Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell: El Reg on the hydrogen highway

If the wind & solar farms are generating power for making H2, what do the rest of do when we want energy. So renewable energy is only used to make H2 in times of glut - storms for wind, or summer for solar? Fine, but then how do the hydrogen fuel cell powered car travel when there is a dearth of renewable power. Do they use power from the national grid which is mainly fossil fueled?

The problem with renewable power is that there is more to energy than just electricity. Also, even if through some miracle of technology, non-hydrocarbon power supplied 100% of our electricity, we still need to drill & dig up hydrocarbons. Fossil fuels are a major feedstock for many manufacturing & industrial processes.

I'm not at all sure how long it would take to produce several kg's of hydrogen "on site". Ignoring fossil-fuel generation methods (because that's a bit of a false start already), it would require several litres of water for every person, and quite a large amount of electricity, and quite a dangerous combination of electricity, hydrogen and oxygen in an enclosed space. There's a reason that fuel tank is built to survive 10,000 psi, you know.

Scale that up to petrol-station size, and you have, what? 2-3 customers CONSTANTLY on average over a day? 5 minutes per customer? Be conservative, call that 24 customers per hour, or 576 customers per day, or - at 5kg of hydrogen in each car, about three tonne of hydrogen at every petrol station? That's an awful lot of handling, power, and water / chemicals required. Not to mention transport of that stuff. And stockpiling it. Generating on-site at every station just isn't going to be practical unless you're next to Sellafield, a large lake and nobody cares about the risk.

According to Wiki, "In 2006, the United States was estimated to have a production capacity of 11 million tons of hydrogen." - so, we're looking at the US being able to generate about 3 million petrol-station days in a year. There are 10,000 petrol stations in the UK, at most. Which, handily, means the entire 2006 US production of hydrogen could just about run the petrol stations in the UK for 300 days a year. Not counting that most of that hydrogen generated is a by-product of coal, oil, gas industries, that already are one of the largest users of it for oil refining, etc. and that's where most of that stuff went to in 2006.

Hydrogen is a long way off practicality still. The convenience of a filling station is ideal, I agree, but we just don't have the investment in it yet. You cannot buy a car that you can only fill up properly in three places in the country. Petrol may have started like that, but it didn't get anywhere near viable until there was a petrol station in nearly every town. Everyone before that was paying through the nose for the inconvenience of an impractical (and temporarily unworkable) idea in order to show off to their mates. Pretty much the same as hydrogen fuel cell cars today.

If we're going to live in fantasy land, it might be better to wish for a battery-less car that uses the electricity you charge it from to generate hydrogen itself and store that instead of a battery. No nasty lithium, probably lighter setup, but still in fantasy land with today's technology and economies of scale.

Re: Why use pure hydrogen?

400 miles in the car in the article seems transportable. And, believe it or not, is a lot safer than petrol in case of a crash - the hydrogen just rises up and burns away from the accident rather than frying the occupants like yesterdays plane crash.

Its relatively easy to generate hydrogen. Mass produced wind power (we could stick a few kw on each house for around £500 if we invested in mass production) can provide the majority of our electrical needs and excess generation can be converted into H2 and stored locally for vehicle and windless days.

Re: Fuel tank rated to 10,000psi

"I've always thought H2 a deeply stupid fuel championed only by people with zero knowledge of what a PITA it is to make, move and store."

Exactly. The best way to make it easier to deal with is to tack on carbon atoms.

For those who don't know, there is more hydrogen in a litre of petrol than a litre of liquid hydrogen and you don't need to worry about embrittlement issues - that "tank which accounts for 1/3 of the cost of the vehicle" will need to be recertified every couple of years and probably have an overall lifespan of 5-6 years.

Hydrogen fuel cells are good things if you have a low pressure supply but you're pushing shit uphill with a rake if you're trying to run a vehicle fleet with them. There are already enough problems with tank ruptures on CNG vehicles, H2 will be worse.

Re: Fuel tank rated to 10,000psi

Fuel cells are nice as very efficient and if H2 as an energy store is such a PITA, I always thought methanol was a suitable alternative source of the H. Yes, there will be some CO2 emission, but once we get over the demonization of plant food we can actually begin to think sensibly about alternative energy.

Re: What's wrong with the old fashioned way?

I think you may be confusing LNG with hydrogen.

Dual-fuel conversions are well known - though you do lose a load of boot space - but hydrogen is a completely different affair. In methane conversions, assuming you have a suitable engine (not all are, without modification to the valves and seats), you have to have a parallel injector system and electronic switching, with the ECU fooled into not knowing what is going on. I imagine for hydrogen it is quite a bit more difficult because the hydrogen molecule leaks through almost anything, and when it comes into contact with hot steel (valves and seats) it causes hydrogen embrittlement, aka busted engine.

