hydrogen fuel cells

[quantus]

http://hondacorporate.com/fcx/

Cars running on fuel cells are already here.

Yeah, but the problem with fuel cells is that you have to distribute their fuel somehow. Seems easier to me to carry around gasoline than a canister compressed hydrogen. If you thought that gasoline tank trailers made good explosions, wait 'til you see what a tanker of compressed hydrogen looks like

Oh, has anyone done an environmental study of what all this extra water vapor will do to weather patterns?

[Jonathan]

Yeah, but the problem with fuel cells is that you have to distribute their fuel somehow. Seems easier to me to carry around gasoline than a canister compressed hydrogen. If you thought that gasoline tank trailers made good explosions, wait 'til you see what a tanker of compressed hydrogen looks like

Oh, has anyone done an environmental study of what all this extra water vapor will do to weather patterns?

So, there's three possibilities for hydrogen storage. There's the simple one, compressed tanks of hydrogen gas. This is annoying because tanks sturdy enough to hold lots of gas under pressure are very heavy. Yes, the tanks are dangerous, but no more dangerous than a tank of gas or a tank of compressed natural gas which is what these natural gas busses run on. There's the moderately complex one, liquid hydrogen tanks. The problem is hydrogen doesn't become liquid except at very low temperatures. So you have a problem with refrigeration/insulation and still the thing with the pressure. Then there's the nifty one, new materials which soak up and release hydrogen like sponges. This one requires the most research and technology, but is probably the best bet in the long term. Current efforts are working towards achieving that magic cost-effective density of hydrogen storage.

Some American scientists have raised a red flag over concerns about free hydrogen leaking out during transport and storage of a national hydrogen pipeline. Specifically, if hydrogen were to accumulate in significant levels, it would all naturally float up and hit the ozone layer, and react, thus making holes in the ozone all over again. That is by no means a settled question, as there are some leaps: we don't know the level of leakage would occur; we don't know if hydrogen will stay gaseous in large quantities or if it would get sucked up in some natural terrestrial or aquatic hydrogen sink; we don't know if the compounds produced by hydrogen and ozone in the upper atmosphere are stable. Still, it is a concern and somebody ought to be crunching the numbers on this thing.

[quantus]

exactly. There's no reason to make this change if we're going to be causing the same problems just in a different way. The one reason I like fuel cells more than oil is that we don't need to continue dealing with the middle east once we make it work. Go get number crunching people.

[Jason]

I was reading that there was a team that has developed a way to extract the hydrogen from water on the vehicle that uses it. Therefore there wouldn't be any need for transport.

[Jonathan]

I was reading that there was a team that has developed a way to extract the hydrogen from water on the vehicle that uses it. Therefore there wouldn't be any need for transport.

Yeah, there are conflicting ideas about how the hydrogen infrastructure would manifest itself. Some think we'll fill up on hydrogen at H2 stations and generate spare electricity in our garages. Some think we'll use electricity at home to produce hydrogen from water and fill up in our garages to use out in the world. Some, most notably the government and the oil companies, want to use gasoline as the hydrogen source. Then you either carry gas around and separate it into goo and hydrogen in your car, or the gas station takes the gas and turns it into hydrogen, or the oil companies turn the gas into hydrogen and ship it in big tanker trucks to the gas stations. It's a bit unclear, even to the government and oil companies.

[Guest]

http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12405.html

[quantus]

argh, I posted that. Forgot to log in first..