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."

Comments

How efficient are they?

[ThatFunkyMunki]

Hydrogen may be clean to use and get, but is it energy efficient to use it?

Re:How efficient are they?

[Monkey]

According to the specs on this car, it uses 3.6 kg of hydrogen per 100 km.

Re:How efficient are they?

[Ginger Unicorn]

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.

Re:How efficient are they?

[Opportunist]

Well, how "clean" is it, really?

I'm not an expert on H2 refining, but the methods I know either create quite nasty and poisonous waste products or need incredible amounts of power. So unless we got some very clean and efficient way to generate power to get this clean H2, we're just back at square one. And unless I didn't sleep through physics, the 2nd law of thermodynamics tells me that this better be some really, really clean way of generating H2.

It's a bit like the electric motor. Sure, it's the most efficient kind of engine, converting more than 95% of the energy put into it into movement, but first of all someone has to generate that electricity to run it. And that means... 2nd thermodynamic law, it would have been probably more efficient and less waste heat producing to use the primary energy source to generate movement instead of converting it to power and then use an electric motor.

Now, it might be more efficient if you convert energy large scale than in the small scale of a combustion engine. But the question remains: Where do we get clean H2? H2 isn't available naturally on earth. It has to be refined out of molecules containing it. Water would offer itself, being quite abundant and cheap, and all that's required to get H2 out of water is electricity. Which gets us back to the question, how do we get clean electricity?

Solar power? Would be cheap, but the production of those solar cells is creating a horrible amount of waste and they're far from efficient. Wind power? Even worse. And pretty much everything else isn't CO2 neutral.

Re:How efficient are they?

[Monkey]

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.

Re:How efficient are they?

[WED Fan]

The really sad news is that the BMW is also planned to be the replace for the shuttle fleet when it is retired in 2010.

Re:How efficient are they?

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

I don't think there are any solar powered hydrogen plants. The key to reducing CO2 is to reduce it's use in the production and supply chain.

If the hydrogen plant is supplied by a coal or natural gas plant, there may be little or no reduction in the net CO2 emission throughout production.

As to the supply chain, if the hydrogen car is inefficient, the trucks that deliver the hydrogen (probably burning diesel) will need to make more trips to maintain the same demand as gasoline, increasing the net CO2 per kg.

Don't be so shortsighted. The solution is not so simple as "Everybody needs to drive a different car!"

Re:How efficient are they?

[Chris Burke]

And unless I didn't sleep through physics, the 2nd law of thermodynamics tells me that this better be some really, really clean way of generating H2.

It's a bit like the electric motor. Sure, it's the most efficient kind of engine, converting more than 95% of the energy put into it into movement, but first of all someone has to generate that electricity to run it. And that means... 2nd thermodynamic law, it would have been probably more efficient and less waste heat producing to use the primary energy source to generate movement instead of converting it to power and then use an electric motor.

The 2nd Law says nothing about how efficient a process is, only that it will not be 100%.

A power plant is more efficient than an automobile ICE. Even if both are burning hydrocarbons dug up from the ground, the power plant will be more efficient and produce less pollution largely due to the scale. It's much easier to add expensive and heavy scrubbers to a coal plant smoke stack than to the exhaust system of a car. It's easier to make an efficient engine when the weight of the engine is not a concern.

So your 95% efficient electric engine times a 40% efficient coal plant is better than your 35% efficient ICE with much better emissions controls to boot. And that's using coal, which I'm certainly not a fan of.

Which leads me to the big advantage of electricity-based transportation (whether it's electric batteries or electrically produced hydrogen from water) which is that once you have decoupled power generation from transportation, when you bring online new environmentally friendly power plants you can use this new source seamlessly with no disruption to the transportation infrastructure. Already we're producing far more "green" electricity in this country than we are using "clean" transportation, and this has happened without you even having to be aware when you flick the light switch. We should be so lucky as to be able to do the same with transportation.

Basically what I'm saying is that electric/hydrogen power has efficiency and environmental advantages now, but also has the potential for vast improvements in the future and that's even if you keep the exact same car!

