America's First Pipeline-Fed Hydrogen Fueling Station

hasanabbas1987 writes "Shell has opened America's first pipe-lined hydrogen fueling station in the town of Torrence in Southern California. Shell wasn't alone in this project as Toyota also helped them in this green deed, all of which was funded by the government. At the moment other hydrogen stations around the US still depend upon trucks to supply them with fuel. This marks a new era of green fueling and hopefully this pipeline spreads to other stations. Many of the big car makers like Toyota, Honda and Mercedes have indicated a mass market for hydrogen powered cars by 2015."

Comments

That'd be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

The sooner we can stop buying gas from the Middle East, the better.

Re:That'd be cool

[hawguy]

The sooner we can stop buying gas from the Middle East, the better.

It'd be cooler if Hydrogen didn't come from fossil fuels.

Re:That'd be cool

[LoudMusic]

It'd be cool if we weren't burning stuff to make power.

Re:That'd be cool

[bluemonq]

Making power is easy. Storing it, not so much. Storing it in a cheap, safe, and efficient form? Worth trillions of dollars.

Re:That'd be cool

[hawguy]

It'd be cool if we weren't burning stuff to make power.

Hydrogen fuel cell powered cars technically aren't "burning stuff" (depending on your definition of "burning")

Re:That'd be cool

[rrohbeck]

Amen. Hydrogen is fuel as much as electricity is fuel.
Same applies to corn ethanol, BTW. EROEI1.

Re:That'd be cool

[rrohbeck]

EROEI<1
Damn markup rules.

Re:That'd be cool

[flaming error]

What's wrong with burning hydrogen in a controlled manner and a confined space?

Re:That'd be cool

[flaming error]

Hydrogen doesn't come from fossil fuels, fossil fuels come from Hydrogen. And carbon.

I'm not sure it matters where we get Hydrogen from so much as whether it's
1) A sustainable process
2) The energy cycle pays for itself (the energy harvested is greater than that used to extract it and clean up any mess)
3) Any carbon by-products stay out of the air.

Re:That'd be cool

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Why? Burning hydrogen with oxygen makes:

2 H2(g) + O2(g) 2 H2O(l) + 572 kJ (286 kJ/mol)

You don't like water?

Re:That'd be cool

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Jesus Christ Slashdot, if you're going to eat a symbol, don't show it in the preview. Not much of a preview, now is it? Anyway:

2 H2(g) + O2(g) --> 2 H2O(l) + 572 kJ (286 kJ/mol)

Re:That'd be cool

[Bartles]

How do we get the Hydrogen? Unless the energy needed to extract it comes from solar, wind, hydroelectric or nuclear, we burn fossil fuels to extract the hydrogen. Currently hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not an energy source.

Re:That'd be cool

[AndrewNeo]

Yeah, it's more like.. exploding.

Re:That'd be cool

[twistedsymphony]

if I had mod points... they would be yours right now.

Re:That'd be cool

[hawguy]

How do we get the Hydrogen? Unless the energy needed to extract it comes from solar, wind, hydroelectric or nuclear, we burn fossil fuels to extract the hydrogen. Currently hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not an energy source.

That's why I said "it depends on your definition of burning". One of the most common ways to get H2 from Natural gas is a steam reformer where the natural gas reacts with steam at a high temperature giving H2: CH4 + H2O CO + 3 H2

Combing water with a gas isn't typically what most people think of when they think of "burning" something.

(granted, the high temperatures likely come from burning fossil fuels, but I don't think you'd say that the process is markedly better if it used alternative energy to heat the steam)

Re:That'd be cool

[hawguy]

Why? Burning hydrogen with oxygen makes:

2 H2(g) + O2(g) 2 H2O(l) + 572 kJ (286 kJ/mol)

You don't like water?

If you're burning H2 in air (as opposed to pure oxygen), there are a bunch of other byproducts generated like various NOx pollutants.

Re:That'd be cool

[cheeks5965]

FCEVs aren't burning stuff under any possible definition of burning. The fuel cell is a chemical / electrical reaction. When natural gas is used as the source, h2 is stripped out at low temperatures using a catalyst.

ok let me equivocate. If you use a coal power plant to produce electricity to electolyze water, then yes you're burning stuff. But that's tertiary burning at best.

Re:That'd be cool

[AK Marc]

Hydrogen doesn't come from fossil fuels,

The number one source of H2 is from fossil fuels. It's cheaper to get it from there than any other source.

I understand what you are saying, but when they want H2, they dig up the ground and make it from that. Which, for every definition of "make" other than yours, means that H2 is made from fossil fuels, not the other way around.

Re:That'd be cool

[Anonymous Coward]

FCEVs aren't burning stuff under any possible definition of burning.

How about oxidising hydrogen and producing oxygen? Sounds like burning to me.

Re:That'd be cool

[vivian]

if you are literally burning it (as opposed to using a fuel cell) you are also going to be producing nitrous oxide too, unless your oxygen is from a pure source instead of just using air.

Re:That'd be cool

[FatdogHaiku]

Making power is easy. Storing it, not so much. Storing it in a cheap, safe, and efficient form? Worth trillions of dollars.

Also, a reasonable amount of portability is a big plus...

Re:That'd be cool

[cheeks5965]

dude, fuel cells don't burn hydrogen! it's an electrochemical thing. the membrane separates the hydrogen proton and electron. proton goes to the other side of the membrane, while the electron races through the circuit to catch up. on the toher side, proton + electron + oxygen combine to make water. there's no combustion going on. no burning, no worries!

Re:That'd be cool

[hawguy]

dude, fuel cells don't burn hydrogen! it's an electrochemical thing. the membrane separates the hydrogen proton and electron. proton goes to the other side of the membrane, while the electron races through the circuit to catch up. on the toher side, proton + electron + oxygen combine to make water. there's no combustion going on. no burning, no worries!

Dude, you're replying to the wrong post. I was replying to the parent poster who said "Burning hydrogen with oxygen..."

Re:That'd be cool

[flaming error]

Cool. We can inhale the NOx and have a happier commute.

Re:That'd be cool

[cheeks5965]

at first I thought that this was a specious comment, but thinking about it more I see s/he has a point. there are many power sources (major and minor) that don't require combustion: 1) hydroelectric dams 2) nuclear power plants 3) geothermal 4) solar PV 5) solar molten salt 6) wind For transportation: * Fuel Cells * batteries * i've seen proposals for linear induction and maglev.

Re:That'd be cool

[Osgeld]

wtf do you think gasoline does?

Re:That'd be cool

[slim]

You can make hydrogen out of water and heat, or water and electricity.

You can also make it by fermenting biomatter, or by processing the gases that come out of landfill sites.

Boondoggle.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another government-funded dead end. Hydrogen is not the fuel of the future. There are too many issues with containment, leakage, and safety. This is ethanol all over again. Christ.

Re:Boondoggle.

[gandhi_2]

Is it any worse than a government-funded boondoggle of foreign oil? Perhaps the hydrogen is generated by burning oil, dogs, or babies... but that isn't the pipeline's fault. Someday the hydrogen could be made by cleaner schemes, and the infrastructure could already be in place.

This part made me laugh though:

Toyota also helped them

But

all of which was funded by the government

huh?

Re:Boondoggle.

[rednip]

You should know that there were people who thought that the federal highway system was a waste of money too. Sewers, and subways also had their detractors (still do). People never change, tea party, John Birch, know nothings, the names change but some people will always fight the future.

One might also note that pipelines like it might just as easily be good for 'regular' gas stations. I'd guess that keeping the delivery trucks off the road could be a real cost/environment savings (once the pipeline has been in place for 10 or 15 years)

Re:Boondoggle.

[uniquename72]

Yet another government-funded dead end.

Like the Internet? And water treatment plants?

Re:Boondoggle.

[Hijacked Public]

Toyota donated lobbyists.

Re:Boondoggle.

[Rei]

Ethanol is a very good analogy. Even after hydrogen as a fuel vehicle has pretty much been panned by scientific review in contrast with electricity, it continues to receive funding because the companies working on it are so entrenched with the political establishment. When Chu tried to kill off the hydrogen funding a year or so ago, congress forced him to put it back in.

Re:Boondoggle.

[jeffmeden]

Yet another government-funded dead end.

Like the Internet? And water treatment plants?

Don't forget that good for nothing space program, AND the military... Between that, libraries, and fire protection, the government clearly can't get ANYTHING right...

Re:Boondoggle.

[CorSci81]

I suspect the reason this doesn't apply for gasoline and diesel has to do with the available variety of blends and octanes. You can't just install a single pipeline for gasoline the way you can natural gas or hydrogen.

Re:Boondoggle.

[snowraver1]

Sure you can. That is how your fuel is transported right now over long distances. They use a pig.

Re:Boondoggle.

[rickb928]

Makes sense to me. Expanding gasoline delivery to pipelines will increase the underground volume of fuel, and the amount of area with gasoline underground certainyl will increase the scope and frequency of leakage groundwater contamination spills in general.

We should probably reconsider using MTBE, since it's water-soluble and would. fit. right. in. with this change.

Change is good, no? And getting those nasty trucks off the road has to be worth the risk. I kinda like the idea of the occasional hydrogen flare to liven things up. Gasoline spills just make your water taste like, well, gasoline, and the cancer risk takes too long to develop. Color me impatient, but this future is so bright...

While we're on this subject, is there some strange and hidden agenda the Tea Partiers have to challenge the use of sewers and subways?

Your sig certainly says it all. Bravo. Putz.

Re:Boondoggle.

[CorSci81]

I stand corrected on the long distance transport. I was thinking of the smaller infrastructure where such a system doesn't make sense they way it does for natural gas. It makes perfect sense for regional transport to larger distribution centers though.

Re:Boondoggle.

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes but the federal highway system doesn't have the problem that, if you store it in a tank made of 3 inches of solid steel, it somehow magically leaks because the atoms are smaller than the gaps between the metal atoms in the containment vessel. Storing hydrogen is not easy and requires liquid nitrogen cooling.

Re:Boondoggle.

[rjstanford]

Yes but the federal highway system doesn't have the problem that, if you store it in a tank made of 3 inches of solid steel, ...

You've got to admit, that'd be a really cool tank. Not sure where we'd put it though.

Re:Boondoggle.

[couchslug]

Hydrogen leakage RISES and disperses quickly, unlike LPG or gasoline vapors. Not much of a safety hazard, not poisonous, and gas handling has been well understood for more than a century.

Re:Boondoggle.

[nbauman]

That is indeed the problem with hydrogen fuel.

Science magazine had an article about that. Hydrogen leaks through thick tanks, it leaks through thick pipe walls. It's hard to send it through a 100-mile pipe and get anything left at the end. Amazing stuff, hydrogen.

That's why I was so interested in this story. How have they fixed the problems of hydrogen leaking through the pipes? Too bad they didn't say.

Put out that cigarette.

Re:Boondoggle.

[Grishnakh]

For every successful government-funded program, there's a dozen massive failures. Plus, there's the issue of state vs. federal vs. local. Libraries and fire protection are actually local initiatives, not federal.

