Hydrogen can be made at home. Anybody who says it can't is either a shill, an idiot or completely out of touch with reality and technology. You can make it for free, at home, all day long and all night long. Anybody who says it costs too much or that it has some evil chain reaction of "negative karma" or "sour grid source" or causes cancer because of something back in the energy chain is almost always a shill because the energy chain is constantly improving. Anybody who says the numbers say it is all wrong or bad or evil or inefficient are also usually a shill who are quoting numbers from six months or six years back (which is ancient history in hydrogen timeframes). It now costs less to make hydrogen from water than any known way to make gasoline and it continues to get cheaper every month. The "battery shill" spin has worn thin and has been supplanted by facts. Hydrogen is made from WATER via solar energy, wind energy, microbes, radio waves, sunlight and salt, and other FREE sources of energy. Hydrogen can also be made from any organic garbage, waste, plants or ANYTHING organic via lasers, plasma beams or dozens of other powered exotics which can be run off of EITHER the grid or the free hydrogen made from solar energy, wind energy, microbes, radio waves, sunlight and salt, and other FREE sources of energy OR the grid. There is no oil that needs to be involved anywhere in the production of hydrogen. These systems trickle charge hydrogen into storage containers, either tanks or solid state cassettes, 24/7.

Hydrogen processors now make hydrogen with 91% efficiency.

NO INFRASTRUCTURE IS NEEDED!!! This is the biggest lie of all. A large number of start-ups have solid state hydrogen solutions that entirely use existing infrastructure.

Battery Shills, backed by companies who are invested in batteries, are the usual suspects in anti-hydrogen reporting.

A "fuel cell car" and an "electric car" ARE THE SAME THING. The shills want you to think otherwise. The only difference is where the electricity is stored. You can pull the batteries out of every Zenn, Tesla, Zap, EV1, Venture Vehicle, etc. and pop a fuel cell/hydrogen pack in the same hole and go further, more efficiently in EVERY SINGLE CASE.

A modern fuel cell and hydrogen system beats batteries on every front including

FIRE- Batteries catch on fire constantly and have been the result of massively more fires and explosions than hydrogen.

Life Span- Hydrogen power systems run massively longer and provide massively greater range per charge than batteries.

Run Time - The run time of batteries constantly shortens while hydrogen does not.

Memory Effect- This effect is not present in hydrogen systems

Recharge Time- modern hydrogen systems are instant recharge.

Charge life- Modern hydrogen systems can recharge massively longer than batteries before end of life.

Nano powder batteries have cancer causing powder that falls into the pores of the Chinese factory workers skin and gives them potentially fatal diseases

Cost- The cost per 300 mile range for a hydrogen car system is massively lower than a battery system

Energy from "sour-grid"- A modern hydrogen system can be charged from a completely clean home energy system.

Can't make energy at home- Hydrogen can be made at home. Batteries cannot.

Storage Density - Modern hydrogen technology has a massively higher storage density than batteries.

Bulky Size- Hydrogen systems are dramatically less bulky than batteries.

High Weight- The weight of batteries is so great ir reduces the reange of travel of a vehicle which causes the use of wasteful energy just to haul the batteries along with the car.  Hydrogen energy systems weigh far less.

Environmental soundness- The disposal of batteries after use presents a deadly environmental issue.

Self  Discharge issues- Hydrogen does not self discharge like batteries.

The charge-keeping capability of a typical lithium-ion battery degrades steadily over time and with use. After only one or two years of use, the runtime of a laptop or cell phone battery is reduced to the point where the user experience is significantly impacted. For example, the runtime of a typical 4-hour laptop battery drops to only about 2.5 hours after 3,000 hours of use. By contrast, the latest fuel cells continue to deliver nearly their original levels of runtime well past the 2,000 and 3,000 hour marks and are still going strong at 5,000+ hours
 The electrical capacity of batteries has not kept up with the increasing power consumption of electronic devices. Features such as W-LAN, higher CPU speed, "always-on", large and bright displays and many others are important for the user but severely limited by today`s battery life. Lithium ion batteries, and lithium-polymer batteries have almost reached fundamental limits. A laptop playing a DVD today has a runtime of just above one hour on one battery pack, which is clearly not acceptable.
Such limitations have led to an enormous interest in alternative power sources, of which the fuel cell is the most promising candidate. Storage density, i.e. the electrical capacity available per unit mass of energy storage means, is one of the most important parameters.

So you have battery evangelists who are anti-hydrogen sheep:
Ulf Bossel of the European Fuel Cell Forum,  Alec Brooks,  EV World Sam Thurber, Cal Cars and others.

Yet for every manipulated argument they come up with, they are shot down by hundreds of sites with facts.

The interventions of these 'doubters' fall into a number of clear categories which I'll summarise as:

1 "You can't succeed because no-one has ever succeeded at this (sports car making / battery-power / taking on the majors, etc etc) before". - May I commend to everyone Dava Sobel's wonderful (and short!) book, "Longitude", which offers a perfect map of the tendency of government and the scientific establishment collude to reject true innovation. This effect can only be overcome when a tipping-point of perceived popular utility is reached, at which point the establishment suddenly has a bout of collective amnesia about their earlier denials. (Same story many times over, historically, of course - from Gallileo onwards.)

2 "It's inefficient to carry around". Rather as it's inefficient to carry around a full tank of gas, perhaps? Or to carry around a SUV chassis which itself weighs a ton or more? (Come on, Detroit, you can find a better argument than that, surely?)

