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NASA Tests Hydrogen-Fueled BMW
Rio sends us word that NASA has completed an 8-week test of a fleet of BMW luxury sedans powered by liquid hydrogen at Kennedy Space Center. The new BMW Hydrogen 7 sedan uses the same fuel that powers the space shuttle and reduces CO2 emissions by 90 percent, according to a news release. Its engine can burn gasoline or liquid hydrogen and can switch seamlessly between the two. From the article: "One hundred BMW Hydrogen 7s have been built, and 25 are used in test programs in the US. The cars have already covered more than 1.3 million miles in test programs around the globe."
lox is smoked salmon. Whitefish is something different.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
At the risk of your setting the hook, "LOX" is rocket-speak for liquid oxygen (the oxidizer side of rocket fuel that uses LH2 as the fuel.)
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
According to the specs on this car, it uses 3.6 kg of hydrogen per 100 km.
I think the important thing to remember in all this is that hydrogen is effectively a battery technology and is not a fuel source. The earth has few reserves of hydrogen - it has to be created by electrolysis of water which requires a lot of power. There are other small-scale methods such as fractional distillation of air but I hope you get my point. It's simply weight efficient and cheaper for motor transport to store the energy in hydrogen that can be burned than it is in batteries. Rechargeable lithium ion batteries are expensive and the charging time may be unacceptable.
So the reductions in CO2 rather depend on whether it's more efficient or less polluting to electrolyse water using energy from power stations some of which burn oil, store the hydrogen and burn it than it is to refine oil, store it and burn it.
The emissions at the car may be reduced by 90% but the total emissions will be similar.
so that's $7.20 per 100km. Or £3.55 for 62 miles in english. Equivalent in petrol about 62 mpg. That's not bad at all.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
And to lamely reply to my own comment, this article at Motor Trend has a FAQ about liquid hydrogen in the context of using it to power automobiles.
/kg using the natural gas reformation process to create it or $6.50 /kg using electrolysis. This cost is expected to drop if there is widespread adoption of the fuel source.
According TFA, 1 kg of H2 has roughly the same energy content as a gallon of gasoline. The cost per kg is estimated at $3.50
Actually most hydrogen is made from natural gas. It is cheaper to split CH4 than H20. What I want to know is how does this reduce CO2 emissions by just 80%? Burning H2 should produce NO Co2 except what was already in the air and what little you might get from burning any free CO or hydrocarbons that are naturally in the atmosphere. Heck I don't know if LH2 is lighter and cheaper than batteries.
While cool I don't expect to see LH2 cars any time soon.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Bullshit
Having driven/ridden on the autobahn at speeds up to 165mph I can tell you the speed differential is not safe. Closing on a car with 80mph speed differential is crazy stupid, passing at that differential is asking for an early grave. Trying to judge if they've seen you are they going to stay in lane, reducing speed just in case. The only safe thing to do is roll off the throttle miles away and pass doing no more than 20mph more and then wind back on the throttle.
Now when the road is empty it's some of the best riding in Europe, hour after hour of very fast riding on immaculate road surfaces. Passing police bikes/cars and not having to worry. Stopping off in small villages for great food and beer. The only times have had anything remotely similar is riding through Nevada and Utah, but still you had to watch out for the revenue generators.