Also the hydrogen storage tank will have to be removed ca every 5 years for testing as is done for all tanks containing highly-reactive compressed gases. Who is going to pay for this service? (Tanks containing inert gases such as nitrogen, argon, helium, etc at high pressure (i.e.>2000 psi) are tested every 10 years).

Will the insurance companies insure these cars? Probably not.

As analytical and organic chemist, I’ve used compressed gas clylinders of nitrogen, oxygen, helium, argon, flourine, chlorine and hydrogen for about 40 years. And you exercise great caution with these because you learn that pressure regulators can fail at anytime. When this happens the service lines immediately go to tank pressure. And this is very scary when the tank contains hydrogen at 3,000 psi.

I most heartily agree that producing it from natural gas is the height of stupidity. But writing it off without looking at the alternative methods for producing it is also not too smart.

The best solution in my mind is to use alternative energy to seperate it from water, store it in hugh storage units located where we now store fossil fuels and use it to generate electricity when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow.

Don’t dismiss the most abundant and truly renewable energy storage substance we have because it is not perfected yet. I would suggest that you open your eyes to the possibilities.

I think you should read the article again and try to pick up on the details. The idea that Hydrogen can be used as a vehicle fuel has lost favor with a lot of people. It is just not a good idea. Politicians and Engineering budgets that don’t go away are keeping it going.

I saw this article and I thought it made sense.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ environment/ 2008/ jun/ 20/ travelandtransport.carbonemissions

I know in some places they use liters per 100 kilometers for their fuel per distance measure. Maybe we should be using gallons per 100 miles for the same reasons.

There are just too many technical problems associated with use of hydrogen that disqualifies it for use as a fuel.

Do you really want to get in a car with tank of hydrogen at 5,000 psi. I don’t think so.

EXCEPT, that in reference to the Toyota Prius, which is far less green than is widely acknowledged.

Hybrid cars require more factories to produce their two engines, and the batteries that they then need. If you consider the carbon footprint of everything concerning the cars production and their usage, a Hybrid engine is not actually as ‘green’ as a very efficient petrol or diesel engine.

This has been shown in cars such as the VW Polo Bluemotion, and the BMW 118d. The prius, In my opinion, is for making people pleased with themselves, and appearing to be ’saving the planet’. If they were as environmentally conscious, as it appears that they feel the need to shout and scream about, they would walk, cycle or use a bus.

If they were as environmentally conscious, as it appears that they feel the need to shout and scream about, they would walk, cycle or use a bus.

so you’re supporting:

* moving to compact urban design to facilitate walking
* improving and extending bicycle infrastructure
* greening, extending, and improving the user-friendliness of transit

totally agree!

here are just a few comments on the article.

1) Cost of a fuel cell car: It is true that today building a fuel call is prohibitively expensive. One of the reasons is that today’s fuel cell use platinum which is expensive. But that may change within a decade or so. There are proposals to build fuel cells with different catalysts which would make fuel cells cars roughly as expensive as building a regular car. See the research done at the MIT chemistry department as an example. Most experts today believe that within 10 years it will be possible to produce a fuel cell at about $30/kW, two to three times less than today and about the same as today’s engines.

2) Cost of producing hydrogen: It is true that today most of the hydrogen is produced at a cost that is prohibitive when compared to the cost of producing gas. To make hydrogen cost-competitive with gas, it would need to be produced at around $3/kh of hydrogen produced. Not too long ago, hydrogen production costs were many multiples of that, so way out of reach. But based on intensive research over the past decade or so, the cost has in fact fallen dramatically and is now down to about $4-$6/kg, depending on the production method. Don’t quote me on the exact numbers, but that is roughly the range. So not not too bad, but of course still way too expensive. However, it is believed that the cost of producing hydrogen will indeed drop below $3/kg within the next decade or so, making it cost-competitive with gas. See the US department of energy’s website, for example, for more details.

3) Producing hydrogen from renewable sources: It is true that today most of the hydrogen is produced from natural gas, which is not a renewable resource. Here research seems a bit further away from reaching the cost target of $3/kg, but here too intensive research is underway to cut the cost of producing hydrogen from wind, solar, biomass and a variety of other renewable sources down to $3/kg, but probably not in the next decade. Therefore in the short/medium term producing hydrogen from natural gas will be dominant, but in the long term, meaning in about 10-15 years or so, production technologies from renewable technologies may prove to be cost-competitive.

4) Other: Of course, there are many other issues to be addressed before a hydrogen economy can become reality, such as space- and weight-efficient storage of hydrogen, a delivery infrastructure, safety, etc. But even here, it is generally believed that these can be resolved within the next 10-15 years.

Given all that, I don’t see why we won’t one day buy a fuel cell car.

Of course, one could say that all these predictions are too optimistic, that in fact there will be unsurmountable barriers in technology, cost, etc.

But I don’t think so! People always underestimate the creativity of human beings. Making predictions about the future based on TODAY’s constraints and problems may not be the right way to go about things.

About twenty years ago, nobody believed that solar will one day be ready as an economically viable alternative for powering individual homes (if blogs had existed back then, I presume a similar one to this one may have been written then). And look what happened. I power my entire house quite nicely with a few solar panels that easily fit on the roof of my single family home.

[JR: Hope springs eternal, but not hydrogen. The difference between hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and solar panels is that FCs were invented more than 160 years ago and still are not a commercial product. Solar panels were invented 50 years ago and over the past three decades have seen an astonishing growth rate in sales and performance while dropping in price by more than a factor of 10.]

However, I believe that the number I quoted already takes the total production cost into account. For example, the US department of energy (www.eere.energy.gov) says that “since one kilogram of hydrogen contains approximately the same energy as one gallon of gasoline, the hydrogen cost goal was originally set by the US department of energy at $1.50/kg (or $1.50/gge) to be equivalent to the untaxed cost of gasoline”

So, with the recent rise in gasoline costs, we are back to $3/kg or so on an energy equivalent basis.

Of course, in the long run, oil prices may fall again, so I believe that really one ought to be able to produce hydrogen at $1.50/kg in the long run, to remain economically viable. In any case, you are right: what matters is the TOTAL COST of producing hydrogen.

Comment on efficiency: Yes, it is correct that today it takes 2-4x as much renewable energy to power a mile of driving — today. But what if the TOTAL cost of all the wind mills, solar cells, and other, eventually falls to less than $1.50/kg of hydrogen? Then I don’t care whether I need 2-4x more windmills, or 2-4x the solar cell surface area.

Today, we are far from that. But one day we’ll get there. BTW, the guys at MIT believe that within 10 years solar-based production of hydrogen through electrolysis will achieve the mentionedn cost goal.