How do hydrogen-powered cars work? Are they viable competition for EV's? The ACLU is suing. Lastly, eat your vegetables by reading some counterpoint on hydrogen as a fuel.
Hydrogen powered cars: how do they work? Are they a viable (better?) alternative to EV's?
A few days back a reader put an article in the comments section of one of my posts that I thought was intriguing. It's linked first below for your reference. I'll leave it to you to read, but it makes a pretty bold claim: that hydrogen powered cars are better than EV's.
I want to first talk about how they work and then we'll chip away at the second question.
There are two ways you could power a vehicle with hydrogen. You could put it in a cylinder in place of gasoline or diesel and burn it in the usual manner. Better bring a lot of it though, the energy density from burning hydrogen is pretty small compared to natural gas and it's MUCH smaller than gas and especially diesel; that is, to get a given car up to a given speed you'll need buckets of hydrogen for the teaspoon of diesel it will take. Good news is that burning hydrogen just makes water, not CO2.
The second way is via a fuel cell. Fuel cell chemistry and physics are pretty complicated, but I can give you a nodding familiarity (all you'd need to understand the basics of the process).
First, some quick electrical theory. The way that a battery makes a motor turn is that the battery gives the electrons in the wires energy. The electrons move through the wires and get to the motor. When they are at the motor, they give up that energy to motion in the motor and return for more energy at the battery. In short, a circuit works by making the electrons carry energy from one source to be converted to another kind of energy in another device.
Now the fuel cells. They function similarly to a battery in that they give the electrons in the wires running from them energy which is then carried to other devices but the energy given to the electrons is not made by a chemical reaction as it is in a battery.
When a hydrogen atom (a proton or + charge and an electron with a - charge) is incident upon the special membrane in a fuel cell, the proton can pass through the membrane but the electron can't. Think back to middle school science 1A. What is the rule about electrical charges? Yes, that one: opposite charges attract. That electron really, really (really) wants to be back with its proton. The membrane won't let that happen.
So, we will reunite them on the opposite side of the membrane, but before we allow that, we make the electron pass through a device we want to power. Having passed through the device (spun the motor that makes the car move), we let the electron get back with its proton on the other side of the membrane.
At the same time, we blow ambient air across the other side of the membrane. The oxygen in the air then combines with the proton, the electron, and it makes water which is the exhaust of the fuel cell. Again, movement but no CO2.
I made a little half-assed schematic to help those that prefer pictures. It's attached. I also put a link to the government's official reference page on fuel cell cars second below.
Okay, so you have a car that moves and doesn't make CO2. Good so far. The second questions in the title are more difficult. They are at least in need of context.
Is a hydrogen car viable, viable meaning something we can do now with current technology?
Yes. We have the technology now (see the first link below for more detail). Carmakers have built concept cars with both fuel cells and hydrogen-burning internal combustion engines. What we don't have right now, and hydrogen cars share this problem with battery-EV's, is the infrastructure to support hydrogen powered cars.
Similarly, we have the issue of how we produce hydrogen (with, again, a tangential relation to the problem of charging EV's). The usual method mentioned for producing hydrogen would be to crack a water molecule apart. This is often done with electricity. Electricity that we'd have to generate somehow. If we do it with fossil fuels, that would be as silly as assuming we have made progress by charging EV's with electricity made by fossil fuels. The hope, in either case, would be that renewables could be used to make electricity to break hydrogen out of water (just like the hope that we would do this for EV's).
Asking whether a hydrogen car is better, well, that depends. What is better to you? Because it may not be better to me.
If better means no need to charge, yes they're better. If it means better range and also more consistent range without regard to things like ambient air temp, yes they're better. If better means that they're lighter and faster (because, while they do have some battery capacity**, they do not have the bulky and heavy battery pack of an EV), then yes they're better. Lastly if better means that you have the possibility of refilling a hydrogen car in 10 minutes to get full range instead of a half hour at a charger, then ... wait for it ... yes they're better.
