rotarypower101

iTrader: (1)

Oh boy its hearsay busting time!
Something I know a little about

Actually the previous pressure was 5000Psi and they just increased it not to long ago to 10,000Psi
it still only has 230,000 Btus/Ft^3 at that pressure compared to gasolines 894,700 Btus/Ft^3 with propane not far behind in liquid state at 782,000 Btus/Ft^3

Its only stored at that pressure and is throttled out at much lower pressures. So heavy lines aren’t necessary.

rotarypower101

iTrader: (1)

And for all the emissions related concerns, enter the PEM hydrogen fuel cell
Only emissions are water and low amounts of heat, helping boost its efficiency up to a theoretical level of 83% before reality sets in they are right around 60% when said and done. Just a little better than a IC engine HUH?

And for those that don’t quite grasp what a fuel cell is, or haven’t seen one yet

And here is a great link to how a fuel cell works that describes fairly indepth how the process works and how it can be implemented in a vehicle
http://www.ballard.com/tD.asp?pgid=20&dbid=0#

austinsFD

true
sorry about that

austinsFD

I get it!!
whats a emissions?

Evil Aviator

Oh, I thought we were talking about ICE's.

In that case, check out this cool electric RX-7 drag car. (This is a repost, but I have a feeling that a lot of the participants in this thread have not seen it):
http://www.evparts.com/about/mazda.html

cosmicbang

Safety is not a fundamental impediment to storing and using hydrogen. The image of the Hindenburg in flames is misleading and creates an unfortunate psychological impediment to the acceptance of hydrogen fuel. The burning characteristics of hydrogen are vastly different from liquid fuels such as gasoline and in many ways actually make it safer. Interestingly, 44 people survived the disaster, and 35 of the 37 deaths resulted from the victims jumping to the ground. (Pretty good odds compared to more recent runway accidents involving fully fueled jets.)

A high-pressure tank of hydrogen in your car is probably safer than a tank of gasoline in the event of a collison. But there are several storage technologies which could potentially be used to create a completely non-toxic and non-flammable "gas tank" free from any risk of burning or explosion. Hydrides and Zeolite crystals are a couple examples. A gas tank using Zeolite crystals holding 6-7% of their own weight in hydrogen could store an amount competitive with a tank of gasoline in weight and energy content.

Hydrogen safety: http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid536.php

Hydrogen storage technologies: http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogena...n/storage.html

Since we cannot simply collect hydrogen from space (at present), some form of energy or process must be used to produce it. Some of those production techniques are more environmentally friendly than others. Using bacteria and algae to produce hydrogen would be very "green" environmentally, but would not make much "green" (money) for the oil companies. Hydrogen fueled internal combustion engines themselves are practically pollution-fee, but also don't produce much revenue for oil companies. Anyone see a problem?

turbojeff

iTrader: (30)

I'm glad you spoke up. I didn't mean to act like I knew all the facts, I just know that it isn't practical. 10,000 psi, what kind of freakin tank holds that? Not a tank I'd like some amatuer to put in my car.

I was still right on the energy density, from your numbers it looks like it is quite a bit less dense than gas and propane.

What type of pressures is it metered out in? 45psi (typical FI pressure)? 200psi?

senorfartman

True but have you ever had a marketing class? Public opinion will almost always supercede common sense and what engineers know will work. Kind of catch 22

locketine

public opinion is being created by the oil companies too, so sadly the chances of this system meeting the light of day is not very likely. btw, I saw that algae thing on the discovery channel, so maybe the concept will reach the masses.

neptuneRX

for get putting this into cars, how hard would it be to make a Hydrogen Power Plant? That can break down water (using solar energy) then using the hydrogen from that. because frankly having 12 hydrogen powered cars among billions of gasoline engines cars isn't gonna help much. But if China started using Hydrogen power plants rather then Coal we'd be much better off

MikeC

This seams to be a bit of a myth at the moment. You can't run a car off water because was doesn't have enough energy in it. You need to put energy into it to seperate out the hydrogen and oxygen. Then you can regain this energy when they are put back together. Until the energy that is put in is clean there will still be similar amounts of pollution using hydrogen.

cosmicbang

Not true. Burning hydrogen produces much less pollution than burning fossil fuels. Therefore the energy put in to producing the hydrogen fuel need not be completely "clean" in order to produce less pollution overall in net effect.

Most forms of fuel require expending some energy in the course of making the fuel available for use. (For example digging coal out of the ground, building solar collectors, etc.) Energy will never be totally "clean," but mining, refining, and making fossil fuels available for use is far from clean. Burning fossil fuels to produce energy produces massive amounts of polluting by-products which we currently go to great lengnths to reduce.

Hydrogen can be produced by various methods, with varying degrees of environmental effects. Burning fossil fuels to generate electricity to split water and create hydrogen would certainly not be ideal environmentally, and inefficient due to energy losses from the conversions. Producing hydrogen directly from fossil fuels also has its drawbacks. On the other hand, approaches such as using algae or bacteria to create hydrogen would be dramatically less polluting; possibly even nearly "clean."