Solar power? Would be cheap, but the production of those solar cells is creating a horrible amount of waste and they're far from efficient. Wind power? Even worse. And pretty much everything else isn't CO2 neutral.

If you're going to look at the environmental cost of solar power, then you should include the environmental cost of acquiring oil. Adding every cost associated with ICE-based cars or coal power plants certainly do not make them look better compared to solar power.

And what's wrong with wind power again? It's not bird deaths, those were never any more than city office buildings produce, and new designs that discourage nesting on the turbines has put it in the noise.

Re:How efficient are they?

[Mr. Bad Example]

> So unless we got some very clean and efficient way to generate power
> to get this clean H2, we're just back at square one.

A man.

Some water.

A very, very sharp axe.

(And yes, it's patented, so no stealing my idea, you insensitive clods.)

Re:How efficient are they?

[Nerviswreck]

Very Good Point.

When myself and a buddy of mine did a research project on the production of CO2, NOx, SOx, and particulate matter of various H2 production methods using a bunch of DOE data, and if my memory serves me correctly we found that using H2 fuel reduced CO2 emissions by about 15% from the most efficient current form of H2 production (Coal Gassification) as the power transfer through the H2 cells was more efficient that burning gas and the gassification process is more efficient than burning fossil fuels. The greatest impact was on SOx and NOx production which went down about 20%.

Although electrolysis seems great, most of the energy in this country is produced from coal or natural gas, which still puts us in the same situation. The one example I can think of where a large amount of clean energy is produced is in the pacific northwest where a significant amount of energy is produced from hydroelectric generators in dams. The American aluminum industry is based up here in the northwest because of the cheap energy which goes wholly unused at night(as aluminum cannot be smelted, it must be electrolyzed from ore into pure Al). In an area like this H2 could be produced cheaply and with a small ecological footprint. Electrolysis, however, is still a very inefficient manufacture method for H2 production.

Well, I guess the best thing to do is to hope for nuclear fusion to finally reach break-even!

--Nerviswreck

Re:How efficient are they?

[BytePusher]

Fortunately however, they will begin placing satellites in UELEO(Ultra Extreme Low Earth Orbit) anywhere in the US for about as much as a few tanks of gasoline. This simply involves piloting the new BMW UELEO vehicle to the desired location and depositing the UELEO satellite in UELEO. An added benefit is that UELEO Satellites require no altitude repositioning mechanism because gravity and normal forces cancel providing a static and stable orbit. Another benefit is that owners of UELEO satellites may maintain the satellites themselves as UELEO is easily accesible by the millions of UELEO vehicles already in use. Many experts are anticipating however, NASA will face fierce competition from current private sector UELEO deploying organizations such as UPS and FedEx.

Re:How efficient are they?

[yiantsbro]

Well let's hope the bridge to space isn't built using joint plates.

Re:How efficient are they?

[Chabil Ha']

Is it efficiency that we're after or dependence on, say, oil? As long as oil (or some other foreign nonrenewable resource) wasn't heavily involved in the process of creating the H2, isn't that a plus? As much as the sky is falling over what we're doing to the environment, shouldn't we overcome the issue of renewable energy before we focus on what it does to the environment?

Re:How efficient are they?

[GeckoX]

Expected to drop as either:

a) demand for natural gas skyrockets or
b) demand for electricity skyrockets

It will NOT go down...or at least, if it does it will be purely artificial and VERY short lived.

If we had natural gas in that kind of abundance, or electricity in that kind of abundance, we'd completely skip Hydrogen without question.

Turns out Hydrogen is merely an expensive battery.

Re:How efficient are they?

[JustNiz]

>> So a trace gas in the atmosphere is directly responsible for environmental damage?

Yes. It increases global warming.
Oh wait, are you one of those die-hard Americans who refuse to believe that global warming is caused by human activity because it means you'd have to take responsibility to do something?

*boggle*

[ubrgeek]

> hold-the-lox
What the heck does smoked whitefish have to do with this story? Or am I missing something?

Re:*boggle*

[FuzzyDaddy]

lox is smoked salmon. Whitefish is something different.