If better means you're goin to slip right into a hydrogen powered car right now, they're not better. They aren't out there. Nor is the infrastructure of fuel stations and the knowledge of how to service these things or how to keep them running in a variety of conditions. In that sense, we've got just as big a mountain to climb as we do with EV's.
Still and all, hydrogen powered cars present an alternative to EV's and we ought to be pursuing this technology as hard as we are EV technology.
Thus, I am heartened by seeing that at least one major manufacturer (Toyota) is pioneering a hydrogen powered internal combustion engine right now. I say that because I do want viable alternatives to electric vehicles.
I want there to be competition among ideas and ways to make cleaner cars. At that point, we can be in the enviable position, as consumers of having the best ideas win. Also, with an eye toward future service of anything you operate, I like that the basics of an internal combustion car are pretty well known and straightforward and so we can expect some transfer when it comes to trying to service an internal combustion hydrogen engine.
Thanks to the reader who put the link up!
**fuel cell powered hydrogen cars need a small auxiliary battery pack to help power the car when you need sudden boosts of energy. You see, fuel cells operate best in a steady state and cannot provide a sudden burst of energy to get your car up to speed. So, you have a small battery pack which can pop the motor with a burst of energy and then get recharged once the car is back at a steady speed where the fuel cell takes over.
https://www.topspeed.com/hydrogen-cars-better-than-electric-cars/
https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/fuel_cell.html
The ACLU is suing the City of Colorado Springs, some police officers working for same, and the FBI alleging they (illegally and unconstitutionally) went on a fishing expedition after bringing an activist in on charges.
Much as I disagree politically with the folks who allege the mistreatment, my concern for the rights of everyone (whether or not I like them, whether or not I agree politically with them), makes this court case one I'm glad was brought.
I'll leave it to you to read up on the details, but the allegations here are pretty straightforward.
An activist in the Springs was arrested in 2021 for what she claims were "minor" (words of the article not mine) breaches of the law.
At that point, she alleges that the city, the police, and the FBI all worked together to use the arrests as a pretext to sweep through her phone to assemble a list of connections and names to spy on her and the Chinook Center (a progressive activist group).
I wasn't able (and no one probably will be able til the lawsuit proceeds given how governments and others don't usually comment to the media about pending legal matters) to find anything that gives the city's justification, but the allegation here is that the city had no need to go through the activist's phone; it's not like she's accused of murder and they need to check texts to see if she was buying extra life insurance for the victim or something.
If true, I think these allegations are troubling. Legitimate search warrants are one thing, but they have (and need) guardrails and boundaries. Otherwise, we could have the government going on fishing expeditions and that's a road we don't want to go down.
I'll post more if and when I hear about updates to the lawsuit. I will be curious to see how it plays out.
In the meantime, I'd like to ask the (rhetorical since I know I'll never get an answer) question about where the ACLU was on government searches with regard to things like the FISA searches/warrants.
I mean, I know they're against it (see the second link below), but are they "going to court" against it? Were they against it when it was people they don't like (say, those working for the Trump campaign)?
https://www.csindy.com/news/aclu-sues-city-and-four-cspd-officers-over-unjustified-search-warrants/article_e667463a-3093-11ee-9ce5-bb58f0684ca1.html
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/government-releases-new-court-opinions-highlighting-further-abuse-of-warrantless-fisa-surveillance-program
Some counterpoint on using hydrogen as a fuel (to replace gas/diesel and/or natural gas).
You know my thoughts about reading widely.
In that spirit, since I've done a lot of posting about hydrogen lately, I thought I'd share an op ed by a gentleman that appeared in the Sun.
Agree with him or no, you're wise to read it. At the least you'll walk away knowing what the arguments are against using hydrogen.
https://coloradosun.com/2023/08/03/clean-hydrogen-fracking-methane-carbon-storage-colorado-opinion/