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Fuel Cell Powered Scooter
!Freeky2BGeeky writes "In an article by Fuel Cell Works, Samsung Engineering announced that they've developed a Hydrogen-based scooter which can go 140Km on 6 liters of hydrogen. The downside? The process that produces the hydrogen uses a component in short supply."
Free Tibet or something. If they got all the sodium-borate we need to drive around on our scooters, lucky for them.
The downside is that there are only about 300 million tons of sodium borate worldwide, located mostly in Tibet, and that annual global production of sodium borohydride stands at 10,000 tons, it added.
well, we know where Bush will be sending the troops to next year.
mods: it's a joke
What happens when lightning strikes it? Does it explode in a big fireball as radio reporters scream "oh the humanity!"?
-ND
I suspect that an internal-combustion engine such as one already used in production motorcycles could be tuned to burn a hydrogen mix, and that 6 liters (at what pressure? liquid?) for that mileage is not really news. Indeed, there may not be much new science here and the release mostly propoganda.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
From the article: The newly-developed technology uses a water-based solution of sodium borohydride, made from sodium borate, to produce hydrogen gas.
The downside is that there are only about 300 million tons of sodium borate worldwide, located mostly in Tibet, and that annual global production of sodium borohydride stands at 10,000 tons, it added.
So, other than the fact that it produces less pollution (I would hesitate to say less "green gas", though since vapor is a green gas) it has no advantage over gasoline powered scooter.
In fact, have we yet seen any viable hydrogen-powered vehicle? I thought most models/prototypes we have so far were less energy efficient than gasoline powered cars (even with infrastructure to provide hydrogen nation-,world-wide, we have to have a way of generating them, and electrolysis is simply not the most efficient way (and certainly less so than internal combustion) way to get hydrogen).
Text:
Samsung Engineering Develops Hydrogen Scooter
Publication Date:18-November-2004
Source:Asia Pulse
SEOUL- Samsung Engineering Co. (KSE:028050) said Thursday it has conducted a successful test-ride of a hydrogen-powered motorcycle.
The scooter, the result of a project sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, can run up to 140 kilometers on 6 liters of hydrogen fuel, it said.
The newly-developed technology uses a water-based solution of sodium borohydride, made from sodium borate, to produce hydrogen gas.
The company explained that on 6 liters of hydrogen fuel, the vehicle can travel three times farther than a scooter powered by a nickel-cadmium cell, saying that the technology can also be applied in automobiles, laptop computers and mobile phones.
The downside is that there are only about 300 million tons of sodium borate worldwide, located mostly in Tibet, and that annual global production of sodium borohydride stands at 10,000 tons, it added.
"The development and testing of the hydrogen-powered scooter shows that South Korea's technology is on a par with that of the world," said Yu Yong-ho, president of Samsung Engineering's R&D center.
The downside? The process that produces the hydrogen uses a component in short supply.
Let me guess: that component is a renewable, non-polluting source of energy?
Guess I'd better go RTFA.
Bicycles are the most beautiful machines on the face of the earth. Ride one today!
sodium borohydride doesn't look like a very nice chemical
Scooter?
Chrysler made a minivan that used the exact same chemicals and principles 3 years ago.
The interesting part is, in all of the articles I've seen about the Chrysler implimentation, they state that the largest reserves are in the western US... removing our dependence on foreign oil. This is the first time I've seen Tibet mentioned as the primary source of the chemical.
- Preferences: Solaris 10 (servers), Ubuntu (desktops), Solaris 11 (personal servers) -
I'm not a chemistry buff, but this lecture from a Perdue chemistry prof describes the discovery of sodium borohydride, the compound used to generate hydrogen for this thing.
The method of producing hydrogen kind of reminds me of the way acetylene lamps used to work; dripping water onto calcium carbide releases the gas. No environmental benefits though, since you release CO2 when you make the carbide *and* when you burn the acetylene, which (being highly unsaturated) has a high carbon content and is far dirtier than gasoline. Acetylene has a notoriously smoky flame unless you burn it in pure oxygen, as in an oxy-acetylene torch.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
The fuel source itself is not very newsworthy. It was around in early 2000 as well (named the Millenium Cell. Of course, it does not explode unlike the CNG powered ones. Recently (1-2 month) back we had a blaze up near our office when a Truck rear-ended a gas powered car (it's very common these days) and the gas tank ruptured, exploded and threw the car's rear door about 3 feet into truck's engine (breaking through 1/2 inch metal sheet). Thankfully only the driver was in the car and he was saved by the rear seat from the explosion.
This is not a viable alternative. But, Hey .. it was done because some guy said "We CAN". And that's reason enough :)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Hydrogen is an energy carrier and not an energy source. Currently, hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels or natural gas. Electrolyzing hydrogen from water is very expensive. We need very efficient solar panels for the hydrogen economy to start.
