Re: Worlds First portable Hydrogen Fuel Cell Launched
Posted by Uncle Al on Sep 26, 2003 at 13:14
(68.5.243.16)
Re: Worlds First portable Hydrogen Fuel Cell Launched (EC)
"Hydrogen gas is relatively stable as a hydride or solid metal, you only need to convert it to gas as you use it."
Stupid. 95 wt-% of your storage medium is hazardous waste. LiH or other metal hydrides are substantial chemical hazards and *expensive.*. Your "conversion" is intractably messy. HY-STORE alloys are totally impractical outside a lab setting and cost like sin. They weigh a bunch, too. They are readily and irreversibly poisoned by common impurities.
"The energy density of liquid hydrogen is roughly 55% that of gasoline"
NO! Not unless you are an Enviro-whiner who conveniently ignores engineering and budget.
1) Who pays the capital and energy price to liquefy it?
2) Who pays the capital and energy price to transport it and transfer it bulk transport to local storage to consumer apportionment? Transfer losses are substantial. Have you ever driven a tanker truck? Slosh can kill you.
3) Are you going to trust a housewife with a double insulated (liquid nitrogen layer - or did you forget?) dewar? Have you priced those dewars? Five gallon net storage will run you four figures.
4) "Ground strap." Moving an electrically insulating fluid between containers gives you tribocharging. Then you get a static spark and then you die. BOOM.
6) Look up the heat of vaporization of liquid hydrogen/gram. Ha ha ha.
5) You've never worked with deep cryogens in your life. You don't know how to handle them, you don't know their hazards.
Look up the upper and lower flammability limits of hydrogen. When you work with cryogens cold enough to freeze air solid you have to be certified or you will die in any number of entertaining ways. BOOM today, BOOM tomorrow. Apllo 13 - and that was only a LOX dewar handled by highly trained technicans.
The history of technology has been the increasing isolation of consumers from engineering. Your average git can barely be trusted with an "on" switch.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/eotvos.htm
(Do something naughty to physics)
Re: Worlds First portable Hydrogen Fuel Cell Launched Mike Kremer 27/9 21:20
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