Where do we get the hydrogen for fueling these new cars. Who makes it from what?

Question

Where do we get the hydrogen for fueling these new cars. Who makes it from what?

Answer 1

One of the more interesting problems with the hydrogen economy is the hydrogen itself. Where will it come from? With the fossil fuel economy, you simply pump the fossil fuel out of the ground  and refine it. Then you burn it as an energy source.

Most of us take oil, gasoline, coal and natural gas for granted, but they are actually quite miraculous. These fossil fuels represent stored solar energy from millions of years ago. Millions of years ago, plants grew using solar energy to power their growth. They died, and eventually turned into oil, coal and natural gas. When we pump oil from the ground, we tap into that huge solar energy storehouse "for free." Whenever we burn a gallon of gasoline, we release that stored solar energy.

In the hydrogen economy, there is no storehouse to tap into. We have to actually create the energy in real-time.

Answer 2

It comes from water, water is h2o that's one hydrogen, 2 oxygen. They merely electrocute the water basically to make hydrogen. Very simple actually.

So it's made from water, and when it's used, it combines with air to make water, the energy you put into it to make hydrogen is almost equal to the energy you get out of it, that's why it's so important and being developed so much, it's the perfect fuel basically.

So companies make it from water. Some say it may even be made at the pumps themselves, which would mean that the filling stations wouldn't need deliveries.

It should also be cheap once it's implemented, because let's face it, the planet is mostly water.

Answer 3

A simple answer is either from oil or much better from water from the sea.

In the latter a huge amount of electricity is used to separate the hydrogen atom from the water, this is only efficient when the power source is a dam, wind, or Nuclear plant.

In the first process I am not sure.

Answer 4

Commercial scale hydrogen production is by steam reforming, usually of natural gas.  The process reacts a hydrocarbon with steam to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide.

Answer 5

It can be made by cracking methane which means fossil fuels are still used or it can be made by shooting electricity through water.

Answer 6

Everyone was correct on our current production of hydrogen.  However there was recently a discovery at Perdue University where researchers found that by taking Gallium which is a liquid at temperatures above 89 degrees Fahrenheit and adding it to aluminum.  The gallium and aluminum form an alloy that when added to water produce alot of hydrogen and aluminum oxide.  It also doesn't take a whole lot of heat to make the alloy only the gallium need be liquid...which occures at room temp in many areas.  Looks promising

there is a article here... http://www.unitednuclear.com/newprocess....

I'm sure there is more stuff on the net.

Answer 7

Big problem.  Current ways of making hydrogen are terribly inefficient and/or very polluting.

The greenest method isusing electricity to separate hydrogen out of water.  But you would use that electricity more efficiently if you just charged your electric car or plug-in hybrid.

And EV batteries are a solved problem; storing hydrogen is not.  Oh, it's not the safety; it's the density. Hydrogen is lightweight stuff, so it takes a lot of room, even in liquid form!

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

A fuel tank for 300 mile range is gonna be big.

Answer 8

Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe.  H2O?

Answer 9

Excellent question.

The easiest way is to use electricity to split up water.  So, electric cars need to be part of a system where we generate electricity by nuclear, solar, or wind, use it to make hydrogen, and pipe it to gas stations.

It will take some time to build the whole system.  But it will be done.  In the meantime we need to design and test the electric cars now.

Answer 10

All most all hydrogen is made currently by cracking methane and so hydrogen is most properly considered a refined fossil fuel in our current technology. The following discussion of methane and hydrogen is from one of my other answerers to a similar question. I have included the methane discussion because many of the points also pertain to hydrogen.

