It’s not often that I blog more than once a day. In fact, I can count on one finger how many times I’ve done it. But, this story is so significant that it can’t wait until Monday.
A company called Global Hydrogen, Incorporated has created breakthrough technology that lowers the price of compressed hydrogen gas to $2.47 per kilogram (a kilogram is the same as a gallon). So, the next time you fuel up your gasoline or diesel vehicle at over $4 or $5 per gallon, think of how hydrogen car drivers can fuel up for about half of that price.
Now, add to this fact, that most hydrogen cars get far superior gas mileage to begin with. Take for instance the Honda FCX Clarity that uses 4 kilograms of hydrogen to power the vehicle for 270 miles. This means the vehicle gets 67.5 mpg equivalent. And, at a cost of $2.47 per gallon equivalent, the total price is $9.88.
When is the last time you were able to fill up your car, travel 270 miles for under $10? Was it in the 1960s or 1970s?
The proprietary Global Hydrogen system uses water, a special electrolytic solution and electrode construction plus electrolysis to create hydrogen cheaply from water. Efficiencies of 90-percent have been reported.
It is this kind of breakthrough technology that will spur the development of more hydrogen fueling stations and home hydrogen fueling stations as well.
Now, that hydrogen is not just a little cheaper than gasoline, but way cheaper, expect consumers to start clamoring and bugging their political representatives for more hydrogen fueling stations to be built. I know I have. I’ve been bugging my state and federal representatives lately. I encourage you to do the same. If enough people clamor for change, then the states and federal bodies cannot help but take notice.
And the representative who does take notice, in turn will be noticed themselves for bringing fresh new green ideas to the forefront. And, in the end this will benefit us all.
I’m happy to see a racing competition using this technology. This will help advance the technology and improve public awareness. Of all the alternative fueling options for transportation, this one has the most promise as it doesn’t compete with human or animal food supplies. It’s nice these cut the price of fueling in half but how much more does a hydrogen vehicle cost at the moment? When I was in college, technology magazines predicted that all analog communications would go digital. It took about 20 years to accomplish that so I imagine it will take at least that long to bring the cost of a hydrogen vehicle down closer to that of gasoline powered vehicles provided groups like yours keep up the good work.
If you read a couple of earlier post, you’ll see what I have to say about hydrogen car timeframes.
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/hydrogen-cars/hydrogen-car-timelines-confuse-rather-than-enlighten/
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/hydrogen-cars/eerc-says-hydrogen-cars-ready-in-4-to-5-years/
Hi Kevin. You seem pretty excited about hydrogen cars. What actually caught my attention is your question. When was the last time I was able to fill up my car and travel 270 miles for under $10? So maybe I’ll answer that question first. Well, it wasn’t in 60’s or 70’s as you suggested. I was born in 1975, and moved to the USA from Russia in 1993. And the last time I was able to drive 270 miles on $10 was in January of 2002. The car I drove was Mitsubishi Mirage 1999 that gets 31 MPG combined. The gas was $1.13 per gallon. So if you do the math I would get 8.85 gallons for $10, 8.85 * 31 = 274 miles. Some people got more miles out of their cars, for example Chevy Metro 1998 gets 40 MPG combined. You could drive that car for 354 miles on $10.
It would be nice if it was as easy as opening your water tap and filling up your hydrogen car. Unfortunately there is no natural supply of hydrogen found on Earth. The problem is that it takes a lot of energy to produce hydrogen as a fuel. A good article on that issue is found here. http://www.mb-soft.com/public2/hydrogen.html
And this is where I get my numbers for MPG estimates and gas prices (all government websites)
Gas prices:
Mirage MPG:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=mpgData&vehicleID=14898&browser=true&details=on
Metro MPG:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/mpg/MPG.do?action=mpgData&vehicleID=14064&browser=true&details=on
Yes, you are correct about the price of gasoline. It hit a peak around 1982, then dropped back down again.
As far as taking a lot of energy to produce hydrogen from water, most critics say this based upon running an electrical current through pure water with no electrolyte added. Here’s a section of the blog that talks about cheap hydrogen production.
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/category/hydrogen-fuel-production/
As far as the critic you quote, it’s hard to take him seriously when he hasn’t done his homework. The website was last updated on 04/06/2008 and he makes this statement.
“Yes, Hydrogen can be demonstrated in experimental vehicles, and they can have impressive acceleration and speed. But that’s with a rather small Hydrogen tank aboard. If you ever see an impressive demonstration like that of a Hydrogen powered vehicle, make sure to ask how long that vehicle could continue to perform like that. The answer is certain to be no more than a few minutes at most.”
The new Honda FCX Clarity that is just rolling out for lease has a range of 270 miles. The Toyota FCHV has a range of over 500 miles.
Everyone, it may be easy to produce hydrogen from water, but it still takes energy First there is the 33.3 kwhr/kg in the hydrogen itself. then there the electrolysis efficiencies (90-percent is highly unrealist but let assume its true) that adds 3.3 Kwhr then there the compression energy of around 3 kwHr/kg so now we are looking at 40Kwhr/kg of electricity. Unless your paying 6 cents per Kilowatt hour for your electricity $2.47 is immpossible. I currently pay 15 cents a kilowatt hour so that would mean it would cost me $6.00 a kilogram, provided I could get anywhere near the 90 % efficiency, And with the going green movement electricity will get more expensive Hydrogen may have a lot of postives, but lets not engage in pipe dreams. The facts is Hydrogen fuel will be expensive compared to the cheap gas of yester year. The hydrogen is nothing more than a battery, it will always take energy to produce, compress, and store it. Another fact, if California were to substitute hydrogen for gasoline, it would take over 4 times today electricity demand to make that hydrogen.
