Hydrogen-Powered cars with Zero-Carbon-Emission?

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology have a bright idea — at least at first sight. They want to create a sustainable transportation system by using hydrogen-powered cars. They would like to create an infrastructure where people could use a liquid fuel for driving while the carbon emission in their vehicles is trapped for later processing at a fueling station. 'The carbon would then be shuttled back to a processing plant where it could be transformed into liquid fuel.' Where will all this liquid carbon be stored? The researchers don't know. They suggest that it could be stored in geological formations or under the oceans."

Comments

What, nobody's thought of the obvious?

[KublaiKhan]

The carbon-fibre industry's been taking off like a rocket, and we keep studying those nanotubes. The manufacturers are going to need carbon to make 'em. Why waste time and money burying it under the ocean or in the middle of a mountain?

Waste not, want not.

Re:What, nobody's thought of the obvious?

[Zymergy]

Combustion Carbon will be in the form of Carbon Monoxide (CO) and/or Carbon Dioxide (CO2). We do not have technology to create solid forms of carbon (quickly enough) to be useful on a passenger vehicle. (but that would be cool)
Both of these waste carbon gases (CO2 and CO) require significant refrigeration with high compression to store them in any significant quantity and that, my friends, *Requires tremendous Energy*. The work of "sequestering" the Carbon and storing it will eat away any profits in the manufacturing of and efficiency of the vehicle and it will add complexity to an already complex piece of machinery. Not to mention there will have to be one or more pressurized vessels (think explosion, frostbite, and suffocation hazards potentials too).
Carbon Sequestering is a pipe dream (thermodynamically) but it is great for getting venture capital from those investors who have not studied and understood the principles of thermodynamics and basic organic chemistry and who also want to claim that they are investing in "green" technology. (And there may just be tax breaks for such obvious non-competitive investments like 'Sequestering' to the 'Fossil Fuels Industries'??)
"Carbon Sequestering" is really only handy (though still very efficient) if you happen to be talking about a sessile terrestrial power installation over a suitable subterranean geological Carbon gas receiving reservoir. Like this one: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/03/1845204&from=rss (A budget increase from 1.0 Billion to 1.8 Billion proves its inefficiency alone, and that's before you consider how much more fuel is required to capture all of the HOT exhaust and cool it down to the point it could be compressed and injected into exhausted/abandoned Oil or gas 'injection' wells.

The "Oceans" basically make CaCO3 (Calcium Carbonate) out of CO2 and CO (with the help of Trillions of organisms) and it falls to the ocean floor and becomes rock eventually. This is the PRIMARY carbon "sink" on the planet. I would put more research into helping that process (oceanic Carbon capturing) and focus on Electric Cars powered by Hydrogen cells and NOT Hydrocarbons and not Hydrogen combustion engines... they are too inefficient. Carbon is simply not needed in the fuel cycle. (Unless you want fuel cells that run off of Natural Gas (Methane/Ethane AKA CH4/C2H5) or some form of Alcohol (Methanol/Ethanol AKA CH3OH/C2H5OH)).
Ultimately, using electricity to power the car's electric motor is the only truly efficient way to go (as of today)... It is only a matter of whether it is powered from a battery that is charged with electricity from the grid (preferably Nuclear and/or Hydroelectric), from an internal generator burning fuel (like modern diesel/electric Trains), and/or capacitors, solar cells, or small nuclear reactors... Burning Carbon-containing fuels (from whatever source...but note: they *WILL be from Fossil Fuels* as long as they are cheaper) is just more of the same since the invention of the combustion heat engine. It is business as usual.. Using Corn to make alcohol is a pretend market that will utterly fail without the heavy government subsidies it is seeing. (Research ADM and its lobbying efforts.)

Carbon Sequestering is really interesting, but it requires TOO MUCH energy to do.. Last time I checked, you use about 2 Watts of power to remove about 1 Watt of heat from your home/office using efficient air conditioning. What will it require in energy to remove the heat and to compress (compression releases MORE heat BYW) the exhaust of a car buring some Carbon-containing fuel? Exactly. Electric is the ONLY way to!

Re:What, nobody's thought of the obvious?

