There are more and more features regarding Zero Emission Vehicles (which BTW, has got to be magic, because these is no such thing as something for nothing), but I did notice that BMW is planning hydrogen powered vehicles. And some of the fuel cell tests use hydrogen as a fuel.

OK, I can accept that hydrogen is a great non-polluting fuel, but I have some questions. How much power does it take to generate it? In a gas form, or in the liquid form?

If the net is calculated, how efficient is it as a fuel?

I accept we cannot use fossil fuels forever, but is this a reasonable alternative in the near future, or another wish for magic like battery powered autos?

 

yesterday i saw a natural gas powered truck, it was all white with a natural gas tank in the back and stickers sayingi t was a ZEV, it was neat because since it was a truck you could see the whole setup in the truck bed.

 

No where close to a ZEV if using natural gas. Many buses, trucks, and municipal vehicles are powered by natural gas, and while some are LEV, they are burning good old hydrocarbons.

 

ah my bad i must have misread the lables on the car

 

I think both Honda and BMW are going to generate their hydrogen by using solar cells to extract hydrogen from water. So, even though it probably takes a lot of power, it's all coming from the sun.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by cdelena
[B]There are more and more features regarding Zero Emission Vehicles (which BTW, has got to be magic, because these is no such thing as something for nothing), but I did notice that BMW is planning hydrogen powered vehicles. And some of the fuel cell tests use hydrogen as a fuel.

OK, I can accept that hydrogen is a great non-polluting fuel, but I have some questions. How much power does it take to generate it? In a gas form, or in the liquid form?

If the net is calculated, how efficient is it as a fuel?

 

ZEV is a marketing guy's way of saying "it doesn't put out anything harmful". Hydrogen cars aren't ZEV, they put out water as a byproduct (emission), plus minute quantities of various hydrocarbons that are resulting from "impurities" in the air (namely anything that isn't oxygen but will combine freely with hydrogen).

Honda and BMW both have hydrogen facilities either operating or being built in california. They use solar cells to electrolyze water, which splits into H2 and O2 molecules (2 H20 + electricity -> 2 H2 + 1 O2). The hydrogen is stored as a gas (I think) and the Oxygen is released. This process is pretty expensive because of the number of solar panels required to get enough hydrogen.

Hydrogen is actually more potent then gasoline, but safely converting the potential energy to mechanical energy is fairly inefficient. Hydrogen might be the best alternative simply because the process of seperating H20 and burning the H2 is essentially an infinitely renewable source when the input of the sun's energy is factored in. Battery cars are just moving the polution from your tailpipe to the power plant, and natural gas is a cleaner gasoline but non-renewable.

Hydrogen will only happen if the infrastructure can be built. Honda and BMW are pioneering that.

 

I did a few searches looking to answer my question and have found others asking the question. I have got to believe hydrogen generated using solar and wind is a long term goal, but this technology needs a lot of development before it competes with fossil fuels for (literally) the

 

I had to do a paper about 10 years ago about hydrogen as a fuel. A scientist and his son converted a 70 something Ford pickup to a hydrogen powered pickup. They used electrolysis with heavy water which yielded enough hydrogen to turn a generator to power the alternator, etc, etc. They had a patent which a friend told me was bought by a consortium of car manufacturers. Of course, the auto manu's are not jumping on it right away, but they will eventually make the hydro cars. It can be done.

Hydrogen is a great fuel. Nasa uses it and oxygen in the spaceshuttle. Bout time we get rid of this sh1tty fossil fuel.

 

FYI.. I did enough looking to answer my own question.. for the near future it is not an economical proposition even if the problems of storage and distribution are ignored. A slightly dated summary:

Economics of Non-conventional Hydrogen Production

Economic evaluations showed that the hydrogen production techniques examined at the Hydrogen Research Center were not competitive with conventional methods of hydrogen production from fossil energy sources (e.g., from natural gas via steam reforming, or from coal syngas via gasification, both being followed by water-gas-shifting and pressure-swing absorption). The lowest cost is given by hydrogen from natural gas, which is $6-12 (1995 dollars per million British Thermal Units (MMBTU) (on site), depending on the plant size and the cost of gas. For non-fossil hydrogen, the solar photoelectrochemical and bacterial methods seemed unlikely to compete with solar photovoltaic using conventional electrolysis (which is itself of very high cost, about $40/MMBTU assuming photovoltaic electricity costs of 10

 

It'll be very interesting to see how things progress. As it changes from one stage to another before it becomes standard. Sure it won't be any time soon.