Your Questions About Hydrogen Cars

admin answers:

Every major auto company is putting more emphasis on electric vehicles. Toyota and GM recently announced that they’re going to focus far more on electrics than hydrogen.

“Top executives from General Motors Corp. And Toyota Motor Corp. Tuesday expressed doubts about the viability of hydrogen fuel cells for mass-market production in the near term and suggested their companies are now betting that electric cars will prove to be a better way to reduce fuel consumption and cut tailpipe emissions on a large scale.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120468405514712501.html

A few companies like Honda and BMW are still putting a good amount of R&D into hydrogen. I think they’re just hedging their bets in case there’s a technological breakthrough which makes hydrogen cars a viable option, like perhaps obtaining hydrogen from aluminum alloys as discussed in the link below.

admin answers:

The following problems exist, all severe:
- Cost. Fuel cells are costly.
- Cost, again. Hydrogen is not a primary fuel: you cannot dig it out of the ground. It has to be made (usually from natural gas), in a process that is very costly in terms of energy.
- Transportation. Hydrogen cannot be shipped through standard pipelines — it embrittles them, raising possibility of catastrophic fracture.
- Delivery. The energy density of hydrogen is so low that it has to be delivered at very high pressure — 5,000 psi or more. Your Aunt Hattie will not be able to drive her Buick into a service station and fill the tank herself.
- Tankage. Again, it is a question of energy density. A standard welding cylinder of hydrogen has about as much energy as half a gallon of gasoline. Which means large and costly tankage is needed.
Bottom line: do not expect to see many hydrogen powered cars on the road anytime soon.

admin answers:

There are several problems with hydrogen. The main ones are:

1) Where to get the hydrogen fuel. Electrolysis is inefficient and currently 96% of our hydrogen comes from fossil fuels (not environmentally friendly).

2) No transportation and storage infrastructure (few hydrogen refueling stations).

3) Fuel cells currently use platinum which makes them incredibly expensive. Honda is about to lease some fuel cell cars for $600/month. And that’s just a lease!

See the link below for further details.

admin answers:

Where do you think the hydrogen will come from?

The most economical way to produce hydrogen would be using acid on metal, however, that is not exactly an environmentally friendly way to make it.

The way to make it in large quantities is to electrically produce it from water. That requires a lot of electricity. That electricity has to come from somewhere. The energy companies will provide that electricity. To deal with the increased demand they will probably have to burn more fuels. They might make more money.

admin answers:

The are not cost effective at this time. Without having most of electricity gennerated by alternative energy, theer really is no point.

There is no abundant natural source of hydrogen fuel, It has to be made from natural gas, or by electrolysis using electricity.

So for the most part, we use hydrogen like a battery, for energy storage.

Half of the electricty in the United States is generated by coal. So, like an electric car, it would be mostly powered by fossil fuels at this time.

admin answers:

It’s whether or not there’s a net increase in the atmosphere. The idea behind a hydrogen economy is that the hydrogen is extracted from water from the environment, once recombined with oxygen it just becomes water in the environment again, no net increase. With fossil fuels, the hydrocarbons represent carbon and hydrogen that has been sequestered from our environment for millions of years, using the fossil fuel combines it with oxygen in our environment to form CO2 and H2O resulting in a net increase of CO2 and H2O in our environment as well as a net decrease in O2.

Of course, gasoline and diesel don’t have to be refined from fossil reserves, they could be synthesized from CO2 and H2O in our environment hence achieving the same zero net increase of a hydrogen economy, indeed that was the conclusion of Sandia Labs research into more efficient ways of producing hydrogen from H2O, the same methods used to extract H2 from H2O can be used to extract CO from CO2 and a mixture of H2 and CO can synthesize gasoline/diesel via the Fischer Tropsch synthesis.

Synthetic liquid hydrocarbons would have the advantage over hydrogen of not only being more compact, more stable and easier to contain but the advantage of working with the nearly one billion existing vehicles and with the existing infrastructure thereby avoiding the carbon footprint of new vehicle manufacture and of constructing a distribution infrastructure.

Synthetic fuels also have the potential for being carbon negative if biofuel to liquid processes like gasification/pyrolysis are used in conjunction with biochar carbon sequestration.

Being carbon negative is something a hydrogen economy would not achieve but ironically existing gas guzzlers could if we just changed how we make gasoline.

It is ironic that what most would consider the environmentally friendly option, that of hydrogen fuel cell cars, is actually not the most environmentally friendly option at all.

admin answers:

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You are forgetting that burning conventional hydrocarbons (gasoline) also produces water. So we’re not talking about a big difference here.
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However, here’s what’s missing from the public discussion of hydrogen fuel-cell cars: hydrogen (in the form available to us) is not a fuel. It is an energy carrier.
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Hydrogen is a battery. Water + electricity = hydrogen. Then, in the fuel cell, Hydrogen makes water and electricity again. This is a reversible chemical process, exactly how a battery works! All the energy comes from electricity. The hydrogen ‘carries’ it.
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A fuel-cell car is an electric car, with a fuel cell and hydrogen tank added on – so it will always be more expensive than a plain electric car. Furthermore, new battery research is now giving us electric vehicle batteries that can be charged in 10 minutes, with a 250,000 mile lifespan (see http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com )
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Check out that link above, and tell me why that car needs a tank of hydrogen? Fuel cells are less than 50% efficient, while battery storage is close to 90% efficient.
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The whole hydrogen idea has been popularized by the oil interests – so they’ll still have something to sell to us when we’re driving electric cars.
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admin answers:

1) There’s no infrastructure. There are very few hydrogen fueling stations, and building a network around the country would cost tens to hundreds of billions of dollars.

2) Hydrogen fuel cell cars themselves are incredibly expensive. Honda is hoping to get the cost of the Clairty down below $100,000 in the next decade.

3) It’s not even all that environmentally friendly – 96% of our hydrogen comes from fossil fuels. It’s better than gasoline, but still not ideal.

4) Electric cars are better in almost every way. They’re cleaner, more efficient, cheaper, and the infrastructure is already in place.

See the link below for further details.