The Economist: Electric cars Difference Engine: Tailpipe truths

Not the same thing.

Note that the "electricity bleed" in the Prius is the small 12V starter battery running down if you leave the car parked for 2 weeks. The Hybrid System HV battery does NOT run down in 2 weeks, and the fuel in the Prius' tank sure as heck does not evaporate in 2 weeks.

The liquid hydrogen in the BMW leaking in 14 days means the fuel tank is drained. No such thing happens with the Prius.

 

No just that the pressure is too low. 1% a day, 100 days.

If you park in your garage, just hook into your home solar/hydrogen generator for a top off.

 

Semantics. If the pressure is too low, the car can't drive (at least not very far), and you need to refuel. For all intents and purposes, it's a drained tank.

No such thing happens to the fuel in the Prius tank in 2 weeks. Or the Prius HV Battery.

The "electricity bleed" happens to ALL cars that have a 12V lead-acid starter battery. It would probably happen to the BMW hydrogen car too if it has a 12V starter battery to power up the onboard computers / fuel cell drivetrain.

And since when does a home hydrogen generator generate liquid hydrogen? Last I checked that requires a cryogenic plant.

 

It accelerates with out power to keep it cold. That means in 14 days of sitting you have lost your $64 tank (8kg) of hydrogen. This is why honda is going with 5000psi tanks they leak less. A 3600psi tank of cng leaks much less than the hydrogen tank. If you are serious about an ice, perhaps you build a 10,000 psi tank and car that can burn cng or hydrogen. The cng is 1/4 the cost of ng produced hydrogen and there are many more fueling stations.

To make either of these worthwhile you should put it in a phev. Think of the prius phv versus the normal ice in a civic. That civic will burn a lot more fuel. Which brings us back to the fact that you need a plug to get to the most efficient car. This is why the economist is wrong with its incorrect facts from edmunds.

 

So what is it - empty in 14 days? Or empty in 100 days? Since BMW said 14 days, I'll take that and assume I lose 1/14th of the tank each day, that's quite a bit of loss. In fact, I could do my daily commute in my EV twice with that amount of energy.

Since we're talking about literally about vaporware here - I guess I'll just take your word for it. Never mind that my home solar system would put 2-3x as much usable energy into a battery as it would into a hydrogen tank.

 

Not even close (my bolding):

and

I know you like to try and hide Bush and the REpubs dismal environmental record, but Google keeps getting in the way.

 

A kilogram of hydrogen gas takes up 11940 liters, or 3152 gallons, at sea level. At 70MPa,the pressure of most car fuel tanks, it is still taking up 25.2L, or 6.65 gallons. That kilogram has 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

In a mass to mass comparison, hydrogen does have more energy. However, cars can't have multistory fuel tanks. Density is the primary concern. Methanol is the least energenic liquid fuel to be used in a car, and it can store 3 times the energy in the same space as compressed hydrogen.

Liquid hydrogen will about twice as much energy as the compressed, but requires additional container measures or is lost through venting. It can beat out CNG, at 226.8MJ, but the CNG is at much lower pressure, and has a less involved tanking system. Liquid fuels are still superior in energy density.

Yes, they are heavier, but tank weight can not be ignored. Remember, the numbers here are for 6.65 gallons. A full 30 gallon tank of gasoline weighs less than a compressed hydrogen tank good for 400 km.

 

You seem quite angry, and bent on a fhop rant. It goes against my better reason to respond to you directly at all since you seem to take this all so personally and politically. It does not really conform well to your political agenda. Certainly environmentally IMHO both parties have poor records.

But this was on the topic of electrification - hybrid, PHEV, and BEV, as well as hydrogen powered cars. You seem to be in violent agreement with me that funding things like the hydrogen highway and incentives to get fuel cells on the road are bad policy. You also might have missed the post where I said that the bush administration went along with CARB, GM, the governators, and other lobbiests plans on this. He even championed the idea. So your objection to me must be this was all hatched in the back room with only republicans and for that you googled from a partisan political blog. That seems like poor use of the internet, but at least I can point you to the original post in grist to provide the context -

What can we learn from Bush’s FreedomCar Plan? | Grist

Then you will note that after this was published the congress with or without the presidents help passed all these things, but most not until the second term. Higher cafe standards were passed under bush, and clarified and strengthened under obama. Tax credits were passed for green buildings, hybrid cars, then again for plug in cars. The bush administration greatly expanded ethanol and biofuels. Which means in context, the NRDC objections were all met. I disagree with the expansion of ethanol mandates and subsidies. I would have added that the tarrifs and subsidies should be removed as well as oil subsidies. I also agree with chu that fuel cell research should be funded, but not cars. There are still many democrats and republicans that reversed his cut of the budget.

Energy Secretary, Congress Collide Over Hydrogen Car Funds - WSJ.com

Bush no longer has his job and is no longer pushing for this money. GM has also since dropped out. Its these other people that need to have their minds changed, and the biggest directing of the funds are now Jerry Brown and Mary Nichols.

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009/06/nichols-20090619.html

Chu and IMHO that there may be a future for hydrogen vehicles its just not as bright as other technology. To get their fuel cells need to improve, that is why he advocated continuing research. The basic car is also an EREV which is adaptable to many technologies. I know you don't agree with funding these last two things, but you should at least be able to poke your head out of the fox hole and understand what I am advocating, and there are many in both parties that are not helpful in reducing pollution or oil use.

