Honda readies sleek hydrogen car for sale next year (CNNMoney.com)

The current FCX, the lower one here, looks boxy and awkward, the automotive equivalent of therapeutic footwear. The new FCX looks like a top-of-the-line Nike, flashy, futuristic, and cool.
***
The FCX is powered by a fuel cell. That means it doesn't compress and combust hydrogen inside a cylinder to make power the way a gasoline car uses gasoline. (BMW's Hydrogen 7, for example, uses hydrogen that way.)

Instead, the hydrogen is fed into a device in which it is combined with oxygen in a chemical reaction that makes water while also releasing a stream of electricity. That electricity is stored in a battery and used to run the FCX's electric motor.

In this way, the car itself produces no pollution. How much pollution its use ultimately creates depends on how the hydrogen is harvested. While hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it doesn't generally exist by itself. It must be separated out of other substances, a process that takes some power, usually electricity.

Regardless of how the electricity is produced, though, electricity generation is a more efficient way to make power from a fuel than exploding it to push pistons, a process in which most of the power is wasted as heat. So, even if the electricity to separate the hydrogen were to come from a coal-burning power plant, the FCX would still be cleaner than a gasoline-powered car.
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more: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/autos/0705/gallery.honda_fcx/6.html

I'm not sure if the numbers bear out that last paragraph in all cases, but it's a hopeful sign that some in the journalistic community can write clearly for the larger public about such issues as net carbon balance and the difference between hydrogen as a "common substance" and hydrogen as a fuel.

it also provides electricity for the house, along with hot water, and hydrogen for vehicles.

The Honda/Plug Power 5 KW Home Energy Station similar to these produces electricity, hot water, and hydrogen for vehicles. Pilot installations are currently being evaluated prior to commercialization.

Honda is also testing pilot installations of a solar hydrogen system using advanced thin film solar cells with 20% efficiency.

http://www.fuelcellseminar.com/pdf/2006/Thursday/3D/Approved%20Mathison_Steven_0810_3D_238.pdf

note: with the Honda solar hydrogen system fuel cell energy and fuel cell vehicles are renewable.
Some of other company's fuel cells can also use sewer gas, landfill gas, agricultural waste gas, biogas, etc.

waste heat can be used for heating, cooling, and hot water to produce even higher efficiencies

Looks like they've been proceeding with quiet efficiency while US companies have produced little but shout and bluster.

That last paragraph might as well be written in Klingon.

I'm prepared to watch the waters rise. I can see nobody is prepared to start speaking OR listening to the truth.

The truth is, we are going to have to sacrifice. We don't have the means to live the way we're living. And we don't even have the Clinton surplus we had to do the research we need to do to get there.

Where's the hydrogen going to come from? That's rhetorical, by the way. Everyone knows how hydrogen is produced. If you look at the chemical formula, hydrogen and oxygen are very very happy to come together. And very resistant to being pulled apart.

I've read that if we produced hydrogen via the grid, it would take 1.59 times the energy as it is taking us to simply burn gasoline in our cars. I know it's absurd to talk two decimal points when I don't even know if my source is accurate. But I definitely recall that a hydrogen infrastructure is not in the cards. And that is coming from a Swiss phd who specializes in hydrogen fuel cells. I can dig up url's if I have to.

I suggest we all get life vests and flippers. Because as I see it, nobody is ready to change their ways. But then I don't have kids.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about. AND IT MAKES ME WANT TO SCREAM!!!

My realtor has a son. One week she calls me from Colorado. She drove him to the Xgames. Another week she's in Sacramento because he has a Lacross tournament. She's hardly in her office for driving one kid here and another kid there. It's drive drive fucking drive! Enough. You've heard me a million times by now.

Given a source of water, and a source of electricity, one can easily produce hydrogen and oxygen.

A domestic solar panel can be used to produce hydrogen.
http://www.solve.csiro.au/1105/article15.htm

Or, perhaps there's a better way:
http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2004/aug/Solar_hydrogenMNE.html

Frankly IEC fusion is more likely to provide any sort of significant load to the grid, or a replacement for oil.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x874198







IEC Fusion for Dummies video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiHsSAS_SQw

We cannot supply billions of people with energy in any other way. Millions of photovoltaic systems? I'm going to do it in my next place. But millions? I don't think so. That's materials and energy we can't afford.

The real issue isn't energy. And that's why I sound like a broken record on these threads. It's the population. There is no getting around it. If we don't...bla bla bla.

I think I should do my best to stop thinking about it. I studied it in college, and I've spent 35 years agonizing over it. I feel like there are only a couple of us on the planet who actually see the true problem. Energy is only a small small fraction of the problem, if we are going to address sustainability. OK, enough of me.

Off to go sit with a cat in the sun.

Fuel cells such as solid oxide(SOFC) or molten don't need pure hydrogen or even a reformer to operate.
They can operate off of any hydrogen rich fuel such as natural gas, sewer gas, landfill gas, ag waste gas, biogas, etc.
and thousands are out there doing so. They are reliable and very efficient, can be as much as 90% effecient compared to utility power which is in the range of 30 to 40 % effecient.

Examples of highly efficient clean energy (fuel cell)

Verizon Calls for Clean,
Reliable Energy with the
PureCell™ Model 200
Fuel Cell Powerplant

Verizon makes the call to install seven UTC Power fuel cells

http://www.utcfuelcells.com/fs/com/bin/fs_com_Page/0,11491,043,00.html

The Verizon call routing center in Garden City, New York, is home to the largest U.S. commercial fuel cell installation of its kind. The 292,000-square-foot office accommodates 900 employees who serve more than 35,000 telecommunication customers in the area. Verizon’s need for extremely reliable energy, generated efficiently and with minimal environmental impact, led the company to investigate the benefits of on-site combined heating and power (CHP). Verizon selected fuel cells, one of the cleanest power-generating technologies available today, for the major power component of their CHP solution. The fuel cells from UTC Power generate 200 kilowatts each, providing a total of 1.4 megawatts of clean power to the center.

:: Power Reliability
To provide their customers with the ultimate service, Verizon installed seven dual-mode UTC Power fuel cells. The PureCell™ units are part of an intricate back-up power system designed to run in parallel with the grid under normal circumstances, and independent from the grid in the event of a power failure or natural disaster. Under an agreement with Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) the fuel cells also run continuously during periods of peak demand, providing additional cost savings to Verizon.

:: Energy Efficiency

The CHP component of the Verizon installation enhances its overall efficiency. The high-grade waste heat from the fuel cells is captured and used to provide a portion of the energy for two absorption chillers for cooling in the summer and to supplement the heating system in the winter. The CHP systems can achieve overall efficiencies of approximately 90 percent, far greater than the 33 percent typical of a central powerplant. In addition, the PureCell™ solutions are part of an innovative monitoring system that ensures all elements operate at optimized conditions. High system efficiencies translate into greater fuel utilization, and contribute to the conservation of natural resources and energy.


As noted already, some companies such as Honda produce their hydrogen from solar using water;

but you can also get your hydrogen from coal, such as IGCC coal plants do.
IGCC plants don't "burn" the coal; they use coal as a reagent/catalyst to produce hydrogen from water.

C + H20 >> CO + H2

any carbon source witll do to provide the reagent to convert water to hydrogen, some IGCCs are being built to use
petcoke(waste product in oil refining) as the reagent, because petcoke is often cheaper than coal.

The CO can also be further converted to hydrogen from water in another reaction
but this one does require more energy and isn't usually carried out, since the overall efficiency using current
processes is higher to burn the syngas(CO+H2). (but you end up with CO2 after combustion)
Some like the Florida Solar Energy Center have a process for converting the CO or other carbon molocules to
carbon and hydrogen, that may be less energy intensive and more cost effective- depending on the value of carbon.

Carbon is a commmercial commodity, used in carbon black, carbon filaments in car bodies and other such high strength materials applications(strong and light weight)

If the market for the carbon is high enough, the conversion process to carbon and hydrogen is more cost effective
than burning syngas, such as in an IGCC

to provide electricity for house, plus heating and hot water, etc. and hydrogen for vehicles.


It looks like they might dominate not only the car market, but also take huge loads off the electrical systems-
since their "home energy modules" can work at the residential level or for malls, apartment buildings
to cost effectively and cleanly provide electricity, plus heating, cooling, hotwater, etc. from the waste heat,
plus providing hydrogen for vehicles.
You can have effeciencies up to over 80% in this way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV%2B

what a bunch of rubbish.

http://www.efcf.com/e/reports/

It's actually one of the better groups of literature out there.

I realize that Honda's FCX has fuels cells that have to run on hydrogen, but nobody has ever explained why fuel cells HAVE to run on hydrogen. While I know that there were unsuccessful tests for different-design fuel cells that ran on gasoline (They failed because of sulfur "poisoning"), why can't somebody develop and market fuel cells that run on sugars and alcohols? That would dramatically cut the costs for an alternate-fuel infrastructure.

Do fuel cells that run on alcohols produce carbon emissions as bad or even worse than internal-combustion engines? If so, why doesn't the word get out?

Hydrogen fuel has been touted like a sweet bye-and-bye fuel by the energy companies for years. Gradually, John and Jayne Q Public has learned that no, hydrogen CAN'T be run through natural gas pipelines as futurists once predicted, and that no, hydrogen WON'T be that easy to produce, and that YES, building an infrastructure to store and transport hydrogen is going to be HIDEOUSLY EXPENSIVE, and that no, the energy companies AREN'T in any particular hurry to begin to build a hydrogen infrastructure.

