Fuel Cell - what environment impact will it have?

Ain't gonna happen. Fuel cells are a boondoggle to divert attention (and money) away from renewables.

 

interesting. multiple post on this. i'll re post:

i see a lot more things turning green. this question has been on my mind for a long time now. I'm glad someone finally posted it. I wonder what kind of bacterias and such will be produced from all this extra water being put into the air. will it have a cooling effect? if so.. how much?

of course... i always wonder if our hybrids have an effect. I question this one fairly too. sure.. we all drive hybrids.. are the smog levels dropping?

 

The use of hydrogen powered fuel cells would have an insignificant impact on the environment. A bigger concern would be how the hydrogen is going to be created. If it is by electrolysis and nuclear or renewable power sources, it won't be too bad. However, the favored method is to process natural gas, and that could still pose a problem with greenhouse gases.

 

we dont have the resources OR the raw materials to put that many fuel cells on the road using current or foreseeable technology. the platinum requirement is simply too heavy to implement this on a widespread basis.

 

I own a fuel-cell car. It's big enough for a mouse to ride on, if you could get the mouse to stand still on it. It's a cool toy, but so expensive and inefficient as to demonstrate convincingly the impracticality of fuel cells as a means of transportation.
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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(8AA @ Apr 5 2006, 05:25 PM) [snapback]235579[/snapback]</div>

Actually, these two sentences are the same answer. Hydrogen *would* have a significant impact BECAUSE of the energy needed to create it. I'm sure everybody in this thread understands that H2 is NOT an energy source, but an energy sponge. We need to make gobs of energy in order to later get a little bit of energy back out of the H2. The general public, however, understands H2 to be this awesome, renewable "source" of energy that is just EVERYWHERE for the taking.

Bad if it takes 4x the energy than otherwise would have been needed! Do we want 4x the nuclear plants? 4x the dams, etc?

My biggest issue here is that we already have cars that run on CNG, and they're great cars. And they are WAY more efficient and will always be WAY cheaper than first turning the NG into H2 and using a FC stack... so why the heck bother?

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 6 2006, 07:14 AM) [snapback]235789[/snapback]</div>

I recently attended a talk on the "Future of FCV's" [add echo for best effect]. The speaker brought along one of these things, and could not make it work. I suggested that he add two batteries for 50c, and that it would work just great.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dipper @ Apr 4 2006, 01:30 PM) [snapback]234788[/snapback]</div>

That's my fool-cell "discussion killer" question... because the answer is a very big YES here in Minnesota.

Every winter we have problems on the roads caused by tailpipe drips and vapor creating ice. The exhaust from a fuel-cell vehicle would be considerably worse, for two reasons. The quantity of water is greater and the temperature is hotter. Both of those factors will most definitely contribute to increased ice.

Making roads more slippery is something those supporting fuel-cells do not want to talk about.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Apr 6 2006, 01:10 PM) [snapback]235854[/snapback]</div>

Iceland would like to become the "Kuwait of the North" by harnessing geothermal energy to create hydrogen which would then be shipped around the world. Of course they could use the geothermal energy to produce only electricity, but it's unlikely that it would be pratical to transmit that electricity from Iceland to California. Hydrogen, however, you can put on a ship.

Drilling into a hot volcano

So, you can continue to utilize pollution belching coal and Natural Gas power plants to generate your electricity to charge your batteries, or you can use nice clean geothermally produce hydrogen and a Fuel Cell instead.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Apr 6 2006, 11:01 AM) [snapback]235880[/snapback]</div>

Transmitting electricity from Iceland to CA would be be pretty silly. ALMOST as silly as importing H2 beween the two areas. Would likely be more practical to fill the ship with batteries, charge them, and discharge the power here. Honestly, transporting H2 by ship would be insane. The poor energy density will kill you. Compress it? Freeze it? You've just used up most of your energy.

This again??? From what I can tell, it would be far cheaper to install wind or solar generators on everybody's home here in the USA, than to import H2 on container ships (something that's never been done, to the best of my knowledge). H2 is NOT easy to transport as you seem to imply. And in this scenario, we're yet again dependent on another country for our energy? Who here thinks that's a good thing? Show of hands.

I don't belch pollution to charge my batteries, Marlin! My energy comes from the PV system on my roof! Something that everybody who could afford imported H2 could do for themselves. We can (and do!) produce clean power here. We just have to see the need, and get it done before our cheap oil runs out.

