Hydrogen Cars! Wouldn't it produce more CO2?

Question

I do know that hydrogen cars do not produce CO2. however in order to get liquid hydrogen, there is a need to do electrolysis on water to seprate hydrogen from oxygen. So indirectly CO2 would be produce as our power stations do give out carbon dioxide. However how cheap is Hydrogen, the kind needed to put into the car? Is my hypotheses correct on the CO2 being produced indirectly? Which produce more CO2?(a conventional car, hybrid or a cell car)

Answer 1

hydogen when burned has zero Co2 And Water is the only by product, Batteries are very toxic and impossibe to recycle at this time, Hydrogen can be stored safley just like gas, at this point in time the energy output and production of H20 is cleaner than any other fuel except steam generated by nuke power now take your pick.

Answer 2

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You are mostly correct. Here's what's missing from the public discussion of hydrogen fuel-cell cars: hydrogen (in the form available to us) is not a fuel. It is an energy carrier.

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Hydrogen is a battery. Water + electricity = hydrogen. Then, in the fuel cell, Hydrogen makes water and electricity again. This is a reversible chemical process,  exactly how a battery works! All the energy comes from the electricity. Hydrogen 'carries' it.

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A fuel-cell car is an electric car, with a fuel cell and hydrogen tank added on - so it will always be more expensive than a pure electric car. Furthermore, new battery research is now giving us electric vehicle batteries that can be charged in 10 minutes, with a 250,000 mile lifespan (see http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com ) These batteries, as you can see, have a very long lifespan, are recyclable, and are not made from toxic materials.

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Check out that link above, and tell me why that car needs a tank of hydrogen? Fuel cells are less than 50% efficient, while battery storage is close to 90% efficient.

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As to C02 and other pollution, it is true that pollution is produced when electricity is generated, but less pollution is generated to power electric cars (versus gasoline or hydrogen generation) because of the greater efficiencies of power generation, distribution and utilization. See my links below.

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Answer 3

You are operating under the false assumption that hydrogen is produced by electrolysis.  While this is possible, it is not commercially viable when compared to steam reforming of hydrocarbons (primarily methane).  Steam reforming reacts water with hydrocarbons to produced hydrogen and carbon dioxide.  This carbon dioxide can, however, be captured and sequestered if there is someplace to put it.

Answer 4

Running a power station that burns coal or oil is just one way of producing electricity.  One can envision solar, wind, hydroelectric or nuclear power stations to replace the fossil fueled ones, in which case the hydrogen production is not linked with any CO2 emission.

But even if a coal or oil power station is still used, one can effectively trap the produced CO2 from the station smokestack, something that is all but impractical to do at the level of every tailpipe of every car in circulation.

That said, hydrogen may not be the solution still, given that electrolysis is only 50 to 70% efficient, and that internal combustion engines are 25% efficient at most.  A fuel cell is better, but better still would be to pout the energy from the power grid into batteries, as electric motor have efficiencies that can be higher than 90%, and batteries are also very efficient at restituting stored electricity.  Right now, the main problem with batteries is the weight and bulk that is compatible with the kind of range one would have to get for a electrical car to be practical, but good smart people are working on it.

To answer your question: which of those 3 mode is associated with the lowest release of CO2, is thus impossible without assessing the overall energy production chain.  Still, it must be pointed out that the large steam turbines used in power stations are far more efficient that internal combustion engines, with an efficiency that can exceed 60%.

Answer 5

you are correct...

finally someone else see the problem with hydrogen cars and doesnt beleive the lies others tell about it being non-polluting

Answer 6

No--your hypothesis is wrong.  Here's how the chemistry works:

>2H20 + energy = 2H2 + O2 (released into the atmosphere)

when powering a car, the processes is reversed:

2H2 + O2 = 2H20 + energy

So there's no net impact on the environment (Carbon never enters the cycle.

A conventional car produces the most CO2--but as you can see, a hydrogen fueld car produces zero CO2

However, there are a couple of problems that have to be solved before hydrogen-fueled cars are practical.  One is storing the hydrogen.  The other is making the electrolsis production process cost-effective.  Currently hydrogen in large quantities is extracted from oil because that's the only cost-effective way to do so.  And that process DOES produce CO2

Answer 7

Generating electricity does not necessarily produce CO2; for example a nuclear power plant does not create significant amounts, nor does a hydroelectric facility except in a tropical climate (where rotting vegetation causes CO2 and methane to dissolve into the water and be ejected as it leaves the turbine).

But in the United States, the vast majority of electricity is from coal-fired power plants, so there it's problematic. Happily I live in Quebec, where my electrical usage has minimal environmental impact.

The greatest amount of greenhouse gases of the three you listed would be a conventional car. A hybrid car creates emissions too, but it uses its batteries to store braking energy and it uses its engine more efficiently, reducing fuel consumption and emissions. A purely electric or fuel-cell car makes no greenhouse gas emissions other than water vapor (for a fuel cell) which doesn't really count as a GHG since it's naturally so abundant. The GHG production of the electrical and hydrogen options depends on the systems used, but even electricity generated from a coal-fired plant would be less polluting than either of the two other options since large plants are very efficient, much more so than a small internal combustion engine, and they may use techniques to sequester the CO2 they generate which would be basically impossible in a car.

Answer 8

No, they do not produce co2, but they do produce water vapour. But isn't water vapour a greenhouse gas, and a more powerful one at that?

Answer 9

No more than a month ago there was an article on Yahoo! about how a man lives without producing any CO2.  He installed solar panels on his house so the energy his house used would be supplied by the sun, then he took the extra energy he wasn't using and used that to split the hydrogen from the large canisters of water he had through electrolysis.  He used that hydrogen for his hydrogen powered car and for days when the suns rays weren't supplying enough energy for his house.  This man and his family produce 0 CO2.  What we need to look into doing is taking immobile ways of getting energy and using that power to create mobile energy sources so our cars can run totally carbon free.  Right now, you are right, the way we produce hydrogen is producing more CO2, but there are ways around that so no CO2 is produced

Answer 10

It (only) works in combination with alternative sources for electrical energy, like nuclear, solar, and wind.