The Economist: Electric cars Difference Engine: Tailpipe truths

Um...maybe I didn't express myself very well. I was thinking that eliminating all subsidies and grants to ALL forms of energy - coal, oil, hydrogen, solar, etc - and counting in ALL externalities (since to do otherwise is merely an accounting trick that simply ignores true costs) would make electricity from renewable sources the clear winner. The only reason oil is 'winning' now is because the price is held artificially low. Whether petroleum and hydrogen finish a distant third and fourth doesn't really matter.

Plus, the fact that it's so-called 'left-wing' thinkers who are calling for a free market solution shows just how slanted the playing field is.

Is that what you disagree with? Or were you thinking more in terms of an oil/hydrogen comparison?

 

Because you keep using volume and not weight. You need to think about energy a bit differently since hydrogen is most powerful fuel available based on weight. It's why it's rocket fuel.

If you flipped it around using weight it would be 54 m per gallon of gasoline equivalent. 7 lbs of hydrogen having 3 times the energy of 7 lbs (1 gallon) of gasoline.

Those are the foundational drivers. You can't make a hydrogen purse out of a gasoline ear.

That's why the super job BMW and Honda did in building two cool hydrogen cars is to be applauded.

 

Low Cost, High Efficiency, High Pressure Hydrogen Storage
DoE Review February 8th, 2005Mark J. Warner, P.E.
Principal Engineer Quantum Technologies, Inc. Irvine, CA

GM purchased Quantum for their hydrogen tank technology.

 

The US keeps a full aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf 24/7/365. Sometimes two. How many billion dollars does THAT cost? How do you propose to eliminate this subsidy?

EDIT: O, IC. It appears that we are in violent agreement with one another.

 

You may want to scrutinize that idea. Certainly it is no easy task to price in externalities. Hill will want to have oil pay for the military, I would rather have it pay for its health and global warming and scarcity, and simply cut the military budget. You may then get relative prices like they are in Japan or Germany, and they still use gasoline and diesel for the majority of transportation, they simply use less of it. Even if externalities are priced in, but the government just pisses the money away, then this is not good for the economy China has a CCS running on a coal plant for about 18 months, and the pricing of that electricity would be much less than their subsidized solar. In the US natural gas and wind wiould make the majority of electricity, and solar would stay at its less than 1%. Coal, Nuclear, and Solar are the most subsidized versus their externality related cost. Now since R&D has been done, PHEVs may be the most cost effective if you count all externalities. These likely would be able to run renewables like methanol and/or methanol or natural gas.

I've seen environmentalist want non-subsidised costs but never a left winger. Do you have an example for me?

I was thinking in terms of oil versus hydrogen. A gasoline phev is going to cost less and may produce lower ghg levels than a fuel cell vehicle or an ice hydrogen vehicle. The electricity will be less efficient unless the hydrogen is all from natural gas. Renewable electricity is more than twice as efficient in a phev. In the little video clip I put up, gm has even backed away from hydrogen and they along with honda were the ones pushing it with carb. They estimated a hydrogen vehicle would cost them about $400,000 versus the $40,000 the volt is costing. Imagine all the prius phvs, volts, energis, leafs, and teslas we could be running for each hydrogen car.

 

Hello!! This is 2012. They ended the BMW7h prototype in 2009. As noted, lack of government support on infrastructure was a key reason and CA just started moving ahead with that to support the Honda FCX. Fast forward to 2011.

America’s first pipeline-fed, retail hydrogen fueling station opened in Torrance, California, within Los Angeles county on Tuesday. The station will provide hydrogen for fuel cell and hybrid vehicles in the area. It was built through a joint effort by Toyota, Air Products and Shell alternative energies, with funding from the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The station’s first customer was the owner of a Honda FCX Clarity.

Notice that our very own Prius maker Toyota is now in the mix. I wonder what they are up to...hmmm.

 

Free hydrogen isn't used in rocket fuel because of its density.

A kilogram of hydrogen gas takes up 11940 liters, or 3152 gallons, at sea level. At 70MPa, it is still taking up 25.2L, or 6.65 gallons. That's 123MJ of energy.

The same amount of gasoline, in a lighter and less bulky container, has 856.8MJ.
Diesel = 939.96
Biodiesel = 831.6
Ethanol = 604.8
Butanol = 735.84
Methanol = 393.12
E10 = 836.136
E85 = 646.38

 

Yes, california got a lot of federal money and built 24 out of the 100 hydrogen fueling stations 18 have closed because of lack of cars, leaving 6. Watch the video I posted and tell me who is going to buy these 50,000 subsidised cars. From your link

There are now over 20,000 plug-ins with numbers rapidly rising. In the mean time hydrogen vehicles are being taken off the road. What do you think will sell more a rav4 bev or that hylander hydrogen monstrosity? I would expect that each toyota fuel cell will cost toyota as much as 10 prius phvs and 5 rav4 bevs to produce.
They now have a new plan to get to 100 fueling stations. What are the odds that in 2020 there are less than 20 open? I would say its close to a sure thing. The hydrogen lobby has bought a lot of California politicians including 2 CARB chair people and two governors. The governator got a hydrogen powered hummer. How is that for symbolism for purchasing votes? The previous carb chairman got a cushy job lobbying for the hydrogen. I don't know what mary nichols and jerry brown are being bribed with, but odds are its not ethical.

