[Guest]

I have been asked by a local college give a lecture on Hybrids & fuel cells to there engineering students, anyone got any usefull info they can mail on to me so I can compile something interesting.

It will take the form of a short talk from me followed by a Q & A session, I have approached Honda with no luck at all so far.

 

[clett]

The Insight already produces far less CO2 overall (well-to-wheels) than the Honda fuel cell vehicles, so might be worth including that. Search this site for the thread on it if you're interested.

 

[Guest]

That is until we can find more efficient ways of producing Hydrogen. e.g. from renewable energy sources.

 

[Guest]

I was wondering about things like how much energy was required to make 1 gal petrol say 40 years ago against todays energy requirements to make 1 gal.

And how much energy to make 1 kg hydrogen.

All things I'll be quizzed about.

 

[Dgate]

Mark Elvin wrote:
I have been asked by a local college give a lecture on Hybrids & fuel cells to there engineering students


Better you than me Mark,you will probably get a real grilling for sure.
You would think as engineering students they would know more than us about future technology but maybe not have the experience of actually running a Hybrid.
Think I would concentrate on the here and now facts of todays Hybrids of which you have first hand experience and let them do their own research into hydrogen.
Just an opinion.

DGate

 

[Guest]

No, they want some info on hydrogen also.

It looks like it's the college ECO group I'll be talking to.

 

[boogetyboogety]

Hydrogen cars? Hah!

Most people think of H as the end-all and be-all of our energy demands. "If we only had hydrogen-powered cars! Water for exhaust! Unlimited supplies of fuel!"

We're talking about the most abundant element in the universe. But it's also one of the most reactive elements. It sticks to other elements, and it's tough to separate from the other element without using a great deal of energy. And where will we find that energy?

In case you missed it, check out a sobering article by Patrick Bedard of Car and Driver, published a year or so ago, so you'll have a few bullet points to use:

http://www.caranddriver.com/columns/997 ... edard.html

Good luck! You should be commended for wanting to address engineering students, and to share with them your hybrid experiences.

 

[clett]

That is until we can find more efficient ways of producing Hydrogen. e.g. from renewable energy sources.

When you make hydrogen from renewable electricity (as is often proposed), the most efficient electrolysis set-ups can provide 1 kg of hydrogen per 60 kilowatt-hours of input electricity.

Today's best fuel cell vehicles can go 60 miles on 1 kg of H2, so from the original renewable electricity, that's 1 mile travelled per kWh of original wind/solar electricity.

However, hydrogen proponents neglect to point out that electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) already go 4-5 miles per kWh on electricity.

So going the roundabout way of using hydrogen in vehicles instead of using the electricity directly means you would need 4 - 5 times as many wind turbines to run an H2 fleet as you would for an EV or PHEV fleet. Hydrogen is just about the least efficient way of storing electricity/energy and the laws of thermodynamics indicate that this won't change by much at any stage in the future.

 

[Rick]

I got a tour of the local hydrogen refueling station about a month ago durring an open house the local power company, APS, had at their solar generating facility. This is supposedly the station that has done the most hydrogen refuelings thus far. Their electrolyzer they said wasn't the newest or most efficient, but it takes about 80 kwh to crack and compress 1kg of hydrogen. They sell it for $2.50 a kg (local electric rate is about .10 a kwh so if you made it yourself it'd be $8.00 a kg). Then they said you get about 56kwh out of it (this is from memory, but I was paying attention). IIRC he said the newer more efficient electrolyzers can make a kg of H2 from about 60kwh. I'm not sure if that included the energy it takes to purify (probably distill) the city tap water or not though.

I hate to say it, but that just looks so horrible compared to my electric Saturn conversion which uses less than 200 watt-hours/mile out of the pack and less than 250 watt-hours/mile out of the outlet.

What was nice about the location is they also sell CNG and hydrogen CNG mixes, it's open to the public durring business hours and you can simply "pay at the pump" with a credit card unlike a lot of other alt fuel refueling places where you have to get their special card.

Here's what I could find about it:
http://www.aps.com/my_community/FutureFuels/FF_1.html
http://69.88.104.123/
They didn't allow us to take pictures unfortunately, but you see most of it in the pictures there.

 

[Insightful Trekker]

Mark,

If you haven't already you can probably glean some interesting information, RE: The Insight, from its engineering white paper here:

Sticky: F.A.Q.: IMA and Insight Design Concepts White Paper
http://www.insightcentral.net/forum/vie ... php?t=3174

HTH!