[edsuski]

Originally Posted by MisterMe

After Alan Shepherd's first suborbital flight in 1962, President Kennedy announced a national goal of sending a man to the Moon and returning him safely to Earth by 1970. Despite the two-year delay due to the Apollo 1 launch pad fire, Neil Armstrong stepped on the Moon on July 20, 1969. That was 4.5 months ahead of schedule. If NASA had not been forced to redesign the Apollo capsule, then we could have done the deed at least a year earlier.

Not sure what this has to do with the discussion, but I agree that we as a country could do a lot if we have the will and the "right" leadership. Unfortunately, we have not had a serious energy policy since Jimmy Carter and his was largely conservation and not alternate energy sources.

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Most of the technology to put a man on the Moon was developed during the seven years following President Kennedy's speech. OTOH, the biggest hurdle facing hydrogen is mass storage. That's not a huge problem. Hydrogen's other challenges are mainly tweaks to existing technologies. It is nowhere near as daunting a challenge as putting a man on the Moon.

Again - comparing this to a nearly decade campaign to put a man on the moon seems irrelevant. As you know, fuel cells were used on the Apollo missions and I'm sure the effort to put men on the moon helped move along the technology. However, we are talking about some high fraction of nearly 200,000 refueling stations that will have little economic incentive to be built in the early years. This is likely to prove much more difficult to do than you are thinking.

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Hydrogen is not a fuel. It is an energy storage mechanism somewhat like batteries and tanks of compressed air. Unlike batteries, hydrogen storage does not lose capacity over time.

I beg to differ. All fuels are energy storage mechanisms (as are compressed air and hydraulic systems). The definition of Fuel is "any material....burned to supply heat or power.". When you burn something you oxidize it. When you operate certain types of hydrogen fuel cells you combine the hydrogen with oxygen and the result is electrical current and water. Assuming that hydrogen does not leak, it can be stored for long periods of time but Li Ion batteries have very low losses in "stand-by" mode. They can also be set to complete charging whenever you want. The "typical" operation would be to have them charged within hours of needing them. Most of us leave for work at approx. the same time each day. The loss over even days would amount to only a few cents worth of power.

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Whose estimates? There was a time when service stations sold two or three grades of leaded gasoline. We have deleted lead, added diesel to passenger car pump stations, and added various formulations of MBTE, and now blends of ethanol. Do you think that any of these changes required eight years?

According to the Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham in a presentation given on April 28, 2003:

“The vision of the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy is that a participating country’s consumers will have the practical option of purchasing a competitively priced hydrogen power vehicle, and be able to refuel it near their homes and places of work, by 2020.”

That implies 17 years to develop the infrastructure.

According to the CEO of Honda in a Wall Street Journal article:

"WSJ: So how many years away are we from having hydrogen refueling stations for fuel-cell vehicles?

Mr. Fukui: That’s not going to happen really quickly. It’s happening in California, and may eventually happen in several other states, and also Japan and Europe. We are working on the technology where we can charge hydrogen into fuel-cell vehicles at homes. So probably in the next 10 years we will get some level of infrastructure in place.”

“Some level of infrastructure” in the next ten years.... I have yet to see any estimates that it will happen in less than 8-10 years and that is only if we start in enerest today.

In stark contrast - the electrical infrastructure is deployed to nearly 100% of the homes in America TODAY to refuel PHEV's.

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Hydrogen generation requires water, which every service station already has; electricity, which every service station already has; an electrolysis station; hydrogen compressors; and hydrogen storage tanks.

Actually, as another contributor has already pointed out - water is not the most likely source of Hydrogen. Of course, it could be, but only at a very large cost in energy to strip the Hydrogen molecules from the water. Again - more energy than it would take to charge a battery to travel the same distance (i.e. not as efficient as simply charging a battery - even with the small discharge that would happen over a few hours or even days.).

Originally Posted by MisterMe

As I said above, batteries lose capacity over time. Hydrogen tanks do not. As for energy use, all energy systems suffer losses. It is called the "Second Law of Thermodynamics." Look it up.

My Dear Sir - you have absolutely no idea of my background in physics and engineering so I will overlook your comment. I have fully understood the second law of thermodynamics since before high school and have applied it to earn numerous patents and develop technology for over 20 years now. You continue to make statements without answering the question - why Hydrogen?

