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Seeing recent ads for a hydrogen powered Toyota had me wondering what where they thinking? But now I see the thoroughly green, well to do motorists will be able to generate hydrogen and refuel their vehicles on site.Just plumb your hydrogen generator to your water line and your solar array for 'free' transportation energy.
Pretty cool, someday.
Edits: 02/10/17Follow Ups:
I think it would take a lot of panels though.
And as others mentioned, containing hydrogen is not easy.
I must admit to not paying a lot of attention to it lately, but there were some "sponge" type pressure vessel systems being trialed some years ago, where the hydrogen penetrated a dense array of baffles - perhaps like pumice stone or a dense sponge, so that if the fuel tank was damaged in an accident, the hydrogen would leak out at a controlled rate, instead of an instantaneous "flash boom" explosion ........
IF the world returned to nuclear generation - which I think we have to eventually, hydrogen would be a no-brainer.
Cheers,
John K
nt
all the best,
mrh
Although your point is taken -- so I looked up the lower explosive limits for the two gases in air.
Methane 5.0%
Hydrogen 4.0%
(this is by weight, not by mole - the molecular weight of hydrogen, of course, is ~2 and that of methane is ~16)
all the best,
mrh
...both H2 and CH4 are lighter than air. Small leaks will rapidly dilute and dissipate. Catastrophic failure of a pressure vessel would be a different matter but everything would be released as a gas and again would rapidly dissipate upwards. A liquid fuel like gasoline or diesel spreads out on the roadway or whatever and tends to consume all that lies above it once ignited.
As I see it, if there ever becomes a compelling economic or environmental reason to use H2 as an energy transport medium, we'll figure out safe use. OTOH, I don't expect this to happen in my lifetime...commercial fusion has been about 20yrs off for the last 60 yrs or so.
...Natural gas (mostly CH4 in my locale) is every bit as boomy as H2 and yet it's the residential/commercial/industrial heating fuel of choice and CNG is even powering many trucks and buses. Booms are few and far between. We've learn how to use it safely. H2 will be similar if we ever figure out fusion based electrolysis.
The Hindenburg's real problem was the covering membrane and not the H2.
I remember President Bush talking about hydrogen fuel cell cars. What ever happened to that idea?
:)
Reality happened.
While the technology works, it may actually take MORE energy to liberate the Hydrogen than you later reclaim running it thru a fuel cell.
Also, you have storage issues, since you don't want to get into a fender bender and go 'Hindenberg'.
Range than becomes an issue. How Much can you store and in what modes?
Link is to a company providing such storage to industry. Getting it in your car, safe and usable is another matter.
And Lastly? Immense infrastructure investment in 'filling stations'.
Too much is never enough
...from another angle is the speed of innovation. Hydrogen is too new to matter but....
Rapid innovation actually has me on the sidelines. Yes, it's true. If you look at vehicles with the HIGHEST depreciation , they include hybrids, all-electrics, and other alternative fuel technologies. Why? Because there's a newer & better version just around the corner.
What would you pay for the last generation Chevy Volt now that the new one is out? How about an earlier Prius? Or even last year's BMW i3 now that the new one has much better range? They all lose their value much too quickly for me to consider.
Just check out the depreciation on these vehicles.
I just checked the market for used Priuses and they're asking $10-12K for an under 100K miles, 10 year old model. While I agree that plug in electrics and fuel cell cars are still too new on the market, most hybrids are valued based on mpg.
I'll be waiting for battery technology to give me a 500 mile range along with photovoltaic paint for an unlimited range while the sun is shining.
-Rod
I get about 300 miles on my Pathfinder before I decide to fill up. Then, I "can" go another 300 miles, but I'm personally done at about 525 total. The refill takes me about 10 minutes off the road, and the two tanks of gasoline costs about 80 dollars.
When an electric vehicle can do that, wherever I am, I might be interested.
But we'll need a lot more windmills blighting the landscape before it can be a large-scale proposition.
:)
Connect enough of them on top of the car and you could go forever!
-Rod
I guess traditional hybrids have been around long enough but plug-in gas-electrics and pure plug-in electrics are making nice jumps in range with each generation.
300+ miles would be good for me but I wish they could speed up the recharge time. I like your photovoltaic paint idea.
...but I've heard very smart people predict electric cars are just a flash in the pan the hydrogen power is the future.
today, it serves merely as an energy storage medium taking more energy to produce than it delivers.
...H2 will be a tiny niche until some means of very cheaply generating huge quantities of it is devised. At the moment, commercial quantities of H2 originate with natural gas.
At present hydrogen is negative energy, it takes more energy to refine and compress than is recovered.
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