Toyota's First Hydrogen Car to Cost $50,000

[Guest]

Please take the time to read about hydrogen production : http/www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/consumer/hydrogen/basics/production.htm

This is no miracle solution since you need to use some kind of energy (mainly electricity, produced by fossil fuels, or any other means) to separate the hydrogen from what contains it; eg: water.

But having alternatives and new technologies means we become less reliant on one one source of energy and this is always a good thing. With research, the production process will become more efficient costing less and producing more with less energy input.

The race is not to find a zero cost energy solution, it is to find alternatives with a better balance between used energy vs. produced work.

 

[Guest]

actually getting hydrogen from petroleum is currently the cheapest way especially since hydrocarbons are molecules that contain hydrogen and carbon... all you critics need to go take a chemistry course...

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]JonathanDeane[/nom]LOL what??? So there is more hydrogen in natural gas then the 66% that comprises water??? A quick search on Google shows just how wrong this is... .002% of natural gas is hydrogen, in other words trace amounts, almost nothing. http/www.uniongas.com/aboutus/ab [...] sition.asp[/citation]

Natural gas is mainly METHANE, CH4, So, you bust that molecule apart using some heat in an environment without oxygen and you get H2 (hydrogan gas) and some carbon compounds.

 

[schwizer]

The people above are most likely talking about using petroleum to create electricity which is used to separate water into oxygen and hydrogen using a process called electrolysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis

However, this currently only accounts for 4% of hydrogen gas produced today

Currently, global hydrogen production is 48% from natural gas, 30% from oil, and 18% from coal; water electrolysis accounts for only 4%

As you can see most hydrogen comes quite literally from "hydrocarbons"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy


The only way hydrogen cars are really going to be green is if the hydrogen is made in a way that doesn't use or burn hydrocarbons (electrolysis). Most countries don't have the renewable energy sources to produce viable quantities of hydrogen in this manner (electrolysis). Iceland is an example of such a country

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Iceland#Hydrogen

Can't we just be friends and argue less?

 

[Guest]

Producing Hydrogen gas, compressing it, and finding a way to transport it around will be much less efficient than burning coal in a 65% efficient cogeneration power plant and using that to charge up electric vehicles. Hydrogen fuel cell cars won't be able to have a range much better than a Tesla roadster at 250miles, the fuel is NOT very energy dense per unit of volume = slush hydrogen and lots of it (A trunk that is just a H2 tank) just to go 400miles. Plus, look at all of the losses and the huge amount of energy needed to break H2O to apart, thats why it is produced in so many reactions in nature, it is incredibly stable.

 

[JonathanDeane]

[citation][nom]shuffman37[/nom]Natural gas is mainly METHANE, CH4, So, you bust that molecule apart using some heat in an environment without oxygen and you get H2 (hydrogan gas) and some carbon compounds.[/citation]

After reading up on it some it seems this is correct and most of the hydrogen used comes from Methane, This seems ass backwards to me since you can run some electricity through water and pull out oxygen and hydrogen?

http/www.getenergysmart.org/files/hydrogeneducation/6hydrogenproductionsteammethanereforming.pdf

This still leaves me wondering why they use so much energy producing it this way when it seems like using water would be simpler and cheaper?

 

[Guest]

This is really a great step for Toyota if they can get it under the $50k mark and make it comparable to gasoline.

Hydrogen can be made a number of ways. It is more expesive then gasoline, diesel, ethanol. That may change but it still takes electricity to make it. The way 90% of the world gets electricity is from hydrocarbon. Coal, Oil, Natural gas. So will take lots of hydrocarbon use. Which is not a bad thing. Just expensive.

It also takes palladium or some other expensive metals as a catalysts to make hydrogen.
Someday maybe they can make a less expensive way to make hydrogen. It's not as simple as grabbing air/water. The main problem actually is with hydrogen itself. It has no where near the energy contain of gasoline. So it takes lots more hydrogen to do the same work as gasoline.

If you want the energy that make sense now. It's natural gas. Switch all big rigs to natural gas. We would save an enormous amount of money and energy. The US if full of natural gas. That will buy us time to let hydrogen or battery powered get better and better.

Small scale nuclear fusion ie Helium3 is where it is at. That is a long ways away for us.

 

[CChick]

[citation][nom]cheepstuff[/nom]kinda funny, guess where the hydrogen fuel comes from?petroleum!I don't want to sound like one of those fanatic trolls, but imo no one should look forward to paying for this vehicle, no matter how safe Toyota makes it.[/citation]

What a moron

Get ur facts straight before u open ur mouth up again.

