Are fuel cells the way to go?

Question

At first clange H2 cars look like a great deal. No CO2 emissions. Hydrogen can be obtained by electrolysis of water.

Even IF we already had the infrastructure for hydrogen we have for Gasoline and Diesel you still have a load of obstacles to whip. How do you store it? Hydrogen in gas form requires a lot of pressure to get any signigicant volume. In liquid form you have to keep it below -200C. Combine it with oxygen and the least amount of spark you have got one heck of a fire. Remember the Hindenberg? In a confined space and you have an explosion!

Hydrogen is quite abundant in nature but not by itself. The only way you can get it easily is by electrolyisis and the amout electricity necessary to run hydrogen generation is very high. Where do you get the electricity from?

Answer 1

Assume a lot of nuclear power plants.

Then the question is do you use a battery or a fuel cell in a car?

Batteries don't require a network of expensive fueling stations.  But right now they have a fairly short range, after which you must stop for a while to recharge.

Fuel cells can go farther and be "refueled" faster if you have a network of refueling stations.

In the future people may have two cars.  A small electric for the city and a larger fuel cell vehicle for long trips.

Answer 2

Well you can also get hydrogen by combining aluminum-gallium alloys and water.  This technology is still a ways off from being used on a large enough scale to power a car, but it would solve the transportation and storage problems with hydrogen.  You'd only need to transport and store aluminum alloy pellets and water.

Hydrogen fuel cells are not the way to go - I agree.

Answer 3

Fuel cells are probably not the solution (they ARE the favored solution of the corporations though); however, why can't the hydrogen be manufactured in the desert using solar and wind?  Then the cells can be transported to areas that are particularly prone to smog.

I don't really buy the "no-gain" argument.  Given time and incentive, a good inventor can easily figure out a way to get us off of petro-chemicals, and on to an abundant fuel source.

Answer 4

If u were totally successful and eliminated all CO2 would that be enough??  Look at this the plants needs CO2 to live so u just killed all the plants and after that u would die. Good job

Answer 5

Because there is no natural source of free hydrogen, fuel cells should be though of like rechargeable batteries, as an energy storage medium and not as an energy source. They do work really well in that capacity, but they are expensive.

Answer 6

They are just one way to go with all the options becoming more available.

My favorite is the plug in electric, batteries and motors are improving, charging is getting faster and easier, range is improving, onboard powered or solar charging, electric is the one that shows the most hope of never having to be subservient to big oil interests where big oil is busy buying up hydrogen intersts and bio-fuels to control or sit on.

The best thing I can see is to break free of BIG OIL controlled energy and electric gives you that freedom.

Answer 7

Not likely.

The hydrogen problem -- acquisition, storage, compression and shipping -- seems to be pretty difficult to overcome.

Obtaining hydrogen could be done fairly efficienlty by using solar or wind generated electricity for separating hydrogen from hydrogen molecules, but that wouls till leave us with having to get the hydrogen to a location at which it can be used.

Perhaps the technologies used for shipping natural gas as liquified petroleum gas -- essentially cooling it so that its volume shrinks -- could operate on hydrogen as well.

We transport natural gas by pipeline and perhaps that would be a means of shipping hydrogen as well.

It will take a massive overhaul of distribution systems to get hydrogen to where it is needed.