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Where do you get the notion that a Li+ rechargeable battery would result in greater driving range than hydrogen storage tank? To be a general replacement for gasoline, the vehicle should get at least 300 miles (500 km) on a fuel-up. Lithium batteries are much less massive than lead batteries, but they are still batteries and are still massive. The only way to increase the range of a battery is to increase its mass. OTOH, if you use compressed hydrogen, then you increase the range by increasing the amount of hydrogen. Most of the mass is in the storage tank. Increase the amount of hydrogen by increasing its pressure. The mass goes up only slightly. If you want a higher capacity tank, then the increase in mass scales slower than the increase in capacity.

You have totally missed the most important point. My point was that the exact same amount of energy needed to produce a kg of hydrogen would result in more range if that same energy were simply used to charge a battery. Do you understand the difference in the efficiency of a battery-electric motor system vs. a Hydrogen fuel cell-electric motor system?

Originally Posted by MisterMe

You make a lot of assumptions that simply are not true. First off, there is no conflict between plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and hydrogen. Hydrogen does not imply fuel cell. It can be burned in an internal combustion engine (ICE) much like natural or compressed petroleum gas. BMW's hydrogen-powered 7 series uses a V-8. Like the BMW, hydrogen can be used to power the chemical engine of a hybrid. As I have stated above, hydrogen does not have to be transported by large trucks. It can be generated by the filling station on site.

Again - it is less efficient, purely from an energy in vs. range out perspective, to produce hydrogen to be used by a fuel cell or burned directly in an ICE. Why go to all of the trouble to produce the infrastructure needed to use hydrogen when you could use less energy to charge a battery? Yes - the initial batteries will give you a range of only 40-200 miles. A 40 mile range would satisfy 78% of Americans daily commute to and from work. 78% of the population using zero oil to commute to and from work would be a great start.

Originally Posted by MisterMe

Although hydrogen can be used in ICEs, it is most efficient in fuel cells. Try as I might, I do not see hybrids as anything other than a transition technology. They have the mass of an ICE, the mass of electric drive motors, the mass of storage batteries, and the complex electrical and mechanical systems required to manage their two drive systems. With added mass comes added inefficiencies.

In fact, PEHV's such as the Volt have no linkage between the ICE and the wheels. They can be built with no transmission (due to high RPM of electric motors and high torque at zero RPM). The ICE in the Volt will turn only a generator that will power the drive motor. Actually, serial PHEV's such as the Volt are much less complicated mechanically as the so called dual mode or parallel hybrid vehicles (i.e. Toyota Prius).

Originally Posted by MisterMe

The PHEV is at its best if the owner has a solar-powered recharging station. However, solar power can also be used to generate the hydrogen required by a hydrogen-powered car. Of course, a hydrogen generator, a compressor, and a storage tank will be required. Do you expect that the costs of these home additions will be out of line with home additions of the past such as central air conditioning?

The one demonstration hydrogen generating station I have seen that used solar cells to generate the energy needed to produce hydrogen had solar collectors that covered the whole area of a "typical" gas station and was able to produce only 12 kg of hydrogen per day. Do you have nay idea what the efficiency and/or cost of such solar cells are? Even if it were possible to use enough area to produce more energy - it would result in greater range if you used that same energy to charge a battery. Are you getting the common theme of this yet?

Originally Posted by MisterMe

I just don't see the requirement for your HUGE investments in infrastructure. We won't build the infrastructure by the end of the week, but I believe that it can be done within five years. That would be about the same time that it would have taken us to get to the Moon if the Apollo 1 capsule had never burned.

What could be done and what makes sense to do are often entirely different. As for your estimate of 5 years - the Secretary of Energy and the CEO of Honda do not agree with you.

I don't mean to stifle discussion. The bottom line is that it would take more energy to drive a mile on hydrogen that it would to simply charge a battery. Battery charging infrastructure is 100% deployed (11-13 amps at 120V). Long trips would require another energy source such as gasoline, E85 or even a hydrogen fuel cell. If we simpy relied on gasoline or E85 – then the infrastructure for it exists today. It simply does not make sense to use the hydrogen fuel cell when 78% of the commuting in the United States could be accomplished with zero oil using a battery with only 40 miles range. The small amount of travel that would require an alternate source (when the batteries die) could easily be handled by domestic production.

Why Hydrogen?