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Good that there's serious money being sunk into alternatives to electric cars, more is always good. But I'm seriously tired of the fact that all articles about

Good that there's serious money being sunk into alternatives to electric cars, more is always good. But I'm seriously tired of the fact that all articles about fuel-cells enthusiastically exclaims that "it's only byproduct is water!!!!", as if hydrogen was some sort of magic alternative to hydrocarbons. It's not, it's an energy transmission medium, not an energy source. For fuel-cell cars to work, you would need to have energy some place that consumes water and splits it into hydrogen and oxygen, releasing the oxygen into the air, and the hydrogen into containers that can then go into some sort of infrastructure such that individual cars can be filled up with it as necessary. And if you think about the amount of gasoline infrastructure that exists, we'd have to pretty much duplicate that, or convert that, into hydrogen shipping infrastructure, which is a pretty tall order. But for electricity, we already have the infrastructure. If you have a house, you have a place for filling up your electric car, and you have a method for paying for the energy that your car consumes, and there is a way to move the energy from wherever it is produced to your house. So the story for electric car adoption is "You don't have to take trips to the gas station anymore!", but the story for fuel cell car adoption is "You have to take trips to a new type of gas stations that don't exist yet!". That's quite a hurdle...

henrikschroder 12y ago
The only game-changer I could see there would be if we could make some sort of in-your-home hydrolyzer, so that you just connect water and electricity to it, and it connects to your car to fill it up. That's on-par with the convenience of an electric car, if we ignore the safety issues of hydrogen gas leaks in urban neighbourhoods...
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  Regenerative fuel cells are cells with an in-cell hydrolysis system; if you could incorporate them, a fuel cell vehicle would have pretty much the same recharging UX as any other EV. Even with stationary at-home electrolysis systems, if you don't store more than one fill-up in the system, there's marginal additional risk compared to having a hydrogen-fueled vehicle in the first place.
  - henrikschroder 12y ago
    Great, that allows you to very easily compare that vehicle to one with a chemical battery, and evaluate it on cost, range, engine power, "battery replacement", etc! And then we can avoid all this "but it runs on water" nonsense and look at the actual capabilities.
masklinn 12y ago
> And if you think about the amount of gasoline infrastructure that exists, we'd have to pretty much duplicate that, or convert that, into hydrogen shipping infrastructure, which is a pretty tall order. On the other hand, electrolysis can be significantly more distributed than gasoline, you don't need a limited number of refineries anymore. Hydrogen can be generated city-wise, at the station, or even (with further efficiency hit) at-home.
- hellgas00 12y ago
  You need to pressurize the hydrogen to 5-10 kpsi which requires a compressor in every home, this cuts efficiency. Electrolysis is also very inefficient (%65 is usually cities as the upper efficiency[1]). Most importantly the cheapest way to produce hydrogen is through stream reformation of Carbon based fuel (high CO2 emissions req), making electrolysis cost prohibitive. Hydrogen is not a great way to go, especially when you consider that batteries and electric motors are already very efficient. Working on energy density in batteries would be more cost effective then chasing after H2. [1]http://gcep.stanford.edu/pdfs/hydrogen_workshop/MacQueen.pdf http://gcep.stanford.edu/pdfs/hydrogen_workshop/MacQueen.pdf
sliverstorm 12y ago
We appear to already have the infrastructure for electric cars, and at low adoption rates that's true. But according to the utilities, that infrastructure is in no way ready for sweeping adoption of electric vehicles, so then too we would need to overhaul our existing infrastructure.
- henrikschroder 12y ago
  The difference there lies in that the electrical infrastructure can be overhauled gradually, as electric car adoption increases. We already have something that is useful to the current EV owners, and it can be made better. I'm also not convinced that the utilities are correct, current peak use is probably a lot higher than what a fleet of slow-charging vehicles would consume at night. In the case of hydrogen infrastructure, we have nothing. If you're the first guy to buy a hydrogen car, you can't fill it up anywhere, there's an enormous amount of investment and work needed to get to that first hydrogen gas station, and I don't see that happening. Who would put up the money to make that bet?
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > In the case of hydrogen infrastructure, we have nothing. Well, more than nothing, but not a lot just now. Though more is in development. > If you're the first guy to buy a hydrogen car, you can't fill it up anywhere I'm going to guess that the first several tens of thousands of people to buy consumer electric vehicles in the US will be clustered around the places where the existing infrastructure is [1], so that this won't be even approximately true (there'll be an interesting trade off until infrastructure builds out in that FCVs will have a longer single charge/tank range than EVs, but a much more limited area of operations since there'll be limited refueling locations especially outside of the "home" areas.) [1] e.g., in California, http://www.cafcp.org/stationmap http://www.cafcp.org/stationmap
    - henrikschroder 12y ago
      Oh wow, I did not know this existed! That's great, nothing's better than healthy competition!
dragonwriter 12y ago
> For fuel-cell cars to work, you would need to have energy some place that consumes water and splits it into hydrogen and oxygen, releasing the oxygen into the air, and the hydrogen into containers that can then go into some sort of infrastructure such that individual cars can be filled up with it as necessary. Yeah, sure. We know how to do this, its called electrolysis; we even know how to build fuel cells that can both generate energy and act as electrolysis systems. > And if you think about the amount of gasoline infrastructure that exists, we'd have to pretty much duplicate that, or convert that, into hydrogen shipping infrastructure, which is a pretty tall order. No, we don't. Because -- as many currently existing hydrogen stations, like the public one in Emeryville, do -- you can very easily do the electrolysis at the filling station. So you just need water distribution infrastructure (which is one of the basic necessities of civilization) and electricity distribution infrastructure (which, as you note, is likewise a solved problem), and then you don't need any additional hydrogen distribution infrastructure. > So the story for electric car adoption is "You don't have to take trips to the gas station anymore!", but the story for fuel cell car adoption is "You have to take trips to a new type of gas stations that don't exist yet!". Well, except that they do exist now.
- hellgas00 12y ago
  There is absolutely no way that Hydrogen would be produced via electrolysis. The process is horribly inefficient but more importantly the cheapest way to produce hydrogen is through steam reformation of coal (or organic material to a way lesser extent). You spray coal into a hot stream, methane decomposes from the mixture, then the methane is converted to Hydrogen. It's by far the cheapest way to produce hydrogen and would easily cost a fraction of hydrogen produced from electrolysis. This process is also extremely CO2 intense. I really have to wonder if this is just a show put on by Toyota. The viability of H2 production is dubious at best, and at worst if you consider our drive towards a low carbon economy.
  - derjames 12y ago
    And what about something like this to 'collect' hydrogen? http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/article/?id=13372 http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/article/?id=13372
IndianAstronaut 12y ago
>And if you think about the amount of gasoline infrastructure that exists, we'd have to pretty much duplicate that, or convert that, into hydrogen shipping infrastructure, which is a pretty tall order. Imho, the only way to do this would be to have solar assisted charging stations in parking lots across the country.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