As for the military, exactly how has that been useful to the country after WWII? Were the Koreans threatening us? Or the Vietnamese? Or the Iraqis? Why do we need military bases in 100+ foreign countries? Most of our military actions in the last 60 years have been total shams; not only a waste of money, but completely counterproductive in that we've murdered countless civilians and created more enemies. There's been a few justifiable actions (e.g., air strikes to defend Kosovar citizens from genocide), but that could have been done with a military 1/4 the size of our current one, with the resulting budget savings.

Re:Boondoggle.

[gtall]

Stalin expected to fight a nuclear war with the U.S. and win. That legacy was built into the Soviet military machine.

Was Korea threatening us? No. However, they had no love for Japan and would happily have picked a fight with Japan. The current little runt got his philosophy from his daddy.

Vietnam probably should never have happened. Not sure about Iraq, they didn't call Saddam the Butcher of Baghdad for nothing.

The thing about military spending is that you never know what you avert by having it. So your 20-20 hindsight is what I would call shallow thinking.

Re:Boondoggle.

[bluefoxlucid]

It's not only a problem, it's a legitimate engineering problem. Space and highway funding are one thing: pipe dreams that, while feasible and viable, are giant money sinks with no apparent value until they're put in place. Hydrogen based cars, on the other hand, need serious material science to work: you need a material that'll prevent hydrogen leaks, and also seals that'll prevent hydrogen leaks, and valves, etc. You need 3 or 4 materials at least to pull this off; putting it all together is trivial. These materials must also be cheap and durable, otherwise we're talking about major economic costs that we can't justify: dumping all our energy into making an alternate pipeline that costs 500 times as much as a regular pipeline just to pass an intermediary energy storage medium (hydrogen is not fuel, it's generated by burning fuel to break down another fuel (CH4) or feed stock (H2O)).

In other words, it's a problem that's huge and complicated, and we should ignore it in favor of doing something with much greater benefit and utility that's far easier. Hence the peanut oil thing: what benefit is there to running hydrogen anyway, when everything peanuts belch into the environment is draw out of the environment by growing peanuts?

Re:Boondoggle.

[Anonymous Coward]

I heat on natural gas delivered by a pipeline. Yes, like the one that wen 'boom' in CA last year.

Conservatives only whine about a nanny state because they think it's their job.

Is this safe?

[grapeape]

While I do think that Hydrogen based cars is a great idea I know that a problem in their development was safety. Is having a direct connection to the pipeline at a publicly used service station a good idea? We see stupid things people do resulting in problems at regular gas stations all the time, will it use full time attendants or will just rely on people being smart while fueling up?

Re:Is this safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a terrible idea. There's probably some sort of massive tax write-off involved here, like Marriott's "alternative fuel" factory...

Behold the power of human short sightedness.

Re:Is this safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Call 811. Realize that you may well have pipelines already.

Go to the gas station. See how many warning signs and labels they have. Realize it's already dangerous.

Unless you're a Pierson's Puppeteer, you don't have a fit over the risk.

Re:Is this safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Luckily pure hydrogen is not combustible. So even if you ignite the tip of the pump, which is already a stupid thing to do, it will burn at the tip and not travel back in. Hydrogen requires a higher oxygen/fuel ratio to combust. Too low or too high and nothing happens. That's the other good thing, if there's a leak, just put a fan on it. You can disperse the hydrogen quickly enough to prevent it from exploding.

Re:Is this safe?

[jcoy42]

Relax. It's just California.

Granted, I'd have preferred they start in Hollywood, but I'm still okay with this.

Re:Is this safe?

[boristdog]

No. But if gasoline powered cars did not exist and someone invented them today, there is NO WAY they would be approved.

"You want people to zip around at high speeds while carrying ten to twenty gallons of a highly volatile petroleum distillate? With CHILDREN in the car and by the roads? You know this 'gasoline' stuff is extremely flammable, you even use its explosive power to move your vehicle! Are you NUTS?"

DENIED.

Re:Is this safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fire hazard from hydrogen is far less than from gasoline. If a tank ruptures the hydrogen quickly escapes in to the air instead of sitting around for hours waiting to be ignited.

Re:Is this safe?

[Rei]

Luckily pure hydrogen is not combustible

Yeah, but it burns at mixtures anywhere from 4-75% with air, so that hardly buys you anything. And it detonates down to about 50% with air. You really think a detonation won't damage a pump? Or even a burn (hydrogen burns *hot*)? Pumps are not designed to operate as blow torches. Hopefully they would put flame-sensor shutdowns on the system, but I don't know that they have.

There are two significant risks at play. One is a failure of the storage tanks, most likely due to a manufacturing defect (these things happen, especially with composites, which H2 storage pretty much requires). These tanks are at very high pressures, many hundreds of atmospheres (unless you're dealing with liquid H2 storage, which is actually much more dangerous (air ingestion into an LH tank leaves a trapped SOX/LH slurry, which is a contact explosive)). The other risk is pooling. You're absolutely correct that there are anti-pooling countermeasures which not only can be taken, but essentially must be taken when dealing with hydrogen (aka, this isn't stuff you want sitting around in just an ordinary garage). Even still, even in structures designed to prevent pooling and detonation, it still happens. Fukushima being a glaring recent example, but there are countless others. Hydrogen detonates just so damned easy.

Re:Is this safe?

[jeffmeden]

Luckily pure hydrogen is not combustible... Too low or too high and nothing happens.

Too high and nothing happens? Another fusion doubter, have we? Tell it to THE SUN!!!

Re:Is this safe?

[Rei]

We have direct evidence to the contrary that it was not a concern when cars were introduced. Wagons of volatile fuel were already being carted through the streets. The main concerns with early gasoline vehicles were noise, air pollution (a contrast to "horse pollution", indeed, but without pollution controls, early cars still were pretty nasty), and various practical concerns like fuel availability and consistency, vehicle and fuel cost, and reliability/the difficulty in starting the vehicles (early electric cars were frequently marketed toward women for this reason, up until the electric starter motor for gasoline cars made its debut).

Re:Is this safe?

[hawguy]

Luckily pure hydrogen is not combustible. So even if you ignite the tip of the pump, which is already a stupid thing to do, it will burn at the tip and not travel back in.

Isn't that the case with most commonly used fuels? (ignoring solid rocket fuels that come with their own oxidizer)

Re:Is this safe?

[jeffmeden]

No. But if gasoline powered cars did not exist and someone invented them today, there is NO WAY they would be approved.

"You want people to zip around at high speeds while carrying ten to twenty gallons of a highly volatile petroleum distillate? With CHILDREN in the car and by the roads? You know this 'gasoline' stuff is extremely flammable, you even use its explosive power to move your vehicle! Are you NUTS?"

DENIED.

Not to mention, its more explosive than dynamite!!! (pound for pound, based on energy density.) And you want a tank full of it piloted by a barely qualified operator? That's INsane!

Re:Is this safe?

[Rei]

Not to mention, its more explosive than dynamite!!!

How is "not explosive at all" equal to "more explosive than dynamite"? Why are you confusing energy density with explosive capacity? Being explosive means that you can release energy very quickly (aka, it's more akin to power density than energy density).

Re:Is this safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Safer than gas. Hydrogen, being lighter than air, floats up not in puddles on the ground that kill the soil. In addition it can't "burn down", which means that if caught on fire it floats up quicker than the flame can come down the hydrogen. So an open hydrogen flame 10 feet up is safe to people walking below it.

As I said, much safer than gasoline. In addition it can run in the same engines and wouldn't need a fuel pump.

Re:Is this safe?

[jeffmeden]

OK ok ok, it's as explosive as that thing whooshing over your head right now...

Re:Is this safe?

[DarkOx]

I know ex-Navy guys who used to flick cigarette butts into open containers of jet fuel. Most of the time fuel will not combust under the wrong conditions. If you know what the right conditions are most fuels even pure H2 are pretty safe to keep around. The thing is look how often filling stations go up, how many natgas related home explosions happen each year; shit goes wrong astonishingly often. Keep in mind too that you are putting this in the hands of people who are likely to be negligent, careless, and ignorant; possibly all three at once. Safety is a real concern.

Re:Is this safe?

[vlm]

We see stupid things people do resulting in problems at regular gas stations all the time, will it use full time attendants or will just rely on people being smart while fueling up?

H2 has two obvious advantages over gasoline:

1) Leaks go straight up. Light it on fire and you get an immense fireball .... 100 feet up and headed higher at about 50 MPH. I'd much rather be trapped in a H2 car on fire than a gasoline car on fire. I suppose underground / underbuilding parking facilities would have a much more negative opinion...

2) It doesn't soak into winter clothing and turn the operator into a human torch like gasoline will do.

The obvious disadvantage is its extremely high range flammability limits, but its not that much worse than gasoline.

Re:Is this safe?

[kimvette]

It'd be about as safe as methane (natural gas) distribution.

I just don't see how they can store and distribute hydrogen economically, considering it will leak out the absolute smallest of openings, pores, etc. and to be stored in a tank requires a massive cooling system (to keep it below 20.2K), which in turn consumes a massive amount of energy to keep the hydrogen cool enough that it won't simply evaporate and migrate through the seals and hoses.

There is an easily solution to portable energy needs though, a relatively safe and very convenient method of storing and delivering energy. You could use hydrogen bonded with carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and various other elements so that it is in a liquid form, and that can be transported and stored with ease, in a relatively compact system which is fairly 1stable in temperatures ranging from arctic to tropical and desert climates.

Re:Is this safe?

[hitmark]

Life was considered much cheaper at the time, imo.

Re:Is this safe?

[timeOday]

Not explosive at all?

Gasoline explodes 100 times per second, per cylinder in your engine. It's certainly more explosive than hydrogen, anyways:

With an ideal Hydrogen-air mixture, a flame front can travel at around 8 feet/second. For comparison, a gasoline-air mixture creates a flame front speed that ranges from around 70 feet/second up to around 170 feet/second in normal engines.

Re:Is this safe?

[Rei]

That Youtube video clearly had gunpowder involved. That's how movie "explosions" are done -- a gunpowder charge plus gasoline.

Inside of a cylinder, vaporized and pressurized, is hardly the same conditions gasoline is in at rest. And it's still just a conflagration, not a detonation.

Your link does not talk about explosions at all. You need to learn the difference between a deflagration and a detonation, then look up DDT transition requirements for different fuels. Hydrogen very readily undergoes DDT, even without compression. That means a supersonic flame front, not "8 feet per second" like your (obviously unreferenced) article claims.

Re:Is this safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah but that's not what he said. the poster said if cars were introduced NOW. no doubt no one had thought of those questions in the early 1900's

Re:Is this safe?

[couchslug]

Gas handling has been well understood for more than a hundred years, and ten of thousands of miles of gas pipeline go to homes throughout the US.

There is more than you'll want to know about gas handling on the Internet.

Re:Is this safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

It might be "green" until the first earthquake in that area. Then it will be "charcoal."

Re:Is this safe?

[Pence128]

If a tank ruptures the hydrogen quickly escapes in to the air forming a fuel/air explosive instead of sitting around for hours waiting to be ignited.

FTFY

Re:Is this safe?

[Pence128]

Fortunately all gases are exactly the same.