I guess you’ll have to quote that $6 per kilogram to the people in Irvine, California who are paying $4.99 per kilogram. See the photos at this link:
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/hydrogen-filling-station-irvine-ca/
While you’re at it tell the people in Chicago about this who are paying $3.49 per kilogram for hydrogen:
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/hydrogen-distribution/illinois-opens-first-hydrogen-fueling-station-today/
Your last statement is also flawed in a couple of ways. “Another fact, if California were to substitute hydrogen for gasoline, it would take over 4 times today electricity demand to make that hydrogen.”
First, cite your source. Second, substituting hydrogen for gasoline is not an apples for apples switch. Cars like the Honda FCX Clarity get 67.5 mpg equivalent as opposed to the average US car at the CAFÉ standard of 27.5 mpg. This means less hydrogen will have to be produced and fewer H2 fueling stations will need to be built to support hydrogen cars.
First I am not going to get in to an arguement on what ever price the hydrogen is being sold at. Most of the facilities that I know of there is no price. There may be a price on display but that not the cost it just for giggles. The cost of the hydrogen is being subsidize by various governmental programs designed to promote hydrogen use. So I am sure if you are being charged a price it is not market price for 99.999% pure hydrogen that the fuel cells require. By the way here in Sacramento we do not pay a cent for the hydrogen used in our fuel cell vehicle, so am I to assume that hydrogen is free…..
Second, You are right the current fleet of fuel cell vehicles do get better fuel economy than the average Car. But I think that if you wanted to you could by a car with a 50+ mpg rating and I do not think its a million bucks. As to price of people buying them for less refer to the subsidize government programs. Maybe we should pass a law requiring everyone to drive 50cc mopeds with in a city
Thirdly, I was wrong about my figure of 4 time the electricity used today July 31 2008 to produce the hydrogren needed to replace the 42,000,000 million gallons of gasoline. I quicky did the calculation and did not check the details. I apologize for the error I rushed my calculation
so here is my new calculation based on today Cal ISO figures and a rough figure of 42,000,000 gallons of gasoline used from the California Petroleum Watch and an unrealist 100% efficiency and fuel cell cars that go 110 mpg equivalent Today Cal ISO reported a miminum of 24,000 Mw demand and a max of close to 39,000 Mw . With a rough aveage of 31,000 Mw per hour. This translates into 744,000,000 kw-hr/day. With an ultra unrealist cost of 36 kwhr/kg we can produce aproximately 20,000,000 kg of hydrogen. That mean it would take all the electricity used today by Cal ISO. Now this calculation was not ment to imply that all hydrogen will be produce from electricity. Far from it. Most hydrogen will be produced from natural gas. But then why do not we just compress natural gas and use it. Or we can even switch to GTL diesel. it a lot easier pumping a liquid fuel than handling a 10,000 psi gas.
My point was that the hydrogen community has the public beliving that hydrogen will solve their gasoline crisss, because you can make hydrogen from water…. The fact is hydrogen has a role to play in providing transportation fuel, we need to continue to develop the technology, but if we promise the public a pie in the sky, they may believe it for a while but sooner or later the hard facts will hit them and the pie will be in our faces. That is my point, we need to be realistic in our visions, As I said before no transportation fuel will be cheaper than cheap gasoline of the past
It’s hard to argue costs of production when there are so many different ways now being developed. I have 77 posts now about the variety of ways hydrogen can be produced.
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/category/hydrogen-fuel-production/
Also, you’re leaving out home hydrogen fueling stations in development that will use electricity from the grid during off-peak hours to run the generators. Also, solar, wind, geothermal, and other renewable energy sources may be used to cut down on costs. In addition, some of the hydrogen fueling stations in existence are also powered by solar such as this one in Las Vegas:
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/hydrogen-distribution/solar-powered-hydrogen-fueling-station-dedicated-in-las-vegas/
Larry Burns of GM estimates that because of mass production, once 1 million fuel cell vehicles have been produced they will cost the same as their gasoline counterparts.
True, we could all buy a gasoline-powered car with a minimum 50+ mpg rating but we haven’t and we don’t. What would it be like if all new cars on the road had a 50+ mpg rating to start with? This would mean less fuel needed and fewer fueling stations.
I think that CNG could be transitional technology for hydrogen cars.
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/hydrogen-distribution/will-cng-infrastructure-be-transitional-for-hydrogen-cars/
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/infrastructure/can-hydrogen-and-cng-be-companion-flex-fuels-of-the-future/
CNG or diesel are still not zero emission vehicles, however, so hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are still a cleaner option.
I agree that cheap oil is a thing of the past, which is why we need to develop alternative fuel vehicles now. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are not a solution for high gas prices this year or next year. I’ve talked about timelines in this past post:
https://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/index.php/hydrogen-cars/hydrogen-car-timelines-confuse-rather-than-enlighten/
I also agree that overpromising leads to disappointment. But who has been promising hydrogen fuel cell cars as a quick fix for oil prices now? We still need to take action, however, developing cheap production methods of hydrogen and cars. I’ve said in the past the hydrogen fuel cell cars will be part of an overall picture of alternative fuel vehicles, sharing space in the future with electric cars, PHEV’s, CNG vehicles and those that run on biofuels.
i need fuel rates wat is the suitable website?
We should transfer to a hydrogen economy that runs all the trains , trucks &cars.imagine if all postal vehicles,delivery.local & state governments produced their own fuels?Imagine if it was used for homeheating?/ .It would be a huge boon in our bottom line to get away from the filth & pollution of oil & the advantages of exhaust that to produce it &then leaves water in its wake.imagine the western states that have been going through droughts.Water added to those areas would help change that .These dolts that persist in their attitude of it Not being possible are dinosaurs set to go through an extinction soon.