Hydrogen now viable? low voltage production drops costs 30% to $2.47 a gallon
By Nick July 27, 2008
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have been the pipe dream of automakers for years now because of their potential for super low emissions and that big renewable factor. But while hydrogen fuel cell vehicles were touted as the next big thing for years, and were even embraced as the future savior of General Motors by 2011, people failed to remember that it’s still completely inefficient to actually make the hydrogen in the first place.
Well, a new company/inventor Global Hydrogen is now claiming that they can produce hydrogen at $2.47 a kg, which is equivalent to one gallon of fuel. This $2.47 figure is pretty impressive, considering it is 30% lower than the previous figure of $3.57 a kg of hydrogen, which is produced by natural gas steaming.
This much cheaper method of hydrogen creation comes from the low voltage technique that Global Hydrogen has patented. Theoretically, this method of production was thought to be impossible before today, but now they claim that it’s very much possible and preferable. The method produces hydrogen at a voltage as low as 1.2, and this results in an efficiency over 90%, which is presumably the key to the very low price claimed by Global Hydrogen.
While these numbers at face value are very impressive, whether it’s legit or not is up in the air considering the shabbiness of the company’s web site and released youtube video on low voltage hydrogen production, which tends to remind me of my high school chemistry lab.
But, I’ll take their claim [with a grain of salt] because I am a wishful thinker, and this type of development could mean wonders for the future of hydrogen fuel cells worldwide. So maybe hydrogen fuel celled cars will make automakers such as GM “what they were in the ’50s”
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all this hot air about hydrogen but we could of had electric cars decades ago and air powered cars are ready to come onto the market.
looks like the car companies just want a car that degrades like petrol cars.