I've just been running some numbers on this.

If the company is claiming 0.8 KWh per litre and the tank is 160 liters then thats approx 3.46kg of usable H2 gas.

Now if 1kg H2 is equal to 4litres of gasoline, then a car that can get the equvelant of 100mpg(gasoline) on H2 will travel approx 88 miles per Kg of H2 gas.

now if we have a hydrolyser that makes H2 with, say, 60% efficiency then to make 1 Kg of H2 you need 61.7 KWh plus another 18.5 KWh to compress it to 70MPa.

So thats a total of 80 KWh for every Kg of H2.

If you can travel 88 miles on 1 Kg at 80 KWh then that equates to approx 1 KWh (of electricity) per mile driven.

The average car travels perhaps 12,000 miles a year, so that would be 12,000 KWh.
Or approx 33KWh per car per day.

As a reference point my house only consumes an average of 8 KWh per day and thats with two occupants.

So you can see the problems with electricity consumption we'd have.

I also worked out that the UK with a vehicle population of 32 million, would need approx fifty 1,000MW nuclear power stations just to provide the H2 needed if every one of those vehicles changed to a 100mpg equivelant hydrogen car.

Thats a lotta nukes. And I haven't even started on the economics of electrolysis units. These things are not cheap. To have one 5 KW rated electrolysis unit per house seems quite a tall order. (A 5 KW unit would cost far more than most family cars do now)

Of course steam reforming H2 from natural gas is all very well and good, but the UK already heats its homes on gas and generates a significant portion of our electricity with it already.

Running our cars on it seems like a bad idea, especially since we're fast becoming a net importer and will soon be addicted to Russian gas.....

Valve amplifiers still exceed the sound quality of transistor amplifiers for guitar. 32bit DSP can emulate valves well enough...

but you can't have a "tube" TV with a solid state electron source. Even the SED (surface electron discharge) thin panel TV concept uses tubes, just built to be miniature.

Any large scale amplifier for radio or TV stations is powered by tubes. Solid state electronics can't handle 50,000W.

Microwaves are produced by tubes (Klystron) as solid state emitters don't work as well.

In some cases you can use a mosfet to "emulate" tube like behavior but there are many applications for vacuum tubes still. Just not computers/microprocessors/microcontrollers/memory which people see "in their face" all the time.

John & Andy,
You both are right about the inefficiency of producing H2 from room-temp electrolysis of water, not to mention the huge expense of the platinum electrode use for that purpose, but the efficiency of electrolysis is 75%, not 50% that you've stated.

High temp electrolysis at 800-1000 degrees C can double the efficiency of electrolysis, to 140-150% of the electrical energy input. Note that this efficiency is greater than unity, because the heat confers some energy to the energy of the hydrogen thus created. High-temp nuclear reactor can supply the 800-degree C heat to double the efficiency of H2 generation from nuclear energy. Ditto for solar to hydrogen generation. Wind electricity must team up with the waste heat of a gas turbine electrical-generating plant in order to get the desirable efficiency of 140-150% of H2 production from wind electricity. In this way, H2-vehicles can have equal efficiency to BEV or PHEV even when the electricity is generated from solar or wind energy. Note that solar to electricity is 30% efficient, either from solar thermal or concentrated solar PV panels, while solar high-temp electrolysis can approach 50% efficiency in H2 production.

But the most efficient and cost-effective method of H2 production is reformation of crude oil, natural gas, coal or biomass. From crude oil, H2 can be produced easier and at equal efficiency as gasoline refining, at 80% efficiency. So, you can see that while a gasoline car has a typical overall efficiency of 20%, the Honda FCX can triple this efficiency to 60%. What a way to use crude oil, coal, or biomass, eh? Even if you use coal, natural gas or biomass to generate electricity to power BEV or PHEV, you may get close to, but you can't beat this kind of efficiency.

The point about h2 only needing a yearly average energy output is that once you have a full h2 infrastructure it can run on the yearly average power output of your solar and wind and wave plants instead of worrying about the sips and peaks with summer and winter.

The h2 stations plan to use multiple sources of h2. Self gen through solar and grid power. Self gen through reformed natural gas. And shipments of h2.

As for all the worries. The only question now is when the h2 car will get cheap enough for the 50-150k csr market anfd when it will get cheap enough for the mid end market.

H2 is getting money because it will make money. That is because unlike boifuels and ev it wont have all the limits impossed by emissions and milage and such.

It also is getting the money because many have woken up to the fact that sooner then we want cheap transport fuels will massively climb in cost and thus transporting fuel itself will become uneconomic.

Ypur gona have to produce fuelslocaly and in alot of places that means h2 in others it means ethanol and in others it beams biodiesel.

Now ev cars will never get going where I am because the car would push my electric bill through the roof. 25 cents per kw s not saomething id wana pay every month.

