Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars Aren't The Dumbest Thing. But... | Answers With Joe" video.

  1. That's what they are.
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  2. You're not putting water in the car. Hydrogen is the fuel, water is the exhaust, so no.
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  3. It is relevant to his area. Electric prices vary more widely over the country than gas prices.
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  4. I'm not a hydrogen advocate, but since they convert power more efficiently overall, fuel cells would probably add less water vapor for a given power output than internal combustion engines (ICEs produce many emissions in small quantities, but the two main products are water vapor and carbon dioxide)
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  5. "Getting people to buy more stuff to make things better is old and never worked." That is precisely what has driven technological progress so far. Depending more and more totally on government for all our needs is locking ourselves into a box WE WILL NOT BE ALLOWED OUT OF.
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  6. Current home charge units need a garage (except for the 120v trickle chargers). Most car owners don't have a garage. Many apartment renters don't have access to an outlet near their parking place, and unless they're separately billed for their electric, the landlords won't let them plug into the lobby to charge.
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  7. 2) Of course, the devil is in the details, and I don't know the details of the hardware, and I'm not an H hybrid fan, but I can think of 2 reasons why they would be better in the cold: a. The cold slightly reduces the temp/pressure problem with the fuel tank. b. The fuel cell produces heat for the heater at no additional electricity cost (just like an ICE) (and steam for your coffee/tea maker, to boot.)
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  8. Hydro wins on road rallies and 500 mile races. The jury is out on drag racing. Capacitors, anyone?
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  9. Since he was comparing efficiency, that would be least efficient. If it were ubiquitous enough, however, it could have the longest range!
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  10. The comparison is between batteries and hydrogen because neither is a prime mover like coal, oil, nuclear, solar, wind, and hydroelectric, both are power storage methods. You are comparing apples and oranges when you compare a storage medium with a prime mover. They're not the same animal.
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  11. Yes
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  12. Yes, but internal combustion engines produce more of it.
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  13.  @southrnlyfe  According to the figures cited in the video, ICEs are 1/3 as efficient at converting the chemical energy in fuel to useful work as fuel cells. Hydrocarbons have more molecules of hydrogen in them than molecules of carbon and both the carbon and the hydrogen combine with the oxygen from the air intake to produce CO2 and H2O, respectively. Hydrogen has a higher energy density per exhaust molecule than gasoline. Reasoning from these inequalities, yes, I am sure that ICEs produce more water vapor for a given power output than hydrogen fuel cells. Don't get me wrong, I am a gasoline man myself (might as well be for the next 5 years anyway, I don't borrow to buy new cars, I pay cash for used ones.)
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  14. The Command module didn't use H & O for rocket fuel. The 2nd and 3rd stage boosters did.
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  15. He did talk about that.
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  16. Government owned means there will be no profits to enter the economy. Venezuela nationalized a profitable oil production industry and it operates now at a loss.
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  17. It should be adding less water vapor to the atmosphere than internal combustion engines do per mile because of the greater efficiency of the fuel cells (ICEs emit some other stuff in small quantities, but the 2 biggest emissions are CO2 and H2O).
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  18. "Is it really just that much less efficient to burn it rather than convert it to electricity?" He showed a 40 some odd percent efficiency for the fuel cell/ electric motor, and a 15% efficiency for an internal combustion engine. I don't suppose those figures will change much just because you're using hydrogen rather than gasoline/petrol. In some regions you aren't even saving money per mile on EVs, because of the price of electricity. It will be a long time before you break even on miles per dollar even with fuel cells, given its lesser efficiency compared to EVs. With a third of the efficiency for ICEs as FCs don't hold your breath.
