GM fuel cell SUV 300 miles on one fill

Probably as much as gasoline...

There are two common sources of hydrogen right now, fossil fuels and water. Both sources have major problems that will have to be solved before hydrogen can be a completive fuel source.

In the case of water, you actually have to put more energy into the system than you can get out so where is the incentive to use it?

Fossil fuels such as natural gas, coal and oil do take high energy inputs to recover the hydrogen but with the use of catalysts, you can get more energy out than you put in. But, what do you do with the carbon and sulfur that are left after you take the hydrogen out of the hydro-carbon fuel? And why not just burn the hydrocarbon as fuel instead of just using one component of that fuel.

Hydrogen is much less energy dense than fossil fuel. The atoms of hydrogen are the smallest in nature and will migrate through the steel walls of storage tanks, so it is almost impossible to store it for long periods. How do you transport it, as a liquid or as a gas? If as a liquid, you have to put even more energy into the system making it an even less economical fuel when compared to oil.

Could it be that the rapid run-up in the price of crude is to make these alternate sources look even better in comparison?

Jack

If SPV were cheap enough, cracking water to make hydrogen would be cheap enough. The hydrogen is then more energy-dense and portable. That would be the incentive. People are very interested in cheap SPV. Nuclear power could also be used to provide the energy.

I believe you are thinking of helium. Hydrogen is the lightest but helium's electron shells are the tightest, so the atom's dimensions are smaller. Hydrogen, I think, will always bond into H2 as a gas, so the molecules of hydrogen will be considerably larger than H atoms alone. Helium does not bond into He2.

Yeah. It is either made from methane or hydrolysis (splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen). But take a lot of energy and make a lot of CO2.

Jeff

Probably not.

But even if we built another nuclear facility, it probably makes more sense to use the additional electricity to decrease the use of coal for electric generation.

Jeff

It really doesn't make any difference how you get the electricity, you still use more energy getting the hydrogen from water than that hydrogen can give you. If you take a pound of hydrogen and a pound of natural gas and compare the energy output of each, you will find that natural gas gives almost 3 times more energy than hydrogen. Hence, hydrogen isn't very energy-dense unless you liquefy it. Then you REALLY have some storage problems.

No, I'm thinking of hydrogen. Check out this site:

I'm not going to attempt a high school chemistry lesson here but, although you are right about hydrogen forming a molecule under normal pressures and temperatures, it still will migrate through your storage vessel's walls. If that wasn't true, there would be just a few very large plants making hydrogen gas instead of making it on-site where ever it's needed. There is a very large demand for hydrogen gas and it would be more economical to make it in a few places and transport it to where it is needed.

Jack

I can see the future now, all cars run on hydrogen. The highways will be filled to capacity 24/7 with millions of non-polluting cars and millions of those greed and white 'Air Products bottle' trucks, trying to get the stations with the hydrogen and my AP stock a dividends will sour LOL

mike