I'll leave you with one of the comments about the carb chairperson.
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/02/arb-chairman-ch.html

She is more dangerous than clueless though.

 

"Yes, Lucy WILL keep pulling the football out from Charlie Brown, as long as he's gulible enough to keep trying to kick it.
Ergo ... 'The Hydrogen Hoax'"

This is a classic quote. and truer words are far and few between.

 

redacted

 

Let's not forget the 'freedom car' program. How much money did GM suck out of the Feds for this hydrogen car ?

If you are looking for bi-partisan idiocy, try ethanol.

Btw, I was not saying that hydrogen cars cannot be built; I was saying they are idiotic.

 

Free hydrogen is not used anywhere. Liquid hydrogen being the most powerful fuel by weight is used in everything from rockets to cars.

 

I'm not sure on each partner. There was $2b allocated. The bush administration shifted to support plug ins (BEVs and PHEVs), then obama administration cut hydrogen funding in half. Some of the money likely has been used in the plug in initiatives. Bush seemed to support any alternative fuel in his second term, but the big one was expanding ethanol. Chu wanted to cut it more but California (governator and carb chair person nichols) lobbied for the still high level. Schwarzenegger and director of CARB Lloyd along with GM lobbied vigorously for fredom car and hydrogen and fuel cell subsidies. Lloyd later became director of the California Fuel Cell Partnership. GM gave Schwarzenegger a hydrogen hummer. If you follow the money it is CARB and the california governor (Schwarzenegger, Lloyd, Nichols, now Jerry brown) that have pushed funding so hard. Lloyd was pushing before bush was elected, and they are still scamming the obama administration. GM was also a big proponent, they have since dropped out, as has ford. Both will do as little as possible to fulfill queen mary's fuel cell mandate. Oil companies that many accused of being in favor of hydrogen are now suing the state of California over it.

 

Weight its not really as much of an issues here as in rockets. a few pounds makes a difference when one has to lift it into orbit. On ground a car weight is a second-or-third order impact (especially with regen). (And again the FCX is compressed not liquid!).

The MPGe is not about volume or mass.. and in fact I computed it for hydrogen using energy per kg. But the point is the amount of fuel used and the energy stored therein. It would EXACTLY the same if we used mass and not volumes. The cars used a certain amount of fuel, it has both volume and mass, and in that volume/mass is a fixed amount of energy. That is what goes into MPGe computations.

I can applaud many things.. if no one pushes the envelope we don't learn. All I learned from BMW h7 is one can make a high-performance hydrogen pig. The FCX is a good feet of engineering, but that does not make it viable or energy efficient choice. Its good engineering in the car, but in a few decades the other items might catch-up. If they had made a EREV with Fuel cell extender, I'd have been all over it. Battery for 85% of my miles and H2 for the others would be a good mix.

 

You have completely missed the earlier post which shows how liquid hydrogen is completely impractical for cars - most of it will evaporate and vent before you can
use it all. Do NOT store that car in your garage!

The Honda FCX does NOT use liquid hydrogen - it uses compressed hydrogen which does not suffer from the leakage issues liquid nitrogen suffers from.

That does not mean there aren't other issues with hydrogen to contend with!

 

This is from a priuschat member when CARB went full on stupid for fuel cells.
CARB ruling 2003

Note since this was written 9 years ago, BEVs and PHEVs have progressed. FCEV are not close to being commercially viable.

 

Actually weight has been the single biggest factor in mileage increase but we digress.

In regard to hydrogen the point is the 7lbs of hydrogen has roughly three times the energy of a 7lbs (1 gallon) of gasoline. Measuring mileage by the gallon is so 20th century.

Miles Per Kilogram City/Combined/Highway 60/60/60

 

That was not the case in the actual cars in real world application.

Honda and BMW both note venting of the tank. In the BMW's case with the pure liquid, 14 days of storage before the pressure is too low (tanks not empty) which is interesting because a lot of folks have trouble with the electricity bleed in Prius if it sits for two weeks.

Hydrogen dissipates in the air so quickly and the venting amount so miniscule (1% per day) you could hold the family picnic with the grill on top of the car and no issues.

Much safer fuel than gasoline.