2009 Mini E: The Hydrogen Debate

Oh. And that reflected rim looks like it's in pretty rough shape... Is that a Chrysler product?

I don't know. That was someone visiting my neighbor. I think it was an Explorer. -- Donna

The only barrier to electric cars is battery technology, and to some extent, infrastructure--faster charging and longer range (at mass-produced prices) are all that's needed to seal the deal. Given this, EVs make far more sense, because the energy pathway is far more efficient. With hydrogen, electricity must be used to create liquid hydrogen, which has to be transported (vs. sending electrons through a wire) and converted back to electricity.

Cost is a big issue too. The cost of fuel cells far exceeds batteries even now. (not to mention the cost of the high pressure tanks and producing Hydrogen).

As batteries increase in power and decrease in price fuel cells will likely disappear from the future radar.

Hydrogen storage is a (distant) third on the list of problems that fuel cell vehicles must solve. Fuel cells themselves remain extraordinarily expensive, and an economic source of hydrogen is yet to be found (including infrastructure costs). So storage isn't a big deal.

Isn't it a lot easier to get electricity directly from a plug instead of having a machine turn air into hydrogen, then having to pump it into your car before the hydrogen is converted to electricity? Electricity directly skips a bunch of steps, I think.

If I'm incorrect about how hydrogen in cars work, then please correct me.

Would rather have Electric > Natural gas > hydrogen.

+1 vt8919 and +2 kingkhalas

Fuel cells are a better idea than electric cars, but yeah, the infrastructure / technology is a good ways off. Plenty of interesting research on the subject though.

An example: http://www.allpar.com/corporate/fuel-cells.html

Isn't Mazda testing out a vehicle that runs on hydrogen and gasoline? That seems a good solution until the infrastructure is up to speed for hydrogen and fuel cell. I like the idea of hydrogen but electricity will make it to the market much faster.

Diesel over any of the above, thanks.

Diesel is great from an engineering standpoint, but it doesn't solve the problem of oil. You can only power Porsches from dead dinosaurs for so long. The faster we realize the denouement of petroleum, the better.

A hydrogen fuel cell vehicle IS an electric vehicle, the fuel cell is simply a different way of storing electricity! They both are driven by an electric motor and, since hydrogen isn't found in its pure state in nature, both are methods of storing energy, not generating it!

For the long term Hydrogen fuel cells will be the best replacement due to the fact that you can drive until empty stop somewhere and fill up and keep going.

In the mid term battery based EV's will do but I don't battery swaps are practical due to the chance that you get swaped a fully charged but other wise abused battery. Its like exchanging propane tanks at a gas station you never know quite what you get.

Short term Diesel > Synth-oil > Hybrids in that order are the best bets as of now for flexibility's sake.

I will say that I hope one day you can drive a older car with a ICE engine and fill it with Hydrogen based compound (I'm guessing a mix of Hydrogen and some sort of alcohol.) just so I can still drive the classics without converting them to the new fuels.

Thank you uncanny_man. I think a lot of people miss that point. I added a link about hydrogen as a fuel below:

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax

Tom

Good link, tomm250. But not only are fuel cell cars electric cars, they are electric HYBRID cars, with batteries just like a Prius, so even with fuel cells, we still need the batteries, too, as shown in the Honda FCX Clarity's web site:
http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/how-fcx-works.aspx

Hydrogen is not a viable option for places where it gets cold. In a cold city like Chicago or Montreal millions of hydrogen cars all emitting water vapor would cause severe ice build up on roadways and sidewalks.

Electric vehicles pose their own issues in cold weather but at least they will not cause traffic accidents by icing up roadways.

@vvk You bring up a good point.

Not sure how you get around the that fact beside storing the water in the car until you get home then dumping it in your yard or down a drain.

@vvk

Not sure about that. I don't know how much water a fuel cell powered car would create, but would it be that much more than a gasoline powered car? There's already water vapour being emitted from every combustion process out there, plus from every air conditioner running to keep car windows defogged, so how much different would a fuel cell be?

Hmm...time for some napkin calculations!