Re:*boggle*

[rah1420]

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.)

emissions

[slapout]

"same fuel that powers the space shuttle and reduces CO2 emissions by 90 percent"

In that case, we should all be driving space shuttles to work.

Re:emissions

[LordVader717]

Obligatory link

Re:emissions

[ben_thompson21]

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.

Re:emissions

[LWATCDR]

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.

Re:emissions

[cyfer2000]

The CO2 generated during the CH4 split process can be collected and used as raw material for some industrial applications. But the CO2 generated from our car's engine can't be collected. This is the difference.

Finally, action movies are vindicated

[BlackCobra43]

We finally have cars that are actually likely to explode violently when shot! Stallones, Schawrzneggers and Norrises of the world rejoice!

Re:Finally, action movies are vindicated

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, hydrogen is much safer. In case you didn't realize, gasoline is also highly combustible. However, which would you rather have combusting in your car? Gasoline, which will take over and destroy the entire car? Or hydrogen, which is less dense than air and will rise, creating a single vertical pillar of flame, leaving the rest of the car unharmed?

I remember watching a video of the two types of cars burning. The gasoline one didn't make it at all, while the hydrogen one just shot flame for a few seconds and then was through with it.

Reduces CO2 emmissions 90% ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote: "and reduces CO2 emissions by 90 percent,"

OK, where did the other 10% come from?

Expensive

[wiggles]

Even if they do come out, unless they sticker under $40k, nobody's going to buy them. Nice idea, but way too impractical.

Re:Expensive

[dwlovell]

Although I understand the point you are trying to make, these are Liquid Hydrogen versions of their 7-series sedan. The normal gas-guzzling 7-series has MSRP of 75k-122k, so I think the people already buying the 7-series (plenty) will be happy to buy the cleaner version.

http://autos.msn.com/research/vip/overview.aspx?ye ar=2007&make=BMW&model=7-Series

This is actually a smart way to do this. It will be expensive to manufacture new technology like this, so start with the sector of the market that is used to paying a lot of money, and as the technology is proven and commoditized, they can work it down into the lesser expensive lines.

-David

Solution to Global Warming!

[Antarius]

The solutions is right here:

The new BMW Hydrogen 7 sedan uses the same fuel that powers the space shuttle and reduces CO2 emissions by 90 percent

If this remarkable fuel powers the space shuttle and reduces CO2 emissions by 90 percent, then simply send up more space shuttles! Duh!

If we send up a shuttle per year, we can pollute as much as we like! The plants will take care of the other 10%!

We're in the minority

[iknownuttin]

Hydrogen may be clean to use and get, but is it energy efficient to use it?

FTFA:The V12 cylinder engine delivers 260 hp; the top speed of the Hydrogen 7 is 143 mph and acceleration 0-60 mph is 9.2 sec.

I had a similar question: "What are the operating costs?"
But unfortunately for those of us who are more interested in efficiency are in the minority; so car makers market to the folks who consider automobiles to be a status sort of thing instead of a piece of machinery.
I can care less how fast it can go or its acceleration.

Re:We're in the minority

[Ironsides]

I can care less how fast it can go or its acceleration.

Yes you do. You want it to be able to get above 60mph and do that in a reasonably small amount of time (say, less than 20 seconds?). Otherwise, you'll never be able to take it on the interstate or most roads due to the slow speed or bitched at at lights when the light turns green.

Re:We're in the minority

[BlackSnake112]

Try getting on a highway/freeway where everyone else is going 65+ MPH (don't have the KPH conversions right now) and you will care about how much acceleration the car you are in has. Unless you like causing accidents. You are (well should be) responsible for getting your car up to the speed limit as quickly and safely as possible.

There are speed up lanes most people I see go slow in the speed up lane, then stop at the end of it. Then they try to merge. This is not in rush hour!

I do see you point though. I have no need to have a car that does 120+ MPH. If the max speed of a car is 80 MPH, it is fast enough to get on the highway without me losing a few years on my life, and get good mileage (over 40 MPG would be great), and I can load my stuff when I travel I am fine with it.

