Why Hydrogen Engines Are A Dumb Idea
They burn clean, and they sound cool, but ultimately they don't make much sense.
3y ago
68.5K
On the surface, hydrogen combustion engines seem like the ultimate solution for car guys. You still get a wonderful four-stroke piston-cylinder combustion engine, with the sound and feel you've come to love, but all without any carbon emissions. Since hydrogen fuel (H2) doesn't have carbon in it (like gasoline or diesel fuel), there's no carbon added to the byproducts of combustion in a hydrogen engine. It's just as good as it sounds, but unfortunately there's a much more logical alternative that makes hydrogen engines seem quite silly. Check out the video for all the details!
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Comments (27)
I'll stick to my nuclear bus. It has a piano in it!
and just the right number of ghoul passengers.
Sounds like Occams razor vs. max efficiency.
Someone once told me "Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the Universe that produces nothing more than clean water but it’s not green to use at all. In fact, its worse than petrol. Today they make hydrogen from natural gas. They break it down using electricity (created from either coal, natural gas, nuke or hydro-electric). What they get is hydrogen and C02 (aka green house gas). That C02 is released into the atmosphere. So, we use fossil fuels to make electricity to transform fossil fuels to hydrogen and green house gases that we turn back into electricity while releasing water and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Then we transport the gas by trucks using fossil fuels. Not green one little bit. The goal is that "someday" they will be able to take electricity from ocean currents and then break down sea water into hydrogen in an economical manner but that may be decades away. So, don't fool yourself that hydrogen is green. Its actually worse than fossil fuels for now and for the foreseeable future."
So a truck transporting petrol doesn’t release CO2 hey
Even then, I don't see sea water hydrogen being the most viable. Applying energy to change molecular structures is still less efficient than taking the electricity and storing it in batteries.
As an aside they are generating...
Read moreNeed to do a Hydrogen on demand system. Water in the fuel tank producing water exhaust. See Stan Meyer on youtube.
Yeah I actually made a schematic for this. But the combustion byproducts turned me off, there are too many other molecules in air to prevent unintended emissions. ...Even if you did, combustion engines aren't efficient enough to compete...
Read moreIf you mean this, the byproduct would be H2o youtu.be/GFIlXaABU54
Why not a petrol power generator, replenishing the battery, runing electric motor? Wasn't Chevy Volt like that?
I am more for miniature nuclear generator (if they ever managed to make it safe enough). Either way, it is extremely inefficient to generate electricity on each vehicle rather than one large generator (to a point obviously). Besides,...
Read moreI thought petrol generators would be perfect transitional cars because it can use the existing infrastructure, and covert petrol straight to electricity at the best conditions. Turns out, these generators are so inefficient, like 15%...
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