AutoblogGreen

Since Hydrogen is made primarily from Natural Gas and will therefore keep us enslaved to the energy cartels who are desperately trying to force this inefficient fuel down our throats, the Fusion 999 should really be called the Fusion 666.

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Because electricity is made from pure magic, right?

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Because electricity is made from pure magic, right?
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Electricity can be made in a lot of different ways. Hydrogen can also. Where there is electricity, you can split water into hydrogen and oxygen. But that extra step adds inefficiency. There should be a streamlined path between generating electricity and moving the vehicle. I read a study not long ago that said that plugins are much more efficient than hydrogen fuel cells. The only advantage of hydrogen over batteries is the promise of fast refuelling.

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Interesting,

Hydrogen is the perfect alternative fuel, and with recent advances in conversion, it is only a matter of time before we see it become the economical alternative, as well as it is the pollution solution alternative. I commend Ford for bringing hydrogen into the mainstream of news, this will do far more for the industry than all the small under funded inventors combined. It is all about money, and if the gov. funded more hydrogen research, we wouldn't be in this foreign oil dependency situation which is bleeding us dry.

http://NanoDetonator.com

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Hydrogen is a big step but I dont see it in the near future. in the mean time improvements need to be made Hybrid vehicles and the area of alternative fuels. And dont forget the Diesel engines..

Would you all do me a favor and fill out a survey I am conducting for a projet. It concerns Hybrids
Just click on the link
http://yhybrid.wufoo.com/forms/hybrid-survey/

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The car is named the Ford Hydrogen Fusion 999, but some silly twit will get the wrong idea. "Fusion" is just a model name, the car runs on conventional hydrogen fuel cells, not nuclear fusion.

I mention this because the "nanodetonator" website (mentioned in post #4) is an elaborate scam promoting a phony "controlled hydrogen fusion" engine using "nanodetonator cartridges" that are supposed to replace the spark plugs in your car and "precisely fuse two atoms of hydrogen" using "Robinson Waves". The site is filled with elaborate nonsensical pseudoscientific bafflegab and tall tales to fool the gullible.

One of those tall tales is a supposed confirmation by Dr Edward Teller, that Dr. Teller had also invented the same fusion engine and had tried for years to get investor funding, but couldn't. Nonsense. Dr. Teller had many contacts in high places, including universities, the military, the Nuclear industry (GE, Westinghouse), and even President Reagan. If Dr. Teller had really invented a working fusion engine, he would have had no trouble getting all the funding he could ever want. The Military would certainly welcome such a power plant, they eagerly adapted nuclear reactors to ships and subs, and even tried nuclear aircrsft (failed due to excessive weight and safety concerns). Nope, it's all a lie, Dr. Teller never invented a working fusion engine. He certainly did not spend the last years of his life trying to fund this makebelieve fusion engine. Teller actually spent the last years of his life promoting Reagans "Star Wars" defense initiative.

They aren't actually selling these imaginary "nanodetonator cartridges", nor are they offering any demonstrations or photos or illustrations. No, they are selling "dealerships" to fools who think this will be the next "big thing". They promise to start shipping after they've gotten "sufficient funds" (in other words, enough to skip town and retire to some luzurious tax haven).

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@Bibb Baxter

I couldn't agree more.

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If Toyota attempted this it would receive front-page treatment and be lauded as a "brave example of technology marrying with American love of speed".

Since Ford is doing, it's called the "666".

The hypocrisy is jaw-dropping.

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Since the beginning of time most car innovations come from germany then the next year japanese imitate it then one more year and u.s imitate it too. A real dance in line. The germans invented fuel injection, plug over coil, electric fuelpump in the gas tank, abs breaking, etc. If they can break this habit i will buy from china or mexico or canada.

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Holy crap, they scrapped nearly everything from this car, and it only gets 7 mile range.

If they don't get any less than 0-60 in 3.9 seconds I'm gonna laugh :P

http://greyfalcon.net/electriccars2.png

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I won't be impressed unless it's below 3.5 since thats what the WrightSpeed clocks in at.

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Since Hydrogen is made primarily from Natural Gas and will therefore keep us enslaved to the energy cartels who are desperately trying to force this inefficient fuel down our throats, the Fusion 999 should really be called the Fusion 666.