Re:We're in the minority

[kannibul]

Slow drivers don't cause accidents - idiots who aren't aware of their surroundings and/or are agressive with their driving do. When did it become OK to drive like your a member of NASCAR on public streets? It's real fun when you're on a motorcycle going 65MPH, and there's some jackhead close enough behind you in a SUV and you can hear that he has a lifter ticking in his engine...

Re:We're in the minority

[Usquebaugh]

Drivers that vary greatly from the average speed of traffic do cause accidents. It's not a matter of who is causing the speed differential, it's the differential itself that is the problem.

Re:We're in the minority

[AKAImBatman]

if it runs on the same fuel as the Space Shuttle, maybe we could expect to go from 0 - 22,350 km/h in about 9 minutes

<pedantic>Technically, the Space Shuttle obtains its MaxQ (maximum velocity inside the atmosphere) thanks to the high thrust-to-weight ratio of the two Solid Fuel Boosters (SRB). The Space Shuttle would go absolutely nowhere if it had to rely solely on the thrust from its LHOx engines.</pedantic>

Re:We're in the minority

[Ana10g]

After that you're just showing off.

No, that blanket statement is entirely incorrect. I happen to drive two very high performance vehicles, one a motorcycle, the other a car. Both of which vastly outperform your typical car. I don't care what others think of me, nor am I showing off. No wheelies, stoppies, or the like on my bike, no burnouts, crazy driving, etc, in my car. What I enjoy is the ability to play with physics, drive fast, corner hard, and enjoy life at a higher level of performance. It really has nothing to do with showing off. As a matter of fact, I get really cheesed off when people try to race me at stoplights, simply because my car has a (stock) spoiler on it. I have nothing to prove to anyone. It's something that I enjoy, and screw you for trying to pigeonhole me into a category.

Re:We're in the minority

[cayenne8]

"The problem is that this isn't just about you. You can drive three or maybe even four Prius's for the fuel an average sports car burns. Upcoming versions may up that to seven or eight or more. Multiply that by millions of "high-performance" cars and you end up with a significant impact on oil imports and energy usage and sufficiency."

Honestly...and sadly to you I guess...I really don't care. By the time the world explodes, or things are too bad pollution-wise, I'll be long dead, and far away from caring. So, I'm not terribly motivated to curtail pleasure from my short life on earth for 'the cause'.

That being said...with reference to my other post...if they'd make electric or other 'green' cars that didn't look like a butt ugly prius, and had performance, I'd be happy to buy one. I'd mentioned that if they made the Tesla closer to the cost of a new Vette, I'd be in line to buy one.

But, really.....the people that really care that much about the environment, are probably not the majority out there. I'd suspect more than a couple, would like to unlink our destiny from the Middle East...and that, I'm for too. But, at this point, I'm not compelled to drive a less fun car until they can make a fuel effecient, or alternative fuel car with the look and performance I want.

Selfish? Sure...but, hey, life is short, and I'm not gonna miss out on the fun I can have with that last years remaining.

Re:We're in the minority

[Usquebaugh]

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.

Re:We're in the minority

[stuntpope]

No he didn't. Parent said the speed differential made no difference on the Autobahn. Responder said the speed differential *did* make a difference, and offered personal experience and an explanation of why it does. Namely, a huge speed differential can get you in trouble if a car ahead of you cannot judge your rate of approach (or doesn't even see you yet) and they move into your lane to pass a car ahead of them. The disparity of the two speeds means you're likely to ram right into them before they even realize your car is barreling down on them.

Internal Combustion!

[josquint]

I like the fact that it uses a standard(ish) internal combustion engine. Most of the work seems to be focused on fuel-cell/electric vehicles. While eleectric is probably the eventual future, I think dual-fuel systems like this would be a very good transition.

Not to mention i rather like my rough loud piston engine... sometimes. Granted, I will be weined off and eventually learn to like the quiet boring (but REALLY high torque) electric motor.

It was weird enought driving the company hybrid with CVT transmission, no shift points and odd engine RPM sequences makes driving less-than-intuitive. I find myself having to look at the speedometer far more with that than any other car.

Re:Internal Combustion!