I pay 7 cents per kw. No way you'd ever get me to pay $5 per lb for H2 when I get electricity so cheaply.

Regarding cost and efficiency of electrolysis equipment, a report from NREL uses 75% efficiency (52.5 kWh / kg H2) and $1000 / kW as a baseline for equipment commercially available as of 2004. The report is at:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy05osti/37612.pdf

If that's valid, some of the estimates above are overly pessimistic for H2--though not by enough to change the basic conclusions (IMO).

Wintermane's point above about hydrogen only needing an average yearly energy output is both true and false. The capital cost of the electrolysis system is still high enough that the cost of hydrogen produced is sensitive to duty factor. If you're only able to use the equipment at an average of one third its rated capacity, you'll be roughly doubling the cost of hydrogen produced.

Roger's statement about the superior efficiency of high temperature steam electrolysis is correct. However, there a couple of problems with combining the waste heat from a gas turbine and electricity from wind to produce hydrogen efficiently. For one thing, the waste heat from a combustion turbine already has an economically viable use, which is to drive a bottoming cycle in a combined cycle power plant. If you used it instead to supply heat for steam electrolysis, the power plant efficiency would plummet.

More fundamentally, the optimal use of a gas turbine power plant is to provide backing power for a wind farm. So when the wind was blowing strongly, there would be no waste heat from the gas turbines to aid steam electrolysis. And when there was waste heat from the gas CT, there would be no wind-based power to drive the electrolysis.

Finally, something in the main article on which no one has yet commented. I'm a little concerned by how Quantum is expecting to achieve gains in gravimetric storage efficiency. If won't be through the development of stronger carbon fibres; rather, it will be by trimming design margins. The lighter tanks will be more highly stressed, and will fatigue faster.

Active sensing of tank health may provide an adquate safety margin, but there's no getting around the fact that the higher stress levels will shorten the useful lifetimes of the tanks.

On making h2 remember most of the numbers the h2 ignorant rant abut happen to be rather out of date. Electrolizers have gotten far more powerful and effiecent. Even in 2004 as already said it was 75% on average a massive boost from before bush started the push for h2.

Its since then gone up.

ALSO getting h2 from methane has gotten ALOT cheaper sincethen too. This one change has ALREADY paid for all the h2 research bush has pushed for 100x over. FRrom a bussiness point of view getting h2 cheaper always paid for itself no matter if cars ever used it or not.

And again the new type 4 reactors are a wonder not becuse they produce h2 but becauae they do it and make more electricty while using the same amount of fuel. In simple terms they simply are far better reactors.

And it doesnt matter if fuel cells ever make it in cars the work on fuel cells has already more then paid for itself in static fuel cells and in a great number of other fuel cell uses.

And the tanks.. again it doesnt matter if those tanks ever are used in cars. They have far more uses then cars.

And then of course they might actauly do it. Back at the start I figure h2 cars were about a .1% chance. They are now about 75%. Thats rather spiffy for just a few years work.

Mr. Silverthorn,
Thanks for pointing out a potential thorn in my rosy vision of what otherwise would be a Silverbullet! (waste heat from gas turbine powerplants to supplement wind to H2 generation). Yes, from outward appearance, it seems that at peak wind, there will be less need for gas turbine electricity, hence less waste heat available. However, the reality is that
1) wind electricity is so unreliable that it cannot be relied upon at all to supplement power generation, meaning that if 5 GW power will be needed, you will have to invest in building the full 5 GW gas turbine powerplant capacity just in case you'll need all the power and the wind does not blow. Case in point is that in Southern Calif. in the summer at peak electricity demands, sometimes the wind turbines only delivered 5% of their rated capacity.

2) Large gas or steam turbines cannot slow down or shut down fast enough in respond the unconstant nature of the wind, and frequent changing in power and hence turbine inlet temp will put severe thermal stress on the turbine blades and will shorten the life of the turbine, as well as the bearings and other tightly-fit high tolerance of a power turbine will not like fluctuation in power output. That's is the reason why it wastes more energy to produce power when demands slacken at night, because the turbines are not efficient at partial power, and frequent shut down and start up will wear out a turbine fast.

As such, it would be much more economical to use wind turbines to generate H2 mainly using the waste heat of the power plants running at their normal rate, instead of depending on wind turbines to supplement the grid output.

What about combined-cycle gas turbine powerplants using the waste heat for the bottoming cycle? would that take away the waste heat hence impact efficiency? Yes and NO. Combined cycle can recycle the waste heat at 600 degrees C at 30-40% efficiency. Waste heat used to supplement H2 high-temp electrolysis is utilized at 100% efficiency, meaning the heat which is left-over not being consumed in the production of H2 will still be recycled by the bottoming-cycle steam turbines. Heat at 800 degrees C is tapped from intermediate stages of the gas turbines to assist the H2 electrolysis, and any left-over heat will be pumped back into the bottoming cycle steam turbines via a heat-steam exchanger (re-heating between stages of steam turbines).

