{"id":13628,"date":"2021-08-09T09:58:35","date_gmt":"2021-08-08T23:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/?p=13628"},"modified":"2023-08-22T18:30:54","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T08:30:54","slug":"a-case-for-hydrogen-powered-cars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/makes-models\/a-case-for-hydrogen-powered-cars\/","title":{"rendered":"A Case for Hydrogen-Powered Cars"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s to like about hydrogen, and hydrogen-powered cars?\u00a0 We cannot see taste or even smell hydrogen, yet hydrogen makes up over 90% of matter.\u00a0 The stars and the sun are made up of hydrogen gas.\u00a0 Here on earth, hydrogen forms compounds; compounds are a mixture of elements that we find on the Periodic Table (That\u2019s the big poster found in every science lab at school, which has 120 \u2013 or so \u2013 little squares with letters that make up the organised Periodic Table with all the known elements in our world.).\u00a0 Hydrogen is found in almost every living thing.\u00a0 Hydrogen gas is used to make chemicals such as ammonia and methane.\u00a0 Hydrogen is in the water that we drink (H2<\/sub>O).\u00a0 Some car manufacturers and scientists have been beavering away developing what is known as hydrogen-powered cars.<\/p>\n

Before the car was even invented, hydrogen power had been around and in use in various forms since the 1800s.\u00a0 It was used widely for gas streetlamps back in the day.\u00a0 It was a Welshman, Sir William Robert Grove, who invented the first fuel cell back in 1839.\u00a0 When you use hydrogen in a fuel cell, the only thing you produce is electricity and water!<\/p>\n

So, hydrogen-powered cars are vehicles that contain tanks of hydrogen fuel that then combine with oxygen from the air in a process that delivers power to the car for motion. \u00a0The beauty of the hydrogen-powered vehicle is they produce only water as a waste product.<\/p>\n

In a little bit more detail, a hydrogen fuel cell inside a hydrogen-powered car works like this\u2026\u00a0 The fuel cell has a proton exchange membrane that uses compressed hydrogen and oxygen from the air to produce electricity.\u00a0 The hydrogen goes into the membrane at one end called the anode, while oxygen goes into the membrane at the other end called the cathode.\u00a0 A platinum catalyst, which is positioned on the anode end of the membrane, splits the hydrogen into positive protons and negatively charged electrons.\u00a0 The proton exchange membrane takes only the positive ions, while the electrons are fed into a circuit to make electricity.\u00a0 It\u2019s this electricity which is used to drive the car\u2019s electric motor[s].\u00a0 These electric motors are what provide the driving for the hydrogen-powered car to give them speed and power!<\/p>\n

At the cathode end, the positive ions are travelling along the membrane and combining with oxygen from the air to make water (H2<\/sub>O).\u00a0 This water drips out of the car\u2019s exhaust\/tailpipe.\u00a0 If you are driving your hydrogen-powered car through a desert and need some water, then you could believably drink it.\u00a0 Now, how green is that!<\/p>\n

How can we produce hydrogen for vehicles? \u00a0Without going into too many details here (I\u2019ll save that for another blog), hydrogen can be produced in mass from a renewable electricity system that uses generation plants like hydro dams, solar power and wind power generators.\u00a0 This purpose-made hydrogen is known as green hydrogen.\u00a0 Australian mining company, Fortescue, has been talking with government recently regarding the creation of a hydrogen production system for Australia as early as 2023\/24.<\/p>\n

Tiwai point, which you\u2019ll find on the Southern-most tip of New Zealand (NZ makes up Australia\u2019s two biggest islands!), is currently being used as an aluminium smelter.\u00a0 The NZ government is in talks for designing and consenting to converting this smelter into a green hydrogen production plant even as early as 2023.<\/p>\n

I think the hydrogen-powered vehicle makes a lot of (green) sense.\u00a0 It would cut down on the need for an endless supply of new battery packs that EVs require, which are made from preciously rare earth\u2019s resources (e.g., lithium, nickle, cobalt\u2026), and the energy and space to dispose of the spent battery packs would be a problem.<\/p>\n

Of course, we would need to build up a network of hydrogen refuelling stations across Australia to power this new type of vehicle.\u00a0 This network-building will be easy enough and relatively cheap compared to the massive and costly EV network\/upgrade.\u00a0 Green hydrogen fuelling stations could simply be added onto any petrol\/diesel refuelling station currently in operation across Australia.\u00a0 This would also ease the changeover period for the general public.<\/p>\n

If you are wondering what hydrogen-powered cars might look like, do take a look at the new Toyota Mirai, for an example.<\/p>\n

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Toyota Mirai<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s to like about hydrogen, and hydrogen-powered cars?\u00a0 We cannot see taste or even smell hydrogen, yet hydrogen makes up over 90% of matter.\u00a0 The stars and the sun are made up of hydrogen gas.\u00a0 Here on earth, hydrogen forms compounds; compounds are a mixture of elements that we find on the Periodic Table (That\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[227,5120,86,58,4923,4471,59,6216,54,57,4049,4014,3071],"tags":[7037,5578,5438,7038,7035,7034,7036],"class_list":["post-13628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-automotive-design","category-blog","category-driving","category-electric-vehicles-evs","category-environment","category-fuel-2","category-hydrogen-vehicles","category-makes-models","category-manufacturer-news","category-new-cars","category-sustainabilitygreen","category-technical","tag-green-hydrogen","tag-hydrogen-cars","tag-hydrogen-powered-cars","tag-hydrogen-production","tag-hydrogen-vehicles","tag-hygrogen","tag-toyota-mirai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13628"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14996,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13628\/revisions\/14996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}