[Rei]

and focus on Electric Cars powered by Hydrogen cells and NOT Hydrocarbons and not Hydrogen combustion engines... they are too inefficient.

You talk about efficiency and advocate hydrogen fuel cells in the same sentence? You do realize that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are extremely inefficient, right? At low loads, fuel cell vehicles are typically 46% efficient at turning hydrogen in the tank into wheel torque and 36% in the NEDC driving cycle. On top of that, you have generation losses (modern power plants are 40-50%, older ~30%, and possibly up to 60% in the future), transmission losses (7.2% average in the US), electrolysis losses (80-85% efficiency if done in the most efficient manner possible, regeneratively on hot steam). Which makes hydrogen worse than gasoline in terms of a carbon footprint. You can also make it from methane reforming, but that's no better. You can grow it from bacteria, but that costs an utter fortune. There are direct sunlight to hydrogen cells, but they are expensive, very inefficient, and break down quickly.

The hydrogen economy is simply unrealistic. On the other hand, there is an awful lot of promise in electric vehicles.

Re:What, nobody's thought of the obvious?

[Zymergy]

You make a very good point, Thank You. I do not disagree, I should have re-read the post before submitting
Hydrogen Fuel Cells are not as efficient as what I would consider to be "Efficient" either. BUT, they are more efficient than the burning any Carbon-containing fuel in order to spin a generator or to spin a drive shaft. I was thinking of Hydrogen fuel cells as being more efficient than the mechanical "heat engines", but you are absolutely right. (plus fuel cells have to have ultra-purified fuel stock and the membranes breakdown and become even less efficient, etc...

I am hopeful that the new Lithium-Silicon-Nanowire Batteries as discussed here recently will make the rechargeable storage-battery to electric motor-powered passenger vehicles efficient and practical: http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/16/027236
A Toyota Prius with one of these new batteries (about the same size/weight as the existing Toyota Lithium Ion battery module) would have a range of over 300 miles per recharge (about the range of a standard fuel tank's worth of gasoline and farther still if one pulled out the gas engine and added more battery capacity under the hood too).

Re:What, nobody's thought of the obvious?

[Rei]

Do realize that those batteries don't provide a 10x increase in energy density. After the first charge, the capacity drops to only 8x. Furthermore, it's only an anode advancement, so it would only provide a 2-3x increase in battery density. Of course, in pure electric vehicles, that's good enough to put them on range-parity with gasoline. Other techs that have the potential to do the same are lithium vanadium oxide and barium titaniate ultracapacitors.

Also, two neat things happen as you increase the energy density. Unless they cost a lot more to manufacture, you lower the cost per stored watt at the same time. Also, you reduce the number of charge/discharge cycles they need to be able to tolerate, since a single charge/discharge cycle takes you further. Then factor in mass production on top of that all...

Yeah, the future for EVs looks pretty good right now.

Re:What, nobody's thought of the obvious?

[mlts]

Another thing that the hydrogen/fuel cell "economy" is missing is the fact that there are virtually zero hydrogen fueling stops. The cost to put in hundreds of thousands of H2 pumps and the infrastructure to haul the liquid H2 to the corner gas station will be enormous.

Electric cars? Got a 120VAC or a 240VAC outlet? Its not that simple because 120VAC won't charge a car's batteries quickly (though its viable for overnight use.) However, adding circuits and having people standardize on a charging mechanism for cars when parked in parking lots is a lot simpler than the tanks, transportation, and specialized fuel dispensing systems needed for hydrogen. The technology for bringing electricity to every car in a parking lot does exist -- Many Alaskan shops and businesses have plugs for customers to plug in their engine heaters because at -20 (F) and below, the oil starts solidifying in the car.

I look forward to electric cars. In a lot of cities, 100% of power comes from wind and solar, so its not shifting the carbon to another source. Slow charging can be done at home, fast charging (especially with supercap batteries that can charge very quickly) can be done at the normal filling stations, so the existing gas stations won't be losing market anytime soon.

I don't look forward to a hydrogen economy, and the bugs and hassles a vastly new fuel infrastructure will bring with it. Not to mention the fact that someone has to pay the cost of sinking the H2 tanks underground in tens of thousands of gasoline stations... and that will end up being the customer.