3 "This technology is not a solution and never will be." This very much reminds me of the IBM's famously short-sighted take on the prospect of home computing, back in the 70s. The language of these contributions, let alone their content, points to a thought-process rooted in volume-producers'
vested interests. Consider the successes of some other new-tech challengers of vested interests: Dyson taking on Hoover with a bagless vacuum-cleaner; Bayliss bringing clockwork (i.e. battery-less) radios and laptops to the third world; thin-film solar panels (sorry, can't remember who, but you know who I mean). On this point, it was deeply depressing, at a high-level environmental science conference of the UK Government last year, for me to witness a "leading and respected" Professor of Transport rejecting electric traction out-of-hand with the words "it will never be more than just power storage on a trolley". Given that this "expert" was advising ministers of state setting future national policy on alternative transport, my immediate thought was "Who pays this man's research grant?"

So let's be vigilant for any who claim, in a smooth way, that invention can't possibly have the answers. From a position of some expertise in this field, may I remind readers that the "you-don't-understand-how-our-industry-works" argument has been the policy instrument of choice for numerous corporate fraudsters and protectionists down the ages (Enron, anyone?). New York's energetic DA, Mr Spitzer, has made a fine career out of challenging such thinking in the finance sector (with the simple rejoinder: "WHY does your industry work like that? Against customer choice?"). And then of course there's the entire consumer movement (remember Flaming Fords? remember "Unsafe at Any Speed"?). We can and should ask the same questions of the conventional auto industry.

The good news is that genuine innovation will out - as long as ordinary consumers are able to find it and buy it. One of the early lessons of the twentyfirst century, thank goodness, is that the old-school, browbeating style of corporate communication - terrorising one's customers into rejecting alternatives - increasingly fails as people wise up to making decisions based on their own independently-gathered information about benefits and risks. (Interestingly, a popular reaction against "selling by fear" is also now happening in the political field. Now why might that be?) As a consumer, one doesn't have to agree with the in-ya-face techniques of anticorporate critics like Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock to still subscribe to the view that we can buy what we want to buy. We no longer want to be told by old-tech that new-tech is inherently suspect. Isn't it old-tech that brought us dependency on oil, climate change, wars over energy sources?

So c'mon people, how about a reward system for "spot the spoiler"? I'm all for free debate on the issues, but some of these blogs smell rather like the work of paid old-tech corporatists trying to sabotage your success.
Challenge such interventions with the greatest possible vigour, and let consumers decide for themselves!

1.)    Battery companies are spending millions of dollars to knock H2
because it works longer, better, faster and cheaper than batteries! Most of the people writing these screaming anti-H2 articles are battery company shills or have investments there. H2 does beat batteries on every front so the should be SCARED!

2.)    The steel unions hate H2 because H2 cars don't use steel. Steel is
too hard to afford any more so nobody will use it in any case.

3.)    Activists hate H2 because they think it can only be made by the oil
companies and they hate the oil companies. This is a falsehood created by the battery and steel guys.

4.)    Oil companies hate H2 because it is so much better than oil but they
only get to hate it unto 2030 when the affordable oil runs out. Then they know they must love it because H2 energy will be all that is left. The Oil industry is dismayed that H2 is coming on so fast and they are trying to slow it down even more.

5.)    Other alternative energy interests hate it because it is getting all
of the funding because the polita-nomics are better with H2 than ANYTHING ELSE ON EARTH.

If the gasoline in your car blows up it will do a VAST AMOUNT more death and damage than H2 ever will.
You are driving a MOLOTOV COCKTAIL. In 2030 oil is GONE and there is NO OTHER OPTION that can be delivered world-wide in time but H2!

If I am a shill who could I possible be working for? I say it is all free and you don't need an oil company or energy company anywhere in the loop.

But hydrogen takes a lot of energy to split from water.  Free energy, fuel and waste cost free, solar, wind, or wave power could be used to generate electricity to produce hydrogen.  But the devices to collect the free energy have costs asociated with them.

And the devices to produce the hydrogen and store it have costs.

Batteries that charge up from the free energy have lower costs per mile driven than devices for producing and storing hydrogen.  

It is a lot easier for industry to retrofit current car designs with a battery/electric motor to provide energy for the first 40 miles of driving, then rely on the regular engine for longer trips, than convert the whole automotive industry to hydrogen fuel cell drive and the asociated storage tanks.  

The hydrogen fueling infrastructure is a particular problem.  Who would insure a gas pump with a 3000 psi hydrogen hose operated by the general public?  How would fail safe systems to prevent accidents be designed?  Or payed for?  Millions of hydrogen gas pumps at millions of dollars per pump and astronomical insurance.

Compare that to a simple outlet to plug in your hybrid plugin vehicle.  With a simple device in your car to calculate the cost of the kwh used and make a charge to your credit card to pay for it.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

If I am a shill who could I possible be working for? I say it is all free and you don't need an oil company or energy company anywhere in the loop.

You could be lying, or lucratively mistaken, about its all being free. If it's not all free then an oil company might indeed be needed somewhere in the loop, and an oil-taxing government too; perhaps the funding for the undermountain lab/secret headquarters in your South Pacific island fortress comes in the form of social assistance cheques.

Hey, you asked.

The Hindenburg photo is a ray-tracing, I believe. If I'm right it was borrowed from http://www.webelements.com/webelements/elements/text/H/ke ...

--- G. R. L. Cowan, boron internal combustion fan
How shall cars gain nuclear cachet?
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html

But now that little starlet that you nurtured has a career of its own.   Hydrogen is in the majors now -- not something that geeks reading PopSci can drool about.

Yes, it's hard to be left down on the farm, when Hydrogen is going to the big city.

http://hydrogendiscoveries.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/the-h ...

The title of this blog post is "Dream of hydrogen car goes down in flames."  And yet, in the first paragraph, Romm mentions that Chrysler and Ford bought Ballard's automotive fuel cell business!  Are you kidding me?  Why would two major car companies buy Ballard if they didn't believe in fuel cells?

A Wired blog post (see link below) took the same story and the title of their post was "Daimler, Ford Place Huge Bet on Hydrogen."