[LordVader717]

I actually got to talk with someone doing research on hydrogen fuel systems for BMW, and he explained that because so many companies were dependant on making the thousands of parts for the combustion engines, there was a lot of lobbying to steer the research in that direction.

Of course, it's also currently the most viable option, as fuel cell systems are about ten times as expensive, but until we find a way to make the fuel cheap enough, and without emitting even more CO2, they're both moot.

i'm all for new tech

[acvh]

but why does NASA need a fleet of luxury BMW sedans?

Re:i'm all for new tech

[niceone]

ut why does NASA need a fleet of luxury BMW sedans?

Well, lets say you're an astronaut and your car's in the shop, but you really need to drive cross country to hunt down the new girlfriend of your ex-lover - one of these would be ideal.

How do they get the hydrogen?

[Sobrique]

Well, much like electric cars, I'm wondering: Does this actually help? I mean, petroleum burning is actually fairly energy efficient. OK, so you pollute a bit. But ... so do power stations. And last I checked, your average power station, producing hundreds of mega watts, is actually substantially less efficient than a (relatively) small petrol engine.

So, you're presumably using rather a lot of oil, coal or natural gas, in order to make these things run. Is that actually helping our environment at all? Or are they looking at some other reason to do it, like making them able to go really really far?

Yeah, I know there's nuclear, solar, geothermal, and wind power available. Fact remains that these are all way more expensive than burning fossil fuels, otherwise we'd have switches _ages_ ago.

Fuel Costs

[uncreativeslashnick]

What's the cost per mile for the fuel? It seems to me that the practical consideration that makes or breaks any technology for oil replacement is the cost per mile of the fuel. What ever that cost is, it's got to come pretty close to gasoline if anyone expects a majority of people to make the switch.

I suspect with all the research into ethanol, and the availability of dual fuel ethanal/gas cars, ethanol will get there first. I have certainly read/heard of crunchy rich enviromental types who already use ethanol just to get the look-at-me-i'm-not-polluting holier-than-thou feeling. Is suspect as ethanol gets cheaper, that population will grow, funding more research and better delivery infrastructure. It seems as if it should work similarly to consumer goods where the early adopters pay the premium for new technology and eventually the price drops and then the rest of the population jumps on the bandwagon.

Yay for hydrogen and nasa though.

The "Real" Emissions

[Gman14msu]

Don't get me wrong, hydrogen fueled vehicles are a great thing for the future but we really need to look at the overall environmental impacts of the hydrogen fueled vehicle. Right now the life cycle emissions of a hydrogen car depend heavily on how the hydrogen is created. While the vehicle itself may have no emissions, the process of creating that hydrogen can be nastier for the environment than a gas powered car. If you are creating hydrogen from coal power plants or compresses natural gas (which is the norm for quite a few operations), then you are having a higher impact on the environment overall than a gas vehicle. But if you`re using renewable resources like hydro power to create the hydrogen, then we are starting to look at true zero emissions vehicles.

This is not to mention the life cycle of the vehicle itself. The manufacturing of hydrogen vehicles can be 3 times more detrimental to the environment than the manufacturing of a gas powered vehicle.

Clearly we are on the right path to less impact on the environment from vehicles, but it really depends on how nations/corporations choose to get their hydrogen fuel. Putting all the emissions in one location rather than from millions of cars is a good start.

Why is NASA not buying American Cars!!!!

[tjstork]

Geez, German taxpayers aren't supporting NASA. US Taxpayers are. So, why couldn't NASA do this with an American car?

Come on.

What a joke.

Re:Why is NASA not buying American Cars!!!!

[Namlak]

Because the American automaker execs are too busy spending time and money lobbying against efficiency and emissions legislation to actually have the time and money to do R&D for efficiency and emissions improvements?

Inside the box

[Dzimas]

Do you get the feeling that manufacturers are stumbling around in the dark a bit when it comes to replacing the 'classic' automobile? "Gosh, Juergen... let's run our century old internal combustion engine on a new fuel! We should make it unnecessarily large and capable of blinding (and unnecessary) performance! Ausgezeichnet!!" and off they go to spend millions on an idea that isn't sensible in the grand scheme of things. It would be far better to rethink the automobile altogether. It's possible to design something very small and lightweight - like the www.twike.com - except with the benefit of hundreds of millions of euros design and research. A true "personal" vehicle would be far easier to propel with electricity or extremely small internal combustion engines. It would also require significantly less fossil fuel to manufacture (because we can't make plastic out of hydrogen...)