Re:What, nobody's thought of the obvious?

[Rei]

Eh, while electric engines are somewhat more efficient than internal combustion or hydrogen fuel cell

Huh? What planet are you from?

* ICE: 30-35% efficiency for the engine, but due to internal losses, only about 20% efficient to the wheel well
* Fuel cell: 40-60% efficient *before* the power goes to the electric motor.
* Electric motor: 85-90% efficient in typical driving conditions (in optimal conditions, with an optimal engine, you can near 95% efficiency).

They have the same power generation inefficiency and higher transmission losses than hydrogen.

Huh? In the US, there's only an average 7.2% efficiency loss in electricity transmission. That doesn't even compare to the energy costs of making and pressurizing/pumping hydrogen.

[quote]Then toss in the considerably lower energy density of electricity storage[/quote]

Once again, huh? Hydrogen not in a storage medium will get you 250 miles, perhaps 300 at best. Li-ion present-day typically gets 200-250, but there are three different techs being worked on which each individually can 2x-3x that range (lithium vanadium oxide, silicon nanowires, and barium titanate caps). To get the range on hydrogen up, you need to either increase the pressure (which nobody wants to do), use liquid hydrogen (whole host of major, major problems that nobody wants to deal with), or use a storage medium. With a storage medium, you can get up to 300-350x (the reported range of the upcoming all-electric ZAP-X is 350mi, might I add -- and 300-350x is still way below the upcoming battery techs), but you lose even more efficiency in the process. The more hydrogen dense a storage medium, in general, the more inefficient it becomes. So, you take something that's already less efficient than an ICE, and you're making it *even worse*.

and even though you might get more wheel torque from the original source, the vehicle is going to be heavier than a fuel cell driven vehicle (even though the latter will probably have some sort of electricity storage as well).

Since when are fuel cell vehicles any lighter than electrics? The FCX weighs in at almost two tons. The Tesla Roadster's not even 1 1/2 tons.

Re:What, nobody's thought of the obvious?

[khallow]

Let's try this again. First, in the vehicle, electric motors are maybe twice as efficient as a fuel cell. Second, as mentioned early, making hydrogen from electolysis is around 85% efficient with minor losses from pressurizing and pumping hydrogen. That's because most of the energy of pressurization can be recycled by the time it gets used in the vehicle. I figure 90-95% is reasonable depending on how much of the energy of pressurization can be recovered (if it's in the car, it's ptobably going to be far lower). Meanwhile we have at least a 7% hit from electricity transmission for electric engines plus losses from rectification (2-5%). I don't see the electric motor being a factor of two better in efficiency. It sounds like a lot, but energy cost is a surprisingly small part of the total cost of the vehicle especially with the efficiencies we're discussing here.

And again hydrogen has much higher energy density than any electricity storage. Googling around, I'm seeing at least a factor of 5 better just for pressurized hydrogen (over supercaps). And the FCX versus Tesla comparison is flawed. The FCX is a somewhat light but standard 4 passenger car while the Tesla is a 2 person convertible. The Tesla is also in excess of $80,000 while the FCX will be competing with mundane gas powered cars and has to be a lot cheaper.

Ultimately, electric engines do have an efficiency edge. But they are severely hindered by energy storage. Neither of the above options has the infrastructure in place for mass use. It's not clear to me which would be cheaper to put up though hydrogen is notoriously explosive. That risk might tip things in favor of electric engines.

Hydrogen? Carbon?

[_merlin]

First you say the cars are hydrogen-powered, then you say the carbon emissions will be trapped and disposed of when refuelling. Hydrogen doesn't contain carbon. Where do carbon emissions come from? This has to be the most contradictory Slashdot summary in a long time.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[moderatorrater]

That's one of the worse summaries I've seen on Slashdot, and as we all know, that's saying something. Basically, there are three parts to the plan. Instead of using an internal combustion engine, you use a reactor that changes the hydrocarbon chains into hydrogen and carbon. The hydrogen is used to power the car using the already developed fuel cells while the carbon is stored. You fuel at a station, but instead of just filling up with hydrocarbon (like we do now), you also give back the carbon that your car's been storing.