"20 myths of Hydrogen"

http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/E03-05_20HydrogenMyths.pdf


we can get there from here, the Honda people know what they are
doing.
Hydrogen produced from Methane at a local reformer, in a
household or business, is a significant efficiency increase that
is available now.
Efficiency of fuel cell/electrical drive for vehicles is so much
greater that even with the loss from pipeline/methane transport,
there is still substantial efficiency/greenhouse benefit.
This is not the end state, but it is the way that the new economy will
get started.
Remember, there will not be one answer, there will be hundreds of
answers, depending on people's circumstances, locations, and
budgets - but the Japanese, no slouches on efficiency, have been
researching and subsidizing this type of home fuel cell idea for
some years. This signals the beginning of a rollout. They
will take this market away from us as they have so many others.

Many of us older, grumpier members of DU feel like repeatedly stood-up mail-order brides when it comes to the hydrogen technology. Yes, yes, it looks great, yes, it would be wonderful, but when it comes to something beyond a bit of hype at an auto show or a photo-op for the likes of Georgiekins, it's been a no-show. We've been told repeatedly that the start of a practical hydrogen technology is just around the corner, and then we've noticed just how often that corner stays off in the distance or recedes even further away.

:grr:

Its true that fuel cells and combustion turbines (IGCC,etc.) must have sulfur taken out in a front end process.
But systems for doing this are readily available.
They are developing fuel cells to run on diesel to use in commercial truck lines, so the trucks don't need to idle at truck stops.
Likewise there are fuel cells designed to run on gasoline, can be used on boats, etc.

fuel cells that run on sewer gas have a reformer to take things like sulfur out before use.
Solid oxide fuel cells may not require this, or require less.

These things will likely go the way of the EV. Companies will build a few hundred and then scrap hydrogen within a few years.

They cost way too much to build, and even mass-produced hydrogen vehicles would still cost well over 100,000 each. And unlike electric vehicles that can be plugged into any electrical outlet, hydrogen vehicles require special hydrogen filling stations to power up. Where the hell are you suppose to go fill it up?

Reminds me of the biodiesel Hummer. You have to be Arnold Schwarzenneger (and he does) to own one because only people like him can afford to buy their own filling station.

These technologies are impractical and basically worthless for the consumer market!


Hybrid electric and 100% electric vehicles are still our best hope.

Rapid price declines in fuel cell production prices, some fuel cells projected to have lower price than other utility power options by 2010 or 2012, according to DOE

SECA is administered by the Energy Department through the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The SECA program is currently structured to include six competing Industry Teams: FuelCell Energy, Delphi, General Electric, Siemens Power Generation, Acumentrics, and Cummins Power Generation.
The SECA Program (www.seca.doe.gov) will bring about dramatic reductions in fuel cell costs, cutting costs to as low as $400 per kilowatt by the end of this decade, which would make fuel cells competitive for virtually every type of power application. The SECA initiative is developing a modular, all-solid-state fuel cell that could be mass-produced for different uses much the way electronic components are manufactured and sold today.
Recent testing of these prototypes has demonstrated giant leaps made toward fuel cell commercialization. Manufactured with a scalable mass-production technique, these SOFC prototypes have exceeded all of SECA's Phase I targets for availability, efficiency, endurance, and cost. Representative data include an availability of 90 percent, over and above the SECA Phase I target of 80 percent, and an efficiency of 41 percent in a 5.4 kW system, surpassing the first SECA target of 35 percent. And most significant of all, the $746/kW system cost is well on its way to $400/kW by 2010.
Siemens achieves major milestone in Solid Oxide Fuel Cell program
Siemens Power Generation announced the successful testing of its latest solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology that incorporates its high power density technology being developed under the U. S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA). A prototype 5 kW-class complete system using the SECA technology has operated for 2,800 hours and continues to operate at the Siemens facility near Pittsburgh, PA. It has met or exceeded all of the DOE technical and economic objectives for Phase 1 of the SECA program.

Fuel Cell Energy SOFC program achieves all DOE SECA phase I goals , Oct 23, 2006
FuelCell Energy utilizes the cell and stack design of its technology team partner, Versa Power Systems Inc. (VPS), for all its SOFC development programs. VPS has been engaged in SOFC development since 1997 and is considered a world leader in SOFC cell and stack technology.
VPS provided the 3kW prototype stack and system for FuelCell Energy's DOE SECA Cost Reduction project, initiated in April 2003. In recently-completed Phase I testing, the 3kW SOFC prototype system operated for over 2000 hours and successfully met or surpassed all DOE performance metrics for power output, efficiency and degradation (life).

GE and Delphi Meet Stack Cost Goal
SECA Industry Team participants Delphi and General Electric have made significant advances in the reduction of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) stack costs, surpassing the SECA target for 2006. The estimated costs were $294/kW for a 4.24kW Delphi system; and $254/kW for a 5.4kW GE system. Both teams easily bettered the GPRA SECA goal of <$300/kW. Meeting this latest target puts both Delphi and GE on track towards meeting the SECA goal of <$400/kW system cost by 2010. (4/06)


new coal plants are $3000/KW