Hydrogen fuel stations on the way ...

[Rooster]

THE M4 in South Wales is to become a “Hydrogen Highway” with a network of alternative fuel stations stretching between Swansea, Cardiff and Newport.

Under the pioneering scheme, announced yesterday, the region will be at the vanguard of greener road transport in the UK.

The idea is to have silent, hydrogen fuel cell-powered cars using the motorway by 2015 giving off just water vapour in contrast to the harmful emissions of the cars of today.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/cardiff-news/2010/02/13/hydrogen-highway-plan-fuels-drive-for-greener-m4-91466-25824564/

 

[dhaslam]

Neither efficient fuel cells or efficient hydrogen extraction  methods seem to have been invented yet.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/fuelcells/basics.htm

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Revolutionary-Hydrogen-Extraction-Technique-Can-Replace-Gasoline-in-Engines-54810.shtml

[desperate]

Too low an energy density to be really usefull, also a high production energy make the economics hard to reconcile. If fuel cells vastly improve then it may become viable, but batteries are more likely to end up being the propulsion of choice.

Desperate

[calsol]

Cant understand why hydrogen (a gas at normal temperature and pressure) is promoted as a store of energy for transport use. It would make more sense to use methanol (a liquid) which can be used with our existing vehicles and infrastructure with minimum fuss.

The Germans (in the war), the South Africans (under sanctions) and now the Chinese use coal on a large scale to produce methanol as a fuel. In fact it is so good a substitute the process is sometimes incorrectly refered to as "coal to oil". This of course is still a source of pollution because coal is used as the energy and feedstock in the process.

However  if methanol is produced by solar pv electricity then we could have the holy grail of sustainable green energy. Water plus carbon dioxide plus electricity are the feedstocks for methanol. It would be completely clean and carbon neutral if the CO2 used in the methanol production was taken from the atmosphere or atmosphere polluting sources and solar electricity was used to power the conversion.

[Moxi]

I seem to recall James May visiting some Californian chaps, in one of his programmes, who do just that converting carbon dioxide and water in a solar heated reactor vessel to generate around 3 gallons (US?) of methanol per day (or thereabouts).

Moxi

[dhaslam]

It seems that ethanol production would be more efficient  than methanol.    Hydrogen still needs to be produced as part of the process  but the prospect of absorbing CO2 from power stations and having a fuel that doesn't require  much change to vehicles  sounds promising.   
 
http://www.windfuels.com/

[renewablejohn]

Cant understand why hydrogen (a gas at normal temperature and pressure) is promoted as a store of energy for transport use. It would make more sense to use methanol (a liquid) which can be used with our existing vehicles and infrastructure with minimum fuss.

The Germans (in the war), the South Africans (under sanctions) and now the Chinese use coal on a large scale to produce methanol as a fuel. In fact it is so good a substitute the process is sometimes incorrectly refered to as "coal to oil". This of course is still a source of pollution because coal is used as the energy and feedstock in the process.

However  if methanol is produced by solar pv electricity then we could have the holy grail of sustainable green energy. Water plus carbon dioxide plus electricity are the feedstocks for methanol. It would be completely clean and carbon neutral if the CO2 used in the methanol production was taken from the atmosphere or atmosphere polluting sources and solar electricity was used to power the conversion.

The prime waste product of our woodchip gasification plant will be methanol so I hope methanol does have a future.