For those who didn't read my first blog post, I have written about this subject already. From that post i am going to elaborate on the subject of Hydrogen Fuel.
like I said before, I have hoped that Hydrogen is used as a fuel source ever since I found out about the idea from an educational video I saw in high school. The idea that such a common element as hydrogen being able to run our cars seemed like a genius idea. Since then, I never really talked about the idea or did any research on the subject, but I always kept the idea in the back of my mind that we should be researching Hydrogen Fuel ASAP. That way we could get the problem of pollution from cars and fossil fuels out of the way.
Let me explain how Hydrogen fuel works. Firstly, Hydrogen is not a energy source, it is an energy carrier. One single fuel cell has two inputs and two outputs. Hydrogen and Oxygen go in the negative and positive ends of the cell, respectively. The hydrogen's protons and electrons split, letting the protons pass through to the side with the oxygen, and leaving the electrons to pass through an external circuit, which creates electricity. Then, the electrons meet up with the hydrogen and oxygen to create water and heat, which then exit the cell.
This model is great because the only outputs are water and heat. Pollution would not be a problem for a long time.
The problem with Hydrogen fuel is that it is a lot more inefficient than other types of renewable energies. It takes about 1000 fuel cells to power an entire car, when it only takes one battery to run a hybrid.
For the purposes of this post, I have used the same site as my first post. If you want more info, visit this site.
This is a good idea because to reduce our carbon emission to the atmosphere, we need innovations like Hydrogen fuel.
ReplyDeleteThere are quite a few genius ideas out there regarding alternative energy, not only for cars but to replace our coal, nuclear, etc. plants for electricity. I have heard of burying magnets under the roads and generating a current as our cars drive over them. I think these are both viable options for the future of alternative energy and are able to be used in a large scale. BUT in my opinion the government doesnt want to move to using other sources of energy because our economy, culture etc rely on it so heavily. If we back off on using oil to power our cars, lots of people in the industry will lose their jobs, and it would take a lot of work, money, man power, etc to switch from using oil to an alternative and probably have a lot of effects on the economy while the switch is being made. Too much money each year is being made on oil for the government to abandon it.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, right now it takes a lot of energy to make the hydrogen for a hydrogen fuel cell. I think in combination with a clean energy source like nuclear, wind, solar, or tidal power it would be great. However, most electricity in the U.S. comes from power plants that burn coal, which is not clean at all.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Jacob, the actual process used to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen consumes slightly more power than a hydrogen cell could possibly generate. It's a small gap, but add that to all the other gaps made by whatever process was used to get the energy in the first place, and the amount of energy the wires waste. But still, a much better solution than gasoline... or using a micro-thorium reactor in your car...
ReplyDeleteplain and simple hydrogen fusion... well not really simple
ReplyDelete