http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?titl...1&pb=1&ref=rss

 

Link doesnt work. I assume its anouther h2 cant work blather?

The key to understanding h2 fuel cell cars is to realize even if they never made a single car by 2050 or so fuel cells will have progressed enough JUST from industrial uses that you will have the power of the most powerful production supercar in a package cheaper then a honda civic. But that even by 2050 its very likely to cram that amount of power and energy into a battery will require a battery bigger then a honda civic and more spendy then a rolls royce.

 

For all the good characteristics of H2 as a fuel we have to realize that, for the present, we have to make the H2.

For the present this means we just move the tailpipe from the back of your car to the powerplant making the electricity that makes the H2.

 

The present doesnt matter in that respect as the grid will be improved co2 wise anyway and current h2 generation is mostly natural gas and is LESS intensive in the use of said natural gas then burning it in a car or powerplant.

 

But... Don't fuel cell vehicles still cost over a million dollars each?

 

With redesigned fuel systems you could burn H2 in today's engines.

I've head those words about natural gas and such. I see them as nice sounding canards. These ignore how H2 is made and the inefficiency of that process.

Follow the inefficiencies backward from a unit of H2 to the amount of fuel burned to produce it. Only when we have a truly clean power plant fuel will H2 be viable as a motor fuel.

 

A fuel cell car doesnt cost alot anymore. How much the fuel cell itself costs is a big secret but remember as with batteries a little while ago its mostly the cost of running the company making them NOT the cost of actualy making them.

As they start to bulk out the production of small fuel cells for industrial uses you should start to see the real costs of fuel cells.. likely 3-5 years from now we will have a firm grip on the real numbers.

I do know right now they are selling fuel cell mopeds in india for 2600 a pop and plan to drop the price to 2 grand each soon.

Oh burning nat gas either in car or at power plant.. vs fuel cells.. Even toyota has the fuel cell cars well to wheels being better. Now you might not trust bush or big oil but dont you trust the makers of the prius?

 

Re: trusting makers of the Prius... No.

The issue is that H2 is an intermediate fuel. It alone is neither better nor worse than what it replaces. It is true that you move the tail pipe and that the efficiency of power plants is better than that of your car.

The drawbacks are every time you go through an energy conversion you lose efficiency and that you now carry around a pressurized gas cylinder with an explosive gas in it. These are neither good nor bad, they just are.

The bottom line is that until we replace the power generating plants (that will power the H2 generating plants) with ones that don't put bad stuff in the atmosphere we are kidding ourselves. We make only feel good contributions to fixing things.

 

The thing is your going to be having your household electric rate competing against whatever it costs the h2 company for its energy.... Very likely by 2030 you will be dealing with 30-50 cent per kwh household energy yet the oil companies will be using 2-3 cent per kwh energy to make thier h2. Yes they will need a little more of it.. less every year as the systems get better. But your talking huge energy farms in the cheapest places to make energy.

In fact we realy have no idea what sort of energy systems the oil companies are planning to build to support themselves. We can however be sure an army of beancounters and techs is working on it.

 

Too bad the link in the OP does not work...

Anyhow I'm inclined to guess that Hydrogen in not going to be a major player for 2 reasons:

It is too light and must be super compressed which is not efficient.

Making hydrogen uses oil and or electricity so hydrogen is more like a battery than petrol. Might just as well use a battery. The infrastructure to supply electricity is already in place. Hydrogen would require a whole new infrastructure for the "hydrogen highway".

Is this the story:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/bl...-hydrogen-rube