Comments on: Consumer Reports Hypes Hydrogen Cars

By: Sandra

Sandra — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 07:28:48 +0000

I have been researching using water for fuel. I would like to know if you are affiliated with any company’s that are promoting this and if you have truely tested it yourself and what results you have had.

Could you please email be back at hank@telus.net.

Knowledge Seeker

Sandra

By: Tom Gage

Tom Gage — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 01:40:20 +0000

There have been various aluminum batteries or hydrogen generators over the years. I have not worked out the numbers, but getting hydrogen from aluminum may be even worse than getting it from water. In nature most aluminum is bauxite which is a mixture of aluminum oxides. To refine the alumnum they use huge amounts of electricity. So you dump electricity into aluminum oxide then you re-oxidize the aluminum to extract hydrogen from water, then supposedly, you re-de-oxidize the aluminum oxide to complete the cycle. Jeez guys just use the electricity to drive the car.

By: Earl Killian

Earl Killian — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 14:02:09 +0000

Suppose one had a good supply of sustainably produced hydrogen (e.g. suppose a catalyst was found that let sunlight split water) and ask the question, what is the best thing to do with it for transportation? Interestingly, the answer turns out to be: turn it into electricity at a utility, ship it across the grid (92% efficient), charge plug-in vehicles (86% efficient), and then drive them from the batteries. Shipping the hydrogen and then turning it into electricity in the vehicle is much less efficient. The primary reason for this is that stationary fuel cells are much more efficient than mobile ones. DOE estimates that stationary fuel cells (e.g. molten carbonate, which operate at 650C, or 1200F) coupled with a turbine to use the waste heat should someday produce electricity at 70% efficiency. Such a fuel cell won’t be found in the family car (the turbine probably won’t be either). The efficiency of the PEM fuel cells suitable for mobile use is much lower (less than 50%–the rest of the energy ends up as heat).

So interestingly one can use a fuel cell to put another nail in the hydrogen coffin.

By: Lou Grinzo

Lou Grinzo — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 12:43:59 +0000

I won’t embarrass our host by shamelessly pimping The Hype About Hydrogen on his own blog (although everyone who reads this site really should read that book).

Hydrogen as a car fuel falls into what I like to call the “barring a miracle” category, as in “barring a miraculous technological breakthrough, there’s no freakin’ way this will ever be a widely used solution.” While there are indeed serious issues about storing, transporting, and dispensing the hydrogen, the real hurdle is creating it in way that has acceptable costs (monetary and otherwise) compared to other existing and emerging alternatives.

By: Shannon Moore

Shannon Moore — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 00:09:59 +0000

I saw an interesting show on Ecotech about a group at Purdue (yes the guy with the eye patch) that has figured out how to produce hydrogen from aluminum, gallium, and water. At the time the show aired, they were dropping aluminum into a water-gallium mix (the gallium strips the aluminum oxide, freeing the aluminum to react quickly with the water) but they have since come up with an aluminum/gallium alloy that they mix with water (this I read about in ScienceDaily). This seemed very interesting to me, as the hydrogen would not have to be stored and the end products could be recycled back into aluminum and gallium. I blogged about it here:http://local-warming.blogspot.com/2007/08/stable-hydrogen-fuel-source-hooray.html. Note you may have to reconstruct the link by removing any spaces that show up in it.