Isn't hydrogen and fuel cells just a bunch of BS?

Yes, until we find the hydrogen mines, hydrogen/fuel cell systems are just another type of battery. We don't know yet how the best hydrogen/fuel cell batteries will compare to the best conventional batteries or super capacitors of comparable production readiness.

Hydrogen gas is the highest efficiency chemical energy storage fuel by mass, but one of the least efficient by volume even at high compression. Even liquid hydrogen isn't very dense, and takes a lot of energy to liquefy and keep liquid. The practicalities of hydrogen storage may result in the more conventional batteries winning, at least for ground vehicles. For aircraft, the lighter weight of the hydrogen may be a win there.

Current fuel cell approaches have issues as well, such as very high temperature operations and the need for rare metals such as Platinum, limiting large scale deployment.

We have a long way to go before hydrogen/fuel cell batteries will be competitive, but that doesn't mean they can't get there.

In the long run, really good batteries of whatever type will be essential to a zero-carbon emission energy economy. For that, we will need to get our energy from some combination of solar and nuclear, neither of which will be practical to carry on your vehicle. (Well, at least until we have a Mr. Fusion.)

So it's a good thing in my mind to be doing extensive conventional battery, super capacitor, hydrogen storage, and fuel cell research, so that we'll have the tools we need to move in the direction of zero carbon. We should of course be correcting anyone who might be thinking that hydrogen is a new source of energy, or some sort of cure-all for what ails us. At the same time, we should be supporting hydrogen storage and fuel cell research as likely components of the long-term solution.

 

I think in a place like Iceland, which has more thermal power than it knows what to do with, hydrogen fuel cells might make some sense. But even there, and certainly on the rest of the planet, it's more efficient to put whatever power source we have straight into batteries, instead of suffering the conversion losses of making and transporting hydrogen. EVs are cheaper, more efficient, less polluting, and we already have the infrastructure. I don't see the logic of the Hydrogen hype.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Apr 1 2007, 12:09 PM) [snapback]416042[/snapback]</div>

Ditto here. There is no logic. I've been following H2 since the early 70's and were still nowhere. This is the biggest money pit foisted on the taxpayers of the world. All the money spent "researching" hydrogen could have put everybody in a hybrid.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Apr 1 2007, 12:09 PM) [snapback]416042[/snapback]</div>

I don't think we'll ever fly aircraft on batteries.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(madler @ Apr 1 2007, 05:52 PM) [snapback]416200[/snapback]</div>

Oh yah?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(kram @ Mar 31 2007, 08:54 AM) [snapback]415441[/snapback]</div>

huh. That's news to me. Of course the world might hit peak coal but that doesn't mean that the US has. That would actually be good news if it were true.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Apr 1 2007, 04:39 PM) [snapback]416161[/snapback]</div>

It's been going on since the 1970's early 70's at that, 20million here 40 million there then another 30 million then 50 million and that's just in Canada. Hate to imagine how much has been squandered in the US on "research" and all I've ever seen is a couple of NRC Ford Focus H2 cars. I'd hazzard a guess that those cars probably cost the taxpayers at least a quarter million dollars each maybe more. Still no useable refueling infrastructure, no nothing. Now another grant to put fuel cells into a couple of standup reach trucks in a warehouse somewhere, hell the company bean counters won't even buy a good battery for the truck so you know they'll never spend a cent on replacing the fuel cell when it packs it in, which they're still trying to get more than about 2,000 hours out of them. We have forklifts in our fleet with 25,000+ hours on them and they're still going. Priced a fuel cell lately that will power a forklift, what would you guess 25 times the price of a new battery. $5,000 will buy a new battery I'd guess $150,000 for the fuel cell, and you still need a battery. Granted the charging station will probaby not be used but electricity is still cheaper than a hydrogen refueling station.

 

Many people have questioned the practicality of when and where you recharge your EV.

Of course some people will do this at home, but for everyone else it will be done at Walmart while doing the shopping. Or at a dedicated roadside charging station (costing less than 1% of a H2 fuelling station).

(PS, on another note, the entire earth's annual production of platinum is only sufficient to make fuel cells for 3% of current vehicle production, so fuel cells aren't really a volume production prospect in any case).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(madler @ Apr 1 2007, 04:52 PM) [snapback]416200[/snapback]</div>

What does that have to do with they hype of using FC's for cars?

In fact, saving our precious high-density fuels for things like aircraft is one of the compelling reasons to start using batteries in cars.

