The Solar-Powered Home Hydrogen Fueling Station

Great now all we need is a Hydrogen car that doesn't cost a million dollars.

This is a seriously stupid idea; people need to realize that hydrogen is not a fuel. When you use electricity to electrolyze water to make hydrogen, and use the hydrogen to generate electricity in a fuel cell (producing water in the process), the hydrogen is NOT REALLY A FUEL, but A VERY LOUSY BATTERY. (Hydrogen would be a fuel if we found natural sources of free hydrogen, but since we have to convert existing forms of energy to make our own hydrogen, it is self defeating.)

Electrolyzing water to make hydrogen results in an energy loss; you use more energy in the form of electricity than you get from the hydrogen. And guess what? When you convert the hydrogen back into water to get electricity back out, it's inefficient too, losing a good deal of energy in the process to heat.

The solution to our pollution problems isn't the hydrogen economy; it's the electron economy. Instead of using a solar station to electrolyze water for hydrogen, just use the solar station to charge up a plug-in hybrid, or an electric car. When you cut out the hydrogen intermediary, you end up having so much more electricity to use.

OK there, Berkana. You go ahead and tell people to stop parking in garages to protect their cars from the elements and instead keep them outside so they can charge up for hours on end.

In fact, let's solar-cell all our cars and then pave a ton of trees down so we have parking los to park the cars s othat they can get solar energy more effectively!

Fred Cheese :: what are you talking about? outside? you could put the solar cells outside and (gasp) run wired inside. it's the same principle as the hydrogen station discussed here but the power goes to a battery, not a Hydrogen machine.

On the article - well. it's a step in the right direction. but electricity is an all around better alternative. by the time this thing gets to market, electric cars will hopefully be good enough and cheap enough to run twice the capacity of this (rememeber, the tesla can run 250 miles after a night charging, and this only allows you to run 100) and be much cheaper.

So it's a step in the right direction, I just see it a meaningless overall.

Fred, why would people HAVE to pull out of their garages and into lots. I'm guessing you're figuring that the solar panels would be in/on the car? Why wouldn't they just be on the roof to the garage? Until they're more efficent, panels in/on would be to top of the battery.

Where do I sign up to fill my garage full of explosive hydrogen? :)

No thanks.

I could go on several electric vehicle sites now or even eBay and purchase an electric car, and order solar panels now, so why wait for technology that may or may not ever happen, and if does was a mediocre idea at best.

There are two basic ways to make hydrogen, with electricity or natural gas. To me it makes way more sense to use the solar panels to power my house to reduce my electric bill, or maybe charge an electric vehicle. I could buy a Honda civic that runs on natural gas and refuel it in my garage. My city actually uses some of these for fleet vehicles. No wait required.

I wish politicians and automakers would pull their heads out of their tailpipes and think for a minute.

The batteries for the Tesla weigh 1,000 lbs.
Tha'ts quite a bit of mass to push around.
I'm not sure about the wight of a fuel cell but I assume that it is considerably less. If you are building a small car, the difference in weight between a fuel cell car and a 1,000 lb battery may be off set,
Anyone know?

@Berkana
You forget, batteries and the acid they contain are usually harmful to the environment and pretty expensive. Though, hydrogen, while explosive, isn't as harmful when it comes out.
I prefer walking or bike riding meh-self.

Though I tend to agree, neither are great yet .

As far as solar and wind go, it's all about storing the energy, either in hydrogen or in batteries. I don't see why anyone would get out of shape about this. Yes, IF electric cars are produced, and IF they have better batteries than they do now, THEN they would out compete hydrogen. So let's see who produces the better technology and wins in the market place. I'll buy what ever wins the race.

Berkana - give us numbers if you know them ... are there metal hydride systems that have energy densities comparable to electric batteries? Are their life cycles more or less toxic than batteries? I think you've got some good points but these other things need to be considered.

Love the way everyone else is so 'stupid'- the big hindrance to effective electric cars has always been the capacity of the batteries. Converting daylight or wind into what is actually a very effective fuel gives the range and flexibility that people love about the Prius, without the fossil fuel.

The great thing about this approach is that the source of electricity is renewable and is not being transmitted over distances. Also, by not having to store so much electricity, you don't have as much weight in the vehicle, as well as you have more room inside. Lead, cadmium and acid, in great quantities go into batteries, and the less of that crap used the less needs to be mined, refined, dumped or 'recycled'.

And transportation is just one application of this technology- they could easily show a graphic of the hydrogen going into a boiler to warm a house on a dark winter night (electric heat, anyone?) or to boil water for an egg.

Berkana - you nailed it.

All of this "Hydrogen Hype" is getting to me. People still need further education on what hydrogen really is (an energy carrier) and how it is produced.. either through carbon intensive processes or electrolysis and that neither are efficient. Not to mention that hydrogen is a lousy energy carrier too.. It cant be compressed well, works poorly in cold climates, the fuel cell materials are costly and it does not store nearly enough energy density.

A battery would be a MUCH better solution (efficiency wise), or even something as simple as air compression would go further KJ for KJ, watt for watt.

The only place hydrogen fuel cells are making it are in power backup solutions and for forklift's... and even then, other technologies have / are surpassing.

I'm with Berkana and Jon... people are comparing the very questionable "maybe" of hydrogen supported only by hype and the "definite" of battery improvement AND the extreme relative efficiency of an "electron economy" over the hydrogen version.

I think that people are thinking that the solution must be something "new" and hydrogen seems new. The evolutionary process of battery improvement which continues and accelerates every day does not seem as attractive as the (exciting) unknowns that are associated with hydrogen.

Remember, at best the greenest hydrogen cycle is around 25% efficient while storing electricity in batteries and using to run electric motors is over 80% efficient. That means you lose 75% of your energy to store it in hydrogen, while you lose less than 20% of it in the battery version. There is no way around some of the physics that goes into the hydrogen economy...it is not a matter of being open minded. We don't have enough green energy currently to lose 75% of it because we are stuck on the idea of hydrogen as the way to go.

As we move to the electric era I can understand the push for Hydrogen conversion from solar. It may have something to do with the reliability of our current electric grid as it grows larger. I have lived within 10 blocks of where I grew up as a kid in St. Louis, MO with no power outages longer than a few hours in 42 years. We have had 3 substantial outings in the last 6 months that has seen thousands of homes be without power for days at a time. Should this trend continue I would have no way to work if I made the change to electric vehicles everytime something happened to our electric grid.

Hydrogen conversion sounds like a viable alternative to our curerent oil problem. Is there a reason this could not also be used to heat your home? Any system the potentially removes me from the electic or gas grid would also be nice.

Everyone complains about the oil companies and their profits. Wait until all the profits are consolidated into one electric company that has no competition or reason to care about pricing. Does the word monopoly scare anyone?

Battery improvement is slow and limited. To prove that point, that is why we cannot run our laptops for days and our cell phones for months. Most batteries are not as energy dense as hydrogen. One of the reasons hydrogen was thought of way back when. Hopefully that is changing. I'll believe it when I can run my laptop for days with out plugging in. Also a fuel cell is a type of battery, one you refill.

This is off the topic a little, but battery/hydrogen matrix weight is not always a bad thing. It's all in how you distribute the weight.

The Italians made a battery electric car about 10 years ago that was a two seater (one behind the other), more like a four-wheel enclosed motorcycle than a car. All the battery weight was under the passengers which gave it an center of mass almost on the ground. As a result, it stuck to the road like glue. It was faster off the mark than Ferraris and Lamborghinis, owing to the narrow wind profile and incredible traction. Mileage was impressive as well, even at very high speed.

With what seems to be the prospects for major changes in fuel types, why not begin to include in the discussion which big-time interests are behind a particular type so as to help readers see more of the picture (e.g.: corn ethanol (adm, cargil) ctg (big coal), wind (GE), etc etc. (this is hypothetical; don't know for sure these are the names, kinds, usual suspects.. Just an idea

Jilted,
I realize you have a reputation of being something of a troll on these boards (and your chosen screen name suggests some deep-seated grudge) but I will respond to your post anyway just to highlight the common fallacies promoted by that post.

Whether plugging it in or refueling your mobile device with highly compressed, combustible hydrogen or an unstable hydrogen metal hydride, it seems to be a choice that still overlooks the 75% loss of energy associated with getting that hydrogen to your laptop or car. No one has ever designed a hydrogen fueling system let alone built one that will reduce that 75% loss by a significant amount.

As inconvenient as plugging in is and recharging the batteries, we are seeing pretty rapid evolutionary advances in battery life as there is now enormous economic pressure from both the mobile micro-electronics and now the electric drive vehicle industries.

Furthermore, if you want a refuelable generator of electricity that doesn't use a charge, non-hydrogen fuel cell types such as solid-oxide fuel cells and molten metal carbonate fuel cells which can use liquid or less volatile gaseous hydrocarbons like natural gas show a great deal of promise and may be miniaturized. These two fuel cell types have an system efficiency over 45% and as much as 60%. They can be fueled using renewable biofuels or to use fossil fuels more efficiently and cleanly than through a combustion engine.

I think very few people can deny the fact that hydrogen power storage is far behind batter storage efficiency. A 75% loss of power to store in hydrogen simply doesn't make sense for the American power grid. We cannot produce that much electricity domestically. We will eventually turn to shipping in from abroad and we'll experience the same big oil tactics used today.
We need to look at hydrogen, also, as a delay tactic. The cars cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more. We have no fueling grid in place, we'll pay at the pump for it. And we currently have no viable means to convert that much electricity to hydrogen storage, and we'll pay for it. Hydrogen automotive success is less of a real solution than it is a distraction. The high cost of hydrogen will keep the American consumer assured that gasoline is the cheapest fuel for decades simply because it won't come close to the same cost efficiency for decades.

I understand the context for debate here, but hydrogen is a new technology with developments occuring all the time in the field. There is a lot of critiques abound that have been resolved by further R&D, it is hard to keep up with all of it honestly. For example electrolysis energy efficiency has been considerably increased using living machines in laboratory settings, also reducing the pressure on limited supplies of platinum for the process. As mentioned earlier conventional batteries have considerable problems, mass, toxics, ect: they require a lot of development as well. The notion of the hydrogen generator is to convert intermittent solar or wind energy, intermittency being a massive problem of renewables, to be utilized later when there is demand.

I'm particularly surprised that we are still obsessed with notions of personal vehicles, I prefer high density, public transit, biking, and walking; thats why city folk are 5-8% thinner. Nonetheless there is a good report by the Rocky Mountain Institute on their website, concerning the negative myths surrounding hydrogen economy. I am not saying that it is the definite solution for the future, but keep technical progress in mind when you whip critiques about.

Environmental Developments will occur like normal technological developments do in the world with multiple competing pathways, and honestly that is likely the best way to go about it. Otherwise you might get too concerted support for the wrong horse, like Bush is doing right now with biofuels, because he wants to pass around subsidies to large agricultural companies.

sorry for the long rant

Yep, bike or walk! Short range travel in 1500kg+ vehicles will always require e-nor-mous amounts of energy in comparison.

I appreciate people's interest in technologies that will allow them to sustain the same lifestyle with lower emissions but the numbers will never add up.

It appears that no one is very familiar with either all-electric cars, or hydrogen storage. I am a mechanical engineering student and have a little more exposure.

