What Happened To Hydrogen-Powered Cars?

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What Happened To Hydrogen-Powered Cars?

By JEREMY SHERE
Posted May 28, 2010

Here is a BMW hydrogen-powered car. Hydrogen is not a very popular choice to power cars because of cost and efficiency.

You may remember, a few years back, hearing a lot about hydrogen fuel cells.

They run on hydrogen and emit only water vapor, and were going to revolutionize the auto industry. By now, we were all supposed to be driving fuel cell powered cars and using devices and appliances running on hydrogen.

So what happened?

The first thing to understand is that fuel cells work. They’re a proven technology. Pump pure hydrogen into a fuel cell and, sure enough, it will produce clean, dependable electricity.

But although hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, here on Earth it’s not easy to come by in a pure state. Hydrogen is usually hooked up with some other element, like oxygen. To pry hydrogen atoms loose takes energy–usually electricity created in power plants that burn coal or other fossil fuels, and add to global warming.

Hydrogen Pumps

The second challenge is that there are relatively few filling stations equipped with hydrogen pumps. According to The National Hydrogen Association, as of 2008 there were sixty-one hydrogen fueling stations in the U.S. So even if scientists find a way to produce and store hydrogen cheaply, it would still take many years to build enough infrastructure to service millions of fuel cell powered cars.

Today, as gas electric hybrids sell in greater numbers, and electric plug in cars begin to hit the market, scientists keep working on hydrogen technologies. So hydrogen may still be an important part of the clean energy puzzle. But it’s a long range solution.

What Happened To Hydrogen-Powered Cars? | A Moment of Science - Indiana Public Media


I just heard Glenn Beck extol the virtues of Hydrogen Cars and then attribute it's demise to Government chicanery involving the financial 'Bailout.'

I was screaming at the radio that Hydrogen Cars are impractical until some way is found to more efficiently, more economically separate the hydrogen from the (typically) oxygen to form electricity.

Will someone please spread the news to everyone that Hydrogen Cars cost more to fuel than gasoline powered cars because of the cost of creating usable hydrogen.

That makes these cars impractical.

Until an improved process makes it more efficient Hydrogen Propulsion will remain, as the article says, "a long range solution."
 
What Happened To Hydrogen-Powered Cars?

By JEREMY SHERE
Posted May 28, 2010

Here is a BMW hydrogen-powered car. Hydrogen is not a very popular choice to power cars because of cost and efficiency.

You may remember, a few years back, hearing a lot about hydrogen fuel cells.

They run on hydrogen and emit only water vapor, and were going to revolutionize the auto industry. By now, we were all supposed to be driving fuel cell powered cars and using devices and appliances running on hydrogen.

So what happened?

The first thing to understand is that fuel cells work. They’re a proven technology. Pump pure hydrogen into a fuel cell and, sure enough, it will produce clean, dependable electricity.

But although hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, here on Earth it’s not easy to come by in a pure state. Hydrogen is usually hooked up with some other element, like oxygen. To pry hydrogen atoms loose takes energy–usually electricity created in power plants that burn coal or other fossil fuels, and add to global warming.

Hydrogen Pumps

The second challenge is that there are relatively few filling stations equipped with hydrogen pumps. According to The National Hydrogen Association, as of 2008 there were sixty-one hydrogen fueling stations in the U.S. So even if scientists find a way to produce and store hydrogen cheaply, it would still take many years to build enough infrastructure to service millions of fuel cell powered cars.

Today, as gas electric hybrids sell in greater numbers, and electric plug in cars begin to hit the market, scientists keep working on hydrogen technologies. So hydrogen may still be an important part of the clean energy puzzle. But it’s a long range solution.

What Happened To Hydrogen-Powered Cars? | A Moment of Science - Indiana Public Media


I just heard Glenn Beck extol the virtues of Hydrogen Cars and then attribute it's demise to Government chicanery involving the financial 'Bailout.'

I was screaming at the radio that Hydrogen Cars are impractical until some way is found to more efficiently, more economically separate the hydrogen from the (typically) oxygen to form electricity.

Will someone please spread the news to everyone that Hydrogen Cars cost more to fuel than gasoline powered cars because of the cost of creating usable hydrogen.

That makes these cars impractical.

Until an improved process makes it more efficient Hydrogen Propulsion will remain, as the article says, "a long range solution."