In the short term, this carbon would be taken and sequestered in a variety of methods that scientists have been studying for years, either under the ocean, in old oil wells, other underground locations, or in solid carbonate form. In the long term, the carbon would go back and be remade into hydrocarbon chains to be distributed back out. As someone else pointed out, you could also use the carbon for nanotubes.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[RingDev]

Step 1: Generate pure hydrogen in highly efficient processing plant
Step 2: Merge with carbon to create less stable and lower density hydrocarbon based fuel
Step 3: Using a vehicle based unit, crack the hydrocarbons back into hydrogen and carbon
Step 4: oxidize hydrogen to power fuel cell.
Step 5: return carbon to processing plant.

This would work amazingly if there were a shortage of carbon and an excess of easily accessible hydrogen. Unfortunately, our problem is the other way around. I can walk to any local gas station in the middle of summer and pick up a 20lbs bag of carbon for a few bucks. Getting my hands on 20lbs of hydrogen is a bit more challenging and expensive.

Not to mention there is no way they are going to get a vehicle based cracking unit to be more efficient than the factory unit. Not to mention that energy density is already an issue in pure hydrogen storage, turning it into hydro carbons isn't going to help on that issue if they are only using the hydrogen for energy generation.

The whole concept seems to fall on it's face as yet another attempt at a perpetual motion device.

-Rick

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[timmarhy]

your comment is typical of all global warming idiots, you don't even understand your own imaginary problem.

water vapour is THE green house gas. the majority of the greenhouse effect comes from water vapour. hence why everyone is trying to tell you people CO2 doesn't drive climate change.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[Guinness2702]

"And this can in turn be used by the Hutts to freeze smugglers who owe them money."

Until some do-gooder bitch comes along and unfreezes them, thus fucking up the climate for us once again!

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[cplusplus]

Water molecules also have a tendency to clump and fall to the ground. Carbon dioxide molecules don't. A massive increase in precipitation would probably affect things in detrimental ways.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[Rostin]

You were doing more or less ok until you got to the energy density part.

According to Wikipedia, liquid hydrogen has a density of 70.8 kg/m^3. That sets a generous upper bound on the density we could hope to achieve in pure hydrogen storage.

Let's assume a density of 700 kg/m^3 for our liquid hydrocarbon. According to Wikipedia (again), gasoline is around 737 kg/m^3. Let's further assume that hydrogen makes up about 15.8% of the weight of our fuel. I arrived at that number by doing a straight average of the percentages for C5 to C12 linear alkanes. That means the part of the density we can attribute to usable hydrogen is around 111 kg/m^3.

So, in terms of effective hydrogen density, liquid hydrocarbons beat the pants off of even pure liquid hydrogen.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[sectionboy]

I might be one of "global warming idiots" - for not knowing too much about it, but I failed to see how water is as bad as CO2 in this issue. Earth, as we know, has 3/4 of its surface covered by water, thus the atmosphere is basically saturated for water vapour, i.e., no matter how much water (liquid, vapour, ice, all forms combined) exists on this planet, the amount of water vapour in atmosphere as a whole system is almost constant as long as the climate (temperature, pressure) doesn't change dramtically.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[sumdumass]

An increases in water vapor doesn't automatically mean an increase in precipitation. You can look at the dew points and see how this is possible. and yes, there has been more water vapor in the air as of late. This could be an effect or a drive in the global warming that we know but it could also mean that the Co2 model is coincidentally pointless.

It is a toss up if you ask me, the amount of Co2 that is claimed to be the problem is less then .001% of the total green house gases in the atmosphere at any given time. OTOH, if you were to take the reports of the sun being behind the global warming, you could easily see increased evaporation at a rate significantly higher then what then before which could account for increased temperatures. Or you could follow the Co2 model and claim it was a reaction to it. Either way, the next 20 or so years is going to be important because the solar activity has changed with the solar cycle. If we have magically fixed global warming by then without significant reductions in Co2 emissions, well, you do the math.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[h2_plus_O]

You fuel at a station, but instead of just filling up with hydrocarbon (like we do now), you also give back the carbon that your car's been storing.

