While I see the advantages of hydrogen power on vehicles, the costs of material handling difficulties seem insurmountable to me. The rate of product evaporation alone is exceptionally high, and the willingness of people to switch to an energy source with a maximum 30-day shelf life is practically non-existant. How long can you keep molecular hydrogen in a small, inexpensive tank? If you can't hold it in small inexpensive tanks, do you have a solution for public consumption?

It is also an explosion hazard. Imagine a gas tank that explodes like a bomb instead of catching on fire.

Ummm, have you ever lit gasoline on fire, Scott? Hydrogen may have a slightly higher flashpoint, but it also will vaporize and dissipate much more quickly than gasoline. I'd have to ask a chemist to be sure, but I don't think using hydrogen as a fuel would be markedly more dangerous than using gasoline.

Funny you should ask. We actually did a research project in P Chem to determine the feasibility of hydrogen cars. Besides the expenses you had mentioned, it is also an explosion hazard in it's pure form. The tank would have to be pressurized and the force of just that rupturing violently could be extremely dangerous.

The biggest threat from gasoline we found was from vapors and explosions were less likely than fires.

We were, of course, working with limited time and material and all our results were from theoretical situations or computer models.

How about storage as hydrides?

And why does the cost have to be less than or equal to that of gasoline? What do you think energy independence is worth? Imagine the entire middle east back in the 15th century, where they belong. How much of our defense budget is tied up fighting these madmen - madmen who threaten us only because they have the money to acquire modern weapons? Hydrogen at the equivalent of $3.00/gallon gas would be a good deal.

"And why does the cost have to be less than or equal to that of gasoline?"

Because if hydrogen powered cars cost more to operate, people won't buy them.

Besides all the science, the hurdle that has to be crossed first is not whether people will find them cost-effective enough to buy, but whether industry will find them cost effective enough to manufacture. There are powerful forces in both directions - those who are looking for the new technology breakthroughs for autos, whatever; and those who have a vested interest in the failure of any such venture.

Some kind of breakthrough advancement is needed soon - as we have by some estimates about 50-75 years of viable fosiil fuel reserves left, worldwide, and then the lights go off...

Nuclear fission seemed like the future, in the 50s, 60s, 70s (my Uncle was one of the engineers on Indian Point 2, in NY, that was 40 years ago now...) , but now that has faded big time. Fusion semmed promising, but hasn't gone anywhere...

We are afalling way behind the Star Trek universe in terms of progress though, that's for sure.

Gila3,

I remember being told with absolute assurance that we had no more than 25 years of petroleum reserves...in 1978. Since we didn't run out of gas two years ago, I suspect the estimate was faulty.

Realistically, petroleum reserves are an extremely dodgy object. If gasoline is selling for $10 a gallon, the tar sands of Canada can supply several decades of fuel. Additionally, West Texas has some fairly profound reserves, they are just expensive to get to, and the owners of those reserves do not have a sufficient margin go in after them. Most importantly, much of the surface of the world has not been thoroughly seached, if for no other reason than most of the world is under a mile or more of ocean.

Finally, if we were serious about energy independance, we would amend the regulations associated with nuclear power to allow it to be profitable. We have plenty of uranium, and with current era technology and planning we have very safe reactors available to our use. Inside of ten years, we can be energy independant. The question is, who could afford the political price?

Solar, solar. solar. The economics of generating power with large array solar cells in space and beaming the power back to earth has been explored and looks feasible. There was a Professor at Princeton who looked at this about two decades ago, and, with then available technology, he determined that this program could be made to work.

The first step is to get a working base on the moon. This gets us out of the earth's gravity well and puts us in position to make materials on the moon and get them into earth orbit much less expensively than we can do it from earth. Heinlein postulated electromotive rail systems on the moon for cheaply boosting materials into moon orbit more than five decades ago. To my knowledge, this has never been shown to be unfeasible. Some research has been done on this by the us government, not sure where it stands.

What we lack is the will to get on with it.

One word: Hindenburg

Try getting that one past a soccer mom driving her SUV full of kids. It seems like a non-starter. I'd also point out that most fuel cells planned for cars have a reformer that converts motor gasoline or diesel into pure hydrogen with water as a byproduct. If its done this way, there's no energy independence, just an inefficient automobile with the only saving grace that it doesn't emit air pollutants.

The air powered car may work. you can see it at MDI inc. They claim to have sold over 50 factories
world wide.

The problem is that hydrogen makes little sense as a vehicle energy store no matter what.

Hydrogen is commonly produce, easily and cheaply, by reforming hydrocarbons, typically natural gas but heavier hydrocarbons can be used. This has the advantage of centralizing pollution control. The only thing that this has to emit is carbon dioxide.

