Hydrogen powered cars close to reality?

[Diggler]

Has anyone seen this site?

Hydrogen Fuel Systems

It was prototyped and almost ready for sale, but the Consumer Product Safety Commission yanked some of the chemicals they used in their initial offering. It seems like they have an alternative route, though.

Basically, it's a generator that saturates granules in a tank (for safety) with hydrogen using solar power OR electricity. The vehicle conversion can be done to a regular gasoline engine and you can switch back and forth between hydrogen and gasoline (if you're on vacation and can't refill your hydrogen, for example).

You could set the generator's solar panels out in the sun, pump water to it and get 'free' fuel.

Of course the BIG question is how long it takes to use solar energy to tranform water into hydrogen and oxygen. Making hydrogen commercially... or ethanol... or any other of the 'pie in the sky' energy solutions... isn't feasible, but if you could create it with free solar energy at your convenience, it wouldn't really matter how inefficient the production is.

This looks pretty feasible, and I think it's exciting. I wonder what the system is going to cost...

[*smb]

I think it's a big waste of time. Solar panels take more energy to make than they ever save. Most places don't have the sun to make enough fuel to power a car even with only light use, so you'll end up having your hydrogen pumped like you do petrol, which will be made using electricity from power stations. Same amount of emissions but somewhere else.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

Unfortunatly, as much as I want hydrogen power to work, we are a long way off.

There are just too many factors which need to be overcome, which we'll be lucky if we see happening within the next couple decades, if ever.

[unclejam]

Whats with the nuclear Crap?!?!

[Diggler]

Originally Posted by unclejam

Whats with the nuclear Crap?!?!

It's a great idea, but too big to fit in my car, unfortunately.

[hbarcat]

Production of hydrogen is fairly simple, technologically, and hydrogen for fuel (H2) can be liberated from water in any desired amount, as long as you have enough energy to be able to do so. Power plants utilizing any energy source (solar, nuclear, geothermal, wind, etc..) are suitable. But hydrogen powered personal use vehicles are useful only if you can carry the required amount of fuel in the vehicle to make trips of reasonable lengths. Storing hydrogen is problematic because it has such a high volume per unit energy. H2 can be stored and transported in gaseous form in cylinders at pressures of up to 300 bar or in liquid form in cryotanks at -253 C, but it must be remembered that a considerable portion of the primary energy is required to simply compress or liquefy the H2.

This is less of a problem with Hydrogen (H2) or Methanol (CH3OH) powered fuel cells driving a vehicle electrically, such as in a polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC), but efficiency is still only 30% at the rear wheels. This is attributable to the losses inherent in the secondary systems required for the operation and monitoring of the fuel cells. Like batteries, they also degrade over time and lose efficiency

However, if you're going to use the fuel to inject into an internal combustion engine, as this article states, you're going to be carrying around an awful lot of it as the efficiency becomes much less, and fuel tanks of a hundred gallons or more would be necessary to allow the vehicle to have a reasonable range of travel, much less than any gasoline, diesel or alcohol powered vehicle. Making H2 for this purpose using a portable solar cell is just plain silly.

Large volumes of compressed or liquefied H2 are extremely dangerous in case of accident. How this danger compares quantitatively to the known danger from conventional fueled vehicles is anyone's guess.

The internet is full of great ideas that work in theory, until you actually have to build a working model. Then the engineering problems show up and often the problems are insurmountable and you have to give up. If the problems can be solved, it's certainly going to take years of R & D and huge sums of money to do so. There's no magic wand.

[santucci218]

i would type something better, but that last post will make mine look pathetic either way....

uuh...electric cars seem like more a reality...so..we should make em...

[PSPookie]

Dude, did you know they have a car that runs on water. On water, man. But The Man doesn't want us to know about it.

[Dan1099]

I don't have anything to add to this, but here's a somewhat-related topic: I've been helping some students at my old university by doing some free consulting for them on a Hydrogen Fuel-Cell powered race-kart. There's a worldwide competition going on in it, and they're one of five American universities that made the cut, and seem to be ready to wipe the floor with the competition. Also, it's REALLY cool.

[santucci218]

Originally Posted by PSPookie

Dude, did you know they have a car that runs on water. On water, man. But The Man doesn't want us to know about it.

i swear i watched that episode last night too!!!

[hbarcat]

Originally Posted by PSPookie

Dude, did you know they have a car that runs on water. On water, man. But The Man doesn't want us to know about it.