While the batteries for an all electric car are heavy, the motor is not. The Tesla Roadster has a motor that weighs less than 70 pounds. This is far less than any internal combustion engine and corresponding components, and significantly helps to offset the weight of the batteries. In addition, new battery technology is progressing. Lithium Ion batteries revolutionized mobile technology, and it sounds like a new type of battery is going to surpass Lithium Ion within the next few years. Further down the road, high-density "super capacitors" may replace batteries completely.

My school is participating in the ChallengeX program and purchased a hydrogen tank for our car. While I am not in the program, I do know that the tank alone was $30,000. It is made of 1"-1.5" thick carbon fiber. Even though it is made of carbon fiber, it weighs quite a bit due to its thickness. Because of this, and the hydrogen efficiency problems listed in previous posts, this technology does not appear to be a viable solution.

James, I am not sure you understood how the hydrogen is produced. It uses solar and/or wind energy converted to electricity and then transmitted to the hydrogen converter. If you were to bypass the hydrogen production, you could run your car and help power your house without contributing to the electric company's monopoly.

Hydrogen is not a new technology. The first big industrial process was created for supporting the Haber-Bosch Ammonia making in 1914. 50% of the world's Hydrogen is consumed daily by the Haber-Bosch process making fertilizers and "Shock & Awe" explosives.

6,000 pounds of hydrogen are made every second around the clock around the world.

Anytime you can spend $6 of electricity to get $24 worth of wholesale bulk rate Oxygen from 2.4 gallons of water, you have made a profit. Ohhh, yeah, you also get one FREE kilogram of hydrogen that can run any gasoline car now on the road with some fuel adapters and tanks.

Those who make Hydrogen can find buyers in the bulk Merchant Market at $10/kilogram every day of the week. They don't use retail priced kilowatts to get it either, so it is lots less expensive for them to make.

This device is useful in Australia where neighbors are over the horizon. In any city the hydrogen economy will pipeline the gas to your home, same as natural gas, same as they did to many cities 100 years ago before Edison's light, something called "Town Gas" was 50% hydrogen, 50% natural gas.

A hydrogen compressor, not electrolyser, is what is needed at homes. 5 minute fillups instead of 6 hours battery recharge is what is needed.

Small electrolysers are very wasteful. Fuel cells reversably making Hydrogen have efficiencies in the 78% range, whereas bulk electrolysers feeding major consumption have 92% efficiencies.

This device also throws out the 8 times weight of Oxygen, worth $24 because it has no way to pipeline it or store it for collection.

The HHV, or Higher Heating Value, of Hydrogen is the lowest possible energy cost of acquisition.

The HHV of H2 is 39.6 hours of electricity in a perfect world. In an imperfect world the 15% efficiency losses are from the best practices and comes to 45 hWh.

The LHV is what you get back after burning it: 33.4. The net usable energy is no better that 75% of starting energy. You can't go higher but you can go lower by choosing more inefficient means. This device is considerably lower because it uses fuel cells which are 78% efficient.

At a dime per kilowatt for retail electricity, the best cost, before tacking on any profit to motivate somebody to make it for you, is $4.50 per kilogram. That is ONLY in high volume production circumstances, not home kits.

I said $6 up above because I am a realist. That's the probable costs from somebody who gets bulk low wholesale rates, not residential high retail metered rates of electricity. That's lower than the cost of making your own, adding in the cost of the machine divided by payoff lifetime production of fuel.

HYDROGEN IS A FUEL, by the way. There are no gasoline wells either, and gasoline does not occur in nature either. If it burns in your machine and makes it go, that is the definition of a fuel, regardless of how it came to be in your machine in the first place.

Anybody who claims H2 is not a fuel, you can just say IDIOT! Then skip over anything that follows as a total waste of time. Hydrogen is an extremely important chemical. Anybody who hasn't absorbed a lot of correct and factual information about Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, is inexcusably ignorant in a world where every modern browser has a google-toolbar up top corner. What could they have to say worth your time in reading?

They are also suckers for press releases that say things which don't have numbers. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN: "It produces enough in a day to run your car about 100 miles."?

How many kilograms does the machine make? No numbers.

How many miles per gallon/kilogram are we assuming? No numbers.

If you go to Treehugger's first link, nothing. It sends you to two other links.

I though it was the REPORTER'S JOB to dig the facts, not the reader's.

http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/
NO FACTS: "The first version of the home fueling station is expected to produce enough hydrogen to give your runabout a range of nearly 100 miles (150 kilometers) without producing a molecule of greenhouse gas."

HOW MANY KILOGRAMS? HOW MANY MPK?

CSIRO link: NO ANSWERS. NO NUMBERS.
http://www.csiro.au/csiro/content/standard/psuj.html

Thanks Lion, great post.

MY- I do understand the article, maybe you should read it more closely. The electricity is being generated by sunshine or wind- I am not sure where you live, but in my world, the sun shines only part of the day, and it is not always windy. If I were to heat my house with the electricity generated by either, I would freeze at night. Simply put, the system we are discussing is a way of storing a reliable fuel after converting it from intermittant, renuable sources. If we are to rely 100% on electricity to heat our homes, light our homes, and power our vehicles, we are assured to be using coal, deisel and massive dams to get our energy. A system that converts the sun's rays as it hits my house (during daylight, do I need to add?!) into a powerful fuel with zero CO2 byproduct seems like a brilliant idea, even if the process is not optimally efficient.

You also do not acknowledge the whole waste stream of the battery manufacturing process- in my town there is a 'Superfund' site where they made- you guessed it- batteries. The people who live around it have incredibly high rates of cancer, and the cadmium has leached into the aquifer. What is the biggest problems with our computers and cell phones? The heavy metals in the screens and batteries. I am not naive enough to think that the manufacturing or disposal of this technology is clean, but it is a step.

Those who think that hydrogen is a distraction from finding "the" correct fuel to use should also realize that there is no perfect system, but we should explore all ideas, and continue to evolve technologies to a fluid landscape.

People who always talk about hydrogen as if it was super dangerous seem to forget that gasoline is pretty dangerous too, yet we seem to manage that.

