your fears are unfounded, it's the bad wrap leftover from the Hindenburg...very few people died of hydrogen burns in the Hindenburg, the hydrogen had burned off in 90 seconds, jumping out of the airship killed a number as well as diesel fuel that burned for several hours ... gasoline is more dangerous than hydrogen, when a gasoline is ruptured gasoline spreads as liquid on the ground before it can evaporate/dissipate resulting in a wider field of fire, hydrogen being much lighter than air doesn't spread it evaporates immediately and goes straight up, gasoline is also slightly more flammable...the tank containing gasoline is usually some plastic or light gauge metal both very easy to puncture, hydrogen tanks are must less likely to rupture... http://www.40fires.org/Wiki.jsp?page=Hydrogen Safety - 5. Gasoline Vs. Hydrogen if you're going to be in a car fire choose hydrogen rather than gasoline, you'll likely survive...
i agree EMF concerns have not been fully addressed... corporate and economic growth may have pushed safety concerns to the side...
If you could produce the hydrogen chemically and then burn it as its being produced. Like sodium and water or something. So you could store your hydrogen in water and produce it as you go. Just grasping at straws here.
great idea, not so sure it would work... I suspect you would need an enormous water tanker towed behind your car to supply the hydrogen...i could be wrong(I'm no chemist) but I think it takes a large amount of water to fill the typical tank of gas with hydrogen...
That's the holy grail, right? Pour water in your tank and off you go. The problem is the equation for burning hydrogen produces water, which is what you started with. If you end up with the same thing you started with, you get nothing out of it. The story is actually worse than that because you incur practical losses in converting from one thing to another. Another way to look at it is, whatever energy converted the water to hydrogen, is the energy used to power the car PLUS convert the water to hydrogen. There's a big net loss there. Now if we can invent some cold nuclear reactions with water, we might be in business.
Care to show us what the charging plug would look like with 40 triple-0 gauge conductors? Damn... the cable would probably weigh 100 pound a foot!
Hydrides are hardly safer. They react with water, and can be flammable. When those are available, the equations will change in favor of electric.
I'm thinking about high pressure gases, not necessarily just hydrogen. From my experience with Scuba tanks at 3000 PSI, and having seen the havoc they can cause when ruptured, I can't imagine what would happen with a flammable gas at 5000 PSI. A single scuba tank can go through cinder block if ruptured. - - - Updated - - - Takes a lot of energy to break down water into hydrogen--more energy than would be produced by burning the hydrogen. It's just simple chemistry.
Have any of you people taken high school chemistry? (and if not, why the heck are you ignorant people arguing about something you have no clue about? I thought it was conservatives who didn't like science).It's easy to calculate. A mole of gas (which is the gram amount of the atomic number) has a volume of 22.4 liters. A mole of water (H20) is 18 grams of water, or 18 milliters. A mole of hydrogen gas (H2) can be produced from that 18 grams of water (as well as 1/2 mole of Oxygen gas (O2). A mole of hydrogen gas weighs 2 grams. Roughly speaking a gallon of gas takes about a kg (1000 g) of hydrogen to take the place of it. That would mean 500 moles of hydrogen gas, which means 500 moles of water, or 9kg of water to take the place of a gallon of gas. You are exactly correct about the amount of water needed. However, the real reason it won't work is because it takes more energy to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen than the hydrogen will produce when burned. You'd be better off just using that energy for locomotion directly (i.e. in an electric motor).
Exactly. That, and you'd need 9 Kg (liters) (which is about 2 1/2 gallons) of water to take the place of one gallon of gasoline (which only weighs about 3 kg).
Alcohols are a very good fuel and a good source of hydrogen ... so drink less if you want to save oil!
Hydride s react with water and that is the idea. And gasoline is also flammable. Why not contain the reaction in the cylinders?
ignorant? really? from the person who spouted off about the dangers of hydrogen in cars without knowing anything about it, did I launch into a tirade calling you ignorant??.(I thought it was only conservatives that behaved that way) now that was ignorant behaviour on your part...politicalcenter and I were not arguing about anything he asked a question and I answered, how is that arguing? and why would want to delve back into chemistry calculations that was hoping that I had seen the last of 45 years ago, I HATED CHEMISTRY almost as much as algebra!...
do you think the engineers hadn't considered that? these new tanks have been shot at(Toyota), dropped of buildings and airplanes in an effort to make them fail...they're far safer than scuba tanks...there about 150,000 car fires per year in the US killing about 480 people per year does that you from driving a gasoline powered vehicle with thin metal fuel tank?...
Hydrides spontaneously combust in the presence of water at room temperature. Also, hydrides add to the expense of hydrogen. To make metal hydrides, it takes high pressure hydrogen and a lot of energy. - - - Updated - - - You weren't reading my criticism. It's not the hydrogen itself that is the danger. It is the high pressure (5000 PSI+) that worries me. And, chemistry is a fundamental part of this argument. If you don't know chemistry and physics, honestly, there is no sense for you to argue about this stuff.
Evidence of the safety? Also, are all of the connections of the tank also bulletproof? You do realize that a car collision has a lot more energy involved than does a bullet.
Safety is my major concern as well, when using compressed hydrogen. The kinetic energy even if it doesn't explode is intense.
there are four fail safe systems to shut of the flow of hydrogen and prevent ignition at the moment of collision...do you seriously believe these tanks are going to encounter anything worse than being dropped out of an airplane or shot?... Does the fragile nature of petrol tanks prevent you from driving them, why dont you answer that? They have a proven danger and safety issues.... It's idiotic to assume engineers haven't repeatedly tested these tanks for safety, the government has strict safety requirements to be attained before they're acceptable on public roads... all you needed to do was do a quick google to find those results but I guess it's way more fun to make silly assumptions and run with it...
You do with me and I operate on "faith bases" science and engineering. I still wanna see the competition between identical cars except one is fuel cell and one combusts hydrogen. Show me. Then again a small sphere holding more water than a tall cylinder still baffles me. Moi Gotta believe r > g No
there some conversions in early tests but i suspect most hydrogen fuel cell cars are purpose built and designed around that power system... toyota and honda both nearly ready to go to market next year so the test info will be out there if look you look for it...I saw video crash tests of hyundai's fuel cell vehicle...rear end collision test was impressive for such a small vehicle, I impression was they were so concerned with protecting the hydrogen storage the entire car has became safer for passengers...I couldnt post the link but google hyundai hydrogen fuel cell crash test and you'll find it on youtube
As of 2010 Seoul, Korea had ten hydrogen fuel stations. http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/south-korea-hydrogen-highway.htm
Bump Efficiently harvesting hydrogen fuel from Sun using Earth-abundant materials Date: September 25, 2014 Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140925141232.htm Many of the solar-cell scientists are working on the newer perovskite photovoltaics. As an example of domestic (U.S.) resources, Magnet Cove, Arkansas is an area with a reputation for the abundance of titanium-rich minerals like perovskite.