That car runs on the hydrogen in the water. There is a power source in the car that breaks the water into hydrogen and oxygen and then burns the hydrogen for power. This process creates water as a byproduct.

Those of you who know your physics will realize that this cycle can't generate power by itself or it will violate basic laws of conservation of energy. The power required to break the hydrogen from oxygen must an outside source, otherwise this would be a perpetual motion machine creating energy from nothing.

[hbarcat]

Originally Posted by Dan1099

I don't have anything to add to this, but here's a somewhat-related topic: I've been helping some students at my old university by doing some free consulting for them on a Hydrogen Fuel-Cell powered race-kart. There's a worldwide competition going on in it, and they're one of five American universities that made the cut, and seem to be ready to wipe the floor with the competition. Also, it's REALLY cool.

Hydrogen fuel cells show real promise as a practical power source for vehicles. Can you give some more details of this race cart? PM me if you think it wouldn't be relevent to the thread.

[Dan1099]

Originally Posted by hbarcat

Hydrogen fuel cells show real promise as a practical power source for vehicles. Can you give some more details of this race cart? PM me if you think it wouldn't be relevent to the thread.

The competition is called Formula Zero. It's international, between a number of universities. check out www.ltufz.com for some basic information. Any detailed information you are interested in, feel free to PM me.

[McHack]

Umm, Honda is already working on a concept car which is has a hydrogen fuel cell at the core of its electricity generation.

http://www.hondanews.com/categories/1097/releases/4393

[MakiSupaStar]

They have them already. The problem is the infrastructure. How do we create an infrastructure like we have for oil-based internal combustion engines? Gas stations at every other corner, AND how does a car safely replenish it's fuel supply.

[Dan1099]

Originally Posted by McHack

Umm, Honda is already working on a concept car which is has a hydrogen fuel cell at the core of its electricity generation.

http://www.hondanews.com/categories/1097/releases/4393

Yes, it is, so are most OEMs, as well as a number of smaller manufacturers.

The goal of our race is to prove out the concept, beyond the concept car, as a feasible vehicle...In this case, a race car, but ideas would eventually be transferred over. This, and the fact that it's being created in garages, toured across the world, raced on a number of tracks, sponsored by hundreds of companies, from OEMs to local shops, all by university students, proves out that this isn't some pipe dream concept vehicle that is only viable when designed, engineered, and validated all in a labratory.

[Dan1099]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

They have them already. The problem is the infrastructure. How do we create an infrastructure like we have for oil-based internal combustion engines? Gas stations at every other corner, AND how does a car safely replenish it's fuel supply.

Currently, these vehicles are powered by hydrogen "cartridges,"
which don't have the capacity, or the logistics, of mass market use.

There wasn't a major market for gasoline when the Internal Combustion Engine first made it's debut in mass transportation. But there sure were a number of stables around. If the demand is there, the infrastructure will grow to support it. It does present logistical trouble, because it's hard to create demand without an infrastructure, as it makes things inconvenient, but this isn't a good reason to throw up one's arms in defeat and say "oil is the ONLY thing that really works!"

[MakiSupaStar]

Originally Posted by Dan1099

Currently, these vehicles are powered by hydrogen "cartridges,"
which don't have the capacity, or the logistics, of mass market use.

There wasn't a major market for gasoline when the Internal Combustion Engine first made it's debut in mass transportation. But there sure were a number of stables around. If the demand is there, the infrastructure will grow to support it. It does present logistical trouble, because it's hard to create demand without an infrastructure, as it makes things inconvenient, but this isn't a good reason to throw up one's arms in defeat and say "oil is the ONLY thing that really works!"

+1. You're totally right. I wasn't by any means suggesting we give up on the idea. People are still working on it.

[Diggler]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

They have them already. The problem is the infrastructure. How do we create an infrastructure like we have for oil-based internal combustion engines? Gas stations at every other corner, AND how does a car safely replenish it's fuel supply.

That's what is great about this approach, if it works out... the infrastructure is your garden hose.

Binding the H to the granules in the tank make it safe to store and use.

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

Hydrogen provides extremely clean energy. After all, the byproduct is water.

It is essentially an energy storage medium, though. IOW, like a battery, we have to put >X energy into it (in generating the H2) to get X energy out. The energy in petroleum, OTOH, was put into the molecular structures millions of years ago. Still, if we can develop better solar cell technology, we can put a lot of otherwise unused sunlight energy to use by storing it as separate H2 and O2.

I think containing H2 molecules will prove more problematic than with other gases.