A Hydrogen-powered car in your garage?

By Jeff — Jeff Wilson

The LA Times shows what kind of infrastructure would be necessary at your home to refuel a zero-emissions hydrogen-powered car:

At first I was like: hey, that’s not so bad. Just a small refueling station. But then they panned to the gigantic solar array that would be necessary to generate electricity that would take hydrogen out of city water (in our case, state water/well water) and make it ready for your car. Probably a bit impractical and too expensive.

I suppose you could use city power to generate the electricity for the refueling device, but then why bother with hydrogen in the first place? Why not just get an electric car like the Nissan Leaf or Chevrolet Volt? At least you wouldn’t have to use water to fuel the car. Both systems seem to take awhile to refuel the car, however.

Comments (9)

mikeJuly 7, 2010 at 11:29 am

Soething will have to give in order for hydrogren to be viable. If it uses more electricity to make than the fuel produces, straight electricity sounds like a no-brainer. That said, a lot of electric cars will have minor fuel-assist, mostly to extend range. Hydrogen or CNG might be an attractive source for that, if it’s still needed down the road.

navigatorJuly 7, 2010 at 12:56 pm

They have got to be kidding! 8 hours of production in order to fuel the car enough to travel 30 miles??? Most of us couldn’t even get to our job on that much less back home again. How much water would be consumed everyday to produce 30 miles worth of fuel in an 8 hour period? If I had to set up that many solar panels I’d want my house to run on it as well.

Fred ButlerJuly 7, 2010 at 1:26 pm

Yes. This is what we need to be driving: Miniature Hindenburgs. Oh God. . . The Humanity…

Silence DogoodJuly 7, 2010 at 2:14 pm

Put the nuclear power plants in Arizona and Nevada, build smart transmission infrastructure, and develop better electric cars and hybrids. By the time these nuke plants are obsolete and beyond their engineered life, you can transition to satellite based microwave beamed power to desert grids. Otherwise, the future is coal. Despite Peabody and Co. propaganda, it isn’t clean folks. The transition period will be nuclear. Make it so.

John B. (NickelDimeJuly 7, 2010 at 8:50 pm

Why haven’t we gone hog wild for natural gas? We have hundreds of years worth of domestic supply. It’s proven tech. It’s green. It’s cheap. We can fillup at home with a simple mod to convert LNG to CNG. WTF ?!?!?!?!?!

JeffJuly 7, 2010 at 9:07 pm

Simple. It’s a fossil fuel and produces CO2. I agree it’s very attractive but the idea isn’t just to get off petroleum, it’s to move away from carbon-based fuels entirely.

John B. (NickelDimeJuly 8, 2010 at 8:14 am

What percent of our power is still coal fire? It’s attractive to isolate power generation to the home outlet, but we’re fooling ourself saying we’re being green with a Volt or Leaf if that power is generated from coal.

Silence DogoodJuly 8, 2010 at 9:08 am

Over 50% of electrical generation in the US is from coal fired plants. with about 20% from nuclear, 17% from gas. You guys should check out the environmental impact of natural gas production. A recent HBO documentary ‘Gasland’ was eye-opening. It’s not exactly a ‘green’ source of energy, and IMO burning it is a waste of a valuable chemical feedstock.

mikeJuly 8, 2010 at 9:09 am

Ahh good point. What are the downsides, mechanically speaking to CNG? Are there any? Do you know how efficient an onboard CNG engine is versus a NG-fired power plant? I’ve always wondered.