I can hear the naysayers now: "But it'd get squashed by a Hummer." or, "I need a high performance car." But the reality is that *if* scientists are right and we've reached Peak Oil, fuel is going to get incredibly expensive and shortages will become a regular occurrence. Once that happens, companies will start to aggressively compete to create a solution and the car will evolve into something that fits the new reality of a fossil fuel depleted world.

I don't think adapting existing designs t hydrogen is the answer for one moment - the infrastructure would cost billions, the technology would cost billions, and it doesn't solve the root problems: 1. Our transportation devices are wasteful and 2. We're turning a blind eye to the benefits of mass transportation, and 3. Planned obsolescence has trained generations of vehicle purchasers to devalue six or seven year old cars as "old" and replace them unnecessarily.

Solution to the H2 problem

[E 99]

Using earth-based H2 power doesn't make a lot of sense, since there's no real energy-efficient way to make it. However, what if we (seriously) built enormous space tankers capable of making the trip to Jupiter and scraping H2 out of the surface of its atmosphere and compressing it into liquid to bring back ginormous amounts to earth? It's a long round-trip, but if there was a fleet making continuous deliveries, at some point this would scale to to the point where it was an incredibly cheap form of energy. The only real downside, is we're making the Earth no longer a closed system -- what will be the long-term effect of the added H2? Will the world's algae keep up with the loss of oxygen as we burn all of that?

Re:"clean to get"? Huh?

[brunes69]

Run your electrolysis off nuclear plants. Boom a zero CO2 emission cycle.

"OH BUT THE NUCLEAR WASTE" you say. Who cares? Store it for 15-25 years, by then we will have cheap ion propulsion engines (running off nuclear power), to cleanly jettison the waste into mercury or the sun.

Nuclear is the source solution to most of our energy problems. If the general public was not so misinformed and paranoid about it, and did not have so much of a "not in my backyard" syndrome, we'd be much better off right now.

Most hydrogen today made from hydrocarbons

[AaronW]

The problem with hydrogen today is that most of it is made from fossil fuels, primarily natural gas, so the process of making pure hydrogen releases CO2. Also, I would think moving to a fuel cell would be much more efficient than an internal combustion engine, though at this time more expensive.

Sadly right now I have not seen any affordable technologies that can eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels for cars (though electric cars are coming down). We can't grow enough ethanol to fill our tanks (over 20% of all corn in the US goes to making ethanol, and the national average of ethanol use in fuel is about 3%).

Hydrogen is really an energy carrier rather than a fuel. It still is not that practical as a fuel since it requires refrigerating it to a very low temperature or compressing it to a very high pressure (both of which require a fair amount of energy to do). And hydrogen loves to leak. It will seep through the smallest holes and has a habit of making metal brittle.

-Aaron

Not backing hydrogen yet

[camg188]

I still think the compressed air powered car looks the most promising. And I think we should focus on producing and delivering cheap electricity, then base our transportation on that.

Checking the facts...

[Cadre]

And last I checked, your average power station, producing hundreds of mega watts, is actually substantially less efficient than a (relatively) small petrol engine.

You checked wrong. Your standard automotive engine is around 20% efficient[1]. Fossil fuel plants vary based upon their design but typically are in 35-40% efficient range[2]. In addition, power stations will have better pollution controls than an automobile.

References:

1. http://mb-soft.com/public2/engine.html
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_p lant (See Bibliography)

The solution we need to be working towards is more nuclear for the power generation and hydrogen generated from electrolysis for use in mobile applications.

Is no one worried about the hindencar?

[AppreticeGuru]

What happens when one of these hits another one at 70mph?

Engine Wear?

[SandwhichMaster]

I realize the article said these BMW's could seamlessly change fuel types, but I wonder if one is harder on the engine than the other. I've read that vehicles running on E-85 get different wear than on normal gas. Or that bio diesel can actually be better for diesel engines.

