Automakers Try To Sell Government On Fuel Cell Cars Automakers Try To Sell Government On Fuel Cell Cars : NPR Honda's fuel cell electric car, the FCX Clarity, can go about 240 miles on a tank of hydrogen fuel. Compared to gasoline, that's about 60 miles to the gallon. The only emission is water so pure you could drink it. ... The Clarity costs $600 a month to lease, but if you add in all of Honda's research and development costs, each one is probably worth tens of millions of dollars. Ellis says the costs are coming down, though... Tens of millions of dollars and the costs are coming down. Well, duh, I would hope so. That doesn't seem like much of a challenge there.
That and 'hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe' are often mentioned as selling points for fuel cells. This ignores the inconvenient little fact that producing hydrogen uses more energy overall, not less. No matter what source of energy is used, it's cheaper and more efficient to produce electricity than it is to produce hydrogen. You can fool some of the people some of the time....
Yes, electricity is more efficient and cheaper than producing hydrogen, but I think the main selling point is that charging a battery for a similar amount of miles takes longer than just filling up a tank of hydrogen. Solar panels on top of a hydrogen refueling station that creates hydrogen via electrolysis? Probably produces very little hydrogen, but it's not a bad idea really. Also think about storage. If you wanted to store pure electricity you're talking about storing it in batteries before using it to charge electric vehicles. Hydrogen needs to be stored in a pretty tough tank, but its not going to require batteries.
Wasteful, inefficient use of source energy Massive infrastructure needed Horribly expensive. Otherwise a great idea
Hydrogen is nasty stuff to work with. You can't see it, you can't smell it. It's a small molecule so it leaks very easily. The worst part is that it burns without a visible flame. You don't know the system is on fire until you see all the peripheral equipment start to char and melt.
Problem is, the water isn't vapor. It's a steady dribble... which is really bad for those of us in the north. Imagine roads intersections coated with a layer of that emission. .
hopefully, president obama's energy czar stephen chu? will put the kybosh on it. heard he's a pretty bright guy.
Chu is bright. The sun is bright. The sun has hydrogen. Chu will have hydrogen. quod erat demonstrandum
Natural gas to hydrogen to electricity through fuel cells is one of the most efficient way to create electricity. It isn't much more efficient than a combined cycle plant though, and the combined cycle plant is much cheaper. I think the president endorsed part of the picken's plan to convert long haul trucks to natural gas. This seems a much more viable technology than either batteries or fuel cells for long distance. I think chu should cut fuel cell funding even further, as he originally had proposed. Outside of california and michigan I don't think there is much support for flushing more fuel cell money down the toilet. It is one area that tea partiers and environmentalists can agree on.