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  19. More like a slight extension of range in practical terms, but I always thought this was a good idea. It would be trickle charging while you shop without having to find or use a plug. The area of solar cells you could put on a car wouldn't produce enough juice to keep you going even at stop-and-go city speeds, much less highway speeds. But the juice it does add over the range of all but the shortest trips is well worth the added weight of having them. And the small amount of juice you get from the panels during the trip are more efficient than the same amount of juice from panels at home charging your EV, because they are going straight to the motor instead of losing from the charge/discharge cycle. The reasons why this has not been adopted are: 1. Cost. The EV is expensive already. The photovoltaic panels are expensive. Together they are REAL expensive. 2. You would have to toughen the PVs. The current ones are not rated for the sort of beating they would get on the outside of a car. I saw a YT vid about a do-it-yourselfer who had converted a VW van to a solar/electric RV (with deep cycle lead acid batteries). It didn't have the range of a Tesla (because of the cheap batteries), but he could park it at a camping place and charge the batteries from the PVs, or faster from an outlet. This link is not the one I saw before, I think, this is another but the solar part is layed out almost the same way. Near the end of the vids both guys talk about a future upgrade with lithium batteries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGZ1zbqAGA0
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  20. Why settle for 1/3 the efficiency? And a gazillion more moving parts.
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  21. 2 person cars are a solution for town driving, but for driving on the highway, small subcompacts tend to be LESS efficient on the highway than a smallish 4-door sedan, because it is harder to make them conform to the aerodynamically ideal teardrop shape. Aerodynamics are also the main reason why "motorcycles are not any where near the efficiency that a Honda Civic or Honda City gives in terms of its weight to fuel efficiency ratio", not motor efficiency. Weight is the dominant factor in city driving (accelerating and decelerating mass), but on the highway it's all about aerodynamics. When you are considering just the efficiency of motorcycle engines, there is the fact that they are usually air cooled, and spend much less of their use cycle operating at the ideal temperature than a water cooled engine, which, due to the thermostat, turns off the cooling system when not needed.
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  22.  @maxpayne8953  good point.
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  23. 4:00 "And in the Space Shuttle, they actually capture the exhaust H2O as water and the astronauts drink that" Apollo did that, too.
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  24. Shortages of water are always a local problem. Admittedly it is a local CALIFORNIA problem, where most of the current hydrogen stations are. Nationally, the production of hydrogen would not be bottlenecked by a shortage of water. Ever. I'm not a hydrogen fuel advocate, but THIS is not an issue.
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  25. No, I'm not a hydro advocate but your last point is diametrically wrong. Hydrogen is not just more weight efficient in storing energy than batteries, it is more volume efficient, that is why it gives longer range. I assume you're getting "emits lots of CO2" from the inefficiency of the production of hydrogen from electricity? There is no CO2 emission at the tailpipe. Since you got so much of the rest wrong, what is your source for your cell replacement notion?
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  26.  @gasdive  "yeah, the hydrogen might be volume efficient, as long as you don't include the cylinders..." Include whatever you want. The advantage in energy density of hydrogen over any extant battery is such that cylinders that would fit inside the battery case of an automotive battery array will take you farther than a battery array that would fit inside that case. A LOT farther. Range IS an advantage of hydrogen over EVs. Some cannot contemplate using EVs because either they have no place to charge them at home, or they have to drive too far for them to be practical. Personally, I wish I had an electric vehicle in addition to my other(s), at least if it would save me money. Most of my driving is in town. I have considered building an E-bike. I haven't checked to see if an EV would be saving me money with the local electricity price, but it is a moot point. I don't borrow money to buy new cars. I pay cash for old ones. It will be a while before buying a non-gasoline vehicle becomes an option for me. Thanks for the link.
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  27. It releases steam, it would work by powering your heater and filling your coffee maker.
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  28. "Americans cant consistently trail behind in advancements" Indeed, no matter how hard we try! "that should be directed by government" Only if you want to make sure that lots of money gets wasted and in the end some crony with payolla gets a lock-in deal on the wrong tech. Private investment and competition will produce the most efficient product. "metric system? come to mind" It hasn't recently, why do you ask?
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  29.  @Bryan-Hensley  No, the original poster is right, water vapor, but you can condense steam in a heat exchanger. You can reuse some of the energy lost as heat to run an automotive coffee or tea maker. :)
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