What ever happened to Hydrogen fuel cell automobiles??

[Toddsterpatriot]

Your original question implied that hydrogen is not abundant.

Free hydrogen (H2) is not abundant.

Not wasted energy: transferred it.

Wasted 20-30% to electrolyze water.
Another 40-60% was lost in the fuel cell.

 

[westwall]

Free hydrogen (H2) is not abundant.

Not wasted energy: transferred it.

Wasted 20-30% to electrolyze water.
Another 40-60% was lost in the fuel cell.

Correct, hydrogen bonds to things at the drop of a hat. The only place you see free hydrogen is in space, or storage tanks after a very expensive extraction process.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Correct, hydrogen bonds to things at the drop of a hat. The only place you see free hydrogen is in space, or storage tanks after a very expensive extraction process.

If the electricity was generated by burning natural gas, just used compressed natural gas in the vehicle, instead of adding extra, wasteful steps.

 

[Samofvt]

If the electricity was generated by burning natural gas, just used compressed natural gas in the vehicle, instead of adding extra, wasteful steps.

No duh. That's why I say carbon-based synthetic fuel will be the future of transportation and home heating. It is more energy-dense. You can build up on CH4 to create even more energy-dense fuel.

But what if you do not have "natural gas"? What if the natural gas gets depleted and all you have is nuclear-powered electricity? You will need to build your energy storage, or 'fuel', from something. Electrolysis of water to H2 is a required first step, and then that gets used to produce higher order carbon-based fuel. What is the best stopping point? Hydrogen Gas? Methane (natural gas)? or a higher order fuel?

The answer to this is what our infrastructure will need to be adapted to. I believe something close to our current gas/diesel fuel is the optimum.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

No duh. That's why I say carbon-based synthetic fuel will be the future of transportation and home heating. It is more energy-dense. You can build up on CH4 to create even more energy-dense fuel.

But what if you do not have "natural gas"? What if the natural gas gets depleted and all you have is nuclear-powered electricity? You will need to build your energy storage, or 'fuel', from something. Electrolysis of water to H2 is a required first step, and then that gets used to produce higher order carbon-based fuel. What is the best stopping point? Hydrogen Gas? Methane (natural gas)? or a higher order fuel?

The answer to this is what our infrastructure will need to be adapted to. I believe something close to our current gas/diesel fuel is the optimum.

But what if you do not have "natural gas"? What if the natural gas gets depleted and all you have is nuclear-powered electricity?

Probably steam-reforming would be the way to go.
We could use plastic waste.

 

[San Souci]

What ever happened to Hydrogen fuel cell automobiles?? Your responses.??

Dangerous?

 

[Samofvt]

But what if you do not have "natural gas"? What if the natural gas gets depleted and all you have is nuclear-powered electricity?

Probably steam-reforming would be the way to go.
We could use plastic waste.

We could. Or paper. Or sewage. Or trees. Or yard waste. Or coal. anything that contains carbon. it all costs energy to re-fabricate, but it's not a problem. heck, we could even finally find a use for democrats. for a while until they become extinct.

 

[Samofvt]

Dangerous?

What's in your car's fuel tank? Dangerous? we accept some danger every day in our lives, but most people know not to light a match next to their gas cap when they take it off and refuel.

 

[westwall]

We could. Or paper. Or sewage. Or trees. Or yard waste. Or coal. anything that contains carbon. it all costs energy to re-fabricate, but it's not a problem. heck, we could even finally find a use for democrats. for a while until they become extinct.

The energy density of democrats is really low.

Just sayin.....

 

[San Souci]

What's in your car's fuel tank? Dangerous? we accept some danger every day in our lives, but most people know not to light a match next to their gas cap when they take it off and refuel.

It was a question. I kinda like the idea of JetPacks.

 

[Samofvt]

It was a question. I kinda like the idea of JetPacks.

 

[toobfreak]

Yes, it is actually much higher.

The energy requirement to separate hydrogen and oxygen from being atomically combined requires slightly more energy than it took to combine them in the first place in the replacing of the valence electrons so that the H nuclei can separate from the oxygen atoms to exist separately again. This is about 72 watt-hours of energy per 1.2 tablespoons of water or just shy of 5 eV per molecule of water. So, splitting one liter of water would take at least 16 MJ (4.4 kWh), which is more energy than it would take to launch a liter of water into deep space!

And this makes sense. If combining or separating elements into or from even simple molecules were any easier than this, it would be happening around us all the time and alchemy would be a common practice.