Two days ago I talked about a hydrogen fueling station in Rochester, NY catching fire and this would mean that hydrogen haters would be coming out in droves. Over at Jalopnik there is an example of fanning the flames (so to speak) of the hydrogen haters (plus to be fair a few defenders) to come out and show their true colors over the safety of hydrogen fuel.
The hydrogen haters are showing their ignorance by talking about the Hindenburg explosion (of course). But also someone posted a picture of a nuclear explosion as well. Another person speaks of Hiroshima.
Yet, there is another person talking about hydrogen being stored at 1,000 psi in cars inside steel tanks prone to hydrogen embrittlement. It’s not hard to conceive that a small group of people are spreading misinformation and fear-mongering about hydrogen to move along their own agendas.
As an analogy, in this country 25-percent of the population believe that President Obama is a Muslim and a large percentage say he was born outside the U. S. This is due largely do to a small group of people spreading misinformation and fear-mongering.
Hydrogen has enough technical issues right now in regard to widespread rollout of cars. But, because of this kind of ignorance and fear being disseminated to the public, the largest hurdle for hydrogen cars may be education and public relations.
The hydrogen deniers and delayers have their own agendas to stall the spread of hydrogen vehicles and fueling stations and the example I’ve posted is just a microcosm of what hydrogen advocates must overcome in order to assure widespread public acceptance of H2.
By the way, in case you’re interested here are some videos of some traditional gasoline station related fires and explosions:
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
I guess you are having trouble as a comment I made before isn’t here. That is
a real shame. Truth is, these videos of gas station explosions are far worse than the video of the hydrogen station fire.
I don’t think explosions and fires are going to be very common with hydrogen.
If I’m not mistaken, there has to be the proper air/hydrogen mixture for hydrogen to explode where hydrogen likes to dissipate because it is lighter than air.
I still think metal hydrides and nonflammable liquids constitute things that need attention as potential ways to achieve increased safety. I wish Plasma Kinetics would come out with more detailed information and a prototype. Hydrogen on demand may reach a point where there is very little hydrogen
in tanks that can catch fire.