...so if you're going to reform hydrocarbon fuel to yield hydrogen, why do that on board the vehicle instead of simply having the vehicle take hydrogen as its fuel? If carbon capture and sequestration is anything but a pipe dream to begin with, it will be a damn sight easier to engineer without the added constraints of having to fit onboard a motor vehicle.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[Anonymous Coward]

Water vapor is A greenhouse gas. Any gaseous molecule with an IR/microwave spectrum will trap heat and act as a greenhouse gas if it's present in a large enough quantity. The nice thing about water is that it reaches an equilibrium vapor pressure when all else in the atmosphere is equal. So at our current temperatures on earth, it's hard to saturate the atmosphere with more than just a little bit of water (a few percent). However, pumping CO2 into the atmosphere adds another greenhouse gas and upsets this equilibrium. And yes, I know there are plenty of CO2 sinks (one earlier poster correctly pointed out the oceans as a major CO2 sink), but with the amount of CO2 we're pumping into the atmosphere (about 10% or so of total CO2 generated on earth), the sinks can't soak up the carbon emissions as effectively or completely. You can think of it this way: if you have a bathtub where the spigot empties water into it as quickly as the drain takes it away, then you're in equilibrium. But if you turn the flow of water on the spigot up, even just a little bit, the bathtub will begin to fill. That's the situation we're in right now with CO2 emissions. The big problem comes when the carbon sinks are full and the atmosphere begins to accumulate CO2 in appreciable quantities. Since you have more greenhouse gases in the air, the temperature rises. It's at this point when your water problem comes in. If you raise the temperature, then the vapor pressure of water in the atmosphere rises. This means more water evaporates, exacerbating the warming, which leads to more water evaporating, further exacerbating the warming, etc. Classic positive feedback (until another equilibrium is reached). So yes, the majority of the greenhouse effect comes from the water vapor in the air (right now). It keeps our planet comfortably between about 0 and 100 deg F (about -20 to 40 deg C for all you purists). But this doesn't mean that the science behind global warming is flawed.

By the way, if I said I loved Windows and Linux, would you mod me up or down? I'm kind of new here, so I don't know how it works.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[apoc.famine]

Outside my house it is currently 21 degrees F. When I discuss with my students the potential of using hydrogen as a clean fuel, as it releases only water vapor as a byproduct, they generally realize that there is another issue with it other than greenhouse gas emissions. In a good portion of the world, there is this thing called winter. A massive increase in water vapor on roadways when the temp is below freezing is not necessarily a byproduct that many people think of when debating a hydrogen infrastructure.

Not to say that it can't be overcome, but it's not something that most people think of.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[Mspangler]

My version, which is only slightly modified;

Step 1: Generate pure hydrogen in highly efficient processing plant
Step 1A: Remove CO2 from air and reduce it to carbon in a highly efficient processing plant.
Step 2: Merge with carbon to create lower density hydrocarbon based fuel called methanol.
Step 3: Use existing liquid fuel transport system to ship methanol.
Step 4: Use methanol fuel cell to the power the car, producing CO2 and H2O
Step 5: $$$, at least compared to hydrogen fuel cycles.

If methanol is good enough for 5000 hp tractor pullers, it should do just fine to get me work, even if the fuel cells don't work out.

Re:Hydrogen? Carbon?

[The Great Pretender]

Personally I think guys are on the right track, even if they aren't there yet. http://www.asemblon.com/hydrnol. I've talked a little to a couple of them and they have a liquid organic carrier that can release H2 under reasonable conditions using a catalyst. The carrier can then be rehydrogenated for reuse. The carriers supposedly easily produced and the net energy is pretty good.

I thought

[Altus]

There were already some pretty good ways of storing hydrogen for cars and the issue was just creating the hydrogen in the first place.

Seems like using hydrocarbons and storing liquid carbon in the car for later processing would be a real pain for very little gain. Though maybe this would be a good way to get hydrogen to the "gas station."

Re:I thought

[ciggieposeur]

There were already some pretty good ways of storing hydrogen for cars and the issue was just creating the hydrogen in the first place.

