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John Bailo

Seriously, fess up John Bailo- are you being paid to promote hydrogen vehicles?

New Renter says

are you being paid to promote hydrogen vehicles?

No, but my bucket list includes "wanting to breathe fresh air again".

Imagine how nice Pasadena would be with all Hydrogen cars!

Entitlemented says

Imagine how nice Pasadena would be with all Hydrogen cars!

The little old Lady from Pasedena,
She traded her Dodge for a fuel cell speedster,

She still races the boys,
But she's so much cleaner!

Where's the hydrogen coming from?

thunderlips11 says

Where's the hydrogen coming from?

Angel farts, plus the hot breath of supermodels wafting over the blades of ultra-green supermodel-exhalation turbines.

thunderlips11 says

hydrogen is the most common element

Yes very:

thunderlips11 says

it'll ruin any container

Not if you use the materials guidelined for hydrogen storage, then embrittlement is not a problem.

You don't store gasoline in a paper bag, for example, or battery acid in wax paper.

John Bailo says

Actually the end to end efficiency of creating hydrogen from natural gas, and transporting and storing it, and then using it in fuel cells is highly efficient.

Sadly, it's not as efficient as burning the natural gas in the vehicle directly.

What do hydrogen fuel cells (running on cryogenic fuel with no distribution network) do for the consumer that natural gas (no special handling, limited distribution as a motor fuel but most of us have it piped to our homes for heat) doesn't?

You don't get zero emissions (Natural gas is mostly CH4, so CH4 + 3 O2 -> CO2 + 4 H20)
but it's still a huge improvement over internal combustion and not necessarily worse than hydrogen.

You also don't get zero emissions from hydrogen. While 2 H2 + O2 -> 2 H2O hydrogen is usually made from natural gas (CH4 + H2O = CO + 3 H2,then CO + H2O -> CO2 + H2) and that carbon dioxide has to go someplace along with whatever bi-products came with generating the energy (heat) that made that happen.

John Bailo says

Not if you use the materials guidelined for hydrogen storage, then embrittlement is not a problem.

What would those be? They all have problems with the size of the container and the weight of the container caused by the materials necessary to enclose the hydrogen with a minimum of loss.

That, and the metal hydride containers proposed as a solution use significant amounts of rare-earth metals, which are not only rare, but produce serious environmental difficulties during the refinement process - and they're heavy as hell.

Also, there are not enough known platinum reserves on Earth to build more than about 500 million fuel cells, so the technology doesn't scale. And fuel cells don't work in cold weather.

(If there are platinum-shitting Chindians from beyond the 4th dimension, then the above remarks do not apply.)

So direct combustion of hydrogen will be necessary, which is even less efficient.

But this is all just nit picking.

Iosef V HydroCabron says

Also, there are not enough known platinum reserves on Earth to build more than about 500 million fuel cells, so the technology doesn't scale. And fuel cells don't work in cold weather.

1. Platinum is no longer a requirement as there are several materials that can replace it.

http://www.azonano.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=3649

http://www.zmescience.com/science/chemistry/replacing-platinum-fuel-cell-new-catalyst-05435/

2. Scale:

FuelCell Energy has added another utility company in the state to its list of customers with the announcement Wednesday of two 2.8-megawatt fuel cells the company will build for United Illuminating.

http://www.newstimes.com/news/article/FuelCell-gets-new-UI-contract-5443190.php

3. Cold weather:

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1090078_toyota-touts-cold-weather-performance-of-hydrogen-fuel-cells

Iosef V HydroCabron says

Also, there are not enough known platinum reserves on Earth to build more than about 500 million fuel cells, so the technology doesn't scale. And fuel cells don't work in cold weather.

(If there are platinum-shitting Chindians from beyond the 4th dimension, then the above remarks do not apply.)

So direct combustion of hydrogen will be necessary, which is even less efficient.

But this is all just nit picking.

Platinum is not the only catalyst available.

http://www.zmescience.com/science/chemistry/replacing-platinum-fuel-cell-new-catalyst-05435/

As for the problem of temperature diesel engines don't work too well in cold temperatures either. The solution would be the same, battery powered heaters. perhaps in a sequential manner (small quickly heated cell to generate more heat for the main cell), kind of like a glow plug.

Edit John you beat me to it :)

drew_eckhardt says

that carbon dioxide has to go someplace

Yes, but the idea is that that CO2 from natural gas reforming can be sequestered in a centralized location....however, the car that you park in your garage, or you drive past your children's schools...emits zero pollution. Only water vapor.

John Bailo says

drew_eckhardt says

that carbon dioxide has to go someplace

Yes, but the idea is that that CO2 from natural gas reforming can be sequestered in a centralized location....however, the car that you park in your garage, or you drive past your children's schools...emits zero pollution. Only water vapor.

Sounds like the same logic as "clean coal".

New Renter says

Platinum is not the only catalyst available.

Any working prototypes?

Iosef V HydroCabron says

New Renter says

Platinum is not the only catalyst available.

Any working prototypes?

Depends on what you consider a prototype. These all seem to be in the proof of concept phase. Not that promising but there were similar problems with catalytic converters in the early days and those were worked out.

Hydrogen powered car believers don't understand the laws of thermodynamics
The delusion here is the way we live now is not going to change at all...we'll just use magic of some kind to keep on going!

Natural gas charging stations would be a good idea while they're at it.

All of the battery electric cars in N. California are running on natural gas anyway.

Hydrogen fuel cells are a dead end. Electric cars powered by lithium ion batteries are the future. Lithium batteries have 3 times the voltage of hydrogen, so even though lithium is heavier (but still light), the higher power makes up for it. Lithium polymer cells can be molded into thin, flat shapes, so the battery can be placed in the floorpan, lowering the CG and improving handling. Hydrogen requires heavy cylindrical tanks that are harder to place. I just don't see hydrogen being a viable technology - especially now that lithium ion technology has drastically improved over the last 10 years to the point that it rivals gasoline in terms of power and range. Now they just need to work on the cost - and that is coming down rapidly as the technology further matures.