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Comments     Threshold


RE: *boom*
By chmilz on 10/23/2013 1:47:03 PM , Rating: 5
Also, there's the fact that the entire planet has electricity distribution systems, and none of the planet has hydrogen distribution systems.

RE: *boom*
By Shig on 10/23/2013 1:57:37 PM , Rating: 2
Hydrogen has always been a gimmick. Back in the early 2000s GM had just brought out the EV1 and oil companies were scared. They lobbied California to ditch EVs and go to hydrogen, knowing that it was always a dead end.

RE: *boom*
By EnzoFX on 10/23/2013 2:16:46 PM , Rating: 2
No doubt they want to replace the current ecosystem of ICE's, where it costs a lot to regularly service vehicles, etc etc.

RE: *boom*
By maugrimtr on 10/25/2013 10:01:29 AM , Rating: 2
Hydrogen has a lot of problems:

1. You need to generate it which, due to simple conservation of energy, means it costs more power to create than it eventually outputs. This concern is irrelevant for hydrocarbons which have a stable state as crude oil.
2. Fuel cells are inefficient - a lot of the energy output is lost as waste heat so it's not the best energy transport. Efficiency for fuel cells is 60% at the high end. Lithium ion batteries are 90% at the high end.
3. Hindenburg! Hydrogen is a volatile gas with a low ignition point which likes to explode. In a crash, it won't pour out of a tank - it will billow out as a gas. Even air containing 4% hydrogen is combustible. A 40% mix would explode really well (hydrogen combusts into water - so you know what the perfect Hydrogen to Oxygen ratio must be to produce the best fireworks :P).
4. There is no large scale hydrogen transportation network. That's not to say it's not transportable - one source suggests 700 miles of piping already existed in the US. There is however an electricity network reaching almost every single home in the nation.
5. Energy density. Lithium Ion has a high energy density for a battery with improvements under research. Hydrogen is a light weight gaseous element - a single atom is literally one proton and one neutron. You can liquify it at extremely low temperatures (uses more energy) or compress it (uses more energy though not as much!) but it's still far off from batteries which are both dense and have far better energy efficiencies. Transportation and storage can make use of both approaches (e.g. transport as a compressed gas, liquify on site, return to gas and compress for vehicle fueling). Each state change towards a liquid requires more energy to perform.

So, basically, hydrogen is nowhere near being competitive at this time. To fuel cars, you need a cheap and clean method of generating it (otherwise what's the point?), a safe way of economically transporting and storing it in bulk, and bumped up safety features for the cars to prevent piercing of high pressure tanks or fuel cells.

For the moment at least, Elon Musk is quite right.

RE: *boom*
By JKflipflop98 on 10/25/2013 7:06:57 PM , Rating: 2
Yeah, it's not like you can use the power output from a nuclear generator to crack water into hydrogen or anything. Nah, lets keep burning coal and deal with all the radioactive fly ash. Because there's already wires there. Derp.

RE: *boom*
By jimbojimbo on 10/23/2013 2:56:32 PM , Rating: 3
The oil corporations know that oil won't last and they want to control the infrastructure for hydrogen cells like they do now with oil. They know that that battery operated cars can be recharged by the user at home easily and with solar no less. They also know that for an owner to refuel hydrogen cells they must buy it from refueling centers since the equipment to not only produce but compress hydrogen safely would be far too expensive for owners to buy on their own. By controlling the infrastructure for hydrogen they'll continue to get rich regardless.

RE: *boom*
By Reclaimer77 on 10/23/13, Rating: 0
RE: *boom*
not disputing/supporting original theory, but..


RE: *boom*
why old billionaires keep investing, accumulating wealth?


Humans at their core are very simple creatures that way.

RE: *boom*
why old billionaires keep investing, accumulating wealth?


RE: *boom*
By tng on 10/23/2013 6:06:22 PM , Rating: 2
All theory, but now that you mention it... who already has networks of convenient stations where getting a hydrogen refill would be ideal? Oil Companies!

Face it, adding equipment to existing stations would be much cheaper and make more sense than building a whole new infrastructure. Hydrogen pumps could be added, holding tanks and the distributors could just add new trucks to the fleet.

I realize that there are those out there that just hate "Big Oil", but face it they have the money and most of the infrastructure in place to do it. There just has to be a need. There is already some experience with this in SoCal with the FCX, where there were special stations (Shell?) where you could refill one with hydrogen.

RE: *boom*
By Mint on 10/23/2013 7:09:46 PM , Rating: 2
So basically the same cost as building a H2 station from scratch?