Not really. The Department of Energy has estimated that one would need at least a device capable of storing up to 0.6 kg of hydrogen per kg (e.g. a 100kg storage tank has 6kg of raw hydrogen in it) before hydrogen is just barely usable as a transportation fuel source. Ideally, 12% wt/wt storage is necessary to achieve the 300 miles per tank that most cars get today on gasoline. The best storage systems (circa 2004 when the report came out) topped out around 8% for liquified hydrogen tanks, but those are very difficult to use in practice because the hydrogen leaks out quickly. All other systems topped out around 4% and required either high temperature (metal hybrides) or very high pressures (700bar, approximately 10000 psi), again making them not yet ready for widespread use.

Hydrogen production is still an issue too though. Most of what we get now is a byproduct from natural gas processing, so it's still not carbon-neutral.

(Disclaimer: This topic is actually part of my master's thesis.)

I never want to hear "zero emissions" again

[victorvodka]

Here's why: hydrogen takes enormous amounts of energy to make. Stop saying that when you burn it all you get is water; in the case of a hydrogen economy, all the polluting happens in the supply chain, although it can also manifest in more direct forms such as a hydrogen car plowing into a container full of pesticides. Another thing: hydrogen cars are just a distraction to allow car manufacturers to keep kicking the ball down the road on producing a truly fuel-efficient car, one far more modest than the one you're presently driving. Get used to it people; when peak oil rolls through, that moped that was "fun to ride until your friends saw you" (much like a fat chick) is going to look like Fonzie cool. Rent "Who Killed the Electric Car" to learn more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_the_Electric_Car%3F

Re:I never want to hear "zero emissions" again

[Charcharodon]

I've been looking at the Volt too. The thing with it it seems that technically it's a hybrid, but the motor they're talking about putting in it would be far too small to be able to drive around on. It would be more like a gas powered battery charger, you'd have to let it sit for a while in the parking lot running to get you enough battery power to make it home, if in the city, or to be able to get up to speed on the highway and then it could keep up once the load dropped and you were cruising.

Personally I like the idea alot. As a daily commuter a car like that would be perfect for me (6 miles - I would bike to work, but where I'm at between the weather and the crapy roads it would be a death sentence there's no way for anything but a few months out of the year.). Give it some black thin-film solar cell racing stripes and paint the rest of it blue and I'll take one.

I'm interested in anything that can do it completely without petrolium based fuel. As a back-up source like the Volt I can deal with. I want to be able to collect it myself and give the oil companies and countries the big double middle finger.

Liquid CO2 storage in your car?

[RobertB-DC]

From TFA:

The Georgia Tech team has already created a fuel processor, called CO2/H2 Active Membrane Piston (CHAMP) reactor, capable of efficiently producing hydrogen and separating and liquefying CO2 from a liquid hydrocarbon or synthetic fuel used by an internal combustion engine or fuel cell. After the carbon dioxide is separated from the hydrogen, it can then be stored in liquefied state on-board the vehicle. The liquid state provides a much more stable and dense form of carbon, which is easy to store and transport.

I don't know what planet they were planning to use these vehicles on, but on *this* one, CO2 is a GAS. You've got to have some serious refrigeration (requiring, uh oh, ENERGY) and some darned high pressure to store liquid CO2. Laws of thermodynamics aside, I'd rather not be sitting on a mobile dry ice bomb, thankyouverymuch.

A side note: the original tag for Roland articles was "pigpile", not "ohnoitsroland" (or any of the cruder variants). Piquepaille = Pigpile, get it? And it's usually an apt description of the science behind the "discovery".

Already is a way, and it's in development

[goombah99]

I think what they are after is a carbon source liquid that releases hydrogen and traps the carbon. THis is presumably to get around the low density of pure hydrogen storage. Perhaps some sort of fuel cell that liberates hydroggen from methane, keeps the carbon and burns the hydreogen. just a guess. low density is a problem both for the cars and for the fueling stations. to top it off liquid handling is easier than gas phase for consumers.

But there's an israeli company with an even better idea.