I appreciate that, in theory, you can produce H2 at a nuclear facility, but given the huge costs/infrastructure needed to transport H2 in any form it looks likely that H2 will be generated at the point of use.

Which will be peoples homes and H2 gas stations.

The increase in centralised H2 generation efficiency will be more than cancelled out with the massive increase in energy required to transport the stuff anywhere.

And, as pointed out electrolysis is at 75% efficiency, which improves my estimate to just shy of .77 KWh per mile driven.

The other thing I'm assuming is that H2 ICE vehicles will have greater range than an all electric vehicle and the base cost of oil will make it cost competitive with a gasoline ICE vehicle.
Plug in hybrids will compete with it, but if your prime requirement is range, then a 300 miles range compressed gas H2 ICE car may well be the cheapest both to purchase and to run.

Note that using the above article's costs with today's tank technology one of their tanks only adds approx $2,200 to the cost of a vehicle. A small light H2 vehicle (ICE) would be cost comparitive to a small car today, ie. cheap.

I'm still not conviced when people write off H2 as a vehicle fuel. For some people some of the time, it may well be a suitable soloution in the long term.
Ie. when oil is only availible in a quarter of todays production volumes.

Andy

"And, as pointed out electrolysis is at 75% efficiency, which improves my estimate to just shy of .77 KWh per mile driven."

well all electric do about .13 kWh to .20 kWh per mile

the planet as limited resources, so why are we wasting it with ICE engines and H2

YOU HAVE TO BURN SOMETHING (emit CO2) TO MAKE HYDROGEN GAS ECONOMICALLY.

So the hydrogen economy emits CO2 just like the fossil fuel economy. The only way around this is to make hydrogen gas with nuclear power. You can't use uranium as an automobile fuel, so nuclear power to hydrogen generation works. So until we also bring nuclear power to the forefront, it is more efficient to just create the CO2 in the autos themselves and forget hydrogen gas.

Andrew Gray

Keep it simple and gain fuel savings and cleaner exhaust emissions today. I added a small Hydrogen generator to my Chev. S-10 pick up. With a little adjusting of the mixture, fuel efficiency went from 24 to 31 mpg. I'm saving fuel costs now TODAY, producing less emissions (burning cleaner) with more available power. My start up cost was $250 and will quickly be recovered. The unit uses about 15 amps from my already turning alternator. Powers dual electrodes in a distilled water/Sodium Hydroxide mix. No storage, I burn it as it's made in small quantities. Just enough Hydrogen and Oxygen enters the engine directly through the existing air intake to boost ignition effectively. A very simple add-on, available today. Easy to install, cheap to purchase and no matter what anyone says or thinks-it’s working for me right now. Keep after the high tech, long term solutions but do what you can today to reduce emissions, use less fossil fuels and save yourself some $$.

Andrew Gray, can you tell me where to find info on the h2 product that you used to modify your Chevy truck? Thanks.

There is a silly notion that it must either be H2 or batteries. With the Altair and Triangle Research batteries,electric cars with batteries ARE practical
to the extent that li ion are. The TR batteries are very cheap - about $100/kWhr, but slow charge.
The silliness comes from the rather juvenile belief that a solution must be absolute and total. It does not. GM developed the fuel cell car, but actually were, of course, simply building an electric car that happened to use a fuel cell. Well, now GM has announced that their fuel cell project is now an electric car project, looking to be a serial hybrid with , of course, plug-in capabilities. If they're smart, they'll make that set of batteries user-configurable, to allow those with longer commutes to add more batteries and all-electric range. Since the typical car only travels 25 miles a day, plug-ins accomplish almost as much good in avoiding crude as an all electric car would (which would clearly be prefereable in an ideal world). If everyone who could drove a plug-in hybrid, the results would be absolutely enormous. I have no doubt that there will eventually be a cost effective quick charge battery,
which will be the auto technology end game. Altair batteris, which are said to cost about the same as lithium, but are very cheap on a per year basis, could be used right now if a structure existed to stretch out the costs of the batteries over their 15 to 25 year expected lifespan. Here is where the government could
actually acomplish a great deal by providing such a
program, sort of like a GI Bill.

Quite an interesting thread. If I may, I would like to give you a non-scientific viewpoint, as I am just a simple blue-collar guy.

I guess I am somewhere close to your "average" commuter. 32 miles down I-4. Side trip to grocery store on the way home, pickup laundry, say 80 miles per day round trip. And then my car sits in the garage, taking up space, till I am ready to do it all again the next morning. The car I use for that trip costs me $342.79 per month.

