There are several technical issues that need to be hammered out.
First is - Where do we get Hydrogen from? Extracting Hydrogen is expensive - Green & Blue Hydrogen: Current Levelized Cost of Production & Outlook | GEP Blog
Second - You need almost triple the storage to travel 400 miles on a hydrogen vehicle then an ICE vehicle.
There are hydrogen fueled ICE vehicles that are much like gasoline ICE cars but they use H2 instead. Yes, they need 3 times the fuel capacity due to low efficiency as @MikeInNH posted.
There are hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that produce electricity to power an electric motor. Three are available for sale in the US for a while now and all get 300 miles per tankful. Comparable to many EVs. The tanks are not huge because the efficiency is better than H2 powered ICE cars. California-only sales because there is an H2 delivery network.
The leaders in this technology are forklifts at warehouses for WalMart, Amazon and others.
Developing a distribution network will take many years, and $$$$. The only US fueling stations are in CA:
I doubt hydrogen fuel for passenger vehicles would even be an issue, except that hydrogen can be extracted from crude oil. The oil companies are probably a little worried by the rise of electric cars, and are looking for another use for their product. And they have a lot of political clout.
True…But the energy cost is too high.
Are you saying we can get hydrogen from crude? That’s incorrect. One of the biggest uses for hydrogen today is in ‘cracking’ crude oil, adding hydrogen to create more useful products from heavier products.
Hydrogen can be made from natural gas, but that generates CO2. Oil companies aren’t the ones initially pushing hydrogen, but if it’s needed, they’ll find a way to help supply it. Who else can come up with a gas storage and distribution network?
Yes. Google “extracting hydrogen from crude oil” for example.
Main link is about obtaining hydrogen from CH4, which is natural gas, not crude. I guarantee nobody is obtaining any meaningful amount of hydrogen from actual liquid crude oil. Is it technically possible? Sure, but it’s the exact opposite of what is actually being done, the addition of hydrogen to crude to make more valuable products.
Here’s a good description of the actual sources and uses for hydrogen:
Production of hydrogen - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)
Again, the main source of hydrogen is ‘steam-methane reforming’, using natural gas.
Like I said, it’s possible. It is not being done at any meaningful level.
Reading your link, it’s a patent, not an actual project. It says “The research is highly innovative and exciting. It’s an adaptation of some 1970’s fire-flood production concepts, but tuned to a modern day perspective.”
Now my BS alarms are going off, full volume! I’ve worked on fire-flood projects, they are some of the most difficult projects to implement and control, and are known for creating large volumes of noxious gas that is difficult to deal with. The technology has largely been abandoned by the oil industry because of that. Their claim (backed up by zero data or technical information) that their process will flow nice, clean hydrogen at the surface and leave all the nasty stuff underground is laughable.
There are hundreds of patents on various processes to get energy out of oil reservoirs. The vast majority of them yield nothing.
I just looked at their web site, they’re using the same process (pure oxygen injection) that I was part of back in 1980 to 1983. The result? It was a CO2 generation project, failed to produce any additional oil (or hydrogen, for that matter). Pure oxygen is extremely reactive, I cannot imagine how they expect to control its reaction with oil underground to yield only hydrogen.
I thought H2 would be yielded from electrolysis from electricurrents generated by solar cells.
Can be done that way, but why not just use the electricity to charge batteries? No need for a huge new distribution network.
Can morenergy be contained as compressed H2 in tanks than what can be stored in batteries?
Manyears ago in aerospace we had many problems handling hydrogen. The diatomic molecules of hydrogen are so small, theyvill migrate (leak) through glass, I recall.
I always wondered if it would be.tter to efficiently burnatural gas to generatelectricity sento heat homes rather than to pipe it as we do today. Our gas furnace is only 80% efficient.
No.
Very true. And hydrogen is explosive at a much wider range of concentrations than methane.
It can be…but still a high energy cost.
Electrolysis takes kWhrs and reduces it by 40% to make H2. H2 is then send through a fuel cell to make 60% of the kWhrs into electricity. 40% loss at each stage.
Batteries and chargers are more efficient. Even lead acid batteries and chargers are more efficient. Lithium blows lead acid away with roughtly 10% loss in to out.
Thank you.
Why not use Li batteries instead of H2 ICEs in forklifts?
The batteries would add much lower center of gravityveight, which is good for.klifts.
Too long a charge time?