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Hydrogen's Achilles heel is its crappy volumetric energy density. Even if you get the hydrogen to the point where you literally can't compress it anymore and i
by mchannon 8y ago
Hydrogen's Achilles heel is its crappy volumetric energy density. Even if you get the hydrogen to the point where you literally can't compress it anymore and it liquefies, it takes up 4x the space of the equivalent energy amount of gasoline. This doesn't include added weights from tanks, bigger engines, etc.
So the people behind this are not wrong that if we're going to have a hydrogen economy we have to confront this volumetric density problem for motor fuels. Even if somehow they lived up to their billing, a vehicle designed to run on alane would suffer the same shortcomings as ethanol- still inferior to gasoline in multiple ways.
Are we going to have a hydrogen economy? No. Even if this alane wasn't snake oil and completely lived up to its promises, hydrogen would still be more expensive to fill your car with, and it wouldn't work as well as, gasoline.
"But, but, but.. what about when we run out of oil?" This won't solve that problem either. We can and will make gasoline from natural gas and/or coal if that ever happens, which it won't.
- shmerl 8y agoBetter just use natural gas (like methane) straight in such case. It's cheaper than making gasoline from it.
- mchannon 8y agoWhile this is largely true (and in fact today natural gas is already cheaper than making gasoline from other sources), sometimes you can't substitute natural gas for gasoline, and some people will still want to buy gasoline (with its commensurate energy density, ease of transport, and worse pollution) and pay a premium to do so. In fact, I suspect the amount of natural gas burned to produce a gallon of gasoline is already substantial, with electrically-powered catalytic reforming necessary for us to drive around with octane rating numbers over "50", and by and large the cheapest source of that electricity being from burning natural gas.
- microcolonel 8y ago> ease of transport Not to mention safety, which contributes to the weight savings.
- Tloewald 8y agoNo clue if these guys are viable but the science is solid. You do understand that the whole point of hydrides is addressing hydrogen’s storage issues (energy density and need to store under pressure). Using hydrides with fuel cells was what everyone expected electric cars to use before lithium ion batteries took off.
- ogrisel 8y agoWe will have to find a way to stop using fossil fuels because of climate change.