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/11/daimler-ford-la.html

Here are a couple of quotes from the post:

"With the newly founded company, we strengthen our leading position in the field of fuel cell technology and go full steam ahead in our preparations for the series production of fuel cell cars," Dr. Herbert Kohler, Daimler's vice president of advanced vehicle and powertrain engineering said.

"It sends a very clear message that there's a viable case to be made for fuel cell vehicles," Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal, told us. "You wouldn't make an investment of this size unless you thought there was a market for the vehicles."

In addition to Ford and Chrysler, let's take a look at some of the recent fuel cell activity from other car companies.

Honda

November 15, 2007 - Honda releases the FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car at the Los Angeles auto show.  Next year, Honda will lease the FCX to up to 100 drivers in Southern California.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21796636/

Here is a commercial for the Honda FCX hydrogen fuel cell car that is now playing on TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU2w8xwVNmY

GM

November 14, 2007 - GM announced that they want to be the first automaker to produce one million fuel cell powered vehicles.

From the article below:

"Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development, said in May that the company aimed to have fuel cell-powered vehicles, which run on hydrogen and emit only water vapor, in showrooms around 2011 or 2012, and to ramp up production to about a million vehicles a year worldwide after 2012."

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSSHA9988820071114 ...

November 6, 2007 - Beginning in January 2008, GM is launching Project Driveway which is a program where 100 people in New York, Washington D.C. (maybe Romm can be one of the drivers since he lives there!), and Los Angeles will test drive the Chevrolet Equinox which is a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.  Consumers will drive the cars for up to three months each before another person gets to test the car.  The process will continue for thirty months.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=3825437&pag ...

Toyota

September 28, 2007 - Toyota announced that the range for their FCHV hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is now 480 miles (with 10,000 psi hydrogen).

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21030098/

November 14, 2007 - Toyota announced at the Los Angeles auto show that the FCHV recently made a 2300 trek on the Alaska-Canadian (ALCAN) highway (harsh conditions) in seven days and had no problems.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/11/14/la-2007-toyota-fu ...

The hydrogen critics like Joe Romm are losing credibility by the day.  Reality and the facts are ruining their arguments.  And yet, they are still in denial.  Baghdad Bob must be really proud of them.

Greg Blencoe
Chief Executive Officer
Hydrogen Discoveries, Inc.
www.hydrogendiscoveries.com

Note the current price here is $4.99 per gallon equivalent or the same price per kilogram (Kg).

The 2009 Honda FCX Clarity gets 68 miles per kg, according to Honda.

Gasoline now costs about $4/gallon in Southern California.

(The FCX can carry 4 kg of hydrogen, for a range if 270 miles.)

How did the fuel cell car refuel along the way to Alaska?  A semi with hydrogen tanks and pumping equipment that followed it along on the drive?

How much will millions of 10,000 psi gas pumps cost?  Trillions?  Will they ever be insurable with consumers operating them?

A plugin hybrid plugs into a regular outlet.  and refuels it's internal combustion compenent at a regular gas station.  

With plugin hybrids the gas station can coexist with recharge plugs at home or work.  It will take decades to build out a hydrogen system able to adequately refuel hydrogen vehicles.

Batteries are rapidly approaching the energy density of liquid fuels (used in internal combustion vehicles)in terms of miles per unit of weight.  For the average gas guzzler, 1/2 pound of fuel per mile.  For an efficient plugin like the Prius conversion, 2 1/2 pounds of battery per mile.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Joe Romm claims, 'The dream of a hydrogen car has gone down in flames'.  That is negative hype of the worst kind. It is simply not so.  Joe Romm has to know that. One has to wonder why Romm feels the need to mislead the public about hydrogen's potential. If hydrogen energy was really a technology dead end as Romm claims, why does he waste time trying so hard to discredit it?  

1. Carbon
   
2. Hydrogen

As such, it should be no suprise that the ones hyping hydrogen are oil companies and car companies.  (And politicians)

-David Ahlport

The green car is simply a carrot hung in front of people so they continue to drive their polluting cars with the illusion someday they will be able to drive a car that does not harm the environment. Unfortunately that day never comes. The last 40 years is clear evidence of that. It is time to say enough is enough and provide people with great transit and cycling facilities. The automobile industry has had its chance and blown it.

We won't get fooled again!!!

A "fuel cell car" and an "electric car" ARE THE SAME THING. The shills want you to think otherwise. The only difference is where the electricity is stored.

You can pull the batteries out of every Zenn, Tesla, Zap, EV1, Venture Vehicle, etc. and pop a fuel cell/hydrogen pack in the same hole

and go further, more efficiently in EVERY SINGLE CASE.

Says who?
http://greyfalcon.net/hydrogen.png
http://greyfalcon.net/hydrogen4.png

-David Ahlport

Hybrids, plug-in hybrids, hydrogen, bio-fuels, electric etc. are all really just part of the propaganda campaign from the automobile industry to try and convince people that there is a future for the automobile.

The green car is simply a carrot hung in front of people so they continue to drive their polluting cars with the illusion someday they will be able to drive a car that does not harm the environment. Unfortunately that day never comes.

We won't get fooled again!!!

While I agree that large car companies have been very successful at not changing the status quo.

And that biofuels and hydrogen are exactly this type of malevolent diversion.

Electric cars actually have a chance of realistically making a dent.

In particular, Plugin Hybrids.
http://greyfalcon.net/plugins
http://greyfalcon.net/plugins3
http://greyfalcon.net/plugins4
http://greyfalcon.net/plugins5

Especially Series Plugin Hybrids.  Which have a different, dramatically less complex architecture.

Anyways, you said you are worried that electrics aren't actually being sold.

-David Ahlport

Anyways, you said you are worried that electrics aren't actually being sold.

