Hydrogen Fueling Station: 10 Times Less Efficient

Max Dunn — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:21:00 -0700

A new $3.2 million hydrogen fueling station opened in Sacramento last week that has 80kW of solar PV panels are used to produce the hydrogen, so it won’t use any outside energy. Let’s take a look at how efficient this is:

SOLAR OUTPUT:

80 kW * 5hrs = 400 kWh per day

WITH FUEL CELL CARS:

400 kWh / 65 kWh per kG (Stuart Energy) = ~6 kG per day (AT 5000 PSI)
6 kG * 45 miles per kG = 270 miles per day
100,000 miles per year

WITH ELECTRIC CARS :

400 KWH * 3 miles per kWh (RAV4 EV) = 1200 EV miles per day
438,000 miles per year

Considering the solar array probably cost probably cost around $10/watt, or $800,000 out of $3,200,000, the hydrogen “refueling station” cost approximately $2,400,000.

If that money had been used to build $2,400,000 of solar installation plus $800,000 of EV chargers – about 240 kW of solar and 160 EV charger stations – enough for well over a million miles per year (80 cars worth) instead of just a hundred thousand hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle miles (8 cars worth). So the hydrogen fueling station is only 10% as efficient as building solar recharging stations for battery electric vehicles.

(From RAV4-EV Digest, Vol 58, Issue 12, comment by William Korthof of EESolar)

"Hydrogen Fueling Station: 10 Times Less Efficient" by TheSUBWAY.com

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:46:12 -0700

It’s good to hear BP & GM talk about alternative fuels, but 50 years to implement is too long.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/05/news/companies/bigoil_hydrogen/index.htm

Perhaps this link will spark more attention:

http://www.chevrolet.com/electriccar/

It is GM’s electric concept car the Chevy Volt. If more people begin to demand alternative fuel cars, we should be able to speed the rate at which the technology is developed.

We have started an Investor Forum where Investors can meet and discuss topics like this:

http://investor-forum.thesubway.com/

Eschew Obfuscation: Hydrogen Fueling Station: 10 Times Less Efficient

Hydrogen Fueling Station: 10 Times Less Efficient

"Hydrogen Fueling Station: 10 Times Less Efficient" by TheSUBWAY.com