Hydrogen - where do you stand?

[Ex-RoNiN]

Most Hydrogen approaches to motoring cover two approaches: fuel / fuel cell hybrid, or pure fuel cell. In both cases, we're talking about replacing the combustion engine with an electric engine.

The third way is only being explored by BMW, which is a combustion engine running on hydrogen. With regards to performance, they are actually leading the hybrid vehicles, and with regards to emissions: "Moreover, the car's engine actively cleans the air. Argonne's testing shows that the Hydrogen 7's 12-cylinder engine actually shows emissions levels that, for certain components, are cleaner than the ambient air that comes into the car's engine." (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080328070103.htm)

So where do you stand? Do you prefer the Fuel Cell approach or the H2 Combustion approach?

I love BMW's approach....least amount of change, essentially just a different type of fuel, everything else more or less remains the same (obviously expecting some maturing of the technology).

 

[Gaijin]

Not really fussed, as long as its greener, cheaper, reduces relaince on oil, but still gives good performance without removing the fun from driving. I'm all for it.

Lets get it done soon though

 

[Hxc]

I find the fact that people are touting hydrogen as a suitable replacement in the current world absolutely hilarious.

How does one get hydrogen?
Electrolysis of water.

How does one perform electrolysis?
With serious amount of electricity

Where does most of the electricity come from?
Thermal, non-renewable energy sources.

The theoretical maximum efficiency of this is around 85%.

The other ways of getting pure hydrogen revolve around reacting metals with acids, or using high pressures/tempratures, neither of which are sustainable for great amounts of production.

In other words, to make hydrogen production worthwhile for mass usage, we need to move to clean electricity.

 

[Dolph]

I don't really mind, both show a lot of promise, the only issue is where to get hydrogen from in most cases, because our various governments haven't kept up with decent electricity generation technology (ie nuclear) we might struggle to actually produce the hydrogen in a clean fashion.

 

[WantoN]

I find the fact that people are touting hydrogen as a suitable replacement in the current world absolutely hilarious.

In other words, to make hydrogen production worthwhile for mass usage, we need to move to clean electricity.

So the refinement or oil requires no electricity?

It's a step in the right direction, and alongside a persuit of greener energy it's a good start.

Some people just revel in negativity

Ant

 

[Hxc]

Of course it requires electricity, but people saying hydrogen is "clean clean clean" are wrong, it isn't until we move to clean electricity.

 

[iraiguana]

Actually hydrogen is a by product from the extraction of oil and gas. You can use oil to produce hydrogen using catalysts. You can use methanol, ethanol or straight from propane/mains gas to a catalysts on the fuel cell which will produce Hydrogen and CO2.

The reason that fuel cells are being suggested is due to efficiency gains with regards to the amount of hydrogen being used.

I agree that the easiest way to produce hydrogen is similar to electrolysis which would be very expensive, but you in fact run the fuel cell in reverse (aka a hydrogen reformer).
This is a much more efficient way of producing the hydrogen as you are using a catalyst in the reaction and also get the bonus of producing ultra pure hydrogen and oxygen, where as most other processes will also have impurities which will give you problems later on.

 

[bam0]

No, Hydrogen is waste of time, the energy content volume wise is too low, all the components of the fuel system would need serious insulation and transportation, storage and actually filling your tank would be nothing less than very awkward.
We're better off improving electricity storage mediums instead and investing in electrical production.

 

[Peter Diffey]

It requires a lot of electricity, however if this is produced via a nuclear power plant, then excellent.
I think a hydrogen fuel cell powering an electric motor is the way forward, electric motors are very reliable and require much less maintenance than an IC engine.

 

[bam0]

This is a much more efficient way of producing the hydrogen as you are using a catalyst in the reaction and also get the bonus of producing ultra pure hydrogen and oxygen, where as most other processes will also have impurities which will give you problems later on.

Do you know what catalyst they are proposing for this? The only one I've heard of is platinum which is an exceedingly rare metal so that idea probably wouldn't scale very well.

 

[bam0]

It requires a lot of electricity, however if this is produced via a nuclear power plant, then excellent.
I think a hydrogen fuel cell powering an electric motor is the way forward, electric motors are very reliable and require much less maintenance than an IC engine.

So you produce the electricity, use it crack water into hydrogen, then use that hydrogen to power an electric motor? Skip the hydrogen bit and find better battery technology, surely that'd be more energy efficient.

 

[Jonny69]

I like the idea of keeping the combustion engine. Not bothered what fuel goes into it as long as we still get that V8 rumble when we stick our foot in.

 

[Hxc]

It requires a lot of electricity, however if this is produced via a nuclear power plant, then excellent.

If money was put into electrolysis development and making a "perfect" electrolysis system for hydrogen we could get 85% efficiency.

That isn't a lot of electricity if we come out with such a high percentage of usable fuel for cars.

 

[iraiguana]

You use a combination of catalysts, and yes its ~50% Pt as the catalyst. This does however not need replacing only the amounts of catalyst being needed are constantly being reduced. As the Pt is dispersed extremely finely onto the surface of graphite you only need a tiny amount.

Battery are not able to hold charge indefinitely and will never be as efficient as a hydrogen molecule for storage stability. Also the charge density of batteries is too low as hydrogen is extremely light it actually works out better to be carrying it around than massive amount of batteries.

There is a near perfect system as its called a hydrogen reformer!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7496331.stm

^ these are pretty good too.

 

[Hawk Tuah]

So am I right in thinking the fuel cell solution's by product is hydrogen and oxygen. The H2 solution burns hydrogen in a relativly traditional combustion engine.

Is anyone else thinking that the two put together would make a perfect hybrid vehicle?

 

[bam0]

So am I right in thinking the fuel cell solution's by product is hydrogen and oxygen. The H2 solution burns hydrogen in a relativly traditional combustion engine.

Is anyone else thinking that the two put together would make a perfect hybrid vehicle?

Internal combustion of Hydrogen leads to high NOx emissions, which in sunlight is turned into smog and nitric acid becoming acid rain, not exactly a good thing.

 

[House]

Without taking at "whole life" approach most enviromental argumnets are very badly flawed.
But you cant solve at total emmisons target by just shifting the emmisons round.

Think of it this way, We need steel yes? there is no sensible alternative to it for allot of day to day activites/roles. Making one tonne of steel creates around 1.75 tonnes of CO2 (quick google figure i think it might be light if you actually include all transport and the like). Concrete and Al are even worse as well before some says it.

When you include these manufacturing emmisons most new "CO2 saving" designs all of a sudden have VERY long payback times to even break even with exisiting tech, if they ever do.

 

[Clarkey]

Do you know what catalyst they are proposing for this? The only one I've heard of is platinum which is an exceedingly rare metal so that idea probably wouldn't scale very well.

why not? Platinum is already in catalytic converters fitted to every car now, and in the spark plugs of many, can't be that rare.

 

[Hawk Tuah]

Internal combustion of Hydrogen leads to high NOx emissions, which in sunlight is turned into smog and matric acid becoming acid rain, not exactly a good thing.

So how have BMW got over that?

 

[Dolph]

why not? Platinum is already in catalytic converters fitted to every car now, and in the spark plugs of many, can't be that rare.

It certainly is that rare.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum#Occurrence

Platinum is an extremely rare metal, occurring as only 0.003 ppb in the Earth's crust, and is 30 times rarer than gold. If all the world's platinum reserves were poured into one Olympic-size swimming pool, it would be just deep enough to cover one's ankles. Gold would fill more than three such pools.

The fact that only very small amounts are needed, and that it can be recycled, helps the auto industry with regards to catalytic convertors.