They are only a few MONTHS away.

http://greyfalcon.net/phoenix
http://greyfalcon.net/tesla
http://greyfalcon.net/electriccars.png

-David Ahlport

Life Span- Hydrogen power systems run massively longer and provide massively greater range per charge than batteries.
Depends which electric car we're talking about.
http://greyfalcon.net/electriccars.png
Largely the lower range is merely a cost issue.
Which frankly I've never heard of a car company actually SELLING hydrogen cars.

Run Time - The run time of batteries constantly shortens while hydrogen does not.
Oh hell yes it does.  The life cycle of a hydrogen fuel cell stack is about 2-4 years.
And worse if you start clogging it up with any unreformed carbon atoms.

Recharge Time- modern hydrogen systems are instant recharge.
Plugin hybrids really make that a moot point.
However if we are to assume building new infrastructure, then electric cars are certainly up to the challenge.
http://greyfalcon.net/quickcharge3.png
http://greyfalcon.net/quickcharge
http://greyfalcon.net/quickcharge2

Charge life- Modern hydrogen systems can recharge massively longer than batteries before end of life.
Says who?

Nano powder batteries have cancer causing powder that falls into the pores of the Chinese factory workers skin and gives them potentially fatal diseases
Says who?

Cost- The cost per 300 mile range for a hydrogen car system is massively lower than a battery system
Says who?

Energy from "sour-grid"- A modern hydrogen system can be charged from a completely clean home energy system.
An electric car charged off of coal is as clean as a hybrid.
http://greyfalcon.net/plugins3
A hydrogen car charged off of the cleanest grid in the United states is worse than petroleum in GHG emissions.
http://greyfalcon.net/hydrogen2.png

Can't make energy at home- Hydrogen can be made at home. Batteries cannot.
This doesn't even make sense.
You can get electricity at home quite easily.
Just plug into a wall socket.
Better yet, get a grid connected solar panel, and leverage net metering.

Storage Density - Modern hydrogen technology has a massively higher storage density than batteries.
Says who?  Last I checked, hydrogen is extremely bulky.

Bulky Size- Hydrogen systems are dramatically less bulky than batteries.
Says who?  Last I checked, hydrogen is extremely bulky.

High Weight- The weight of batteries is so great air reduces the range of travel of a vehicle which causes the use of wasteful energy just to haul the batteries along with the car.  Hydrogen energy systems weigh far less.
Says who? I'd actually like to see a real quote on this.  However you need to include the weight of the fuel cell stack, the tank, and the other additional components.

Environmental soundness- The disposal of batteries after use presents a deadly environmental issue.
Car Battery recycling rates are 95%
And they are even higher with hybrids and electrics.
Largely because the raw materials in them as more valuable.
Also because they have significant use after they are no longer good for transportation.
http://greyfalcon.net/
Lithium isn't even toxic until you get to the range of consuming/adsorbing a nickel sized worth of material.

Self  Discharge issues- Hydrogen does not self discharge like batteries.
If we're talking about cryogenic cooling, actually it does.

The charge-keeping capability of a typical lithium-ion battery degrades steadily over time and with use. After only one or two years of use, the runtime of a laptop or cell phone battery is reduced to the point where the user experience is significantly impacted. For example, the runtime of a typical 4-hour laptop battery drops to only about 2.5 hours after 3,000 hours of use. By contrast, the latest fuel cells continue to deliver nearly their original levels of runtime well past the 2,000 and 3,000 hour marks and are still going strong at 5,000+ hours
Uhm, the Tesla batteries can go for 10 years without degradation.
The AltairNano batteries can go even longer.

-David Ahlport

We need to show the rest of the world which is working very hard to duplicate our wasteful style of life over here that we are willing to make sacrifices in order to ensure that future generations have a chance at a decent life.

Then there is the roads, bridges and parking lots needed for vehicles. It just is not sustainable. Move on. Its over.

It's possible because by then the battery range could be over 100 miles, with the ultralight vehicles and better battery technology.

But for now plugin hybrids with internal combustion as the battery/electric backup is the most practical GHG saving, fuel saving, and easily adopted technology, with over 100 mpg.

The next step should be smaller internal combustion engines and longer range, better batteries.  Then solid oxide fuel cells (that use liquid fuel)replacing the ICE. And along with these steps hypercar design to make vehicles ultralight and much more efficient.

Some breakthrough nano catalyst storage discovery for hydrogen just might make it competitive someday.  Nano zinc particles for instance, that increase the density of zinc hydride storage.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Hydrogen has had only one role in the car market and that was to distract the public from battery electric vehicles (BEV) and series hybrids (PHEV). Unlike hydrogen these two technologies have the potential to destroy both the oil majors and the automobile companies.

As existing Prius and electric Rav4's are proving vehicles with electric drive trains are cheaper to run and MORE RELIABLE than internal combustion drivetrains. Ultimately a BEV and PHEV with >25 mile electric ranges are simpler, cheaper and more energy efficient than anything but a bicycle or sailboat.

BEV's and PHEV'S can be made essentially as modular vehicles with interchangable battery packs, drive motors, gensets and controllers mated with body styles from anybody who can afford the crash tests.

Diesel gensets could be made in standard sizes with bolt on fuel systems for diesel/biodiesel, vegetable oil, natural gas, propane, ethanol, hydrogen, DME and coal gas. Only the fuel delivery system changes to change fuels with duel gas/liquid systems being the most efficient. All parts and subsystems strictly off-the-shelf.

This kills both oil cartels and motor vehicle cartels. Any medium sized corporation with the neccesary tooling could build one of the modules that could swap into a car body. No high pressure anything needed. No expensive retool of fuel infrastructure. No magical breakthroughs required to achieve a marketable vehicle.

