Hydrogen fuel cell cars

Hydrogen fuel cells are widely used in forklift trucks and for power backup in data centers. The reason for their popularity, in contrast to lead-acid batteries is that they last longer (8 hours instead of 2 hours), require no recharging, can discharge energy faster, and their price is becoming competitive. 

In June 2008, Honda started the production of its FCX Clarity (a sleeker version of its Accord) which runs on hydrogen and provides a driving range of 280 miles, a mileage of 78 mpg of gasoline-equivalent hydrogen, and an 

Post-Oil Energy Technology After the Age of Fossil Fuels 

Oxygen from the air and hydrogen combine in the fuel cells to generate electricity that is sent to the traction invertor module 

The traction invertor module converts the electricity for use by the electric motor/transaxle 

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A well-designed hydrogen fuel cell car should be safer than a natural gas or a gasoline car in collisions in open spaces. 

In Albany, NY, the state government started leasing Honda FCX hydrogen fuel cell cars on a cold November morning. Previous fuel cell vehicle demonstration programs have occurred in warmer areas to ensure that the fuel cell stacks would not freeze up. Subzero temperatures can change any liquid water present into expanding ice crystals that can puncture thin membranes or crack water lines. Honda has demonstrated that their fuel cell units can operate under winter conditions, this was an important achievement for practical fuel cell cars. 

This calculation is based on hydrogen fuel-cell cars with a hydrogen consumption of 26 kWh/100 km, gasoline or diesel cars with a consumption of 51/100 km and a refinery efficiency of 90%. In addition, - parity is assumed. 

The higher prices of cars, which is balanced by subsidies, has two impacts in ASTRA first, car manufacturers increase their revenues and output, compared with BAU, and second, a few other sectors that manufacture significant shares of the fuel cell also benefit. HyWays estimates that about one third of a car s price is related to the drive train. For hydrogen-fuel-cell cars, out of this one third about 30% is assumed to be provided by the chemical sector and 40% by the electronics sector in ASTRA. The remaining 30% is still manufactured by the vehicle sector. Hence, the according shares of demand for H2 fuel-cell vehicles are shifted from the vehicles sector, which before produced 100% of the drive train, to the chemicals and electronics sectors, respectively. This affects the sectoral final demand and the input-output table calculations in ASTRA. 

Ross, D.K. (2006). Hydrogen storage The major technological barrier to the development of hydrogen fuel cell cars. Vacuum, 80 (10), 1084-1089. 

The hydrogen fuel cell car causes zero emissions of greenhouse gases or pollutants. (Courtesy of H2Gen Innovations, Inc.)... 

Hydrogen fuel cell cars are unlikely to achieve significant market penetration in this country by 2030. As discussed in the previous chapter, the infrastructure costs alone are likely to run into the hundreds of billions of dollars. Is there a way to jump-start the transition Could fuel cell cars really do double duty as mobile power plants, providing electricity to our homes and offices, as energy experts such as Amory Lovins have suggested These are the questions I examine in this chapter. 

Finally, for the hydrogen fuel cell car, the solar radiation to wind conversion-efficiency is taken as 100% (following arguments of Sorensen, 1996c), the wind turbine efficiency as 35%, the electrolysis efficiency as 80%, the fuel cell conversion efficiency as 55% and the rest as for methanol. The overall accumulated efficiencies are 1.4 x 10 for the methanol route and 0.054 for the wind-hydrogen route. 

However, the landscape is not yet dotted with hydrogen refueling stations. Current experimental users such as governmental institutions must have their own hydrogen refueling stations. Auto companies say there needs to be a consumer infrastmcture for the hydrogen fuel-cell cars before consumers will buy. On the other hand, possible developers of such hydrogen stations say that there needs to be a demand before the infrastmcture can form. 

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