PBS Cars of the future

I saw the Alda special on Future Cars last night and I must say I wasn't terribly impressed (especially when the Big Three were almost exclusively touting diesel as their near term commitment) UNTIL the older gentleman (who invented Nickel metal hydride batteries) spoke about his solid state hydrogen fuel cell that could pack an energy density multiple times (?) that of the compressed gas version. The other tidbit of interesting information about this modded prius was the fact that it is still a hybrid, which seems totally plausible since a fuel cell has a warm up period that I doubt many would want to wait on. Now then I guess it's a matter of producing the liquid hydrogen, distribution...If you can get your hot hands on the last issue of Scientific American they break down the current pros and cons of a hydrogen economy and IMHO the net effects are deleterious when compared to the analysis of hybrid technology.

 

I really enjoyed that show. It was interesting to see Alda pressure the technical director of Toyota about why they are not producing more hybrid cars since they are so great. He seemed to say thet people are not really ready to change the criteria they use to buy a car - namely horsepower vs. fuel efficiency. The all-electric sports car with a 0-60 time of 4 sec. and a range of 300 miles was neat.
The part on Iceland was great. Here is a people out to make the best use of what resources they have in an efficient manner. A parallel could be drawn to the US if we were only to harness the productivity of our vast farmland to produce ethanol for vehicle fuel. Maybe it's just not high-tech enough to gain political attention, or Exxon-Mobil and Shell just can't bear to share the wealth with someone like Cargill or Archer-Daniels Midland. C'mon John Kerry - start a movement to help the American farmer and drivers by promoting ethanol!

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, since I can't remember where I heard this, but I think making ethanol from corn ends up being vastly more expensive than gasoline currently is. So it's not just a matter of the oil companies not wanting to share the market, it's just a matter of people buying whatever fuel is cheapest.

Although, I would pay at least a slight premium to use ethanol made from corn because it's at least sustainable....

Plus, I think I heard somewhere that producing ethanol in the quantities that gasoline is currently produced would be impractical.

 

ethanol is more expensive but more importantly, it just dont have the punch. that fact makes it unrealistic in any kind of mass market venture. the maintainence would be extreme.

ethanol has less than half the calories of gasoline creating a major problem with maintaining any kind of long term engine performance.

 

I recall an article in Scientific America a few years ago that did a breakdown on Ethanol from corn production. Irregardless of the cost, the energy balance was a net negative for ethanol. The primary benefit of Ethanol blending is reduced emissions rather than cost. I had hoped that the article was archived on the SciAm Website but couldn't find it.

Jon

 

I thought John1701a uses an ethanol (or some alternative) fuel mixture in his Prius.

 

I think hydrogen fuel is bogus for us to be spending large sums of money on when they haven't figured out the technology yet for mass vehicle distribution, but I did like the stand alone refilling stations that make their own fuel being supplied with power and water. I have to say, that that is pretty darn cool.

The prius couple with the solid hydrogen storage unit seems a little like snake oil to me. I'm having trouble putting my mind around that one.

Just my 2 cents. I did like the program though.

And I think Alan Alda pressured the Toyota guy on why there were putting out commercials sporting speed and power instead of fuel economy and environmental concerns. The queston was why didn't they make the Prius and say well, this is the future, there are no other options for you because we have decided this is the car for you. Toyota guy should have answered that people want options and that is what Toyota is giving them. This technology or a form of it will end up eventually in all the models. He wasn't a good PR person for them I think.

 

Ovshinsky is no flake. He invented the amorphous silicon photovoltaic cell and significant improvements to NiMH batteries such as those used in our Prii. If he says he's got a new high-density storage system for hydrogen then he probably does. (Note that he does not claim to have some solid form of pure hydrogen; metallic hydrogen is possible but no human has yet made or seen any.)

 

its not snake oil, just very new technology that does have a few bugs to work out which wont be a problem, then they have to convince the public the idea will work which will be a huge problem as demostrated by some on this forum. the fact that naysayers will have the billion dollar advertising engine of the oil companies behind them will make this new hydrogen storage technology all that much harder to accept.