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Biodiesel looks more promising. There are some algae which contains 50% oil. Here's a link:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_al
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
So, can we not manufacture sodium-Borate, from Sodium, and Boron?... So, after doing a few Googles in search of the answer, I came across this page, that isn't entirely unrelated
t ml
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mqolson/papertwo.h
This is about using Boron itself, as a fuel. Apparently, Boron will burn, however, by-products of burning is just Boron - Oxide, which can be turned back to boron. The energy density of this process is > gasoline.... Tony.
The question is not that important. Sodium borohydride (NaBH4) is made up of sodium (quite common, as in sodium chloride), hydrogen (common too) and boron is fairly common too, according to this link. The fact you don't find steel, carbon fiber or many modern materials in nature does not mean it is a problem. NaBH4 is supposed to be a carrier of energy, not a source: it is converted to sodium borate during use, and this is later regenerated to sodium borohydride.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
can go 140 km on about 6 L of Coke.
The sodium borate is being used somewhat like an enzyme, in that it facilitates a reaction but remains ultimately unchanged. It can be reconverted back into sodium borohydrate. So a fuel cell of this type doesn't need any extra sodium borate once created. And thankfully doesn't make any sodium hydroxide, which is a pretty nasty chemical.
See here.
Anyway, fuel cells will make cities better places by removing gasoline fumes, but when you consider they have to use conventional power sources ie nuclear/coal/natural gas/oil power to ultimately charge, their environmental credentials don't look so great. Still, it could make a great difference to the pleasantness of city life; I've noticed an afternoon in London gives me black bogies all day.
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
Finnish compnay Hydrocell, (their web site is not very informative, unfortunately) has an elecrtic scooter for sale. They sell nickle based fuel cells, and metal-hydide hydrogen tanks, which, they claim, upon agreement, can be refilled almost on any gas station. Fuel cell plus the tank weigh about 20 kilos, and give their scooter a range of about 200 km. They sell the fuel cells separtely as well, at about 1K eur. (same as in the scooter)
140km per 6 liters means 23.3 kilometers/liter. Even the Smart car, mentioned here, does better (60 MPG, which is 24.14km per liter). And Smart doesn't require a nearly-depleted energy source (yet).
Hmm, IIRC the Hindenberg fire wasnt originally related to the hydrogen lift-gas at all, but rather to the aluminium powder coating on the outer hull. The hydrogen fire wasn't good news, but all the burning related to that was up above the ship (heat an hydrogen both rise, y'know). The bad stuff on the ground was mainly falling debris and burning bits of hull.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindenburg_disaster http://www.clean-air.org/hindenberg.htm
:D > £/$
There are lots of clean methods of creating power for electrolysis, but each have scalability problems. For example, I remember reading a while back that the global electricity load was around 64 Terawatts. To generate that load using alternative energy sources, here are the implications:
-Biomass requires using 85% of the world's arable land to grow crops to burn (not to eat).
-Solar, at current efficiencies requires covering almost all of the world's landmasses with solar panels (so much for growing crops).
-There's not enough suitable land on the planet to generate this much power using Wind turbines.
The list goes on and on. So until we can find more scalable clean energy, we'll just be living with oil, coal, and nuclear. Not pretty, but practical for the short term (which is all most humans care about anyway!).
Does anyone know of a location to se what this thing looks like? I am curious due to various regulations about "scooters". For example, if this was a moped style scooter it would have a quite different effect then if it was one of those "little metal plates with 2 wheels a motor and handle bars" like you buy at your area department store for you kids. In Florida where I live, the moped style is street usable while the second "recreational" style would be pointless. The second version can not be driven on public streets or sidewalks, only on private property. also, even though it has be used on private property, you still have to hold a valid Fl driver's license to ride one. That would make it somewhat pointless to have.
It's more efficient to use a fuel cell to turn hydrogen directly into electricity than to burn it.
Even Fuel-cell cars and buses have been out for a while. (I've heard of about 3 fuel-cell buses running in Vancouver).
Obvious oil company agenda aside, I believe the lack of success in fuel-cell powered transportation is due largly to there being no truly safe way to carry the hydrogen around with you. You're basically driving a bomb that's touchier than current IC cars with gas tanks (not to mention an empty gas tank is more explosive than a full one, whereas in the hydrogen's case, BOOOM!)
I did read somewhere that "they" are making titanium casing for hydrogen storage, but can it be enough? Gives new meaning to the term "car-bomb"...
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Man if you covered the dessert in East California with solar panels, it would be bad news. Think about the rattle snakes, spiders cacti that would not be able to survive due to all the shade. The dessert gives up it's heat rapidly now but even faster when only the panels are getting solar heated (yes they get heated by the sun too!). Heck the weather would change. For all I know it might become more cloudy (just a wild guess as another example result).