 

Fuel cells and vehicles are 20 to 30 years off, at best. We need convergence of photovoltaics, improved battery storage and other efficiency improvements in PHEVs first. We also lack an infrastructure to refuel FC vehicles and we don't want hydrogen produced from fossil fuels - we want sustainable, renewable, self-generated hydrolysis that derives hydrogen from water.

 

The fact that production FCV's are still so far off brings up another important aspect that is relevant to this thread. Even though we don't yet have FCV's available to us, they are already effecting us negatively. How? Well, the *promise* of fuel cells is what precipitated the demise of the Electric Cars that were on the road already. The car makes didn't have time to fool with those! The makers tell us that they are spending all their time and money on something that won't help us with our energy or pollution issues for a generation or so. They asked nicely if they could get out of the ZEV requirement NOW for the promise of super-duper FCVs much later. The answer, unfortunately, was "you bet!" And so ended the ZEV mandate in CA.

We could have had Battery EVs in large quantities by now, but instead, we'll continue with our gas cars until somebody figures out a way to drop the price of a FCV by approximately 99% (no exaggeration).

So yes... FCV's are already negatively effecting our environment, our foreign policy and our health. And they don't even exist (in production) yet! Neat.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Apr 6 2006, 10:29 AM) [snapback]235865[/snapback]</div>

Hmm, I live in San Diego so I don't get in contact with icy roads, but how do higher water temperatures contribute to increased ice?


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Apr 6 2006, 02:39 PM) [snapback]235992[/snapback]</div>

Do busses count as "Vehicle?" I work at ISE Corporation, which is working on some prototype fuel cell busses. They may not be the panacea, but they put food on my table.

Personally I feel that Fuel Cells would work better for larger vehicles, like busses and 18-wheelers, and electric for personal vehicles. That's because of the infrastructure needed to fuel a fuel cell.

 

How do said busses do in really cold weather?
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<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Apr 6 2006, 01:10 PM) [snapback]235854[/snapback]</div>

One of the things that the guy from the Earth Day 2004 speech said was that electrolysis needs clean water, something that is getting scarcer as time goes on so you'd also need to expend energy cleaning the water. As I recall, he said that hydrogen fuel cells would cause a lot more pollution than the gasoline engines that they'll supposedly replace.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Apr 6 2006, 02:42 PM) [snapback]235936[/snapback]</div>

darelldd...I agree that we all should have solar panels on our roofs...that is a no brainer. But what have you heard about using the power of the ocean to produce H2 along our coasts? Or electricity for that matter. We have an untapped potential of our oceans to produce energy (I'm not talking about that black goo).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JackDodge @ Apr 28 2006, 10:39 AM) [snapback]246730[/snapback]</div>

Yes, my toy fuel cell car requires distilled water. Interesting point. But moot, I think, since the fuel cells themselves are prohibitively expensive to produce.

How about we build wind powered EVs? You put a windmill on top of the car. The car's forward motion turns the windmill, which produces electricity to drive the electric motor. In a tailwind, the windmill would stand still, so then you'd put up a sail instead.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Apr 6 2006, 10:10 AM) [snapback]235854[/snapback]</div>

My toy fuel cell car works very well. Direct sunlight, however, produces hydrogen so slowly, that it is not practical, and I put it under a lamp running a 100W light bulb instead. The speaker you mentioned just needed a brighter source of light. But while the toy works, it also demonstrates how inefficient and how expensive the concept is.

In my opinion fuel cells are a boondoggle intended to divert attention from renewable energy.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hobbit @ Apr 27 2006, 08:24 PM) [snapback]246449[/snapback]</div>

We're dealing mainly with ICE/Ultracap hybrid in terms of cold weather. We made a vehicle for the military that went to Alaska for testing. At the moment the Fuel Cell ones are in So Cal.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(eyeguy13 @ Apr 29 2006, 11:01 AM) [snapback]247230[/snapback]</div>

I'm all for any way that makes electricity cleanly. With the same energy input, you can typically make way more electricity than the equivalent energy potential in H2. So I see no reason to waste resouces on H2, regardless of how "cleanly" the power is made.

We've been talking about using wave and tidal power for many, many years. Not much is used, however, for many reasons. One of the biggies against it is the harsh environment. And for tidal, there are few places that have a big enough tidal difference to be useful- and most of those are already tapped. There's energy everywhere, we just have to figure out how best to tap it.


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Apr 29 2006, 08:46 PM) [snapback]247425[/snapback]</div>

I'll assume and hope you're kidding! This would work as well as putting generators in all the wheels, and constructing the universe's first perpetual motion machine.