Hydrogen Toyota. is here

As for hydrogen as a fuel:

Scratching my head ... i don't see what all the fuss is about. It's just another gasseous fuel. Propane and LNG are commonly used as motor fuels today. Syn gas was was used by over a million cars & trucks in Europe during WW2 because gasoline wasn't available. Methane generated at sewage treatment plants is used to run large industrial pumps. Piped in "city gas" was carbon monoxide long before LNG ever came on the scene. Up until somewhat recently Ford used a mix of CO & H through the EGR valve to boost gasoline fuel mileage and lower combustion temperatures in their engines.

There seems to be an "all or nothing" mindset. We have an energy problem here in the states. We rely much too heavily on imported oil. Our best answer may be diversification. You know ... some gasoline, some diesel, some LNG/LPG, some hybrid electric. It's really not that outlandish to consider that hydrogen may play a part in the mix as well.

It all depends on what might make the most energy sense for a given region. We're a very big country and quite diverse.

Originally Posted by Scrappah

As for hydrogen as a fuel:

Scratching my head ... i don't see what all the fuss is about. It's just another gasseous fuel. Propane and LNG are commonly used as motor fuels today. Syn gas was was used by over a million cars & trucks in Europe during WW2 because gasoline wasn't available. Methane generated at sewage treatment plants is used to run large industrial pumps. Piped in "city gas" was carbon monoxide long before LNG ever came on the scene.

There seems to be an "all or nothing" mindset. We have an energy problem here in the states.

You make a good point and it goes with what I say about these things being more of a PR and grants raising exercise than anything else.

Here in Oz we have loads of gas that we export by the Kilotonne yet just over 3% of our vehicle fleet is powered by gas. In fairness, the low number is somewhat slighted by the fact the main users are also some of the heaviest road users. We have Government busees powered by natural gas and Nearly every taxi in the cities along with a lot of delivery vans, utes and light trucks as well as some heavy vehicles use it in a " Fumigation" setup where diesel is supplemented by LPG. There is a company near me that run heavy Container carrying trucks which I suspect have diesel engines converted to spark ignition because I see them all the time and they are definitely running LPG and I'm not aware of any truck that size coming out with a Petrol motor here.

The fact we already have a gas distribution network in place as well as an abundant supply of LPG AND Natural gas that is an energy source in itself, not an energy storage medium like Hydrogen again makes my wonder exactly what is the benefit of Hydrogen today??
And that is something most people Miss, Hydrogen is not a fuel per se, it is merely and energy storage medium. It does not occur naturally in useable, harvestable qtys and requires significant energy input to be derived form other raw materials. I don't think industrial Hydrogen is produced by electrolisis, I think its' made from natural gas at the present time so it's merely a poor efficiency use of a fossil fuel anyway. Much better to use that fossil fuel in it's rawest form practical that to convert it into something else.

The thing of developing future technology's is complete and utter crap. You don't develop impractical technologies for the time that will have low unit sales rates and huge development costs as a viable product especially in something like the automotive industry UNLESS there is a back end to it like beings seen to be doing something or cashing in on some back end like a grant, subsidy or credit of some sort.
The other thing is you don't need to put a thousands of vehicles on the road to test technologies these days. You can use computer modeling to get you at least 95% of the way there and you certainly don't need to put a hydrogen car on the road to realize the problems of not only fueling it but a few million of the things. There have been some developments in Natural gas fueled vehicles but next to no takup because of the difficulty and expense of pressurising the gas to high levels because it cannot be practicaly Liquified so must be highly pressurized to get some range out of a reasonable tank size. As well as short range there is also something like an 8 hour fill time on the tanks thanks to the high filling pressure. This is the same as with Hydrogen only you have additional problems of making the gas rather than it being already made and just needing to be captured and transported and the fact Hydrogen is an extremely small molecule which makes it very difficult to seal properly and is prone to leakage unless expensive fittings are used.

As far as I can see If you are going to go to the bother of Hydrogen for all it's practical limitations especially on range, then you would be a lot better off to go electric and take out one inefficiency of energy conversion, storage and of course the biggest one, Distribution. You can Find a power socket anywhere and with a battery pack replacement setup, "refueling" would take care of long charge times. Again, much easier and cheaper to setup a distribution network for electric cars than Hydrogen fuel.

One other Huge problem I see with a hydrogen fuel system is Ingrained ignorance. People are afraid of gas. They think it's dangerous, an explosion waiting to happen and generally completely misinformed about it. People think LPG cars are like bombs because they will blow up in an accident yet while I'm sure that is a possibility the same as petrol cars explode all the time, I am yet to hear of it happening. Trying to convince people that get nervy around a 9KG BBQ gas bottle @ maybe 120 PSI and trying to convince them that an "exotic" fuel like hydrogen compressed to 500 or 1000+ pse and having 120L of it is safe is something that I think would be enough to make most marketing people go look for a job in something easier like the tobacco industry on a " Smoking is good for you" Campaign.

Ideally you would want to localize the product to suit the local conditions. Like Brazil which grow a lot of their fuel from sugar, you want to take into account the natural resources. It would be a lot more practical for isntance to run vehicles in Oz on gas because we have shiploads of it. You could also go electric because we have loads of sunshine but don't get me started on the problems of solar farms. Now neither of thiese things would be particularly practical in Japan for instance where they have no natural resources to speak of nor much land. Maybe they have plenty of rainfall and hydro power could be stepped up or the best thing for them is to stick to oil for the foreseeable future till something like tidal power becomes viable.
In places Like NZ which have an availability of geothermal power, that could be utilized for electric vehicles and so on.
Rather than a blanket energy base like we have now, we could look at it more like food where local diet is based largely on what is available locally.

The one thing to remember is, ATM there is NO remotely viable alternative to oil. The amount we consume every day makes everything else impossible to substitute and even if we roll all the alternatives into one, we still come up very short.
The ONLY possible answer is not to do with energy per say but population and that is that we have to stop the population explosion of the earth and change economic models from ones of growth to sustainability.

I'm not a Scientist or Physicist or have any real knowledge of energy production and consumption and that's actually a big part of the problem with nearly all new/ alternative fuel ideas. Just the work I have done for a master of Business degree over the last 2 years gives me a heads up to a heap of problems that would make these things completely and utterly non viable just from an economic stand point. It's not just about the dollars even. With something like this you have a Myriad of issues like product liability, Warrantee ( and we are not talking taking your new toaster than broke thing that most people understand it to be but the real business warantee potential problems) user education, service and technical support and so it goes.

I'm sure more educated people in other fields would also be able to drive holes in the concept not to knock it down or dismiss it but real and presently insurmountable problems why it would be impossible to implement for probably decades to come.

Hydrogen ATM is nothing more than a feelgood, be seen to care, pretend to love the environment, keep the green washed and rabble rousers happy, Joke basically.
You seriously may as well be pitching flying cars or personal transportation Submarines because they are just as pie in the sky and impractical for the forseeable future.