Hydrogen gas...................... why do we need so much oil?

Question

If hydrogen is so simple to produce and can run cars generators and can be used instead of oxy and cetaline then why do we defend oil when water can be used instead?

Answer 1

Most people ask these sort of questions and you have to think realastically about it. It is expensive to switch over to Hydrogen! Almost all of Americas fuel infrastructure is for Gasoline and Diesel, Hydrogen can not be transported in ordinary oil pipelines and completely different cars will need to be made. Almost all of this infrastructure will need to be changed. We need a lot of time to switch over to Hydrogen, maybe 30-50 years at least. In the time being we need to explore more alternative fuels. I agree with you completely that we need to unlose our ties to oil, but that will take time. I mean America is addicted to oil. We just haven't made Hydrogen fuel cheap enough yet.

Answer 2

First, there has to be infrastructure to provide hydrogen to the people. Once there is infrastructure, there will be an easy way to tax the people. I would bet the government will make it illegal for the average citizen to make their own, even though it can be done safely.

Answer 3

Hydrogen is actually not that simple to produce, at least not in the quantities that would be necessary to use as a replacement for gasoline and diesel fuels.  When most people think of hydrogen production, they think of simple electrolysis, something similar to the simple demonstration many have seen where electricity is passed through a jar of water and hydrogen is collected on one electrode and oxygen on the other.

The only problem with this is that it is not very efficient and the hydrogen produced is at a very low pressure (essentially 0 psig).  To use this as a way to produce hydrogen to fuel your car, you would need massive amounts of electricity to produce the hydrogen, and then still more electricity to drive a compressor to fill your hydrogen tanks.

These two reasons are why electrolysis is not used for commercial scale hydrogen production.  Instead, the hydrogen is produced by a process know as steam reforming.   This reacts a hydrocarbon, typically methane, with steam.  The reaction takes place at high temperatures and high pressures.  Hydrogen is freed from both the water and the hydrocarbon molecules, and oxygen from the water molecules reacts with the carbon in the hydrocarbon to form CO and CO2.  The CO is  then reacted with more steam in a shift reactor to produce additional hydrogen and CO2.   The CO2 is then separated from the hydrogen.  This process can produce 99+% pure hydrogen.  The CO2 is normally vented, but it could be sequestered if a suitable place to put it exists.

The total cost of the hydrogen produced this way is still higher on an equivalent energy basis than the cost to refine either gasoline or diesel oil from petroleum.

This process, or a similar process known as partial oxidation can be used to produce hydrogen from water and almost anything that contains carbon.  It can also be used to produce synthesis gas from water and anything containing carbon and the syn gas can be reacted to make gasoline, kerosene, or diesel oil.   This is how gasoline and other fuels can be produced from coal, or even from biomass.  But, once again, the cost is much higher than producing these fuels directly from petroleum.

Answer 4

Two points:-

1) Every time you change something into something else it costs and wastes. You need to generate electricity to get hydrogen from water and compress it AND you waste the oxygen. Why not use that energy directly?

2) Look at pictures of the Hindenburg airship - fancy having a crash with a few gallons of hydrogen in the car with you?

If we want to save fuel we should all drive small diesel cars at the moment.

How about it Mr Cameron you with a 27mpg Oh! so wonderful, congestion charge avoiding 'electric' limo?

My suggestion would be that ALL MPs and Civil Servants should only be permitted to use PUBLIC transport. They would soon solve the personal transport problem then.

RoyS

Answer 5

It's very expensive to make the cells for the car. Oil company rules America.

Answer 6

While it is easy to produce hydrogen gas using something like water, there still needs to be a lot of energy put into the system to split the water into the basic components.  In other words, something must produce the energy that is needed to 'refine' hydrogen fuel from water.  Therefore, we need to use some energy (whether from oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, etc.), therefore hydrogen is not necessarily the 'clean' answer to energy needs.  

In addition, hydrogen has an unfortunate affinity to react violently with other elements, with explosive results (remember the Hindenburg?).  Therefore, technology must exist to safely store pure hydrogen, and release it in a controlled manner as needed.  Even moreso, the technology must also keep the fuel safe in accidents, lest we set loose on our streets virtual car-bombs (which, in itself, presents an even more problematic issue).

Regardless of issues, hydrogen as a fuel for motor vehicles (as well as other uses) has merit, and some of the technical issues have been (and are being) worked out.  If and/or when these are overcome, then we can say that hydrogen fuel can save us on our addiction to oil (or, better put, the addiction to the easy lives that oil allows).  Until such a time as something else becomes just as convenient and cheap as oil, we are stuck with the consequences.

Answer 7

simple...lots of people makes untold billions from oil.

so why use something like you say is so plentiful and cheap.

they've always had better engines but they buy the technology and stick it away in a warehouse untill the oil runs dry.

Answer 8

Mostly cause Dino oil is still cheaper to use.  When it becomes profitable and viable for the average person then it will be all over the place.

  Do you mean Oxygen and Acetylene as used in a brazing torch not sure I understand your ref. to those gasses

Answer 9

First of all, hydrogen isn't all that simple to produce.  Secondly, if it were easy to produce, don't you think the utility industry  would jump at the opportunity to use this source of energy so they can be more profitable.  Other industries should be considered here as well.

At this time, fossil fuels are the cheapest to use.  Once other viable energy sources are developed and become cost effective, you'll begin to see them used more and more.  Until then, we're stuck using oil.  The key works here are "Cost Effective".

Answer 10

Because hydrogen is not simple to produce, particularly in a way which produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions than burning fossil fuels.  The only reasonably efficient way to extract hydrogen with our current technology is to get it from natural gas, and the process creates as much greenhouse gas emissions as directly burning the gas.

Additionally, even if we had the technology to extract hydrogen, we don't have the infrastructure to store or transport it such that cars could refuel with it.  Building such infrastructure would cost billions of dollars.

In order to get hyrdogen from water, you have to input energy in order to break the bonds with oxygen.  A lot of energy.  We don't have the ability to do this and produce a net gain of energy.

Answer 11

I don't defend oil .

The oil companies do that for us

Answer 12

We don't need oil as you know.   Hydrogen is a much cleaner solution and can be obtained in many way from renewable sources.   Profit motivates the oil people and with their use of prior enormous profits they protect there interests and money even at the expense of the rest of us.  No matter the death and disease from burning fossil fuels.  Just protect that bottom line.

One way to make a difference is to stop using oil and make your own fuel.....take the bull by the horns, do something that'll be better for you, the environment, and the rest of us.