Is hydrogen plentiful?

Question

as in to fuel hydrogen based cars.

Answer 1

yes it is you can make it using a process call electrolysis using

water and metals

Answer 2

There is an unimaginable quantity in the sun -- a little tough to get at, however.

Answer 3

There is one in every water molecule.  I think hydrogen makes up most of our air...only 21% oxygen or something like that.   Been a while but I think hydrogen is more plentiful than carbon.

Answer 4

Sort of.  There are lots of sources from which we can get hydrogen, one of them being water, which covers most of the planet.

However, it takes energy to extract hydrogen from these sources, especially water.  It takes less energy to extract it from fossil fuels, which is why currently 96% of our hydrogen comes from fossil fuels vs. 4% from water.  

See the link below for further details.

Answer 5

yep, there's lots of hydrogen.

but it doesn't have a lot of energy in it.

it's sort of like seeing a pile of batteries, and thinking you don't have to buy any for a year.

but the bad news is that they're all dead batteries.

no more energy in 'em.

Or, maybe you need some water out of a deep well.

what you do is attach a heavy rock to the other end of the rope to pull the bucket of water up.

however, if the only rock you have is down at the bottom of the hole, it doesn't have any energy.

what you need to do is haul that rock up -- that's adding energy to it -- potential energy.

then you can tie it to the end of the rope, drop it down the hole, and haul the bucket of water up.

in our case, what you have to do is separate the hydrogen from the oxygen atoms in water.

then you can burn that hydrogen.

but, since no processes are perfect, you don't get as much energy back as you put in separating the hydrogen in the first place.

that's the  "magic"  of coal, oil, and natural gas.

it already has that energy stored up, and we get to use it.

once.

when it's gone, it's gone.

then we need to figure out something else.

however, there is a down side.

that is, releasing the CO2 when we burn coal, oil, and n. gas.

if it was just H2O, it would be great.

but it's not.

btw, there is no lose hydrogen in the atmosphere.

with all the oxygen around, and all the lightening to encourage them to get hitched, if there ever was, it's long gone.

(it's okay, they're not the same s*x.  not that they'd be averse, mind you, when there's a hydrogen just hanging around, it'd much prefer to find a Chalcogen, like oxygen, or a halogen, like chlorine, but if none are available, a civil union with another hydrogen seems preferable to a miserable lonely existence.)

Answer 6

No.  There's no hydrogen anywhere on the planet suitable for fuel.  The stuff is much lighter than helium (thus its use in blimps), so it just floats away.

But lots of substances contain hydrogen, so we have to chisel it out of those substances.  This is roughly akin to "un-burning" hydrogen.  Obviously, this takes more energy than we get back when we burn the hydrogen.  Which makes it a net loss.  Bigtime :(

So why is hydrogen valuable for transport?  Supposedly, you'd be able to drive up to a filling station and pour  hydrogen into your car.  And supposedly, this is better than just storing electricity in batteries, because supposedly, it takes a long time to charge batteries.  

Except, *laugh* not really.  Hydrogen is really hard to handle, and it'll probably take longer to fill a hydrogen tank than to quick charge a bank of batteries. Given that 15 minute battery chargers are already available at Wal-Mart, and a lot more can be done in this area, and even so, that's not the way cars are going.  They're going to plug-in hybrids which are simply electrics with smaller battery packs with less range, and onboard engines to cover the long haul.  In everyday use they're simply electric, and on long road trips, they use fuel.

Answer 7

Yes, there is a lot of it. Hydrogen is in water, however the problem with fueling cars on hydrogen is that, although there is a lot of hydrogen, you need to separate it from the oxygen in water. It takes electricity to do this. And just think, with hundreds of millions of vehicles over the world to fuel, it will take massive amounts of electricity to obtain our hydrogen from water. And we are still not really that green when it comes to producing electricity.

Answer 8

Not really. There is none available as H2. There is a lot in other compounds, but it is fairly costly and dangerous to remove and handle it. That has been the biggest problem with using it as an alternative fuel directly.

Answer 9

it's the most abundant element in the universe.

Answer 10

Yeah, it's everywhere.   The problem is, pairs of those H atoms are locked onto an atom of oxygen, and getting them off requires a lot of fancy equipment and a fair amount of energy input.