What makes you a hydrogen believer?

Question

There is lots of information on making hydrogen, R&D needs funding, then soon hydrogen can make hydrogen.

Read a little please.

http://hydrogencommerce.com/index2a.htm

"On the moon, you would start with a tank of water. You'd use the solar arrays to make hydrogen and oxygen during the day, then use the hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity during the night when there's no sun. Ideally, if nothing broke and nothing wore out, it could run forever without being refueled."

David Bents, NASA Glenn Research Center

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production

http://www.wired.com/cars/energy/news/2007/11/hydrogen_bacteria

http://www.enn.com/sci-tech/article/31977

Answer 1

I'm not quite a believer yet.  I love the concept and have for many years.  I've been aware of its possibilities for a long time.  But, the reality is that it takes energy to produce energy, and hydrogen technology does not escape that equation.  I do think a combination of technologies is the best solution, such as ever-improving battery technology (go Chevy Volt!), solar, wind, hydrogen, bio fuels, and even conventional fossil fuels.  We need to have vehicles and infrastructure that allow this flexibility.  Chevy Volt (which I believe allows for hydrogen) seems to come closest to that concept.  That's just my take in it.

Answer 2

I’m not a believer in hydrogen, that happens on the moon when you run out of water. You have used up all the hydrogen to make electricity there is oxygen to keep you going till you dry up that is.

Hydrogen at it’s best is not a good solution, to very specific very bad situation!

Answer 3

I’m not a believer in hydrogen it’s at best a very specific solution to very specific situations.

If you just look at the math you can see that. By taking the power from your solar cells and using that to make hydrogen lose about 34% of the energy from your solar array. Then you lose again when you use the hydrogen in a fuel cell to convert it back into electricity you only get back 40% of the energy you put so all in all you only get back about 26% of the energy you started with.  

If I just charge a battery pack and use the electricity from that I get back almost 90%.

Batteries do wear out much quicker then a fuel cell would, but I can recycle batteries for a minimal cost and when compared to a fuel cell they are very cheap. So solar cells and a battery pack is the way to go, cost and energy efficient very small initial outlay.

But if I was on the moon and I was being charged $5,000+ per pound to bring something up, then even with the loss of energy a fuel cell looks very good, my storage medium hydrogen and oxygen can be combined to form water and electricity, I can then take water and with excess power break it apart into hydrogen and oxygen an infinite number of times. So the energy loss would be something I’d put up with because the cost of batteries and their replacement would be very high compared to hydrogen fuel cell. But that doesn’t mean it would be a good idea here on earth.

Look at it this way, if I take a solar array the size of the average roof on the average house I could, by charging batteries, supply the transportation needs of the average American for an average day. If I take that same array and use it to make hydrogen and use it in a fuel cell, I couldn’t. You would need an array just about 4 times that size.

Also incase you haven’t noticed, about every 10 years since the 1970’s we have been told that hydrogen is the way to go and that in about 20 years you would be driving a hydrogen power car and that gasoline would be obsolete.  I heard in the 1970’s, the 1980’s the 1990’s and I’m hearing it now, and I’m betting that in another 10 years I’ll be told that hydrogen is only about 20 years way.

Answer 4

Nothing can generate more power than it is using. Every process like  changing from mechanical to electrical will cost U about 40%. Every other process like charging also have loses. There is a continually loss  in your process U didnt acount for.

Answer 5

im not

Answer 6

Right now nothing since you do not have any corporate buy in to produce the technology, bring down the cost, put up refueling points in locations all over the states.  without that big oil wil still work to crush the people with their way outdated junk. Very discouraging to see since they could be a power/ fuel company instead of just an oil company

Answer 7

The idea of a perpetual motion has been around for years.. If you could get rid of friction which is what causes wear and tear and things to break it would be a great idea!!

Answer 8

These guys all tend to oversimplify things a bit too much and they all tend to leave relevant factors out of the equation.  For example, in this case the solar array is taken as a link in the chain WITHOUT ANY CONSIDERATION given to the expense in energy and materials, and the energy required to obtain the materials, that go into manufacturing this solar array.  Once you figure in the cost of this array, suddenly the economic feasibility of this process does right down into the dumpster.  If this really did work, and if it were an economically feasible process, then every home in America would be employing the system to generate electricity at night.  Obviously, that is simply not the case.  The ONLY reason why this works on the moon is that there is NO other method available, and extraneous and secondary costs are not a factor.  So, if on the moon it costs $100 to run a 100 watt light bulb for an hour once you figure in ALL the costs, that is feasible because this is merely a single line item in a multi-hundred-million dollar budget.  A typical homeowner would not have this option.

For much the same reason ethanol is likewise not a viable alternative fuel source. Similarly, the total cost factor is a reason why there have been no new nuclear power plant applications in the US in over 25 years.  Recently there was one, but it remains to be seen where this will go.  The costs of building a nuclear power plant exceed the entire value of the electricity generated over its lifetime.