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Honda unveils Fuel Cell powered car
fprintf writes "According to an article at cars.com Honda has unveiled a fuel cell powered car to the world press. The article is not very in depth about the technology, but exudes the possibilities. There are comments about the engineers working on the safety of hydrogen storage. Most interestingly, they say that 2003 or 2004 are the target dates for commercial availability. Cool!"
First, you'll get the "shut down the oil industry and our economy goes to pot" argument. Which in the US is particularly funny because we don't grow our own oil. I know this for a fact because during 1990 I photocopied a stack of oil leases twenty-three stories high that were being sold off and shut down, so that we could continue to funnel all our resources into getting it from Kuwait. Whoops!
After that petroleum industry advocates will likely give a long, complex argument to the effect that, while it's agreed that it's a finite resource, they want you to share their Pollyanna optimism that we will always be able to find just that little last bit of petroleum to feed our habit. Often I've seen it expressed like this: "we aren't running out of oil, we're just waiting for the next good way to extract it from the earth." While that may be currently true, it's also true that we use oil for other things than burning (plastics come to mind) and we maybe could make more effective use of the stuff than torching it at twenty or so miles per gallon. Also I hasten to point out that when and if the end of the oil economy does come it will be much uglier if we don't prepare for it than if we do. Can you just imagine the entire city of New York without electricity or transportation?
Even with the problem with hydrogen's explosiveness
Most people forget you drive around in a moltov cocktail every day; Your gas tank is just as likely to get smashed, and could possibly be even MORE dangerous because gasoline will pour and stick around on the pavement for some time, and this is nasty if it's on you and it's burning. Hydrogen, on the other hand, will dissapate quite quickly if there's a tank rupture, and the tank itself will not explode (due to hydrogen exploding). I've tried to make propane cylinders explode in the past, and it's not as easy as you might think. If you shoot one, it will most likely just rupture and vent, even in the presence of fire (in my experience!). This danger is WAY overplayed in the media, especially concidering that car gas tanks are low-tech compared to the fuel cells used in race cars. (Fancy gas tanks, not real fuel cells :).
where would the hydrogen to power our cars come from?
There's lots of hydrogen available in hyrdocarbons. Reformers take a hydrocarbon source (be it gasoline, or much similer methanol) and turn it into hydrogen + co2 for use in the cell. There's LOTS of ways to make hydrocarbons, and lots more to process them. Cost is another matter, but it won't be much more than I'm going to be paying for gas in a couple years. One good source is methanol, which can be produced from cracking oil, or distilling.
One last issue is the water vapor output. While we currently worry about CO2 as a greenhouse gas, H2O can be just as bad.
Can be, but it ain't. Water vapour falls out of the sky quite nicely at cold temperatures - and will just appear in the form of snow or rain, and I can guarantee you the amount of water vapour produced by all the cars in California will pale in comparison to a good, hard rainfall. This is a non-issue. Water is EVERYWHERE on the planet. Relative to the natural evaporation off the oceans, you're not even statistically relevant. The waste products from producing the hydrogen will be more problematic (of which CO2 is the most likely canadate, since you can't just electrolyze water - it needs to be water free of impurities, for example, if you try it with Sea water, you'll get chlorine gas. Not nice.
Just some thoughts. Fuel cell technology is the future imho. If you want a sports car though, you'll be running gasoline or alcohol for as long as I can see, however. Good news is alcohol doesn't cost much more per liter than gasoline up here in Canada! Hehehe.
Just some thoughts.
..don't panic