Toyota introduces advanced FCV.

Jason M. Hendler said:

NZDavid,

No one is disputing that fact, but hydrogen has other attributes that make it valuable is certain applications:

1) rapid refill - you can recharge your fuel tank in 5 - 15 minutes with hydrogen, while BEV's require a min of 3 - 4 hours in the best cases, and 6 - 8 for the typical vehicle. Military applications will demand rapid refill, while automotive customers will prefer it - paying a premium

2) specific energy - energy storage in hydrogen is much lighter than batteries, making it an optimal aviation fuel

Nanoptek has created a solar hydrogen generator that skips the electrolysis step and uses sunlight to directly generate hydrogen very efficiently.

http://www.nanoptek.com/

Click to expand...

I really used to push for hydrogen as the best solution there is. But with the new development in batteries, I scaled back on that recommendation.

I used to argue that for machines or equipments that cannot be connected to electric sources, they needed fuel, and the best fuel is hydrogen. The direct solar hydrogen generation to storage, then to machinery would have been several times more efficient than from solar to biofuel (even using algae that is several times more efficient than terrestrial plants), until there were ideal batteries.

Still by and large, I agree that hydrogen are still useful in many cases and even in some large applications such as military, aviation, and even space exploration. But for now, electric batteries would seem to be geared for success, with almost certain probability. But I do love that people still work on Fuel Cells and its further improvements, like bringing the total costs down. Solving our problem should be multiple approaches and try to perfect its approach. It could provide diversity and stability in ever changing needs, so one technology may be appropriate in another changing situation compared to the current ones.

I used to keep track of several companies in solar hydrogen production using solar concentration and catalysts. The best efficiency that I have seen is around 46%, from the sun's energy into the energy of hydrogen. Compared to the best terrestrial plants in the world, from the sun's energy unto the energy of the biofuel, the best would be around 1% overall efficiency. And there is still room for improvement in the field of solar hydrogen. For example, using cheaper electrodes that can survive high temperature and pressure and the splitting of water is triggered by electrolysis that require only minimal electric current. It has been patented and I cannot find the patent number or reference currently. But suffice it to say that they do have many exciting research development in this field, but it is really too bad that the Australian companies and the Canadians have advanced much more than the US companies in the field of solar hydrogen. I did not continue to keep track about solar hydrogen when I got excited about the new batteries, Volt and Aptera. I will get back to it again at the appropriate time.

One of those companies, IIRC, is Shec-Labs, aside from Nanoptek. I wondered what happened to Shec-Labs. They used to have a demo of solar hydrogen in Southern California. Then there were several turnover of CEO and board of directors, and I was suspecting some third party investors of Oil companies, and pfftt... they're off the limelight.

But with many exciting companies now such as Aptera Motors and Sapphire Energy, whose fundings are seemingly clean from the owners of oil, I think there is a big chance to take off of oil. I'm still worried that GM has Oil companies as the major investors thru convoluted relationships with other holding companies and I really hope I am wrong on this. I don't want them to shelve the Volt by influencing the direction of GM right now. We believe that we have the best direction right now, starting with the Volt.