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Honda Fuel Cell Concept with Home H2 Refueling
It doesn't come easy writes "Honda unveiled their next generation FCX fuel cell concept car, along with a home hydrogen generation filling station, at the Tokyo Motor Show this week. The car has a range of 350 miles (560 kms) using two separate 350 psi hydrogen storage tanks. The tanks use a newly-developed hydrogen absorption material that doubles their capacity without raising the required storage pressure and thus allows the concept vehicle to exceed the DOE's targeted driving range for hydrogen powered vehicles. The home refueling station uses natural gas to produce electricity, heat and hydrogen. Honda estimates that the HES system [will] lower by 50% the total running cost of household electricity, gas and vehicle fuel. As the FCX is a concept car, no mention of when the technology might be introduced in a real automobile or what it will eventually cost, but the advances demonstrated by the car are quite amazing."
Mercedes-Benz also has a prototype. Their concept car will be available for production around 2015, using a fuelcell+lithium ion combo.
The tanks do not only hold 350 psi it is 350 atmospheres. 15 psi per atmosphere sea level so that would be 5250psi.
It's insightful because gas taxes are not based on environmental impact. They are based on road costs and other factors related to how much income the government wants to get from gas sales. Basing taxes on environmental impact would likely increase the taxes, because the current costs don't come close to covering cost of the environmental damage from burning the gas, and they don't come close to a goal of making gas guzzlers to expensive to run. The factors that are now making SUV's unfavorable are not gas taxes, but gas wholesale prices plus retail markup.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Theres ALOT of petroleum left on Earth in the normal form "Oil", Tar Sands and Shales. Hundreds of years worth at 2000 levels if all the known Shale, Tar Sands and Rock Oil is added up. Theres lots of it left, the idea that it's "scarce" is a fiction, right now the price is high because of speculation, storm damage and a lack of refinery capacity.
Combustion of one cubic metre of commercial quality natural gas yields 38 MJ (10.6 kWh). Natural Gas import and movement is difficult from a safety and logistics standpoint due to the nature of a tanker full of it and the ports needed. Moving NG through pipes is hard, so the best way is to liquify it and move it then in chilled pipes and on tankers.
In the US there are between 1,300 and 1,779 Tcf remaining in proven and unproven deposits, theres estimated to be about 5,210.8 Tcf in the world in proven deposits.
In 2003, world natural gas consumption was 95.5 Tcf. Russia, which consumed 15.3 Tcf, and the United States, which consumed 22.4 Tcf, accounted for 47 percent of the total. Consumption of natural gas is projected to increase by nearly 70 percent between 2001and 2025, with the most robust growth in demand expected among the developing nations. By the year 2025, total world consumption of natural gas is expected to bet 151 trillion cubic feet.
If there are 5,210 Tcf of NG, at 2003 levels theres about 54.6 years of proven Natural Gas.
Ideally, a battery with enough capacity and efficiency would be best. Ultimately, I think some kind of direct electrical storage is going to power everything we own.
But there's that capacity and efficiency issue... a lot of the power used to charge a battery is lost to heat, and not all the power "inside" the battery is usable. And batteries, per weight, can't store anywhere near the power gasoline can. (I use Power on purpose here, since it is not just an issue of energy storage, you have to be able to pull the energy out at a useful rate. I realize storage of power is not really a coherent concept.)
Someone will probably link to real data on efficiencies and densities - I could be wrong on the energy density for newer (very expensive) battery technologies, but I suspect nothing is coming close to gasoline yet (neither does hydrogen).
A big capacitor with no standing power drain would be perfect - high discharge rates, efficient charging, etc- but we don't have capacitors with the capacity or ability to hold charge forever while not in use. Some day, the entire hydrogen economy will be rendered obsolete by a better electrical storage device. Even then, there'll probably be a coal or deisel power plant somewhere, still generating the electricity we'll be storing in our portable supercapacitors.
I see many people really don't understand Hydrogen fueled cars. Natural Gas is one of many sources used to produce Hydrogen but currently is the cheapest method to do so. It can also be made from petroleum, coal, various chemical reactions, and from biomass (landfill waste, wastewater sludge, and livestock waste). Solar and Wind can also be used to produce hydrogen.
.357 magnum at it, detonating a stick of dynamite next to it, and subjecting it to fire at 1500 degrees F.
Now to address hydrogen safety for those who might worry about it.
1. Hydrogen combusts at 550 degrees celsius. Gasoline will combust long before Hydrogen does.
2. Hydrogen disperses rapidly because it is lighter. Ignition is unlikely.
3. When Ignition takes place, It burns upward and quickly.
4. And tanks that are used to store hydrogen have been subjected to firing
You can find useful information at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen/
http://www.hyodrogennow.org/
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For starters, theres a lot more too it then that but the Wikipedia article gives the jist.
Natural gas is also a lot more abundant so isn't as likely to undergo quite the same massive cost increases over the next decade and beyond like petroleum will.
200Hp diesels are semi-tractor class engines, it's a big ass engine. Diesel/hybrid doesn't make as much sense as gas/hybrid because a diesel's torque peak happens at a much lower rpm so peak effiecency is very close to peak torque; also diesel have the advantage of being able to run at much less than ideal stichiometric air/fuel mixtures so they breath a full charge of air and adjust power by controlling fuel flow which gives them much better off load effiecency. lean out a gasoline engine too much and you'll get great millage until you burn a hole through your pistons (about ten Miles).
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds