Slashdot Mirror
Hydrogen Fuel Cells Hit the Road
caffeined writes "Well, it looks like Honda is doing a real test of their fuel-cell car. A family in California is renting the car for $500/mo. Honda is charging them so that they take it seriously - an executive explained that if it were free they might not get the kind of feedback they want. If someone is paying for something and they're not happy - then you're going to hear about it. This is apparently the first fuel-cell car on the road anywhere in the world, according to Honda."
They need to try this in more than warm, sunny southern California. My sister has a Prius and loves it, though the battery sometimes doesn't respond well to being parked outside overnight in sub-zero. You also have to wonder what cumulative effect road salt ions will play. Seems the ions in the sea air in California like my 12v battery a lot, I do wonder how hybrids are doing with their higher voltage.
Still, it's promising. I wished they gave us a little tip off on how the trial is going rather than all the peripheral issues, but I suppose Honda wants to keep as much of that confidential as possible.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Forcing users to pay to beta test.
According to the article, most manufacturers are still up in the air about this technology. Only Ford is bullish, and believe they will be in the open market by 2010. If they can avoid bankruptcy.
It would certainly be nice, but I do think 2010 is a bit soon.
I wonder who will be the first to car jack this million dollar test car and take it to Mexico.
What happens if a hydrogen-powered car is in an accident? Can the fuel cell 'rupture' and explode, ala The Hindenburg? If it can, then ...
Oh the humanity!
Go, and never darken my towels again! -- Rufus
I've had several people, including my father and brothers, who are supposed to be trying to find me an older $5,000 diesel convertible so that I can have it modified to run on biodiesel.
I don't think they are taking me seriously though, because it's been two years and they've still not found me a car to match my specifications!
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
There have been a few fuel cell cars on the road in Vancouver, BC for a few months already.
"Nyquil - The stuffy, sneezy, why-the-hell-is-the-room-spinning medicine."
Charge them $500 a month to have the car blow up upon impact and kill the whole family. Sheesh.
You're right, we should stick to powering our cars with a nice, non-volatile, non-explosive substance like gasoline.
I don't know about them being the first. Coming back from San Francisco to Sacramento a few weeks ago, I passed two Mercedes - looked european, very compact cars with fuel cell in big letters painted on the side.
From TFA
Spallino was at the wheel of his silver Honda FCX, a car worth about $1 million that looks like a cross between a compact - say, a Volkswagen Golf - and a cinder block.
For that sort of cash I'd like to get more that than a Volksie Golf, at least a Passat.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
http://corporate.honda.com/environment/fuel_cells. aspx?id=fuel_cells_fcxr e_pow.html (chassis)
f irstcat=false&kw=05familyfcx (image gallery)
http://www.honda.co.jp/FCX/ (Flash in Japanese)
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/10/hondas_mo
http://world.honda.com/news/2005/4050629.html (with family)
http://www.hondanews.com/CatID2045?view=p&page=1&
Enjoy!
There have been fuel-cell busses running in Vancouver for a few years, too.
Must have something to do with Ballard...
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Charge them $500 a month to have the car blow up upon impact and kill the whole family.
Now there's a line of hyperbole if I've ever heard it. I imagine that they've done crash tests on this car to determine the exact dangers of this happening. At the very least, I've seen the early crash tests done to decide if hydrogen was feasible or not. The result of the tests was that *if* the hydrogen were to ignite, its direction (up) would be safe as long as the passengers weren't sitting on it. It actually ended up being *safer* than gasoline, as the gasoline cars continued burning long past the initial ignition.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
If someone is paying for something and they're not happy - then you're going to hear about it.
So if you want honest feedback on your sexual prowess from your girlfriend then you should charge a fee, eh? Hmmm. I am intrigued by this concept and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
There is a big sticker under the bonnet of my Citroën Xantia saying it's expressly forbidden to use it in the US or Canada, so they may be out of luck finding one.
Off topic, but for those of you who RTFA, did you notice the three column layout? It's done with javascript so I'm assuming it's dynamic and they can apply it to any text making the posting of any article in three column format possible.
Certainly interesting to me as getting a columned layout with just HTML/CSS is impossible (AFAIK). Worth checking into I'd think.
Charge them $500 a month to have the car blow up upon impact and kill the whole family.
I think you have your car manufacturers mixed up.
This is Honda, not Ford
I think they've already dealt with that.
I will be one of the first to buy a hydrogen powered vehicle, its a great idea whose time has come!
No more wars, pollution and death for OIL!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
If someone is paying for something and they're not happy - then you're going to hear about it.
Yes, tell that to every Office Space worker who's watched management throw good money after bad. God forbid that we admit we're unhappy with the results of all that spending....
What I say does not represent the views of my employers, my friends, my cats, or myself.
This is fine, but just as a gasoline/electric battery hybrid is more practical than pure electric as a transition technology, so too is a gasoline/fuel cell hybrid more practical right now than pure fuel cell.
As I'm sure many slashdotters will note, getting that hydrogen is expensive and often very energy inefficient.
A gas/fuel cell (and some ultracapacitor/battery too) hybrid would have all the benefits of current hybrids, and it could have a sealed hydrogen tank refilled by electrolyzing water with any extra energy available from running the engine (above charging batteries/ultracaps), from solar cells on the roof, while plugged in at home, or whatever.
I'm almost sure that's how this will come down when cars with fuel cells first make it to the retail market, except those using it just for auxilliary power, like some military vehicles do.
Hasn't there been something like a dozen or stories in the past 5 years about the problems that faced the Hindenburg, the burning of Hydrogen, the Underwriter's Laboratories testing of both a Gasoline and Hydrogen fueled automobile, just to name a few.
Get with it people, this is afterall a news site that claims "News for Nerds. Stuff that matters."
This is the kind of crap that we "Nerds" are supposed to know.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Their marketing department need to rethink the name of the car, Hindenburg, just does not seem right. :)
'Jetson'.
FTA: "We're either talking several decades or never," said Joseph Romm, an assistant energy secretary in the Clinton administration, referring to the likelihood of fuel cells' supplanting internal combustion engines in cars. Though Romm pushed for financing of hydrogen research in the mid-1990s, he has since become skeptical of its prospects, to the point that last year he published a book titled "The Hype About Hydrogen."
But what alternatives are there to fuel cells, when the oil runs out? Artificial petroleum, maybe?
So how did Honda pick the Spallinos?
The normality of the Spallino family appealed to the company, which wanted to see how the vehicle held up under the stresses of family driving.
"I use it for everyday life," said Sandy Spallino, "just little one-mile jaunts here and there."
Very, very stressfull driving indeed.
Uncopyrightable: The longest word you can write without repeating a letter.
I don't know how unsafe the car is, but I do question the legality of it. State gov'ts, particularly California, have stringent requirements for car safety. How does this pass the testing and registration requirements in order for it to be driven on the street? I know a non-production vehicle doesn't need to conform to the same standards, but it still can't pose a hazard to others. I'm not saying it's a rolling bomb, but does the state or the general public have any reassurance that this thing can survive a crash? The guy driving it seems to place his faith solely in the company itself without asking for any proof. I'd be quite ticked if my state allowed standard safety rules to be circumvented for the sake of a company test trial, particularly when it could affect people who aren't in the car.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
Seeing as how we have solar panels, wind power, and hydro power as pipelines to the sun. Shoots, we even have tidal power( which is actually lunar), and nuclear (which is big bang power).
As to the hydrogen itself, we are loaded with it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It was a joke. Obviously they're at the point where the car is safe enough to be TEST drove by living humans. So I should hope they're past the point where the car blows up upon impact. But I found it ironic that someone might pay to be a guinea pig and find out in a real-world situation.
Not everything can be tested in a laboratory or computer model...
You're nothing; like me.
This is apparently the first fuel-cell car on the road anywhere in the world, according to Honda.
That's BS, they been testing/driving fuel-cell car's for a few year's now.
Since 61% of all electricity in California is produced using fossil fuel how is this really helping us right now?
Only 28% of the electricity is created using nuclear or hydro power sources.
So if more and more people start driving electric cars in California we'll have to burn even more fossils and quite a bit of it is the good old polluter named coal.
Not that I have anything against a better car runs on renewable energy, but I think it would be better to start with creating more electricity that doesn't come from fossils.
-- Sir! I'm only telling you once, step down from the soap box. This is your last warning...
Hydrogen comes from electricity.
Incremental electric demand comes from oil & natural gas.
Using hydrogen cars will just shift the fossil fuel burning to the power plant rather than the car.
So I'm wondering, other than sounding like cool space age technology, where is the benefit?
You do know that hydrogen is SAFER than gasoline in terms of ruptured tanks and explosions and fires, right?
Let's see... better to have the fuel stick around in puddles under your crashed vehicle, or disperse quickly into the atmosphere leaving no danger at all behind? Hmm.
- Peter
INsigNIFICANT
"These things don't work worth a [beep] in Minnesota, or Winnipeg, or anywhere else cold."
0 05/200521_e.htm
http://www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/media/newsreleases/2
How come no one's trying to develop an air car? That is, you store the energy in compressed air. You could charge it with any kind of electricity, and no pollution would be emitted from the car while driving. Google "air car". The efficiency (ratio of output mechanical energy to stored energy) would be much higher, and because you just plug it in to recharge, the energy is much cheaper. All technology is already available except you may need a stronger tank for bigger loads.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Er,
a te/807675.html).
For hydrogen to explode, it needs oxygen.
If the tank ruptures, the gas as light as it is would expand throughout the air very very quickly.
This isn't like lighting a balloon filled with hydrogen with a candle and watching the brief poof of flame.
This is like having a candle five feet away from a balloon filled with hydrogen and popping the balloon. That is, if there is a fire involved in the collission.
How often do collisions result in fire? I did a little bit of research into this, but the best I could find was that "crashes with fires are relatively rare" (http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/regrev/evalu
To explore this a little further:
What causes a fire in an automotive accident? Faulty gas tanks and fuel lines. This results in leakage. The vapors (which are MUCH heavier than hydrogen) then get sparked by something. This ignites the vapors, leading back to the fuel tank which then catches fire. I've witnessed car fires before (a few months ago, a car in the parking lot of my apartment complex caught fire). The fire burned for 10 minutes before fire response arrived. In that time, the fire spread from one car to the two cars on either side. It took fire response about five minutes to put the fires out. During this 15 minute time period, the materials that were burning included the interior of the car, under the hood, and the tires. The only violent explosions that occurred were the tires exploding.
I'm theorizing the reason the gas tanks didn't ignite is that gasoline requires a very oxygen rich environment. Gasoline requires a 1.4% - 7.6% concentration in air for it to be explosive. Any less than this and it will merely ignite; any more than this and there isn't enough oxygen for it to explode. It will simply ignite. The pre-existing fire probably used up most of the oxygen near the fuel lines. There was probably a phenomenon similar to what you see with an oil well - a jet of flame from the fuel line. Hollywood car explosions just don't happen.
Now, on to hydrogen.
Hydrogen, being much lighter than air (as opposed to natural gas or gasoline vapors), dissipates very quickly in air. At concentrations of less than 10%, it would require the same ammount of energy to ignite as would natural gas. The main point here, is that hydrogen dissipates so quickly that the concentration would very quickly reach less than 4% (the lower limit of explosivity). The likelyhood of explosions is much less likely than with even gasoline because of this.
Hydrogen Fuel Cells do not use any sparking or arcing componants. Similarly, the engine is a simple electronic engine. If something shorted, it could spark - but there is no combustion inherent in a fuel cell car. This limits the chances of even igniting the hydrogen in the case of a leak.
Fuel cells are also equipped with automatic shutoffs in case a leak is detected. This can't help if the storage tank itself is ruptured, but that would be difficult (Normal air tanks for scuba divers are very difficult to rupture, and tanks used to transport flamable liquid are even more difficult to rupture).
The myth of the exploding hydrogen car can be linked to two things: the hindenberg and the hydrogen bomb.
The hindenberg burned, rather than exploded. The color of the flame was wrong for hydrogen to be the propellant. It's very likely that it was the flamable fabric covering the zeppelin that ignited, not a leaking hydrogen tank.
A hydrogen bomb requires special isotopes of H2, and very high temperatures. Neither of which would be found in a car fire or a hydrogen fuel cell car.
For more on hydrogen fuel cell safety: http://sanewsletters.com/FCIR/fcirfctpart1.pdf
In the meantime, stop propogating myth and FUD.
You're right, we should stick to powering our cars with a nice, non-volatile, non-explosive substance like gasoline.
Gasoline has plenty of energy, but it's pretty stable stuff. There are plenty of misconceptions brought about by overzealous safety police (like all the "no smoking within 50 ft" rules), stupid movies and outright lies... remember when NBC put the explosives on the GM trucks to show how their side tanks would explode?
Gasoline burns pretty well but short of dropping a lit cigarette in it, it's pretty safe. And you can put a match out in diesel fuel.
Look at it this way: if you're going to rely on *any* internal power source, comparable to gasoline, it's going to have about as much energy as gasoline.
Out of curiousity, how much does hydrogen fuel go a gallon? How many MPH does one of these hydrogen cars get? Given the current price as gas (though it's dropping), any cheaper fuel source is looking pretty attractive. Honda, if you're looking to test one of these in NYC, let me know... :)
Shameless plug for my photos on Flickr
Hydrogen is no worse than gasoline - you have to store potential energy somehow, you know. Everyone thinks hydrogen is a lousy fuel because of the Hindenburg explosion. And hydrogen wasn't the only reason the Hindenburg exploded. It was designed poorly in such a way that it accumulated static charge, and they painted the surface with a chemical substance that is almost the same thing as thermite. See for yourself.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
According to the Financial Times on Jul6th this year Platinum is an essential catalyst for Hydrogen Fuel Cells and there is only enough Platinum left on and in Earth for a 10 year Hydrogen car economy.0 0000e2511c8.html
Ft article :
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/97b0b9ce-edbb-11d9-9ff5-
Sure current Fuel cells require a lot and advancements in the technology may reduce the amount needed but this will just spin it out a bit - it will only be decades at the most.
So we will have to change everything again if Hydrogen is adopted.
Why not Biodiesel? A Carbon Neutral technology that requires little change to the current Infrastructure and will work with current Diesel engines.
Hydrogen for cars is clearly a dead duck, why then is it being foisted upon us ?
It was a joke.
:-)
:-)
Ah. If there's anything I've learned about posting online, it's that you've gotta be obvious with those tipoffs, or it doesn't quite come through the way you mean it.
But I found it ironic that someone might pay to be a guinea pig and find out in a real-world situation.
I think it's kind of a neat idea myself. How many times do car manufacturers release beta quality vehicles for drivers to shake out for them? (e.g. Oldsmobile is GM's beta program.) This way Honda will get the feedback it needs sooner, and without actually deploying a product. Plus they get free publicity for the unusal nature of the experiment.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
My experience with biodiesel has been limited to tractors and farm equipment, so take what I have to say with that mind. We never once modified the engines to use biodiesel. We just filled up the tank with a mixture of peanut oil, canola oil or what ever happened to be a cheap bulk purchase and ethanol. Turn the key and voila! You now have a biodiesel vehicle. Mind you, the ethanol was there mostly to make it easier to start, but you can run on pure vegetable oil with some modifications. That said we used an 80/20 mix of oil to ethanol and ran it. Perhaps your car would run on the same or similar formulation?
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
The Grandparent post is right in their sentiment. They need to test this in more than just sunny temperate california. It has nothing to do with how hydrogen reacts to extreme climates, but it has everything to do with how the Car reacts to extreme climates.
:)
We have enough posts on how people like MS aren't testing their software enough, but now we criticize someone who thinks they should be testing more?
You might think Honda would do this, but be cautious. This is brand new technology, of course, and businesses love to cut corners in order to make it to market on time.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
My favorite, I think, is the scene in "Die Hard 2" where the airplane, desperately out of fuel, running on vapors, makes an emergency landing and crashes into the tarmac... and explodes in a gigantic ball of flame.
Hollywood just likes it with things explode.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
If you had RTFA, you too would know this. What's even more interesting is the fact the local fire department will not let them use the new fill station!
RTFA
NO, don't respond, don't type another uniformed, obviously ignorant comment. Just RTFA.
Why are we worried about hybrids? They're expensive and now we're talking about using up our potable water to power vehicles. Water is a more precious resource than petrochemicals. I can walk, if I have to. I cannot not drink water. Most places in the world, potable water is the single most precious resource. Yeah...that's what I want - Water Wars.
Gasoline engines will combust ethanol just as easily as fossil fuels. For those of you in colder climes, you might have to give it a bit of a spray to get the engine running and let it warm up, but it will work.
Diesel engines will run biodiesel just as easily. Biodiesel is just a fancy name of a mixture of oil and either ethanol, kerosene, or petro-diesel.
DUH! All we really need to do is change what's the fuel pump. Brazil did it.
2 cents,
Queen B
HDGary secures my bank
In addition, it lets you shift from a dependency on oil to a variety of other fuels: coal, wind, hydro, etc. Even if it isn't cost-effective in terms of miles per dollar, there are externalities to take into account:
* The price of the occasional war
* The price of terrorism sponsored by some OPEC states
* The price of dependency on oil importing stations (e.g. New Orleans)
Really, I'm not trying to start a flame war here over the necessity of the Iraq war or to cast blame on any state in particular. But if the US reduces its dependency on a fossil fuel from a very volatile region it may do more good than just the immediate environmental and economic effects.
[quote]This is apparently the first fuel-cell car on the road anywhere in the world, according to Honda.[/quote] A hydrogen powered bus is rolling down the streets in Amsterdam, since 2004.
If I was Honda, I would charge them $500/month for testing, and then after testing is over, give the family back the money, and give them a new car. Probably not the testing vehicle, for obvious reasons.
$sig$
THAT'S GOTTA HURT!
here's a pic of a fuel-cell car after a nasty road accident which killed 4 people.
4 0-1128519068.jpg
http://www.visforvoltage.com/forums/uploads/post-
notice the hydrogen bottle. notice it's still whole.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
so how do you expect slashdotters them to get feedback from hotsexnow.avi on the hard drive?
Maybe something along the lines of Sex is Safer in a Honda? And they could give a glove box full of condoms with Honda logos for each new auto purchase.
Abstinence is a government conspiracy. www.SafeSexZone.co
... you live in Canada?
I'd say that looks like it could be an entry for a Fark Photoshop contest.
You're nothing; like me.
"Seems the ions in the sea air in California like my 12v battery a lot..."
I think the salt in more in the ocean than in the air. The solubility of NaCl in air is, well, kinda low. Unless you drive right on the beach a lot, I think you're imagining those ions on your battery. It's more likely corrosion due to water and oxygen. What would salt due to your battery anyway?
Markus Friedli is the swiss inventor who in his van installed fuel cells that he refueled thanks to solar panels he used to split water. In this documentary he explains that when the fuel cell makers (owned by big oil multinationals) found out about his car, they multiplied the price of fuel cells by 4 ! Available on emule: ed2k://|file|Beppe Grillo - Un Grillo Per La Testa(Divx).avi|651417600|096B796EA2C703DC699F42D9 563937F1|/
Google about this real inventor: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Markus +Friedli%22+hydrogen&btnG=Search
Jim Motavalli drove one for the NYT. The article is now a pay item, but this was back in June and he had it for a week in the Fairfield CT area. Ya'd think Danny Hakim also of the NYT would have known this. Note to the Spallinos: DON"T RUN OUT OF FUEL. Motavelli's ran out and had to be trucked to near Albany just to reload it. The local FD probably doesn't know what hoops to jump thru yet. I'll bet there's a gases dealer nearby that could put a simple hydrogen station to shame. I'd worry about the local propane or natural gas tanks based on energy density and sheer amounts long before I'd worry about a hydrogen tank (it's about 2:1 energy per mass hydrogen : natural gas)
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Ford is actually in the black for the year. Bankruptcy isn't anywhere on the horizon despite their bond status.
BMW and others offer engines and conversion packages to make dual-fuel vehicles using internal combustion engines that work on both hydrogen and gasoline. The fuel cell vehicle has the potential to be more energy efficient, but over the next few decades, if hydrogen catches on, I think the vast majority of hydrogen-technology users will NOT be using expensive and new fuel-cell technology. They'll be using fairly normal cars (maybe even the cars they have now) with dual-fuel engines that don't require any more platinum than they do now (and if the hydrogen infrastructure grows to the extent that we can stop burning gasoline, they won't need any at all -- no more pesky catalytic converters). In the very long run, if America can finally get off the idea of having a separate car for every individual on the road, we will solve both the fuels problem and the platinum-availability problem. I don't see platinum as a limiting factor at all.
Whose evaluation do you trust more?
Movie critic who doesn't have to pay to see films, or your friend who has to shell out hard-earned cash to see it? The movie critic will bring in all kinds of esoteric critical theory crap because they never actually directed a movie but always wanted to, and now they're just out to prove how much they know about the meta theory of film.
Music critic who doesn't have to pay to review an album, and in fact gets paid to write a review, or your friend who had to pay for it? The critic knows everything there is to know about the genre and the artist, but he's listened to thousands of albums and is interested primarily in showing his mastery of artful language and his ability to place the album in some sort of hierarchy with other music by other bands.
Making the testers pay keeps their opinions honest. They won't be tempted to blow off little annoyances, and they'll be more inclined to appreciate the things about the vehicle that they really like.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
So if the hydrogen container can survive the crash, why don't they make the entire car out of that stuff?
It's the old "black box" question!
Well put. Have you seen the mythbusters where they try to ignite a gas tank by shooting it? No regular bullet would do it. It took tracer rounds, and even then, it simply burned (no explosion).
Gasoline explosions are surprisingly hard to get. It enters the atmosphere so slowly (in comparison to things like hydrogen or propane) that it's hard to get a stochiometric ratio before the wind blows it away. Gasoline will burn furiously, mind you, as it's very dense - it just doesn't like to explode.
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
> Hollywood car explosions just don't happen.
but damn they do look impressive, sound effects too. Big explosion sound can instantly be heard in those newscopters (though no microphone but the foley stage can add that). Even more so when the explosion begins in the center of the car regardless if the tank is in the rear.
Hydrogen is a storage medium. It takes energy to produce it. What are they going to use? Nuclear, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind, oil, or coal? Biodiesel is the way to go. The whole point of alternative fuels is to 1) to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and 2) to reduce our impact on the environment.
$500 a month rental wouldn't be bad if they took care of all the maintainence. It would even be better if that included the hydrogen fuel.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
I would rather ride his wife
For those who are interested here is a picture of the car: http://www.ballard.com/media/image_gallery/full-in fo/Honda_FCX_Demo.jpg
hah! that would rule, driving a giant yellow bottle to work. paint "XXX" on the side. no, wait, then people would think you're vin diesel.
i don't think anyone could reasonably argue that they hit you because 'they didn't see you'...'yeah, that jerk in the giant glowing yellow bottle just came outta nowhere'
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
they've been doing that for a long time, it is all javascript, using the handler on the resize. did you notice that the columns re-lay themselves out when you resize the window. and the end columns are the previous/ next buttons, so you can click anywhere in the last column and move to the next page.
IHT has got article reading very right.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
I work about ten seconds away from Ballard's two buildings in Burnaby, British Columbia and I've been seeing Civics in the neighborhood with "H2" logos and the like for years.
Largely irrelevant, but it makes me feel super cool...
~Someday, I hope to be an aspiring author.
However, I am a little concerned with the reports that the planet is retaining more energy than is lost to outer-space. If you consider the total energy to be X and the energy lost to space X - Epsilon (E), then you have the equation X > X - E. At some point, if X - E doesn't change to X + E, the planet will become a burnt crisp.
I believe GM has had cars on the road for a bit already.
0 62705.htm
http://www.hydrogenforecast.com/June2005/BushCell
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/
Also, an article on this story at Honda's website: http://world.honda.com/news/2005/4050629.html
That seems a lot to lease a car -- I'm not sure what the incentive would be to do it if I were the driver. You can lease a nice car for a lot less money. I understand the motive of making sure the user bitches about every little thing, but they would probably do that at a reasonable rate, no? This almost seems like punishment.
If everybody in the US drove cars this size for their commuting, even with a gas engine, there would probably be no oil capacity problem and no demand for a fuel cell car. Just persuading people to drive European size cars would make a huge difference. But presumably the real hidden benefit of the fuel cell to the auto makers is that it will ultimately enable them to keep right on making SUVs and suburban trucks.
Pining for the fjords
Actually sunny California is probably the perfect place to test this out?
First, California has a relatively progressive set of rules that allow for testing new technologies and cars. California also has a high amount of pollution and thus a need for water cars that will bring down their high carbon levels.
As the heart of Americas car culture, California has already tried a large number of possible solutions to the problem, with only a moderate success. One or five or even a thousand water/electric hybirds won't make a lot of differance, but it is a start.
Finally, who knows what the conditions will be as global warming takes over. Everything slows down at -40, but as temps go down, these temps head north. And since the problem is that it is the US that uses most of the oil that is causing the warming, the testing should be done in a place where the conditions are similar to where the real need for such cars is located.
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
Until you have a clean, renewable source of hydrogen you haven't solved any problem at all by building a hydrogen fuelled car. You've only moved the pollution source, and likely lost energy in the conversion and transportation.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
We don't get to many day's below 50 let alone freezing down here.
You seem to be bearing up well considering......
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
Don't forget about global warming, the underlying problem in the first place!
As temps go up, winter temps go down and the frost/cold ranges move steadily north.
"Where did this apple come from?"
--Alan Turing
Call me when you have your first storm like this one:
Or this one:Yeah, I know those in Minnesota and Arizona could each beat me on low or high temps, snowfall, etc, but is there anyone that can top all three? Detroit maybe? DC? Let the pissing contest begin!
With current technology, it requires quite a lot of electricity to create the Hydrogen based economy, as opposed to a 'flirtation' with it. If the US wanted to move its transportation sector to Hydrogen, it would require massive power plant building.
Are they going to build coal burning power plants? Not in California, and recently California told it's out-of-state electrical suppliers to clean up their act.
Will they build Natural Gas burning power plants? With the expected rise in prices and shortening of supply due to distribution problems and higher demand, I don't think so.
Will Wind and Solar, etc;, create enough power to create the Hydrogen necessary? Not on your life.
What we have left is Nuclear.
To quote a now not so famous industrial band: "Connect the God Damned dots!"
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
But blocking vision is why I drive!
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
So if even a small fraction of US cars convert to another energy source, this would considerably lower the strain on the gasoline supply chain and probably lower the oil price -- at least until OPEP tightens the supply.
Naturally, you need that other energy source. If all you do is generate H2 from oil (or natural gas), then you accomplish nothing. You need nuclear power plants. They are not cheap (at almost $2 per watt, they are more expensive than natural gas plant), but they are considerably cheaper than solar arrays ($5/Watt), and they operate 24 hours a day whereas solar plants don't (a solar plant would need triple generating capacity and energy storage to be able to supply electricity at night -- generate 3x the energy during the day, store it, release 1x the energy at night, roughly).
More nuclear power plants would allow emerging countries to bootstrap their economy faster. Costly oil is really harming them right now. Mundane things like irrigation programs require pumps that run on electricity, which itself comes from oil. Expensive oil means no pumps, no irrigation, no crop.
So next time you meet a well-fed person opposing nuclear power, remind him/her that because of this attitude, millions of people are starving and rotting in abject poverty.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Fossil fuels are wasteful and are old technology.
Many things (but not all) that are produced by fossil fuels can be produced by more earth friendly resources.
If countries that rely on oil for their primary source of income will soon realize other means of creating income, it is inevitable that this will happen.
I guess I should have been more careful, I didn't realize how many people were going to defend the oil industry here.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
BMW has been playing with hydrogen powered vehicles for the past 3 years. Not just the little 3s either, they have been running the big 7 series, v8 and v12 motors with an emphasis on drivability not just fuel efficiency. Public availability has yet to be announced. however, there is a large consumer market that will drive any old POS as long as it gets good gas mileage, that must be why honda is the first in... :)
I can't understand why the Japanese or especially the European car makers haven't made a Diesel Hybrid. You would have the best of both worlds. Use renewable BioDiesel for fuel for hiway driving while your city driving is powered by the hybrid tech. What could be simpler. No "retooling" of the trasportation sector and most current Diesel engines work fine with B10 and B20 or even higher.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
unless you are using solar power to generate the electricty to separate H20 into H (which will never happen), then hydrogen is USELESS!!! why dont people realize that? What is the big hype about Hydrogen somone please tell me. It doesnt solve anything.
It can come from powerplants that depend on other sources such as coal, natural gas, nuclear, and eventually fusion. The point is to move away from our dependencies on foreign oil and markets while also reducing pollutants. Though, that's arguable with coal, gas, and nuclear power plants. Fusion, however, is very enticing.
Gods, are you an oil company shill or what? Vegetable oil is NOT biodiesel. Pouring canola oil into your tank is one of the quickest ways to fsck up your engine. Biodiesel is made from vegetable oils which go through a chemical process known as transesterification, where the glycerin is replaced with a methyl ion.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
You're correct about Nuclear being the only realistic power source to \kreate\ the Hydrogen economy. However, I guess it's not worth wasting anyones time discussing the problems with current Nuclear tech, waste being the main one. Ask anyone living in or near Las Vegas or Utah's Wasatch Front about Nuclear waste and you'll get a negative opinion. Why don't we ship the waste, overland in trains and trucks, to where you live?
Also, your comment about the well fed person is absolute \krap\ in my book. Don't try to play the "I'm proposing Nuclear because I care about the worlds hungry" card.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Links:
http://www.crest.org/hydrogen/index.html
http://www.h2fuelcells.org/learn.php
http://www.humboldt.edu/~serc/related.html
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
You would never guess that Jon Spallino drives what is probably the most expensive car in this city, known for its automotive excess. Or that he is the world's most technologically advanced computer. The above is the beginning of TFA as I misread it.
You love to shit all over the place. It is time for you to grow up. BTW, I have been tracking you for about 3 months, and you are one of the biggest liars here. Goes hand in hand with your fuhrer.
Does that mean they fall out and lie on the highway, while the rest of the car keeps going?
And hydrogen bombs aren't burning hydrogen anyway -- they're fusing two hydrogen atoms together to make helium: fusion. The massive temperatures required to give the atoms enough energy to fuse are created by the splitting of uranium/plutonium/whatever atoms into lighter metals: fission.
How bad could it be? At one point I had a pos Geo Metro. If I leaned too hard on that car the sides would get large dents.
Surely you're joking. Northeastern states (massachusetts, rhode island, new hampshire) will give up salting the roads when you pry the bribes out of their local aldermans' cold dead hands.
Well, you know - you'd be dead if you hit something in THIS. Deceleration, torn internal organs and such things...
The French and the Dutch reprocess their nuclear waste and convert the waste's plutonium into short-life radionucleides. The technology exists. It's there, it's working, it's available for licensing.
I'd much prefer working at a waste reprocessing plant than breathing the air downwind from a coal burning plant: I'd wok in reducing the amount of deadly plutonium on Earth rather than being content with misspelling words starting with a "c" on slashdot.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Isn't Hydrogen embrittlement a problem that has yet to be addressed?
DNA just wants to be free...
-40 degrees Celsius = -40 degrees Fahrenheit
Oh, wait... what was your point?
However, what we don't know is what will the hydrogen do over the lifetime of the car or engine to the engine (and fuel supply system). Hydrogen is what makes water the "universal solvent". Hydrogen atoms migrate through almost (maybe all?) materials known to man. It makes steel brittle. How it will affect an engine running on it over the running life of the engine is a big unknown. Maybe it won't matter at all - or maybe you will need a new engine every couple of years (or a major overhaul).
I would hope the automobile manufacturers have done or will do this kind of a study before releasing these vehicles to the public. It would be in everyone's best interest...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Yeah, I saw that in the article, which I did read first. But "crash tested" to what standards? US? Japanese? Honda's? Anyones? Side? Frontal? It doesn't even say it actually passed, just that it was tested. And they certainly don't provide the info.
My car is crash tested too, but I can look up the reports.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough in the original post. Just because Bill Gates says Internet Exporer is safe doesn't make it so. I don't see why you believe anyone who says something's been crash tested but doesn't provide any proof or further mention thereof.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
The batteries are very nasty, even mre so then current car batteries.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Southern California may not have road salt, but it has just about every other unfriendly driving condition you can think of. Heat, crazy traffic, crazy traffic enforcement, etc. I think they could have done a lot worse, if "harsh driving environment" was one of the driving forces.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
For some reason.. I expected to find some more info on the car. But no, just arguing about who has the worst weather. Who cares? If you don't like your weather - move.
Dude, did you read your own link?
Try reading the paragraph headed "Rate of Flame Propogation".
You also might want to try reading the rest of this thread.
According to my back-of-the-envelope calculations, you could get at least 300 miles (480 km) before refueling. But let's say you could only get 100. With all the savings of not using gasoline (spend about 25% as much on fuel per mile), I'm sure a lot of people would be willing to swap out one car for an air car if it's just goint to be used to get to and from work, and just recharge it when you get home. You could recharge it anywhere there's an outlet, so you wouldn't even have to wait for that.
I admit I'm fuzzy on the maintainance (sp).
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
From the article: "Cars powered by fuel cells are electric cars that do not rely on batteries, but that instead generate their own electricity. Fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen from the air in a chemical reaction, with water vapor as their only emission, at least from the tailpipe."
Sounds like these fuel cells would be ideal to power a hybrid vehicle, where most of the energy for propulsion is drawn from the battery. These fuel cells won't be replacing batteries as we know them - they will be replacing Internal Combustion Engines (ICE).
Who cares about, solar, hydrogen or biofuel powered cars. What I want to see is a methane powered vehicle.
Honda is being very clever by charging $500 to the family renting the car. They claim the family will be more likely to complain.. but don't you really think that any family who is going to shell out $500/month for a car that may or may not work well has a more favorable attitude towards the car? It's likely that some huge environmentalist will rent this car and have the attitude of "wanting to like it". So of course, Honda will get much more favorable results (i.e., a report of the car being great).
Technically, he's correct. Major stakeholders in the oil business do own bits of some car companies.
Two of the largest shareholders of DalmierChrysler are oil-producing states in the Middle-East - Kuwait and Dubai. Hemi anyone?
IMO, that's why you'll find Chrysler's big push will still focus on petrol and disel engines. To prove a point, the Jeep Liberty is going to have the option of a Merc disel engine this year.
--- Dan
Honda is one of the companies furthest behind in fuel cell technology among the majors. For example, DaimlerChrysler (really just Mercedes back then), has had fuel-cell buses for sale to European customers since late in 2000. These days, GM seems to be the furthest ahead.
2) platinum can be, and is, recycled. petrol can't [in any meaningfull way, AFAIK - and I'm a Chemical Engineer].
This Is Old News
Honda has had the Honda FCX out for awhile now. There is dozen or so people who is driving one.
For information on Hydrogen, http://www.hydrogennow.org/
\
Ultra capacitor eh? Wake me up when the 'flux' capacity shows up. I got an election in 2000 to get to. :-)
sri
1) WHere do you think we will be getting the energy for hydrogen seperation?
Nuclear power. Sure its a stop gap until we figure out fusion in 500 years, but if our descendants don't figure out technological solutions for the waste then they won't be able to survive anyways.
2) How many wars have started directly because of oil supply? ANd what is the death toll for these wars as opposed to the more traditional "agression" wars?
Depends... Technically 10 of millions. Germany attacked the Soviet Union for its resources in WWII. Partially for the grain in the Ukraine and the living space, but Hitler was really keen on getting oil fiels in Kiev and in the Baku fields in the Caucasus. Even so much to dictate military strategy on it. He held back the forces going to Moscow to take the Kiev pocket in 1941 in order to secure this. Secondly the Baku fields were a major issue in the 1942 campaign with Stalingrad.
There were ideology reasons behind this, but oil was a big factor for the German invasion.
The Iraq/Iran war was over highly rich oil territory that Saddam wanted to grab. He also wanted to topple the revolutionaries in Tehran that stated they wanted to overthrow him... But mostly oil was the key objective. A few million died in that war mind you.
Iraq attacked Kuwait over a border dispute with slant drilling over the border and debts and oil production vs price issues. You know where that got us...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_war
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Why don't they give the ETs for this car? I would love to know how its top speed and 1/4 mile times. I guess that with a 100kW power-plant, or about 140 HP, the practical rating is closer to 50kW, or 70 HP. On second thought, I don't want to know the numbers.
_ 1021vow.html
Secondly, why do they give the car such a crappy look. What is wrong with the sexy convertible two-seater look, like a Miata or Triumph Spitfire? Something like this:
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2003/10/21/cx_dl
Not ready to sell the '70 GTO yet.
Estimated cost of a 35% efficient fuel cell stack (ie worse than a good internal combustion engine) is $5000/kW or more. So for a 15 kW system, which will need some batteries as well for peak current draw, you are looking at $75000.
That number has not changed in 4 years.
Where are you going to get the hydrogen from? Nobody has a satisfactory reformulator for hydrocarbons.
Fuel cells are a taxpayer/investor funded daydream.
...Impressed
"There's a sucker born every minute."
Then again, they said they want serious feedback like they might get from a real consumer. That's $30,000 over an assumed 5 year service life (hopefully production models last longer than that, but I think 5 years is the allowable depreciation time for the IRS). That's the cost of a nice sedan.
Perth in Western Australia has had fuel cell busses for well over a year http://www.dpi.wa.gov.au/fuelcells/partners.html so if they wanted to test relibility what better way then on a bus , just think of all the angry commuters if one broke down .
I say we take off and Nuke the site from Orbit, It's the only way to be sure.
Yes, I want to be driving around with compressed hydrogen under my ass. Doesn't anyone remember the hindenburg?
stupid.
Indeed, a hybrid is not just an internal combustion engine hooked up to a hydrogen tank. Yet while the power generation process is not the same as combustion, the reaction taking place within a fuel cell also outputs water as a waste product.
As far as I can remember, the reaction goes something like:
2H2 => 4H+ + 4e-
O2 + 4H+ + 4e- => 2H2O
So there's your water
It would not be unusual for a large fleet to get a car prior to job 1, and we also put experimental subsystems (eg new HVACs) into say taxi fleets before they are used elsewhere.
However, your average customer is not going to drive cars long in advance of J1, because they will not be homologated, and will be uninsurable (we are self insured for our employees).
Also it is not unknown for other manufacturers to hire/borrow any early cars that are available and tear them down overnight. Honda have probably got some heavy security on this thing to stop that happening.
My department inherited a Lexus LS 400 that had been through a teardown, nice car, but the array of warning lights that you got because of the mistakes on re-assembly were a bit of a spoiler.
GM's Impact program was much the same idea, I'm sure they now have enough customer data to know how to model electric vehicles accurately.
We do a similar thing, we install a small box that monitors the Can bus (?sp) and saves the results to flash. Then we build up Real World Customer Useage Profiles, and design our durability tests around them.
Follow the money:GM GM has hyped hydrogen, pissed on hybrid.
The hype started with the federal FreedomCar program. This was
a replacement for PNGV. Which Bush killed in 2002. Bush's chief
of staff is Andy Card, a GM exec. Go google on the demise of PNGV
then it releases too slowly to explode all at once, so a tank rupture may lead to a plume of burning gas, but shouldn't give you an explosion...
google palladium and hydrogen storage for yourselves.
Gasoline can and does explode, and this include its fumes. How else do you think it could move the pistons in your car's engine?
Granted, it doesn't happen nearly as often as it is does in the movies, and you have to be pretty unlucky to ignite the vapors at a distance, but don't pretend it doesn't happen.
Not according to these articles:
f cv/dc_demo_050703.html
http://www.autoblog.com/entry/1234000143060629/
http://www.gm.com/company/gmability/adv_tech/400_
And they are not in sunny california, too bad for them.
Yeah, why's it got a tailpipe?
Man that thing will be sick with a 4" pipe, 17" rims, kick ass tint, cold air intake, hood scoop, evo III body kit, under car lights, 12 inch dubs and big ass amp. Man I can't wait till some one does this baby up.
Gasoline won't burn if you drop a cigarette in it; gasoline doesn't even burn in liquid form because there's no oxygen present. The vapors (fumes) however are flammable, which also explains the sibling's gripe about the plane in Die Hard 2 (although there's no question it was purely for gratuitous explosions; and who doesn't like explosions?!?)
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Natural gas is lighter than air too.
Something else hit the road a few days ago for the FIRST TIME IN THE WORLD TOO: http://www.newpath4.com/01manhattanproject20056789 fromnewpath410302005.htm . I've written a triple-solution Manhattan Project for 2005. Page shows how groups of scientists are not the answer to solving Earth's problems any more than throwing billions of dollars of hurricane repair monies into Florida in time for next year's hurricane season. More isn't needed; smarter is needed. I've also this past week addressed the evolutionist's arguments: http://tinyurl.com/cyqph as well as explaining how each Galaxy could have a separate law of Physics yet still share our visible plane: http://tinyurl.com/eyf8b . There's also a picture of yours truly holding the instructions to the vaporgenerator that makes more electricity than it uses. I took the pic for the you know historical records, prior to renting a vault safety box where I placed the instructions.
Who am I? Well, I'm not the robot brain in "I,Robot"! hahaha Good guess tho. But, THAT is the question, detective. Fortunately you don't need a hologram to get the answer, just a computer terminal and: http://www.newpath4.com/01manhattanproject20056789 fromnewpath410302005.htm#ManhattanEnergySolutionha sbeeninRileyspossessionsinceFebruary2005_TheBigBoy srefuseit_Greenpeacedoesnotwantit_SierraClubwouldn otReplytomyEmails_WHY_Becausetheyarealladdictedtoy ourcontributionsandtaxmonies_theyhavegottenaddicte dtoyourMoney_thatswhy
Whooooweeee... I just looked up an article about fuel cells and it appears BMW builds them fast and quickly. http://www.germancarfans.com/news.cfm/NewsID/2040
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Here is my source
250% in the lab means nothing on the road, but 167% means a lot in reduced oil imports.
Well, Jimmy, I also live on the Wasatch Front, and by the way, you may want to come out of your FPS, Cheetos and Mountain Dew-induced haze once in a while an read the newspaper. Either one will do, the Trib or the DN. Heck, you could even get adventurous and read the SL Weekly. You see Jimmy, not only does Orrin Hatch (a rabid environmentalist by anyones reckoning) oppose the PFS site at Skull Valley (boy, there is some irony for ya) and most of the rest of Utah's hardcore Republican "environmentalists", but also the uber-activist "Earth First" enviro himself, the ultra liberal John Huntsman. You know him, right, the governor of Utah? You live in Utah, right?
Here is a quote from that most activist, liberal, anti-business Governor of ours, who, by the way is a Republican. Who would have known?
that is cold comfort to the hundreds of thousands of Utahns who live immediately downwind from this site.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I agree with the need for waste reprocessing, but of course the Europeans are always ahead of the U.S. in such things. What else is new.
Also, the amount of Mercury coming over from Chinese coal burning power plants alone (forget the US plants) is enough to taint every lake and strem in the western U.S. Try checking the Forest Service, BLM or Fish and Game web sites about Mercury warnings in Lakes and streams that are far from any urban areas.
But what really warms my heart is that your one "slash" to my "dot" (so to speak) is your lame ass attack on my humorous use of the letter K instead of C. Personally, I like the "hard" c sound that a k brings to mind, especially in the word krap.
Oh, and by the way, I wouldn't use any deadly plutonium in my stir fry if I was you...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
(Incidentally, these are broad terms. Solar includes a wide range of things like wind and thermal ocean gradients. Nuclear includes geothermal power and fusion if we ever make it work.)
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates