Hydrogen and the Honda "Clarity"

[Coyote]

At MSNBC

Okay, I'm kinda curious about the idea of hydrogen powered cars, and I wonder if they're all they're cracked up to be. It seems that there are some basic questions that either are not being applied, or, they've been answered and I'm in the slow lane and not picking up on some things.

So I'm appealing for some help, here, from the knowledgeable, since every article I read on hydrogen cars doesn't address my curiosity.

With great fanfare, Honda’s first-ever zero-emission, hydrogen-powered car rolled off the automaker’s production line earlier this month. But don’t look for one on a highway near you anytime soon.

The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity and emits only water as a byproduct, will be available for lease starting July to a very, very limited number of customers in California. Among the first drivers — hand-chosen by the automaker — are movie star Jamie Lee Curtis and filmmaker Ron Yerxa.

Honda’s Clarity may sound like a breakthrough for drivers struggling with the high price of gasoline, but it’s just one of a wide range of potential solutions being tested to wean the auto economy off costly, polluting crude oil. The prospects of hydrogen as a solution are far from certain, observers say, as it could take several decades until hydrogen-powered cars are widely available.

“If you were to take a poll of automotive journalists I think about half of them would say the future is hydrogen,” said Tom Appel, associate publisher of Consumer Guide Automotive, which offers buying advice to car consumers. “It’s clean, and it looks like it will be available at a low cost at some point in the future. So it looks like it should work when the infrastructure is put in place, but that’s going to be some time from now.”

This is what I don't understand about hydrogen cars. It may seem like a basic and stupid question, but I am wondering about future aggregate effects.

First off, while it may seem strange to ask, where does hydrogen come from? I know it is one of, if not the, most basic elements but I'm wondering where/how does it get made for fuel in cars?

The emissions are water-- doesn't that mean that water molecules are bonded with hydrogen, and then released? So we have to use more water to create fuel, right? Now technically, the Earth doesn't "lose" water, there's not really a water "shortage" but there are problems with distribution. Water is in various pools (oceans, rivers, etc), in vapor, in animals' bodies, but it seems there's never enough where we need it to counter droughts. Agriculture soaks up a lot of the stuff. Now we're going to put it in our cars on the same scale we use gasoline?

Isn't that going to be troublesome?

...The vehicle certainly looks promising on paper. Honda says the vehicle is twice as energy-efficient as a gas-electric hybrid, such as a Toyota Prius, and three times that of a regular gas-powered car.

Honda has designed the car to be as driver-friendly as possible. The vehicle does zero to 60 mph in 10 seconds, has a top speed of 100 mph and runs for 280 miles on a single tank of compressed hydrogen gas — all acceptable specifications for a regular car, notes Appel. But a number of obstacles remain before hydrogen cars can be considered a viable alternative.

...

Hydrogen-powered cars like the Clarity run on power generated by mixing oxygen with hydrogen in a fuel-cell stack, where the elements react in the presence of an electrolyte. Fuel cells are heavy and difficult to make, fragile and not completely reliable in freezing temperatures, according to Appel.

Other hydrogen-fueled cars are now undergoing controlled testing on U.S. roads, including Chevrolet’s midsized Equinox sport utility vehicle and the federal and state governments are working to jump-star a hydrogen fuel infrastructure. California, Florida and a number of European nations are working on building “hydrogen highways” that would allow such vehicles to travel and refuel.

These highways are not yet established, and at present there are only 15 hydrogen fuel stations that the Department of Energy has set up with private partners in California, Florida, New York, Washington, D.C., and Michigan. By comparison, the National Petroleum News says there are currently around 164,000 regular gas stations in the United States.

The number of hydrogen stations is expected to grow, but very slowly. In California, for example, there are plans to add 24 more fueling stations by 2010 under the California Hydrogen Infrastructure Project — a joint venture of major automakers, the Energy Department and hydrogen producers.

