Would you buy a vehicle that uses hydrogen?

[Highbeam]

"Fuel cells sound great but 95% of the hydrogen currently used in them comes from natural gas - so what is the point?"

The point is that the hydrogen doesn't have to come from NG, it is currently the easiest and cheapest way to get hydrogen. Even NG is far superior to petroleum since it is very available in our continenent. If NG becomes too expensive, the next step is using electricity to break up water for hydrogen and then using the same fuel cell technology you describe we could go on with life.

This is like when the first diesel came to the table and was run on peanut oil. We didn't fret about the peanut supply because it was clear that any carbon based fuel could be used. Even flour.

 

[hwp]

<font color="blue"> ...Even NG is far superior to petroleum since it is very available in our continenent... </font>
This may be the case in the US but Canada's reserves of NG will be depleted by domestic consumption and exports to the US in about 25 years.

<font color="blue"> ...the next step is using electricity to break up water for hydrogen and then using the same fuel cell technology... </font>
I can't imagine this is economical. What is going to be used to generate the electricity? NG? Back to issue #1! Nuclear is another short term solution for meeting base demand for electricity, but not for meeting peak loads. Then there is the big question of what to do with the nuclear waste - it doesn't go away. Burying it in land fill or dumping it in the oceans are not acceptable solutions. Fossil fuels (oil, NG, coal) are good for generating peak demands (via steam) but the supply of oil and gas is very limited and coal creates too many environmental problems. There is some potential to generate more wind power but that is limited. Perhaps the solar conversion process will become viable in the near future. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Highbeam]

Electricity from central nuclear power plants is ideal to power our homes and to make hydrogen at non-centralized electrolysis plants. I see no reason that we can't use nuclear power for generating power once the NG becomes less abundant. If you even consider wind power or solar as viable for large scale power production then you can certainly see how a nuclear plant as used to drive ships and submarines with varying power demands could be fantastic for producing power. We now have peaking plants here that come on line to produce electricity during abnormally high demand times. They can be powered by more expensive NG since they only operate for the peaks. From full steam ahead to idle in port the nuclear reaction can be sped or slowed in reponse to demand.

There's nothing short term about nuclear power. The tiny amount of waste will indeed stay around forever but when you compare this small volume of waste to the huge earth you will see we have plenty of room. Really, until you see a nuclear waste dump like hanford here in WA you will never realize how relatively small the waste is and also consider no emissions to the environment other than heat. There is no silver bullet, there will always be trade offs.

I admit, I wasn't alive to experience nuclear disasters. I only see the good, but I have seen the good. I have stood beside scrapped reactors and engineered rigging to get the reactors to their resting place in the desert.

However we make electricity, we can use it to make hydrogen from water. We've got plenty of water and plenty of electricity.

 

[flwiii]

I've always wanted to convert the house to a Solar/Thermal Steam system. California has a few of these systems.

It consists of a solar reflector heating a fluid to steam and runing it through a steam turbine which turns a generator and produces electricity.
That steam could heat your household water, pool etc, while the electricity could power your house and make hydrogen from water.
The excess electricity produced would be returned to the local power company and they pay me for that.

Most systems like this I have seen use a parabola.

When I worked for Sea Ray Boats, we experimented with using a hyperbola instead and could produce much more heat. On an overcast 72 degree day, we pushed in excess of 700 degrees at the hyperbolic focal point. Plenty of heat to produce steam.
The nice thing about the hyperbola was it didn't need a tracking system to follow the sun. You would just mount the two low corners in the sun path.

 

[Highbeam]

That's cool. My only experience with solar power other than frying ants was in the RV world where 200 watts of solar panels was a 2000$ installation that only worked in the sunlight.

 

[flwiii]

Those 200W solar panels are still almost $2000 a piece. I checked on them the other day at Camping World. I would have hoped they would have gone down over the years.

The engineer that brought Sea Ray the idea of the hyperbola, to my recollection, has a home here in Arizona that is powered by the system described in my earlier post. At the time (1989) the cost was about $15,000.00 to get the parts.

California has an experiment called a power tower (Solar II in Barstow) that uses molten salt to hold the heat collected during the day so that they can produce electricity even at night. These systems are still experimental and quite expensive. I think that Austrailia is building one too with some advancements that they hope will power Australia by the year 2020.

I read somewhere that if man was to use 1% of the available deserts worldwide, that we could produce more electricity by solar means than is currently being produced by fossil fuels (http://www.solardev.com/SEIA-makingelec.php). Don't know how true this is, but it seems viable.

 

[Highbeam]

I bet 1% of the deserts is a lot of area plus then you need to pipe that power to all corners of the world. I like the idea of centralized electrical producers and decentralized consumers.

We still use lots of hydro power here in WA.

 

[flwiii]

Not sure on how much Hydro is used here, but there are a few dams on the Colorado that generate power.

All in all I would still welcome a Hydrogen powered auto. I can imagine though that if the big oil companies got into it, the prices would be just as bad for Hydrogen as for diesel and gasoline. Diesel around here is now $3.30 a gallon. Unless we can make the fuel ourselves the prices will eventually get out of hand.