Hydrogen Cars

[Red_08]

I was watching a special on one of the local channels here in Texas and it was about new ways that are being invented to conserve resources and prevent global warming (which would probably never happen anyway) and they had a big part dedicated to hydrogen cars. In Greenland (or was it Iceland) they already have a hydrogen gas station that is useable. (It was shell ) I thought it was pretty neat how they have natural pockets of hydrogen that the can store and easy ways to generate it themselves.

With the way gas prices are so high lately it would be nice to have a gas hydrogen hybrid.

There are some articles at howstuffworks.com that give more in-depth details.

[King Tutankhamun]

Yea, I've read those how stuff works ones from a few years ago and though it was sooooo cool.

I heard that they already have made a motorcycle that runs on hydrogen. That's neat.

[Red_08]

Yeah those are awesome.

[Mythos_Ruler]

Is the hydrogen INSIDE the vehicles contained as a gas or liquid form?

[Curufinwe]

(

Yehey!! Texacco, Total-Fina, BP, Shell, and all the other oil companies will be bankrupt and the world will finally be at peace

[Lorian]

Texacco, Total-Fina, BP, Shell, and all the other oil companies will be bankrupt

←

That is why it is not gonna happen because the government don't like making people redundant (is that the word?)

[Curufinwe]

(

Well, the oil companies can become bankrupt, but the employees can work in hydrogen instead but the CEOs can be made redundant

[Lorian]

It would be quite odd to go to "gas" stations to actually get "gas" instead of "gasoline"

[Mythos_Ruler]

If we could send a man to the moon, I am positive we could make hydrogen a viable energy source.

[Lord Zorinthrox]

Is the hydrogen INSIDE the vehicles contained as a gas or liquid form?

Keeping in mind, I am remembering all of this from various shows on Discovery, and Scientific American

Typically right now, you'll run into large storage tanks inside cars that store hydrogen like propane -- highly pressurized and partially liquid because of it. Hwoever, one company is making an effort to produce a solid storage form that uses a porous Platinum "sponge" that can store something ridiculous like three times its mass in hydrogen. It works because the electrons of Platinum freely associate with other substances' electrons, or something like that. Best part is, the solid storage isn't as prone to exploding as tanks could be.

What people are missing though is that a fantastic source of Hydrogen, other than water of course, is fossil fuels, witch is entirely composed fo hydrocarbons. Also, the energy needed to extract hydrogen from hydrocarbons and water has to come from somewhere. Good news is that the power plants that produce that energy will be cleaner overall than millions of cars belching out emissions with nothing but a muffler inbetween.

@Red_08: It was Iceland. So far as I know, the only vehicle on the island that can actually use Hydrogen is a promotional bus. The facility is a fancinating proof of concept, though.

On the same note, I saw a short quip on a car in Italy, I think, that uses compressed air to power a car. You kow how you can get air for qurters at gas stations? Well, this thing goes for four hundred miles on not even two dollars of compressed air. Plus, when you break, the car uses the energy from slowing down to recompress more air. Bottom line, the more stop and go, the longer it can go.

Of course, the entire car is made of fiber glass, but can seat six or so.

[Red_08]

Now that's sweet. (air compressed car)

Yeah, it's in solid form. (metal hydride)

In a metal-hydride storage tank, hydrogen is introduced to a mixture of metal alloys, to which the H2 atoms bond directly. The chemical reaction driving the absorption process can be accelerated or decelerated by removing or adding heat to the crushed-alloy cocktail, which can include nickel, aluminum, manganese, ferro-vanadium, titanium and other metals.

The resulting material offers significantly greater storage density than compressed or liquefied methods.

“The metal-hydride material acts like a natural sponge for the hydrogen,” explains Dr. Benjamin Chao, director of alloy testing development at Ovonic Hydrogen Systems, in Rochester Hills, MI.

I got that at http://www.hydrogenforecast.com/January200...solidstate.html.

(Oh and about the polution, there is this new system they're using to filter out carbon dioxide. They have tubes filled with water (partially) with algae inside. They then have the carbon dioxide go through the pipes with the algae slowly so the algae can use the carbon to grow and bring the dioxide levels down over 50%! They then dry the algae and sell it to health food stores for them to use. Right now in stores you can buy an aglae drink called Mean Green.)

[Java3]

Things go like this: People also wnat to keep from polluting the air. Some of the main reason. But as the age goes on, things might get different from the ways now.