Your ignorance is showing. Hydrogen can be derived from electrolyzing water from electricity generated by solar, wind or ocean wave/tidal motion, all of which have nothing to do with fossil fuels.
Storage of hydrogen or heliox in tanks is obsolete as we speak. Generating hydrogen on demand from adding water to an aluminum/gallium alloy generates tremendous amounts of hydrogen, which negates the need for storage. Nanotube technology allows storage of hydrogen at relatively low 1500 psi.
Read up on the subject before you comment. Don't just parrot the oil industry line. Thanks.

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There are lots of ways to make H2, but all are expensive and inefficient. The cheapest source of H2 is to react methane CH4 with steam H2O at high temperatures to produce H2 and CO2. That is why the oil companies and oil man Bush is pushing the "H2 economy" - they will be the ones selling the costly new fuel and they will be the main source of supply. Sorry, RS, you are the one parroting the oil company line.

The "AlGa water" reaction is an expensive process and not very efficient. It produces a large volume of gas, but H2 is very low density and that large volume has very little energy. It would be more efficient and a lot less expensive to use aluminum in an aluminum air fuel cell, and forget the wasteful H2 conversion step.

Carbon nanotube turn out to be poor at storing H2, unless "seeded" with metal atoms. The metal by itself is better at storing H2. Of course, "nanotubes" are the latest buzzword, so the H2 researchers just had to try it.

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Why do you say that all methods of making hydrogen are expensive and inefficient? You are wrong.

Any hydrocarbon (and biomass is basically hydrocarbon mass) can be gassified and the hydrogen extracted at high efficiency and relatively low cost.

DOE has proven less than $3.00/kg from natural gas. This is complete well to tank, including capital cost of the station, energy for compression, everything.

And efficient? How do you want to measure efficiency? Let's try CO2 efficiency:

The CO2/mile of a fuel cell vehicle running on hydrogen from natural gas that was compressed, stored, and trucked into place on a tube trailer is about 2/3 that of a Prius running on gasoline. This is also lower than an EV plugged into almost any electrical grid.

Don't attack blindly --> I challenge you to calculate the result, not quote some web resource. Here is a tool to use to calculate it:

http://www.transportation.anl.gov/software/GREET/

Could pure renewable EV be lower? Yes. But not on today's electrical grid, and not even on tomorrow's. You need to replace a lot of hardware before you have a low enough carbon grid where your EV is significantly less CO2 intensive than the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.

The automakers all know this, as do the academies of science, and most world governments (especially the ones who import a lot of oil, like Germany, Japan, India, China). That's why so much global R&D goes to it.

Thanks,

James

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If you're going to say that the hydrogen could use natural gas.

Then that same natural gas could be used to power natural gas power plants.

Furthermore, I don't trust the GREET model.
Wang's model consistantly has huge gaping flaws in it.

For instance, with biodiesel:
http://greyfalcon.net/n2o.png

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James: It isn't quite fair to compare a H2FC vehicle with H2 made from natural gas, to a Prius running on gasoline. The primary fuels are different, Natural Gas has a Hydrogen:Carbon ratio of about 3.8:1, pure methane 4:1, Gasoline about 2.25:1 Not suprisingly, for the same energy release, burning gasoline will produce twice the CO2. If a Prius were converted to run on natural gas, its carbon emissions would actually be slightly less than from the natural gas reformer for the H2FC car!

As for whether H2FC cars or EVs would end up with lower CO2 emissions, I'm afraid we have wildly competing calculations. Argonne, a government lab under orders to promote the Bush H2 agenda, will of course disagree with companies developing EVs. A lot depends on the assumptions made, and the figures used. Please note that with the continued increased use of renewables and clean nuclear, EVs will get cleaner and cause less CO2 release. H2, on the other hand, will always be primarily made from the cheapest source, which for the forseeable future means H2 made from natural gas or coal.

Sorry, DOE has not "proven less than $3.00/Kg", for H2 fram natural gas, rather, that is what they hope to achieve with mass production and a breakthrough or two in production methods. Current liquid H2 prices are around $10.00/Kg, about $8.00/Kg for compressed gas. Ford and GM are starting to back away from H2, both now plan a future with electric cars, with H2 fuel cells relegated to "range extender" use only. That is not too suprising, "electric fuel" costs much less per mile than H2, even if by some miracle they do manage to get the H2 price down to $3.00/Kg.

Sorry, no matter how you try to bend or twist it, the Electric Economy is cheaper, cleaner and more efficient than the H2 Economy. The future is electric.

