Interesting article that indicates that the world's reserves of platinum are not sufficient to meet the demand that fuel cell (as the primary source of energy storage for transportation) vehicles would require. Full article Thanks to this site.
It is my understanding that attempts are being made to replace platinum with a less expensive and rare material or process. H2 will likely be the future in conjunction with Battery tech as there are applications that just require to much power for a battery (over an extended period of time). H2 is not currently "more" efficient than carbon based fuels, but a big part of H2 is that if it is produced via "green" energy that cannot be stored, then it is absolutely "clean", and that benefit should compensate for the inefficiency.
Well as they mention platinum is used in cat.converters, so isn't there an issue with no more cat.converters too as supplies of platinum dwindle? or hell how about you take all the platinum from the catalytic converters and use that since you don't need them with fuel cells, also take jewelry market by storm too!
We will always find a substitute when cost (from supply/demand) becomes an issue. If you knew how fast semi-conductor industry has evolved, you would have confidence like I do. When economy is driving innovations, human always find a way.
I agree that innovation will help alleviate the issue, and don't think it should slow us down in working on hydrogen to fuel our motor vehicles. At the same time, I would hope that we don't do the "easy" thing and go to one type of propulsion again. True "energy independence" requires the use of many various types, i.e. electric, hydrogen, natural gas, biodiesel, and even gasoline to propel motor vehicles. Guess you'd say I really like the whole hybrid concept!
You're kidding, right? Always find a way? You think that's what they said on Easter island? . . . as they cut down every tree, and used up every natural resource on the island? "We'll find a way to get off this resource-stripped island later" ?? So that eventually, only the statues remain to remind us all how we never learn from history? Don't get me wrong ... it's great to be enthusiastic about what we can do. But try as we will, you can't create a time machine, or a jet pack to get around, or flying cars. Just because PC chips get cheep, doesn't mean we can create a more powerful fuel out of less. Similarly, so it is with hydrogen. Since the 1970's the greatest minds have worked on this 'perfect fuel' when in fact it aint a fuel. If you have to use more fuel, than you can get from it, then it aint fuel. You have to use more energy to get hydrogen, then the energy yield of hydrogen. And ever since the 1970's the greatest minds have said, "in just 10 years". They've made the same proclamation every decade. The only group pushing hydrogen is the fossel fuel industry, because you have to use up fossle fuels (90% of the time) to get hydrogen. Either huge amounts of electricity, or you strip it from natural gas. You'd be way ahead just using the source energy, then the less efficent hydrogen, yielding less after its conversion. The sooner we quit wasting millions on the hydrogen hoax, the sooner those funds can yield quicker results in the alternative ... electric.
Gotta agree with you Hill. Personally, I think there are many more reasons to leave hydrogen behind, however, there was some recent research out of MIT that found an inexpensive catalytic means with electricity as one of the input components to break H2O into H2 and O2 and proposed using solar cells as the source of electricity. Unfortunately, though, this means of storing electricity is still far more inefficient than it would be to store electricity by itself. IMHO, ultra-capacitors are the way to go.
What are the efficiency numbers? Your statement may not be true. I have been looking for them myself and have not found them. The whole purpose of the research was to be more efficient than batteries and possilbly capacitors at industrial scales.
This is the kind of thinking that slows advances. Let the market decide what is and what is not practical. There are still many technological obstacles that H2 must overcome. I suspect they will be solved. Whether the solutions will be cost-effective will be decided by the marketplace. It's helium that raises the voice, though I suppose H2 could as well. The H2 that I have produced (balloons) wasn't clean enough to attempt to breath. Oh, and H2 is not really dangerous. If you ignite a balloon filled with H2 -only- it will just burn. I passed my hand through the ball of fire and didn't get burned, though I lost some hair. My hand did get wet. Kind of neat. Helium also conducts heat much better than air. So when you breath it you notice how cold it feels. And you get dizzy, both from lack of O2 and from the uncontrollable laughter due to the strange sounds you make.
Unfortunatly that kind of thinking led us the the great AM Stereo debacle in the 70's. FCC decided to try 4 different AM Stereo standards ... yeah that worked out real well ... Then Hi Def TV came along and once again, a "Standard" came up ... 720P, 1080I, and a "Standard" that has not even had its properties defined 1080P.... And those of you that bought into the HD DVD standard, only to be dropped into the cold by the BLU-RAY standard!!! It boils down to.... lets let the money decide, screw the consumers!!! Just think of the fun we are in for in setting up a energy policy "Standard" Good Luck to us one and all!!! 73 de Pat KK6PD
There are a couple of points in this post that need to be clarified or corrected: 1) It is the low density of helium that raises your voice. Hydrogen is even less dense than helium, so it works well for making silly voices, although I'd advise against smoking when doing it. 2) True about burning hydrogen. It's also true with gasoline. Mix either with air or oxygen and the results will be more impressive. Since hydrogen is less dense than air, hydrogen fires tend to float up and away, which is good in the case of a car fire. 3) Helium is not a better conductor of heat than air. Being less dense, its conduction is worse. This is why helium is used as a shield gas when welding stainless steel. Stainless steel is a poor conductor of heat (for a metal), so we use a gas that keeps the heat around the stainless to help it heat up. I typically use a mixture of argon, helium, and carbon dioxide when welding stainless. The argon and helium are inert, so they shield the weld from oxygen. The helium helps keep the heat from being sucked away by the shield gas. The CO2 supplies some carbon which helps make steel welds stronger. The reason helium feels cool to you is that you are breathing it from a compressed source. Ordinary air from a SCUBA tank does this too. The cooling process is called adiabatic cooling. Tom
I think electric vehicles are going to be awesome. But electric vehicles are going to be driven by fossil fuels for a long time to come (whether from an assist by an ICE, or by coal and natural gas power plants). I wish it weren't true, but I don't think it can be otherwise. I'd love to have an all-electric car, but until you can get me 800 miles in a day's driving either on one charge or with 2 or 3 8-minute charges it isn't going to be my only vehicle. I look forward to replacing my Chevy Blazer in 3 or 4 years with something with a different power source, but it's way to early to predict what that will be, much less in a decade when I need to replace the Prius! Any advance in any direction for alternative fuels sounds like a good thing to me. If it isn't efficient, it isn't like to win the battle.
Fuel Cells: We Don’t Need No Stinking Platinum Earth2Tech Australian scientists have already figured out how to eliminate platinum from the cathode in a fuel cell. They think it will work for the anode as well.