 

[enewmen]

I love technology, but I can't see this practical for at least 50-100 years. Power plants, better batteries, and electric motors until then.

 

[ta152h]

[citation][nom]oxxfatelostxxo[/nom]Last comment... acck.. the chances of a hydrogen explosion is very slim, hydrogen is so much lighter than air that it would rise out before ever exploding.The only way it could explode is if the container holding it was heated to insane temps while keeping the hydrogen sealed...i forget exactly how the car makes its hydrogen without re reading info on it, but im pretty sure the tech on how it works makes it pretty hard to occur anywayhttp/www.thesupertroopers.com/AER/about/fuelcell.jpg for a diagram of how it works[/citation]

Do you remember the Hindenburg?

 

[jojesa]

[citation][nom]jhansonxi[/nom]Combining hydrogen and Toyota's acceleration problems means this model should take off like a rocket! (sorry, couldn't resist )[/citation]

...and with malfunctioning brakes.
This car will be unstoppable…hey that could be their slogan.

 

[need4speeds]

If you take hydrogen from other sources since splitting water is the hardest way to get hydrogen. You will be adding water to the planet, and still taking oxygen out of the air. Plants only take oxygen from co2, not water. So the pollution from hydrocarbons which are really dead plants is not as bad as taking oxygen out and forever trapping it with hydrogen to make water.
If you thought that co2 was bad, this is even worse.
At least the carbon in co2 will be used by plants eventually, and the oxygen again released, just like the fossil fuels were first made, in essence fossil fuels are trapped solar power. Whats warming the planet is the release of all this trapped solar power all at once not so much the co2. each car and coal plant and house burning natural gas for heat emits.. guess what?
that's right heat. this is why cities are warmer than the surrounding countryside, this is why your car needs a rad and coolant also.
Times this heat coming off your rad by millions of cars and trucks and houses, and you have a lot of heat. enough heat to melt glaciers and polar ice caps with ease.
If you take all the oxygen from the air to make water we will slowly run out of oxygen.
Any chemical can be pollution even water.

 

[Moshu78]

The whole idea is to get rid of the fossil fuels. You can produce hydrogen using electricity and the electricity using things like hydro, solar, wind but mostly nuclear power. You can't make airplanes run on electricity... or at least not at high speeds. But you can see them running on hydrogen instead of kerosen. That's the whole point... get rid of oil-based fuels because they shall be in shorter and shorter supply.

 

[wonspur]

the sooner this technology becomes consumer friendly and eco friendly (making the hydrogen) the better. Im not so much a believer that we are destroying the planet with our emissions as much as we are just accelerating the natural cycle, which isnt much better. Theres a misconception that our actions will be 100% permanent and i believe that not to be the case. But wtf do i know, im not a freaking scientist.

 

[rkelly1]

so does it stop?

 

[BPT747]

Wow, so many misconseptions about Hydrogen, almost all of the ones I have heard in a single forum.

lets just say this, Hydrogen is not ecofriendly. It is so inefficient to make, that even a 100% efficient hydrogen vehicle cannot come close to making up for it.

 

[xrodney]

[citation][nom]cheepstuff[/nom]kinda funny, guess where the hydrogen fuel comes from?petroleum!I don't want to sound like one of those fanatic trolls, but imo no one should look forward to paying for this vehicle, no matter how safe Toyota makes it.[/citation]
I was sure that hydrogen coming from water as it is H2O and using electrolysis or other processes you separate hydrogen and oxygen.

 

[Silmarunya]

Nice.

1) $50.000 for what is essentially a slightly commercially viable prototype sure isn't bad. What did the first explosion engine cars cost when they were first released? I think a lot more if today's price are adjusted to today's...

2) Hydrogen is actually environmentally friendly, assuming the electrolysis is powered by renewable energy sources like solar or wind energy (or nuclear, which is clean but not renewable).

3) In densely populated areas, hydrogen and electrical cars are enormously useful. The air in urban areas isn't exactly pleasant compared, take smog for example. If cars would no longer release pollutants (or, if the water electrolysis is powered through fossil fuels, a long distance away from that city), cities will be better places to live...

 

[techd2]

Honda already has one: http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QZLKcGkA-s

http/automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/

 

[Guest]

Yeah I read this on insideline. Apparently they believe people will be willing to pay the premium... Hopefully with some technological advances everyone will be able to afford a hydrogen car.