Hydrogen was the potemkin future the auto/oil majors used to hide real advances and secure their profits.

Put the Carbon Back

Yet this is grossly misleading, given the large fraction of energy input that is lost before H2 reaches the fuel cell. As such, this option forms a sink for energy just at the point when both the global supply, and usage rights, are plainly becoming severely constrained.

The idea that we shall somehow find the resources for massive new electricity production,
on top of replacing extant fossil-power supplies,
 seems to me wishful thinking, and thus a culpable distraction from action to remedy the most immediate threat:
that, according to IPCC AR4,
climate destabilization is advancing at a rate to cut Africa's food production by 50% by 2020.
That is, cutting food supplies for about 400 million people, within 13 years.
And our industrialized societies, led by the US, are primarily responsible.

From this perspective, continued angst about US vehicle design would seem merely to affirm the holders' complicity in a racist genocide.

So to reframe the issue somewhat, maybe it is worth asking just what transport-energy could prove sustainable in Africa under the coming stresses, as well as being useful in industrialized nations ?

Clearly, energy supply has a huge influence on a society which varies according to the specific technology selected. For Africa (as well as other places) one of the oldest energy sources, amended with a range of trad & modern advances, may prove most appropriate.

That resource is Coppice Forestry, with its potential for
1/. Charcoal production for Terra Preta (patently essential asap for both farm yield increase and carbon sequestration)
2/. Syngas for cooking and, perhaps, CHP;
3/. Methanol, processed for use in ICE vehicles or more efficient DMFC Vs.

The methanol option, being CH3OH, offers a unique energy carrying advantage -
as and when there is so much (preferably sustainable) electricity supply that there is a surplus available at night,
the methanol refinery could use it to produce feedstock hydrogen which could then double methanol output,
since raw woodgas holds twice the required ratio of carbon to hydrogen that methanol production needs.

In this sense, the transport fuel methanol not only incentivizes the massive reforestation that is required for Terra Preta etc,
(preferably as a replacement land-use to the cash-for-export crops that impoverish developing countries)
it also provides efficient storage of hydrogen made from surplus electricity production.

The key tech hurdle is the development of village-scale wood refineries - Washington Uni was working on one -
Does anyone have any further info on this question ?

Regards,

Billhook

...that explains why hydrogen blows. The pro-hydrogen comments here are a beautiful example of how human beings can become emotionally invested in an idea that brings them comfort or profit (read biofuels, religion). Rational thought is not our default mode. Being rational takes effort. I was once a huge hydrogen fan. As an art major in high school (and I know I have said this before) I did a painting (titled "My Rotary Engined Hydrogen Burning Pinto Car) that won a gold medal at an art show.

Part of the problem is simple ignorance. The vast majority of Americans get all they know about a given subject from talk shows, television, and newspapers. On the other hand, depending on which book you read, Joe's or Rifkins, you would have different impressions about hydrogen. Joe's book was essentially a glacier-like slow motion critique of what is presented in Rifkin's book. That is the weak link with books. They don't present instant access to critique and debate the way a blog does. Few people have read both books. The internet may save us.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

The 300-mile range demonstrated by the Toyota thing recently is impressive. It is said to have a single 345-bar tank, whose internal volume I hope someone will reveal.

It was accompanied by a Linde liquid hydrogen truck -- the established way of delivering small orders of hydrogen to paying customers -- and a second truck to boil the liquid and raise the pressure of the gas far enough above 345 bar that it would then flow into the car's tank and pressurize it that much.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, boron internal combustion fan
How shall cars gain nuclear cachet?
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html

But still, insurance companies generally are wary of even injury lawsuits.  Maybe congress could pass a law like they did for the nuclear industry, relieving hydrogen gas pump operators from liability.  Good luck hydrogen consumers.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

would a fuel tank for Methanol (Wood Alcohol) that flows to a reformer which yields H2 & CO to a vehicle's 'Direct Methanol Fuel Cell'
meet to criteria you set ?

If so, that would indeed be cool, since the DMFC is already (thus far) >35% efficient,
i.e. far better than the normal ICE vehicles.

Regards,

Billhook

Here is a video on the proposed high-speed rail proposed for California. It is an electric vehicle so you should be able to get excited about it.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jviyBx5MMqQ

BMW is manufacturing the first series of hydrogen fueled cars. They're not as green as they seem. For a start, they're incredibly thirsty -- and they will put more strain on the environment than a heavy diesel truck.

Storing the volatile energy source also requires energy and money. The only method that promises a reasonable storage life is liquid storage at temperatures below -423 degrees Fahrenheit. The process of cooling the storage facility down to such a low temperature alone uses up to one-third of the energy contained in one fuel tank.

What's more, some of the tank's contents have to be released as they heat up and evaporate -- even the best insulation system can't keep temperatures down forever. After nine days, half the tank load has gone bad.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,448648 ...

As it figures, the only way they are getting that kind of range is with cryogenic freezing.

Which is even worse than pressurized storage.
http://greyfalcon.net/hydrogen4.png

-David Ahlport

Would a fuel tank for Methanol (Wood Alcohol) that flows to a reformer which yields H2 & CO to a vehicle's 'Direct Methanol Fuel Cell'
meet to criteria you set ?

If so, that would indeed be cool, since the DMFC is already (thus far) >35% efficient,
i.e. far better than the normal ICE vehicles.

Yeah, but it'd be no improvment over a diesel.
Also Methanol comes ALMOST EXLUSIVELY from methane gas-to-liquid formation.
And Methanol is so toxic, that the concept of using it as a fuel is rather comical.

-David Ahlport

It needs to be placed in a tube to be very safe.  And light rail, rather than the standard rail size and weight.  And in a tube the electric power would also be a lot safer and easier to deliver.  With GHG climate change even California has weather extremes that could hamper a high speed train exposed to the elements.

