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Home-Based Hydrogen Refueling Station
Sportsqs writes "One of the main barriers to the widespread adoption of fuel cell vehicles has been the lack of an adequate hydrogen-refueling infrastructure. Beyond a handful of hydrogen stations, such as the one near Los Angeles International Airport, there just isn't anywhere to fill up. Step forward ITM Power, a UK company that has developed a hydrogen refueling station that could be installed at home, providing a ready-made solution for fuel-cell car owners."
The problem with this comparison is that at standard temperature and pressure, gasoline is much less dangerous. This is because neither hydrogen or gasoline will burn as a liquid; they will only burn as they vaporize and become gaseous. Now, gasoline does this quickly enough that you can, in fact, light a puddle of gasoline easily as it is vaporizing. Fully vaporized gasoline, though, is more of a low explosive than just a 'flammable substance.' Vaporized hydrogen (also mixed with oxygen) is just as bad if not worse.
Now, let's run that experiment again. If you spill a gallon of liquid hydrogen in your garage, ambient temperature and pressure means it will almost immediately flash-evaporate into explosive gas. Try it yourself: stick two leads from a 9V battery into water in a jar and watch bubbles of oxygen and hydrogen arise from the two leads. Now place a flame over the top of the jar.
No, on second thought, don't do that unless you're in a lab with a flame cabinet and are experienced with lab techniques. But still.
So the issue to me is this: Which is easier to prevent from vaporizing into an explosive? Easy. Gasoline. Just put it in a vessel that's airtight at STP. Make it somewhat sturdy if it gets warm out, but even heavy plastic will work. Hydrogen? Much harder. It's going to be under pressure, or a liquid which is hard to keep cold/pressurized enough to keep it so.
Now, if this system has some way of sequestering the hydrogen into a safe delivery and storage mechanism, that'd be one thing...but...heh.
A hero is someone who knows when to run away. I am a hero. -Trent the Uncatchable
Without going off reading the link provided by narf314 there, another oft overlooked advantage is the centralization of energy consumption. With hydrogen cars running from grid-power generated H2, what was formerly two forms of energy consumption (burning coal separate from burning oil) now becomes one. By combining the two, you now have one problem to solve instead of two: improve the efficiency and renewable resources going into grid power. There is nothing doing with regard to burning oil in 200 million cars, but something can darn well be done about 10,000 power plants (or however many we have).