Now, instead, you could also produce, easily and cheaply from hydrocarbons, methanol. This has the great advantage of being easily stored and transported. The current infrastructure can easily be modified for its use (last I heard, you just need new seals on the pumps). Methanol can be reformed in the vehicle to hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cells, used in direct methanol fuel cells, or burned in any variety of internal or external combustion engine. No high pressure or cryogens needs, simple as filling at the pump now. The only difference is that the carbon dioxide is emitted by the car rather than the hydogen production plant, technically not making this a "zero-emission vehicle", but it is a distinction that makes no difference.

Now, what if you can produce hydrogen from water with solar or nuclear power? Then, the fuel station does *not* emit carbon dioxide, nor does the vehicle if powered by pure hydrogen. This is an advantage should it turn out that CO2 emissions are effecting the climate.

But that same solar or nuclear plant can also use the hydrogen to produce methanol, in much the same reaction as used to make hydrogen and methanol from hydrocarbons. But then, you say, the vehicle will emit CO2. Yes, but it has to come from somewhere. To make methanol from water or pure hydrogen, though, you need CO2. If this is extracted from the air (again, a simple and cheap process), then the plant removes CO2 and the car returns it. No net change in CO2, even though the car emits it.

The only way pure hydrogen is a win is if it is produced from hydrocarbons *and* the CO2 is sequestered due to climate concerns. There are suggestions of injecting into gas wells or pumping it under pressure to the ocean bottom. This is untested, unproven, possibly dangerous, and likely very expensive. Methanol, on the other hand, is simple 19th century chemical engineering.

On the whole, I don't expect "hydrogen" cars to be very successful, unless you consider methanol (or possibly some other alchohol or synthetic hydrocarbon) produced from hydrogen to be a "hydrogen" car.

From the blog: "A company called Hydrogen Solar has developed a technology that converts sunlight into hydrogen."

Not sunlight. Sunlight + Water. Both effectively limitless, renewable resources. The important efficiency in this case is not in the conversion process, but in the cost per unit energy. It wouldn't matter if it were 2% efficient if it were also dirt cheap. So the limiting factor there is merely time - either to raise the efficiency or reduce the cost of the technology. The potential showstopper is storage. I don't see a way around that yet.

Hydro Electricity. Clean and cheap. Very Kyoto, and green .

Water over the dam to create the electricity to extract from the water, the hydrogen you seek.

Of course, I live in Winnipeg Manitoba Canada, a place where Hydro electricty is very plentiful. I can't help but think I am living in the future 'oil patch'.

Scott's right: hydrogen wants to explode. Andrew, have you ever held a toy balloon at arm's length while your eighth-grade science teacher held a match under it? Well, I have, and in the 25 years since then, the hair on my arm and eyebrows has grown back.

Also, as Bunny Slippers says, Hindenburg (berg?).

'Tain't gonna happen in compressed gas form.

Hydrogen as a fuel means relocating the energy-storage (e.g. pollution) source to a central plant. That might be a good idea, but we should be aware that the "clean-burning" concept isn't that simple.

Both nuclear fusion and hydrogen power require engineering breakthroughs to become feasible. We are accustomed to technology improvements as a way of life and confuse incremental improvements with breakthroughs. Breakthroughs are unpredictable and infrequently occur, ie transistors and lasers.

Nuclear fission is a bit like DDT. Only when we start having MAJOR problems will the obvious solution will become politically realistic.

Reseach money should be used to explore alternate energy sources. Unfortunately, as in the case of hydrogen cars, much of the money is being diverted to making gadgets rather than solution of basic problems. This is because gadgets are tangible symbols of accomplishment and solving basic problems is really hard and the solution timeline unpredictable.

Hydrogen is big right now because the only practical fuel-cells require pure hydrogen for fuel. Anybody seeking to create a zero emissions vehicle in the next 5 years or so has to use a hydrogen fuel-cell as its power source.

The kicker, as always with hydrogen, is that there are no "hydrogen mines." Hydrogen isn't an energy source but rather a means of storing and transporting energy. The Tadem Cell looks promising but its really just an all-in-one electrolyses unit and as such has a pretty sharp theoretical limitation on its efficiency, around 10% conversion if I remember correctly.

Even if we got an efficient means of producing hydrogen tomorrow it would take a couple of decades to transition the transportation system over to hydrogen vehicles. Hydrogen has become a buzzword panacea in many circles when in reality its just a promising component of the long term solution.

Patrick Lasswell's point about storage is a good one. Some have suggested that you use the hydrogen as it's generated to reduce CO2 to methanol. In this case CO2 acts as the carrier (re-released on burning), and you get methanol, an easily handled liquid (toxic, but just don't drink it and you'll be OK). The problem there is that turning CO2 efficiently into methanol is not exactly a solved problem.

