Hydrogen Highway? Truth be told.

And I hope they do continue in that direction. I inquired with them not too long ago about when they would come out with something 'more affordable', and they responded (quite promptly, I might add) that they are still in 'concept' for a planned 2010 sedan. I'm rooting for them.

 

I just had a thought. If I can't separate hydrigen and oxygem in my car fast enough to get me around, how many hydrogen plants will have to be built to supply the equivilent amount of cars on the road today? Asuming they were all hydrogem fuel cell cars.

 

First: conservation cannot generate power;

second: Alternative "renewable" sources are not transportable; (may be viable with substantial power storage advances but the down size is the environmental impact of window and solar is astronomical when applied on the scale needed to power the humans)

Third: no carbon based fuel can be produced in sufficent amounts to satisfy power needs; (ie biofuel and ethanol, unless you want even more of the rainforests burnt down and more people starving)

Fourth: Aluminium used to be more expensive than gold until a new refining process was developed;

Fifth: H2 is one of the most abundant elements in the UNIVERSE! why not develop the technology to use this resource.

 

Hydrogen plant as in
1) Natural Gas Reforming Plant? (Don't know since we do not have enough natural gas to supply all cars.)
2) Nuclear Powered Electrolysis Plant? (Zero)
3) Coal Powered Electrolysis Plant? (Zero)
4) Fusion Powered Electrolysis Plant? (Zero)

The zero part is easy to understand. Only someone who likes to give away money would build an electric plant and then throw away ~60% of the electricity to make H2 with the same kWh content.

 

Environmentally speaking, if by converting into hydrogen gives the car a much larger range, I would gladly give away ~60% of the energy, due to conversion, IF . . . and that is a BIG IF . . . the source and use are non-polluting.

If you are talking about coal, oil, natural gas, or any other carbon based source, NO THANKS!

If you are talking about non-polluting solar or nuclear, I'm all for it. Even if it is only 25% efficient, like gasoline ICE engines, it's still 100% non-polluting!

 

Well, I'm pretty sure you couldn't have a little refinery in your car making gas fast enough for you to get around either. But maybe you could.

 

I think this is a very interesting report:

http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/docs/cs_central_coal_gasification.doc

The most interesting part to me is the "well-to-wheels" efficiency calculation (in BTUs/mi):

2005 Gas ICE: 5900
2005 HEV: 4200
2005 FCV: 5100
2030 FCV: 3200

I think the most interesting part of this table is that they omit BEVs and PHEVs, not to mention that they say current FCVs are considerably less efficient than current HEVs. If you take the data from this DOE assesment of the 1998 NimH RAV4 EV and the 1999 NimH EV1, you come up with some interesting numbers as well:

http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/fsev/eva/toyrav98.pdf
http://avt.inl.gov/pdf/fsev/eva/ev1_eva.pdf

RAV4EV Grid-to-Wheels: 432Wh/mi = 1474 BTU/mi
GM EV1 Grid-to-Wheels: 373Wh/mi = 1273 BTU/mi

Now to be completely fair, we have to apply a Well-to-Grid efficiency factor, which as far as I can tell is today in the realm of 50-60% For centralized renewables this could easily approach 70-80%, and for de-centralized (ie neighboorhood solar, wind etc) could be 90-95%. (basically battery efficiency to smooth out power delivery).

How sad is it that 10 yrs ago major car manufacturers began production of vehicles that were 2-3 times more efficient than a Prius, and 50-100% more efficient than what the government predicts fuel cell vehicles will be in 20+ yrs after untold billions or even trillions in investment?

Rob

 

The big problem with this way of thinking, is that inefficient pretty much by definition means dirty or expensive or both. The problem is the same one faced by anyone considering putting solar panels on their roof. For every $1 you spend improving the energy efficiency of your home, you save about $3 on the cost of your solar panels. For Hydrogen, the "cheap" way to make it is from coal. Not exactly clean. The "clean" way to make it is electrolysis. This is about 5-9 times less efficient than just putting the electricity in batteries and driving an EV. If you're using standard power, that means 5-9 times more pollution. If you're talking renewable, your solar array or wind farm size and cost just went up 5-9 times (and people already think they are too expensive).

Strangely enough, the solution to the energy crisis will probably be much more about improving energy efficiency than finding some magic clean cheap fuel source. Funny how you never hear anyone talk about that

rob

 

I would heartily agree. You should also remind everybody, everything improves also. So not only would other technologies improve but current technologies also improve. Will the electric motor stay the same over then next 10 years or even the lowly ICE? Will the battery stay the same? Or a combination of 2 technologies that improve like ultra capacitors and batteries? How about tires and of course the software? All of these continuously improve.

 

Partially agree. I bet there is little additional efficiency to be gotten out of future ICEs. Likewise, unless you start talking superconducting electric motor/generators, there is little room for increased efficiencies. However, batteries and capacitors have quite a lot of room for improvement

 

Well, most of them could be about half the size they are now. That's a big efficiency gain right there. And pairing them with electric motors, as in hybrids, takes advantage of the strengths of each.

