Hydrogen cars now

[blestx4]

Honda FCX Clarity - Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle - Official Web Site

Saw it advertised on tv. Available only in California. Maybe eco nuts are raising fuel prices to make these more attractive. Anyone on here from California drove one yet? Says it only emits heat and water. I wonder if that means the roads will be all wet if we change over. Comments??

 

[UNGN]

Hydrogen comes from 2 things currently:

1) Electrolysis uses electricity to make the Hydrogen from water. This is the most expensive way and actually results in nearly the same amount of greenhouse gasses of a internal combustion engine with similar performance. Very little Hydrogen is made this way. Rolling blackouts demonstrate that Califonia has no great excess of electricity. "we'll only make it at night" is a pretty stupid freakin answer, too. Gee... lets buy twice as many machines because we can only use them 1/2 the time.

2) Hydrogen is made from cracking Natural gas. This is where most Hydrogen comes from. This method actually emits less "greenhouse gas" than electrolysis off the grid . Record prices for Natural gas point to the fact that there isn't a great excess on Natural gas laying around (except in my neighborhood where they are talking about $25K/Acre and 25% royalty for 3 year mineral rights).

So they want a car to run off two things California doesn't have, with no infrastructure to support it. If they start building Nuclear Power Plants right now, In 15 years a FCV just might be feasible.

 

[fitz3820]

UNGN is right - hydrogen ins't an easy fix. By using electricity to make hydrogen and then turning it back in to electricity to run the car you loose a ton of efficiency.

Plus hydrogen is difficult to store at this time - it takes energy to compress it and anything under pressure presents a huge danger in the event of an accident.

Maybe someday as mentioned above we will make some new nuke plants and be able to make hydrogen but now it doesn't really work that well.

 

[klrv6]

Hydrogen comes from 2 things currently:

1) Electrolysis uses electricity to make the Hydrogen from water. This is the most expensive way and actually results in nearly the same amount of greenhouse gasses of a internal combustion engine with similar performance. Very little Hydrogen is made this way. Rolling blackouts demonstrate that Califonia has no great excess of electricity. "we'll only make it at night" is a pretty stupid freakin answer, too. Gee... lets buy twice as many machines because we can only use them 1/2 the time.

2) Hydrogen is made from cracking Natural gas. This is where most Hydrogen comes from. This method actually emits less "greenhouse gas" than electrolysis off the grid . Record prices for Natural gas point to the fact that there isn't a great excess on Natural gas laying around (except in my neighborhood where they are talking about $25K/Acre and 25% royalty for 3 year mineral rights).

So they want a car to run off two things California doesn't have, with no infrastructure to support it. If they start building Nuclear Power Plants right now, In 15 years a FCV just might be feasible.

And #3

Dissolving aluminum in a water and potassium hydroxide mixture. Of course the output will not be pure hydrogen.

 

[Dusty Bradford]

A local guy here is now converting gas powered cars over to hydrogen powered. He uses a tank in the trunk for water and a generator on the motor for the electrolysis. The hydrogen is only generated when the motor is running so it doesn't have to be stored. You get the car running on gas and swap it over with a switch. His old Caddy test bed went from 19mpg to 53, then his wife's Toyota jumped from the 30's to 71mpg. Hydrogen generates more heat so the system will swap back to gas automatically when the temps get to high. He's applied for a patent and is doing conversions now. He just recieved a fleet of trucks from a state department for the conversion.

I don't know how much water is needed so I'm not sure how far you could go on 5 or 10 gallons of water.

 

[GNVYUS 1]

If you start in 1885 with Gottlieb Daimlers gas engine and give the alternative energy industry over 100 years like gas engines have had to work out the kinks and it's a different comparison. It's a tall bar to start making alternatives compete and function as good/reliable/cost effective as gas engines.

The next 10 years will alter the automotive industry like no other time in history, be patient and the Engineers of Japan, Germany and the US will show us what Governments and Big Oil have been suffocating all these years.

I'm all for it even if it falls on it's face multiple times.