henrikschroder 12y ago

The only game-changer I could see there would be if we could make some sort of in-your-home hydrolyzer, so that you just connect water and electricity to it, and it connects to your car to fill it up. That's on-par with the convenience of an electric car, if we ignore the safety issues of hydrogen gas leaks in urban neighbourhoods...

dragonwriter 12y ago
Regenerative fuel cells are cells with an in-cell hydrolysis system; if you could incorporate them, a fuel cell vehicle would have pretty much the same recharging UX as any other EV. Even with stationary at-home electrolysis systems, if you don't store more than one fill-up in the system, there's marginal additional risk compared to having a hydrogen-fueled vehicle in the first place.
- henrikschroder 12y ago
  Great, that allows you to very easily compare that vehicle to one with a chemical battery, and evaluate it on cost, range, engine power, "battery replacement", etc! And then we can avoid all this "but it runs on water" nonsense and look at the actual capabilities.

masklinn 12y ago

> And if you think about the amount of gasoline infrastructure that exists, we'd have to pretty much duplicate that, or convert that, into hydrogen shipping infrastructure, which is a pretty tall order. On the other hand, electrolysis can be significantly more distributed than gasoline, you don't need a limited number of refineries anymore. Hydrogen can be generated city-wise, at the station, or even (with further efficiency hit) at-home.

