So how far away do you think practical fuel cells really are?

[Ghoste]

Some program was on tonight and the talking head was predicting in the next ten years we'll be driving them all over the place.  I've been hearing the "in the next ten years" line now for about 20 years so how long do you think it will be?

[A383Wing]

with my age being in the "high 50's"....I don't see it happening in my lifetime

Bryan

[Mike DC]

I don't know how much it really matters. 

Fuel cells aren't a power source, they are only a storage medium.  Changing your money into a different currency does not make up for an insufficient salary. 

[Ghoste]

A storage cell that uses a completely different fuel and powers a completely different motor. 

[NHCharger]

I'm still waiting for the jet packs they promised us 40+ years ago.

[Ghoste]

Yes, along with atomic cars and atomic home appliances.

[Daytona R/T SE]

Flying cars... 

They promised us flying cars...

[A383Wing]

Flying cars... 

They promised us flying cars...

the duke boys had one, or more, but they weren't perfected...seemed to crash a lot

[Ghoste]

The flying was fine, so was the takeoff.  It was the range and the landing they needed to work on.

[c00nhunterjoe]

I've had a "fuel cell" in mine for years.... 

[Silver R/T]

As long as there's OPEC it won't happen.

[Ghoste]

Less about replacing the current system but more about the advancement of the technology though, does anyone see the development of a PRACTICAL hydrogen fuel cell in ten years?

[A383Wing]

doubt it...cost is still way high, nobody can afford it the way economy is

[Mike DC]

                    

I'm not sure what a "practical hydrogen fuel cell" means in this discussion.  


If it works, then it does what, store electricity?  We can do that now with batteries.  Battery tech sucks but small onboard gas/diesel generators will fix that for our vehicle fleet.  We're taking our sweet time coming around to the obvious conclusion that this is the way to build electric cars but I think this debate will settle out over time.  The artificial subsidies, favors, incentives, popularities, public misperceptions . . . all this bullshit will only disguise the raw economics of the situation for so long.    



Raw hydrogen has a lot of power but the stuff does not naturally exist in its unbonded state much on earth.  If we want XXX amount of power in the form of hydrogen then we have to use XXX amount of power by some other process to create the raw hydrogen first.  It's changing currency, not creating wealth.  The real core (economic) problem with fossil fuels is that we are running out of the cheap easy stuff.  Switching to something else even less cheap & easy than the tougher FFs is not a real step forward.  

FFs have environmental problems but switching to Hydrogen just moves the smokestacks around.  The power used to create the hydrogen is gonna come from the same dirty sources we currently use.  Switching away from burning FFs in each individual vehicle in favor of hydrogen would make a lot of Greenies very happy but only because they don't understand the true long term big picture.  (And the Greenies are not exactly controlling the USA's energy policy, no matter what Fox News would have people believe.)  I'm sure the govt would gladly throw some token millions of dollars around to fund hydrogen car development just because it's something other than FF vehicles.  But the economics of it don't scale up well IMHO. 
       
   

[ws23rt]

                   

I'm not sure what a "practical hydrogen fuel cell" means in this discussion.  


If it works, then it does what, store electricity?  We can do that now with batteries.  Battery tech sucks but small onboard gas/diesel generators will fix that for our vehicle fleet.  We're taking our sweet time coming around to the obvious conclusion that this is the way to build electric cars but I think this debate will settle out over time.  The artificial subsidies, favors, incentives, popularities, public misperceptions . . . all this bullshit will only disguise the raw economics of the situation for so long.    



Raw hydrogen has a lot of power but the stuff does not naturally exist in its unbonded state much on earth.  If we want XXX amount of power in the form of hydrogen then we have to use XXX amount of power by some other process to create the raw hydrogen first.  It's changing currency, not creating wealth.  The real core (economic) problem with fossil fuels is that we are running out of the cheap easy stuff.  Switching to something else even less cheap & easy than the tougher FFs is not a real step forward.  

