Hydrogen is all over the atmosphere?
Its 79% N2, 21% O2 and some random trace element. Yep, abundant as hell. I can tell you haven't taken a single engineering class.
With a proper fuel cell you can get hydrogen from a station in CA use it in the Honda, have the same mileage at the same cost as a gasoline driven car TODAY and the torque of a fucking tank.
Hydrogen doesn't need to be split from water by applying heat, it's abundant in free form as is all over the atmosphere and what we take will be replaced, the method is already there and called scrubbing.
It's not like this isn't available, but what use is it when no one wants one?
In about 50 years we will still be wondering whether it was a good idea while other nations produce them and we are happy if we can afford to buy what the current day third world thinks is cheap.
Very rare in the atmosphere means that it's only about 169 billion times as available for fuel as oil.
And do you know how much money it will cost take to separate hydrogen from all the other gases?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation
It will take a LOT of energy to get that small percentage of hydrogen out of the air. You're better off 10000x just using electrolysis.
And do you know how much money it will cost take to separate hydrogen from all the other gases?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_separation
It will take a LOT of energy to get that small percentage of hydrogen out of the air. You're better off 10000x just using electrolysis.
Ultimately, Hydrogen Fuel Cells are batteries. They need to be fueled somehow. You just don't ignore the laws of thermodynamics just because you have new shiny batteries.
Who the HELL is asking for a change of the laws of thermodynamics, the thing is that these kinds of fuel cells can store enough energy with a reasonable amount of hydrogen to make it a reasonable replacement for a combustion engine.
I don't know what you don't get...
Most intelligent people know that this is the way of the future, but i'm ok with the US sticking with the past, more money for the rest of us when we leave you in the next generation of the dark ages.
OK, i'll take your former post and this post in one sweep, i hope that is ok with your dumb arse.
First of all, hydrogen is VERY prevalent in the atmosphere, you are breathing it right now.
Second, the cost of fuel production is about the same as from sub ground-petrol production, you do realise that you can't just stick a straw into the ground and get petrol, right?
All in all, hydrogen is the fuel of the future since the fuel cells are very efficient.
Let me guess, you are still rooting for the SA king and his Taliban apprentice to take over the US? Perhaps the kissing of the Saudi Princes ring that every US President has done to date will be over?
But you'll rather kiss muslim arse and swallow their shit than even consider an alternate fuel source even though it's a proven one.
Don't like studies, they explain it just fine on top gear, you know how to type i'm sure, type that.
You don't know what you're talking about at all. Hydrogen concentration is only 1ppm in the atmosphere, it's not easy to get separate it out and it takes a lot of energy as that wikipedia article shows. Where do you think that energy comes from?
Methinks JohnOfSheffield doesn't know the difference between nitrogen and hydrogen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_atmosphere
Sorry, hydrogen is vanishingly rare in our atmosphere except as water vapor. There is basically no free hydrogen anywhere in the atmosphere until you get beyond the bounds of the actual fluid-described atmosphere (troposphere maybe?), the exceptions being hydrogen atoms fleetingly knocked free from molecules. The main source of hydrogen fuel is currently electrolysis, breaking the covalent bonds of water molecules with electrical arcs. This is done in homes in Norway with cheap machinery, costs roughly the equivalent of $7.50/gallon US. (Of course it's using electricity generated largely by burning oil.) Another potential source is hydrogen cracked by catalyst, but so far that's even more expensive than electrolysis.The most abundant gasses in the earths atmosphere are... come on, you can at least google it before telling me i'm wrong..
The cost of doing that is less than the cost of getting the oil, refining it into petrol and using it in a car.
Hydrogen is ready made fuel which packs about 180x the punch when used in a fuel cell as with Hondas car compared to petrol, it produces no emissions what so ever and it can even be used in combinations...
I'm not going to pretend i'm a scientist but if i'm not completely wrong the most abundant gas in our atmosphere on an atomic level is hydrogen.
Actually, any biologist knows that since if it wasn't, we would not exist.
