Posted on 06/16/2016 3:42:13 PM PDT by jjotto
Electric cars are showing up all over the place, but hydrogen fuel-cell cars have lagged behind, with only three Asian makers committed to offering them in the U.S.
That's partly because setting up a network of hydrogen stations to fuel them is slow and expensive.
Now Nissan has a better idea.
Rather than pumping hydrogen into the cars at very high pressure, the company proposes to offer a different kind of fuel-cell car — one that is filled with ethanol instead.
That fuel, or an ethanol-and-water blend, is "reformed" to produce a supply of hydrogen on board the car itself. That eliminates the costly challenges of setting up hydrogen fueling stations that fill the cars' tanks at 10,000 psi. Ethanol is already distributed at a few gas stations — about 2 percent in the U.S. — and adding it is as simple as pumping it into a tank onboard the car.
Nissan says reforming the ethanol into hydrogen and carbon dioxide is all but carbon-neutral, since the agricultural feedstock from which ethanol is refined (whether corn or sugar cane) has taken CO2 out of the air as it grew.
The second part of Nissan's innovation is what's called a solid-oxide fuel cell, which moves oxygen ions rather than protons through the electrolyte to produce electricity and the pure water that is the car's only emission.
These innovative fuel-cell vehicles won't be showing up at your local Nissan dealer any time soon, however. The company says it doesn't expect to have the technology commercialized until 2020.
Meanwhile, Nissan remains the maker of the highest-volume electric car in history, the Nissan Leaf. Roughly 250,000 Leafs have now been sold globally since December 2010. And together with its alliance partner Renault, Nissan has sold more than 300,000 battery-electric vehicles. That's more than Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA], General Motors Company [NYSE:GM], or any other plug-in carmaker.
So they take a fuel that, due to its low carbon content,
isn’t as powerful as gasoline, reduce that carbon content to zero, and expect to get any vaguely reasonable mileage out of it???
Not enough feedstock in the world, make it methanol now we can talk.
H3C-CH2OH -> ???
Pfft!
Crude is a gift from the Almighty.
Just over half goes to make gasoline.
Crude is used to make everything from highways to surgical plastics to fertilizers.
Pfft!
Make the fuel stock methane, then we have a viable concept.
Methane exists as a distinct and relatively pure compound in many places and from many sources, and while one molecule of carbon dioxide is produced for each two molecules of water, the production of carbon dioxide in and of itself is not a bad thing. In fact, that is an essential part of life.
But there is a HUGE reeducation program that must be introduced to reverse this flow of misinformation and downright lying. Then, finally, the advance of REAL science may begin anew.
Slideshow at the link and wiki (direct-ethanol fuel cell) have basic explanations.
Ethanol is for drinking — not driving.
Sounds good.
That fuel, or an ethanol-and-water blend, is "reformed" to produce a supply of hydrogen on board the car itself.
Yeah, waste energy "reforming" the ethanol into CO2 and H2, because that's better than burning the ethanol into CO2 and H2O. Brilliant!!!
Fuel cells, not being thermodynamic cycles which must waste a significant fraction of their input heat energy, can approach 100% efficiency of the hydrogen fuel they consume. It is therefore not beyond the realm of reason that a system such as described might have respectable efficiency.
This actually is not the same as hydrogen "fuel cell" technology, since it takes an energy input from some artificial source to "break" water into hydrogen and oxygen, in order to get a lesser amount of energy back from burning the hydrogen to reform water. Hydrogen fuel cells do not depend on redox reactions and are not batteries.
Shame they want to add water, I prefer my ethanol neat.
I doubt many people prefer 190/200 proof alcohol neat, so you’re a rarity.
Agree. Crude is the most efficient energy source we have available on Earth. I believe more than 6,000 products come from crude oil. And get this, the equipment and machines that manufacture ethanol... use many crude oil products including diesel, gasoline, oil, lubricants, plastics, rubber, paints etc. In other words, without the crude there would be no ethanol manufacturing!
+1
I would think that FReepers would understand the potential use of an ethanol fuel cell in a SHTF situation. Banking collapses, there’s an EBT zombie apocalypse, no food in grocery stores, but the infrastructure for gasoline is going to be no problem? I think not.
Are we more concerned about SHTF or "carbon neutrality"?
‘Carbon neutrality’ is modern pagan religion, not science.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.