Engineering News

Being able to store hydrogen in a car is a big step forward but producing and distributing it on a large scale must still be overcome. The story on "Solar Split" may help to address the production problem but that is still very preliminary too. I think the hydrogen economy still has a lot of problems to solve but these 2 stories give me encouragement that if we as a world actually put some time and effort into researching and developing technology for hydrogen use it might actually happen.

I'm still not completely convinced of the purity of hydrogen cars.

OK the reaction result of a combustion of H2 gives H2O, water.

The combustion of organic fuels results into CO2 and H2O.

In principle, nothing wrong with these two products: CO2 is not a polutant and when we can reduce the emission to what is really needed, we would have no problem at all.

There are many other side products that come along this simple combustion: N2 reacts with the H2 and O2 resulting in toxic substances (NOx). The reason for this reaction is the pressure-heat combination from the original combustion. And the fact that 80% of the air is N2 of course.

My assumption is that combustion engines, running with air, also produce these toxic NOx products.

Gwen

Agreed.

Try www.waterpoweredcar.com

see what you think.

Hydrogen fueled vehicles will not likely come to pass in our lifetimes except for "showcase" purposes for any number of reasons despite all the hype and good intentions. The reasons for this are manifold.

First off, it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than is obtained in "burning" it, in a fuel cell, combustion engine or as simply a heat source to replace natural gas. Since hydrogen is not an energy source in the sense of fossil fuels but must first be liberated from hydrogen bearing molecules, such as water the question then becomes where do we get this energy from to produce it? It is more efficient to feed renewable sources right into the existing electric grid.

Secondly, the energy storage density is much lower than existing fuels, which means it is not only difficult and/or bulky to store but unwieldy to transport compared to exisitng natural gas or petroleum pipelines. By one account, it would take about 10 tank trucks of hydrogen to equal the energy in one tank truck of gasoline. Yes, improvements are constanly being made as in the example of the article, but improvements are also being made everyday in a multitude of existing energy technologies.

Thirdly, there are alternate technologies that are either here now, or are feasible with much less effort and investment and which will accompliosh essentially the same goals. One such automotive technology which is doable right now is the diesel electric hybrid burning clean , low sulfur diesel fuel and/or biodiesel. Biodiesel is much more attractive from an overall energy standpoint than ethanol. The pollution "problems" with diesels are primarily the result of the use of high sulfur diesel here in the U.S. Only recently has the government mandated lower sulfur requirements to match the Europeans, which of course has served to keep their diesel cars from being sold here lately. (The sulfur produces pollution and particulates while at the same time fouling catalyctic converters and filters that would remove them). With improvements in batteries and ultracapacitors over time, this option will only get better and they could run entirely on stored electric power for short hauls.

Fourth, it comes down to economics and the marketplace. There is a tremendous investment in the existing energy infrastructure and it is constantly evolving and becoming more efficient. Stricter environmental regulations and pollution penalties will drive it in the desired direction in the short term and make majpr changes in it over the longer term. There are very many parts of the hydrogen fuel equation that are presently far more costly than the alternatives that could accomplish the same things., overall and the money put into improving hydrogen technologies would yield greater effect if put into improving present technologies and conservation methodologies.

Conservation, especially in the form of increased efficiency in the use of energy will yield the most cost effective results.

My current pet peeve is that almost every electronic appliance consumes energy (ineficiently) in their "off' or standby mode. How many plug in power supplies, microwaves, TVs, portable phones etc etc are "leaking" power 24/7 in your house? There should be standards and efficiency mandates for these things. You turn them "off", and they sit there using 2, 5, or 10 watts. If you unplug them, which is unwieldy, they often respond unkindly when you plug them back in. (Does every appliance with a display have to have the time showing?)

How many times have we heard of the advent of new technologies that would replace say, the internal combustion engine, computer hard drives, cotton clothing, paper, etc, etc. That is not to say that the hydrogen economy will never happen: it may, in all or in part, but rather to say that we should not be so quick to rule out improvements and adaptations of our existing technologies that can meet our energy and environmental needs more efficiently. We have to keep in mind what our overall goals are and how we can best meet them.

I agree.

After many years of delving into the world of alternative energy sources for America, it has recently become sickeningly obvious to me that the federal government will only continue to offer band-aid answers. The government will not become involved in any serious altrnative to fossil usage until there is a way to assure the massive revenues to the fed is guaranteed. If each homeowner could have a simple self-contained system of heating/cooling their living spaces, the government would suffer huge income losses, this of course could never be tolerated by the powers which control the current political parties.