It looks like 2009 will be the first year for consumer Hydrogen vehicles, where do i get the fuel??

Question

honda, chevy, ford, and others will be releasing fuel cell vehical in 09, here in northern indiana i know of no hydrogen fueling stations. even if i had the money for an H car (and i dont by a long shot) how would i fuel it

thoguh i know of one concept, still in the developmental phase. an electrolosis unit in the home powered by phot voltaic panles which also power the home. the H fuel will be piped right into the car in the garage, btu thats porbably a decade away yet

Answer 1

I just don't see the rationale for developing hydrogen vehicles.  At this point, it emits more carbon than gas vehicles.  Electric cars should be the way to go.

Answer 2

It will be tough.  I hear that there are a few depots in the Los Angeles area that can provide it.  But, as a consumer product, there is no future in hydrogen: by the time you make it out of whatever you make it from (usually natural gas), you haven't saved any money, reduced pollution, or reduced CO2 emissions.  There are other problems as well.

Answer 3

That's one of the key problems with hydrogen transportation technology.  There's no transportation and storage infrastructure - no hydrogen refueling stations.  Building such infrastructure will cost billions of dollars.

You hit on another key problem - the source of the hydrogen fuel.  Currently the only reasonably efficient method we have of extracting hydrogen is from natural gas, and the process emits as much CO2 as burning the natural gas directly, so there's no benefit.

Electrolysis is an extremely inefficient process.  In order to break the atomic bonds, you have to put in far more energy than you can get out by burning the hydrogen as fuel.  Photovoltaics are also not very efficient, so I don't see how using a home PV system will be able to provide anywhere near as much hydrogen as you need to drive a car.

A far more intelligent solution would be to use the solar energy to directly recharge a battery so you're not wasting the energy in breaking the atomic bonds of water.  This is one of the many advantages electric cars have over hydrogen cars.  Another is that the infrastructure (power grid) is already in place.

Answer 4

You can get electrolysis, but it takes a lot of energy and so will be hard to get.

Plus the easiest way to make hydrogen is from natural gas...

So "where do I get the fuel?"

From the oil conspiracy.