And finally... Oh yeah?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(madler @ Apr 1 2007, 08:52 PM) [snapback]416200[/snapback]</div>

There is an emerging electric paramotor scene. The specs are very impressive, with performance way better than traditional gasoline variants.

Check this link out for some amazing videos of lithium-ion powered human flight:

http://marksparaglidingpages.com/index.php...&newsid=223

Some teams can get 15 minutes flight from only 2 kg of batteries! B)

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MikeSF @ Apr 1 2007, 06:19 PM) [snapback]416209[/snapback]</div>

Yah.

There will be special applications with extremely lightweight payloads, where in this case the driver is not carbon emission but extremely extended duration flight (a poor man's satellite).

I still assert that we'll never see 150 people flying across the country in an aircraft powered by any combination of solar cells and batteries.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Apr 2 2007, 06:53 PM) [snapback]416767[/snapback]</div>

It has to do with the question of whether anyone should be spending any money at all on things like hydrogen storage. Cars are only one part of a much larger problem.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Apr 2 2007, 06:53 PM) [snapback]416767[/snapback]</div>

Any statements like mine: "we won't be flying aircraft on batteries", can be immediately followed by, "oh yeah, that's what they said about ..." (insert favorite shortsighted technology naysayer). So I can use the same logic about never using hydrogen and fuel cells in cars. In fact, I doubt that hydrogen storage and fuel cells in cars (or hydrogen internal combustion engines, or whatever) will ever be better than batteries in terms of things like overall efficiency and infrastructure cost. But who knows. I could also be wrong about the batteries in aircraft.

Even so, it is easy to discriminate today among technologies and seeing how far they have to go to be competitive. You have to do that to figure out where to put your investments. So we can't fund everything on the "Well, they said we'd never be able to fly!" theory.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IAO @ Mar 29 2007, 12:27 AM) [snapback]413994[/snapback]</div>

I dont know too much about this, but have you heard of maglev trains?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_train

why cant we do the same thing with our cars? Roll out a bunch of cables under the roads and highways, and when you are driving on the road you are charging the car as well like a regular train or something? Is that possible?

 

Since we seem to be in brainstorming mode for the moment, I'm going to throw out a random thought on this battery-powered flight concept. If and when we get space elevators perfected, how about lifting passengers up to a certain height, and loading them into a glider for a flight to their destination?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hyo silver @ Apr 4 2007, 02:52 PM) [snapback]417829[/snapback]</div>

Good idea! That would let you use the elevator as an enormous vertical extension cord. Something to consider though is that if the thing gets you up to, say, 20 miles (at which altitude you could argue that there's almost enough atmosphere to glide in), a generous 40:1 glide ratio will only get you 800 miles from the space elevator. And of course, you have to find a nearby space elevator to start from.

Extending the extension cord idea, how about power beaming to aircraft from space? Giant orbiting solar collectors with a few hundred microwave dishes could track large aircraft and beam power to them.

These are way far future solutions, but still fun to think about.

 

Nah the future is in Dilithium Crystals! Where have y'all been?

It takes electricity to convert water into Hydrogen/oxygen, and the only CLEAN(used sparingly here because it really isnt) source of electricty is from nuclear power plants. France has a lot of them, which is why they have a larger fleet of hydrogen powered vehicles. With nuclear power you basically have free energy to make hydrogen with. Other than the waste product from the core, and storing it for the time it takes to be non lethal, there are no pollutants from a nuclear power plant. To make Hydrogen a viable energy source would require the construction of more nuclear plants, and knowing how the population of the US is so against nuclear power, I doubt any of us will see it happen.

There are many other technologies out there that will help cut down on fossil fuel use, for example, UPS is using hydraulic powered vehicles that store energy using fluid. From what I heard their delivery vans are getting around 50 MPG using that technology. Ford I believe is researching it further for actual consumer production.

Linky

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(ACD @ Apr 26 2007, 03:40 PM) [snapback]430714[/snapback]</div>

The reason hydrogen is being pushed so hard despite its many obvious inadequacies, is because of lobbying from the nuclear industry, who want to see people using as much electricity as possible (and hydrogen being so inefficient is a great way to increase energy use).

But nuclear electricity is by no means free, uranium mining and processing takes a vast amount of fossil fuel and energy (about a third of what the uranium you get at the end contains). The easy deposits have been taken, and the prices remain relatively low because of the "swords to ploughshares" agreement which has allowed fuel to be taken from decommissioned warheads for the last several years. When this runs out the mines will not be able to support the current demand for uranium, prices will go up a lot and the deeper reserves will need to be tapped, so soon becoming uneconomical.