NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/sci/energy/5544

Text File | 1992-11-18 | 1.8 KB | 39 lines

Newsgroups: sci.energy
Path: sparky!uunet!charon.amdahl.com!pacbell.com!sgiblab!swrinde!emory!kd4nc!ke4zv!gary
From: [e-mail] (Gary Coffman)
Subject: Re: Any info. on hydrogen power for cars??
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group
References: <1992Nov17.131916.12009@bsu-ucs>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 18:58:00 GMT
Lines: 27

In article <1992Nov17.131916.12009@bsu-ucs> [e-mail] writes:
>I would like to know if any US car company will make or research
>for a car that can run on hydrogen.  I only know of VW and BMW
>that are doing research on makinga car that can run on hydrogen
>I believe that hydrogen would be a great fuel for cars, and power
>plants because the only by-product when it is burned is water.
>Any information on this topic is greatly appreciated.

Hydrogen is a tricky fuel to make work in an IC engine. Pre-ignition
is a severe problem. And of course the high chamber temperature and
pressure still generates oxides of nitrogen, only the HC emissions are
eliminated. Current three way catalysts, to reduce the NOx, require HC
to fuel them to the necessary high temperature. I suppose a fuel rich
mixture of hydrogen could be used instead, but that could lead to a risk
of cat converter explosions and cost mileage. The real problem, of course,
remains tankage. It takes a lot of hydrogen to equal the energy content of
a gallon of gasoline, and hydrogen is extremely low density at STP. Large
very high pressure tankage, or large cryogenic tankage is required to
replace the gasoline tank's energy capacity.

Using an external combustion engine (see discussion of steam power) would
eliminate most of the NOx and all of the pre-ignition problems, but wouldn't
solve the tankage problem. Hydrogen is less dense than air.

Gary