Want to save the American Auto industry? Give me a car that runs on hydrogen that can be produced in my garage, using my electricity and my water, with enough range to get me to work and back. The day that solar power is proven cheaper than the stuff I get from Florida Power, count me in. The auto industry will have to kick in and give me a bumper-to-bumper warranty for like a zillion miles, which shouldn't be much of a problem as there are very few moving parts. And finally the government will have to participate by overseeing a quasi-governmental organization a la' Fannie Mae, and let me both own stock in the finance company, and let me finance my car with the gazillion mile warranty for as long as it takes to not cost me more than $342.79.

Simple!

So, we don't need no stinking infrastructure! Let me pay to manufacture my own fuel with my own utility bills. I pay roughly $175 per month for electric, and $15 or so for water. My gasoline costs are another $150. We have some room to play here. I would much rather pay as I go to support a new technology, as long as I could also invest in said technology with hope of covering my costs.

In the end, its all economics, and it is all at the grass roots level. Make it cost me no more than what I currently have, and I and my ilk will flock to it like swine to whatever swine like. If technology advances and we see that this or that catalyst is necessary to make the production of hydrogen on an as needed basis cost efficient, let me know, I have another idea for a network of American entrepreneurs that provide a door to door service reminiscent of the milk man for servicing the home production unit, paid for by the same finance company that holds the note on the car...

This reminds me of that Foghorn Leghorn cartoon with FL fighting the dog and the chicken hawk rooting for one and then the other. As the fighting rages on, the chicken hawk gets frustrated as says something like “oh heck, I’ll just fricassee the looser”.

We have the technology to build a vehicle that’s intelligent enough to run all the fuels. See previous GCG post http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/10/concept_a_unive.html#more

Let the market, politics, and economics and generally uncontrollable forces sort themselves out and just “fricassee the looser”? The consumer shouldn’t have to pick the right horse, because s/he generally can’t account for all the right parameters to be all the right values. The market can. Allow each consumer decide for themselves and they will make the right choice eventually. So all the consumer needs is the means to create the right market. A Universal Fuel Engine is supposed to do that. It’s the next generation flex fuel engine and well over due, since flex fuels have been around since Model T days. Why is nobody investing in that idea? Its just a smart diesel with EVT and some in cylinder sensors and DSP. How hard could that be?

Walt

While everyone argues over economics, and Beta vs VHS all over again, no one is looking at the reason that H2 is considered so important as a fuel source and how immediate the need, regardless of price point.

+1oC rise in ocean temperature since 1970 and expecting to hit +2oC in the next 10 years, and more rapid rise once the polar ice caps are gone and there is no more buffering due to latent heat of fusion; 326,000,000 cubic miles of H20 on the planet; 1 calorie = 1 cc of H2O +1oC; 1 MMTonne of TNT = 10*15 cal.

326,000,000 X (5280 X 12 X 2.54)*3
----------------------------------
10*15

Do the math and that works out to 1.3 Billion (yes BILLION!) 1 MegaTon atomic bombs worth of excess energy in the biosphere for every one degree rise in ocean temperature (assuming no thermocline). That energy is expended as more severe weather.

So, when calculating the price point, don't forget the cost of the do nothing option: increased $ or no insurance at any $ for your home; the damage caused by tornadoes in Metro London, UK, Metro Toronto, Canada and elsewhere; floods and 100 mph winds in Vancouver for over a month; a 3 year drought in Australia, and a fire there right now nearly the size of Tazmania. That is just a short list of natural disasters to be expected due to Global Warming in the near future. I have been expecting this for years, it just scares the beejesus out of me that it is happening so fast.

There was a recent announcement in the UK that Global Warming due to GHGs is a $7 Trillion problem (~$1000 for every human on the planet). That is a snapshot dollar figure. If you use the "PI rule" of economics (everything takes 3.14 times longer and costs 3.14 times as much as projected) then in reality it is closer to a $25 Trillion problem.

H2 replacing hydrocarbons(eventually), and CO2 Reduction or Sequestration, are parallel programs. Check out the US DOE website:

http://www.energy.gov/energysources/hydrogen.htm

The biggest problem currently with H2, that will be the basis of the commercialization decision, is the topic of this thread: gravimetric density, i.e. how to compress H2 gas to a point that it can compete volumetrically with hydrocarbons as a fuel.

If I could combine the thermal conductivity of PET, carbon or silicon with the structural qualities of carbon fiber, this "thread" ;-) would have a happy ending, and I'd have more money than Bill Gates. Heck, if I could build a car that would break down raw crude, "burn" only H2 + O, and spit carbon fiber out the tailpipe, I'd be richer than God.
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See? It is possible to be a nuclear scientist and a tree hugger at the same time, I am.