Okay, next-- if hydrogen is going to be the next gasoline, and people are going to want hydrogen and water, and there'll be an "aftermarket" for water for other purposes, will this, in fact, potentially spur commercial interests in space? After all, if there's one thing there's plenty of in space, it seems to be hydrogen and ice. Whoever wants to be the next J. Paul Getty will jump at the chance to exploit energy from space... right?

[Mr Bean]

First off, I'm running out the door so I'll only address one point.

Coyote, there's this thing.. it's called the ocean some-how.. it might be just me but It might be just a tad cheaper to build two hundred Desalination plants along the ocean before we have to go into space. I'm pretty sure in fact the cost of launching a space expedition to capture and bring back to Earth one ice comet would be equivalent to build 400 Desalination plants and running them for two hundred years.

[CaptainZoidberg]

I don't understand why you think there'd be a water shortage. Water is taken from the oceans and electrolysis is used to strip off the hydrogen. The hydrogen is shipped/pumped to fueling stations. When cars use the hydrogen they produce water, that water evaporates, and oceans are refilled.

[Colonel Olrik]

Coyote, if you're getting Hydrogen from water what you're doing is providing energy to break the bonds between the hydrogen and the oxygen atoms. This is known as an endothermic reaction since it consumes energy. Afterward, when you mix the Hydrogen with Oxygen you get energy and water vapor. The water doesn't go anywhere since it's returned to the system. This technique naturally has the potential of making countries with lots of cheap energy potential and access to the coast big Hydrogen exporters.

Mind you, Hydrogen is not the only carrier of energy that can be used in this fashion. I've read proposals of transforming the Sahara desert into a giant energy producing facility, with Silicon has the carrier of solar energy. The principle is the same. Si2O to Si +2O is an endothermic process, and when you burn the Si you get energy (and sand..).

[Knife]

The problem, as I see it, is the mass production of the Hydrogen. How much power and from where do you use to produce hydrogen on such a scale? Coal? Oil? Nukes? If the first two, at what point are you using as much oil/coal to produce the hydrogen, and thus polluting and comsuming the same amount of oil/coal as we currently do now?

Your kind of shifting the buck with hydrogen. Sure the guy filling up his car with it feels all good about himself cause he's not polluting the enviroment with his car, yet all the oil or coal fired plants it took to power the hydrogen production pretty much compensates for that.

Not that I'm against hydrogen cars, just we need to think long and hard about the infrastructure we need to build for them.

[Colonel Olrik]

The problem, as I see it, is the mass production of the Hydrogen. How much power and from where do you use to produce hydrogen on such a scale? Coal? Oil? Nukes? If the first two, at what point are you using as much oil/coal to produce the hydrogen, and thus polluting and consuming the same amount of oil/coal as we currently do now?

We have more energy hitting us from the Sun than we could ever need. It's not impossible to mass produce gigantic solar plants across the deserts. You can even use the sand to produce the glass right there.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The basic way hydrogen cycles through cars goes this way:

Water =>Electrolysis=> H2 => Car => Mixed with O2 => Water

So, we use energy to separate the hydrogen out of the water, or to put it another way we use the hydrogen as a means of transferring energy from the production plant to the car. There are no waste products other than water and heat generated by the car, and the amount of water you get out is roughly equal to the water you put in.

Of course, depending on where you get the energy for electrolysis, there may be other pollution problems.

[Coyote]

Well, I get the oceans part of it, but like I said, I'm thinking of the aggregate effects in the future: when the USA, Europe, India and China, not to mention any other up-and-comers start siphoning the oceans en masse to provide as much hydrogen as we need gasoline today, won't that result in an increasing salinity of the remaining ocean water? Won't the Ph balance be thrown and start fucking with the plankton, the coral, etc?

Or we can melt freshwater ice from mountains, glaciers, poles... but isn't that what all this is trying to prevent?

[Coyote]

Oh, and we don't need to capture comets for ice ( )-- there's plenty of it, free-floating, around Saturn.