Mark, you asked about storage as hydrides. Again, very much an unsolved problem. There's a lot of interest in it, and people have devised materials that'll store hydrogen reversibly, at a higher density than the neat liquid. Beautiful science--but pesky questions of how much energy you have to put in to get enough of the hydrogen back out, or how many times your (awfully expensive) storage catalyst can be recycled, are still deal-breakers for practical use.

Andrew: "I'd have to ask a chemist to be sure, but I don't think using hydrogen as a fuel would be markedly more dangerous than using gasoline."

I work closely with a chemist whose professional specialty is generating hydrogen from water using light, and he's candid about its difficulties and shortcomings as a fuel. Asked about the fear factor in carrying a tank of hydrogen in the event of a crash, he pointed out that hydrogen escapes upward so rapidly it may actually be less likely to ignite after a crash than gasoline; and if your fuel is going to be ignited anyway, "Is it really better to have your fire coming from underneath you than above you?"

I pass this on for what it's worth--I'd be concerned myself, but you're right that H2 probably isn't dramatically more dangerous than gasoline.

At the risk of sounding like a stoner (I'm not), What about Biodiesel? Neil Young did his last tour fueled on good ole vegetable oil; why can't others? Also, once again I swear I am not smoking anything, what about hemp fuels? Extracting combustible fuels from hemp is just as possible as it is with corn, and the energy is more plentiful. Why aren't we looking at biofuels with any intensity as we have more than enough arrable land to produce in abundance?

Don't worry. We'll have plenty of hydrogen for
our emerging hydrogen cars. China will use its
vast array of nuclear power plants under construction
to create it. Wal-mart will import it and
distribute it.

Mark my words.

Interesting post. Personally, I'm pretty skeptical about the idea of moving to hydrogen. We're talking about a MASSIVE new infrastructure. What would be the cost, both economic and energy, from mounting solar cells on every house in sunny areas that uses a car? Why not simply just use electric? Electric solar cells have efficencies on par with what is quoted in the article, and you can use that electricity for you car or your refrigerator, or sell it back to the grid. Why introduce another layer of inefficency on these new nuclear plants? What's more, the infrastructure is in place.

Back when Stephen DenBeste was still writing, he did some excellent posts on alternative energies, here's one that links to others:
http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2004/06/AnewManhattanProject.shtml
In addition to hydrogen, he talks about some other technologies mentioned above, like biodiesel.

Incidentally, while it might be a real PR problem for hydrogen, it turns out that hydrogen isn't what you see burning in those films of the Hindenberg. The silver paint on the outside of the zepplin was made from a mixture of powdered aluminum and iron oxide, which is apparently a formula for rocket fuel. Static electricity caused a spark from the frame to the fabric shell, then the rest is history.

The best way to move forward is not only to recognize the need to decrease the ecological damage and increase the corporate bottom line, but we must not forget that people whose job's depend on the energy dependant industries. The need for change is certain. The neeed for family's to survive is certain as well. People will support change more readily when they know where their next meal is comming from. The auto and energy industries are not the bad guy's. We as a people with our fast paced airconditioned lives are the ones who create our society. It is the energy industry and technological advancement that will fuel the radical changes comming to hydrogen cars. As we move to a hydrogen economy we must not sacrifice a mans abillity to feed his family. People will have to make compromise in their way of life, industry will have to take risk, chicken little's need to stop putting periods at the end of their "suggestions" demands and take people's livelyhood into consideration.

P.S.
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/8/2/6
Fuel cells turn to alcohol
12 February 2004

Researchers in the US and Greece have invented a reactor that can produce hydrogen from ethanol. Lanny Schmidt of the University of Minnesota, Xenephon Verykios of the University of Patras and co-workers say their reactor is both efficient and cost-effective, and that it represents a major step towards a realistic “hydrogen economy”. It could be employed in small fuel cells capable of generating enough hydrogen for 350 Watt-hours of electricity (G Deluga et al. 2004 Science 303 993)

Wind is already here. When 5MW jobs go into series production wind will be as cheap as coal or nukes.

After that it will cost less.

Next technology needed is storage. We could double the power output and increase realiablity with no new wires if we could store significant amounts of power at end user sites.

In fact storage would be a boon even if wind wasn't a factor.

I have some ideas that could go into production relatively quickly if you know of any investors.

I have 30+ years of experience as a Naval nuke, controls engineer, servo system design, PC design etc. Commercial, aerospace, military. Currently in Illinois, USA.

Bunny Slippers: It's my understanding that recent research has discovered that the Hindenburg's problem was not that it was filled with hydrogen, but that it was waterproofed with rocket fuel. The rubbery coating they spread all over the ship to waterproof it was actually quite similar to the stuff that shoves the shuttle into space.