Its no big deal just fun to talk about realy. Heck I dont even drive.

Attila1 The main things to remember are...

1 The cost in energy of making each kg have gone down alot over the years and..

2 The modern fuel cell makes alot more power from each kg of h2 fed to it then early models.

H2 likely will roll out alongside nat gas as they likely will pipe nat gas to various stations and reform it on site. Some sites likely will add a glitzy solar array and a cheap electrolyzer and maybe even some windmills in the background... I can just see shell making a 1000 foot tall windmill covered in zillions of green leds with a 250 foot wide glowing shell logo on it.. the entire thing glowing bright enough to read by 50 miles away. Its what I would do if I were them. And no one can complain because after all its all perfectly green.

 

Hello wintermane,

In my experience the price of H2 has been very static for a long time with the exception of the raw material input cost. The (steam /methane) reforming technology has been mature for over 20 years. The key variable then is the price of natural gas. This has been on a roller coaster ride for the last decade from $1.50/MMBTU peaking over $10/MMBTU and now back down to roughly $4-5/MMBTU.

Therefore the price of H2 is roughly proportional to the cost of NG + fixed costs.

I am surprised that fuel cell efficiency is increasing significantly. I thought they operated at stoichiometric ratio and the efficiency has always been high. Do you have a link to more on this?

Thanks.

 

I dont have any links realy as I just pick it all up as it pops out on green car congress and other sites like this one.

I know the h2 people plan for something like 75% eff electrolysis and fuel cells by 2012 or something and 80% for both by something like 2018.

I also know both the ballard fuel cells and the honda ones have said they increased eff in the last generation. I think the honda one was something like a 20-25% increase wich while sounding large means the same as from 40-50%

I also know that up until a gen or two ago they were only targeting power output and size and only recently have they realy pushed eff durablity and costs. This mainly because up until a few years back most fuel cells were miltary and space admin use.

The lifespan of a fuel cell went from something like 500 hours in 2005 to 6000 hours today and they are targetting 30 even 60000 hour fuel cells for industrial uses.

But I cant realy say where the heck they are truely right now as thats about as easy to find out as the kfc secret recipe.