Not that I think a hydrogen economy is the way to go (for now, anyway)..

Why hydrogen?

For mobile platforms, two reasons:

1)Hydrogen approaches the theoretical energy density (in terms of energy per unit weight) of storing electrical power, and
2)A hydrogen fuel cell can be quickly recharged in a manner similar to gassing up a car. Very important for transportation

The disadvantages are
1)a low energy per unit volume, and
2)losses in generating, storing, transporting and converting to electricity.

The advantages may outweigh the disadvantages for a mobile platform. But not for a stationary platform.

Battery energy densities are slowly increasing and there are new "fast charge" lion battery technologies that may allow a "service station" recharge. When the density and recharge speed of batteries or ultracapacitors approach hydrogen, they will eclipse hydrogen.

Looking at the improvements in Lion batteries, I think battery technology will become practical before the hydrogen technologies do.

I think what really is delaying the development and introduction of clean energy mobility alternatives is the constant fighting over which technology is better and bashing of all solutions that still have unsolved problems instead of making an effort to overcome those.

Both batteries and hydrogen could be solutions to a greener future. But development in both fields needs public support and funding. Corporations are not going to invest in new technologies that only get them bad press because they are not all the way there yet!

Hydrogen may be less efficient than batteries, but aren't batteries more damaging to the environment? Why is it that some people require near perfect efficiency... damn the consequences. I think hydrogen is a totally feasible solution.

I hear the complaints about transporting hydrogen.

I hear this article saying this solves the problem... but there would still need to be central stations (unless we all give up cars for vacationing and never drive over 100 miles per day).

Couldn't central stations simply do the same thing - on a larger scale...

Who cares if hydrogen is only 25-30% efficient? If it works... it's a hell of a lot better than gas or diesel, isn't it?! Is it perfect, no, but I could see it working. In fact, there wouldn't be a need for gas (or hydrogen) trucks - which would be a huge net savings - just a power line (or God forbid, should a filling station have a few wind turbines and solar panels to generate electricity to convert to H2).

I also hear people talk about wasted energy as heat. Wouldn't you be able to use this heat to warm the vehicle in cold climates? That's not waste... that's called CHP. :) In warm climates, it's a waste... but that's not saying that someone couldn't harness that heat in another way to generate more power...

Would I install one of these H2 generators in my house? Doubt it today - not because it doesn't work, but because solar/H2 is not cost effective today. If it were financially feasible... hell yeah I'd install one! Only time will tell if the price comes down to an obtainable level for the masses... until it does, debates like this will be lots of fun to read!

Brian

Time will tell which solution, perhaps both, is the key to a world where greenhouse gases are drastically reduced, where military conflicts over sources of energy are eliminated, where the quality of the air we breath is better, and where the ability to provide our families with food and the basic essentials is not eroded by an industry that could care less whether you can heat your home while they rake in profits that are neither tied to supply & demand, nor the cost of operations.

GM's business practices are for me the best indicator on which technology I would choose. Granted my reasoning is not based in physics, technological breakthroughs, but are observation based. Actions always speak louder than words!

GM had a beautiful fully functional roadworthy electric vehicle the EV-1. California wanted it, the most energy efficient state in the union. California consumers wanted it and no wonder if you have ever had an opportunity to see the SMOG laden LA horizon, the sky is brown not blue. The car had an excellent range, capable of satisfying most commuters' daily needs. The car was expensive but then again it had never gone into mass production so no big surprise there. The cost to recharge the vehicle was about one third what you would pay for gas.

Additionally, there was no real routine maintenance costs, no oil, oil filter, air filter, spark plugs, transmission fluid...you get the idea. So the overall economy of the car for a vehicle that was not mass produced was outstanding.

Yet GM and the chairman of the California Air Resource Board moved to support hydrogen technology that was years away from being a viable solution regardless of the facts indicating to do otherwise. GM and all automobile manufacturers including Toyota killed 100% of their EV offerings. GM would not even let those who had them and were willing to pay through the nose to keep them. Strange business model!

GM then sold key battery technology that it had acquired to support its EV-1 program to Chevron. Again, an odd business transaction! Anyone know what Chevron is doing with that battery technology?

So a reasonable and objective person really does not need worry about the merits of one technology over the other when obvious commerical and political actions merge to bury a current and viable technolgoy which would eliminate our need not only on foreign oil, but would even drastically reduce our consumption of domestic oil.

A person must simply ask which is viable today? The answer is obvious, plugin EVs. They might also ask who opposes vehicles like the EV-1 and had it removed from the market, automakers like GM and Oil Companies.

Then a reasonable person needs to ask about the consequences on the environment for both solutions. From what I gathered from reading the above posts the hydrogen cycle still produces greenhouse gases regardless of whether or not solar or wind energy is used to produce it albeit much less than the ICE (set me straight if this is incorrect). EVs, and solar energy systems do need batteries and they do present a threat to the environment if industry is allowed as in the past to push out millions of widgets with no mechanism in place to recover and recycle those widgets. For my money it should be a law that all manufacturers provide the means to recycle the products they produce either through themselves or through a 3rd part--thus eliminating a major source of landfill donations and ecological contamination.

So to recap, EV technology is here today but is not on the market because other forces had them removed. Hydrogen technology regardless of its potential viability is not here today but is being promoted most vigorously by the forces that had the EV removed from the market. Bush is for hydrogen technology over existing EV technology. Enough said.

I am behind the true EV, other than recycling batteries better I don't see any downside to this technology. The only ones I see opposed to the EV solution are those that can't make money off of it. From my perspective it means there will be a shift in the auto industry, those that offer plugin EVs will survive, those that don't won't. Just look at the impact on profits for those who offer gas efficient hybrids versus those that don't. The only ones against EVs seem to be the ones who will lose their golden fleece of power and wealth through the world's dependence on oil (as designed by those that control the oil, just like battery technology now owned by Chevron, many other technologies that would have lessened our dependency on oil were acquired and buried by those that wish to keep us dependent).

