hydrogen gas fuel cells

" A truck modified to rely heavily on hydrogen gas drove 2,650 miles from California to Washington, D.C., and arrived Friday, according to the Army. "

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/inde...-army-fuel.xml
Hydrogen-cell truck makes X-country trip

" The U.S. Army's Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center, SunLine Transit Agency and Southwest Research Institute retrofitted a standard Class 8 commercial truck to use a fuel cell auxiliary power unit that runs on hydrogen gas to power the engine's electrical functions. "

Doesn't matter what the fuel is they'll still tax the **** out of it over here.

I have to pay £3.90 for an (Imperial gallon) of diesel last month it was £4.15.
Thats $6.41 per US gallon.

In addition we have road tax, VAT at 17.5% on the purchase of the car, VAT on all servicing, Tax on car insurance and hidden speed cameras round every corner.

I've got to commute about 70 miles a day, there is no public transport option to take and I can't move closer to my work as I work south and my partner works north.

*****s me off big time.

Hydrogen fuel cell technology has been around for years. It keeps rearing it's head then disapearing

Quote:

---

The first fuel cell was built in 1839 by Sir William Grove [1]

---

Some enterprizing taxi drivers over here were running there cars on used cooking oil. It didn't take long for the tax man to stamp his feet.

[1] Referance: http://www.bullnet.co.uk/shops/test/hydrogen.htm

Hi jinxy/Aspman,

I don't think it's really meant as an alternative fuel source,,,they learned that lessen with propane autos...remember when clean-burning propane was going to replace the oil industry...
and yes...fuel cells have been around a long time....but not practical use applications.

I think they're primarily looking at it's military application.

Eg ;)

I think the Germans (though I'm not sure) have buses running on hydrogen. Not fuel cells just burning it. It was probably a prototype.

I've read that it's relatively easy to build hydrogen burning combustion engines using current technology. It's just the price of producing hydrogen and providing safe storage.

It think H2 engines are probably the way things will go in the end. Wind/wave plants providing the electricity to crack water would need to be used to get round the current evironmental problems.

Quote:

---

remember when clean-burning propane was going to replace the oil industry...

---

Thats sort of the point I was hinting at. If the fuel cell idea was followed through with, it could have replaced oil long ago. Cars have been converted to run on fuel cell technology before, way back in the 70s (probably earlier than that). There is far to many vested interests involved.

Quote:

---

remember when clean-burning propane was going to replace the oil industry...

---

That would be difficult, considering propane is a byproduct of refined OIL. ;) Ya need oil to make ze propane.

The big problem with Hydrogen-Cells is that it takes more juice to produce the hydrogen than what is produced by the cells. IMO the way to do it is like aspman said. You use hydrogen as a way to store energy from wind mills, solor panels, and any other eco-energy source.

Hi RoadClosed,

That was the point...the oil industry is too involved and diverse...

http://www.anwr.org/features/oiluses.htm
ANWR Feature - Products Made From Oil

Heart Valves, Parachutes, Antiseptics, Denture adhesive, Credit cards, Aspirin, Shampoo, Toothbrushes, Toothpaste, Anesthetics, Dentures, Vitamin capsules, Antihistamines, etc...

propane cars were meant to replace gas cars as a cleaner-burning fuel...to combat city polution...but because the oil industry has a piece of everyone's pie, and always has it's eye on it's bottom line, it essentially killed the idea.
Toothpaste is an oil-based product too...but they make alot more money selling gas than they do selling their products to toothpaste companies...they have a vested interest in propane but not as much as they do in gas.

Eg ;)

It takes more juice to charge a battery than what you get out of it. Air conditioners produce more heat than they remove. This is the problem with storing enrgy; some is always lost. With oil, however, the process of converting the energy into a stored and portable form has been done over millions of years, thus saving us humans the work.

Alternative energy sources WILL be the norm sooner or later, make no mistake. There is a finite amount of oil left on this rock. I would imagine that prices will keep giong up until we reach a break-even point where the investment in hydrogen cells will pay off more than the continued use of oil. I fear, however, that this point will arrive too late and a major world energy crisis will result. Imagine all the third world countries who simply don't have the technology to use fuel cells.

