Well, Michael, I believe powerful corporations have as their primary intent to establish captive markets and monopoly.

GM didn't kill the electric car - GM killed the electric car's batteries. During the Clinton era, the hybrid prototypes developed by GM and Ford differed in one way: Ford backed up the turbo-diesel/electric motor with batteries, GM backed the same engine/motor drive train with a hydrogen tank and fuel cell stack.

Hydrogen may be a useful fuel in some applications, but it is doubtful that fuel cell is appropriate technology for vehicles. Why then is hydrogen fuel cell receiving so much R&D? Planned obsolescence and Proprietary technology is the way I see it. Some people believe robots will one day perform all labor. Doesn't than mean humans will become zombies?

Michael & Wells,

There is no synthetic fuel that is easier to make and more efficient to make than hydrogen, out of renewable energy. Anything else will take more steps and consume more energy input. Modern society cannot function without at least one form of fuel. For non-vehicular use, low-cost tanks at low pressures can be used to store H2 produced in the summer sun for winter heating when much less solar energy will be available.

Electricity is not a fuel. Electricity can be stored in batteries, but at great expense and bulk, considering batteries have finite charge-discharge cycles. For example, for $2000 USD, you can store 4kg of H2 in 350 bar carbon fiber tank that will hold 132 kwh's worth of heat energy. Use that in the most efficient HEV at 40% efficiency instead of a BEV at 75% efficiency, and you will get 132 kwh x 40/75 = 70 kwh of battery-equivalent energy. In the winter, when waste engine heat is used for heating, your battery-equivalent (BE) energy will be higher, more like 90-100 kwh.
If you purchase 70 kwh of battery at $500/kwh for Cobalt Li-ion, this much will cost you $35,000 USD for 300-500 charging cycles.
For A123 batteries at thousands of charging cycles costing $2000 /kwh, this will cost $140,000 USD.

A Quantum 4kg-H2 tank at $2000 USD is rated at 15,000 filling cycles. Clearly lasting over several automobile lifespan.

70-90 kwh of BE-H2 at 5% H2 density ratio will weigh 80 kgs. At 130wh/kg rating for A123 batteries, 70kwh will weigh 538 kgs! Clearly too much to put on a vehicle.

If NH3 is used as H2 carrier at 17% weight density ratio, a HEV will need no more than a thin-walled tank no larger than current auto gasoline tanks.

Mr Pham, you're a nerd. "Modern society cannot function without at least one form of fuel." "Electricity is not a fuel." Yeah, well duh. Kg, Kwh, BE-H2, 5%,17%, 40/75=70Kwh, yadda yadda. You make a weak case defending hydrogen, at least no more convincing than my case for PHEV, particularly for vehicle use. Batteries, people can understand. Bio-fuels people can understand. Both are portable and renewable. Internal combustion engines, people understand. Combining an ICE in a PHEV with a battery pack, is less complex than hydrogen, much less complex than fuel cell.

Battery weight can be used as a safety advantage to improve stability and handling. The distance a PHEV need travel via battery alone need not be more than 20 miles; keeping the battery size and weight and cost minimal.

The real problem with vehicles is that we drive them too much, too far, for too many purposes. Limiting the PHEV to 20 miles of battery operation changes land-use and development patterns whereby more destinations become accessable without having to drive. You, like most engineer-types, are stuck in a literally dying paradigm, trying to maintain today's intractable levels of an abusive misuse of technology. Modern society needs to arrange the means for less driving and less transport overall and promote the appropriate technology toward that end. It's a bigger question than the one you use to defend hydrogen.

Limiting the PHEV to 20 miles of battery operation changes land-use and development patterns whereby more destinations become accessable without having to drive.

Talk about a stretch...

Wells,
Yes, people are driving too much and are too wasteful with natural resources. There needs to be a movement toward more spirituality and less materialism. More bikelanes and walkways, and less automotive traffics, less pollution and healthier due to more excises, better endorphin release, more serotonin balance and less mood-related disorders. Now, we are speaking the same language.

