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Posted by: frctm5 8 months, 2 weeks ago

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frctm58 months, 2 weeks ago

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Given its abundance in water, hydrogen offers great promise as an alternative fuel. However, as a vehicle propellant, it still has many problems. Storage is the biggest issue with hydrogen. Liquefying it or compressing it requires energy. Three basic methods are used to store hydrogen. One is an insulated tank that keeps the gas cold enough to remain in a liquid state, another is just an old fashion high pressure welding style tank. The third method is hydrogen absorbing metals but their capacity is very limited. The insulated tank will not keep the hydrogen in your car indefinitely. If you let it sit to long, the gas will eventually evaporate. Welding tanks are very heavy and can't be charged safely at a service station. More likely it would just be swapped out for a new tank. Hydrogen is also extremely dangerous. It will ignite in a much broader ratio of fuel to air mixtures than gasoline. Anything from 5% to 75% is ignitable. Every car would be a potential bomb in a traffic accident.

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  beavith18 months, 2 weeks ago
  
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  with gasoline, every car is already a bomb.
  
  your point about the trickiness of H2 is well taken. even if it is only used as a chemical feedstock, or bulk fuel (like rocket fuel), this could make the use of H2 more economical.
  
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    frctm58 months, 2 weeks ago
    
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    hydrogen is more volatile and more inclined explode than gasoline. Gasoline only burns at a one to sixteen air to fuel ratio and is in a liquid state at room temperature. Hydrogen, as I pointed out already, can burn or explode in a far greater range of fuel to air ratios and will be in a gaseous state the moment it comes out of its enclosure therefore making it much more likely to explode like a bomb. Hollywood creates the impression that cars are rolling bombs, but in reality cars rarely explode. It takes an extraordinary combination of circumstances to make this happen. The tank would have to be nearly empty and something like a spark would have to ignite the fumes while they were in an enclose space. The mixture couldn't be too rich or too lean. Plenty of cars catch fire but almost none actually explode.
    
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