methods useless overkill.

I guess you need to relearn a few things the right way.

Go check out www.ls9.com and http://oakhavenpc.org/cultivating_algae.htm

I guess you can argue that doesn't work, but you would be argueing against college researchers and commercial companies, one of which funded by Cisco's founder. Yeah...I guess to you, those must be a bunch of people so full of BS as well that you won't want to research those either.
 
BBA said:
Did you not read the links I posted?

Bio Gas, Bio Crude...not ethanol and we have the resources to sustain indefinite production with no reduction of any food crops. Why the hell do people not pay attention? I'm not meaning you in particular, but even politicians and environmental whacko's as well.
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I did read the links and your the one who is not paying attention. Sure we can grow a lot of algae, now show me where more than a few ounces of actual functioning, consumable fuel has ever been produced from it..... The tech is not there yet.. period. It may well be all fine and dandy for the future but we need alternatives now. Until then, a bunch of green crap in a fancy tube is worthless.
 
plz correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought everyone was leaning to converting water to hydrogen inside their own car (not tanks of hydrogen but tanks of water converting to hydrogen) so the chance of improper combustion was even less than gasoline due to the small amount of hydrogen at any given time
 
Godlyfrog said:
http://www.physorg.com/news138179858.html

This development has the potential to create a closed environment which uses solar power to split water. The hydrogen can then be burned with the waste water being returned to the reservoir only to be split into hydrogen again. Effectively, it would be a way to store solar energy without relying on deep-cycle batteries which degrade over time and use toxic chemicals.
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Sweet, that makes 2 promising methods of producing hydrogen from solar energy.
http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2007/11/hydrogen_bacteria
"New Method Uses Bacteria to Generate Hydrogen Gas " dated 11.12.07
 
Did anyone even notice this:
It's V-tec, not V-tech. V-tech is a phone! Might as well called it VTACK.
There is your sign that this is fake or a scam! They can't even spell the engine technology in the engine they are using.
 
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