What are your thoughts on hydrogen powered cars?

Question

Pro's...Con's?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I prefer my natural gas-powered cars. It takes one step out of the equation, since making hydrogen often is done using natural gas. I say, just use the natural gas and keep it simple! My cars were made in 1999 and 2000 by Ford, so the technology is already here and has been for years. There's also plenty of nat. gas in the USA so there's no need to line the pockets of terrorists...just my 2 cents.

Answer 2

The fuel for a hydrogen powerd vehicle would be way too costly for the average driver to be able to afford.  What needs to happen is the price of gasoline should be rolled back to no more than $2.25 per gallon and mandated to stay there!.

Answer 3

Pros: potentially 100% green transportation

Cons: where to get the hydrogen (currenly 96% comes from fossil fuels), who's going to pay for the transportation and storage infrastructure (no refueling stations), how to make them affordable when the fuel cells use platinum, they're less efficient than electric vehicles.

See the link below for further details.

Answer 4

hydrogen cars are a recyclable source of energy as the only waste product is water... however, like hydrogen zeppelins;  they would blow up easily.

Answer 5

There good i'de buy one.*

Answer 6

As a fuel, hydrogen still suffers from a number of significant drawbacks.

The main one is that it simply doesn't occur naturally in nature like crude oil does.

In order to use hydrogen, we have to first make it - and that's normally done by "cracking" more complex hydrocarbons (petroleum products) so hydrogen from this source does nothing to reduce our reliance on oil.

Another way to make hydrogen is by the electrolysis of water, but this is very ineffient and requires a lot of electricity that has to come from somewhere -- such as oil-fired or nuclear power stations.

So hydrogen is not as "clean and green" as its proponents would suggest - all it does is move the source of polution from the car itself to the power source used to make the hydrogen -- and a good deal of energy is lost in the process.

The second big problem with hydrogen for cars is that it's very, very hard safely to store enough of it in a car to give the same range and performance that you get from gasoline.

You either have to compress it enormously by squeezing it into a very strong/heavy container under enormous pressure, or use a metalic hydride which will allow the hydrogen molecules to be absorbed into its own molecular structure.

In the case of the pressurized hydrogen, it tends to leak out (because the H2 molecule is so small).  And there's also the danger associated with having any highly pressurized vessel onboard if you have a smash.

In the case of metalic hydride storage, quite a bit of heat has to be used to convince the hydrogen to come out of the cells - and that makes them dangerous and complex.

Another problem with hydrogen is that because it is such a small molecule, it tends to find its way between the molecules of iron that make up any steel components it comes in contact with.  This causes a phenomenon known as "hydrogen embrittlement".  Otherwise very strong bits of steel become very brittle and susceptible to breaking due to this embrittlement, and this can cause real problems.

I wrote an article on the whole subject of a "hydrogen economy" some time ago and have linked to it below.

And don't even think about those lame HHO "run your car on water" ideas -- they are just a huge scam.

Answer 7

It depends on how you are planning on using the hydrogen?

1) Burning hydrogen in a standard internal combustion engine

-Pros - An easy change to make as it is very similar to natural gas conversions

-Cons - Not cost viable.  Very difficult to contain / distribute.  A very poor fuel storage molecule compared to hydrocarbons.

2) Use Hydrogen powered by fuel cells and an electric engine

- Pros - Very efficient and considered almost the perfect solution.

- Cons - Reliable technology does not currently exist.  Fuel cells are not currently able to take traditional vibration and heat requirements and be reliable.  Also, currently too expensive of a design.  Would need to retool the current infrastructure...

Answer 8

Where are you going to get the Hydrogen? Closest pure source of Hydrogen is Neptune where it lies on the surface in crystal form.

Can't bring it here because it would bond with the available oxygen when used and eventually flood the planet with water while decreasing the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere.

Water vapour is more of a greenhouse gas than CO2.

Answer 9

Expensive engine

Water on the road

No poisonous exhaust

Answer 10

It will not meat EPA standards on NO2 emissions. The gasoline engine retarded the spark about 4 deg. to reduce the explosion temperature. It cost us about 17% in effecency. The heat from hydrogen is much higher so it will produce a lot of NO2.

Answer 11

If recombined (burnt) with oxygen it is a powerful fuel with no significant pollution.  If burnt with air it produces a significant amount of the nitrous oxide pollutants commonly denoted by NOx as there are more than one of them.  In liquid form it is very light weight and has the highest gravimetric energy content.  To make it liquid and keep it as a liquid is very difficult.