What are your thoughts about hydrogen fuel cells to power cars?
Question by Torrey T: What are your thoughts about hydrogen fuel cells to power cars?
Best answer:
Answer by Dana1981, Master of Science
They’re too expensive, there’s no fueling infrastructure, they’re less efficient than electric cars, and they continue our reliance on fossil fuels (currently 96% of our hydrogen comes from fossil fuels, primarily natural gas).
I don’t think very highly of them. Neither do most automakers, considering that almost all of them have shifted their focus away from hydrogen to electric cars.
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about 1 year ago
if we can figure out way to harvest hydrogen more efficiently and build facilities that can be safe for holding it it would be good but hydrogen rite now would be round same price as gas and its very dangerous ppl mite blow up hydrogen station filling up car hydrogen super flamable
about 1 year ago
Well mostly this is a bad idea because HYDROGEN EXPLODES.
As well as being it being hard to convert to hydrogen, hydrogen is also expensive, hard to process, and unstable, hydrogen explodes.
Meaning, if you are in a car crash in a hydrogen car you are dead and incinerated at that.
about 1 year ago
There are a few practical problems with any sort of vehicle that relies on storing hydrogen, and that is before we even look at the fuel cell:
Hydrogen if stored as a gas under pressure has very poor volumetric energy density = you need a BIG tank under a lot of pressure, and if stored as a cryogenic liquid the overall energy efficiency is very poor as you need as much energy to liquefy the stuff as you get from burning it (so overall efficiency is only 50% even before you start), metal hydrides just don’t make the energy density levels required at this time.
Finally, I would ask about the refuelling infrastructure, if you make the stuff on site then it will be done by reforming a hydrocarbon, so no net gain there, and if you tanker or pipe the stuff in then you have a choice of either tanker trucking a flammable cryogenic liquid around the country or piping it in at low pressure and then needing to compress it to tank pressure at the filling station. Neither is a good plan.
Now, the theory is that by not running as a Carnot cycle heat engine a fuel cell should be more efficient then an internal combustion engine, and it is a lovely theory, but:
1: A Fuel cell stack of say 150KW output is **EXPENSIVE**, think $100,000 each.
2: They do not produce power until they have been heated to around 80 degrees C, and the energy for that must come from somewhere. In fact for a short trip the energy needed to preheat the cell stack could exceed that needed for the rest of the trip.
3: They need cooling under load (And destroy themselves at a fairly low temperature (Incidentally the need for serious cooling tells you that they are much less then 100% efficient).
4: They need a gas management system to maintain correct air and hydrogen gas pressures, which implies that the cell stack throttle response will be determined by how quickly you can ramp gas pressures up and down.
All the above mean that as a practical vehicle power plant for non specialist use the things leave a lot to be desired.
Incidentally, hydrogen is probably actually a safer fuel then petrol! It is a very light gas and any leak will tend to result in the gas just heading straight up (most likely without ever managing to form an explosive concentration), petrol in contrast forms a low lying layer of volatiles that can easily form an explosive concentration.
Regards, Dan.
about 1 year ago
The motivation for introducing hydrogen fuel cells is designed obsolescence. Like Hybrids, FlexFuel and tail fins, it creates a demand for new vehicles that would not otherwise be there. To switch to a hydrogen economy requires the replacement of existing vehicles and the construction of a support infrastructure, both of which would represent an enormous carbon footprint.
Hydrogen in itself is a terrible vehicle fuel, the energy density is only 405 WH/l for compressed hydrogen and though this is better than lithium batteries, it comes at the cost of a large heavy pressure tank, safety risks and the fact that hydrogen as the second smallest gas molecule, tends to leak. But car manufacturers prefer hydrogen fuel cells over batteries as it requires less material to construct. Batteries can easily be a third to a half the cost of an electric vehicle and needs replacement every few years, the public would expect the manufacturers to subsidize the cost of the batteries so hydrogen fuel cells is more attractive as a means to encourage unnecessary replacement of vehicles.
Both hydrogen and electricity represent a currency of energy. The idea is that it would allow for flexibility in sources of energy as electricity can be made from solar, wind, hydro and nuclear sources. But what people don’t realize is that gasoline and diesel are also just currencies of energy. Yes we currently make gasoline and diesel from oil obtained from fossil reserves but they can also be synthesized from CO2 and H2O, literally from the air as Sandia Labs has done. Gasoline and diesel can also be synthesized from waste bio-mass with units like the ones the DoD has contracted for to make fuel at military camps. Synthetic gasoline and diesel from bio-mass (BTL) could compete with $80 per barrel oil.
about 1 year ago
It’s a terrible idea. Hydrogen is not a fuel source, it is an energy storage medium. Hydrogen does not occur alone in nature, and must be split off other compounds using electricity. If you’re going to use electricity to make hydrogen, just drive the car directly with the electricity and skip out on the (inefficient) middle-man.
about 1 year ago
It can be done. we have the ability.
on board Storage in metal hydride pellets that can be quickly replaced and store enough hydrogen to give the vehicle a 200 mile range.
isolation of hydrogen by solar powered electrolysis.
if we had put as much money, thought and man power into creating an infrastructure for this, over the last 6 years, as we did into war, that infrastructure would be well in place.
that statement is true for sever other power sources.
about 1 year ago
My thoughts are very positive about this technology! Even better alternative is the hydrogen on demand technology! Check it out at:
http://www.super-gas-mileage-savers.com/RUN-YOUR-CAR-ON-WATER.html
about 1 year ago
Where are we going to find 50 million barrels a day of Hydrogen?
about 1 year ago
Interesting but still has all the total costs of a fossil fueled car in the long run.