Home hydrogen refueling?

[vaughnr007]

Fuel Maker has been providing compressed Hydrogen stations to ONLY 'Honda development' for approximately 4 years - I know because I contacted them about purchasing one
This sounds interesting. How about starting another thread on Home Hydrogen and explaining a little more?
RV

[freedml]

Re: Questar's quandry... how can our benevolent utility cope with demand?

The real problems with Hydrogen are that the molecule is so small and that it embrittles stainless steel. You can't store it in a system unless it was designed for H2 storage -- the fittings will leak and the stainless tubing will crack. Other than that it's a great idea...

[blackws]

Re: Home hydrogen refueling?

Interesting that you say that H2 is hard to store. One of the first to start using h2 to burn converted a 1979 dodge d-50 pickup. I don't know what year it was done, but I remember seeing info on it when I was looking to burn hydrogen in 2001 (that was 5 years ago).

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

They tell the Honorable Samuel Bodman that they have been running it for 27 years (ie - converted about 1981).

http://www.cleanpeace.org/Samuel_Bodman.jsp

[freedml]

Re: Home hydrogen refueling?

I sold H2 gas leak detection equipment about 15 years ago and every company I visited told me how hard it was to keep their systems leak-free.

If a system is designed for H2 with special alloys then it should work reasonably well. But, if it was designed for CNG, then the stainless parts will eventually fail.

[freedml]

Re: Home hydrogen refueling?

re your links.

one is a map

the other says: Hydrogen can be made efficiently from direct solar, wind, waves, falling water and biomass.

Baloney, as is most of that website.

[blackws]

Re: Home hydrogen refueling?

sorry about the map link (wasn't the one I meant)

I believe that I meant to put the following link:

https://www.americanhydrogenassociation.org/ahapickup.html

interesting how it is again getting an errouneous link (definately changing what I have tried to enter multiple times): correct parts are: americanhydrogenassociation.org / ahapickup.html

As I said in another post - about 4 years ago, I tried to get a hydrogen fueling system from Honda

http://www.fuelmaker.com/Products/HydrogenRefueling

and was told that they were only available to Honda Research and Development.

You say bah to the site and creation and storage systems, and I certainly appreciate your previous experience with hydrogen; but I wish I had a 27 year history of any non liquid fuel system usage - even the 6+ years of CNG I have pales in comparison to their accomplishment. Previously (2001 time frame) the creators of that vehicle, and it's previous website; also had other owners of other vehicles shown and discussed (our current Internet search engines now have too much garbage to sort through on the Internet for me to be able to find as much good information as I did then).
When people are discussing using non CNG equipment to work with CNG; I certainly can not believe that using equipment designed for CNG would be any more 'dangerous' when used for any other gaseous fuels. Nor could it cost more than CNG equipment is currently getting (due to demand), even if it would require more frequent checks and other equipment support.
The advantages of hydrogen as a fuel have not even been discussed anywhere here. Cleaning the air (or even just not polluting the air more) would be wonderful. Another bonus would be that the water vapor created would fall back in the form of rain ([again cleaning the air] and just think how much different our western desert would be if any portion of CA were burning hydrogen instead of gasoline).

Well, more than enough for now........

[freedml]

Re: Home hydrogen refueling?

I think Hydrogen by itself is great. The problem is how to make it in the quantities and locations required for it to be practical as a motor fuel without spending a fortune, wasting a ton of energy, or polluting the environment.

Hydrogen for the handful of demonstration vehicles out there is made with a Steam Methane Reformer (and for the new station in West LA, probably trucked there by a diesel truck). It uses Natural Gas to make steam to break up Natural Gas (Methane, CH4) into H2 and the byproducts are heat and CO. So, you've used a bunch of NG to break up NG and created a bunch of CO you have to dispose of in order to get a little H2 to make your car run with zero emissions. That's even dumber than making E85 from corn!

If you burn the CH4 directly in a Honda GX, you get less CO2 than other cars and almost no pollution, but none of the expense, pollution, and waste of the SMR process. Just like storage batteries and electric cars, when there is a practical and economical way of making or collecting large quantities of H2, then H2 cars might start to make sense.

[scott]

Re: Home hydrogen refueling?

There are various Hydrogen pipelines running under the city and I was told by a source that there is a Hydrogen pipeline under the WLA station. The compressor and related equipment is on top of the canopy.

[freedml]

Re: Home hydrogen refueling?

The Hydrogen pipeline he's referring to is in Torrance. There was talk about extending it to a Hydrogen station but that isn't happening because it's too expensive.

The AQMD as part of their Five Cities Demonstration Project leased electrolyzers and mobile fuelers to suppy Hydrogen to these stations since they were only planning to support a handful of vehicles each. It costs over $1 million/mile to lay a Hydrogen pipeline. About $150k to lease an electrolyzer for 5 years (not including electricity, of course!). They leased 3 electrolyzers and are supporting the other two stations with 'mobile fuelers' (read: trucking it in).

It takes more electrical power to split water into H2 and O2 than the energy in or value of the H2 you get. And, guess what makes all that electrical power in So. Cal. (you guessed it, Natural Gas!).

It's a five year demonstration project, so not likely to 'ramp up' before then.

[CraziFuzzy]

Re: Home hydrogen refueling?

I believe the torrance pipeline was connected to the Toyota facility there as well, though I don't believe they are using it yet (I'm out of the business now).