hellgas00 12y ago
You need to pressurize the hydrogen to 5-10 kpsi which requires a compressor in every home, this cuts efficiency. Electrolysis is also very inefficient (%65 is usually cities as the upper efficiency[1]). Most importantly the cheapest way to produce hydrogen is through stream reformation of Carbon based fuel (high CO2 emissions req), making electrolysis cost prohibitive. Hydrogen is not a great way to go, especially when you consider that batteries and electric motors are already very efficient. Working on energy density in batteries would be more cost effective then chasing after H2. [1]http://gcep.stanford.edu/pdfs/hydrogen_workshop/MacQueen.pdf http://gcep.stanford.edu/pdfs/hydrogen_workshop/MacQueen.pdf

sliverstorm 12y ago

We appear to already have the infrastructure for electric cars, and at low adoption rates that's true. But according to the utilities, that infrastructure is in no way ready for sweeping adoption of electric vehicles, so then too we would need to overhaul our existing infrastructure.

henrikschroder 12y ago
The difference there lies in that the electrical infrastructure can be overhauled gradually, as electric car adoption increases. We already have something that is useful to the current EV owners, and it can be made better. I'm also not convinced that the utilities are correct, current peak use is probably a lot higher than what a fleet of slow-charging vehicles would consume at night. In the case of hydrogen infrastructure, we have nothing. If you're the first guy to buy a hydrogen car, you can't fill it up anywhere, there's an enormous amount of investment and work needed to get to that first hydrogen gas station, and I don't see that happening. Who would put up the money to make that bet?
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > In the case of hydrogen infrastructure, we have nothing. Well, more than nothing, but not a lot just now. Though more is in development. > If you're the first guy to buy a hydrogen car, you can't fill it up anywhere I'm going to guess that the first several tens of thousands of people to buy consumer electric vehicles in the US will be clustered around the places where the existing infrastructure is [1], so that this won't be even approximately true (there'll be an interesting trade off until infrastructure builds out in that FCVs will have a longer single charge/tank range than EVs, but a much more limited area of operations since there'll be limited refueling locations especially outside of the "home" areas.) [1] e.g., in California, http://www.cafcp.org/stationmap http://www.cafcp.org/stationmap
  - henrikschroder 12y ago
    Oh wow, I did not know this existed! That's great, nothing's better than healthy competition!

dragonwriter 12y ago

> For fuel-cell cars to work, you would need to have energy some place that consumes water and splits it into hydrogen and oxygen, releasing the oxygen into the air, and the hydrogen into containers that can then go into some sort of infrastructure such that individual cars can be filled up with it as necessary. Yeah, sure. We know how to do this, its called electrolysis; we even know how to build fuel cells that can both generate energy and act as electrolysis systems. > And if you think about the amount of gasoline infrastructure that exists, we'd have to pretty much duplicate that, or convert that, into hydrogen shipping infrastructure, which is a pretty tall order. No, we don't. Because -- as many currently existing hydrogen stations, like the public one in Emeryville, do -- you can very easily do the electrolysis at the filling station. So you just need water distribution infrastructure (which is one of the basic necessities of civilization) and electricity distribution infrastructure (which, as you note, is likewise a solved problem), and then you don't need any additional hydrogen distribution infrastructure. > So the story for electric car adoption is "You don't have to take trips to the gas station anymore!", but the story for fuel cell car adoption is "You have to take trips to a new type of gas stations that don't exist yet!". Well, except that they do exist now.

hellgas00 12y ago
There is absolutely no way that Hydrogen would be produced via electrolysis. The process is horribly inefficient but more importantly the cheapest way to produce hydrogen is through steam reformation of coal (or organic material to a way lesser extent). You spray coal into a hot stream, methane decomposes from the mixture, then the methane is converted to Hydrogen. It's by far the cheapest way to produce hydrogen and would easily cost a fraction of hydrogen produced from electrolysis. This process is also extremely CO2 intense. I really have to wonder if this is just a show put on by Toyota. The viability of H2 production is dubious at best, and at worst if you consider our drive towards a low carbon economy.
- derjames 12y ago
  And what about something like this to 'collect' hydrogen? http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/article/?id=13372 http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/article/?id=13372

IndianAstronaut 12y ago

>And if you think about the amount of gasoline infrastructure that exists, we'd have to pretty much duplicate that, or convert that, into hydrogen shipping infrastructure, which is a pretty tall order. Imho, the only way to do this would be to have solar assisted charging stations in parking lots across the country.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]