Hydrogen Fuel Cells for Automobiles?

Question

What are the pros and cons of implementing the use of fuel cells in automobiles?

Answer 1

Hydrogen fuel is too dangerous for most people to be around. and if u crash u could blow away the hold block.

Answer 2

Pros: theoretically it could be a very environmentally friendly fuel source, and ween us off our dependence on oil.

Cons:

1) There is currently no good source of hydrogen.  The only reasonably efficient way of getting it is from natural gas, but the process produces as much CO2 as gasoline, so there's no benefit.

Theoretically you can get hydrogen from water, but you need to break the atomic bonds.  This requires an immense amount of energy, so you end up wasting more energy than you can get out by burning the hydrogen.

2) No infrastructure.  Even if we had a good source of hydrogen, you need a way to transport and store it for refueling cars.  Building this infrastructure would cost billions of dollars, and who's going to pay for that?

3) Electric cars are more advanced already.  We will soon have reasonably affordable high-speed and long-distance EVs (links below), and the infrastructure is already in place (power grid).  Why waste money on hydrogen cars when EVs are more environmentally friendly and the technology is already advanced, considering points 1 and 2?

Answer 3

Water is NOT a fuel.  It takes a massive amount of FUEL to convert water to oxygen and hydrogen.  

The MAJOR problem with fuel cells is that they consume hydrogen.  Hydrogen must be MADE from something (water, oil, natural gas, etc.).  It takes an enormous amount of energy to split out the hydrogen.  That energy must come from somewhere - oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear power, etc.

Fuel cells solve nothing.

Answer 4

There are countless pros for this and a few cons. Pros:

And endless supply of fuel; water. the fuel cell burns the hydrogen with air producing water, and water is then split using electricity to form hydrogen to power the fuel cell.

Zero emissions. There are NO harmful gases created with fuel cells.

Safer, gasoline can ignite and explode in a car crash but a fuel cell stores its hydrogen in a chemical and releases it using heat. so it cant leak if in an accident.

better milage

Cons:

The price to switch the whole world from gas to hydrogen would be economic disaster. switching every car in the world to hydrogen...and changing all the gas stations to hydrogen.

Answer 5

Too many patents, too many lawyers bullying us around.  Everyone thinks they invented the wheel and though they did work and deserve compensation it's killing our ability to ween ourselves off oil.

I know of one invention that uses sunlight to make and store hydrogen.  They can't get their invention approved due to the fact that they say it's too dangerous.

Hello, we made air ships out of the stuff, it's no more dangerous than any other combustible. Personally, I would rather see us pursue battery powered hybrids. They aren't as powerful but more convenient and are a lot cheaper to make.

Answer 6

Well, They've already listed a bench off, but they forget that electrolosys is alot easier and cheaper nowdays. Electrolosys is the process used to seperate molocules, like water. The water is seperated and the H2 is stored in the fuel cell, while the O is put into the air. Fossil fuels are not used for this. What is used in Norway is wind power. They use wind generators to power their electrolosis machines. So far, the smallest made for fueling cars is the size of a fridge, so basically a large pump, lol. The whole process takes about 3 mins to seperate enough H2 to fill a fuel cell. The H2 is used up, then re combined with oxygen in the air to form water again. You could drink the emmisions if you felt like it. Also, Hydrogen is safer then fossil fuel. If you get into a accident, instead of pooling of the ground and pottentially setting fire, its lighter then air, so it rises and disipates. The hindenburg started on fire because the highly flamable skin, not the Hydrogen.

So yea, that about covers what ppl have wrong about Hydrogen Cars. If your interested in them, check out the skateboard. I really want to see it in production. It also goes by the name Hy-wire (Hydrogen car Drive by Wire), but you probably wont find as much on that. Drive by Wire is electronic controls. Steering, braking, exceleration etc... It's pretty cool, far more accurate and has faster, more precise handling, making it safer. At the same time tho, if that failed, it'd be outta control. They're currently working to make that aspect safe. The future for alt fuels is very wide. This is my choice for an Alt fuel, but I have researched many other options too. So look at everything u can before you make your choice. Peace.

Answer 7

plus what if a terroist take hydrogen from a pump and makes bombs.;................. or blows up his hydrogen bomb!! i mean hydrogen car!