I believe hydrogen based energy has a place, I just don't think it belongs in the average commuters vehicle. I am a true believer in the KISS principle of keeping it simple stupid! Plugin EVs are like the iPOD a simple and elegant solution. Commerical jets, tractor trailers, heavy duty construction equipment may be able to use hydrogen, I don't know. But 80% of the daily commuter needs can be addressed by the current surplus of electricity on our grids today during off-peak hours (nighttime). It is almost so obvious I wonder what the discussion is all about. Other than the will of the greedy to bring viable EVs to market there does not seem to be either a technological issue nor consumer demand issue preventing the success of EVs. They are simply not being produced in the quantities necessary to drive costs down.

For me, I think my next car will be an electric vehicle conversion or a Prius plugin convesion. It won't be anywhere near as efficient as GM's EV-1 but the remarkable thing about that is that it does not need to be. I will be hugely more gas and oil independent and that is good enough for me. If you look on the web as someone else suggested you will find many who are using solar panels to not only supply their homes with the necessary electricity they need (albeit they take conservation to the extreme for most of us) they also charge their EV without any real effort. I don't believe the same can be said for the hydrogen solution, except for maybe concept vehicles.

Time will tell which solution, perhaps both, is the key to a world where greenhouse gases are drastically reduced, where military conflicts over sources of energy are eliminated, where the quality of the air we breath is better, and where the ability to provide our families with food and the basic essentials is not eroded by an industry that could care less whether you can heat your home while they rake in profits that are neither tied to supply & demand, nor the cost of operations.

GM's business practices are for me the best indicator on which technology I would choose. Granted my reasoning is not based in physics, technological breakthroughs, but are observation based. Actions always speak louder than words!

GM had a beautiful fully functional roadworthy electric vehicle the EV-1. California wanted it, the most energy efficient state in the union. California consumers wanted it and no wonder if you have ever had an opportunity to see the SMOG laden LA horizon, the sky is brown not blue. The car had an excellent range, capable of satisfying most commuters' daily needs. The car was expensive but then again it had never gone into mass production so no big surprise there. The cost to recharge the vehicle was about one third what you would pay for gas.

Additionally, there was no real routine maintenance costs, no oil, oil filter, air filter, spark plugs, transmission fluid...you get the idea. So the overall economy of the car for a vehicle that was not mass produced was outstanding.

Yet GM and the chairman of the California Air Resource Board moved to support hydrogen technology that was years away from being a viable solution regardless of the facts indicating to do otherwise. GM and all automobile manufacturers including Toyota killed 100% of their EV offerings. GM would not even let those who had them and were willing to pay through the nose to keep them. Strange business model!

GM then sold key battery technology that it had acquired to support its EV-1 program to Chevron. Again, an odd business transaction! Anyone know what Chevron is doing with that battery technology?

So a reasonable and objective person really does not need worry about the merits of one technology over the other when obvious commerical and political actions merge to bury a current and viable technolgoy which would eliminate our need not only on foreign oil, but would even drastically reduce our consumption of domestic oil.

A person must simply ask which is viable today? The answer is obvious, plugin EVs. They might also ask who opposes vehicles like the EV-1 and had it removed from the market, automakers like GM and Oil Companies.

Then a reasonable person needs to ask about the consequences on the environment for both solutions. From what I gathered from reading the above posts the hydrogen cycle still produces greenhouse gases regardless of whether or not solar or wind energy is used to produce it albeit much less than the ICE (set me straight if this is incorrect). EVs, and solar energy systems do need batteries and they do present a threat to the environment if industry is allowed as in the past to push out millions of widgets with no mechanism in place to recover and recycle those widgets. For my money it should be a law that all manufacturers provide the means to recycle the products they produce either through themselves or through a 3rd part--thus eliminating a major source of landfill donations and ecological contamination.

So to recap, EV technology is here today but is not on the market because other forces had them removed. Hydrogen technology regardless of its potential viability is not here today but is being promoted most vigorously by the forces that had the EV removed from the market. Bush is for hydrogen technology over existing EV technology. Enough said.

I am behind the true EV, other than recycling batteries better I don't see any downside to this technology. The only ones I see opposed to the EV solution are those that can't make money off of it. From my perspective it means there will be a shift in the auto industry, those that offer plugin EVs will survive, those that don't won't. Just look at the impact on profits for those who offer gas efficient hybrids versus those that don't. The only ones against EVs seem to be the ones who will lose their golden fleece of power and wealth through the world's dependence on oil (as designed by those that control the oil, just like battery technology now owned by Chevron, many other technologies that would have lessened our dependency on oil were acquired and buried by those that wish to keep us dependent).

I believe hydrogen based energy has a place, I just don't think it belongs in the average commuters vehicle. I am a true believer in the KISS principle of keeping it simple stupid! Plugin EVs are like the iPOD a simple and elegant solution. Commerical jets, tractor trailers, heavy duty construction equipment may be able to use hydrogen, I don't know. But 80% of the daily commuter needs can be addressed by the current surplus of electricity on our grids today during off-peak hours (nighttime). It is almost so obvious I wonder what the discussion is all about. Other than the will of the greedy to bring viable EVs to market there does not seem to be either a technological issue nor consumer demand issue preventing the success of EVs. They are simply not being produced in the quantities necessary to drive costs down.

For me, I think my next car will be an electric vehicle conversion or a Prius plugin convesion. It won't be anywhere near as efficient as GM's EV-1 but the remarkable thing about that is that it does not need to be. I will be hugely more gas and oil independent and that is good enough for me. If you look on the web as someone else suggested you will find many who are using solar panels to not only supply their homes with the necessary electricity they need (albeit they take conservation to the extreme for most of us) they also charge their EV without any real effort. I don't believe the same can be said for the hydrogen solution, except for maybe concept vehicles.