Also the stated speed of 220 mph could be boosted higher.  Without the possibility of obstructions on the rails, safe and fast would go well together.

A recent high speed rail crash in Germany shows what can happen.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Lithium seems to be the worse off:
http://www.meridian-int-res.com/Projects/EVRsrch.htm

Nickel is not far behind:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=a ...

Zinc is making some noises:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/zinc-supplies-quiet ...

Beyond the batteries, we just don't have the materials available for even a quarter of the people on the planet to own a car.

Richard

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/la_auto_show_2007/311

   I always thought they were pretty good at cars, the Germans and Japanese.  Why do they think that hydrogen could be a real possibility?

patrick in beijing

   (There are Chinese companies working on hydrogen too, fwiw.)

Me personal solution will be to find a job where I have to drive much less. And keep the rest of my life as close to home as possible.

Can you imagine how it will be on this planet once ALL Russians, Chinese, Indians, etc. own cars as many cars per capita as in the USA and drive them the way we do? Can you imagine just the energy and resources needed to just MAKE that many personal vehicles? Clean energy for propulsion or not, there is much more to this than what comes out of your tail-pipe (or where ever the energy you need for moving is made).

Drive less, use public transport if available, personal vehicles only if you have to, try hard to find better solutions for yourself. Do not rely on those who want to make a profit to find the best solution for you PERSONALLY, since they are looking for the best solution for themselves. At least be suspicious.

Karsten
http://www.polluteless.com

What's more, some of the tank's contents have to be released as they heat up and evaporate -- even the best insulation system can't keep temperatures down forever. After nine days, half the tank load has gone bad.

They noticed that if you park the car for a while (say a week), all the hydrogen is gone. Seems they can`t keep the tank leak-free for such a small particle.

No,
It's not because it leaks by accident.
It's because leaks on purpose.

Reason being is that they can't keep the liquid hydrogen
cooled at 20°-above-absolute-zero forever.

Even if they are using the best insultation that money can buy.

-David Ahlport

As to super-cooled and liquefied gases, good call GreyFlon.  My experience with LNG is that special ship valves are needed to release gas as some warming occurs.  This "blow-off" gas (my word, probably wrong term) is routed to the ship main engines - which as we know are quite large.

Onward through the fog

These technologies are far cheaper and simpler than the various LiIon variants, much more rugged and stable, require simpler and cheaper control electronics and even outrank LiIon in performance terms

Why would anyone use lithium when they could use the much better batteries mentioned above, if they really existed?

So I poked around and found this other report by the same guy (Tahil) where he tells us the world trade towers were actually taken down by a nuclear explosion (there were secret nuclear power plants under the trade towers):

http://www.nucleardemolition.com/GZero_Sample.pdf

The following is a detailed analysis of Tahil's rather bizarre analysis from reality check:

Mr. Tahil's basis for a Lithium shortage is built upon a statement in his paper: http://www.meridian-int-res.com/Projects/L...m_Problem_2. ...
On page 12 of this report he states; "Existing LiIon/LiMP "Energy Batteries" for EVs require about 0.3kg of Lithium metal equivalent per kWh, in the form of Lithium Carbonate." He then continues in this paper to state that it takes 1.4kg/kWh of Lithium Carbonate Li2CO3 to build each kilowatt hour of an EV battery. This premise is completely in error & I show why below.

Saft, which is one of best known, most respected & oldest Lithium Ion battery manufacturers in the world publishes the `lithium content' of their Li-Ion batteries.

Let's take a look at some Saft Li-Ion rechargeable batteries that use lithium carbonate in their makeup. One can open the following Link & navigate down to their `Lithium - ion batteries' to confirm the figures I post below:

http://www.saftbatteries.com//140-general/80-20_download. ...

If you click on the `MP 176065' as provided in the following link:

http://www.saftbatteries.com//130-Catalogu...F/mp_176065. ...

You will see that this Li-ion battery is rated as follows:

Nominal voltage: 3.75 Volts
Capacity: 6.8 Ah
Lithium equivalent content: 2.0 g
Nominal energy: 26 Wh

Now let's do the math for everyone to see:

1kWh or 1,000Wh / 26Wh = 38.46 of these batteries to make 1kWh

38.46 Saft MP 176065 batteries X 2.0g Lithium equivalent each = 76.92g of lithium equivalent

If you add up the molecular weight of lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) & then figure what the percentage of lithium is, you find that lithium makes up 18.8% or .188 of Li2CO3.

76.92 / .188 = 409.15g of Lithium Carbonate in 1kWh of this Saft Li-ion battery.

This is only 0.409kg/kWh --- NOT 1.4kg/kWh, Mr. Tahil's basis for this article.

0.409kg/kWh is extremely close to the figure (0.431) that the UN & the US-DOT & several Li-Ion battery companies tell us we need to use when determining the lithium content of a Li-ion battery. They are having us figure a little high for transportation safety reasons.  

Go ahead and open the other data sheets for the other Saft Li-ion batteries & do the analysis on each battery displaying the Lithium contents. They all fall in at around 0.409kg to 0.426kg per kWh which is extremely close to the 0.431kg/kWh as stated in an above commentary.  

This means that we can build in excess of 1.5 Billion PHEV20 (more than 2 X all the world's current vehicles) & use only 5,799,918 tonnes of Li2CO3. The USGS tells us in a 2000 study that we have 12,000,000 tonnes of Li2CO3 .... HOWEVER, Lithium can be & is being recycled from Li-Ion batteries. See TOXCO @:

http://www.toxco.com/processes.html  

As can be seen, lithium is quite recyclable so, in reality we won't even begin to approach using up half the world's reserves by the time we have gotten around to building 1.5 billion PHEV vehicles; if we EVER make that many. It is estimated that the whole world only has 0.6 billion vehicles today.

