Hydrogen as a Fuel

This topic came up in another thread. Details of a fuel cell bus trial:

http://envirofuel.com.au/2007/01/23/perth-hydrogen-bus-trial-finished/

http://www.dpi.wa.gov.au/greentransport/19524.asp

That is interesting, Squizzy, I know you have mentioned it before. I am a little puzzled how the fuel cells generate the electricity for the electric motor. I assumed the hydrogen would be used to fuel a converted combustion engine. They would need a reasonable amount of power to drive a bus. The one positive to come out of rising fuel prices is that more money will hopefully be spent on cleaner and alternative fuels.

Rn'R.

and the bad news is we the consumers will have to pay for the development in our purchase price of whatever it is we decide to buy.

It's my understanding that most of the hydrogen available now is cracked from oil. Not sure how this is helping the overall situation. Yeah, I know, crack it with water electrolysis. What is being used to produce the electricity?

Orchard Ex said:

It's my understanding that most of the hydrogen available now is cracked from oil. Not sure how this is helping the overall situation. Yeah, I know, crack it with water electrolysis. What is being used to produce the electricity?

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I had heard that it is made from natural gas which we have a lot of but what will that due to the cost of heating homes?

the price is still going to go up because if heating with N/G was cheap then there would be something wrong and the oil and gas industry will not give anything away! They'll always say it is supply and demand which is making the cost go up.
I've heard you can also get hydrogen from coal via pressure. I watched a show on the History channel and it explained the process, and a good idea it seems you'd need a lot in order to address the demand. Coal seems to be in good demand and we have a lot of it for now.

Orchard Ex said:

It's my understanding that most of the hydrogen available now is cracked from oil. Not sure how this is helping the overall situation. Yeah, I know, crack it with water electrolysis. What is being used to produce the electricity?

Click to expand...

Exactly, hydrogen is not a fuel, its a storage medium. If we want to use NG or Coal as our fuel then why not just use it as Gas To Liquids or Coal To Liquids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_to_liquids
That way we don't have to pay for a huge infrastructure change to cryogenically store hydrogen.
BTW, CTL and GTL has been profitable for several years and produces great fuels with very high cetane (70-80) and octane (90-105) ratings.