FFs have environmental problems but switching to Hydrogen just moves the smokestacks around.  The power used to create the hydrogen is gonna come from the same dirty sources we currently use.  Switching away from burning FFs in each individual vehicle in favor of hydrogen would make a lot of Greenies very happy but only because they don't understand the true long term big picture.  (And the Greenies are not exactly controlling the USA's energy policy, no matter what Fox News would have people believe.)  I'm sure the govt would gladly throw some token millions of dollars around to fund hydrogen car development just because it's something other than FF vehicles.  But the economics of it don't scale up well IMHO. 
       
   

Well said and it gets to the bottom line about hydrogen. It is abundant in water but water is a tough nut to crack.
All the FFs we use came from solar power and if we start grabbing too much of that to use instead it would cause global cooling. There are those that complain about the impact caused when solar panel farms block out the sun and upset the ecosystem below.
There is much energy in the earth below our feet but it is a sure thing that there will be those that come up with a way to show earth core cooling will cause earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. ( It will at least cause cancer)
The real problem is people are the only unnatural and disgusting life form on earth. By far the worst green house gas is water vapor and we exhale large amounts of that. (we give off others too). Everything we do upsets this place. What a paradise it would be without us.
Nuclear fusion (the power of the sun) can crack water to get hydrogen but several generations of flat earth thinking people need to get out of the way.

[Mytur Binsdirti]

Fuel cells; are you kidding? This administration is going balls to the wall ramming 19th century technology down our throats; choo-choo trains for transportation and windmills to power everything.   

[Budnicks]

Flying cars... 

They promised us flying cars...

[Budnicks]

Fuel cells; are you kidding? This administration is going balls to the wall ramming 19th century technology down our throats; choo-choo trains for transportation and windmills to power everything.   

Amen Brother 

[Budnicks]

Until we have an infrastructure, too support them investing into Hydrogen Fuel Cells technology or making Hydrogen a viable source of fuel, for the masses, it wont happen except MAYBE ONLY on a very limited basis in Ubber-Liberal places like NY or SF maybe LA... IMHFO Oil Companies don't have any incentive to change production or distribution, why would or should they ??....    We've been promised so much in my lifetime, that we will never probably ever see in mass production... 100+mpg, Cars that run on Water, Flying cars, Hovercars, Rocket packs, Hydrogen Power, a really good electric Battery Powered car {other than a Golf Cart}, efficient Solar Power that actually works like they claim it can without having to replace batteries & inverters all the time...   there's no real incentive to change from fossil fuels or internal combustion engines, unless some dumba$$ govt. politicians try to push it down our collective throats & ONLY because they will profit of it...

[A383Wing]

[ws23rt]

Until we have an infrastructure, too support them investing into Hydrogen Fuel Cells technology or making Hydrogen a viable source of fuel, for the masses, it wont happen except MAYBE ONLY on a very limited basis in Ubber-Liberal places like NY or SF maybe LA... IMHFO Oil Companies don't have any incentive to change production or distribution, why would or should they ??....    We've been promised so much in my lifetime, that we will never probably ever see in mass production... 100+mpg, Cars that run on Water, Flying cars, Hovercars, Rocket packs, Hydrogen Power, a really good electric Battery Powered car {other than a Golf Cart}, efficient Solar Power that actually works like they claim it can without having to replace batteries & inverters all the time...   there's no real incentive to change from fossil fuels or internal combustion engines, unless some dumba$$ govt. politicians try to push it down our collective throats & ONLY because they will profit of it...

I agree as well. The dumba$$ govt. keeps thinking they have the answers to what we need. They need to wake up and look at their job description.
We the consumer know what we want and are willing to make it work. The gov. is not our mom. Their job is to protect us from outsiders not from ourselves.

[TooMuchTime]

First off, the only true clean energy is nuclear energy. If you think it is the bogeyman of energy, read this article. Remember that both France and Japan get much of their electricity from nuclear because they don't want to be beholden to the Middle East for oil. We have vast reserves of coal, shale, and oil in the United States. Trust me, we are NOT running out and neither is the rest of the world. We were told that in the 1970s we would run out of oil by the turn of the century. There is still plenty of oil in the world.

