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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."
What I want is a electric/diesel car. Something more along the lines of 200hp and 50+mpg! While the newer Prius, Civic, etc hybrids are nice and all they are just way too underpowered. By swapping out the gas engine with a diesel one you can get better gas mileage AND better performance.
Here are some pics of the Mazda RX-8 that has two tanks: the hydrogen can be filled on one side, and regular gas on the other side.
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http://autos.goo.ne.jp/motorshow/gallery/car/mazd
there is an article here in japanese: http://autos.goo.ne.jp/motorshow/news/tms/article
Still, one thing at a time. This is just a prototype for now and I'm glad to see people working in the right direction.
Still, for the rest of the population, this is just moving from one type of scarce fossil fuel to another. We've all heard about the gasoline substites (ethanol, corn and soy based fuels, greasel, what have you), but is there much R&D on synthetic or renewable natural gas substitutes?
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Why not just power the car with natural gas to begin with? This has to be way more efficient since you skip an entire energy conversion.
I was in Europe recently where people were retrofitting natural gas tanks on their cars for about $300. No real modification was needed for the motor only the tank had to be connected to the fuel injection. Economically it made sense since the price of gas was about $6 a gallon and this allowed a savings of approximately 50% over the cost of gas.
In the US, however, natural gas is not really economical so I don't think it would save you any money.
Look, hydrogen cars aren't mainstream yet, but you can go out and buy one if you want, so comparing them to fusion power is very inaccurate.
I am amazed that Honda is cutting the gas stations out of the industry with this prototype. I guess decades of better gas mileage has left Honda and the gas stations less than natural allies anyway. With American automakers edging so close to bankruptcy after cannibalizing their mid-decade sales with 2002 "dumping" prices, and relying on gas guzzling SUVs for most of their profit, maybe Honda is just ahead of its time. More of that car buck is now in demand for fueling up, and the cozy old relationships might just be coming apart.
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make install -not war
There was a press release from U.C. Berkeley in 2000 (also discussed on Slashdot) that discussed a finding about a particular kind of algea that, when a key nutrient was withheld, produced hydrogen instead of oxygen. This is a conversion of solar energy into hydrogen that is certainly much more efficient than using electrolysis. The problem, as usual, is converting a laboratory observation into a viable commercial production method (assuming that it's viable at all and not just some side effect).
If hydrogen is to become viable for personal transportation, it will need to get past the need to use petrochemicals. I am optimistic that this will one day happen, but hopefully not before we've exhausted most of our oil resources. It would sure be nice to slow down consumption and save that for other uses.
You don't use science to show that you're right, you use science to become right.
Yeah. I thought natural gas was actually scarcer than petroleum...
It is, but we can make methane gas fairly easy with our landfills.
I think the city of LA in California collects methane from their sewer system... Either way, it is easier to manufacture than oil or bio-disel.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
What I want is a electric/diesel car. Something more along the lines of 200hp and 50+mpg! While the newer Prius, Civic, etc hybrids are nice and all they are just way too underpowered. By swapping out the gas engine with a diesel one you can get better gas mileage AND better performance.
So tell me again why you want 200hp? 200hp has no intrisic value, it can only be used to accelerate you faster or to give you higher top speed. Most of these cars can do 80 or 100mph (unless they are computer limited), so lets talk acceleration.
Cars with internal combustion engines need all that power since these engines have very low toque at low RPMs, so need to rev up, then shift, and shift again, to keep the torque on. The beauty of electric motors is that they have max torque at 0 rpm. When you are accelerating from 0 with your 200hp pocket rocket, you are actually only using a fraction of that horsepower. Of course if you have a 300hp engine, that fraction is higher, but you are not really using all 300 horses.
Back when GM was promoting the EV1, I drove one at a demo event at Caltech. Those things were rockets off the line. The computer kicked in at 30 mph and limited acceleration to reduce energy consumption. They found that people were racing around town and getting very low distance between charges. But from 0-30, the EV1 would easily beat a 300Z.
So what you really want is to either hack the computer to not limit your acceleration, or perhaps a larger electric motor or higher current draw capability. But a 200hp diesel would be a complete waste, expensive, heavy, and slow.
Sure, if you define "scarcity" in such a way that you only take into account whether or not the substance physically exists. But that's only the first criteria.
In real life, we have to take into account the costs of getting to it, and the costs of using it. Those costs include the costs of pollution, the political/military costs involved in getting access to the areas of the world involved, costs of transporting the material, and costs incurred by global warming if we burn all that fuel.
If the sum of all of the above is greater than the costs of switching to and using alternative energy sources (or greater than the costs of simply using less energy), then the wise choice would be to switch away from petroleum.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
can have very high efficiencies is very different from are much more efficient. I agree that they are not bound by Carnot, and in theory can have excellent efficiencies, but do they?
A little searching tells me that the popular type of cell used in automotive applications is the PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) type. These seem to peak out at just over 50% efficient. Not bad, but a well build IC engine can get into the upper 40's, so "much more efficient" becomes a point of contention.
Then consider that the PEMFC's output is electricity, which must be put through a motor to drive the vehicle. If we're generous and assume the motor is 90% efficient, you are now on par with a well built ICE powered vehicle...
This says nothing about the cost of the fuel. Even if you could "generate" the fuel yourself, the primary source of power is still fossil fuels. The only difference is the problem isn't in your back yard anymore. To add insult to injury, the best method to produce hydrogen (energy-in versus yield) is reforming of natural gas (methane) - as the home-refueling station in the article does. Guess what? You'd get more energy if you just burned the NG straight and you're still releasing CO2 into the atmosphere from the reforming process. At least they recover some energy for domestic hot water with their system, so it's not a total waste.
So again, what data is there to back the claim that this is "much more efficient" than an ICE and that you get "more bang for your buck"?
=Smidge=
So again, what data is there to back the claim that this is "much more efficient" than an ICE and that you get "more bang for your buck"?
Well, when you're talking about total efficiencies, yah, it's probably comparable. But that's not quite the end of it.
First, that 40% for an ICE is a maximum, and varies over the speed of a vehicle. That's not the same for an electric vehicle. So net, over a trip, you're going to get a solid boost. Yes - this argument falls apart when you talk about a hybrid vehicle. Sure.
I don't know how a fuel cell's efficiency varies with temperature, though, and I know Li-Ions have strong temperature dependence on efficiency, so it might still even out.
At least they recover some energy for domestic hot water with their system, so it's not a total waste.
Domestic hot water and electricity. Now you get the advantage of avoiding all of the transmission losses.
I do have a feeling that they probably did properly work out the total costs. They're only claiming a 50% total efficiency.
Plus, as a side benefit, natural gas is a local resource, which means that effectively, the gas costs less because they're feeding money back to their own economy, as opposed to petroleum.