weltweit
Well-Known Member
Toyota: “hydrogen fuel cells are the ultimate eco car”
Seems interesting.
Anyone know about Hydrogen fuel cells?
Seems interesting.
Anyone know about Hydrogen fuel cells?
Top Gear says Toyota says “hydrogen fuel cells are the ultimate eco car”
- Thread starter weltweit
- Start date
hipipol
Peckham Wry
By far the best IF they can sort out the Hydrogen production problems, currently it uses huge amount of power, but it should be possible to generate using thermal power to break down water into its component parts - Hydrogen and Oxygen - I first wrote to Gadaffi suggesting a solar powered static sea water hydrogen production plant about 20 years ago - techs been around for a bit you see - getting more efficient but v slowly - coming on the back of the decision of many big city Mayors globally to go for all Fuel Cell bus fleets....also need to overcome some technical difficulty ref refuelling...
hipipol
Peckham Wry
2hats
Dust.
Reverse electrolysis essentially. Been used in aerospace for years (space shuttle on board electrical power was provided by three hydrogen fuel cells).
weltweit
Well-Known Member
So in conventional electrolysis you charge two poles in water and get hydrogen and oxygen. In reverse electrolysis you put hydrogen and oxygen into a vessel with two poles and they produce electricity and water? Does that sound about it?
2hats
Dust.
That is indeed it - essentially: electricity+water <=> hydrogen+oxygen. There are more sophisticated/alternative implementations of this using exchange membranes and solid or molten substances as well as liquids but almost always hydrogen plus oxidiser. I think the commercial car ones mainly use hydrogen plus oxygen from the air, though there are some ethanol variants.
urbanspaceman
Well-Known Member
Toyota is trying to save face, having spent vast amounts of money on fuel cells. For light vehicles, batteries are superior to fuel cells. 95% of Hydrogen is made by reforming natural gas, in a not-particularly energy efficient process, which generates carbon dioxide as byproduct - the same amount of CO2 as would be made by burning natural gas directly in the engine, just released at a different stage in the overall process. Electrolysis generates no carbon, but is quite inefficient. Hydrogen is tricky to transport and store. It's a small molecule that will find a way to leak out of the tiniest defects, it causes "hydrogen enbrittlement" of metals, and since it's so light, really big tanks are needed. Because of its very low boiling point (20 degrees above absolute zero), liquid hydrogen is not a practical proposition. Compressing gaseous hydrogen into storage tanks also consumes a lot of energy. Battery vehicles can use the existing electricity distribution infrastructure, and the BEV energy chain is overall rather simpler.
Fuel cells do have a role to play for ships and aircraft.
Fuel cells do have a role to play for ships and aircraft.
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urbanspaceman
Well-Known Member
Fuel Cell combines Hydrogen with atmospheric oxygen to make electricity, water vapour and waste heat. Electricity powers electric traction motor.
snadge
metal alchemist
DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
No, because it'll never exist. Tesla will not produce a FCEV this year or any other. A mass market car powered by hydrogen just isn't a viable product. My nearest H filling station is just a convenient 3,500km away.
you could have a large balloon on the top of the car like on the prescient Dad's Army episode with the butchers' van. Large enough one would get you there and back.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
Once upon a time your nearest petrol station was the same distance.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
The problem is this - it's starting from zero the same as electric charging stations did. But BEVs - at a consumer level - make much, much more sense than FCEVs and electric charging stations have a head start. There's no way for hydrogen to get enough impetus behind it to become common so long as we're limited by our electricity production. Creating H2 to "burn" in fuel cells is hugely inefficient compared to using batteries. It requires vastly more energy and has many more steps involved for the first rule of thermodynamics to come into play. Hydrogen was always the dream energy economy in SF because it was assumed we'd have cheap, nearly limitless fusion power by now, and in those circumstances it makes perfect sense. But not the way our energy economy is now.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
There's talk of more efficient electrolysis cells. Unfortunately I'm not sure what the figure is now (I'd thought about 40%) or what the research figure is. I did try to check but couldn't see a single figure for operating efficiency, it all looks complicated. They'd be good for storing excess from wind or solar.
gosub
~#
Where (approx) do you live?
gosub
~#
BMW, Honda and Hyundai all still think hydrogen cars are the next big thing – here's why
The tech will mature with commercial vehicles, but passenger cars will follow
www.techradar.com
Zapp Brannigan
Built like a steakhouse, handles like a bistro
I get that this thread started a few years ago and is tucked away in the transport forum, but are we all just going to gloss over:
ska invita
back on the other side
beats writing to your local MP tbf
Spandex
A crazy bulbous punchbag of sound
Writing to Gaddafi still beats writing to your local MP 13 years after he was assassinated.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
hipipol
Peckham Wry
Never got a reply... you need some autocratric nutter to get this sort of insane proposition off the ground - tbf is was couched in grovelling terms - 'only you have the wisdom and vision to keep Libya as the energy source of the future oil is finite the Sun is forever as is the beacon of your leadership...' Massive solar farms powering the hydro crack from sea water, biproducts could make the production profitable - minerals and metals exracted from the process would have been another revenue stream - What could have been, eh? The Mad Twat might still be alive if only he had listened to me!!! I think I was doing many drugs at the time........ETA I wrote to His Excellency in the late 90s, a request to a dead Gaddaffi is as likely to get things done as writing to any UK Govt over the last few decades tho
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