£11M Funding for Hydrogen cars in the UK

[Draigflag]

The arrival of hydrogen cars on UK roads is a step closer as the Business Minister Matthew Hancock announced up to £11 million of funding.

Government and industry will prepare the UK for the roll-out of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).

The £11 million investment will:

•help establish an initial network of up to 15 hydrogen refuelling stations by the end of 2015
•include £2 million of funding for public sector hydrogen vehicles.

More information to be found here: http://www.greencarguide.co.uk/2014/...hydrogen-cars/

[Charon]

You might also enjoy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle for a little light reading. You will especially enjoy the part where it says hydrogen is not an energy source, but an energy carrier.

[Draigflag]

Didnt especialy enjoy it as much as you thought I would, but thanks none the less

[Charon]

Funny how that sort of press release always hypes the wonderfullness of low or zero emission vehicles, but somehow forgets to mention the process of producing the electricity or hydrogen.

[Draigflag]

Well there is more than one way to produce electricity thats why an ICE (internal combustion engine) burns fossil fuel directly, an electric power station can generate electricity in many green ways, hydro, solar, wind, tidal etc etc. I know the UK has the most off shore wind farms in the World, not just Europe, so an electric car, or hyrdrogen, could be considered more efficient emissions wise.

[Jcp385]

Funny, it's been so long since I have heard anything about FCVs that I figured they were basically dead...

[trollbait]

Toyota is doing a major push for them now, and Hyundai recently released a Tuscon FCV in California for lease. Ca requires 30% of the hydrogen to be renewable, but the majority is made from natural gas. So FCVs are just going to swap one fossil fuel for another.

[Draigflag]

Japan is always way ahead of the game, it seems ironic that the first mass produced Hydrogen cars released are Korean, even Honda's FCV isn't due to go sale until March 2016.

[trollbait]

Honda and Mercedes both started a FCV lease test program in California a few years ago.

Honda plans to bring out their next gen model soon. With the CARB credit system in place, they would have to move only a third of the cars to meet compliance than if they went with a BEV. They already have a car because Japan is pushing it, so why not.

Mercedes is going with a BEV, and I believe they partnered with Tesla for it.

Fuel cells might work as a range extender for a plug in. The big hurdle is with using high pressure hydrogen to power them. The expense of any infrastructure is in dealing with that gas. And it might get superceded by metal hydride, which is low pressure hydrogen, or methanol fuel cells. So any investing in consumer h.p. stations might be premature at this point considering the cheapest cars will cost as much as a Tesla.

[Charon]

The virtue of hydrogen as compared to electricity is that hydrogen can be stored in large quantities. At present there is no way to store electricity, so it has to be generated at the moment it is demanded. Technically, batteries do not store electricity. They store chemical energy, and produce the electricity on demand.

In use, hydrogen fuelled vehicles have the advantage of carrying only their fuel and taking their oxygen from the surrounding atmosphere. They then dump their exhaust overboard and do not have to recapture it. In this regard they are just like vehicles burning fossil fuel, except that they do not produce carbon compounds in the exhaust stream (barring any engine lubricants they incidentally burn).

Battery powered vehicles are limited by their batteries. The battery has to carry both its fuel and its oxidizer (in the chemical sense). When the fuel is oxidized, the battery has to contain the byproducts. The byproducts have to be in some form such that the reaction is reversible when the battery is recharged. This is the same fundamental limit which had Thomas Edison complaining about batteries over a century ago. These days the search is on for lighter and more reactive materials in an effort to make batteries lighter and/or smaller for the same energy storage capacity. Unfortunately, some of those materials (lithium) are quite reactive. Boeing's Dreamliner is a shining example of battery problems, and speculation is that a cargo of lithium batteries many have downed Maylasian Flight 370.

Rocket engines and batteries have similarities in that each has to carry both their fuel and their oxidizers, although rockets do not recapture the exhaust. I like to use the example of the WWII German Komett rocket airplane, which had an endurance of about 5 to 7 minutes compared to the German Messerchmitt ME262 jet with an endurance of about 60 to 90 minutes. This compares to the electric car's typical range of 30 to 50 miles and the typical range of liquid fuelled cars of about 300 to 400 miles. Interesting, isn't it?