 

No. You only need to top off. Haven't lost the fuel you paid for and you only need a small boost to get you going. At two weeks you'd lose 14%.

Venting's a non-issue, only an issue for folks leaving their car at the airport or other remote location for over 2 weeks. If at home, just plug in to the home H2 generator that runs at night on sustainable solar/wind power.

 

And the same kilogram of gasoline just 47mj.

Hydrogen's energy density advantage JUMPS out at you.

Miles-Per-Kilogram (City/Highway/Combined) 60 / 60 / 60

5 kg of hydrogen in the 60 mpkg Honda FCX would be 300 mile range on one stock Quantum tank. My Ford Explorer was 325 range on 680 kg of gasoline.

Tank technology is fast evolving so you can pretty much pick your range.

 

yes, it sure is. what, just last year...the 1970s... we were going to have h2 cars within 10 years, energy too cheap to meter, etc....some of them there h2 cars could even fly!

 

And that man would land on the moon and we'd have electric cars...oh...wait.

That good things did not happen in the past due to lack of vision is no reason they should not happen in the future.

Keep moving forward.

 

True, but in your case the important point is that wishful thinking is ... wishful thinking.

 

See, was that so hard ? Be honest, and I won't have to keep calling you out for spin.

There you go, spinning again. While any politician tends to vote to bring dollars home, the overiding party line of the repubs compared to the Democrat party line is pro-oil, anti-environment.

I try to keep the record straight on Bush because those who forget history's mistakes repeat them. Bush was not an anomaly, he pushed the mainstream republican energy and environment agenda. If the repubs gain power, we will get more of the same.

I will say this for Bush: he was an astute politician. For every dollar he sent to the oil lobby, he was careful to send a penny to alternative energy and environmental lobbies. At the time I thought he was just buying off the latter groups cheaply, but he also gave ammunition to people like you who want to obfuscate the overarching policy.

 

I never said anything different. Freedom car was a waste of money, but mainly of time that could have been used to do things more productively. Just as pngv under Clinton/Gore. We don't need a $100,000 fuel cell car or a $100,000 efficient but high polluting diesel. I am equal opportunity, and non-partisan. Obama wants to kill the thing, but CARB, Jerry Brown, and many republican and democrats won't let it die.

As I said I thought I would regret responding directly to you, and here you go again. Please just take it to fred's house of pancakes, and stop following me around. This is supposed to be news not politics.

So my support for steven chu's position on hydrogen vehicle funding sent you off into a partisan tissy? Please stop. There is a foreign cartel that controls oil, its called OPEC. Environmental reforms don't get passed well by democrats or republicans. There are coal states and oil states and ethanol states all wanting their piece of pork. I wish it were not so, and some better energy policies and environmental policies would be passed. This is not the place to discuss it, and I doubt I could ever have an intelligent discussion with you about reform.

I never voted for bush for governor or president. But lets keep things a little clear, there is a great deal of partisan politics stopping honest independents from getting things done. Its not republicans against democrats, its environmentalists against polluters. The polluters and the environmental pacs have the money, and those of us that want progress to get off oil and lower pollution seem to always lose. This is true whether a democrat or a republican is in the whitehouse. Of the last 3 administrations (obama/biden, bush/cheny, clinton/gore), the current one seems to be doing the best as far as energy policy, but they still are doing a poor job.

 

If fuel is venting to the atmosphere, how is it not lost?

The math is off. 680kg is 1496 pounds.
The Escape hybrid has a 15 gallon tank. That's 41.327kg of gasoline.
The tank in the FCX is around 195kg.
The Escape's tank, with gas, might top out at 100 pounds, and takes up a little over 15 gallons of space.
The FCX's tank, with hydrogen, is over 400 pounds, and takes up over 30 gallons of space. Switching to an alcohol powered fuel cell would save weight, space, and not reduce range.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/compressedtank_storage.pdf

 

Originally Posted by ProximalSuns
That good things did not happen in the past due to lack of vision is no reason they should not happen in the future.

Nope. My oil use is 75% that of average American. I'll meet my personal Kyoto standard of 80% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2050. I vote for representatives who advocate smart energy policy. Personal action and public action.

Decided what the heck, even if the country is doomed to go down the road to ruin as far as energy efficiency, oil use, oil wars, climate change...I'll sleep better knowing did my bit in the oil wars of the late 20th and early 21st century.

 

Sorry to hear your math is off.

5 kg of hydrogen (usable hydrogen in Quantam tank) at 60 miles per kilogram (Honda Insight) is 300 miles.

5 kg of gasoline is only going to get you 88.7 miles in a Prius which only gets 17 miles per kilogram.

Hope that helps.

 

As usual, you are missing the point. Trollbait included the weight of the respective tanks.

As a separate issue, he compared respective tank volumes.

 

Not quite. He failed to read that I was comparing my EXPLORER which had a range of 325 miles on a tank. He went into the ditch pretty fast once he made that wrong turn.

The 5kg Quantum tank would run the Honda FCX 300 miles, 5 kg x 60 miles per kg = 300 miles.

5kg of gasoline only gets me 88.7 miles on my Prius.

Range on my Explorer was not much better than the FCX so it is a usable range for a vehicle. Adding a second Quantum tank (10kg/600 miles) or a larger Quantum tank (pick your desired range and work back from 60 miles per kilogram) works.