I think some of you are forgetting that even though there are advances in battery technology being made there are also advances in solar technology being made.

If solar energy can be made more efficient, then wouldn't these home hydrogen stations increase in efficiency as well? Maybe instead of 100 miles per day it could go to 200 MPD of hydrogen production.

Also, last time I checked, sunlight was FREE!! Making the worlds most advanced batteries is not. Who cares if it's not as efficient as electricity, the sun puts out enough energy every second to power the needs of the US for over 300,000 years. All you need to do is collect enough each day to just get the job done. No green house gases, no wastful production costs and no hazardous material byproducts.

(User: MY) I'm sorry that your school got riped off $30,000 on a carbon fiber tank, but I highly doubt that it is as heavy as all those batteries needed to run an electric car. Becides, I get ticked off when stopping at a gas station takes longer than 15 minutes. 6 hours to "recharge" just won't fly with the public. Let's get real, our transportation system is based on stuff that explodes, it will probably stay that way.

What if the efficency of generating hydrogen was increased to 70-80%. What if the hydrogen generator fit in the car and all you needed was to add water? Don't count out innovation. What seems impossible now is only an invention away.

Would that change the picture?

The earth will run out of non-renewable sources of energy. Each day that goes by, more money is funneled into hydrogen technology, every day the oil companies are investing more and more into the hydrogen market place. Today the manufacturing of hydrogen generators is wide open, where the industry has developed various means of hydrogen production using a series of raw materials. Only one method seems to be totaly green, ( well almost ), thats getting hydrogen from water, using photovoltaic power, and or wind turbines, ( Solar panels are said to have 40 years of productive life, with manufacture warrenties of 20 years ), I do not have the functional life of wind turbines. Even so the number of worn out wind turbines a single residence would produce is negligable, considering the bennifit to society and themselves.
A residential hydrogen generator that produces enough hydrogen to operate a vehical 100 miles a day, using solar and wind generated electricity, where the grid connected residence is using electricity from the same accumulators, when power bursts are needed the power comes from the grid, when power is being over generated it flows onto the grid, and the utility has to pay the residence, in my state at the same rate they charge me for electricity. To benifit from using solar and wind for electricity the bonus of adding the fuel cell vehical to produce electricity for the residence and the grid when the vehical is in the driveway,
Our relience on energy is not going to go away, unlike the resources we pay for day in and day out. Unlike fossil fuels, or nuclear power, the private individual TODAY in the domain of thier own home can gernerate use and sell green electrity.
While fuel cell cars are produced the public has no market to buy them yet, I have not seen a cost for fuel cell cars. ( a note Damilar Benz has produced fuel cell city busses at a cost of one and a quarter million each ) However while online I found a hydrogen generator for home use at four thousand dollars, as I understand a water deionizer is needed to create clean water to use in the generator another four thousand dollars. The hydrogen must be compressed because the fuel cells need compressed hydrogen to operate, price n/a. I found containers for compressed hydrogen that were sold in shipments of 100 for thirteen thousand dollars, The photovaltaic panels producing 200 watts cost about one thousand dollars each, with some state rabates at two dollars per watt up to twenty thousand dollars. $40,000.00 for a photovoltaic system is not out of the question. Wind turbines have many manufacturers I found one that showed a cost of six thousand for just the turbine the propeller and tower were on top of that. A power inverter is required to connect to the power grid which will also make the power usable in the residence, The only price I found also was used to charge a residential battery, cost was twelve thousand dollars.
As detailed the energy system cost is rubbing $100,000.00, Part of the system is to operate the fuel cells in the home owners car when it is not being used, The family must have a car in any case,
This seems to be a sizable amount of money. However the energy produer will not be paying fifty dollars a week to fill up his super efficent fosselizer. By creating energy 24/7 the utility bill goal will be to make it a wash, At todays money, $200.00 a month on fuel and a $100.00 a month on electricity, $3,600.00 a year is saved, when fuel doubles, were at $7,200.00 a year saving, could fuel cost triple, if so savings go to $10,800.00 a year.
To develope this private infrastucture of private residential electricty prodution, that also powers the family car, the private utility deserves to be treated like a business, The owners income should be subject to have depreciation costs deducted from taxable income when applicable. New homes should be able to have the mortgage cover the capital expences.
Power up.

love it when posts are longer than the articles, by the time youve read all the comments TH has a bunch new articles already :p

but yer, just want to say in a nuts shell, cause this is a HUGE topic with cars. but:

i think battery and hydrogen have equal chances in the market, with new technologies daily, its proving to be mighty interesting. new supercapcitors and batterys that never wear out, new ways to form H2 (i like the new Alumin+Gallium+water = H2+AluOxide one they found, very interesting development for H2 power)

one thing i can see being an up hill battle is the governments wanting a way to tax the *&$^ out of us filling up our cars. and im sure theyll fine some way to ban home fueling or causing it to tax us on how far we travel like in london atm.

i think H2 should be formed at location, home or station. moving it overseas is stupid went its the elements we need are in our bathrooms. the power source is battle in its own. renewable clean power solves all our worries.

what i dont like about battery tech is the production costs to make the chemicals and systems involves. fuel cell is the same. combustion i feel is over looked when Nox can be eliminated.

seriously would you by an all electric ferrari? no revs no rumble? its about looks and sound isnt it? i think theres room for your quiet regenerative plugin EV small car and your H2 sporty loud v12 muscle car all being zero emission.

this could turn out to be an amazing world or a horrid one. interesting either way :P

i think hybrids are a baby step, i dont think they will be are part of life once we have a new infacsture in place. two drive trains can be as good as one.

hmm. waffled on a bit, its a long post after all.

Though I seem to be particularly late to the party here -- the concept seems valid enough.