As far as converting cars to hydrogen, the world faces two major problems. First and foremost, the world is controlled by oil. IMHO it is really that simple. He who rules the oil, rules. Since oil is a luxury which can only be produced in very specific locations, it is only a matter of military power to take control over that oil, and therefore the world as a whole. So long as the production of a major world energy source remains confined to a few major hot spots, it will always be easy to control. Those with this control therefore have a vested interest in keeping oil as a major energy source. The conversion to hydrogen would mean that, given the technology, anyone, anywhere, could produce the world's main energy source, resulting in a massive global power shift (I would not be surprised if suddenly the world lost interest in the middle east). This shift would also obselesce the entire world oil industry, putting hundreds of millions out of work, turning rich countries into third world squalor, and in general, causing a major economic (and possibly political) revolution of biblical proportions.

Second, where the hell would you fill up? Theroetically, I could buy a kit and build a hydrogen powered car within a few months. Unfortunately, with no place to refill the gas (or hydrogen) tank, this would be rather useless to me. The infrastrcture we have for petroleum has been built over decades. I would imagine that a similar hydrogen infrastructure would take a similarly long time to develop.

But the world will run out of oil sooner or later. Make no mistake about it. It's only a question of when. Despite the wishes of the power elite, and the difficulty in building alternative infrastructure, there is simply no choice in the matter. It will happen.

Personally, I don't think hydrogen will ever take off. Faces to much of an uphill battle. Plus the stuff is incredibly dangerous. Imagine a small fender bender that ruptures the tank, all of a sudden, you got the hidenburg. Normal car wrecks would become bombs. It is odorless (unlike gas) and colorless, so what if the nozzle wasn't in the tank all the way ? You wouldn't know it, but you would be standing in the middle of a bomb. BTW, it is was more combustable than gas.
That, and hydrogen takes 4x the area as gasonline to be able to travel the same distance. So instead of a small 12 or so gallon gas tank, you would have to have this huge tank on/in you car. And I know the car industry won't make hydrogen cars until the Oil (or whatever company) begins producing Hydrogen fuel stations, and vice versa. (philosopher paradox). and you guys are right about the amount of power it takes to make hydrogen vs. Gasoline.

*sigh* maybe someday, but not in the foreseable future.

Hi dmorgan,

People thought the same thing about propane tanks and to the best of my knowledge none ever blew up...
and gas is naturally odorless...they add the smell...
but, as I said, I think the purpose, initially, is military applications.


Eg ;)

Quote:

---

Second, where the hell would you fill up? Theroetically, I could buy a kit and build a hydrogen powered car within a few months. Unfortunately, with no place to refill the gas (or hydrogen) tank, this would be rather useless to me. The infrastrcture we have for petroleum has been built over decades. I would imagine that a similar hydrogen infrastructure would take a similarly long time to develop.

---

It was my understanding that fuel cell worked by releasing the hydrogen in water............The vehicle I have seen using the technology had a water tank in the boot (trunk). When all hydrogen is depleted from an amount of water, it is replaced. I don't think I would have any problem finding some where to fill up. :cool:

The mid term solution will probably be to go down the road Brazil has gone. They have a great deal of alcohol powered cars. The Alcohol is produced from the sugar cane grown in the country (fermented?). You also have biodiesel which is quite widely available. These measures will be used to top up oil supplies when the rocks start to dry out and we shift to alternatives such as H2.

H2 is difficult to store but I don't think that it is an unsurmountable problem.

biodeisel is still mostly oil. I think propane powered cars were killed by the fact that people don't want a big propane tank on their car, not some major conspiracy. It seems it's only safe on some monster truck where it's protected from impact and there goes the fuels savings. The real danger in the future is not locomotion. We'll figure that out and if not, get a bike or a horse. The problem is replacing the byproducts on a massive scale. We need oil to produce almost any modern device. Including the containers to hold whatever alternative fuel device we come up with. The oil companies know time is short. 100 year estimate at current consumption growth.

And as stated before, if not for the liberal cooks in the USA we would have an excellent line of functional nuclear based power plants as an alternative to fossil based electricity and with that perhaps a good electric based mass transit system but, their idiocy won over the politician of the 70s. Why "Big Corporations destroying the world" of course.