Yes, we can make hydrogen from water and there is a lot of water on this planet. All of the water that has ever existed on this planet is here now. It is a closed system. So when someone says, "Don't waste that water," I know that it is impossible to waste water. No matter what I do with a bottle of water, it will become part of the water cycle. The molecules of water you are drinking right now from a plastic bottle could have been spilled on the deck of a Roman galley headed to the Holy Land in the first century. It's the water cycle. However, that doesn't mean we can just start pulling hydrogen from water. If for no other reason than the oxygen released will end up in our atmosphere. CO2 is beneficial to the plants so there's little problem with it. Too much oxygen could devastate the flora of this planet.

The problem is solar power and batteries. Well, the problem is to get them to work more efficiently. Battery technology has changed but it hasn't seen the breakthrough needed to take it to the next level. In fact, electric cars of 100 years ago got the same distance from a full charge as the electric cars of today. If someone can figure out how to get a battery to store a month's worth of electricity for home use, you could kiss fossil fuels goodbye.

I'm not sure fuel cells are the answer either. The only thing I am concerned about is the gov't killing one industry (coal) because of a fairy tale belief in another (wind). If the alternative energy is worthwhile, the free market will see that and the investments will roll in. When the gov't props up an industry artificially using tax money, there is less capital to invest in what truly works. If the gov't makes driving cars with internal combustion engines prohibitive, without a suitable replacement, it will be bad for everyone concerned. Not to mention the tax base.

Just don't take away what is working now because there is some flawed "science" that says it's bad. If something is no longer a viable means of energy, it will be tossed aside as newer means take its place. That is the free market at work.

[ws23rt]

First off, the only true clean energy is nuclear energy. If you think it is the bogeyman of energy, read this article. Remember that both France and Japan get much of their electricity from nuclear because they don't want to be beholden to the Middle East for oil. We have vast reserves of coal, shale, and oil in the United States. Trust me, we are NOT running out and neither is the rest of the world. We were told that in the 1970s we would run out of oil by the turn of the century. There is still plenty of oil in the world.

Yes, we can make hydrogen from water and there is a lot of water on this planet. All of the water that has ever existed on this planet is here now. It is a closed system. So when someone says, "Don't waste that water," I know that it is impossible to waste water. No matter what I do with a bottle of water, it will become part of the water cycle. The molecules of water you are drinking right now from a plastic bottle could have been spilled on the deck of a Roman galley headed to the Holy Land in the first century. It's the water cycle. However, that doesn't mean we can just start pulling hydrogen from water. If for no other reason than the oxygen released will end up in our atmosphere. CO2 is beneficial to the plants so there's little problem with it. Too much oxygen could devastate the flora of this planet.

The problem is solar power and batteries. Well, the problem is to get them to work more efficiently. Battery technology has changed but it hasn't seen the breakthrough needed to take it to the next level. In fact, electric cars of 100 years ago got the same distance from a full charge as the electric cars of today. If someone can figure out how to get a battery to store a month's worth of electricity for home use, you could kiss fossil fuels goodbye.

I'm not sure fuel cells are the answer either. The only thing I am concerned about is the gov't killing one industry (coal) because of a fairy tale belief in another (wind). If the alternative energy is worthwhile, the free market will see that and the investments will roll in. When the gov't props up an industry artificially using tax money, there is less capital to invest in what truly works. If the gov't makes driving cars with internal combustion engines prohibitive, without a suitable replacement, it will be bad for everyone concerned. Not to mention the tax base.

Just don't take away what is working now because there is some flawed "science" that says it's bad. If something is no longer a viable means of energy, it will be tossed aside as newer means take its place. That is the free market at work.

Thanks you saved me a lot of typing.

[JB400]

Obviously, some people haven't looked into solar energy lately.  That little solar powered landscaping light that most of you guys have in the garden has a lttle AA battery in there that last 4 years.  It's $14 for a pack of batteries (4 pack).  If I can do math, that's 16 years worth of light from just a couple led lights for $14.  I've done some looking.  There are solar powered led light kits with batteries that will last 6 years, and are affordable.  When you start running appliances, battery life tends to fade and things get expensive. 

