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25 Responses to “Hydrogen Cars”

1. warmerup Says:
   May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

   The Year 2020 is still far away to have a fleet of these cars around

2. banditandrudy Says:
   May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

   a hydrogen car will cost between 30K-80K. and to fill the tank in a hydrogen car would cost about 20$. and the car gets about 74mpg equivalent. and for all those who thing hydrogen is dangerous because they think it explodes easier than gas fact is gas is easier to explode than hydrogen because of the high ignition point. so in fact hydrogen is actually safer than gas. if you still don’t believe me think about what they said about gas “your sitting on a bomb”, I don’t see a difference.

3. dundotomo Says:
   May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

   Guys, anybody knows the price of regular hydrogen car, or what is the difference in price between hydrogen and …i don’t know…diesel engine car.

4. ndyt Says:
   May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

   harrymook, the source is the grid. You charge the EV with the grid (now the grid could be solar or whatever, that is another subject, we are only talking cars here, not the grid). You put a fuel cell in a car to extend its range because fuel-cell-cars are EVs that use a fuel cell to extend their range. But if the range is 1000+ miles from just the battery charged off the grid then no need for fuel cell in the car. Get it?

5. harrymook Says:
   May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

   Compare the costs quoted by the researchers to hydrogen made from sunlight and water at a cost of 1/5th cent per kWh equivalent to $0.06 per gallon of gas equivalent. With conversion and transmission losses you have hydrogen fuel for $0.20 per gallon of gas equivalent in your tank - 2/3 cent per kWh in your home. Sodium sulfur batteries add $0.01 per kWh to your cost or $0.30 per gal eq. and these all exist and are ready to go now. Adding HVDC distribution also lowers costs improves safety.

6. harrymook Says:
   May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

   So all of these need a motive source - a fuel source, if its a fuel cell, an electron source if its a capacitor, or an electron source again if its a lithium ion battery with super efficient anodes. The best projected cost for fuel cells, nanowires and structured barium titanate crystals is half that of lead acid with 500 charge discharge cycles. That cuts the cost from $1 per kWh to $0.25 per kWh or from $33 per gal equiv. to $7.75 per gal equiv - and you still need an energy source

7. harrymook Says:
   May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

   ndyt - what is your background? Obviously non-technical. Fuel cells need a fuel to work. Fuel cells convert chemical energy in fuel to electricity. Hence fuel in their name. eeStore uses barium titinate crystals to create ultracapacitors to store electrons. That needs an electron source in order to store electrons before gving them up again- hence the word store in the name. Nanowires merely restructure the anodes of conventional Li-Ion batteries which must be recharged and limited life.

8. ndyt Says:
   May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

   harrymook, “This has nothing at all to do with batteries.” - a fuel cell car has everything to do with batteries. A fuel cell car is an EV with a generator, if you make better batteries you dont need the generator. There are two different prototies of batteries, eeStore and Nanowire, if either get their cost down then you dont need a generator on an EV. Also, you dont need to store solar power in hydrogen, you could use these new batteries instead.

9. harrymook Says:
   May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

   Converting ALL our energy to hydrogen fuels derived from sunlight and water - requires 3.3 gigatons of hydrogen using 30 gt of water. 121,000 cubic miles of water fall as precipitation each year. That’s 569,500 gt per year. The oceans contain 1,512,000,000 gt of water.

   H2 economy: total 80 gt rate 40 gt/yr
   H2 in nature: total 1,521,000,000 gt rate 569,500 gt

   C economy: total 4,400 gt rate 5.5 gt
   C in nature: total 42,000 gt rate: 30 gt

   Water is not a problem - cut carbon in half

10. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    42,000 giga-tons are present in the biosphere. 36,000 gt are in the form of bicarbonate ion in the oceans. This controls pH. Humanity controls 4,000 gt primarily cement production and fossil fuels. Atmosphere has 750 gt. Vegetation animals have 610 gt. Soils 1,580 gt. We produce 5.5 gt per year of carbon and vegetation absorbs 0.5 gigatons. Vegetation also produces 1.6 with animal help that’s why biomass is a joke. Soils absorb 60 and emit 60 , oceans absorb 121.3 and emit 90.0

11. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    The mechanism of removal for CO2 involves biological absoprtion by plants and conversion to biomass, or absorption of CO2 by the oceans and conversion to carbonates. These processes have a fixed peak rate and we are exceeding that rate. Cut CO2 production in half, and we’re golden. H2O removal occurs differently. Water vapor falls out of the sky with temperature changes and pools on the ground if liquid, or sits on the ground if solid. The rate of removal of H2O is not fixed as CO2 is.

12. collieh1 Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    whats up man its me again. I’ve been reading everything you’ve been saying and its very interesting. I’ve just got one concern with changing over gas engines to hydrogen engines and that is this. Water contributes much more of a greenhouse effect than CO2 does. I know it will become rain, but CO2 eventually goes down too. Do you not think that this has the potential to change the climate as well. Not to mention everywhere in a city would be very humid. What are your thoughts?

13. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    Sell major carriers power on long term contracts at prices less than they now pay for fuel, and sell them NaS battery powered trucks or hybrid hydrogen/electric trucks. Once that is in place, sell automobile with power pickup on highway. Once that in place, expand powered roadways to major state routes then major city routes then to major neighborhoods - as market expands - displacing both gasoline and hydrogen sales. Meanwhile developing economy adopts best mix and emerging adopts best mix.

14. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    Convert cars, buses, trucks, ships and airplanes to burn hydrogen by changing the fueling systems. This ends oil use the quickest and reduces CO2 emissions the quickest, and reduces energy costs for everyone the quickest - which feeds economic growth the quickest. In this environment, introduce HVDC connection between major solar sites. Fill in the network with regional and then neighborhood panels and batteries. Use major highways as routes, power them first.

15. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    Given our present situation the best way to proceed is to organize surface mines in sunny regions that are well situated to population centers and water supplies. Then, work with coal companies and coal fired power plant owners to take hydrogen to replace coal on the one hand, and use hydrogen to convert coal to gasoline diesel fuel and jet fuel on the other at $8 per barrel. Once that’s in place then sell fuel on forward contracts to expand production. Buy retailers. Sell hydrogen with oil.

16. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    If the entire Earth were a greenfield site and we were to introduce tech from scratch this is the way to go. But 1/3 of the Earth is not greenfield. It is well developed. 1/3 is developing. So, the best way to proceed thermodynamically and capital wise applies to the poorest 1/3 of us, and that only to those who can afford to start the process - and other early adopters. This helps oil companies stay in business which is why they promote it.

17. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    The end point for an all solar solution is low cost solar panels installed on the ground on appropriate land feeding neighborhood level sodium sulfur battery packs. The battery packs are tied together by HVDC power lines running beneath roadways. Homes are tied to HVDC lines with inverters, and NaS battery powered cars are recharged and powered by the major roadways with batteries only being used between major HVDC lines.

18. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    Sodium sulfur batteries from NGK are superior but they’re not available in the USA commercially though AEP and others did do some research with them. Even so, they’re potentially very cheap. That’s because sulfur is cheap and sodium is made from salt. Its 11x more energy dense and it has 10x more charges per life cycle that reduces cost to less than a penny per kWh which is $0.30 per gallon - which was why Ford developed it in the 60s. After Nixon’s election they sold it to Japanese.

19. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    Lead acid battery is the least expensive now available. Typical is 33 Ah at 12 V. You get 396 Wh per discharge. Best case you get 250 discharges per life cycle of the battery and battery cost is $100. That’s $1.00 per kWh. This is equivalent to $33 per gallon for gasoline - just to pay for the battery.

20. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    If you wish to tell me what to do and explain yourself why don’t you send me a private message? Then I would ask privately, who the hell are people like you? haha - Reduce that cost from $3 to $0.03 per watt because I’m using a 5,000 to 1 concentrator and installing them in large arrays on abandoned mine lands and you have it. This has nothing at all to do with batteries. That’s why I use hydrogen made with an alkaline electrolyzer Batteries are more expensive than gas. Hydrogen is not.

21. ndyt Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    harrymook, to head off people like me you should open with, “I am using multi-junction cell panels that are 40% efficient at converting light to electricity and cost about $3/watt.” That would have worked on me. I had no idea that panels that good were coming down in price. I bet few people know that. This is as big as the nano-wire batt. and the eeStore batt. - of course if these work you wont need a fuel cell in the car, EV will be fine w/ 1000 mile+ range.

22. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    Ge/GaAs/InPh creating a 6 junction system is our production tech that we will go to market with. We do have current R&D to further lower costs using organic semiconductors in the targets - sorting photons with GBO birefringent film creating optical bandpass - feeding to bandgap matched organic semiconductors in the targets - to reduce costs to less than 1 cent per peak watt - 1/25th cent per kWh and $20 per ton for hydrogen. This is where we want to be iat the end of the day..

23. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    I mentioned that Ge substrates run around $15 per sq inch - 15x that of float silicon. I have used a method of CVD of Ge on Si that makes a very thin film, that is 1/5th the thickness of the Ge substrate, and increases rate of production. Boeing, CH2MHill, Accenture, and a number of other qualified vendors have all been paid millions to study this for us - before we spent tens of millions developing it - and now we’re spending hundreds of millions getting it into first stage production.

24. harrymook Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    $15 per sq in is $23,250 per sq meter. At 5,000x solar intensity, you collect 1 sq meter for less than $5 - and at 40% efficiency, that’s 400 watts per sq meter - we’re talking 86 watts again per dollar invested. Float silicon at $1 per sq in is over the $1,000 per sq m you mentioned - CVD Ge over Si costs $3 per sq in - 430 watts per dollar for PV costs - of course the balance of system costs dominate at that point. .

25. ndyt Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 5:09 pm

    harrymook, Ge cost about $1200 per kg, are you using that in your costs?

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