 

listened to an interesting SciAm podcast a few weeks back when they talked about a project to provide 67% of transportation energy and 33% of overall energy needs for the entire country by setting up solar arrays in the southwestern desert.

the logistics are massive yes, but so is supplying 33% of all our energy needs. the array would consist of photovoltaics, and thermal collectors, a new DC power grid for transporting energy over very long distances, and about 17 sites covering a total of 49,000 square miles....

yes, that is a lot of real estate, but all this land is considered un-improveable and valueless. also, it would take up less than 20 % of the land in the area that is considered worthless.

a proposal, with the applicable backing of the government in tax incentives for private businesses says we could have this in place by 2050. by 2100 with geo, water, wind, etc... we could cover 99% of energy needs (they feel that some combustion type energy will always be needed for certain types of applications)

besides maximizing solar resources by putting the collectors in areas that get the most solar radiation, we are also utilizing land that is essentially good for nothing else.

granted, all POV's would have to be electric, but what is wrong with that? its not that electrics dont work or fit our needs, its simply no one wants to build them... got too much oil stock i guess.

there are some relatively small technical hurdles, but the biggest hurdle is the oil stock question... solve that one and all the rest will fall easily into place

 

Tesla will accept your money now. But production of the cars has not yet begun. So I would not say they're "selling" them yet. I think just about the only folks selling EVs now and actually delivering them are Zap (the Xebra) and maybe the Meyers Motors NMG and a whole slew of NEVs.

Because it's not a "resource"!!! It's just a carrier. Electrons are even more abundant than hydrogen. So let's "develop" electrons (i.e. electricity) instead!

The real issue is not carriers. The real issue is energy, and hydrogen is no more a source of energy than are electrons.

 

Well, not really. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. It also basically does not exist in its natural form on earth. Because it is so reactive it is almost always bound onto something. Unfortunately breaking it off that something requires a fair amount of energy, making it fairly expensive, dirty, or both.

DOE estimates are that it will cost over $500 billion to create a hydrogen infrastructure large enough to accommodate 40% of light duty vehicles in the US. Light duty vehicles I believe account for ~50% of transportation energy usage, which I believe is only 2/3 of our overall energy usage. So for only $500B we can supply 20% of our overall transportation energy needs! Of course thats just infrastructure, you still have to develop, produce, and purchase the fuel cells, cars, and fuel. Those are still 10-20 years out in commercially viable volume production.

On the flip side, the DOE estimates the existing electrical grid could support nighttime charging of 180 million light duty vehicles. So for $0 you could cover 42% of the countries transportation energy needs and its ready to go today. All we need is a car with a plug (like the ones they were making 10 yrs ago)

Given that Electric Vehicles are already considerably cleaner & more efficient than fuel cell vehicles, and require no major infrastructural changes can you imagine where we would be in if we took that $500B (or $1.05T to cover the same 42% of transportation energy) plus all the money being spent on fuel cells & hydrogen and invested it in batteries, renewable energy and advanced materials?

Rob

 

Correct! This is another way of saying what I said: Hydrogen is a carrier, not a source of energy!

Or like my Zap Xebra.

Where we'd be is no profit for oil companies. And since oil companies (along with big business in general) own our legislators and executive leaders, it's easy to understand why the only 4-passenger electric car you can buy new today comes from China. And it only goes 40 mph. And would be unsafe if it went faster.

 

there is a proposal that ONLY harnesses solar in photovoltaics and thermal panels... a massive complex in 17 sites covering 53,000 square miles could provide 69% of the TOTAL energy usage in the US and can completely be up and running in 15 years, with the first sites going online in as little as 4 years.

53,000 square miles sounds like a lot, but if placed in the southwestern US (where there is over 400,000 square miles of "useless" land) it would be putting to use land that has no other value and being in an area where solar radiation is most prevalent and reliable.

the kicker is that to transport the energy from the southwest thru out the US, a DC power grid would have to be implemented. even with that extra expense, the estimated return on the investment would take less than 25 years. maintenance costs are significantly lower...
there would be nearly no transportation cost (verses up to 10% for gasoline) and who could possible compute the dollar value of the health benefits of our children when pollution is eventually reduced by up to 90% in dense urban areas?

add to that a relatively large (since there is nearly no money currently invested) project going on in Eastern Washington to harness geothermal energy which is done by pumping water into the ground where hot rocks lie relatively close to the surface (geothermal energy is available EVERYWHERE, but obviously much easier to tap into in some places than others) then capturing the water, running it thru an exchanger to create steam.

geothermal energy is a 24/7 supply and would be a perfect compliment to the solar supply.

 

Why is that? Couldn't the DC from the photovoltaics be converted to AC? I thought that was relatively easy to do nowadays. Certainly easier and cheaper than long-distance DC. I thought that electric power could not be sent long distances on DC. Isn't that why Tesla's method replaced Edison's?

Trivia: Edison invented the electric chair to demonstrate how dangerous Tesla's AC was, in an unsuccessful attempt to promote the adoption of his own DC method.