Getting such a clean renewable hydrogen production technology to the point of practical use will require investment in research and development. That type of investment typically comes from government grants (overseen by congress) or business (answering to stockholders). Currently there is a lot of money to be made in the oil business and little money in producing hydrogen fuel. Money talks, to lobbyists and to the stock market. These factors stack the odds towards the status quo. A dismissive, zero-sum attitude towards the possibilities of hydrogen fuel will ensure that we continue to burn fossil fuels until they are exhausted.

MikeC

Read my post again. :-)

Sponge Bob Square Pants

Not quite yet. Windpower is actually a rapidly growing concept. Take a look at Southern AB and SW SK, more and more windmills being put up. I think Discovery Channel did a special on Windpower a few years ago - I believe it was Denmark that was years ahead in the field and benefitting substantially.

wwilliam54

the inly thing that has close to the energy density of current gas is veggy based
they need to mix this in all gasoline as much as they can (as much as they can produce) to help extend the furter oil supplies

MikeC

It probably doesn't matter if all the oil gets used up, it is going to happen one day pretty soon anyway and we'll find a way around it when it does. It might just speed up the process of converting over to green energy.

wwilliam54

I know we cant support 100% veggy oils due to the amount needed and the limited amount we can produce, but it could make the petrol reserves last 10-20% longer IMHO and give us time to get a better alternative

OverDriven

Hydrogen is most definatly NOT the future of cars anytime soon. To split hydrogen from its compounds (most commonly water), you have to have MASSIVE amounts of electricity. How do you get that electricity? Burning fossil fuels. The whole argument that hydrogen is clean is only true in the sense that its combustion in oxygen produces only steam. The manufacture of hydrogen in massive amounts would pollute the world more than all the cars on the road right now.

-Joe

cosmicbang

The amount of disinformation about hydrogen is almost painful. This is a MYTH used by lobbyists to dismiss hydrogen fuel. One could make the same argument against electric cars with some legitimacy, but not against hydrogen.

There are many methods to produce hydrogen other than using electricity to split water. Some of those methods are nearly pollution-free. Even today, only FOUR PERCENT (4%) of worldwide hydrogen production is from water electrolysis.

It is possible to produce safe clean renewable hydrogen energy but it will require government and industry backing to bring the technology to practical use. Public opinion plays a role, and if the public is misinformed in thinking hydrogen cars will routinely burst into flames, and require huge smoke belching electric power plants, then nothing will change until we run out of oil.

rynberg

Mind describing the most cost-effective methods, taking into consideration mass production?

cosmicbang

There is a decent overview on the Rocky Mountain Institute and Department of Energy sites.

For more up to date information, you can follow links from the DoE site to organizations, academic research, and current projects.

OverDriven

Followed all of those links and only found more info to solidify my argument. Heres a little quote from the second link:

Worldwide, 48% of hydrogen is produced from natural gas, 30% from oil (mostly consumed in refineries), 18% from coal, and the remaining (4%) via water electrolysis.

You were arguing that only 4% is via electrolosis as if that was a good thing? All the others use fossil fuels directly! So basically what we know is that nearly 100% of hydrogen production either directly or indirectly uses fossil fuels. None of the other experimental processes have shown much hope yet...if they ever will. And another point I would like to make is that a gas -> gas combustion process contains only a tiny fraction of the energy produced in a liquid -> gas combustion process. Using hydrogen to power cars is nice to think about, but obviously isn't realistic on a large scale.

-Joe

senorfartman

It's called fusion. And scientists have been working on fusion power plants for 40 years

OverDriven

Ummm...no. Breaking down water into Hydrogen and Oxygen as he describes is not nuclear fusion. And the Hydroge isotopes Deuteritium and Tritium used in nuclear fusion have nothing to do with the normal hydrogen atoms used in combustion.

-Joe

chairchild

Oooooooooohhhh..........

I can have a field-day here

For the past month-odd, I've been trying to design an engine that runs off water (with electrolysis), and I've realised that Hydrogen is pretty-much, useless as a fuel for cars that wish to go faster than 10mph, or weigh more than a feather!

Hydrogen has around 8 watts per litre
Petrol(gasoline to you) has around 9000 watts per litre

You use around 10 times more hydrogen than petrol to power anything!


If you use electrolysis, you use about (say) 20 watts to get 1L of hydrogen, that hydrogen only holds 8 watts of energy. Electrolysis isn't very efficient - but hydrogen is mainly made by enzymes now in the commercial sector.

Plus, for the hydrogen powerplant idea: where would the energy come from? You're using electricity to (effectively) put energy into the water, then burning it to release the energy.

Net gain = MINUS 40% ish

It's much more efficient to just run the power straight from the solar-panels!


Plus the idea of the fuel-cell is pretty much crap at least. The elements used as the catalysts last a month at best, and the platinum based ones cost a fortune! you need PURE hydrogne and oxygen to run them, otherwise you get poor output, and a lessened catalyst life.





And here's another bit of info for you, 1 Bhp is around 750 Watts - so if you were to make a classic 998 mini (36Bhp) electric, you'd need an electric motor that gave out around 27,000 Watts to give an equal output.



Oil's going to run out, coal's going to run out, Hydrogen's practically useless - any ideas anyone?