Re:Is this safe?

[Grishnakh]

Some fuels are far more volatile than others. Kerosene (jet fuel) and diesel, in particular, are not volatile at all. They need to be vaporized and the mixture greatly compresed before it'll ignite. Even gasoline needs to vaporize before it'll ignite; liquid gasoline will not burn. The same is probably true of hydrogen. However, gasoline vaporizes extremely fast, which is why it burns so easily, and of course hydrogen, in gas form, is already a vapor, so it burns even easier.

Moving from a medium-volatility fuel to a high-volatility fuel which can't even be very well contained (it leaks out its containers because the molecules are so small) is utterly stupid. This whole thing is political BS designed to funnel taxpayer money into the hands of certain politically-connected corporations, who in the end aren't going to deliver anything at all.

Re:Is this safe?

[Grishnakh]

And they'd have a good point. We don't need gasoline at all: diesel is a superior fuel, and is cheaper and easier to distill from petroleum, and gives better fuel efficiency to boot. The only reason gasoline was ever used is because, at the time, they couldn't design diesel engines with good horsepower for cars, but that's in the past. Today's TDI engines rival gas engines easily, and IIRC a diesel-powered F1 car has been winning races recently.

For airplanes, kerosene (aka jet fuel) is the best fuel available, though for small planes they now have some experimental diesel engines coming out for the piston-powered stuff. Kerosene isn't much different from diesel.

Re:Is this safe?

[Born2bwire]

"What, sir? You would make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her decks? I pray you excuse me. I have no time to listen to such nonsense."

Bonus points to those that read this in Leonard Nimoy's voice.

Re:Is this safe?

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW, when gasoline powered cars first came about, they weren't zipping around at the high speeds that they are today.

PeopleEatingTastyAnimals Question

[sheepofblue]

But has it led to increased Elk breeding?

Hydrogen again?

[LWATCDR]

Hydrogen == natural gas.
One has to wonder which would be greener? Just using the Natural gas in an IC Hybrid or Hydrogen in a fuel cell?

Re:Hydrogen again?

[Anonymous Coward]

More information for the curious.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Hydrogen == natural gas.

Umm, no.

Natural Gas = CH4.

Hydrogen = H2

CH4 =/= H2.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[demonbug]

Hydrogen == natural gas.

Umm, no.

Natural Gas = CH4.

Hydrogen = H2

CH4 =/= H2.

The point was that, currently, hydrogen gas is largely derived from petroleum products and/or natural gas. So until large-scale industrial water cracking or something becomes economical and takes over, this really doesn't reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[rrohbeck]

The issue is that hydrogen today is made from natural gas, at an energy loss.
Nobody makes hydrogen with electrolysis from solar cells because it's too costly.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[TheTurtlesMoves]

depends on the source of hydrogen. In NZ natural gas (CNG) is pretty common for cars. However they are big heavy high pressure tanks that only give you about 300km range. Better than electric of course.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[LWATCDR]

Hydrogen is made from Natural gas today. If you make it from electricity than odds are it is coming from fossile fuel, nuclear, or Hydro. Solar and wind are too expensive for Hydrogen production.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[cpu6502]

Honda does. They built a solar cell fueling station that converts water to H2, and which they use for the hydrogen test cars.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[LWATCDR]

Yes it is equal too Hydrogen but not identical too. Hydrogen is made from reformulated hydrocarbons mostly if not exclusively in the US natural gas.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[LWATCDR]

That is a test system. Commercial hydrogen production is from reformulated hydrocarbons. I suggest you take a look at the cost and then work out the payback time on Honda's system. Probably about the time the Sun becomes a Red Giant.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[Anonymous Coward]

And once we start cracking water, Hydrogen == Coal.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he wasn't suggesting they were the same thing. Just that methane is currently used to make hydrogen in mass quantity. So why not have a methane fuel cells(I have no idea if that is possible). And the summary has it wrong too as hydrogen right now is far from a green fuel. I think there is an island near Japan that uses electrolysis(from hydro electric) to make its hydrogen so if they set up stations there it would be a green fuel.

Re:Hydrogen again?

[geekoid]

Just put a 10 MW self contain nuclear batter at the fueling station.

Can they reuse natural gas distribution system

[gatkinso]

Say parts that are un/under utilized?

Re:Can they reuse natural gas distribution system

[TooMuchToDo]

You would just pipe natural gas to "hydrogen" stations, and crack the natural gas at the station.

Re:Can they reuse natural gas distribution system

[LWATCDR]

No they can't. That is one of the problems with Hydrogen. Look up Hydrogen embrittlement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement
Not to mention potental problems with things like seals, pumps, and valves.
 

Re:Can they reuse natural gas distribution system

[h4rr4r]

No, you can not. Steam reformation is not something that can be done on that small of a scale and be monitored by the pothead manning the cash register.

Re:Can they reuse natural gas distribution system

[notmuchtosay]

It is not quite that simple. I have not met a single person who would purpose a wholesale change from pumping CH4 to pumping H2 in the existing infrastructure. The issues are much greater than just steel having embrittlement. There are a whole host of materials in contact with natural gas including plastic and rubbers. Hell you might loose more gas then you get at the end of the pipe. Often, the purposed methodology centers around using a hydrogen loading in the current natural gas stream. The EU has spent billions looking into this: http://www.naturalhy.net/ The basic idea is use a clean/cheap methodology of producing hydrogen (maybe off peak hours of plants - and then pump into the natural gas system.

It has been some time since I was reading up on the project. If i recall there are two huge obstacles. First if you don't take it out of the natural gas (let it go to the home users) not all equipment likes that and some would become non functioning. Secondly there are not cost effective means to get the hydrogen back out before the end user. I was surprised to find out the materials issues were not show stopping.

Re:Can they reuse natural gas distribution system

[TooMuchToDo]

Yes, it can be done on a small scale. And yes, it can be automated and handling by remote monitoring and SCADA equipment. You don't even need someone manning the station if you only accept credit cards and have a video feed to make sure the place hasn't exploded (for remote shutdowns).

Re:Can they reuse natural gas distribution system

[geekoid]

not at the same cost savings. You lose all your gain from centralizing it.

Re:Can they reuse natural gas distribution system

[Bing Tsher E]

a video feed to make sure the place hasn't exploded (for remote shutdowns).

For that you don't even need a video feed. A 50 ohm terminator on the end of the coax will suffice.

Re:Can they reuse natural gas distribution system

[Anonymous Coward]

just tell them it's a hydroponic setup

Re:Can they reuse natural gas distribution system

[LWATCDR]

umm I said "Not to mention potential problems with things like seals, pumps, and valves."

I have wondered if using NH4 for hydrogen transport might not be a good solution. I believe that you can use that fuel cells and most nations have a huge amount of experience transporting it for use as fertilizer.

I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was in

[elrous0]

I have a hard time keeping up with what's hip in the green world, but I thought electricity was the green thing that we're supposed to fuel our cars with now. Didn't hydrogen fall out of favor with the greenies a few years back?

Hydrogen is not a fuel

[hawguy]

There are no vast fields of Hydrogen waiting to be mined (at least not on this planet). Hydrogen is an intermediate energy storage medium most commonly extracted from fossil fuels. It can come from water via electrolysis, but there's a lot of waste energy form that process so as far as I know it's not done on a large scale.

What is the overall efficiency of a Hydrogen powered car (including the energy cost to extract the hydrogen) as opposed to one that runs directly off of fossil fuels?

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[GodfatherofSoul]

Why do people always say that? By your logic, gasoline isn't a fuel either since it took millions of years of pressure to form it. Solar and wind power aren't fuel sources either, since you need a giant ball of fusion to create both, etc. We don't have an energy problem, we have a transportable energy problem.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[h4rr4r]

In theory the idea is that once you have hydrogen fueled vehicles you can switch to cleaner sources of hydrogen. Like cracking water in a high temperature nuclear reactor. Either way everything is just storage of energy from the big bang.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[hawguy]

Because Hydrogen creation is taking transportable energy and converting it (at a loss) to a different form of transportable energy. What is the point? We already have vast natural gas and liquid fuel distribution networks, why do we need one more?

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

A fuel is pretty much anything you can burn to get energy... so yes, hydrogen is a fuel.

The difference between it and wood, coal, oil, methane, uranium etc. is that we didn't have to make the other fuels ourselves!

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[hawguy]

In theory the idea is that once you have hydrogen fueled vehicles you can switch to cleaner sources of hydrogen. Like cracking water in a high temperature nuclear reactor. Either way everything is just storage of energy from the big bang.

Oh gee, that sounds simple, just build out an entirely new energy distribution network to distribute hydrogen, and then it's as easy as building a hundred nuclear powered hydrogen processing plants to create unlimited green hydrogen! I guess Hydrogen really *is* a great solution!

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[uniquename72]

Because neither will last forever. We could sit around until it's gone and then react to the catastrophe that follows (like we do with bridges and levies and education) or we could try some new things at relatively minimal cost in the meantime.

(Some guy in 1960: "Why build this Internet thing when we already have phones and telegraphs and cans with string? We already have plenty of ways to communicate, why do we need one more?")

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

1) Using hydrogen as an energy medium, we can decentralize fossil fuel burning instead of having hotspots centered around cities with a lot of cars
2) We have a greater ability to capture emissions when the fossil fuel burning is done in a large factory maintained by professional engineers instead of everyone running un-tuned cars.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

Pssst... We're not the ones who *put* the oil there in the first place... Think about it... I know it hurts.

"We don't have an energy problem, we have a transportable energy problem."

1) Yes we do.

2) We don't HAVE anything to transport.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[gregorio]

Because neither will last forever. We could sit around until it's gone and then react to the catastrophe that follows (like we do with bridges and levies and education) or we could try some new things at relatively minimal cost in the meantime.

Hydrogen, being only a storage medium, is not a replacement for neither also. So the problem that "they will not last forever" is not being solved by those "new things".

You completely ignored his message.

(Some guy in 1960: "Why build this Internet thing when we already have phones and telegraphs and cans with string? We already have plenty of ways to communicate, why do we need one more?")

Not a valid comparison.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrogen can be produced using green energy, allowing storage and movement from inconvenient energy source locations (tidal areas, wind farms, solar desert panels). It solves the heavy battery problem of electric cars (but replaces it with the gaseous fuel problem). It also potentially evens out the uneven grid usage & unpredictable green production issues that power plants currently face. Hydroelectric, solar and wind do not produce the most power during peak use times, so wouldn't it be nice to be able to store electricity in a stable fuel? Hydrogen is potentially that fuel -- just not yet.

Meantime, biodiesel is a direct replacement for fossil fuels, produces less smog and does not change the long-term CO2 content of the atmosphere. unfortunately, it's not as cheap as diesel or petrol, or even ethanol since the government subsidizes that to the point where corn for eating is barely affordable.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[timbo234]

You really didn't understand the point he was making, but it's very important to understand when anything about 'hydrogen cars' comes up:

The only practical and economical way to 'produce' hydrogen is to extract it from natural gas. This is mostly pointless and wasteful since you could just use the natural gas (compressed) to fuel the car, as is common in Australia and New Zealand for example, without the extra expense and loss of energy from turning it into hydrogen. When the fossil fuels run out so does the hydrogen.

