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Home-Based Hydrogen Refueling Station

Posted by samzenpus on from the burning-down-the-house dept.

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."

7 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. Save for the fact... by AKAImBatman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...that hydrogen is extremely flammable, often explosive, and very dangerous to work with, sounds like a smashing idea!

    Seriously though, I think a home fueling station would be a great start. Not only because it provides a convenient source of fuel, but also because it pushes the energy requirements to the grid. (Which isn't a bad thing if we finally build more nuclear power plants!) As long as the safety concerns of generating hydrogen at home are worked out, I'm all for it.

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    1. Re:Save for the fact... by Sierran · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Also, I want to know what it does with the oxygen it's going to get. There's a reason that submariners call the oxygen generator (which basically does this, splits water) 'The Bomb.' I'm sure they have an answer, but raw oxygen ain't safer. I guess you could burn it with a pilot light, but, well, no that seems dangerous around this thing. Better have good venting.

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    2. Re:Save for the fact... by tjstork · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Nuclear is less cost-effective than wind, especially when one takes into account total life cycle costs and interest on capital costs.

      Get rid of all the stupid lawsuits, and the capital costs drop to 1/10th of that. All the utilities are basing their costs on the limerick experience, which just kept getting sued and halted over and over again by the fruitcakes until it cost too much. So its really like smashing someone's car in, and then saying, you can't drive because the windshield's broken.

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    3. Re:Save for the fact... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      This is another bullshit piece that gets spread around. If nuclear was so expensive, a country like France that makes 80% of its electrical power from nuclear power would be bankrupt. And the investment in wind power which requires almost no permits whatsoever would by far exceed that in nuclear power. This isn't happening. What wind advocates fail to recognize is that these big investments are over a 50 year lifespan for the nuclear plant. $6 billion for a 1.1 GWe plant that operates at 90% uptime over 50 years means that the capital costs come to account for only $0.014/kw-hr. This is dirt cheap. Operation, maintenance, and distribution costs increase this value so that nuclear is only competitive with coal. Wind plant power is nowhere even close. Yes, wind advocates like to toss out scary numbers like $5000/kw in capital costs. It doesn't sound so scary when it comes down to $10/kw per year of operation though.

    4. Re:Save for the fact... by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 2, Interesting

      One thing I've often been curious about.

      Our atmosphere is 21% Oxygen, 78% Nitrogen, and 1% "Other Gasses." If our cars were to start spitting out oxygen instead of CO2, what would this do the mix?

      I remember reading an article years ago talking about higher oxygen content in the atmosphere and it's effect on wildfires. So I wonder what might happen around, say, Los Angeles if all the cars that currently pump out CO2 started pumping out oxygen.

      Of course, I hear that breathe pure oxygen is a good cure for hangovers. So there might be some benefits to a higher oxygen content...

    5. Re:Save for the fact... by Mike+Van+Pelt · · Score: 2, Interesting
      One my high school did was to run a tube from the can making the stoichiometric mix of oxygen and hydrogen, and run it under some soapy water.

      Being very very sure that the tube was covered with plenty of water, light the bubbles with a burning splint.

      Bang! It sounded almost like a .22 rifle.

      As you can well imagine, this attracted law enforcement notice.

  2. Re:Why not go electric at this rate of fill? by rohan972 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't travel 25 miles on most days and we are a two car family. We could convert 1 car over and it would work pretty well for us.

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