Think hydrogen as a viable alternativefuel is still a long way off? Might want to reconsider. Last week 9 manufacturers finished a North American rally involving over a dozen Hydrogen vehicles across 18 states in a historic zero-emissions moment. Link
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Great to see this technology being pushed. As much of a drain it can be on my own wallet, I’m actually half-happy about increasingly higher gas prices.. just to force the development of alternative fuels and advance technology. They still have a ways to go before they’ll be economically feasible, but great work on getting them this far this quickly. Keep it going!
What never got mentioned: hydrogen must be made (chemically separated) – requiring energy! As mentioned, it must be kept under pressure – again, taking energy. The video mentions the eficiency of the Fuel Cell system as being 80+ % – but that doesn’t count the energy lost by creating, storing, and transporting the hydrogen: currently, those factors add up to ~100% of the energy stored in the hydrogen – an effective 20% loss of energy! Not as efficient as we’ve been led to believe, is it?
yeah, dragonsrightwing is right and so is willhort. There are many obstacles and disadvantages but other than compressing it they could use a metal hydrides. There are also obstacles like cold weather and the cost and production issues associated with fuel cells.
AcidRain64 what do you mean this quickly?!? Nasa had this technology in the 60′s….diesel has been around since the 1800s….and the friggen Model T (1908) could get 20 mpg AND run on ethanol!! and the model A got 25-30 mpg!!
WAKE UP, END COMPLACENCY, and STOP APPLAUDING MEDIOCRITY! PLEASE.
same with hybrids..you have to burn coal and oil like you said to make electricity also. Another bad thing about hydrogen is it is extremely explosive.
Yes, I know this. I wasn’t referring to the government. I was referring to private industry and investment. They weren’t doing jack with this stuff until recently. Now they are, and once they started, they did a lot rather quickly.
You simply misunderstood.
We agree – the gov’t could (and should) do quite a lot more quite a lot faster in the realm of science/tech. Virtually every scientific avenue is underfunded, including NASA.
sorry i came off so rude Acid…it’s just so ustrating to be pushing this stuff for years now and unless you’re looking for it it still goes virtually unnoticed. GM chose to R&D Hummers over their wonderful and fully functional electrics….as they ground them up in the automobile garbage disposal in ’05 (watch “who killed the electric car”) and now look…they’re on the verge of needing a bailout.
i say let ‘em sink–phuck GM. what’d they ever build that was ever worth a shit.
from stan meyer (youtube him) conveniently dying the year his water powered car was to be mass produced (hmmmm, after he had like what–32 patents filed on his inventions…) to the australian guy w/ the water powered motorcycle who went public last year for fear for his life….what the heck is the delay?!? it comes down to american complacency–this stuff has all been there just waiting to be tapped–
and when the bureaucracy has a stranglehold on the market with an oil energy monopoly for autos it’s near impossible to innovate and get anything off the ground–you need ridiculously deep pockets just to R & D, and since it’s all capitalism,there’s usually incentive based on $…it goes on.
yet if America had wanted it sooner>>whala!! ACTION!!
reality is we as a country never buy an umbrella until it rains.govt’s all reactive+ with a sloth’s urgency.congress>>the quintessential complacents.
so even if the tech is made affordable for the average consumer, what about the fuel? i don’t know much about hydrogen, so i have some questions; where do we find it/derive it from? how much processing does it require? how much would a “gallon?” (whatever unit hydrogen would be sold in) cost? how would we transport/distribute it? how would we ensure it won’t explode or catch fire in auto accidents? could these type engines be produced by retooling current factories or need entirely new ones?
Water is the fuel source. “Heavy water” is best, but it’s not plentiful enough, so just plain water is used. Electricity is used to break the oxygen and hydrogen molecules apart at the processing plant. Liquid hydrogen is what you get at the pump, electricity is produced from its reaction with oxygen, the electricity runs the motor, and water vapor is what comes out of the exhaust. It’s nothing new, only too expensive and politically problematic at this time.
Since this car has to fill up an on board hydrogen tank at a hydrogen station, how much will 1 gallon of hydrogen cost?
Now compare that to what 1 gallon of gasoline costs. I think you will see that there is a higher cost to operate this vehicle than current gas models, still making the prius the champ. Also for those “greenies” out there, where does the hydrogen come from?
I think you will find it comes from the oil industry. So where is there any improvement?
Agreed. When the fossil fuels run out in the next however many years, the government will “amazingly” come out with this “newly discovered” technology and save everyone… Technology they have been sitting on for decades, waiting until they squeeze every penny out of the oil industry.
yup. every single solitary penny they can get, as long as they can get it. it’s huge business, even a single day of oil sales is astronomical from what i can tell. since i originally posted i have since found out Texaco is the culprit behind GM’s inability to continue producing the EV-1 (a wonderful car mysteriously discontinued a few years ago, watch “who killed the electric car” for more info) because they own the rights to the batteries…batteries NASA has been using since the 1950′s.
the technology is definitely out there. now Texaco has aquired Chevron as a disguise because they are involved in the world’s largest lawsuit of all time with the people of Ecuador. they dumped 18X the amount of oil involved in the Exxon Valdez down their tributaries and rivers,not because they had to,but because it was cheaper to do so and there were no regulations stopping them. i now avoid Chevron/Texaco gas pumps AT ALL COSTS & would gladly pay $1 more per gallon from someone else>google it
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