I suspect that is why BMW and Honda have spent a lot more money on hydrogen engines than has your average LNG converter. It is challenging stuff to work with.

As the efficiency you will get from a spark ignition cycle is going to be around 25% if you can switch fuels (you can't take advantage of hydrogen's huge octane number to up the compression), and a fuel cell should achieve around 50%, the engineering equation is going to be very complicated.

Re: What's wrong with the old fashioned way?

Using old school ICE motor burning H2 is quite silly, might as well keep filling up with gas(oline).

Probably just as silly is the idea that all this vehicles for "environmentally conscious" stick to SUV monstrosities. Feel good if do no good I guess.

Re: What's wrong with the old fashioned way?

Don't forget that with Hydrogen fuel (and LPG, LNG) you can't go through the Chunnel. you are stuck with certain Ferries.

Re: What's wrong with the old fashioned way?

Fuel cells to electricity and then electric motors is substantially more efficient than an internal combustion engine and they do get quite hot - more than hot enough to heat the cabin.

The issue that hydrogen generation is currently _substantially_ wasteful and the dangers of pressurising H2 make this a non-starter.

HOWEVER: Fuel cells fed from reticulated natural gas work extremely well at generating heat and power for a house. They're not cheap but likely on par long-term with a contemporary boiler over a 10 year period.

That said: in order to reduce CO2 emissions, reticulated gas systems will need to be phased out over the next 15-20 years and replaced with electric heating/cooling/cooking/etc (unless the gas is generated via nuclear plants from atmospheric carbon and electrolysed water)

Re: grrr

I run a Hybrid (Outlander PHEV). I charge it from the PV Array on my roof.

I very rarely use Grid leccy to charge the vehicle. I think it must be oh, once in the 4 months since I bought it.

I did a test the other week. I threw the switch to isolate my house from the mains. I charged the car fully from the PV surce.

I get between 25-30 miles from the car on a full charge. All my short journeys are leccy only.

I last time I put unleaded in the tank was almost a month ago.

Re: So...

Don't recall saying any of those things in the review. On the contrary re. handling and performance.

As for being unsuitable for British roads, the world doesn't actually stop at Dover.

Al

Re: So...

There does seem to be more than three H filling stations in the UK, more than 10 in fact. Maybe there are differing standards and only three are compatible with this Hyundai? Would be interesting to know.

Most ix35s sold in the UK are 2WD versions. Same with the sibling Sportage.

Hyundai weren't selling just automotive tat 10 years ago, I recall back in 2002 a friend was driving a Hyundai Coupe which was respected. There does tend to be a snobbery about car marques in the UK which held the brand back here for a while meanwhile in other territories like the US it was doing fine.

But the world doesn't end at Dover.

Re: Yet Another Fuel Cell Vehicle

From what I can google, they scrapped the idea of producing it in favour of designing another one. I think it's a non-starter. Too slow, too expensive and from the pictures I can see absolutely no boot space (which would be the main reason someone would want to own a car in a city (to be able to move stuff around that you can't take on a bus)).

Re: Yet Another Fuel Cell Vehicle

We have cars like the Twizy on the road, but I think people have an instinctive idea of Newtonian physics and don't fancy being the vastly inferior mass object on our roads.

Re: Yet Another Fuel Cell Vehicle

Even the best available supercaps are abysmal in energy storage density compared to batteries (which are themselves rather poor compared to classic fuel) so I don't see the point. Being able to recharge much faster / many more times is not going to help you if it only lasts for, say, 5 miles.

Re: Obvious, really

A vast fortune awaits you if you can make that work.

What are you waiting for?

Re: hydrogen as a fuel is absolutely rubbish.

It isn't green, it isn't practical, it isn't efficient, it isn't cheap.

Your use of the present tense makes your statement correct.

Fortunately there is also a future tense.

In 1896 as I unwrapped a bale of hay for my carthorses I wryly observed a self-propelled motor car using refined spirit to feed his motor and thought the same 3 out of your 4 criticisms. I had no concept of green back then.

Re: Green crap

"1. Generate at least 75% of our electricity via nuclear and close down all coal fuelled power stations."

How do you stymie NIMBY protesters and panic mongers who cite Chernobyl and Fukushima, not to mention where all the waste (not just from the plants but from the mines) will go?

"2. Promote energy efficient lighting, appliances and vehicles via scrappage schemes and regulation."

What will you do with the waste products from when CFLs and FTLs break down or go bad? Lest we forget, any fluorescent light is going to contain mercury in it (tiny amounts, but now multiply by millions of bulbs).

"3. Tighten building regs and promote rebuilding of the 10% least insulated homes (which are generally concrete blocks which are falling down anyway)."

And if the inefficient homes are in historic districts that have conflicting regulations of their own?

Re: Internal generation

1. Put Water in Tank

2. ????

3. Profit

Where's step two? HOW do you turn the water into hydrogen suitable for a fuel cell?