I wondered what the cost was to produce enough hydrogen to be equivalent to a gallon of diesel fuel? Where my son goes to college in Michigan there are wind turbine farms. Electrolysis seperates the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. From what I have read you are better off to sell the electricity that make capture Hydrogen. Nonetheless if you captured Hydrogen from wind turbines what would be cost compared to diesel fuel?
My guess is that on an energy basis it would be more expensive than diesel fuel. Keep in mind that the cost of hydrogen includes the price of electricity, the cost of the equipment to electrolyze the water to make hydrogen and the cost of storing and transporting the hydrogen.
Hydrogen from electricity only makes sense if there is enough of "renewable" generating capacity such that power system stability requires frequent turn down of rewable generation and that the electrolysis can be ramped up to make use of the resulting free electricity.
Hydrogen is very reactive (it's the H in the pH of acid) and moves thru some containers like a sieve, so it is hard to store. Some automotive research has looked at metal hydrides for storage, but I don't know where that is at. During the oil shortage of the 70s they talked about the "Hydrogen Economy", but it never came about.
Mention Hydrogen and the 1st thing most people think of is the Hindenburg disaster.
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I watched a "Lonely Planet" travel show a few years ago where the traveler was visiting Germany and got a ride in a hydrogen powered car, it think it may have been a Mercedes, but I could be wrong. This was a regular production vehicle by the way, not an experimental.
As it turned out producing the hydrogen fuel turned out to be a LOT more expensive than anyone thought it would be, so the idea of substituting hydrogen for oil turned out to be a dead-end.
Good effort though, can't blame 'em for trying.
I rode in a hydrogen fuel cell Toyota Rav4 a few months ago, very similar to riding in an electric car. The car is based at UC Irvine and there are three hydrogen filling stations in the general vicinity.
Running a fuel cell vehicle on hydrogen requires more electricity than running the same sized vehicle on a battery, assuming that the hydrogen was generated from electricity. OTOH, the electrolysis plants could be more flexible about when to draw power than battery powered car, and thus make use of renewable generation when that geeration would otherwise be curtailed due to insufficient demand.
- Erik
First and foremost , commercial hydrogen production is NOT by electrolysis , which is a 3-2 loser energy wise. It comes from reformation of natural gas. It is not a pracitical fuel, requiring about 30% more volume than diesel oil for the same BTU content. It is very difficult to contain as the small atoms escape through gaps that no other fuel can. It must be stored at pressures that would be dangerous even if non flammable. It is a stupid idea and that could have been easily determined with a little research.
By the time H2 fuel systems are perfected, energy storage systems (Ultracapacitators,Flywheel systems, etc..) may have been developed to the equivalent same energy density and may knock it out of the market.
I do think reformed methanol PEM fuel cells may have some potential..Methanol is a relatively cheap fuel and the system avoids all the headaches of storing hydrogen in gas or liquid form..
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