Unfortunately, I don't see fuel cells as a means of powering vehicles.  We are more likely to switch to ethanol than we are to switching to hydrogen or cng.  As soon as we get a CinC that is worth a darn, I say this will be the direction we will go.  This administration is more or less copying the energy policies from overseas.  What is being ignored, is the fact that we are a vast country with several different resources to use depending on region.  Other than gasoline and diesel, there isn't really any one energy source that can supply the entire country.  I predict that vehicles will probably become more regionalized until a better energy source can be extracted.

[Ghoste]

Ethanol is another highly flawed and heavily subsidized alternative.

[TooMuchTime]

What is being ignored, is the fact that we are a vast country with several different resources to use depending on region.

How true. Being from sunny CA, I have installed solar panels from Vivint Solar. (If it's against the rules to "advertise," let me know and I'll change it!) It's a pretty good deal and I am currently producing nearly 5 kw during peak sunlight. It starts off at about 1 kw around 9 am, works up to 4.5 to 5 around 1pm and then tapers off until sunset. Since I only use about 1 kw at any time, I am putting 3.5 kw on average back into the grid during daylight. At night, I use PG&E and never use that much either. So kind of a hybrid solar/power-company works good here.

Colorado has huge reserves of oil and shale and the economy of North Dakota is in the middle of an oil boom. I know there is plenty of uranium on Indian lands (Navajos, I believe), the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska has enough oil to last hundreds of years with the taps wide open, and the Gulf states have plenty of natural gas.

The crime is we have a generation of youth that believes using natural resources is evil. Unless it is the plastic made from oil that is used in their iPhones.

[Mytur Binsdirti]

Wind turbines are killers.................



Rare Bird Flies Into Wind Turbine And Dies


An incredibly rare bird was killed by one of the liberal's beloved wind turbines.

Oh, the irony.

There were only eight recorded sightings of the white-throated needletail in the UK since 1846. One appeared this week on the British shores, and bird enthusiasts were understandably thrilled.


40 bird watchers arrived on scene to watch the rare bird, which breeds in Asia and spends winter in Australasia.


And then... It was killed. To the horror of the gathered bird enthusiasts, the white-throated needletail flew right into a wind turbine and died.

John Marchant, 62, said, "We were absolutely over the moon to see the bird. We watched it for nearly two hours. But while we were watching it suddenly got a bit close to the turbine and then the blades hit it. We all rushed up to the turbine, which took about five minutes, hoping the bird had just been knocked out the sky but was okay. Unfortunately it had taken a blow to the head and was stone dead. It was really beautiful when it was flying around, graceful and with such speed. To suddenly see it fly into a turbine and fall out the sky was terrible."

The last time a white-throated needletail was seen in the UK was 22 years ago.

A spokesperson from Bird Guides said, "Why it is ended up in Harris is a bit of a mystery – it should be well away in Siberia, Australia or Japan. It obviously got lost and the weather may have played a part. It is difficult to say."

"It was spotted by chance by two birders from Northumberland who were on holiday, and they knew what they were looking at. So there is a chance it may have been here a lot longer. It could have re-orientated itself and is capable of flying vast distances. In fact it spends more time in the air than on the ground. So it could have worked out it was in the wrong place and flown to where it should be," he continued.

Nick Moran runs bird tracking for the British Trust for Ornithology. He had been watching the bird's locations as it arrived into the UK.

"It is not the happiest ending for a bird that has flown half way around the world," he said. "It was a real day of mixed emotions for everyone there, they were all so happy they got to see it, but then witnessed it die."

The Rare Bird Alert sent out a tweet yesterday, saying, "The white-throated needletail on Harris flew into a wind turbine and has died. Pathetic way for such an amazing bird to die."

[Ghoste]

I don't know if its true or not but its sure a sad irony if it is.

[ws23rt]

The Columbia river gorge in Oregon/Washington is a very scenic and vast place. Some years back someone built a house on the washington side on his own property. Someone on the other side of the river saw it and registered a complaint. After a long battle the house was torn down to restore the vista.
Today as one drives through this pristine area we see hundreds of wind turbines. At night they all have lights on them. I guess they add to the pristine vista. And the power they produce is seldom needed so the gov. (us) pays them for the upset in there financial problem.
The folks that have a grasp on stuff like this clearly are not the ones that make these things happen.

