R & D (Research and Duplicate) - Why don't we do it?

**EVO-V** · October 23rd, 2012 11:48 AM

Originally Posted by niky

Diesel has the particulate problem. Though personally, the fact that diesels burn less overall makes them a good candidate. And biodiesel and WVO sweeten the deal.

Hydrogen is always going to be a no-go. The upfront cost of fuel cells or ultra-high pressure hydrogen storage, as well as the HUGE cost of hydrogen production and compression for use in high pressure storage make it a very marginal return... even if you get your hydrogen "free" via solar-power.

Electric cars could become mainstream long before hydrogen due to the huge investment requirements. Manufacturers have been making hydrogen cars for decades. It's actually ont difficult to do so. But it's nowhere near cheap. On the other hand, electrics have gotten to the point where they're only twice the price of gasoline cars. A price point hydrogen will take another few decades to reach.

And in e meantime, hydrogen vehicles will still cost more per kilometer to fuel than electrics or gasoline cars...

Hence why diesel first before hydrogen. Electrics are nice and all but the practicality of setting up the infrastructure and getting cars to a degree of economic reach and reliability are suspect. It is easier to go into a hydrogen economy once certain milestones are met. After all, Hydrogen isn't particularly geo-politically dependent.

**niky** · October 23rd, 2012 01:34 PM

The only cheap source of hydrogen is natural gas. Which we can already burn straight in an internal combustion motor, and which IS geopolitically dependent. As are the platinum needed in fuel cells, if we go that route. And if we go that route, the fuel cell will be basically acting as an expensive battery.

Hydrolysis is not cheap. Not at all. Once you've spent all the money necessary to install a hydrogen fuel infrastructure, you will have spent enough resources and energy to install a refueling infrastructure for both CNG and electric vehicles combined.

Hydrogen's only appeal is it allows you to use familiar ICEs and it has decent energy density if you spend a crapload of money on your storage medium. But the fuel tank / battery problem is an order of a magnitude more difficult to solve than either electrics or CNG and a hydrogen economy will always be an energy negative economy with one extra conversion step (loss) than electricity.

**uls** · October 23rd, 2012 02:59 PM

oil, natgas, coal

those are and will be the main global energy sources for years to come

**yapoy86** · October 23rd, 2012 03:34 PM

time will come na converting water to hydrogen will be easy, simple and cheap... we just don't know how to do it yet..

**niky** · October 23rd, 2012 03:47 PM

Originally Posted by yapoy86

time will come na converting water to hydrogen will be easy, simple and cheap... we just don't know how to do it yet..

It's already easy. It's already simple. But thanks to the immutable laws of physics, it will never be cheaper than recharging a battery.

**yapoy86** · October 23rd, 2012 04:09 PM

that's when you need Research and Development... you don't stop because you already know!! there will always be a better way...

**niky** · October 23rd, 2012 04:52 PM

Call me back when Research and Development find a way to break the Laws of Physics and Thermodynamics. Because so far, we haven't been able to do so, yet. Making hydrogen production just as energy efficient as simply producing electricity would effectively be invoking perpetual motion.

Again. Making hydrogen is simple. Running a car on hydrogen is simple. Making it more efficient than an electric car is impossible.

Let's make it much, much simpler.

You live on an island and there is only corn and pigs. You used to have coconuts (oil!), which you didn't have to cook, but the coconut trees are all gone. Now you not only have to work your ass off to farm pigs or corn, but you have to spend to cook your food, too, as well as make expensive clay cooking pots to cook it in.

To feed all the people, you can feed them corn. Some of the corn goes bad or gets wormy, so you can only eat 86% of the corn harvested. For every four kilos of corn harvested, you get 3.44 kilos of corn to eat. This is the energy efficiency of battery-electric.

But, conversely, you can feed the corn to pigs, and the people can eat the pigs. For each kilogram of corn you feed them, pigs return one kilogram of meat. That's about the same as the 25% efficiency you get from converting electricity to hydrogen.

But as more people are born, food becomes scarce.

So, what do you do? Do you keep feeding your corn to the pigs and the pigs to the people, or do you simply feed people corn?

There are no two ways about it. Hydrogen is pork. And the sooner we veer away from the idea that hydrogen is some magical, primary source of energy (because if you don't have a fusion reactor, no... it isn't), then the sooner we can figure out how to efficiently power our automobile fleets, whether it be with grid-based electricity, biofuels, waste biofuels or something else.

**ghosthunter** · October 23rd, 2012 04:55 PM

Originally Posted by yapoy86

time will come na converting water to hydrogen will be easy, simple and cheap... we just don't know how to do it yet..

Electrolysis is simple and easy but energy needed for it is NOT cheap.

If we solve the cheap energy issue for electrolysis, we probably not need electrolysis to fuel our cars.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by yapoy86

that's when you need Research and Development... you don't stop because you already know!! there will always be a better way...

Call me when you have a matter-antimatter reactor working.

**yapoy86** · October 23rd, 2012 05:12 PM

think out of the box boyz.... youre only focused on water, electrolysis, hydrogen, internal combustion engine etc etc.... its like yesterday when people think going to the moon is impossible....

i will not call you coz i'm not into R&D or doing anything to develop those... but if one day i find a better way, i will share it with you...

now you are all saying its "impossible"... for now maybe...

we are using fossil fuels that was also converted using enormous amounts of energy and that energy used to convert those dead matter to fossil fuel is free (nature)...

**ghosthunter** · October 23rd, 2012 05:25 PM

Originally Posted by yapoy86

think out of the box boyz.... youre only focused on water, electrolysis, hydrogen, internal combustion engine etc etc.... its like yesterday when people think going to the moon is impossible....

i will not call you coz i'm not into R&D or doing anything to develop those... but if one day i find a better way, i will share it with you...

now you are all saying its "impossible"... for now maybe...

we are using fossil fuels that was also converted using enormous amounts of energy and that energy used to convert those dead matter to fossil fuel is free (nature)...

Going to the moon is possible, just like mass market electric cars... it is just not economically feasible...

With the exception for the die-hard "greenies", there is little incentive for the common driver to use an expensive energy/fuel source when there are cheaper and easy to obtain options to choose from.