Question by baypointmike: What do hear about the Hydrogen Powered Car?
It seems to be off the attention. Martinez, California, even shut down one of the very few Hydrogen refueling stations.
Has any SUV been converted to Hydrogen?
GM build two pickup Hydrogen trucks for the Arrny
What’s happening in the Hydrogen world? The UK sells a Hydrogen powered motorcycle, its engine can be easily removed and used to power a generator up in a mountain.
Oakland and San Francisco have Hydrogen powered buses.
Best answer:
Answer by Dr. Atari
Hydrogen is great but it’s costly to make.
You lose energy trying to make it.
Add your own answer in the comments!
6 Responses
BMW is the only company with H2 ICE engine. A fuel cell that uses H2 is being experimented with, but they are extremely costly to buy and fuel up, so no one is really working on a commercial version. Honda will lease you one on a program similar to the GM EV-1 that failed.
Most car companies are resorting to electric vehicle technology because it is cheaper and easier to make. Its going to be awhile until hydrogen cars are mass produced
The world is realising it’s a bad idea. You either have to burn coal to seprate it from water or seperate it from natural gas.
I hope MasterPython is right, but I’m more cynical than he is. Hydrogen comes from two sources, both have major problems.
Natural gas can be converted into Hydrogen, but why? If you build a car that will run on hydrogen, it will run on natural gas too–with lower emissions than gasoline, and without hydrogen’s corrosive effects on engine metals. There’s no good reason to convert NG to H2, rather than simply use NG as the fuel to begin with.
Water can be converted into hydrogen, but that takes a lot of electricity. If you start with grid electricity (90% comes from coal) in the U.S. it’s generated at 30% efficiency and transmitted through the grid at 90% efficiency, convert hydrogen at 70% efficiency, and then burn it in a 20% efficient internal combustion engine–you’re talking 5% thermal efficiency, compared to 20% for gasoline or battery-powered electric (30% generation, 90% transmission, 80% charging batt., 90% electric motor). Which means H2 makes 4 times more CO2 emissions than a gasoline or electric car. As the young people say, that is “made of fail.”
But as a cynic, I doubt if people have realized this. Rather, I suspect, they have abandoned the hydrogen pipe-dream because gas is cheap again, and they are no longer interested in alternative fuels. When gas goes back up again, they’ll be right back on the H2 bandwagon.
Hssssssssssss…..
Diatomic hydrogen is the second smallest gas molecule, only monatomic helium is smaller so hydrogen always leaks. The best way to store hydrogen for vehicle use is to bind it with carbon atoms in hydrocarbon chains like iso-octane. Hydrogen compressed to 2,000 psi (150 bar, 147 atmospheres) contains 405 Wh/l whereas gasoline has 9,000 Wh/l. Compressed hydrogen requires heavy and dangerous pressure tanks whereas gasoline only needs inexpensive sheet metal tanks. A switch to hydrogen technology involves modification or replacement of existing vehicles and construction of a distribution network. This means additional manufacturing and a large carbon footprint that will likely not be amortized over the life of the vehicle especially since better alternatives already exist. Of course, auto companies stand to benefit from hydrogen cars as they are easy for them to make and they don’t mind making more cars to replace existing vehicles even if doing so does harm the environment.
The best alternative fuels would not require modifications and replacement of the existing vehicles and could be distributed via existing distribution networks. Fuels like Fischer Tropsch liquids from bio-mass gasification or directly from CO2 and H2O.
Hydrogen is 1000 timed more dangerous than gasoline. Look it up on NASA they know how dangerous it is.