You use solid magnesium and water. the magnesium a spool of wire that is fed slowly into a bath of water. it reacts to produce hydrogen which bubbles out and into the engine, and also a solid magnesium oxide which sinks and is collected. THe solid magnesium waste is collected, and sent to a plant where it reproccessed back to magnesium metal electochemically, releasing oxygen in the process which itself could be collected for other uses.

Re:Already is a way, and it's in development

[goombah99]

Link. also google for magnesium hydrogen car and you'll also find other companies.

Re:Already is a way, and it's in development

[blair1q]

And where do they get the electricity to reprocess the Mg02?

From an oil- or coal-burning power plant, of course.

Or a nuke plant.

These ideas of using renewable chemical fuels is all pretty silly, because they all use electricity to renew the fuel. But electric vehicles are efficient, viable, can be made attractive and fast, and they cut out the middle-man by allowing you to plug into a supply of electricity you already access. No infrastructure cost = lowest economic barrier to entry. And it's infrastructure that we have 150+ years of experience maintaining and improving.

Eventually all of our energy will be delivered from electrical utilities, generated from coal (the oil will run out soon but we have several hundred years' worth of coal left), nuclear processes (about a thousand years' worth), and the sun (several billion years, but it's terribly inefficient so far).

Re:Already is a way, and it's in development

[blair1q]

Batteries are cheap and less inefficient than the Otto cycle engine in your car.

As for charging times, you can charge it when you're sleeping.

Long-distance travel will take a major hit when the oil runs out. There's nothing to use as jet fuel that's as good as jet fuel. That's why it's jet fuel.

ohnoitsroland

[Aaron Isotton]

Roland obviously botched the summary. It's not about hydrogen powered cars as in "cars in whose tanks you put hydrogen", but about hydrogen powered cars as in "cars with conventional fuel in the tank, which then gets split into hydrogen and carbon, and the hydrogen is used in the engine". TFA is actually interesting.

Or diamonds....

[EmbeddedJanitor]

With all that surplus carbon you should be able to give your Valentine a diamond the size of a brick.

Folks, we have no shortage of C, that's why there's a disposal problem.

Hint to moderators: parent was hoping for funnies, not insightfuls.

Can we make this any more inefficient?

[Radon360]

1. Fill up with regular gasoline
2. Instead of burning it outright, let's strip the hydrogen off the hydrocarbons and just burn that.
3. Somehow sequester the leftover carbon from the breakdown (this is the ???? step)
4. Return the carbon (somehow stored in liquid form) for recycling >>> Profit!

First, let's ignore how much energy we're throwing away in step 2 by not utilizing the full energy potential stored in the hydrocarbon molecules. Second, somehow we'll expend more energy to liberate the hydrogen and capture the carbon, both without oxidizing them. Third, we're going to tote around another 75 - 100 pounds of weight with the stored (and somehow liquefied) carbon that will be returned. Less energy potential that ever reaches the engine/fuel cell, and even more expended to refine something fairly energy dense into something that's a fair amount less energy dense.

The problem with this idea is there's too much fixation on sequestering every last bit of carbon, rather than focusing on a bigger, more important concept called energy efficiency. Work on improving that and the carbon emission reductions usually follow.

What else could 'they' use it for?

[florewacks]

A commenter on Greentech Media points out that this research is mostly NASA and DOD funded.

Re:Liquid carbon?

[KublaiKhan]

Not really an issue, actually. You'll just need to find a way to keep it at the right -pressure- that weighs less than the usual steel tank.

(Remember, phase changes can be accomplished with pressure changes, not only temperature changes. Your local fast food joint has a big ol' tank of liquid CO2 in back for the soft drinks)

Not the first company to try this

[edwardpickman]

There's a British company trying the same thing the article is confusing but the system essentially spilts off the hydrogen inside the vehicle then stores the carbon from hydrocarbon fuel. They reprocess the stored CO2 back into a hydrocarbon fuel so it's a closed loop system. It's more a way to store hydrogen as a hydrocarbon then recycle the storage medium, the carbon. It's in no way a fuel source it's a storage medium. ALL hydrogen based systems are storage mediums not fuel sources. Hydrogen is too friendly about combining with other elements so the hydrogen always needs to be spilt off to use as fuel. I take it you can store a lot of hydrogen safely this way if the system can ever be perfected but the real point is there's little difference from an electric vehicle other than faster refueling. Because of transfer losses I have to believe it's less efficent than straight electric. Even hydrogen cars are generally all electric so the hydrogen largely replaces batteries. Because of all the technical problems it seems focusing on improving batteries would be a better solution. There's no proof this system is in anyway practical let alone the technology still doesn't exist.