[Kanastrous]

The water siphoned out of the oceans will be going right back out the tailpipes of the hydrogen cars in the form of water vapor, back into the water cycle, back into the oceans.

Although I wonder what the local meteorological effects might be, of Los-Angeles-sized masses of cars all pumping water vapor into the the air each morning and evening.

[Starglider]

Well, I get the oceans part of it, but like I said, I'm thinking of the aggregate effects in the future: when the USA, Europe, India and China, not to mention any other up-and-comers start siphoning the oceans en masse to provide as much hydrogen as we need gasoline today, won't that result in an increasing salinity of the remaining ocean water? Won't the Ph balance be thrown and start fucking with the plankton, the coral, etc?

The total volume of all fuel stocks humans are every likely to have is an invisibly minute fraction of the volume of the earth's oceans. Think about this. The upper bound on the amount of hydrogen we can have in use is equivalent to the total volume of every fuel tank on earth. The upper bound on the amount of water the hydrogen cycle can be using is a lot smaller than this, as hydrogen is a lot less dense than water (the extra amount in the atmosphere is insignificant). Do you really think we could ever build enough fuel tanks to contain a noticeable fraction of the world's oceans? The water vapor isn't likely to be a greenhouse gas problem either, since current cars already pump out plenty of water vapor in addition to their CO2. Using pure hydrogen is just removing the carbon carrier from the system.

[Graeme Dice]

Although I wonder what the local meteorological effects might be, of Los-Angeles-sized masses of cars all pumping water vapor into the the air each morning and evening.

It wouldn't be that much more water vapour than the cars are already emitting into the atmosphere.

[Knife]

The problem, as I see it, is the mass production of the Hydrogen. How much power and from where do you use to produce hydrogen on such a scale? Coal? Oil? Nukes? If the first two, at what point are you using as much oil/coal to produce the hydrogen, and thus polluting and consuming the same amount of oil/coal as we currently do now?

We have more energy hitting us from the Sun than we could ever need. It's not impossible to mass produce gigantic solar plants across the deserts. You can even use the sand to produce the glass right there.

Solar panels, AFAIK, take a lot of energy to produce and involve a lot of hazardous materials. Once again, shifting the burden from the user to the manufacturer as far as pollution is concerned.

[Singular Intellect]

Well, I get the oceans part of it, but like I said, I'm thinking of the aggregate effects in the future: when the USA, Europe, India and China, not to mention any other up-and-comers start siphoning the oceans en masse to provide as much hydrogen as we need gasoline today, won't that result in an increasing salinity of the remaining ocean water? Won't the Ph balance be thrown and start fucking with the plankton, the coral, etc?

I don't think you grasp how large the the world's oceans are. Consider:

According to my Googling, Earth's water supply is roughly in gallons: 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 (326 million trillion gallons).

As of 2007, world oil consumption was estimated at 87 million barrels of oil a day. Let's round that up to 100 million.

If we magically switched oil with water, and ridiculasly assumed that any water we used was gone forever, we have a supply that would last the world 212,654,924 years.

Even if we magically increased our consumption by a factor of a thousand, we'd still have enough to supply us for well over two hundred thousand years.

To answer your salinity question, even at a thousand times our consumption, our impact on the ocean reserve would be practically undetectable for a long time.

And let's not forget we're stupidly assuming we 'burn' this water and it disappears forever, as opposed to the real world where it just cycles back into the system.

[Coyote]

Actually, I hadn't thought through the fact that the water would be emitted as "exhaust" and go back into the hydrological cycle as vapor... and eventually back to the same ocean from whence it came...

[Singular Intellect]

Actually, I hadn't thought through the fact that the water would be emitted as "exhaust" and go back into the hydrological cycle as vapor... and eventually back to the same ocean from whence it came...