At least, future use of H2 and electric transportation will address the air pollution problem. The more immediate priority is to prevent social chaos and economic collapse due to fuel shortages. Society must at least be preserved in order for it to be saved in the long run!

Roger Pham,

Wait if you believe that fuel shortages is the more immediate priority, then why not advocate biofuels and batteries as these fuels are much easier and quicker to implement then hydrogen?

By all means, Ben, use waste biomass instead of coal, and PHEV as much as possible, instead of petroleum. I'm all for any practice that reduces fossil fuel consumption and reduce GHG production.

More solar and wind energy, and as we are using more of these intermittent energy sources, we will need energy storage solutions. Some advocate sodium-sulfur battery as short-term solution, while hydrogen, if efficiently produced from renewable energy sources, can serve as a seasonal energy storage medium. In the future, while many people will prefer BEV due to its simplicity, the availability of stored H2 will no doubt promote a good percentage of H2-vehicle to take advantage of this. Once H2 will be widely available, there will be no reason to use PHEV, which requires lugging around more mass than necessary. Unlike petroleum, which is polluting, carcinogenic and can cause damaging spill problem, H2 is non-toxic and environmentally benign.

Hydrogen is but an energy carrier, a medium, that somehow, in my vision, can fit neatly into the whole picture, and yet, is rejected by many.

Consider, Pham, that hydrogen is also a combustable fuel. In that context, hydrogen doesn't have to be compressed to the high pressures required by a fuel cell stack. As a combustable fuel, hydrogen can be one of many fuels applicable in a PHEV drivetrain.

I say PHEV has many advantages over BEV, the principle advantages being extended range and never worrying about being stranded. If fuel prices reflect their true cost, the PHEV offers an economic incentive to drive only distances on less expensive battery power alone. Jack may think this a stretch, but if the real problem is the amount of driving, then PHEV leads land-use and development in that direction. Maybe Jack never lived in a neighborhood where everything he needed could be had nearby. Those are the best neighborhoods. I don't get into the spirituality of simple living. It's certainly less materialistic, but the main thing for me is that it affords a sense of community. Local economies are basic and important to develop and maintain.

Simple batteries offer the invaluable security of household power in the event of grid failure. The batteries are a means to measure household electricity consumption and conservation, good for fighting utility price-gouging. Hydrogen production at the household level will require the fuel cell stack to provide back-up household power. And, correct me if I'm wrong, the energy input/output from batteries is more efficient than via fuel cell stack. Fuel cell stacks are more expensive and less efficient than a battery system.

Roger Pham,

Instead of hydrogen as an energy storage fuel why not zinc? Its far easier to store and has virtually no fire hazard.

@Wells,
PHEV is advantageous if electricity is priced lower than chemical fuels, ie. petroleum or H2.

With sufficient market competition, I would bet that eventually, H2 will eventually be cost-comparable to battery electricity on per-mile basis. In this situation, then, just fill up the vehicle with renewable-energy H2 once a week or so, instead of having to charge up nightly.

Home-produced electricity via fuel cells from NG or H2 piped into your home gas line is most efficient, since the waste heat can be utilized for home heating, or home cooling via vapor-absorptive cooler.

Surprisingly, fuel cell or efficient piston generator from H2 fuel will not be less efficient than grid electricity, UNLESS the H2 is made from electricity using room-temp electrolysis. Do not make H2 from electricity using room-temp electrolysis.

@Anon,
Are you Curtis? I have trouble accessing the Israeli website for the solar-zinc-hydrogen process. What is the thermal efficiency in the zinc to hydrogen route?

GOOOOO Bucks!!

Great Job!!

O-H-I-O

Lou,

Check out this link for the steam powered speed.

http://www.bluebird-electric.net/steam_car_record.htm

Or Google Stanley Steamer speed record.

Lou,

Check out this link for the steam powered speed.

http://www.bluebird-electric.net/steam_car_record.htm

Or Google Stanley Steamer speed record.