Hydrogen vehicles - fair and balanced

The original post linked to a fairly biased article (reflecting to some extent my own skepticism) and we've seen the reply from Curly. So what's the real scoop on hydrogen for automobiles?

How it works
Hydrogen would most likely supply a fuel cell, basically generating electricity to power a vehicle. A fuel cell is like a battery that carries a recharging source (hydrogen, in this case), so it's range can potentially be greater than simply a battery powered car.

The efficiency problem
The primary means of getting hydrogen - which does not occur naturally - is to use electrolysis to separate water into H and O2 (many proponents believe nuclear power will supply the electricity). This process is only about 30% efficient, so 70% of the electricity used is lost in the process. If that electricity instead went right into a battery for an electric-driven car, we don't lose that energy. Zfacts has a nice illustration of this:

Here are two ways to drive on wind power.
1. Wind => electricity => Battery => motor turns wheels
2. Wind => electricity => hydrogen => Fuel Cell => motor turns wheels

Hydrogen just adds an extra step. And if you've seen Who Killed the Electric Car, you know that we can already produce an electric vehicle to serve most American drivers.

The supply problem
As noted, hydrogen doesn't naturally occur in a harvestable form (unlike oil - our primary vehicle fuel). Hydrogen must be extracted electrically (from water) or chemically (from natural gas). The latter means pointless dependence on fossil fuels, so let's focus on the electrical derivation. A lot of people note that we can eventually electrolize water to get hydrogen using renewably-generated electricity. But less than 10% of U.S. power generation capacity is currently renewable (and only a quarter of that is non-hydro). That's not counting the additional electricity we'll need to generate to make hydrogen.

On the other hand, an electric car can be powered off the existing grid. In fact, some studies have shown that it would be possible to convert almost every American car to electric without having to substantially expand electric generating capacity by simply charging cars during off-peak hours (at night). From Celsias:

A new study for the Department of Energy finds that “off-peak” electricity production and transmission capacity could fuel 84 percent of the country’s 220 million vehicles if they were plug-in hybrid electrics.

To be fair, a plug-in hybrid still has a backup combustion engine. But the gasoline reductions are still dramatic:

According to EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute), half the cars on U.S. roads are driven 25 miles a day or less. Consequently, a plug-in hybrid with a 25-mile all electric range could eliminate gasoline use in the daily commute of tens of millions of Americans.

The Size/Weight Problem
From Zfacts again, the problem with hydrogen fuel cells compared to conventional batteries:

The advantages of fuel cells might be that they hydrogen tank and fuel cell combination needed to drive 300 miles could be smaller cheaper and lighter than a battery pack needed to drive 300 miles. Right now, it's the other way around. (emphasis mine)

And every pound needed to move the car uses more energy.

The Infrastructure Problem
As Curly noted, hydrogen filling stations are the chicken/egg problem. Do you build thousands of stations first and then wait for cars to show? Or do you get a critical mass of cars? Such investments aren't cheap in any case. This study estimated it would cost between $100 and $500 billion to create the fueling infrastructure.

Contrast that with electricity, which is already present at every existing filling station in the country.

Summary
There are two major reasons why I'm a hydrogen opponent:
1) It takes resources away from readily available solutions to consumption of foreign oil and carbon emissions. Plug-in electric and then all-electric vehicles can be powered off existing electric capacity and the technology is already commercial.
2) It's outrageously expensive/wasteful. Even if we only need to convert 8-10% of filling stations to hydrogen to get critical mass, it would eventually require that we convert all stations. That's a big waste when we already have electricity everywhere. We also lose energy converting water to hydrogen with electricity, when we could use the electricity directly.

Talkback on hydrogen vehicles

Friend Curly felt his comment on Why you'll be in a hovercar before you'll drive with hydrogen
was too long for the comment area, so I'm posting it here. I'll post a response tomorrow, hopefully.

Your hovercar/hydrogen post and link made me want to write the following ... which I felt was too long for a comment but which I'm gonna say to you anyway.

AWESOME! I always wanted a hovercar!

I don't agree with the article, though.
1) Saying that the process isn't available now does not negate the benefits of the process should it be made available.
2) Most of the 80% inefficiency he's added up has to do with startup costs - pts 3&4 seem to be the biggest losses, and in both cases it seems reasonable that once the system is in place and demand grows, more efficient means will be desired and engineered.
3) Start-up does seem like the biggest hurdle. Who's the chicken and who's the egg? Unfortunately, Government would have to be both, at least to get the process started. This seems to me like the biggest argument against Hydrogen - that in order to get to a point where private companies buy in, the public would have to get things rolling. But between raising taxes and government mismanagement of funds (war ain't cheap) this seems pretty unlikely.

But these are things we have to argue for. Not find reasons to argue against.

What alternatives does Nelder offer?
a) Status Quo
b) Solar
c) Wind
To which I say:
a) No on Quo
b&c) These are great, should be improved, fit right into the Hydrogen plan, and are actually good parallels to Hydrogen as being great ideas which people avoided for years because they were "impractical" and "inefficient". Hydroelectric, Nuclear, hamsters-on-treadmills ... also similar ideas.

I feel like Nelder is trying to lead us back into the cycle of delay wherein a new technology or idea is ridiculed and denied and deemed impractical for as long as possible, right up until enough people see through the haze of rhetoric and realize that this "new fangled impractical idea" is exactly what they want. Why follow him down this path? Why not accept the logic behind desiring Hydrogen energy-currency, and use that desire to try to affect the changes that are needed to make it efficient and feasible?

Why you'll be in a hovercar before you'll drive with hydrogen

Here's the most damning statistic. Read the short article for the full problem with hydrogen.

To build a "hydrogen economy," we would need to start over with everything. Hundreds of thousands of miles of pipeline, 90,000 new pumps at service stations, 210 million vehicles, everything.

Tuesday roundup

I've been hit with my oft-acquired late spring cold, which in addition to my newly acquired (or acknowledged) allergies made for quite the cap on my weekend. All-in-all, it's created a less-than-stellar environment for blogging (staying home sick from work is an excuse to stay off the computer).

At any rate, here's a link or two to things I've found interesting while being unable to blog more thoroughly:

• The U.S. Congress is considering "price gouging" legislation. Blogger Robert Rapier has a nice explanation of how legislation like this will accomplish one thing: gas shortages.
• Modern Dragons has an interesting tidbit on the way naming a female child can impact their future interest in math and science.
• Dead Racist Weekly has debunked the obituary theory that Jerry Falwell and other evangelicals got political because of Roe v. Wade. It was actually the proposal to remove their Christian school tax exemption that got the masses uppity.
• GM has recently done more tests with a hydrogen car, but has yet to answer the question of where people will tank up these concept cars. In case anyone is wondering, GM was the maker of the all-electric EV1, which could refuel by using electricity (exercise: count the number of gas stations with hydrogen pumps. Now count the number of gas stations with electricity. Which fuel of the future seems more likely?)