The only thing they save is the simple payment/store part. All the other stuff you mentioned are really expensive, and they're not going to invest in it until there are lots of FCVs on the road to get revenue from.

RE: *boom*
By tng on 10/24/2013 1:20:51 PM , Rating: 2
LOL, no.

City zoning and approvals, cost of land in areas where there are already established traffic patterns, Local and sometimes State permits, Environmental Impact studies, etc...

No it is not basically the same cost.

RE: *boom*
By Mint on 10/26/2013 6:48:23 AM , Rating: 2
LOL yes.

Those factors aren't any cheaper for existing gas stations. If you use some of your space for an H2 pump & tank instead of gas, then you lose revenue to pay for land/permits.

H2 and other fuels have their own safety and permit issues. You think a propane tower & pump can be tacked onto any existing gas station without additional permits?

RE: *boom*
By tng on 11/1/2013 4:26:41 PM , Rating: 2
No, but you are making a bad point with that as well.

Propane refill stations in many areas near suburban middle class neighborhoods are very popular. It is not even arguable that they would sell more propane than Hydrogen, yet even though there was a fairly large profit involved, they did not just go out and build a bunch of new stations just to sell it. They leveraged existing gas stations because of land use rules.

RE: *boom*
By Richard875yh5 on 10/24/2013 9:13:53 AM , Rating: 2
If you have natural gas in your home, you can now buy a small machine that converts natural gas to hydrogen. It can not get much more convenient than this. So I think the future really lies in fuel-cell cars.

RE: *boom*
By topkill on 10/24/2013 10:41:10 AM , Rating: 2
Would you mind giving us a pointer to such a beast? We've been trying to find one for a startup I'm involved with and that all sounds good, but I'm very frustrated because the reality is can't go buy a cheap little box to reform natural gas to H2 today.

RE: *boom*
By Nortel on 10/24/2013 10:54:24 AM , Rating: 2
Many Taxi's already run on natural gas... today. The only negative seems to be the large tank required and I suppose the weight.

RE: *boom*
By Reclaimer77 on 10/23/2013 5:16:10 PM , Rating: 3
Ah yes the idiotic oil companies control everything conspiracy theory.

The EV1 was massively expensive to manufacture, and kind of sucked as a passenger vehicle. It was guaranteed to be a sales flop!

That's why it went away!!! Economics, not some dark hand of big oil controlling everyone.

RE: *boom*
By tng on 10/23/2013 5:56:38 PM , Rating: 3
And did you ever see one in person? FUGLY! We are not talking Prius ugly, but much worse.

I think that they only put this car out there as a hedge against the CARB mandate that manufacturers that sold vehicles in CA must sell 10% electric vehicles by the Y2K. That mandate failed as well.

RE: *boom*
By SPOOFE on 10/23/2013 11:16:32 PM , Rating: 2
Economics, not some dark hand of big oil controlling everyone.

Completely true, but just to add a little deeper info: At the time, California's Air Resources Board (oh, how we love them in CA) had their Zero-Emissions Vehicle mandate, which required that the big auto manufacturers offer an electric car in order to do business in the state. One EV, from GM, was offered while the other companies instead pointed out how stupid the mandate was, and the ARB reversed its mandate and suddenly the EV1 became pointless.

It's true that it wasn't an economical vehicle. The only reason it was offered at all was because of stupid legislation that required it exist. Once the law was reversed, the EV1 became completely unnecessary, and GM was so peeved that they had wasted so much effort that they just scrapped everything they had immediately.

Had nothing to do with "the oil companies" and everything to do with a nosy government thinking it can do better simply by passing a few laws. Blame CA lawmakers, not corporations.

RE: *boom*
By Dr. Kenneth Noisewater on 10/24/2013 12:00:38 PM , Rating: 2
Wrong, there's hydrogen distribution systems that have been around for decades if not centuries.

Of course, that hydrogen's locked up with carbon atoms. But piggybacking local gasoline/diesel/natgas reformulation on the existing mature and pervasive HC infrastructure would be a way to go to H2 fuel cell vehicles. And if you could do such reformulation efficiently enough to get say 20kWh out of a gallon of gas, and a fuel cell EV could get 3-4mi per kWH, then you've got 60-80mpg there.

However, if we can't get fuel cells (or onboard solid-oxide fuel cells that accept hydrocarbons directly) down to $60-80/kWh it's economically a nonstarter IMO. The ideal is to have SOFCs of 100kW or thereabouts, which fit within the space required of a typical I4 or V6, and a battery large enough to bring it up to operating temps fairly quickly along with local travel range (say usable 20kWh with plugin).