What is apparent to me is that the solution to energy dependence isn't a one size fits all answer. Where solar certainly may cut it in an arid climate, here in Wisconsin, a combo of solar, wind and hydrogen (as outlined in the article above) may help turn the trick.

Seems that the enduring argument against wind and solar is that the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. Yet, humans consume energy in fairly predictable patterns. What we need is a way to have a predictable energy store.

What I don't see in the article, yet would be interesting to me, is how much of the daily energy consumed by my home could be generated by this system? 100 miles of travel seems like a significant amount of energy to produce give that it amounts to 35k a year, if you are doing that on a daily basis. My annual auto mileage (two cars) is around half of that. If the reamining half of the hydrogen energy that's generated by the system could be drawn to power my hot water heater, stove and other electrical items that are likely much more efficient than a car -- it seems like a win / win.

Additionally, what would be the opportunity associated with rainwater conversion (in non arid climates) into hydrogen -- creating an almost entirely self sufficient / closed loop system?

I do hope I see these things in my lifetime.

Good discussion.

Kevin O'

I disagree with those people who say that the ineffieciency of hydrogen production through electrolysis does not matter. The solar panels used to create the electricity are not free, it would take three or four times the amount of solar panels to convert water to hydrogen than to charge a plug in electric. I see a solid progression in battery technology with the first step as the hybrid which have already hit large volume production, next comming will be plug in hybrids with perhaps 40 to 50 mile electric range, these we will start seeing in good volume in the next few years. Then i believe in the time frame 2015 to 2020 we will see volume production of electric only vechicles with over 200 miles range. Hydrogen powered cars have being hype for the past 20 or 30 years and they still are hype with only a few extremely costly models produced. Batteries continue to advance in terms of energy density to attack longer range, saftey and endurance.

you could store the hydrogenin a tank then when needed put that into said hydrogen car, the solar panel can still power the house as well as an "house battery" so can a personal wind turbine well then. im not talking about gobal unity here like we`ve seen for so long, what i mean is for a few decades you go to youre local ggas station to get some gasoline the thing is with a electrical car is you can charge charge youre personal electric car at your house every night and get 250 mpc GREAT! BUT with a hydrogen car you can go to a gas station "hydro electric staion" and ina few minuets youre filled ! not in a few hours get the point, energy lose YES convienet YES FREE YES now stop conplaining, sorry for draging on but i made my point if its free in the first placeit does not matter, the whole point of modern self sufiency is to keep things from being to drastic if that happend well lets just say you wouldnt be woring about it for long (yea im talking about wars n such)=) happy new year!

Some people here believe everything invented to better generate and store hydrogen has been invented. I won't refer to who made that statement , most of you know who I'm talking about...

Fact, after the initial start up costs, there are no substantial ongoing costs. That should be easy to understand.

Fact, there will eventually be efficient generating and storage of hydrogen for use in vehicles.

Get it............

This post got off topic (a hydrogen generator for your garage) but most of the major points were addressed.

A great advantage of the home hydrogen generator, despite its inefficiency, is the ability to TRANSFER it to your car.

Meaning: your home unit can be generating hydrogen while DRIVING YOUR CAR AROUND. Using solar to charge your car directly necessitates your car being stationary. Sure, you can charge your car while you sleep, but there are many logistical reasons this isn't always feasible.

Your alternative would be to swap out batteries -- have one charging while the other is in your car -- which, for obvious reasons, would be an extremely unlikely scenario, if not impossible.

What if you want to take a fairly long trip? You think motels will let you plug in over night? You think you'll find room at your friendly neighborhood "charging lot?" Alternately, do you think opportunists won't make their personal hydrogen units available to motorists for a price, even if there are NOT publicly built hydrogen stations? (It takes under 4 minutes to fill a hydrogen car).

Batteries have been ubiquitous in the market place for a looooooooong time, and yet we still have to say "WHEN they build batteries that can be super-charged" and "WHEN they build batteries that can store much more energy". Hydrogen technology has seen limited use, and certainly not much use on the personal level, and yet a fully-hydrogen-powered car is going to hit the market in 3 months (Honda Clarity FCX) that mimics the qualities of an ICE car almost to the letter, exceeding ICE cars in MANY categories.

Honda has a completely solar powered hydrogen filling station IN OPERATION which will be one of the places one will be able to fill up their car (270 mile range, $20 to fill, under 4 minutes in and out). When they're ready to mass produce the Clarity AND package a home (solar) filling station (right now they're talking natural gas for the home station), that would benefit the nation enormously. Plus, the transition from ICE to hydrogen wouldn't result in the smack in the face of a 6 hour charge requirement. There would be little if NO difference for the average user, thusly making the hydrogen car a MUCH more sought after commodity, making the transition to a cleaner, greener economy much, MUCH faster.

I say, produce them BOTH and let the market decide. But I think everyone here knows that the market consists of people who have little concern about the environment and very much concern about their personal luxury, thus making the Clarity the choice over a Rav4 EV (which Toyota ALSO pulled off the market, by the way, along with 4 other car companies that pulled their EVs off of the market, which is interesting economical side-point; they all claim it was due to economic reasons and a lack of near-term technological solutions).

It seems to me most people are missing the point when it comes to solar powered hydrogen generation. In the 1800's shortly before the discovery of oil a man by the name of sterling engineered a solar powered steam engine the steam was generated by focusing the suns energy using a parabolic mirror. WE can make a parabolic mirror a lot more accurately today then he could then. You only need enough electricicity to produce the hydrogen then it can be stored like propane in a tank and use for heat and generation of electricity. That we can use.

If you combine the battery idea with the electrolysis idea you get an ever BETTER idea!