OH - I just read a study... I'll try and find it. Taking in factors such as gas prices, cost of maintenance, cost of a car, etc... those little hybrid gas/electric cars in the United States would not break even compared to the cost of operating a small gas only car until gas prices reach and maintain a cost above $6.00 US a gallon.

For those of you who think H2 as fuel will never take off, what do you think is going to replace gasoline then? We've got 100, no more than 200, years of oil left. At that point, if we compeltely run out, we also have NO plastics of any kind... This means hospitals are SCREWED... We HAVE to find some sort of an alternative to oil soon and get an infrastructure for it up soon or we are going to have 1970s all over again times 10.

Like The Grunt said...oil depletion does not just affect automobiles..but all oil based products...as I posted before...

http://www.anwr.org/features/oiluses.htm
ANWR Feature - Products Made From Oil

so...if we have 100-200 years supply left...how many of those years do we need to ' reserve ' for these other products, until we can find an alternative for them as well?

So...we don't have 100-200 years to find a solution, because we need to keep a reasonable reserve for those ' other ' products. Just imagine world-wide consumption of paint products, toothpaste, dentures, tires, propane, plastics, etc...how much of this remaining oil do we need to reserve to guarantee we don't run out of these products as well?

Eg ;)

Considering a few things I am not worried.

One hundred years ago we didn't know about the Theories of Relativity let alone Quantum Mechanics and their unkown nature and uncertainty. 10 years ago we barely had the public internet. Germ theory wasn't even known in the last 200 years, 1861 I believe. We didn't even know they interacted in biological processes until Pasteure's heavily defended theories. And we couldn't see viruses until later. Heck the Aids virus went undetected for a long time before we found it. Oil was around for a long time before we figured out we could use it in the manners we do now. In 200 years... who knows, we couldn't dream up Quantum Mechanics before 1914 or 1915 (I believe was the first published or discussed works).

As long as the world empires remain stable and scientific progress continues, I am not worried. In fact the outlook is good. Especially given the current mind set of new generations (and old) who understand the direction we must take. In the near future even the economic changes will drive motivation to develop cost effective alternatives. So don't let kooks tell you the world is better served outside scientific discovery. We need it, our futures depend on it. And if the effort fails, hell we have a couple of big gas giants out there filled with already refined oil in a gas state. It's all the same stuff, we are all the building blocks of a limited set of elements.

Quote:

---

Necessity is the mother of invention

---

Give it another 20 years and we'll be engineering bacteria to produce the chemicals or the precursers we need.

As for large scale power generation I think things will get worse before they get better. I don't like the idea of the gas fired stations we are building right now they're going to rely on supplies from unstable baltic states.

Nuclear should be looked at again. How much better/cleaner can we make those technologies now than we could in thr 50s 60s when they were built.

I know Edinburgh Uni has had a big donation of money to continue investigations into carbon sequestration where liquid CO2 is injected into oils bearing rocks to push out the oil and dispose of the carbon. If that sort of tech works well it could open the door to using coal again but more efficiently. The UK has a lot of coal left.

Fusion stations could help but I'm not holding my breath for them.
Austrailia is planning to build a solar chimney which would be 1km tall. Not sure how much power it would generate but it would be cool anyway.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology..._story_related
Solar chimneys could really work in 3rd world countries like much of Africa.

It would have to be wind, wave and tide power for the rest of us.


[edit] Talking about the solar chimney sparked off my curiousity about it. The official website is http://www.enviromission.com.au . A lot of the original press releases said that the tower would be running in 2005. Unfortunately nothing has been built yet the project doesn't appear to be dead though, meterological testing was concluded this January and I think they are finalising plans prior to contruction. Few years yet then[/edit]

Quote:

---

Nuclear should be looked at again. How much better/cleaner can we make those technologies now than we could in thr 50s 60s when they were built.

---

We can make them a LOT cleaner and a LOT more efficient... Someone with more Nuclear information would know better but if IIRC the plants built in the last 10 years or so produce about 5x more with 5x less waste using the same amount of fuel... (Which is still very little fuel, of course) Just imagine what we could do if we could make a FUSION powerplant... then we REALLY wouldn't have a power crisis, we'd have our own minature sun.

Another big move I see in the trans. industry is magnetic propulsion... Give it 50 years and I think consumers may see it as their main power for cars, or whatever we call them then :P