 

I've been checking up on Ovshinsky and realize that he has brought some VERY impressive technology to the world. I'm not doubting he is smart and believes what he says and does at all; I'm just saying I don't understand it is all.

Somehow I can't figure out how adding a solid to a gas creates a solid easily and then yet it readily releases the gas as it is called upon. That is all. I'm not that smart you see.

 

actually the technology is not complicated at all. he even stated that the technology was old news. lead acid batteries release hydrogen and they are fairly solid.

the problem he has now is that the yield has been spotty. also there is no mention on how he gets the hydrogen into the tablets he had. That could be a coin flip as far as an evironmentally sound method of energy storage as all current hydrogen technologies are.

i read an article about a year ago about what he was doing and i wish i could find it now. unfortunately, i cant remember what magazine it was in. unfortunately he has done so much that a simple google search provides a lot of results.

 

oh oh! im in trouble again! one thing i did notice was that the hydrogen cars were dripping water out of the tail pipe. does that mean that my green friends will blame high humidity on these cars if they are produced.
ouch ouch i can feel those rocks bouncing off me aslready
:wink:

 

> I thought John1701a uses an ethanol (or some alternative) fuel mixture in his Prius.

I've been using E10 (10% ethanol) in my Prius for over 73,000 miles.

Last summer in my 2001 Prius, I averaged 50 MPG the entire duration. So obviously, I'm not taking that much of a performance loss due to the lower BTU. Now (which isn't even summer yet) in my 2004 Prius, I am averaging 54 MPG using E10.

Here in Minnesota, producing ethanol is just barely cost-effective. So it is a worthy cause helping our farmers out here while at the same time lowering emissions and lowering our dependence on imported oil.

 

but is a 10% solution going to do us any good? ethanol has proven impractical on its own.

 

hydrogen storage in a solid state is the arena of Palladium. A very expensive metal on it's own but capable of storing many times it's weight in hydrogen and releasing it in a gaseous state. do a google on palladium and read what is going on with it relating to hydrogen storage. Mind you price palladium on the metal exchange and you'll see why it's hardly practical from an economic standpoint. The hydrogen highway is still a dirt tract and will be for the rest of my lifetime. I've been hearing about it for at least 20 years and it' still no where on the map. my one cent.

 

Ethanol does use as much if not more energy in its production than it nets in its final useable state. If you look in your manuals, the Prius couldn't run on more than a 10% ethanol mix without damaging internal components, as alcohol is very corrosive. It's biggest advantage is help in lowering emissions, but I doubt it will be a substitute for gas anytime soon.
I think the "hydrogen fuel cell car" is a kind of red herring used by Bush and the Big Three to sound like they are doing something environmentally without having to cut the production of high profit low mileage SUV's. There is nothing wrong with working on hydrogen fueled vehicles, but not at the expense of ignoring the short term need for something NOW to reduce emissions and greehouse gases.
And, diesels running on bio-diesel are a viable part of the short term solution. A new diesel running on bio-diesel has emissions lower than the Prius in some categories while using a totally renewable, non Arab supplied, fuel source. Don't be too hard on diesels: we have a bad image of them partly because we have crappy high sulfur diesel fuel and have had poorly designed diesel engine vehicles thrust onto the market place. My partner's Jetta TDI running on biodiesel is certainly the environmental equivalent of my Prius, and he's getting very near the same milege I am.

 

Why does the ALL or NONE mindset surface routinely?

When discussing ethanol or bio-diesel, people focus on total replacement rather than just partial.

How come significant reduction of gas or traditional-diesel doesn't get more attention? After all, blends of both are already available and already proven effective.

I feel this is a extremely important thing to discuss, since fuel-cell acceptance requires the total replacement current fuel as well. And because the most feasible form for hydrogen to be available is still a total mystery, its importance should not be overlooked.