Moose Loc: North Carolina

With the cost of gas going sky high, I wonder just how much effort is being made into fuel cell technology? I believe Tesla is working on that, but I believe the government should get behind this technology so we aren't so dependent upon gasoline. Of course, big oil will not be happy about that, thus any government backing will not happen. Just saying.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

https://youtu.be/hghIckc7nrY — I drove 1800 miles in a Hydrogen Car
https://youtu.be/dWAO3vUn7nw — Hydrogen vs. Battery Electric Cars

These are links to Physics Girl videos that ran on PBS. Enjoy.

mikenolan Loc: Lincoln Nebraska

Fuel cell research has decreased over the years as other alternate energy approaches such as solar and wind got the bulk of the attention and funding. Now the research flavor of the day is battery technology.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

We're going to need all sorts of alternatives until a REALLY GOOD ONE pops up.

Ultimately, the sun provides all our energy, either directly or indirectly. Storing that energy is always the big challenge. Geologic events stored a lot of it as oil and coal and methane (natural gas). It's been convenient to mine and drill and burn. But releasing that energy heats the atmosphere when CO2 traps the sun's current energy under a blanket of hot air. So we have to move to fuel cells (they give off water) or batteries (rechargeable) to store solar, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric sources.

alawry Loc: Timaru New Zealand

By "fuel cell" I guess you are talking about the hydrogen fuel cell? I was interested to learn about that recently so I looked intoo it.( I believe the Mr Musk Tesla cars are in 2024 going to that instead of battery). I think USA gets 40% of electricity from Diesel generation so straight up 40% of battery electric (BEV) cars are actually running on energy derived from Diesel. Electricty is measured in KWH. I read that a Hydrogen generator uses 55 KWH to produce 1kg of hydrogen and a further 15 KWH to compress it. That 1kg has about 25 KWH of energy in it, and when it's turned back into electricity gives about 20KWH to feed into your electric motor to turn the wheels. If you had used that original 70KWH (55+ 15) to charge your battery you would end up with 45-50 KWH to turn your wheels. So the hydrogen fuel cell system is only half the efficiency of storage battery. You do however avoid the "nasty" lithium battery production and recycling issue. It just uses a whole lot more electricity. Do we really have that much electricity? I just read Australia is more like 60% oil or coal dependent for electricity generation. I don't have the figure for my country (NZ) but I do know last winter we had a huge blackout due to shortage and used more imported coal last year than the previous 15 years or something. And I believe one of our major hydro storage lakes was well down on "normal" earlier in the year. Still we are being pressured into Electric cars! The big hope is further generation, from maybe Solar which can happen at a local level. Oh, "Big Oil" I think they favour hydrogen cell because they will distribute and retail. And on top of my earlier numbers on hydrogen production, you have to distribute the product in a tanker of some sort. At least with BEV you avoid that; got a mains wire to your house? recharge your car. No wire? Your probably an "off the gridder" and have solar, wind or water and an early adopter of BEV (and not looking foward to being dependent on hydrogen distribution)

My thoughts. All comments welcome. Most of my information comes from research on the internet, and I cannot vouch for it's accuracy but it's not from just one source.

Andrew.

Canisdirus

Meh...
Fusion is coming...one of these days...lol.
Everything else will fall by the wayside...as they should (as primary...there will always be secondary and tertiary markets...they still sell buggy whips after all).

They are getting closer...a few decades perhaps...maybe less...maybe more...but it's the key.
At least until we can fix the time/space physics that is currently broken and bring something new in from an unperceived reality still hidden from us.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

There's a company designing a hydrogen-powered car. They're going to call it the Hindenburg.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

You mean as in dining?

Canisdirus

Jerry: Waiter...the food is delicious...but could you turn down the thermostat...what do you have it at?

Waiter: 10,000 degrees kelvin.

Jerry: Well, that explains it.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

Hydrogen is not a source of energy - it, like batteries, is merely a way of moving energy from one source to another without wires. Hydrogen is created from the electrolysis of water - using electricity to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen. When you re-combine hydrogen with oxygen, either by burning or with a fuel cell, you generate the same energy that it took to separate it in the first place (Law of Conservation of Energy). Of course, there are losses due to inefficiency all through the process. So - just like charging a battery, you have to have an initial source of electricity - either nuclear, solar, wind, or by burning fossil fuels. If I charge an electric car here in central Florida (unless I have my own photovoltaics), 40% of that electricity will come from burning coal. So how good is that, really...

wmurnahan Loc: Bloomington IN

The government has been using fuel cells for over 50 years now. It is not new technology, just ignored, big oil doesn't want to stop pumping till the last drop is gone and they have maximized their profits.
I believe the biggest problem is in the energy needed to break the hydrogen bond to get pure hydrogen.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

One of the great distractive arguments used by the fossil fuel industry is that they always think, act, and speak in terms of current market conditions, rather than possibilities, trends, intentions, directions, and paradigm shifts.

So yes, as it turns out, much of our electricity is produced by boiling water to turn turbines attached to generators, and most of that is done with natural gas or coal. For battery electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to be made fully green, we will have to replace coal and natural gas with solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric/tidal sources. There are thousands of companies working on this right now.

Rest assured, that as in almost every other paradigm shift in history, the solutions will come from determined outsiders. The established providers generally are not innovators. Their goal is the efficient exploitation of what they know works. It is risky for them to explore new solutions.

Think back a few years to the development of the smartphone. It was an intersection of technology and liberal arts thinking that managed to combine the power of many technologies together. It combined Star Trek fantasies with text, audio, photography, video, radio, software development, web design, microcircuit design and manufacture, metallurgy, touch screen innovations, glass making, and more.

When Jobs announced the first iPhone, executives at RIM/BlackBerry, Ericsson, Nokia, Microsoft, LG, and others LAUGHED. About 2.25 billion iPhones later... They're not laughing.

Are we years away from significant market penetration of electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? YES. Does that mean it is a fruitless endeavor to develop them? NO.

BebuLamar

Tesla is not working on that. Elon Musk said hydrogen fuel cell is a bad idea. I personally think it's a good idea.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/12/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-dismisses-hydrogen-as-tool-for-energy-storage.html#:~:text=In%20June%202020%20he%20tweeted,he%20remains%20unconvinced%20about%20hydrogen.

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

Stan

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Well, no hydrogen cars for the southwest, then.