Wayne Brown --- http://privatenrg.com

Greyfalcon is right.

As the hydrogen warms it expands. It has to be vented or it will eventually blow the container it is in to pieces. Compressed hydrogen "gas" can be contained at very high pressures, but the temperature of a tank of "liquid" hydrogen will eventually reach equilibrium with the air. It will try to become a gas as that happens and the resulting pressures would be gargantuan. The properties of hydrogen are not the same as other liquified gases. The gas must be vented to keep the tank from rupturing. A great book on the history of low temperature gases is called "Absolute Zero and the conquest of cold."

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

National Lampoon used to have a feature where they collected the news stories from around the world incorporating the phrase "bus plunge".  Not very funny in retrospect.

I think a good way to alleviate GHG climate change as population continues to increase, would be for those who can afford cars to support safe, clean, efficient buses, trains, and boats for people in developing regions.  Plenty of used transport vehicles could be better recycled for this purpose.

If and when oil wars and wars over nuclear proliferation could be halted by deploying renewable energy and conservation in the developed world, a part of the the trillions saved could be used for this purpose and other efforts to help raise the quality of impoverished people.  

Safe used buses, food, medical care (including reproductive rights for women), and distributed renewable solar and wind power are a better investment to maintain a peacefull world than more and more bombs and other munitions.

Energy policy touches on the whole spectrum of life on planet earth.  12 cylinder hydrogen burning cars, like the BMW, are definitely as much a part of the problem as using tanks to maintain energy security.  The BMW gives the illusion of a solution, just as oil war does.

That sick illusion drives the corporate imperial energy policy typified so well by the current administration's dream of endless war.  To maintain peace, they prescribe endless war.  War is Peace.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Which leads me to sail power. I have no clue how one would do a "carbon analysis" on them except is they had to use auxiliary diesel power. Even the Bay Area ferry agency gave sail power semi-serious consideration in its technology assessment.

Onward through the fog

As far as sail power for commercial ships, check out the kite sail systems on google.  It can be deployed on regular ships to supplement and even replace the normal fossil fueled engines in favorable wind conditions.

Ferries that travel a few miles back and forth could be powered by battery electric recharged from renewables, including kite sails that contain light plastic, high speed, ducted wind turbines.

Combining the kite sail, with a wind turbine on an electric ship could make it almost 100% renewable and GHG free.  When sailing acroos the wind it could recharge batteries for a short leg directly upwind, zig zagging as a regular sailing ship does, but storing electric power to make a leg of the zig zag directly upwind.  

This would make sail power much more efficient for commercial shipping, and save huge amounts of fuel and money, as well as GHG.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

All increases in vehicle efficiency due to technology have been dwarfed by increases in the number of people driving, the increase in the distances driven per person and increases in vehicle weight. Electric vehicles will likely have the same effect thus any decreases in ghg emissions due to technology will be negated.

The only solution is to provide people with great high-speed rail and rapid transit choices.

... Volkswagon is making concept hydrogen cars, and it sounds like they regard problems as solvable?  

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/la_auto_show_2007/311

   I always thought they were pretty good at cars, the Germans and Japanese.  Why do they think that hydrogen could be a real possibility?

It is a real possibility. If our only options were electrified shared transport, gasoline cars, and liquid hydrogen cars, liquid hydrogen cars would be a reasonable choice. For at least 20 years it has been known that if a car were long-term parked with its lH2 tank full, the evaporation rate would not exceed 2 percent per day. The first liquid hydrogen car existed more than 30 years ago.

More recent designs don't let any fuel at all boil off for the first week or so of being parked; instead they let the pressure in the lH2 tank rise from ~1 bar to, IIRC, 4.5 bar. If, before then, the driver drives the car, the temperature and pressure go back down and the several days' countdown, before boiloff begins, resets.

Problems that can be solved, even ones that repeatedly have been solved, are not necessarily worth solving. Throughout these decades of prototypes, no-one ever buys one and drives it home.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, hydrogen-boron convert
How shall cars gain nuclear cachet?

--- G. R. L. Cowan, boron internal combustion fan
How shall cars gain nuclear cachet?

wars over nuclear proliferation could be halted by deploying renewable energy

Please explain how that high-risk option would work, and how the low-risk option of Toshiba et al deploying these dozens of different models of nuclear-fig-leaf eliminators would not work.

Japan's LSPR is a lead-bismuth cooled reactor of 150 MWt /53 MWe. Fuelled units would be supplied from a factory and operate for 30 years, then be returned. Concept intended for developing countries.

A small-scale design developed by Toshiba Corporation in cooperation with Japan's Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) and funded by the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) is the 5 MWt, 200 kWe Rapid-L, using lithium-6 (a liquid neutron poison) as control medium. It would have 2700 fuel pins of 40-50% enriched uranium nitride with 2600°C melting point integrated into a disposable cartridge. The reactivity control system is passive, using lithium expansion modules (LEM) which give burnup compensation, partial load operation as well as negative reactivity feedback. As the reactor temperature rises, the lithium expands into the core, displacing an inert gas. Other kinds of lithium modules, also integrated into the fuel cartridge, shut down and start up the reactor. Cooling is by molten sodium, and with the LEM control system, reactor power is proportional to primary coolant flow rate. Refuelling would be every 10 years in an inert gas environment. Operation would require no skill, due to the inherent safety design features. The whole plant would be about 6.5 metres high and 2 metres diameter.