Re:why?

[Nodamnnicknamesavial]

Because transporting and storing hydrogen is a lot more difficult than storing and transporting a liquid hydrocarbon.

Cousin Eddie in Xmas Vacation: "Shitter was full!"

[BUL2294]

Seriously, with this plan, we will have cars that shit!!! I can see the "Cousin Eddie"s of the world standing in the cold with hoses, dumping the carbon sludge down the local storm sewer--while smoking cigars. "Car wouldn't go--shitter was full!"

Re:Here's are two brighter ideas!

[letxa2000]

Real public transit. In the majority of the USA, public transit is so bad your really have no choice except to drive if you want to get to work in a reasonable time.

Won't happen. Our sprawl won't allow efficient public transit except in concentrated downtown areas. And malign sprawl as much as you'd like, but I lived in another country where there wasn't as much sprawl. No thank you. I'll take the sprawl any day of the week. Not everyone wants to live in a crowded city.

For what it's worth, I'm self-employed and work from my home 99% of the time so my contribution to the "problem" is less than that of most tree-huggers, including those that take the bus or train.

Hydrogen... bah! Automotive X Prize!

[EricBoyd]

I've had enough of all the hydrogen hype, slashdot should run more stories on the Autmotive X Prize. For which hydrogen is not an acceptable fuel. Check out the X Prize Cars - and we're still 2 years from the race yet!

Re:Liquid carbon?

[Rei]

Or, rather than jump through all of these hoops and lower the range of conventional cars, we could simply transition to electrics. Let's look at the facts: the charge time issue is already solved (there are no fewer than a dozen li-ion battery chemistries that can charge in minutes). There are at least three techs out there that would 2-3x the range and have the potential to be extended a lot further (lithium vanadium oxide or silicon nanowires for li-ion, barium titanate for ultracaps). Modern automotive li-ions have no lifespan or fire problems. If all of our vehicles were suddenly transformed into EVs overnight, 84% of them could be powered by our existing grid thanks to the fact that most would be charging at off-peak via timers (and get a discount for it to boot). Even if that weren't the case, it's not like power infrastructure is somehow harder to build than, say, developing new oilfields and refining infrastructure.

Even Wal-Mart wants to get in on the charging business. Fast charges can be provided via battery banks (certainly no more expensive than a gas pump/tank), and since most people would off-peak charge at home except on long trips, there wouldn't be a huge amount of people charging at once at a given charging station. Delivering the charge that fast isn't a problem if you use active cooling on the wires. Safety can be easily guaranteed by having no current delivered until a connection is verified by the plug, and have an outer sheath that if damaged cuts all current delivery.

Electric cars typically cost a penny or two per mile in energy costs (my Aptera will end up costing me about half a penny per mile where I live), and have very little maintenance (my Aptera's drivetrain's total moving parts are: three wheels, one motor driveshaft, and one belt; plus the batteries are designed to outlive the vehicle). EVs are quiet, convenient, emit half the greenhouse gasses of a conventional car even when charging from "dirty" power, emit none when charging from "clean" power, any emissions from "dirty" power charging being displaced to out of the city, and so on.

Really, once mass production kicks in and drops prices -- five to ten years from now -- what reason will there be to be concerned about things like onboard carbon sequestration? Why not just go straight to an EV? Even with current prices, I can easily defend the purchase of a $27k Aptera Typ-1e over a gasoline car with similar features. Slash the battery prices in half and mass produce the cars, and you're looking at widespread adoption.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Cousin Eddie in Xmas Vacation: "Shitter was ful

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Seriously, with this plan, we will have cars that shit!!!

The Amish already have them.