Methane: Methane gas could be used as a transition fuel for fuel cell power cars. A fuel cell is really just a type of battery. In the case of a fuel cell the "fuel" is really part of the battery. Rather than pumping electricity into it to charge the fuel cell, the fuel is replaced as it gets consumed making energy. Fuel cells need very pure fuel to work well and so most use hydrogen as the fuel. Methane can be converted to hydrogen in a tiny chemical reactor right in the car and therefore methane can be used to drive a hydrogen fuel cell. Fuel cells are more efficient that internal combustion engines and in theory can reach the same super high efficiency of batteries. However the technical requirements of fuel cells make them significantly less efficient. Most today are about 40-45% efficient. There are other efficiency issues that I will discuss later. Gaseous fuels have storage issues. You need a high-pressure tank, a cryogenic tank, or some kind of absorbent matrix. These are all both expensive and relatively large. The problem is made worse by the relatively low volumetric latent energy of gaseous fuels compared to much denser liquid fuels. Gaseous fuels are somewhat more dangerous to handle as well because they expand out of their container if it is broken. A leak is much more likely to result in an explosion or fire therefore. The infrastructure for safe handling of gaseous fuels on an everyday basis by untrained persons simply does not exist. It is very likely to be significantly more expensive than the existing infrastructure as well. Probably the very biggest downside to methane though is that the primary source is fossil natural gas. Methane can be generated from the biodigestion of plant mater and sewage but the quantities are likely to be limited just as they are for both ethanol and biodiesel. Furthermore methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas and the creation of a large vehicle-fueling infrastructure is virtually certain to result in far more methane emissions and so even from renewable sources might significantly contribute to global warming. Given the relatively primitive state of fuel cell development and the nonexistent and complex infrastructure requirements, methanol as a vehicle fuel is a very long way off. The final problem for methane is that natural gas is itself nearing peak production world wide at the same time demand for cleaner electricity production has placed very high demand on the fuel. There will very likely not be anywhere near enough natural gas to supply even a small fraction of vehicular demand.

Hydrogen: Hydrogen shares virtually all of the advantages and disadvantages of methanol. There are a couple of additional complications though. One is distribution from generation points to dispensing points. Natural gas has an existing distribution system of pipelines. No such pipeline system exists for hydrogen. Hydrogen is the lowest density of fuel sources and so it takes up the greatest amount of space for the delivered energy of any fuel. It is harder to compress, harder to liquefy, and generally harder to keep contained compared to any other gas or fuel. On the plus side it is pollution free when used in a fuel cell and itself is not a greenhouse gas so inadvertent release does not contribute to global warming. Hydrogen does not exist as a free gas and therefore must be manufactured. This is done in two primary ways. Cracking of methane in a chemical plant as described above. This by far the largest current method of producing hydrogen. As such hydrogen today is simply another type refined of fossil fuel and therefore would contribute to global warming unless the CO2 produced in the cracking of methane is somehow sequestered. The second way to manufacture methane is the electrolysis of water. That if done with renewably generated electricity would not contribute to global warming. Unfortunately that is a very inefficient process. Only about 40% of the energy of the electricity is converted to hydrogen. And then when the hydrogen is converted back to electricity in the fuel cell only 40% of it is converted to work. Thus even ignoring the need to liquefy the hydrogen, itself very energy intensive, and the distribution losses, the overall process only successfully converts about 8% of a fossil fuel to useful work in the car, compare that to about 43% with an electric car. That is a devastating efficiency and even the most optimistic estimates only get that up to about 28% for hydrogen. Some of the disadvantages of fuel cell powered hydrogen cars can be over come by the use of hydrogen as a fuel for an internal combustion engine. But this comes at even a greater price in lost efficiency and this cycle only achieves about 6% total efficiency, which is so bad it can only be of interest for demonstration purposes and would be utterly impractical on a large-scale basis. The low efficiency and daunting infrastructure issues bring the future viability of hydrogen into sharp question. Considerable research is required to make hydrogen even marginally competitive. At the current state of development is it not feasible. Only electrolytically generated hydrogen has a chance at supplying our vehicular needs but at a sharp reduction in efficiency compared to direct use of electricity with batteries. Also the grid stabilizing benefits of electric cars is lost because hydrogen cars will not be connected to the grid.

Answer 11

Unless you just happen to know someone on your block, street, or whatever, who just might also happen to have a hydrogen generator or a large-scale electrolosis machine, you will have to go out and buy one, or find out how to make one of your own. We unfortunately don't currently have LH/LOX refueling stations available to the public, unless you work at NASA or something. But yeah, long story short: get or find a hydrogen generator or a large-scale electrolosis machine.

Answer 12

There is much research being done in this area. Hydrogen cell...BUT there is a new form of hydrogen production which should be emerging soon.

It uses Gallium coated aluminum pellets and water. When water is poured over these pellets the result is hydrogen and water and the water is recycled back into a tank so its used over and over again and is like hydrogen on demand. NO need for hydrogen fuel cells or hydrogen pumps. Very safe, economical and very eco friendly. Look for these cars in the next couple of years.

Answer 13

Hydrogen can be obtained from the electrolysis of water (kind of a fuel cell in reverse, i.e. it would need energy instead of providing energy).  It can come from reforming methanol or ethanol  which produces carbon dioxide as a by product.  It can also be produced from fossil fuels, again forming carbon dioxide as a by product.

A carbon free method for producing hydrogen could be imagined by using solar energy for water electrolysis.  Of course, there is also the problem of hydrogen storage.