Even worse is trying to create it through electrolysis from power stations, it wastes something like 90% of the electrical energy. You're far better off transmitting that power into battery storage in electric cars, especially since the electrical grid already exists and transmission losses are fairly minor.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

The well-to-wheels efficiency of a hydrogen powered car, assuming the hydrogen is being generated from natural gas, is typically about 1.5 - 2 times that of a modern fossil fuel vehicle (i.e. the greenhouse gas emissions of the H2 vehicle would be equivalent to a gasoline car that got 80 - 100 mpg). It can be better than that if the hydrogen is generated close to the point of use - pipeline delivery can provide this benefit as well, but it's a lot of infrastructure to build. Some details can be found here: http://tiaxllc.com/publications/tiax_fcs_06_ghg_analysis_for_hydrogen.pdf

Another note - with distributed NG-to-H2 fueling, hydrogen powered vehicles have about 20% less greenhouse gas emissions than electric cars (based on the national average fuel composition for grid electrical generation).

Full disclosure - I happen to work on hydrogen generation. Most of us in the industry are quite clear that H2 generation from any fossil fuel is a bridging technology to get hydrogen vehicles developed and on the road. The long term vision has to be renewable sources for H2 generation (biomass, solar/wind, etc.)

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[h4rr4r]

I said in theory. In reality it is a huge waste of power to produce, embrittles every damn metal it touches, leaks out of everything and is in general a huge pain in the ass to work with.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[residieu]

Gasoline, on the other hand, we do have to make. You can't just pump crude oil into your gas tank.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

Very good point, this sums up everything else I've seen in this thread in a very clear and succinct manor.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[lightknight]

Agreed. Many of these 'green' technologies are a clear case of counting your chickens before they have hatched.

How about we have a viable alternative before we start making plans to switch? Just one green car that can go 360 miles on a single charge / fueling, that doesn't look like a go-cart or tube, that can carry myself + 4 moderately built friends + luggage comfortably, that gets a 5-star for safety requirements, goes over 80 MPH, has an acceleration greater than that of the old minivan, has air conditioning + stereo, whose fueling stations are / can be readily available / widespread in 3 years, and who does not use technology like lithium batteries that require a $20,000 replacement 5 years later. Oh, and try to make it affordable to the average customer, who probably doesn't want to spend more than $30,000 on a new car.

Give me just one worthwhile sedan that meets those requirements.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[h4rr4r]

Your current car does this?
No way you could fit that many in any vehicle I care to own.
What kind of sedan can hold 5 adults and luggage?

Lithium batteries are going to cost $7k to replace and more like every 10-20 years is a replacement cycle. That is bad enough no need to exaggerate.

The reality is these vehicles will not be cheap for quite a while. The Telsa sedan gets pretty close on most of the above except for price and hauling 5 adults, which I can't see any sedan really doing. Price will come down with time.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[yincrash]

Doesn't gasoline exist in the crude oil? We're not making gasoline, we're distilling it out of crude.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[geekoid]

It's cleaner this way, that's the point.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[geekoid]

err.. no. It won't work.

You're saying we should not produce anything until we solve all potential a theoretical problems.

That would stop technological development.

", goes over 80 MPH,"
why? why 80? how about one with good acceleration that goes 75?

"has an acceleration greater than that of the old minivan,"
Electric cars of superb acceleration.

You and I are going to have to gt the idea what we will be driving slower smaller cars in the future.

The era of excess energy is on the way out.
Even if someone manage to successfully fire a fusion/fission power generator, we would still beheld up by batteries.
On the plus side, if we had fision/fusion reaction we might be ably to trickle charge are cars at stop lights.

I'm sure someone had a similar set of complaints about the Model -T when comparing it to their buggy.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[sdguero]

My understanding was some sort of electrolysis plant would create the hydrogen using solar energy. If that is the case, Southern California is a pretty good place to start the process with its abundant sunlight. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone had ever tried to produce hydrogen on a large scale using just solar energy.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[rayindallas]

Hydrogen is not a (currently feasible) fuel, but it sure does keep the public going to a filling station! Petroleum companies would love to switch from fossil fuels today, as long as they can supply the next big fuel at the pump.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[hawguy]

It's cleaner this way, that's the point.

Cleaner than what? Burning natural gas in a car? Using a natural gas fuel cell in a car? Burning natural gas to make electric power which is used in a battery powered electric car?

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[lennier]

a huge waste of power to produce, embrittles every damn metal it touches, leaks out of everything and is in general a huge pain in the ass to work with.

Great, so hydrogen will be the perfect companion to nuclear fission.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Pence128]

yeah, all that nasty carbon stuff is behind the curtain where we can't see it.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Pence128]

you mean centralize fossil fuel burning at a single plant instead of distributing is across thousands of cars.

Great, now in addition to cracking/steam reforming, liquefying/compressing to 10,000psi, piping/trucking and squeezing it through connectors foolproof enough for the average fool to operate, we have to make millions of tonnes of dry ice, bury it and keep it frozen for the rest of eternity.

Just charge a battery and be done with it.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Pence128]

As soon as you switch to renewables, hydrogen craps its pants. Anything inherently electrical like solar or wind will be 4 times more efficient charging batteries and there will never be enough waste biomass to drive all our cars. Unless you're growing biomass specifically for fuel, in which case you're using a lot more land, water and fertilizers (made from hydrogen) than a few more solar or wind farms.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Pence128]

No one has tried to produce hydrogen on a large scale from solar energy because it's economically infeasible, and will be until fossil fuels cost about 10 times what they do now.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

Infinite. Since fossil fuels will rise exponentially in price to the limit of it running out.
While the plan with hydrogen, is to produce it from sea water with energy from concentrated solar power plants, causing a endless natural cycle, just as those cycles in nature that are environmentally neutral in the end.

Fossil redneck backwards shit FAIL. Awesome gigantic fusion reactor in the sky WIN.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[hawguy]

Infinite. Since fossil fuels will rise exponentially in price to the limit of it running out.
While the plan with hydrogen, is to produce it from sea water with energy from concentrated solar power plants, causing a endless natural cycle, just as those cycles in nature that are environmentally neutral in the end.

Fossil redneck backwards shit FAIL. Awesome gigantic fusion reactor in the sky WIN.

I've seen no such plan for large scale electrolysis plants - how many states worth of land area (or how many hundreds of square miles of ocean) are you willing to give up to build these hydrogen plants?

Just because you can make a few liters of hydrogen with your backyard solar cell doesn't mean you can scale it up to provide even a fraction of the nation's liquid fuel energy needs.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[Mindcontrolled]

A large fraction of crude is heavy and useless. You have to crack this stuff to get useful light distillates. A lot of oil fields which produced mostly light crude have run way past their peak, so more and more heavy and sour crude has to be refined, making cracking and other refinement steps besides pure distillation increasingly important.

Re:Hydrogen is not a fuel

[eigenstates]

Well, as there is no retooling to do on motor production (hydrogen can be used in existing conventional internal combustion engines with some slight modifications) and you have stuff like this:

http://www.physorg.com/news183914624.html

And there are no tons of terrifically toxic battery waste to deal with, I'd say it's cleaner than burning existing fuel (even biodiesel), generating new electric motor models and batteries and knocks off a whole set delivery and production supply chains.

Questions

[reboot246]

I didn't see anything in the article about the size of the pipeline, where it came from, what diameter pipe it is, or what material it's made of. But the number one question is, what odorizer is in the hydrogen? Hydrogen is explosive over a greater range than methane, and natural gas pipelines have to be regularly checked for leaks. Without leak surveys and with no odor in the gas, hydrogen transported by pipelines is going to be extremely dangerous.

Oh, my job for the last 35 years? Checking natural gas pipelines for leaks.

Re:Questions

[Rei]

Hydrogen passes through solids hundreds of times easier than NG -- or any odorizer -- can. So it's questionable whether an odorizer would help.

The good news is that hydrogen disperses quickly when vented into open air. The bad news is that if there's anything over it, it can pool, and it's extremely sensitive to sparks, burns in almost any fuel-air mixture, and can not only burn, but detonate. And of course there's always the "invisible flame" issues when dealing with pinhole leaks, which are always a pain, but which can be dealt with (thanks to IR cameras, you no longer have to use the old "swing a broomstick in front of you and see if it gets cut in half" method that they used to use at refineries)

Re:Questions

[AK Marc]

A pressurized H2 pipeline can't explode. H2 leaks, assuming they aren't trapped inside some external structure, are safe. Even if there is a structure to trap the H2 in, there is only a very short period after the leak is sealed before the area is safe again. H2 is safer in a pipeline than gasoline or natural gas. And there's no reason they can't make it smell like natural gas (well, aside from the obvious answer where pure natural gas and pure H2 do smell the same, they could induce the same odor in both for commercial use). But as someone else pointed out, it's possible for a leak to let out the H2 without releasing any odorizer.

This article lays out hydrogen as a fuel for cars

[smooth wombat]

This article, from a 2008 edition of Skeptic magazine, spells out the good, bad and ugly of using hydrogen to power cars.

In short, not a good or easy thing to do.

The article.

Well-to-wheels efficiency

[Rei]

To add information to this discussion, here's the net system efficiency, well-to-wheel, of different energy sources:
Link

That graph is from this paper:
Link

All issues of fuel cost, fuel cell vehicle cost, safety, ozone damage, infrastructure cost, and so forth aside, one of the big complaints about hydrogen is that it's just not that efficient.

Re:Well-to-wheels efficiency

[afidel]

Interesting graph, though I wonder if they included the energy of producing the plants in those calculations because the electric car with natural gas generation seems very high considering how expensive NG MWHr's are.

Re:Well-to-wheels efficiency

[Rei]

This graph does not deal with cost of energy at all -- purely energy in, motion out. NG plants are very efficient, and getting even more efficient (the latest generation are about 60%, not counting the potential reuse of waste heat). NG power is expensive per MWHr compared to coal because NG is more expensive than coal per joule, even after the power plant efficiency difference is taken into account. Both NG and coal power are primarily marginal cost driven (aka, fuel), not capital cost driven like nuclear and most renewables.

Re:Well-to-wheels efficiency

[rrohbeck]

Nice graphs.
This is exactly the point: Transmission line efficiency * charging efficiency * battery efficiency * discharging efficiency * electric motor efficiency is many times higher than anything involving ICEs, turbines or fuel cells because their efficiency sucks. So as soon as electric power is anywhere in your chain you can't do better than with an electric car.

Re:Well-to-wheels efficiency

[cpu6502]

The "winner" in your graph is not a fuel cell car. It's a battery-electric vehicle refueled either off the grid or from a home power unit (i.e. solar). So basically they are saying forget Fuel Cells and go with EVs. (shrug)

I find it hard to believe switching a power plant from Natural gas to Hydrogen makes efficiency double (35 to 74%). It appears the author of the study did not take something into account..... probably efficiency losses converting water to H2. To overlook something that obvious is not good.

BTW they didn't include diesel hybrids. If they had, the efficiency would have been ~34%. About the same as the EV powered by a natural gas plant.