 

[UNGN]

A local guy here is now converting gas powered cars over to hydrogen powered. He uses a tank in the trunk for water and a generator on the motor for the electrolysis. The hydrogen is only generated when the motor is running so it doesn't have to be stored. You get the car running on gas and swap it over with a switch. His old Caddy test bed went from 19mpg to 53, then his wife's Toyota jumped from the 30's to 71mpg. Hydrogen generates more heat so the system will swap back to gas automatically when the temps get to high. He's applied for a patent and is doing conversions now. He just recieved a fleet of trucks from a state department for the conversion.

I don't know how much water is needed so I'm not sure how far you could go on 5 or 10 gallons of water.

Don't give him any of your money. What you have described is not physically possible.

The amount of hydrogen that can be produced with an aternator is relatively miniscule in BTU's vs. a gallon of Gasoline. An old caddy getting 53 mpg with onboard H2 generation is bordering on a perpetual motion machine.

 

[klrv6]

A local guy here is now converting gas powered cars over to hydrogen powered. He uses a tank in the trunk for water and a generator on the motor for the electrolysis. The hydrogen is only generated when the motor is running so it doesn't have to be stored. You get the car running on gas and swap it over with a switch. His old Caddy test bed went from 19mpg to 53, then his wife's Toyota jumped from the 30's to 71mpg. Hydrogen generates more heat so the system will swap back to gas automatically when the temps get to high. He's applied for a patent and is doing conversions now. He just recieved a fleet of trucks from a state department for the conversion.

I don't know how much water is needed so I'm not sure how far you could go on 5 or 10 gallons of water.

Or you could start building your own....

http://www.free-energy-info.co.uk/Smack.pdf

Even if you pickup 4mpg using one of these, it will help clean up your emissions. Not saying I have one that gives at least a 4mpg gain I too am waiting for these technologies to evolve. The one thing that scares me more than big oil is the thought of any country that can employ this type of technology and allow unrestricted power generation (heat) to be created. That could get ugly...

Faraday had some very specific comments on electrolysis pertaining to hydrogen generation. If enough intelligent minds look at it, it will just be a matter of time.

 

[Dusty Bradford]

Don't give him any of your money. What you have described is not physically possible.

The amount of hydrogen that can be produced with an aternator is relatively miniscule in BTU's vs. a gallon of Gasoline. An old caddy getting 53 mpg with onboard H2 generation is bordering on a perpetual motion machine.

I have no idea how it would work but he's applied for the patent and will not discuss how the generator accomplishes this. There was a write in the local paper about it recently. I don't know if it's true or not but he's got them lined up outside waiting on conversions including a fleet of vehicles from another state

 

[klrv6]

I have no idea how it would work but he's applied for the patent and will not discuss how the generator accomplishes this. There was a write in the local paper about it recently. I don't know if it's true or not but he's got them lined up outside waiting on conversions including a fleet of vehicles from another state

Link or company name? I would like more info...thanks!

 

[blestx4]

Hydrogen Honda

Read in an article that when released this summer or whatever, Honda will charge 600 a month to lease the vehicle. Not sure what advancements have been made to the technology though. Article states that the vehicle will go about 268 miles on a tank but says nothing about what that is by quantity. With that price tag they must have something to brag about, otherwise its cheaper to stay in the tahoe or whatever you drive.

 

[UNGN]

Read in an article that when released this summer or whatever, Honda will charge 600 a month to lease the vehicle. Not sure what advancements have been made to the technology though. Article states that the vehicle will go about 268 miles on a tank but says nothing about what that is by quantity. With that price tag they must have something to brag about, otherwise its cheaper to stay in the tahoe or whatever you drive.

Saving the planet isn't cheap

We aren't all driving H2 cars now because gas would need to be $10/Gallon before they are economically viable. Gas is almost $10/gallon in Europe. Look for H2 cars to show up there first.

In the US, look for Natural gas companies to jump on the H2 bandwagon, (because that's where it comes from)