There is only one problem with Hydrogen, and that is called "storage". It is about the gas station tanks as well as the tanks in the cars. You have to cool them down to minus twohundredsomething °C (I am just too lazy to look up the table for the right number), and this can only be done by evaporating parts of the hydrogen. It is the same effect you can see at nitrogen or liquid air tanks in some factories.
Actually you would lose around 2% of your tank content per day.

Second, hydrogen is a very special stuff. It diffuses through steel, thereby having the very nasty side effect of making the steel brittle so that it would lose its tensile strenght. All of that is not good.

It is definetely not the energy efficiency of hydrogen. There is nothing that contains more energy per kg, around 75.000 KJ/kg. Your car would just go berserk with it.

It is simply too risky to give it in the hands of DAUs. And not really commercially viable.
The solution is actually to produce hydrogen and convert it into Methane. Or Methanol.
We can handle that, we have the infrastructure, all is set and ready.
 
Compared to renewable electricity and EV's, hydrogen is just too difficult to handle, and costly. Fuel cells definately have applications, but have not proven to be practical for vehicles. A good technology, just not suitable for a lot of things.
 
What Happened To Hydrogen-Powered Cars?

By JEREMY SHERE
Posted May 28, 2010

Here is a BMW hydrogen-powered car. Hydrogen is not a very popular choice to power cars because of cost and efficiency.

You may remember, a few years back, hearing a lot about hydrogen fuel cells.

They run on hydrogen and emit only water vapor, and were going to revolutionize the auto industry. By now, we were all supposed to be driving fuel cell powered cars and using devices and appliances running on hydrogen.

So what happened?

The first thing to understand is that fuel cells work. They’re a proven technology. Pump pure hydrogen into a fuel cell and, sure enough, it will produce clean, dependable electricity.

But although hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, here on Earth it’s not easy to come by in a pure state. Hydrogen is usually hooked up with some other element, like oxygen. To pry hydrogen atoms loose takes energy–usually electricity created in power plants that burn coal or other fossil fuels, and add to global warming.

Hydrogen Pumps

The second challenge is that there are relatively few filling stations equipped with hydrogen pumps. According to The National Hydrogen Association, as of 2008 there were sixty-one hydrogen fueling stations in the U.S. So even if scientists find a way to produce and store hydrogen cheaply, it would still take many years to build enough infrastructure to service millions of fuel cell powered cars.

Today, as gas electric hybrids sell in greater numbers, and electric plug in cars begin to hit the market, scientists keep working on hydrogen technologies. So hydrogen may still be an important part of the clean energy puzzle. But it’s a long range solution.

What Happened To Hydrogen-Powered Cars? | A Moment of Science - Indiana Public Media


I just heard Glenn Beck extol the virtues of Hydrogen Cars and then attribute it's demise to Government chicanery involving the financial 'Bailout.'

I was screaming at the radio that Hydrogen Cars are impractical until some way is found to more efficiently, more economically separate the hydrogen from the (typically) oxygen to form electricity.

Will someone please spread the news to everyone that Hydrogen Cars cost more to fuel than gasoline powered cars because of the cost of creating usable hydrogen.

That makes these cars impractical.

Until an improved process makes it more efficient Hydrogen Propulsion will remain, as the article says, "a long range solution."

There is only one problem with Hydrogen, and that is called "storage". It is about the gas station tanks as well as the tanks in the cars. You have to cool them down to minus twohundredsomething °C (I am just too lazy to look up the table for the right number), and this can only be done by evaporating parts of the hydrogen. It is the same effect you can see at nitrogen or liquid air tanks in some factories.
Actually you would lose around 2% of your tank content per day.

Second, hydrogen is a very special stuff. It diffuses through steel, thereby having the very nasty side effect of making the steel brittle so that it would lose its tensile strenght. All of that is not good.

It is definetely not the energy efficiency of hydrogen. There is nothing that contains more energy per kg, around 75.000 KJ/kg. Your car would just go berserk with it.

It is simply too risky to give it in the hands of DAUs. And not really commercially viable.
The solution is actually to produce hydrogen and convert it into Methane. Or Methanol.
We can handle that, we have the infrastructure, all is set and ready.

There's more than ONE problem with it.

It costs more to create than what energy it delivers.
 
Compared to renewable electricity and EV's, hydrogen is just too difficult to handle, and costly. Fuel cells definately have applications, but have not proven to be practical for vehicles. A good technology, just not suitable for a lot of things.

I am workin for an engineering company and had a job to do at a Solvay plant, they try to set up kind of battery recycling for Li-Cd batteries of Computers, Mobiles etc.
Now, I had some time there to chat with the engineers of the R&D department, and the talk also strived fuel cells, because there was just a media hype starting abut them.
Triggered by politicians and their dreams of electically poweres cars.

The brief answers were like this:
Power supply for cars is the worst thinkable application for fuel cells, it is like we would have started developing Quantum Computers before discovering electricity.
1. The effieciency is bad
2. The efficiency is even worse if they have no steady performance at their operating point. The volatile energy requirement of cars (stillstand, acceleration, high or low seed, uphill-downhill etc.pp) is exactly the opposite.
3. More bad news, fuel cells like optimized peripherical conditions. i.e. temperature.
Not quite ideal in Europe with temperature differences from -30 to +40 °C.
4. Fuel cells need continuous surveillance by skilled personell. The use in cars is like handing them out to the worst thinkable DAUs.
5. They do not like beeing shaked or vibrated. Actually they die pretty instantly if mechanically mistreated. Sounds perfect for cars.
6. Actually the beste efficiency comes with the use of Hydrogen and Oxygen.
No educated person would like the idea to see this two substances dealt with by the normal foolish customer at the gas station.

In summary: to promote the development of fuel cells for cars ist one of the most idiotic ideas that came from politics recently.
 
What Happened To Hydrogen-Powered Cars?

By JEREMY SHERE
Posted May 28, 2010



What Happened To Hydrogen-Powered Cars? | A Moment of Science - Indiana Public Media


I just heard Glenn Beck extol the virtues of Hydrogen Cars and then attribute it's demise to Government chicanery involving the financial 'Bailout.'

I was screaming at the radio that Hydrogen Cars are impractical until some way is found to more efficiently, more economically separate the hydrogen from the (typically) oxygen to form electricity.

Will someone please spread the news to everyone that Hydrogen Cars cost more to fuel than gasoline powered cars because of the cost of creating usable hydrogen.

That makes these cars impractical.

Until an improved process makes it more efficient Hydrogen Propulsion will remain, as the article says, "a long range solution."

There is only one problem with Hydrogen, and that is called "storage". It is about the gas station tanks as well as the tanks in the cars. You have to cool them down to minus twohundredsomething °C (I am just too lazy to look up the table for the right number), and this can only be done by evaporating parts of the hydrogen. It is the same effect you can see at nitrogen or liquid air tanks in some factories.
Actually you would lose around 2% of your tank content per day.

Second, hydrogen is a very special stuff. It diffuses through steel, thereby having the very nasty side effect of making the steel brittle so that it would lose its tensile strenght. All of that is not good.

It is definetely not the energy efficiency of hydrogen. There is nothing that contains more energy per kg, around 75.000 KJ/kg. Your car would just go berserk with it.

It is simply too risky to give it in the hands of DAUs. And not really commercially viable.
The solution is actually to produce hydrogen and convert it into Methane. Or Methanol.
We can handle that, we have the infrastructure, all is set and ready.

There's more than ONE problem with it.

It costs more to create than what energy it delivers.

Well, not exatly. But almost.
 
Granny don't want Uncle Ferd to get a hydrogen car an' blow hisself up...
icon11.png

Cars Powered by New Fuel Type Tested in Australia
August 11, 2018 — Australian scientists have test driven two cars powered by a carbon-free fuel derived from ammonia. A team from the Australian government’s research agency, the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), says the pioneering technology will allow highly flammable hydrogen to be safely transported in the form of ammonia and used as a widely available fuel.

Researchers have found a way to use a thin membrane to turn Australian-made hydrogen into ammonia. This could be shipped safely to markets in Asia, as well as parts of Europe. At its destination, the liquid ammonia would then be converted back into hydrogen, and used to power cars and buses, as well as for electricity generation and industrial processes. David Harris, CSIRO research director says “the special thing about the technology that we have is that it allows you to produce very pure hydrogen directly with a membrane system from ammonia.” The technology has the support of Japanese car maker Toyota and South Korea’s Hyundai Motor Company.

‘Watershed moment’

Scientists say hydrogen, a highly-flammable gas that can be volatile and hard to transport safely, creates a low emission fuel for cars. The Australian team describes the membrane technology that separates hydrogen from other gases as a “watershed moment for energy.” Claire Johnson, the chief executive of Hydrogen Mobility Australia, an industry association, says the pioneering research could forever change the transport sector. “We see that as a really exciting opportunity to decarbonize the transport sector, but also position Australia as one of the lead suppliers of hydrogen around the world. There is some competition to play that role, however. Norway, Brunei and Saudi Arabia have all flagged that they wish to be an exporter of hydrogen around the world.”

4AFCC1DF-E477-4B86-B6E4-9CD5CDC0D681_cx0_cy13_cw0_w1023_r1_s.jpg

A Toyota Mirai fuel cell vehicle is shown ready to be fueled with CSIRO-produced hydrogen.


There are only a handful of hydrogen-powered cars in Australia, but there are tens of thousands across Japan, South Korea and Singapore. The South Korean government has recently announced plans for 16,000 more hydrogen-fueled cars and 310 special refilling stations.

Cars Powered by New Fuel Type Tested in Australia
 
There is only one problem with Hydrogen, and that is called "storage". It is about the gas station tanks as well as the tanks in the cars. You have to cool them down to minus twohundredsomething °C (I am just too lazy to look up the table for the right number), and this can only be done by evaporating parts of the hydrogen. It is the same effect you can see at nitrogen or liquid air tanks in some factories.
Actually you would lose around 2% of your tank content per day.

Second, hydrogen is a very special stuff. It diffuses through steel, thereby having the very nasty side effect of making the steel brittle so that it would lose its tensile strenght [sic]. All of that is not good.

It is definetely [sic] not the energy efficiency of hydrogen. There is nothing that contains more energy per kg, around 75.000 KJ/kg. Your car would just go berserk with it.

It is simply too risky to give it in the hands of DAUs. And not really commercially viable.
The solution is actually to produce hydrogen and convert it into Methane. Or Methanol.
We can handle that, we have the infrastructure, all is set and ready.

Actually, there are more than just one problem with hydrogen. In your own posting, you mentioned at least two separate problems, and there are others as well.
 
It costs more to create than what energy it delivers.

To elaborate on that point, the easiest way to produce free hydrogen is to run an electric current through water, which causes it to break apart into hydrogen and oxygen.

If everything were perfectly 100% efficient, then the amount of energy that you could then get by burning that hydrogen would exactly equal the amount of energy that you had to put into breaking apart the water to produce it. Of course, in real life, nothing is 100% efficient. There is no way, in real life, to obtain or produce hydrogen that does not require a greater expenditure of energy than what you can get back out of it by burning it.

The thing that is so great about petroleum is that it contains a great amount of energy, there for the taking. OK, it costs a lot of money, energy, and other resources to find petroleum, to get out out of the ground, and to refine it into various types of fuels, but after all of that is done, the energy that you get by burning those fuels is far greater than what had to be put into obtaining it. This will never be true of hydrogen, at least as a chemical fuel. (Now, if we ever get nuclear fusion to work as a practical energy generation method, then this could change.)
 
There is only one problem with Hydrogen, and that is called "storage". It is about the gas station tanks as well as the tanks in the cars. You have to cool them down to minus twohundredsomething °C (I am just too lazy to look up the table for the right number), and this can only be done by evaporating parts of the hydrogen. It is the same effect you can see at nitrogen or liquid air tanks in some factories.
Actually you would lose around 2% of your tank content per day.

Second, hydrogen is a very special stuff. It diffuses through steel, thereby having the very nasty side effect of making the steel brittle so that it would lose its tensile strenght [sic]. All of that is not good.

It is definetely [sic] not the energy efficiency of hydrogen. There is nothing that contains more energy per kg, around 75.000 KJ/kg. Your car would just go berserk with it.

It is simply too risky to give it in the hands of DAUs. And not really commercially viable.
The solution is actually to produce hydrogen and convert it into Methane. Or Methanol.
We can handle that, we have the infrastructure, all is set and ready.

Actually, there are more than just one problem with hydrogen. In your own posting, you mentioned at least two separate problems, and there are others as well.

Well, sometimes when I write more things are crossing my mind, but I hate to rework the front part.
 

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