As it's been said, we're not getting any energy from the hydrogen itself, it's just an energy carrier, not an energy source. A hydrogen car itself burns 100% harmful emission free; what we need to concern ourselves with is how we're producing the hydrogen in the first place. And if we could go more nuclear and focus on assorted renewable energy sources, we'd be in great shape. Once we got there, that is.

[Coyote]

It would be cool. I am indeed a convert. (Being reminded of how fucking big the oceans really are helps too) Now, if we can just get the damn things cheaper...

Also, could one of these cars (theoretically) be driven on the Moon?

[Covenant]

This is something a lot of people don't get--especially the "hydrogen economy" nutters who don't support nuclear power. But if we do get a bunch of clean, happy nuclear plants running to generate power for our hydrogen plants then yes, you could have a large supply of hydrogen on hand without much ecological effect. Thing is, water vapor is a huge greenhouse gas, but it also creates clouds. I think you might want to look into a climate model more to see what the deal is, but it's possible that it could even create so much added cloud cover that we reduce the amount of thermal energy hitting the ground by reflecting it back into space with white puffy clouds.

Ya' never know. An ideal circumstance would be a hybrid hydrogen/electric car, I think. Liquid fuel that helps keep the battery charged, but driving most of the time on battery.

[Singular Intellect]

This is something a lot of people don't get--especially the "hydrogen economy" nutters who don't support nuclear power. But if we do get a bunch of clean, happy nuclear plants running to generate power for our hydrogen plants then yes, you could have a large supply of hydrogen on hand without much ecological effect. Thing is, water vapor is a huge greenhouse gas, but it also creates clouds. I think you might want to look into a climate model more to see what the deal is, but it's possible that it could even create so much added cloud cover that we reduce the amount of thermal energy hitting the ground by reflecting it back into space with white puffy clouds.

So in other words, we'd reduce the amount of thermal energy hitting our planet, and combat global warming at the same time.

Gotta love hydrogen!

[Singular Intellect]

It would be cool. I am indeed a convert. (Being reminded of how fucking big the oceans really are helps too) Now, if we can just get the damn things cheaper...

Also, could one of these cars (theoretically) be driven on the Moon?

Uh, unless we paved a physical road to the moon and gave the vehicle one fucking huge gas tank...

Or are trying to ask if the hydrogen fuel could be used for rocket fuel?

[Starglider]

Also, could one of these cars (theoretically) be driven on the Moon?

You'd have to fit it with a self-contained oxygen supply, so no, not any more than a normal car. That said fuel cells with just that have been heavily used in space applications for decades.

[Elfdart]

The water siphoned out of the oceans will be going right back out the tailpipes of the hydrogen cars in the form of water vapor, back into the water cycle, back into the oceans.

Although I wonder what the local meteorological effects might be, of Los-Angeles-sized masses of cars all pumping water vapor into the the air each morning and evening.

Wouldn't it just change the smog into fog?

[Coyote]

It would be cool. I am indeed a convert. (Being reminded of how fucking big the oceans really are helps too) Now, if we can just get the damn things cheaper...

Also, could one of these cars (theoretically) be driven on the Moon?

Uh, unless we paved a physical road to the moon and gave the vehicle one fucking huge gas tank...

Or are trying to ask if the hydrogen fuel could be used for rocket fuel?

Not TO the Moon, ON the Moon!

I mean, since it doesn't rely on comubstion (ie, oxygen for fire) could such a vehicle be used as a moon buggy? I mean, taking into consideration the need for a rugged suspension, sealed & pressurized lubrication system, space for a suited operator, etc-- obviously not a stock Honda Clarity.

[gizmojumpjet]

Hydrogen-powered engines DO require oxygen. Combining oxygen with the hydrogen is what makes the magic happen.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Hydrogen is a boondoggle. Go electric. I always find it funny how people talk about hydrogen efficiency and cleanliness when they're turning water via electricity into hydrogen then back into water for electricity, rather than use electricity to... fill a power cell.