Re:Well-to-wheels efficiency

[MozeeToby]

I'd be interested in someone taking it a step farther, Electric car with distributed generation is given 80% efficiency, but that can't include the energy involved in making the solar cells or windmills. Of course, if you're going to include that in the electric items, you need to do the same analysis for the others as well: how much does energy does it cost to make the equipment to mine and drill for fossil fuels. And then of course you have to think about maintenance, future upgrades, economies of scale... I'm not really convinced that it's possible to do an accurate analysis of this kind of problem, you can probably get some general ideas though.

Re:Well-to-wheels efficiency

[Rei]

As mentioned elsewhere, you're confusing "hydropower" and "hydrogen".

Re:Well-to-wheels efficiency

[cpu6502]

Not according to greenercars.org (ACEE sponsored) which ranks an EV1 car as no cleaner overall (from well to wheel) then a Prius or Civic Hybrid.

And about 10% less clean than a Honda Insight (70mpg version) or Civic CNG. And about 15% less clean than a diesel Lupo (88mpg version).

Re:Well-to-wheels efficiency

[rrohbeck]

An electric monster truck would be even worse.
The comparison works only for the same car mass.

Infrastructure?

[camperdave]

So they are running hydrogen pipes to all the fueling stations now? What sort of hazard is that going to provide? Are they going to put odour generating chemicals in the hydrogen like they do with natural gas, so that you can tell when there is a leak? If so, are these chemicals going to play nice in the engine? What happens when there is a leak in the pipe? Hydrogen/oxygen flames are nearly invisible to the naked eye. Are we going to have to add other compounds to make any flames visible?

Re:Infrastructure?

[Rei]

Odor generating chemicals won't work with hydrogen. Hydrogen leaks far better than any other chemical, even helium. No odorous compound even comes close. Hence, only a major leak from a hydrogen container would let the odorous compounds escape. The same problem exists with flame visibility; you really need IR cameras to see it well. Other major hydrogen problems are pooling under overhangs and the very extreme sensitivity to even minor static shocks, as well as the wide range of combustible fuel-air mixtures and hydrogen's ability to readily detonate instead of simply conflagrate in STP conditions. Then there's obviously the embrittlement issues, the high pressure storage issues, etc, but also lesser known issues like its ability to enter other pipelines (since it can pass through materials so easily) and follow them to their destination, then pool there (NASA has lost several buildings this way; there's a reason why NASA requires hydrogen pipes to be the topmost, requires all buildings dealing with more than 1kg hydrogen to have roofs designed to be blown away, to have elaborate spark suppression and venting systems, etc).

Odorous chemicals would be fine in a H2 ICE, but PEMFCs have extreme purity requirements for the H2. So no, they would not play nice.

Re:Infrastructure?

[0123456]

Weren't those exploding reactor buildings in Japan the result of hydrogen buildup?

Re:Infrastructure?

[Rei]

Indeed they were. Despite being engineered in all regards to try to avoid precisely that sort of event. Hydrogen pools and detonates just so damned easily.

Here's what the detonation of an amount of hydrogen perhaps 1/10th of what you'd find in a typical mass-market hydrogen car (or a hundredth of a hydrogen semi) looks like. Now, thats an H2/O2 mixture; to get that force with H2/air would require about twice as much. But it gives you a good idea of what we're talking about here (and why such a low-density gas could do so much damage to those heavy concrete reactor buildings).

Torrance, not Torrence

[sensei moreh]

subject line says it all (as does TFA)

Torrence, CA

[twistedcubic]

I used to live in Torrence, CA. It was really fun living there, even though the place doesn't exist.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a hard time keeping up with what's hip in the green world, but I thought electricity was the green thing that we're supposed to fuel our cars with now. Didn't hydrogen fall out of favor with the greenies a few years back?

What do you think they use the Hydrogen for?

(Hint: They don't squirt it out the back at high pressure to make the car go. Though that would be mighty funny.)

Why it doesn't matter...

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked Hydrogen powered cars emit water vapor... which is a stronger "greenhouse gas" than C02. So what is the point of this exercise? To make rich people feel smug and enable them to talk down to others because they're $50,000 car supposedly saves the earth? What a joke! The entire green movement is immune to reality... that's the only explanation for opposing nuclear power while encourage stupid-ass ideas like hydrogen cars. Congrats GreenTards.

Re:Why it doesn't matter...

[Rei]

You do realize that water vapor has an average atmospheric residency of under two weeks, right?

The real problem is that hydrogen vehicles have a grossly inefficient fuel cycle. Also, leaked hydrogen destroys ozone. But your water vapor argument is one of the dumbest anti-hydrogen claims you could have made.

And, FYI, most of the environmental community wants *battery-electric* vehicles, not hydrogen. Hydrogen vehicles are a "solution" being pushed on the "GreenTards" that they do not want.

Good lord

[el_guapo]

Hydrogen is NOT green - not until they find a "green" way to produce it. It is NOT an energy SOURCE (like fossil fuels, and nuclear), it is an energy CONVEYOR. I wanna save the planet as much as anyone, but as long as fossile fuels are used to generate the hydrogen, it actually makes more sense to just burn the stuff in an internal cumbustion engine. /me waits to get modded down :-/

Re:Good lord

[0123456]

Hydrogen is NOT green - not until they find a "green" way to produce it. It is NOT an energy SOURCE (like fossil fuels, and nuclear), it is an energy CONVEYOR.

You seem to be under the impression that 'Green' is something other than a marketing label.

Re:Good lord

[Anonymous Coward]

Solar is NOT green - not until they find a "green" way to produce solar cells.

Wind is NOT green - not until they find a "green" way to produce giant windmills.

Green is NOT green - it's a goddamned color, and you're fooling yourself if you think any source of energy is going to be without impact to our environment.

Re:Good lord

[rrohbeck]

Correct. Use "sustainable" or "renewable" instead.

Re:Good lord

[guantamanera]

There are many ways of producing hydrogen, and probably many more ways that we haven't figure out. A lot of times is a byproduct of some other process. Do you remember the blow up in the japanese nuclear reactors? those happen because of hydrogen build up, and I think using nuclear power to produce hydrogen is actually very green. I used to work for Arco(BP) and during the refining process we used to produce way too much hydrogen and we didn't have where to store or no one to sell it to so we would just burn it, and we would do this almost 24/7. And right now most of the hydrogen in the USA is produced by steam reforming of natural gas

Hydrogen is NOT green - not until they find a "green" way to produce it. It is NOT an energy SOURCE (like fossil fuels, and nuclear), it is an energy CONVEYOR. I wanna save the planet as much as anyone, but as long as fossile fuels are used to generate the hydrogen, it actually makes more sense to just burn the stuff in an internal cumbustion engine. /me waits to get modded down :-/

Re:Good lord

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrogen CAN be harvested from fossil fuel refining, but it is also possible to produce hydrogen via electrolysis using wind or solar energy to power the process. So hydrogen can indeed be green. People are paying a lot of attention to hydrogen because nothing we have can even compare to the energy density of gasoline and its portability. Of course, people are also researching batteries, but that's not really a reason to ignore hydrogen as a potential fuel source.

Re:Good lord

[Anonymous Coward]

20-25% of power generation in the US comes from Nuclear, higher in other countries. Geothermal and Hydro are *huge* in some other countries. Just because your juice comes from coal doesn't mean ours does.

Re:Good lord

[geekoid]

no it doesn't. Several studies have shown that the benefit is gained from the centralization of the burning.

It's not JUST about pure energy, it's about creating and dealing with those issues as WELL.

ICE are horrid polluters.

Looking strictly at 'you get ore energy in the engine is myopic. Hell at this point it's stupid.
Fossil fuels are a source to get H2, yes. However we can build viable solar thermal plants that can be used.

Personally I would rather see better batteries and just be electric.

Re:Good lord

[Anonymous Coward]

> as long as fossile fuels are used to generate the hydrogen, it actually makes more sense to just burn the stuff in an internal cumbustion engine

Not entirely. Burning fossil fuels in an ICE inevitably releases CO2 to the atmosphere. Converting fossil fuels to hydrogen doesn't.

So it depends upon what you're trying to achieve.

If you're simply concerned about fuel availability, conversion to hydrogen doesn't help so long as you're using an ICE (OTOH, using a hydrogen fuel cell to power an electric motor may be a net gain, but no more so than a fuel cell which uses hydrocarbons).

OTOH, if you're concerned about reducing CO2 emissions, then there are advantages to separating hydrocarbons into hydrogen and carbon.

Re:Good lord

[Anonymous Coward]

"not until they find a "green" way to produce it"

Then it's green. There's wind, solar, etc.

Hydrogen is green for the simple fact that it allows long term energy storage from green sources for extended time periods at a decent energy density. The energy density is still crap compared to hydrocarbons, but it's far superior and less costly than a battery bank setup.

For vehicle use, eh, yeah, I agree with you. For storing energy grabbed during the summer and burning it in the winter? Hydrogen is good. Not great, but better than any other option out there. Maybe aluminum is feasible but I haven't seen that setup in the wild yet. Batteries suck big time due to the cost and the load. (Look up good batteries and you'll quickly realize what I mean.) Reformation such as creating methane or more complex hydrocarbons from a clean energy source are still in their infancy with very little funding (either locked in patents such as BP holds or limited research funding such as naval research using the nuclear reactors in ships to create their version of kerosene a la jet fuel).

What I'm talking about is after your solar hot water system in the summer drives your AC through a gas absorption or Einstein refrigerator setup, you can use the differential to run a stirling to crack your hydrogen and store it (or create your aluminum from the used billet, whatever floats your boat). Or your PV panels cracks water to produce hydrogen during the 14 hour summer long days, to supplement your energy use during the winter during 4 hour good sunlight days. Can't really do that well with batteries.

You want a green from renewable energy, wind, solar, geothermal, etc. to reduce your energy loads? You need a hydrogen or methane infrastructure. Batteries aren't going to cut it. Pressure systems aren't enough. Geothermal dumping (force heat into the earth during the summer, remove during teh winter) hasn't really been shown all that good it seems.

Think of hydrogen as electrical gas you can take with you. Electricity and batteries are great for reduced loads that we have come to put up with, but for the heavy lifting, you're going to need something better, and hydrogen can fill that need. Plus, having no bad emissions is freaking great (I unfortunately live along a major road--the amount of diesel and gasoline spew, esp. from older vehicles and modified shit like tuners and muscle car morons, is disgusting; and I have 6 neighbors who burn wood as their primary heat source in the winter (yeah, I've got to move), I think people have been sucking in zinc or something, not sure why they aren't bothered by the smell).

I wish more people would understand that green just isn't about net neutral energy use, carbon emissions, and all that, but also particulate levels, which is why coal (on the upswing as "greener"), wood (green because it's claimed a close loop now), are NOT green in my book when they impact negative your or your neighbor's health.

Re:Good lord

[Pence128]

Except that batteries are already cheaper, more available and at least 4 times more efficient than hydrogen.

Re:Good lord

[Pence128]

Nearly 50% of power generation in the US comes from coal too.

Re:Good lord

[Pence128]

Converting fossil fuels to hydrogen doesn't.

CH4 + H2O + heat -> CO + 3H2
CO + H2O -> CO2 + H2

Re:Good lord

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrogen is NOT green - not until they find a "green" way to produce it. It is NOT an energy SOURCE (like fossil fuels, and nuclear), it is an energy CONVEYOR.

You seem to be under the impression that 'Green' is something other than a marketing label.

Green is hardly a marketing label except where major corporations use it to market their products. The real problem is expectation. Look an electric car run off Lead acid batteries, it uses no rare earth metals and is very green it just lacks the range that the "what if" generation demands. Gee what if I get a wild hair up my ass to drive across the country rather than the 25 mile commute I do 50 weeks out of the year? The corporations are forced to market for the "what if" rather than the bloody reality of the situation. The real truth is people are going to gradually be needing less simply because it's too expensive to waste. Every time the price of gas hits $4 a gallon people cut back usage and the price drops. This will work for a while but gradually demand will catch up with actual need and everyone will have already cut discretionary driving. The point is they can't reduce their driving anymore so the whole BS excuse of what if I get a wild hair attack and want to drive across the country will cease to even be an option so that car with a 50 or 100 mile range that costs half as much to drive will look mighty attractive.

Hydrogen was never a serious option. Bush only embraced it because the bulk of hydrogen was made from fossil fuels. If hydrogen had been made from solar cells he would have been dead set against it. This is about "spin" making fossil fuels the green solution. Ultimately they are wasting energy on a PR stunt. The only time hydrogen as a fuel gets interesting is if some one finds a way to make fusion work. Translated don't hold your breath.

Re:Good lord

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydrogen isn't currently an energy conveyor. I believe you are under the misconception that hydrogen is being extracted from water via electrolysis. In reality, commercial hydrogen is being produced a by-product of petroleum extraction. As a result, it an energy source in the same sense that oil is. Furthermore, there are no CO2 emissions, which is supposedly a good thing.

Re:Good lord

[vandamme]

So why don't we just use diesel fuel? Safer than gasoline, easy to store, existing infrastructure, more efficient....oh wait, I forgot about the politics.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter... as long as you are distracted enough to not realized just how screwed you really are. Panicking consumers tend not to consume as much... know what I mean?

Yikes!

[Antony T Curtis]

Yikes! I think I will wait for natural gas (methane) fuel cells to be rugged enough for use in vehicles. Much safer than hydrogen.

Re:Yikes!

[Anonymous Coward]

...... and what would you do with the CARBON?

Methane gas is a HydroCarbon, CH4. If you extract and use the hydrogen molecules, what happens to the carbon?
It's no different to burning it directly and almost as dirty (an electric system should be more efficient depending on the fuel cell).

Also, Hydrogen is a very small molecule, and is prone to leaking out of pipes and fittings.
It is highly combustible and burns very hot, so piping it under your neighbourhood is NOT a particularly good idea.

hydrogen ftw

[cheeks5965]

FCEVs (fuel cell electric vehicles) win on a number of levels:

* there are a number of pathways to make h2, which allows you to make your desired tradeoff between cost, quantity, carbon footprint, etc. Some pathways: petro natural gas, landfill gas, power plant electricity to electrolysis, solar panel to electrolysis, coal gasification. what's cool about this is that h2 production technology can improve over time, and you can establish the FCEV market now that will fund future development. pathways ftw!

* FCEVs are a form of electric vehicle so they get EV efficiency ~85%, while natural gas cars are still internal combustion so they get ~30%. efficiency ftw!

*unlike BEVs, FCEVs avoid the range anxiety issue, and can be filled up like a regular car instead of needing 8 hour charge. convenience ftw!

There are more, but that's all I have on short notice. BTW I just learned what ftw means. loving it!

Re:hydrogen ftw

[hawguy]

FCEVs are a form of electric vehicle so they get EV efficiency ~85%, while natural gas cars are still internal combustion so they get ~30%. efficiency ftw!

Do you have a source for this? I thought real world fuel cell efficiency was much less than 85% - like closer to 40% or even less

*unlike BEVs, FCEVs avoid the range anxiety issue, and can be filled up like a regular car instead of needing 8 hour charge. convenience ftw!

15 - 30 minute fast charge stations for BEV's already exist and i would expect that even faster options will exist faster than a large hydrogen creation and distribution network could be built.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[cheeks5965]

I thought real world fuel cell efficiency was much less than 85%

The issue is the efficiency of an engine vs the efficiency of a vehicle. Comparing engines is nice because it takes out variables relating to the cars. Ultimately, ICs are limited by teh carnot cycle, while fuel cell / motor and battery / motor stacks are not. for that reason, FCs and EVs are ~2x more efficient.

15 - 30 minute fast charge stations for BEV's already exist

No they don't. The link says that Level III chargers *will* exist. In reality I know of one unit in use in Tokyo operated by TEPCO.

The reality is that fast charging will never catch on. The car charges in 30 mins, but the station essentially looks like back to the future -- a dedicated attendant plugs in a snake line of 500V, 50kw into your car. Super dangerous, super expensive, needs its own substation.

no fair comparing FCEVs to vaporware charging technology.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[Bengie]

Let me know when you can top of an EV in 5 minutes and has at least a 200mile range. Some car manufacturer recently said it would take about a 50KW load for 30 minutes to get a 100mil EV up to 85% charge. To charge that in 5 minutes, you would need a 300KW load and that's not even 200 miles. So, double for 200 miles, 600KW for 5min.

Now, build me a quick charge station that can handle ~6 vehicles pulling 0.6MW, or ~ 3.6MW. Even at 95% efficient AC->DC, you would have 180KW of heat to dump.

This is why a hydrogen quick fill will be useful. Pumping gas is easier than puling from the grid.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[hawguy]

15 - 30 minute fast charge stations for BEV's already exist

No they don't. The link says that Level III chargers *will* exist. In reality I know of one unit in use in Tokyo operated by TEPCO.

So these mythical charging stations don't exist, yet you know of one in use:?

The reality is that fast charging will never catch on. The car charges in 30 mins, but the station essentially looks like back to the future -- a dedicated attendant plugs in a snake line of 500V, 50kw into your car. Super dangerous, super expensive, needs its own substation.

no fair comparing FCEVs to vaporware charging technology.

Do you really care what the station looks like? An EV charging station is for occasional use during long-distant trips. During normal EV use, you'll never have to visit a charging station since the average commuter will be able to commute for several days at a time on a single charge, and can charge up in his garage (or his employer's garage).

Why is a fast charging station any more vaporware than nationwide hydrogen fueling infrastructure? There are some serious technical hurdles to creating such an infrastructure.

Another solution that I've seen proposed is to come up with a standard "generator pod" that you can hook up to your car when you need added range -- it's essentially a big generator on wheels fueled by fossil fuels (even hydrogen, if you must). You rent it when you want to make a long trip and tow it behind your car, it generates power to keep the batteries charged. There are maybe a half dozen times/year that I make a trip exceeding 100 miles round trip, so such a device would be very practical for me.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[cheeks5965]

Do you really care what the station looks like?

yes people care what the station looks like. This is why it will never work.

when people think of getting gas, they think of going to the clean shell station on the corner with the TVs and candy bars. A level III charger is like parking at an electrical substation and plugging in. it's not going to be adopted, even in pilot phases.

During normal EV use, you'll never have to visit a charging station

I agree with you that level III charging is as unneccesary as it is impractical. Everybody will charge at home, and nobody will buy an EV unless they have the capability for home charging.

Another solution that I've seen proposed is to come up with a standard "generator pod"

I've never heard of this. Sounds like weasel words. I imagine one of those uhaul tows, except with a diesel generator inside! The idea is essentially the same as a Chevy Volt - a plug in hybrid or extended range EV. a gasoline engine maintains state of charge after 40 miles.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[hawguy]

Do you really care what the station looks like?

yes people care what the station looks like. This is why it will never work.

when people think of getting gas, they think of going to the clean shell station on the corner with the TVs and candy bars. A level III charger is like parking at an electrical substation and plugging in. it's not going to be adopted, even in pilot phases.

Have you seen a Level III charge station?

http://www.hybridcars.com/news/coulomb-promises-gas-pump-style-ev-rapid-charging-26436.html
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/4092-TEPCO-CHAdeMO-Level-III-quot-quick-quot-charging-station-connector

Is it really any worse than a modern gas pump?: http://travis.kroh.net/archives/003205.jpg

During normal EV use, you'll never have to visit a charging station

I agree with you that level III charging is as unneccesary as it is impractical. Everybody will charge at home, and nobody will buy an EV unless they have the capability for home charging.

I completely agree that everyone with an EV will charge at home (or work).

However, the fast-charge stations will still be necessary for longer trips. 90% of my trips are less than 100 miles (probably 80% are less than 12 miles). But for those occasions when I want to make the 150 mile trip to grandma's house, I'd like the ability to charge up on the way there. a 20 minute charge stop on a 3 hour, 150 mile trip is just an extra 10%. And while I'm at grandmas, I can plug into her 120VAC outlet and charge up overnight.

The nice thing about EV charge stations is that they don't have to be limited to gas stations since there are no big tanks of flammable fuels to store - anywhere that can handle a high power electrical feed (Shopping centers, business parks, etc) can put in a charge station. McDonalds could put in a few Level III chargers to let patrons charge while they eat. Shopping malls could put in dozens of Level II chargers to let shoppers charge for a few hours while they shop.

Another solution that I've seen proposed is to come up with a standard "generator pod"

I've never heard of this. Sounds like weasel words. I imagine one of those uhaul tows, except with a diesel generator inside! The idea is essentially the same as a Chevy Volt - a plug in hybrid or extended range EV. a gasoline engine maintains state of charge after 40 miles.

Here are some home made examples:

        http://evmaine.org/html/ev_trailers.html

And one commissioned by Toyota:

        http://www.evnut.com/rav_longranger.htm

And you're right, it's exactly like a u-haul trailer with a generator inside. Why should I pay for and maintan an Internal Combustion Engine when nearly all of my trips are short enough to run on batteries alone? I'd rather rent an engine when I need it. I don't understand your "weasel words" comment?

Re:hydrogen ftw

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW I just learned what ftw means. loving it!

You should learn what DIAF means. And then do it.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[Pence128]

When pitting an FCEV against a BEV both charged from an electric source, the power plant and motor are the same, so they cancel out. The BEV has a battery (obviously) and transmission line losses, since an electrolysis plant will be located beside the power plant. Each of those are about 95% for about 90% efficiency. The electrolysis of water is about 25 to 40% efficient. Then the hydrogen has to be compressed (85%) or liquefied (60%). Then it has to be piped to a fuel station (90%). Then is has to be converted back into electricity (40 - 50%). That makes 5 - 15% efficiency.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[Pence128]

Charging stations will almost certainly be powered by HVDC lines and have flywheels for load leveling. They'll probably have superconducting generators and cables too.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[cheeks5965]

Nobody's contesting that for grid electricity, BEVs are more efficient than FCEVs. But for many other FCEV pathways you can't power a BEV in the same way, so there's no comparison. Also, your fuel chain is wrong. nobody is electrolyzing h2 at a central source. it's all done on site. nor is anybody liquifying it.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[Pence128]

I can't think of any renewable source of energy that would be more efficient converted to hydrogen than directly to electricity. Distributed electrolizers are worse, since smaller plants are less efficient, and now you have to go through long power lines. If you're not liquefying it, you're only throwing away 15% of it rather than 40%, so that's a bit better.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[cheeks5965]

I can't think of any renewable source of energy that would be more efficient

hmm, let me help you think.

* Distributed, periodic electricity sources are much better suited for making H2 than for pumping back into the grid. small scale PV, wind, etc are great for powering an electolizer. Good luck load balancing your grid when you're trying to feed that power back to the grid.

* landfill gas, hello? Run LFG through a SMR and get your hydrogen. better than burning the NG in a turbine.

* I'm sure there are others too.

Re:hydrogen ftw

[Pence128]

Distributed periodic electricity sources would be better off charging load leveling supplies. Those may as well be batteries, and those batteries may as well be on wheels.

Actually, it is more efficient to burn landfill gas in a turbine and charge a battery than to convert it to hydrogen for a fuel cell. Either way, landfill gas is not a significant source of energy. It will become even less significant when the majority of waste is recycled.

Efficiency

[Rei]

What is the overall efficiency of a Hydrogen powered car (including the energy cost to extract the hydrogen) as opposed to one that runs directly off of fossil fuels?

From below, I posted about the efficiency. Here is a graph from this research paper. To sum it up, if you're burning the H2 in an ICE, you're only making the situation worse. PEMFCs can be a little better than ICE vehicles, but they pale in comparison to electric cars.

Re:Efficiency

[hawguy]

What is the overall efficiency of a Hydrogen powered car (including the energy cost to extract the hydrogen) as opposed to one that runs directly off of fossil fuels?

From below, I posted about the efficiency. Here is a graph from this research paper. To sum it up, if you're burning the H2 in an ICE, you're only making the situation worse. PEMFCs can be a little better than ICE vehicles, but they pale in comparison to electric cars.

Thanks, I had always suspected that was the case, I'm glad to finally see some real numbers!

Re:Efficiency

[cpu6502]

The "winner" in your graph is not a fuel cell car. It's a battery-electric vehicle refueled either off the grid (natural gas or hydrogen plant) or from a home power unit (i.e. solar).

I find it hard to believe switching a power plant from Natural gas to Hydrogen makes efficiency jump from 35% to 74%. It appears the author of the study did not take something into account..... probably efficiency losses converting water to H2.

BTW they didn't include diesel hybrids. If they had, the efficiency would have been ~34%. About the same as the EV powered by a natural gas plant.

Re:Efficiency

[geekoid]

" the efficiency would have been ~34%. About the same as the EV powered by a natural gas plant."
where they hell do you get that idea?

Re:Efficiency

[Rei]

You misread the graph. 74% is hydroPOWER, not hydroGEN. Hydropower, as in "a dam on a river with turbines".

Re:Efficiency

[EnglishDude]

They don't have a bar for a diesel hybrid - they're coming soon - 184MPGuk/153MPGus.

I also find it hard to believe a gasoline hybrid is clearly more efficient than a diesel ICE - my 2001 diesel car gets 64MPGuk combined (81MPGuk on the highway) and a Toyota Prius gets 55MPGuk combined (61MPGuk on the highway). I'd give a link to the VCA fuel consumption stats but direct links no longer works.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[elrous0]

As I said in my post, I thought electricity was the green thing that we're supposed to fuel our cars with now.

Who paid for it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The government, I think they meant to say the TAX PAYERS, in general, or maybe even YOU specifically. I for one wish my money wasn't spent of this total BS.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[Rei]

It's not about being "hip"; it's about where the state of technology is. And yes, the tech for hydrogen sucks. But that doesn't mean that there's not still funding for it.

Re:This article lays out hydrogen as a fuel for ca

[Anonymous Coward]

That article's conclusio

Hence his use of quotes?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or should he have used single quotes like you?

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[elrous0]

Call it what you like, all I know is that my environmentalist friend is always changing his story every few years. One day he's telling me how great hydrogen fuel is, then it's ethanol, then it's electricity. I remember one time when we were in college it was methane. I keep telling him they need to decide on one thing and stick to it, but then off he goes on some new thing that's going to save the world. Tomorrow it will probably nuclear fusion, or sails on the cars, or god knows what.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[Anonymous Coward]

squirt it out the back at high pressure to make the car go. Though that would be mighty funny

I couldn't agree more.

"Pooling"? How do you figure?

[mbessey]

The other risk is pooling. You're absolutely correct that there are anti-pooling countermeasures which not only can be taken, but essentially must be taken when dealing with hydrogen (aka, this isn't stuff you want sitting around in just an ordinary garage). Even still, even in structures designed to prevent pooling and detonation, it still happens. Fukushima being a glaring recent example, but there are countless others. Hydrogen detonates just so damned easy.

I'm having trouble figuring out how the least-dense substance known can "pool" anywhere. Under any normal situation, it's just going to escape into the air. Yes, it's flammable, yes, it can ignite easily in air. But the real danger with substances like gasoline is that the vapors are heavier than air, and can travel horizontally to an ignition source.

Re:"Pooling"? How do you figure?

[Rei]

I'm having trouble figuring out how the least-dense substance known can "pool" anywhere.

Hint: Think upside down.

Still haven't figured it out? :) Beneath an overhang (such as the rain shelters fueling stations typically provide so you don't get soaked filling up your vehicle), inside a garage (anything from a small home garage to a large industrial garage), in any building that a H2 pipeline passes beneath, in any building that a pipe that a H2 pipe has leaked into leads to, and so forth

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[Rei]

Wow, great to know that your single idiot friend is the bellweather for both the science behind a technology and the opinions of an entire movement.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[cpu6502]

Environmentalists have always supported the Electric car, and a hydrogen car is simply a different type of electric car (the battery is replaced with the fuel cell). I've not met any greens who were anti-hydrogen, since it is a clean fuel. Some are anti-natural gas but most think H2 will eventually be produced from solar panels.

Personally I think H2 is too difficult to handle. I think after a few cars blowup, the consumers will flee. -or- If the manufacturers do manage to make safe, impervious hydrogen cars, the pricetag will be so high (~$100,000) that nobody will be able to afford it. The same flaw that plagues pure EVs.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[elrous0]

He's just great at talking about some new technology that's going to save us, and then changing his story and moving on to some new "savior" when the previous one (inevitably) doesn't pan out. When I first met him, for example, he was big on hydroelectric power. Then someone told him that dams kill fish and suddenly he was preaching against them and had adopted some new cause. Wash, rinse, repeat. That's Kevin.

He's the kind of guy who wanted to save the whales, but only in the 80's when it was in vogue.

Not to pick nits...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but the city is named Torrance, not Torrence.

Efficiency matters

[loshwomp]

So far we're all dancing around what should be the key issue: H2 is an inefficient medium.

If you make H2 from natural gas, you would get better end-to-end efficiency by simply burning the natural gas in a combustion engine--basically the same engine that's in your car, but with a different "carburetor".

On the other hand, if you make H2 using electrolysis (water + electricity), the round trip efficiency is about 25%. In this context, the H2+fuel cell is acting like a battery, and we already have MUCH more efficient batteries. (Never mind that the fuel cell uses PLATINUM, which isn't exactly going to get cheaper in quantity, and only lasts a few years.)

And in case you were planning to counter the above with "yeah but we'll just use renewables to create the electricity so efficiency doesn't matter": It still matters. Right now we get about 1% of our energy from renewables. It's utterly asinine to claim that we could (much less should) get 400% of our energy from renewables, just so we can throw 75% of it away on the electrolysis->fuel cell cycle.

down with sewers

[decora]

im sick of you communist libtards throwing my tax money away on sewers. what gives you the right to take my hard earned dollars and 'redistribute the wealth' to 'those according to their needs'. you need to shit? not my problem.

what we need is a privatized toilet system; wherein everyone has their own toilet, disconnected from the centralized, marxist sewer network that is controlled by an overweilding big brother government.

imagine it; each of us free with our own chamber pots, burning our own shit as free Americans, watching it float away into the night sky.

i kneel down and i cry, i weep, when i think about our children, who will be forced to shit into the government controlled, marxist lenninist sewer system, run by do gooder liberals who want to control our 'gaseous emissions' in the name of global warming (a hoax dreamed up by saul alinsky).

furthermore i... oh fuck it. Glenn Beck, are you out there? did you get my lettters? I LOVE YOU GLENN THEY NEVER SHOuLD HAVE FIRED UUUU

Re:down with sewers

[bluefoxlucid]

This is an excellent idea. We should all get septic systems.

Re:down with sewers

[Kakari]

So you say you want a composting toilet? Only about 20x the initial cost of a traditional commode, but I'm sure you're OK with that: http://www.envirolet.com/enwatsel.html (first search link).

Cryo H2

[Grindalf]

There are Cryo H2 refuelling stations in the UK in the Midlands. I wanted a Cryo O2 as well, to make a super-car. H2 by its self is very powerful in comparison to Liquid Petroleum Gas - it has a much bigger SI (Specific Impulse) delivered at a much faster rate if you want to make a rocket car -especially if you use Cryo O2 as an oxidant.

Re:Cryo H2

[Pence128]

Liquid rockets aren't as simple as mixing LH2 and LOX and throwing a match at it. Rocket engineers like to say that they're really a turbo pump with two tanks and a bell nozzle bolted on.

Real Test with a Hydrogen BMW

[Anonymous Coward]

A year or so ago the company I work for had a BMW Hydrogen/Gasoline hybrid test car for a few weeks. The car was probably some kind of "test of concept" based on a v12 BMW machine. As far as the driving experience was concerned, the driver told me that it was actually pretty good ... not noticeably different from driving on gasoline, but because of the extra space taken up by the hydrogen system, the gas tank was also quite small and the end result was that the range of the car was about 200 Km. A real problem was that the hydrogen evaporates substantially, depending on the environmental temperature, so that after a day or two in the sun, the whole tank is just about empty. From any practical viewpoint that was pretty stupid. But then again a high end BMW with any kind of motor is out of the price range of most of humanity anyway. Still, it did seem from what he said that evaporation was a problem that seemed to have no solution.

I suppose you could flood the garage with liquid helium to cool things down enough to stop the hydrogen from disappearing .... but who wants to put their butt on a BMW seat at -270 K or so.

Re:Real Test with a Hydrogen BMW

[The Breeze]

I believe there have been good results with a type of "honeycomb" fuel tank that seems to greatly reduce evaporation lost. It's been a while since I looked at it, though.

H20 worse the CO2

[Too Late for Cool ID]

Even if an efficient method of producing hydrogen is discovered, the waste product, H20, is a worse greenhouse gas than C02.

Re:H20 worse the CO2

[Pence128]

I'd like to see this twenty atom hydrogen molecule of yours.

"Hydrogen economy" is a fallacy

[CCTalbert]

So far, Hydrogen is just plain BS. Bush used it as a lame trick to direct our attention away from efficiency or any sort of oil policy changes that would have been correct (albeit always unpopular with someone).

Hydrogen is just storage, not energy. Now if we had an infrastructure of nuclear (ohhh! even better Fusion!) plants pumping out clean inexpensive electricity, and wanted to use that to make hydrogen, it might make sense. Without the magic of electricity being cheap enough that efficiency doesn't matter, it's just stupid.

I think, what we need more than anything, is better batteries. We're really close to having what we need now, perhaps just need to get costs down through volume production... ALL the cool energy sources we all love- wind, solar, tide, geothermal, unicorns on a treadmill, etc.- pump out electricity. I need to put THAT in my tank, not a difficult to store low density gas. I don't even consider it particularly hazardous, just not desirable.

Now, at the same time, I'd love to be able to run natural gas in my diesel, and need a high-density low-pressure tank to do that, probably using some of the new nano-porous schemes. I like natural gas because at least for now it seems abundant, and it burns relatively clean compared to oil. (It "sucks less".) But when it's time has passed I need to move on to electric.

Fusion

[rossdee]

"Currently hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not an energy source."

Hydrogen has been the major source of energy for the universe for the last 13 billion years or so, and in this neck of the woods for nearly 5 billion, just look up in the sky sometime.

Re:Fusion

[Bartles]

Where did you get your Mr. Fusion? I'd like one too. Screw Hydrogen, I want a car that runs on bananas and beer.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[bluefoxlucid]

diesel is the future. Peanut oil works in diesel engines directly; we could refine and modify (chemically) peanut oil to work in current diesel engines easily. It can transmute into kerosene rather easily too (jet engines). So what we could do is get rid of that petroleum fertilizer shit farmers use and instead do crop rotation. Harvest the peanuts, crush and extract, refine the oil, modify, ship as diesel fuel; use the crushed peanuts as feed crop for pigs and goats; burn the peanut bushes and shells; till the land to move that burned plant fiber into it; and plant corn over it. Rotate like this forever. Burning the plants is fine because the CO2 you release is what came out of the air anyway; the same goes for the oil, so now your car has no CO2 footprint.

Seriously, do you need me to solve the world's problems for you? Here's an easy one: there's a capitalization error somewhere, solve that.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[AK Marc]

Gasoline cars blow up all the time, but don't make the news. The first time a hydrogen car does, and it'll be over the news for weeks (twice as long on the conservative stations). It's not the actual risks, but the perceived risks as influenced by the media who love sensationalism.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[geekoid]

So Kevin got new information realized his previous idea had a side effect he didn't like so he changed his mind?

how horrid.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[Rei]

Lol, you should tell him it's back in vogue again and have him watch a few episodes of Whale Wars. Then get him mad at Iceland for whaling. Then get him interested in geothermal power, and then show him how Iceland gets 99% of their electricity from renewables, to see if you can get him to do yet another about-face ;)

The world can be complicated, and little is truly black or white, that's for sure.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[geekoid]

It might be produced from solar, but it won't be panels.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[timeOday]

I keep telling him they need to decide on one thing and stick to it

Well, you're wrong. What we need to do is develop a large number of promising ideas in parallel and see which turn out best.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[robot256]

Personally I think H2 is too difficult to handle. I think after a few cars blowup, the consumers will flee. -or- If the manufacturers do manage to make safe, impervious hydrogen cars, the pricetag will be so high (~$100,000) that nobody will be able to afford it. The same flaw that plagues pure EVs.

Because conventional gas tanks never explode, gas engines never catch fire, and we're paying a fair price for perfectly safe gasoline storage and transport?

Never mind the studies showing that hydrogen is safer than gasoline in real-world situations. It's not the safety mechanisms that make the present technology cost $100,000 per car, it's the fuel cells themselves, and the cost will only come down over time because of mass-production and technology advances.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[Edzor]

All hail Jimmy Carter!

Multi-purpose Fuel

[VortexCortex]

I'll be able to re-inflate my solar-powered dirigible's nacelles, and escape the traffic!

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[lennier]

He's the kind of guy who wanted to save the whales, but only in the 80's when it was in vogue.

Frickin' whales. What have they done for us lately?

Think they're so high and mighty with their tails and flippers. Sipping plankton and munching cavier sushi. The SUVs of the ocean. The whale vote probably helped re-elect Bush, and I'm sure they engineered the banking crisis.

Frickin' whales.

Argue with the Sun

[rossdee]

"There are no vast fields of Hydrogen waiting to be mined (at least not on this planet)."

Who says energy has to be 'mined' anyway?

And theres a few gazillion tonnes of hydrogen about 93 million miles away - where do you think the energy to make the deposits of carbon based fuels came from in the first place (and most of the other forms of energy we can use. The only exceptions are nuclear fission and geothermal.)

Re:Argue with the Sun

[hawguy]

What point are you trying to make? If you are saying that there is virtually unlimited energy in the Sun, I don't think anyone here will deny it.

The problem is in harnessing that energy and using it to transport my car to work. Sure, it's possible, but apparently it's not easy since it hasn't happened yet. And it's really not relevant to the Hydrogen debate.

Who says energy has to be 'mined' anyway?

I guess that would be the people that are saying that Coal, Natural Gas and Oil are the only viable energy sources.

And theres a few gazillion tonnes of hydrogen about 93 million miles away

Are you suggesting that the Sun is a viable source of hydrogen fuel?

Re:Argue with the Sun

[Anonymous Coward]

You're probably shaking your head in wide-eyed disbelief at what you read... But there are people out there who "think" that way. Simplistic, childish and with no clue as to how the real world works. And they get to vote and drive cars! Terrifying, eh?

Whu?

[el_guapo]

Better batteries? Pure electric? Look, I'm not just trying to be an argumentative jerk, but we're back to: HOW do you generate that electricity? The most environmentally friendly, and VIABLE, is nuclear. But the media and TMI killed that off - and the crisis in Japan ain't gone make it viable any time soon. Do you know how many people have been killed in the US by nukes? THREE - all army contractors that made some really STOOPID mistakes out in the Idaho desert. TMI didn't hurt a soul, and, just like the Army contractors, the operators pretty much did everything they could to break that plant over about a 3 day period. The US and western allies operate a BOATLOAD (no pun intendeed) of reactors, (SSNs, SSBNs, CVNs) NONE with a containment building. Chernobyl? HORRIBLE Russky RBMK design, the miracle(s) with Chernobyl are 1) only one has gone BOOM, and 2) some Eastern bloc countries are STILL operating those stupid things. Look up "positive coefficient of reactivity" and "negative coefficient of reactivity" - long story short: western designs tend to power down the hotter they get, RBMK and like get HOTTER as they increase in power, making them tend to run away. PLWR, CANDU pebble beds, those are the way to go.

So far, everybody's kickin the old strawman.

[funky_vibes]

If hydrogen is to be compared to something, it should be compared to the (in-) efficiency of a car battery and generation of electricity. So far, everything is very experimental, but some optimistic predictions percieve the following:

* VHTR reactors produce hydrogen directly, which raises overall efficiency and safety.
Note: Experiments have been dissapointing, but overall the development is moving in a good direction.

* Hydrogen is not pressurized while stored in a vehicle, instead it's bound to solids, such as metal hydrides. Reduced efficiency, but dangers are eliminated.

* People may use wind, water or sun power to top up their car hydrogen tanks.

* Hydrogen may be produced more efficiently than electricity from some of the less usual energy sources.

* Other added benefits are vehicles with much higher performance and/or engine simplicity, reducing the overall mass of the vehicle.
Every reduction to the mass of a the vehicle is guaranteed green ;)

With that being said, I think we can all agree that the following situations would be stupid:

* Producing hydrogen from fossil fuels

* Driving around with a high pressure hydrogen tank

I am tired of hearing "You need fossil fuels"

[The Breeze]

If I see one more comment by people saying that "hydrogen is dirty because the most common way to make it uses fossil fuels", I'm gonna puke.

Here you go:

1. Build a big pipeline from California to Arizona to carry seawater to AZ.

2. Build vast fields of low-maintenence Stirling engines (I believe Motorola has one that generates 1.5 megawatts on .25 acre of land) to make electricity from sunlight.

3. Use the electricity to split the seawater into hydrogen and oxygen.

4. The hydrgen is then a storage medium. Use in fuel cells to power electric cars, or use compressed for hydrogen internal combustion engines, or ship it to power plants to burn for grid electricity.

Some calculations regarding volume of water required, land area required using maximum efficency stirling engines, and the like would be required , but I know 20 years ago a lot of very smart scientiss thought it was doable.

Re:I am tired of hearing "You need fossil fuels"

[Anonymous Coward]

2>> (I believe Motorola has one that generates 1.5 megawatts on .25 acre of land) to make electricity from sunlight.)

My understanding is that energy from the sun is around 100 watts per square foot. That means 0.25 acres only has about 1 megawatt, at perfect efficiency.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[nbauman]

When I first met him, for example, he was big on hydroelectric power. Then someone told him that dams kill fish and suddenly he was preaching against them and had adopted some new cause.

New Scientist had an article comparing the fatalities from different sources of energy recently. As I recall, coal power was the worst, but after that came hydroelectric.

Dams fail. There were dam failures in China several years ago that cost hundreds of thousands of lives.

Good intentions without understanding science can do more harm than good.

Your friend should have had a good engineering professor to chew him out.

I just drove by it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just drove by it and wondered what it was.

Home energy station

[Anonymous Coward]

"Honda is working on a Home energy station"

And has called it "Hindenburg".

Bad idea

[Sqr(twg)]

Having worked with fuel cell R&D for a number of years at one of the major vehicle manufacturers, I can say this: Hydrogen powered vehicles is a bad idea. Everybody doing the actual research realizes this very quickly, but their jobs depend on continuing the work so information tends to get filtered as it passes up through management. Even at the top of the company they have probably realized by now, but the H2 program is almost entirely paid for by government subsidies, so the show goes on. Why is H2 a bad idea? There are a number of technical reasons, but the easiest one to explain is this: It's too expensive. H2 is made from natural gas, and some energy is lost in the process. Therefore it will always be more expensive than natural gas. H2 is also much more difficult to handle, and gives shorter range, because it occupies more volume than natural gas. Making H2 from water+electricity? You can make a battery car go twice as far with the same amount of electricity. That car will be cheaper to build, too.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[elrous0]

No, he just latches on to the next fad.

Re:I thought Hydrogen was out and electricity was

[elrous0]

It's not just with fuel ideas. He keeps changing his story on how the world will end too. It changes from decade to decade, and sometimes even year to year. One day, overpopulation will get us. Then it's the depleting ozone layer. Then its nukes. Then it's lack of fresh water. Then it's global warming. He's like a Chicken Little who can't decide which sky is falling.

But it is great to get him going. Whatever his doomsday scenario du jour happens to be at any given time, he can preach a the-end-is-nigh sermon better than any millenialist religious zealot. He can't decide on what's going to kill us all, but it WILL KILL US and it will kill us SOON!!

HELL NO!

[transami]

Take your Hydrogen and shove it. We don't want another fracking commodity cartel to control our lives.

earthquake ...

[georgesdev]

with California earthquakes, that'll be fun!!!