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NASA Tests Hydrogen-Fueled BMW

Posted by kdawson on from the hold-the-lox dept.

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."

4 of 420 comments (clear)

  1. Re:*boggle* by rah1420 · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.)

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    Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
  2. Re:emissions by ben_thompson21 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:How efficient are they? by Ginger+Unicorn · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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    (1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
  4. Re:How efficient are they? by Monkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    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 /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.