Well, let's say a car engine is .30 efficient vs. a fuel cell driven vehicle at .36. Using octane as an average, C8H18 + 8.5*O2 = 8*CO2 + 9*H20 (bad balance, but we're only worried about H20 here, so whatever)

A fuel cell uses hydrogen, meaning it's H2 + 02 = H20.

We also need some energies to figure out how much of each we're using; H2 is 142 Mj/kg or .284 MJ/mol.

87 octane gas will have approx. 44.4 Mj/kg, or, using our c8H18 approximation, 5.0616 Mj/mol

We can now compare the production of water from a fuel cell reaction and a combustion reaction!

Per MJ, a fuel cell...

.284 Mj/mol = 3.52 mol/MJ fuel * 1 mol h20/mol fuel = 3.52 mol h20/MJ

Gasoline/octane:

5.0616 MJ/mol = .1976 mol/MJ fuel * 9 mol H20/mol fuel = 1.78 mol h20/MJ

So, about twice the amount of water, right? Less than that, actually, if we believe (fairly reasonably) that a fuel cell powered vehicle is more efficient than a gasoline one. I don't think this is enough to worry about in terms of icing up the roads.

So scratch 'road ice' as a reason not to use fuel cells-interesting thought it might be.

I choose plug-in electric simply for convenience. Not having to visit a filling station FTW!

canadaphant, not disputing your calculations (yet :) but you forget that water is emitted from an ICE in the form of gas (vapor). I clearly remember seeing a picture of a Toyota fuel cell car with water pouring out of the tailpipe.

Creating hydrogen is a chemical process, and not necessarily efficient. However, charging batteries is also a chemical process. When energy is extracted for power, hydrogen goes through another chemical process, just like a battery discharging. Efficiency wise, I don't think they are that much different.

I would put my money on algae based bio-diesel hybrids, with ultracapacitors instead of batteries.

This post is an ambiguous topic.

There's 2 separate hydrogen vehicle technologies.
1. Hydrogen Combustion (built like a regular gasoline car) such as the BMW Hydrogen 7, and the Mazda RX-8 Hydrogen RE. Inefficient and takes too much space.
2. Hydrogen fuel cell (built like a Chevy Volt), such as the Honda FCX Clarity.

1. Hydrogen combustion (Mazda/BMW) seems like total nonsense, as the car gets 1/4th the mpg, which means the car has 1/4th the range of a regular gasoline car.
It's set up like a gasoline car: fuel -> combustion engine drive.

2. Hydrogen fuel cell has decent range and efficiency, like the FCX Clarity's 280 miles.
And it's set up just like a Chevy Volt: fuel -> electricity generator-> electric motor drive.
So, just like a Chevy Volt, you should be able to plug in a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle at home, as they also have a lithium ion storage battery.

But as tomm250's post states, hydrogen fuel costs $100 per gasoline gallon equivalent.
Imagine $100 for one gallon of gas!

The US government abandoned hydrogen research this year, and so should everyone.
Lest you like paying $100 per gallon of gas! It's a failed technology.

Chevy Volt/diesel FTW.

Since hydrogen combustion burns 4 times as much, it also emits far more CO2 also. Although the CO2 is emitted in hydrogen production.

Even the now little mentioned E85 does 17 times better than hydrogen in cost, and better in CO2 emissions.

Hydrogen is crap and dead, so says the US government.

@vvk

I'm sure those calcs aren't right, but I think they are good enough for ball park figures. Although I don't know how hot the water release from an FCX fuel cell is, even if it's room temperature (most fuel cells work at over 40 C, many at 100 C) it would quickly evaporate and the volumes would be minimal. Ice on the roads is not one of the myriad problems facing fuel cell powered vehicles.

Hydrogen may very well be a useful fuel in the future, but today it's pie in the sky. It takes much more energy to make than it produces and the closest place where there is an actual hydrogen supply is the sun and I don't think we will be traveling there anytime soon to gather the hydrogen. Hydrogen is simply a red herring to get our focus off the form of energy that we actually can use today to help break our dependency on foreign oil, that being electricity. Big oil want's to get your eye off the ball, don't let them.
Tom

"Big oil want's to get your eye off the ball" Huh? Only hydrogen boosters I've seen are the carmakers and politicians.

texases: Exactly!