The Super-Safe, Small & Simple - 4S 'nuclear battery' system is being developed by Toshiba and CRIEPI in Japan in collaboration with STAR work in USA. It uses sodium as coolant (with electromagnetic pumps) and has passive safety features, notably negative temperature and void reactivity. The whole unit would be factory-built, transported to site, installed below ground level, and would drive a steam cycle. It is capable of three decades of continuous operation without refuelling. Metallic fuel (169 pins 10mm diameter) is uranium-zirconium enriched to less than 20% or U-Pu-Zr alloy with 24% Pu for the 10 MWe version or 11.5% Pu for the 50 MWe version. Steady power output over the core lifetime is achieved by progressively moving upwards an annular reflector around the slender core (0.68m diameter, 2m high in the 10 MWe version, 1.2m diameter and 2.5m high in the 50 MWe version) at about one millimetre per week. After 14 years a neutron absorber at the centre of the core is removed and the reflector repeats its slow movement up the core for 16 more years. In the event of power loss the reflector falls to the bottom of the reactor vessel, slowing the reaction, and external air circulation gives decay heat removal. A further safety device is a neutron absorber rod which can drop into the core. After 30 years the fuel would be allowed to cool for a year, then it would be removed and shipped for storage or disposal.

Both 10 MWe and 50 MWe versions of 4S are designed to automatically maintain an outlet coolant temperature of 510?C - suitable for power generation with high temperature electrolytic hydrogen production. Plant cost is projected at US$ 2500/kW and power cost 5-7 cents/kWh for the small unit - very competitive with diesel in many locations. The design has gained considerable support in Alaska and toward the end of 2004 the town of Galena granted initial approval for Toshiba to build a 4S reactor in that remote location. A pre-application NRC review is under way with a view to application for design certification in 2009 and construction and operating (COL) application about 2012. Its design is sufficiently similar to PRISM - GE's modular 150 MWe liquid metal-cooled inherently-safe reactor which went part-way through US NRC approval process for it to have good prospects of licensing.

Methanol's present main source is of course commercial fossil methane,
which could actually provide a useful commercial lead into methanol vehicle fuelling.

You are right to remark its toxicity, but wholly mistaken to assume this precludes its use as a road fuel.

Both Petrol & Diesel are poisonous to drink, but such casualties are minimal. Here in the UK an emetic is mixed with methanol to make it undrinkable - isn't this done in the US ?

Where it has major advantages in comparative toxicity is in its very rapid decomposition and relatively minimal impact when released to the environment - unlike both petrol & diesel.

Furthermore, it poses nothing remotely like the fire risk that petrol fuelling involves - and that is a potential reduction of a substantial number of fatalities and casualties each year.

I don't suggest that Coppice Methanol will replace the exponential growth of fossil liquid fuels' usage -
nothing can or will do that,
given that eternal growth is merely the heretical ideology of deluded economists and their dupes.

Indeed, given the coming global peaks in oil, gas & coal production,
followed, inexorably, by the decline both of their production and of the percentages exported by producer states,
it seems to me likely that we may already be rather close to Peak Transportation.

Regards,

Billhook

You hit the nail on the head. We are pretty much at peak everything especially if we want at least some of the natural world preserved.

Richard

So my question is whether you envision high-sugar pine sawdust or some other source / grind.

It is relevant because methanol of any kind can store hydrogen in a much cheaper and safer manner than gaseous or liquefied hydrogen. While toxic and if injected can lead to blindness, i helped get it approved as an alternative motor fuel in Texas in the early 1990s.  Hydrogen is NOT approved except for experimental R&D.

I'm not sure what kind of claims one can make about fuel efficiency as I asked above.  Methanol and hydrogen are essentially the same thing.  I read from the California Car Show that a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle costs a million dollars and gets 68 MPG gasoline equivalent but methanol vehicles can get 63 MPG - with a regular vehicle engine and turbocharging.  

Go figure.

Onward through the fog

Biomass?
http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png

Coal?
http://greyfalcon.net/fossilenergy.png

Massive Arrays of Solar Panels?
http://greyfalcon.net/h2car
http://greyfalcon.net/greenenergy.png

At that point you really have to ask yourself if the opportunity cost is worth it, and whether the thermodynamic efficiencies really add up.

Which frankly, they don't.

-David Ahlport

Like anything else, it would come from whichever source is cheapest. Right now, coal and natural gas are likely choices. In the future, nuclear will be a likely choice.
google.com/search?q=%22nuclear+ethanol%22

801 hits.

The "green" thing is to brew methanol from once-living trees, using little more than 1920 innovations and beer technology, since that could be sustainable if one had lots of high-sugar tree stuff.  Even imported trees must be cut, planed, trimmed, with significant waste scrap.  

A tertiary market is from cellulose processing such as for making paper.  This is still "organic" in the sense trees are used but the methanol is derived from sulfite liquor wastes.

Other than that, most methanol is made not-so green, using natural gas.  Often old ammonia plants are converted for this purpose, which (sorry to say) also mostly rely on natural gas feedstocks. There is a question as to whether reforming natural gas using such high pressures (e.g., 900 psig) is better than just using raw natural gas in the first place.  /s

Onward through the fog

And can you quantify how much of that there would be?
http://venturebeat.com/2006/11/05/why-cellulosic-ethanol- ...

-David Ahlport

You simply didn't read the article. The point is the price at which we can deliver fuel cells. They are extremely expensive, they require platinum to produce, the most precious metal in the world. Mass producing the things won't bring the price of platinum down.

But on to people with a bit more intellectual rigor. Do you know how much water is required to produce hydrogen on a hydrogen economy scale? http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1082/

"The hydrogen, of course, will be coming from water, and Michael Webber [Associate Director, Centre for International Energy and Environmental Policy] estimates that 19-69 trillion gallons of water will be needed for electrolysis and for coolant of power plants. Considering that means somewhere between 50-200 billion gallons of water per day"

We need an electron economy.

You can't just rush into these things!

--- G. R. L. Cowan, boron internal combustion fan
How shall cars gain nuclear cachet?
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html

Steve Carew

changes for the good are make by the people not by governments or big business