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Let's think 2070 not 2007:
- Hydrogen permits US energy independence and security because it can be produced here;
- Hydrogen dramatically reduces pollution and green house gas emissions because it has no carbon, and the water vapor emitted naturally cycles back to the ground in rain;
- Hydrogen CAN be produced using renewable and eco-friendly processes without carbon...in 2007 natural gas use is common BUT "green" hydrogen at a market acceptable price is absolutely necessary, and will prevail;
- Hydrogen refueling is relatively quick and will allow extended trips that we all expect;
- Hydrogen can be produced using off-peak hydro-wind-thermo-nuclear etc. power and can be readily stored...off-peak electricity is not readily stored;
- Delivering hydrogen via tanker is now common and on-site production is in development. Who wants a high voltage power line in their back yard to service all the big city battery cars?;
- Anyone think that the battery-charging infrastructure can handle millions of recharges at the end of the work day, when today it can't handle a transient hot spell?
- When discussing efficiency of energy transfer, don't forget transmission losses in the power transmission system;
- Hydrogen is not preferred by the oil industry because they want to deliver energy using the methods they invested $ trillions in;
- Hydrogen will not be the only energy-carrier answer, but certainly batteries will only play a small role in 2070;
- If you think 2070 (63 years) is a lifetime away, remember that this week Woodstock was a mere 38 years ago!!!!
Can ya dig it?

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You folks agree on nothing!

You might as well us magnetically induced electricity from free universal energy sources like what Steron proposes with its Orbo technology:
http://www.steorn.com

Orbo is based upon the principle of time variant magneto-mechanical interactions. The core output from our Orbo technology is mechanical. This mechanical energy can be converted into electrical energy using standard generator technology either by integrating such technology directly with Orbo or by connecting the mechanical output from Orbo to the generation technology. The efficiency of such mechanical/electrical conversions is highly dependent on the components used and is also a function of size.

Orbo technology is subject to continuous development. This development is focused on improving the manufacturability of the technology, production costs and power density. Orbo was initially developed as using stop-start mechanisms (with a power density of 0.5 Watts per cm3), Steorn is currently finalizing the development of constant motion systems and a significant improvement in power density is anticipated.

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Let's think 2070 not 2007:
- Electricity permits US energy independence and security because it can be produced here.
- Electricity dramatically reduces pollution and green house gas emissions because it has no carbon, or any other emissions.
- Electricity CAN be produced using renewable and eco-friendly processes without carbon...in 2007 natural gas use is common BUT "green" Electricity at a market acceptable price is absolutely necessary, and will prevail.
- Electric refueling is convenient, the grid goes everywhere, and high speed charging or Zinc Air fuel cells or "electrified guideways" or 1,200 mile range Li-Air batteries will allow extended trips that we all expect.
- Electricity can be produced using hydro-wind-thermo-solar-nuclear etc. power and can be readily stored via batteries or pumped storage. H2 is extremely bulky and not easily or cheaply stored.
- Delivering Electricity via the high efficiency grid is now common, and on-site production is possible. Who wants thousands of high pressure H2 tankers clogging the streets to service all the H2 cars?
- Considering that electrolysis/fuel cells is much less efficient and takes 3 to 4 times as much electrical energy as charger/batteries, does anyone think that the electrical grid can supply enough power for all the H2 electrolysis infrastructure during peak summer traffic demand, when today it can't handle a transient hot spell?
- When discussing efficiency of energy transfer, don't forget the conversion losses in electrolyzer systems or the energy losses for compression or liquifaction, or the pumping losses in pipelines, or the leak losses;
- Electricity is not preferred by the oil industry because they want to deliver H2 fuel using the methods they invested $ trillions in;
- Electricity will not be the only energy-carrier answer, but certainly H2 will only play a very small role in 2070, perhaps as a range extender or rocket fuel.
- Do you think people in 2070 (63 years) will prefer the more expensive less efficient H2 option?
Can ya dig it?

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"Us Folks" don't agree on everything, but those of us who understand basic physics agree that Steorn and their "Orbo" is an elaborate hoax.

There is no development, as there is no actual working models to be developed. Not suprising, they can't build an actual working model of something that cannot possibly work. What we get from Steorn is a lot of self-promotion and hype, and endless excuses as to why they cannot deliver on their promises.

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The world according to Chris M...
Just Stay Home!

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