Does LOX effect these engines different than standard gas?

Re:"clean to get"? Huh?

[BobMcD]

GOOD LORD! You want to fling Nuclear Waste into the SUN??? Have you tested this? What if it generates a Teenage Mutant Ninja Sun?!?!?!?

I like Pizza, but COME ON!

And to the other guy that wants to fling it at our intergalactic neighbors, well, you get to be the one who explains it to them when they come a-knocking!

Re:Future dumb journalist headlines...

[pseudorand]

> The flames were so intense that people in vehicles 50 feet away were melted.

Short term safety was my first question too, but when the Hindenburg exploded, the only people who died were those who jumped off the blimp. Hydrogen may burn fast, but how much more dangerous is it than gasoline?

A bigger question is long term safety. There are bound to be leaks. Does anyone know what hydrogen does if released into the atmosphere in large quantities*? At least CO2 is a someone significant naturally occurring component of the atmosphere.

* The answer is, in fact, no, we don't know what lots of hydrogen would do in the atmosphere. This concern was actually raised by a meteorologist I work with in a global warming discussion a few months back.

NOT "same fuel that powers the space shuttle"

[ChrisA90278]

Have you ever watched a shuttle lunch? All that smoke and fire and exhaust plume you see is NOT coming out of the Shuttle Main Engine. The bulk of the power is coming from the solid boosters. Those boosters burn solid fuel which is basically rubber and aluminum powder. The shuttle does burn a lot of H2 but the main propellant is solid.

Remember the Hindenburg disaster? It was a hydrogen filled envelope that caught fire but the envelope was covered with guess what? Rubber and aluminum powder or "rocket fuel". All those flames and smoke you saw where the solid rocket fuel burning.

In the case of both the shuttle and the Hindenburg the hydrogen combustion was a minority of what was going on and in both cases mostly invisible o2/h2 combustion leaves no big visible fire ball and no smoke.

Distribution

[Lou57]

The only thing that matters is distribution. Where are the hydrogen stations? Consider the real E85 ethanol distribution problems experienced today. For example, New Jersey has more than 100,000 vehicles that can run e85 fuel -- not one station in the entire state. Number of E85 stations by state. Hydrogen is not going to be any different. Don't look JUST for the technology, look pragmatically for the distribution.

Someone earlier mentioned the movie "Who Killed The Electric Car" and I whole-heartedly recommend that you view this if you ever get a chance. Consider the distribution of electricity in this country. Certainly, THAT is a doable technology TODAY!

You might want to watch Tesla Motors, although most of us cannot afford their current offering (about $100,000.00), 0-60 mph in 4 seconds with a 200 mile range proves the technology is here. They intend to offer a sedan around the $50k mark in 2008 and a commuter car around $25k in 2009.

Popular Mechanics also test drove the Electric Mini-Cooper which you can buy today for around $50k.

While a hydrogen powered vehicle might work for rocket scientists, it's essentially worthless to you and me. The longer we ignore VIABLE alternatives and focus on pipe dreams, the longer we will remain dependant on oil.

inefficient

[ItsLenny]

according to this diagram

Electric cars -- 86% efficient from power generation to use in a car
Hydrogen Cars -- 25% efficient from power generation to use in a car

I drove it.

[trout007]

I drove this BMW at KSC. They detuned the engine in gasoline mode so that it has the same hp as in hygrogen mode so you don't notice the shift. Kinda stupid if you ask me. Plus since it stores the hydrogen as a liquid if you leave the car for a week the hydrogen will boil off. MaxQ isn't the maximum velocity inside the athmosphere. It means Maximum Dynamic Pressure. You have two things going on. One is the shuttle is accelerating and climbing. Two as the shuttle climbs the air gets less dense. A simplified explanation of Dynamic Pressure is wind drag. As the air speed increases the drag increases but as you gain altitude and the air becomes less dense the drag goes down. MaxQ is the worst Dynamic Pressure seen by the orbiter and they actually throttle down to keep from exceeding it. Then once it's past they "are go for throttle up".