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Los Angeles City Employees To Drive Hydrogen Power
mace_15 writes "According this CNN article the mayor of Los Angeles has signed a lease with Honda to allow city employees to drive experimental hydrogen powered cars. The cars can reach speeds up to 93mph and Honda claims they have a range of 220 miles before refueling. More information on the car can be found here. Mercedes-Benz has a similar car."
A CNN article on hydrogen cars details this as well. Now, the question is, which comes first: hydrogen refueling stations so that people will buy cars, or hydrogen powered cars to drive the need for refueling stations?
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
Picture this. You go to buy a car and decide to shell out the extra $$$ to get an efficient gas/electric hybrid so that you can do your part to sustain the environment. Next thing you know, it's two years later and everyone is driving hydrogen cell cars which are even more environmentally friendly. Now, everywhere you go you get dirty looks for being so irresponsible.
- These pretzels are making me thirsty. -
What lessons there are here for alternative energy cars, I don't know. Aside from the folks who burn used french-fry oil in their diesels, opportunities to run alternate-fuel vehicles without special support appear to be few and far between (save for block-heater-friendly Canadian cities being EV-friendly)
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
::sigh:: This AC is probably a flame, but since I'm putting off studying for a midterm anyways....
First of... yes, hydrogen is a storage medium... what do you think gasoline is? That lovely little eqn e=mc^2 applies (with varying efficiency) to everything. The trick is the varying efficiency. If I could have a nuke plant churning out H, I'd prefer it to the massive oli infrastructure we have now. It will centralize pollution in one place (so that we can have lovely scrubbers and whatnot to get rid of it) and (as a long time past LA resident) prevent all the smog. Yes, water vapor forms clouds/fog/condensates whatever, but we need the water. What we don't need are stage 2 smog alerts where they recommend not going outside.
Yes, I admit that H cars are just a technofix, but compared with making society change, they are an amazingly useful one.
-Brian
What about safety?
Safety issues are a major concern for a fuel that's often perceived as more dangerous than others. While hydrogen itself played no part in either catastrophe, it was the fuel in both the Hindenburg and the Challenger.
Wagner says consumers should not fear a hydrogen-powered vehicle.
"Of course there is some risk, but it is comparable to the risk we have with conventional automotive fuels," he said.
BMW conducted numerous crash tests to see what would happen if the hydrogen tank was punctured or damaged. Their engineers report the liquid hydrogen dissipated harmlessly into the air.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/science/03/16/hydro gen.cars/
i think the point being that it's really not any more dangerous than gasoline, although you're right in that they don't bother talking about how much the hydrogen is pressurized, unless they're keeping it increadibly cold...
-tid242
With a few exceptions, secrecy is deeply incompatible with democracy and with science. --Carl Sagan
I had such high hopes that the global warming from current vehicles would eventually make Northern Canada a decent place to live. Now all my dreams are shattered... Thanks a lot.
While the idea of a Hydrogen-powered vehicle is a great one, if Slashdot readers are interested in a "more" environmentally-friendly vehicle there are options right now.
Biodiesel (more info here and here) is diesel fuel that will work in any new-ish diesel-powered vehicle with out ANY modifications. Benefits?
- Availability of the vehicle. Volkswagen produces a line of turbo diesel injected vehicles right now. They are available from about US$15k - $30k, depending on which model and features you ask for.
- Availability of the fuel. Biodiesel is NOT as wide-spread as diesel - not by far. But it IS available. There's a station in my hometown, Portland, OR and one down in Eugene, OR. According to the map of refueling sites provided by biodiesel.org, there are nine biodiesel stations in California.
- Cost of the fuel. B20, that is 20% biodiesel and 80% regular diesel, costs about US$1.75/gallon in Portland, OR. That's about what premium/super goes for here, give or take 10 cents. I don't have info on what B100 costs - probably around $2.25 or more or possibly less. Depends on your supplier.
- Biodiesel benefits the American (or local) economy. Biodiesel is created from plants. Soy and such. Soy beans can be grown locally in many places of the world. Oil can be had in America, too, but there's not much of it and one it's gone, it is GONE. More soy beans can be grown at any time.
- Biodiesel is "environmentally friendly". According to the US EPA in this PDF document, use of B100 biodiesel will reduce the output of carbon monoxide from a single veh by 50%. B100 will reduce particulate emissions by 70% (less smog). Total hydrocarbon emissions reduced by 40%. Reductions in sulfate emissions by 100%.
- Biodiesel takes less energy to make than diesel and much less energy to make than gasoline.
- Diesel vehicles, particularly the TDI's from VW, are VERY fuel efficient. Expect to get 40/city, 45+/highway (expessed in miles per gallon). Many people report getting 600+ miles to the tank.
Hydrogen-powered vehicles will be great when they are mass-produced in 10 years. Until then, look at Biodiesel. I think the benefits far outweigh the added expense of the fuel.
Exocet Industries - Taking over the world, one computer at a
As opposed to cars filled with harmless, fire-resistant gasoline?
Hydrogen burns upwards.
Gasoline pours out on the ground and surrounds you with an incinerating puddle of fire.
It amazes me that people worry about cars with hydrogen, as if they weren't currently driving cars powered by miniature gasoline explosions.
And it was the aluminum paint on the fabric that caught FIRE, not the hydrogen. Hydrogen EXPLODES with a nearly invisible blue light.
I have done extensive, um, experiments with garbage bags full of hydrogen. (Put lye, al foil, water in gas can attached to hose.)
To explode, hydrogen needs a lot of oxygen. To make a bag full of hydrogen explode, you have to introduce quite a bit of air into it. (Enough air to render the bag unable to float) If you don't put any extra air in, the hydrogen just burns along the outside of the bag, and it actually takes a few seconds for all of the hydrogen to be consumed.
The Hindenburg did not explode because of the hydrogen. (A spark could not catch the hydrogen on fire on the inside. There is no oxygen) A spark must have caught the fabric on fire, which was doped with dangerous compounds like saltpeter. (Which actually rendered the skin very, very flammable).
So, it was mostly the skin catching on fire, which was aided by the heat of the hydrogen combustion. Also, those huge yellow flames you see? That's the skin burning. Like the previous poster said, hydrogen burns with a nearly invisible flame.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.