Sorry, hydrogen is vanishingly rare in our atmosphere except as water vapor. There is basically no free hydrogen anywhere in the atmosphere until you get beyond the bounds of the actual fluid-described atmosphere (troposphere maybe?), the exceptions being hydrogen atoms fleetingly knocked free from molecules. The main source of hydrogen fuel is currently electrolysis, breaking the covalent bonds of water molecules with electrical arcs. This is done in homes in Norway with cheap machinery, costs roughly the equivalent of $7.50/gallon US. (Of course it's using electricity generated largely by burning oil.) Another potential source is hydrogen cracked by catalyst, but so far that's even more expensive than electrolysis.
One very interesting proposal is to break out the hydrogen from coal, similar to the World War II German gasification technology where they made various fuels (including jet fuel and AvGas) by cracking a coal slurry. The proposed tricks to make this economically feasible were of course carbon credits (from separating the CO2 and pumping it deep underground into storage between layers of rock) and using the excess hydrogen as chemical feedstock, but it occurred to me that a better use would be to take the excess hydrogen and either burn that as generation fuel, or as mobile fuel. However that might not be as economically feasible as chemical feedstock, else they would probably be proposing it. The Holy Grail of all this would of course be an economically feasible way to separate out the carbon, as carbon is extremely useful and becoming even more so, but currently there is no practical way to get mass produced carbon from carbon dioxide.
I think the point of fuel cell research right now is developing catalysts that are cheap but still last, our choices now being expensive rare earth metals (in great demand elsewhere) and inefficient, non-robust but common materials. We now have the technology to build hydrogen (or natural gas) storage tanks that actually hold more than do empty tanks, so assuming these materials can be economically scaled up and a long lasting, relatively cheap fuel cell can be mass produced, hydrogen cars will be quite (and quiet) practical. However we still face the loss of energy in the cycle, so either we'll need a LOT of generation (preferably clean) or a better way to break free hydrogen.I sincerely don't get Hondas and Califs calculations, at a 40% profit margin (which is lower than petrol but higher than ethanol) hydrogen can be provided for fuel cell cars which will drive an electric engine at a consumer cost that is today lower than using petrol.
Either that or i'm severely misinformed.
You'd think that filtering to HO would be better but it's too unstable i suppose, energy wise it would be a good thing though, wouldn't it?
The person that makes a commercially viable product of any kind, but especially an energy source, from CO2 will rank with Curie or Pasteur.I think the name of the guy who may have the answer to hydrogen fuel is Dr Nocera, at MIT. He used advanced cheap catalysts to use sunlight to produce hydrogen gas which can then power a fuel cell. It may be that a solar panel house will produce it's own electricity, heat and gas for the car free once the gear is paid for.
Also, the best way to make bio gas is to do it directly from CO2 with bacteria. This is now being commercially scaled up.
The person that makes a commercially viable product of any kind, but especially an energy source, from CO2 will rank with Curie or Pasteur.
I think the point of fuel cell research right now is developing catalysts that are cheap but still last, our choices now being expensive rare earth metals (in great demand elsewhere) and inefficient, non-robust but common materials. We now have the technology to build hydrogen (or natural gas) storage tanks that actually hold more than do empty tanks, so assuming these materials can be economically scaled up and a long lasting, relatively cheap fuel cell can be mass produced, hydrogen cars will be quite (and quiet) practical. However we still face the loss of energy in the cycle, so either we'll need a LOT of generation (preferably clean) or a better way to break free hydrogen.
My last chemistry class was thirty years ago and it's failing me, so I can't remember the properties of HO except that yes, it is very unstable. I'm not sure if it can be produced with less energy than pure hydrogen and oxygen anyway. The ideal thing for combustion would be water separation in the automobile into hydrogen and oxygen for immediate combustion, but unless there's a complete breakthrough in science that won't be possible, as any power source capable of doing so would almost certainly be better used simply powering the automobile. I can't remember if fuel cells benefit from extra oxygen, but it doesn't really matter; since fuel cells are inherently more efficient than IC, I doubt the added weight would ever pay off.