I don't believe in fuel cells for portable power. I think it's a dumb idea. The good news is: they burn hydrogen with oxygen to produce electricity, and only water vapor is the byproduct. The bad news is: you have to deal with molecular hydrogen gas, and that's what's stymieing the research and in my opinion is always going to stymie the research.
Kevin Bullis of Technology Review interrogates MIT's Donald Sadoway on why he thinks lithium batteries will kick hydrogen's butt. It contains a slightly egg-heady explanation of what we need to make hydrogen (and fuel cells -- platinum at $500 an ounce; lithium's only $40 a pound), but it's the clearest explanation I've read so far about why hydrogen isn't happening. And probably won't.
Sadoway also waxes eloquent about the joys of driving an all-electric, super-quiet car. It's a beautifully geeky interview, and it gave me hope. (HT: A fellow villager in the AEZ.)
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Platinum's US$1,000 an ounce. US$2.6 million a gallon! But air-breathing hydrogen fuel cells can probably get away with containing only a few tens of dollars' worth, and a fairly large fraction of it would be recovered from them when they are scrapped. Fuel cell vehicles have worse problems, including how soon the scrapping.
Posted on November 29, 2005 2:11 PM by G. R. L. Cowan
Thanks for the insight -- so it's even more expensive than he says it is, but it matters less than Sadoway says it does.
What do you mean by "how soon the scrapping?"
Posted on November 29, 2005 4:11 PM by Judith Lewis
I mean it's pretty soon. Last year GM had a demo where a liquid hydrogen-fuelled Zafira went 9,700 km without replacing the steering wheel even once. However, the fuel cell stack was replaced about halfway through.
Posted on November 30, 2005 1:11 PM by G. R. L. Cowan