[Ghoste]

We have had hundreds of the disgusting things forced on us where I live too and they just piss me off.   At peak output they generate just enough power to work the printers for the politicians who send out the reports about how great they are for saving the planet by making us use turbines.  Compound it with the farmers who are nearly prepared to knife fight each other for taxpayer subsidized leases they get for having one of them on their property and it doesn't take long to see they are little more than a propaganda exercise that I get to help pay for.
And for the face slap they paint the bottom 20 feet of them green to help them blend in to the local background.
I'd be all for them if I thought they worked but I really don't.

[ws23rt]

We have had hundreds of the disgusting things forced on us where I live too and they just piss me off.   At peak output they generate just enough power to work the printers for the politicians who send out the reports about how great they are for saving the planet by making us use turbines.  Compound it with the farmers who are nearly prepared to knife fight each other for taxpayer subsidized leases they get for having one of them on their property and it doesn't take long to see they are little more than a propaganda exercise that I get to help pay for.
And for the face slap they paint the bottom 20 feet of them green to help them blend in to the local background.
I'd be all for them if I thought they worked but I really don't.

They could work in the right places with the proper engineering. The ones we see are made very light duty (to meet a requirement they were made light duty) That means the drive system is on the edge of capacity and life span. It does not matter that it cost much money to fix them when they fail (and they do). They are as they are because someone unqualified checked off on it and said good to go.
BTW I have been working in the industrial power production world for almost 40 yrs mostly supervisor or more so my view point is what most don't see.
The media does not have time to translate relevant details.

[Ghoste]

Which doesn't explain why the taxpayer has to pay for the lease on the land, the purchase of the turbine and to subsidize the cost of the electricity they produce since this "free" source of energy production somehow costs more than other methods.

[ws23rt]

Which doesn't explain why the taxpayer has to pay for the lease on the land, the purchase of the turbine and to subsidize the cost of the electricity they produce since this "free" source of energy production somehow costs more than other methods.

All of these sources have merit. The people that move them forward are incompetent.

[ws23rt]

This is the kind of thread that can easily get off track and I have contributed to that.
So how close is a "practical" fuel cell?
The word practical can trip us up because it means different things to different folks.
We can do this now. The hold up is a fear of the unknown by those that believe anything new may have a down side. It is true.
Fire is a dangerous scary thing. we learned about it and made it work for us. Nuclear fire is a dangerous scary thing and we have learned about it and  make it work for us.
Those that think the earth is still flat need to shut up and watch for a change.
We have aircraft carriers and subs that use fuel cells that last. Space probes that work for many years. And if the only come back they have is the question about dealing with waste than they have ignored the many answers to that question.
Practical fuel cells are as far away now as they were when they were a dream even though we have them now.

[Mytur Binsdirti]

Back off track. Not the bird in question, but there is no doubt that wind turbines murder birds. Surely, someone needs to go to jail & be financially ruined from government lawsuits.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NAAzBArYdw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[Cooter]

If wind turbines are killing off Uber rare birds, and the average John Q. Public can't drive 3 days in his/her Jeep Grand Cherokee without getting rear ended by some text messaging driver and exploding [Yet, IIRC, the Jeep GC has been around since 1993 and nobody even heard of exploding fuel tanks then?]; I doubt a Rolling Hydrogen Bomb will be produced anytime soon.

[Ghoste]

 

[Mike DC]

        
One could argue that we are currently driving around in gasoline bombs.  




Govt subsidies for alternative fuels may be misguided in the specifics, but the raw principle of subsidizing energy tech is not.  The fact is that we are currently subsidizing oil.  We slap some token taxes on it but we are also indirectly subsidizing it several times as much at the same time.  And if we counted the environmental damage (which does cost us real dollars in other indirect ways) then the subsidies on oil would look even higher.  No alternative tech can hope to compete with the existing industry if it does not receive proportionate subsidies and one of its biggest strong points is left out of the comparison entirely.    

 

[Ghoste]

True, but the subsidized gasoline isn't being propped up against a cheaper form of gasoline.