Ubiquitous Hydrogen Power Not Getting Any Closer

NewScientist has a story about the "hydrogen economy" that has been resting on the horizon for a decade or more. Despite a great deal of enthusiasm for and research into hydrogen-based power systems, the technology seems just as far away from everyday use as it's always been. A British startup, ITM Power, has recently claimed a breakthrough in lowering production costs by using a nickel catalyst (rather than platinum) with a membrane small enough for home use. But, even if their method is proven and adopted, it still wouldn't address huge energy efficiency problems in the process. "The point was made forcefully by Gary Kendall of the conservation group WWF in a recent report called Plugged In (PDF, pgs. 135-149). Kendall, a chemist who previously spent almost a decade working for ExxonMobil, highlights how the energy losses in the fuel chain - from electrolysis to compression of the hydrogen for use to inefficiencies in the fuel cell itself — mean that only 24 per cent of the energy used to make the fuel does any useful work on the road."

Comments

Seriously, do you read /.?

[Coldeagle]

I've been scratching my head ever since I saw this, because we've had several new methods for producing/harvesting/storing hydrogen on /. for a few years:

• Hydrogen-Producing Bacteria Could Provide Clean Energy
• Mimicking Photosynthesis To Split Water
• Buckyballs Can Store Concentrated Hydrogen
• Nanoparticles Could Make Hydrogen Cheaper Than Gasoline
• New Solar Cell Harvests Hydrogen From Water

I got all of those by doing a search here on /. Those are just some of the top ones too. These methods are to new to have become a fees-able opportunity so far; however, given a few years and another few gasoline panics (we all know they're coming), and they'll probably come around to being more standardized.

Re:Yet Again, the obvious requires stating

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Actually, in terms of energy density per kg or per $, batteries are much, much worse than hydrogen.

Oh, please. Talk about selective data and card stacking.

1. $ per joule don't make any sense in this discussion. $100 per battery - sure - for retail!
2. right now eestor and others are developing ultracapacitors that have 3x the energy density of the best LIon batteres, and have many orders of magnitude more charging rounds than batteries, AND are cheaper to build AND they charge Really Really Fast. They will be expensive at first, but industrialism knows how to fix that through production.
3. The amount of energy per dollar per kg in gasoline blows all of them away. But gas is going away, so it doesn't matter.

I'm not worried about "cheapest" I'm more concerned about simple FACTS OF PHYSICS that people don't seem to understand too often or selectively forget when they talk about hydrogen.

Hydrogen is a BAD IDEA as a fuel. It is better left in water.

The other problem w/ICE vehicles is What Are You Going to Drive Them On? Peak Oil == Peak Asphalt. You can build your spiffy vehicles running on fucking pixie dust - if the roads are reduced to muck in the Springtime and frozen ruts in the winter, your aerodynamic cruiser car with its 4 cm clearance is going to stay in the garage...forever.

There's a lot more to the energy debate than substituting fuels - our entire way of life has been centred and modelled on a specific energy arrangement and density provided by fossil fuels. Without them, our civilisation itself is going to have to change, radically.

We've done it before. If you were born in 1850 and died in 1940 - think about it...

RS