So what you all are saying is dont do either thing because the other one is better! You all sound exactly like the big corporations that are suppressing this PUBLIC INFORMATION, in order to harness not the energy, but the money that can be made from it, if controlled correctly. Stop bashing and suppressing ideas! Look...you can make all this free energy, yourself, at your home, for very little money. The reason you all say it is not cost efficient is because you expect every little detail to be exactly perfect, and be attractive to the eye. You can make TONS of energy for very little cost. The money you will save by doing research and building yourself will be astronomical.

I don’t know why some of you people bash on this Great idea. All I see here is how inefficient hydrogen is to extract and I agree. The setup that we are all responding to is a solar or wind powered unit, which doesn't cost you a thing but the machine itself. It will work around the clock or when the sun shines or when the wind blows. You can't hug a tree much harder than that. Don’t forget that our airline is also looking in to new fuel alternative so if we continue to argue like Congress and not change we will shoot our self in the foot and continue to have ever increasing cost to fly. REMEBER PEOPLE PLAN AHEAD

I don’t know why some of you people bash on this Great idea. All I see here is how inefficient hydrogen is to extract and I agree. The setup that we are all responding to is a solar or wind powered unit, which doesn't cost you a thing but the machine itself. It will work around the clock or when the sun shines or when the wind blows. You can't hug a tree much harder than that. Don’t forget that our airline is also looking in to new fuel alternative so if we continue to argue like Congress and not change we will shoot our self in the foot and continue to have ever increasing cost to fly. REMEBER PEOPLE PLAN AHEAD

>>Where do I sign up to fill my garage full of explosive hydrogen? :)

Humans are strange creatures...

Your house is already full of very dangerous natural gas and deadly electricity. Your car is full of extremely dangerous petrol/gasoline. And you care about hudrogen?!?!?! Humans are amazing! And stupid...

Hydrogen is less dangerous than natural gas. Why? Because H is lighter than air, rather than "natural gas" (NG). NG have no smell (that's why "butan" is added to "propan"). If you can "smell a gas" than your house actually actually is full of it. It will never happen for hydrogen.

i've just read all of the posts here and i say, "where can i get the parts to build my own and convert my truck to H2? and how many virgins do i have to sacrifice to do it?"

i am in no way a tree hugger, i love my V8 4x4, i love my house warm, i leave my electronics on standby (i'll be gotohell if i will keep reprogramming my settings or buy new to replace my perfectly good old), and i think a great many of the cuddlier animals taste great with bbq sauce. all that said, i am all for the use of free, renewable, nonpolluting energy. and the longer i work for the 'evil empire' the more pissed off i get when people start talking about production cost, profit, efficiency (does that matter if the running cost is near nil and the consumables free?), and a load of other bol..... rubbish (much mentioned in many of the other posts here). the bottom line is that there is absolutely no reason for people to not already have this sort of stuff in every home. if half as much time and money were spent on developing technology like this as there is on saying it won't work the world would not be in the state it is today.
and given the choice of fossil, nuke, or a big ugly H2 plant (that can get what it needs from rain sun and wind) in my garage, it's a no brainer unless one likes being taxed to death and being told to pay more because profits were down to under $1.5 billion this year.

and i for one have already began the research, i want to get this in place before they find a way to tax it.

Good grief. Use some common sense, people; it's been said over and over that there is a net energy loss in making hydrogen fuel. So what? Make the Hydrogen using Solar, Wind, Geothermal, and Hydroelectric power. It doesn't matter if there's a loss if the hydrogen fuel is made using an infinite energy source. Are the streams, the magma flows, the breeze, and the Sun going to complain?

People say it'd be better to use a battery in a Plug-In Electric Vehicle (PEV). Here's an old, reused idea that everyone should be familiar with: Battery + Hydrogen = Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV). It's like the Prius conversion that's been around for years and years now---it's just that Hydrogen is used instead of Gasoline in this premise.That's not a difficult concept to envision. Use your imagination.

In summary: Inefficiencies in conversion DO NOT MATTER if the source is INFINITE.

While you all are worked up about the pros and cons of speculative energy applications and their sources, try installing a hydrogen generator under your hood. It is cheap to build, doesn't rob energy that isn't already being produced by your car's charging system, and the return is up to a 40% increase to your mpg. These systems are just small applications of hydrogen production but are real and indisputable when an independent emissions test is performed by a simple garage mechanic for about 35 dollars to provide you with all the scientific proof you can digest. Have pride in what you are doing with the resources rather than spinning off in every direction without participation in using the technology yourselves. If you aren't actively applying the use of alternative resources, you should consider the value of your convictions as being interested at best. Invest in action and build up your confidence with experience.

Interesting,

I see this is an old thread, and reading through it, I am amazed no one has updated it with many of the new technological breakthroughs in hydrogen generation, as well as storage. Hydrides have been the safe alternative for storing hydrogen without fear of dangers of explosion, so many of the old concerns are now eliminated.

Of course, the anti anthing new crew will always find a negative with hydrogen, but having powered my home entirely on this technology for past two years, it won't be long before we can trump solar and wind clean energy alternatives with a hybrid combined system taking the best technologies and building them into one. I started by supplementing with solar and wind, but now don't need either, so progress continues.

Home hydrogen generation systems to power homes and commercial buildings is less than a year away given the new net metering tariff regulations before congress as part of stimulus plan, so once this is defined, we could offer home units which would pay for themselves by producing far more electricity than is needed to power average home. In fact, this unit could generate a positive monthly cash flow if gov. doesn't screw up and cap net metering annual KWH output which is what states currently do. Gov. has to support alternative emission free energy, not stand in the way as they have throughout history when it comes to past helter skelter regulations which has kept progress in check for decades with solar.

Too many politicians have been paid off by big oil to insure they block development of real pollution solution technologies, so maybe we will finally see change given so many of our politicians are now coming under fire for banking collapse and Fannie and Freddie bailouts. Corruption in gov. is at an all time high, and we wonder why the economy is near depression level. lol

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