Robert Llewellyn discovers how hydrogen fuel cells actually work. LIKE Fully Charged on Facebook @ www.facebook.com Fully Charged Podcast on iTunes @ bit.ly A huge thanks to James Courtney from the University of Birmingham, for taking the time to tell us about hydrogen fuel cells. Fully Charged is an online show hosted by Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scraphead Challenge, Carpool), sponsored by British Gas: Looking After Your World. During this series, Robert will discuss why we need to change how we think about energy consumption now. He will be taking a look at the newest electric cars available on the market [Volvo, Ford, Peugeot, Renault & Nissan] and also different forms of renewable energy [Wind and Solar].
DemocracyNow.org – The crisis in Japan has refueled the global debate about the viability of nuclear power. Democracy Now! hosts a debate today about the future of nuclear energy between British journalist George Monbiot and Dr. Helen Caldicott. Nuclear energy remains a controversial topic in climate change discourse, as environmental activists argue how to best reduce the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted into the atmosphere—often the debate pits one non-renewable energy against another as renewable energy technology and research remains underfunded. Watch Part 1: www.youtube.com Monbiot has written extensively about the environmental and health dangers caused by burning coal for energy, and despite the Fukushima catastrophe, stands behind nuclear power. Caldicott is a world-renowned anti-nuclear advocate who has spent decades warning of the medical hazards posed by nuclear technologies, and while agreeing about the dangers of burning coal, insists the best option is to ban nuclear power. For the video/audio podcast, transcript, to sign up for the daily news digest, and for Democracy Now!’s vast news archive on reporting on climate change, visit www.DemocracyNow.org. FOLLOW US Facebook: www.facebook.com Twitter: @democracynow Please consider supporting independent media by making a donation to Democracy Now! today, visit www.democracynow.org
Video Rating: 4 / 5
hydrogen is the most abundant thing in the universe. there must be a more simple way to produce it. its just a case of investment and time. also rob your a legend and i cant wait until, September i believe? very excited mate.
then you were only wrong about the parrot part : )
Actually he said “probably” but like I said , I think this video is for the people that have no idea. lol Red Dwarf is a bit before my time, Though I do use ketchup as an ingredient in my thousand island dressing….. oh and just to clarify I just disagreed with the “parrot” part, the rest I agree with.
If a vehicle uses water as fuel, and separates it into hydrogen and oxygen…
….And then uses the hydrogen in a hydrogen fuel cell to produce electricity for the motors…
….And the waste product (as with any hydrogen fuel cell) is water….
…Couldn’t you just pipe the exhaust back into the fuel tank and have a car that runs forever, on the same water, over and over?
XitUp isn’t a “PSYOP”, whatever that is, he’s trying to explain basic physics to you.
he says in the video he believes hfc is the future. he should have a strength of conviction more like Kryten’s belief that ketchup on lobster is wrong : )
Love the video Rob! However I think you will find, most people are so naive to think because you do a video on a topic means to them, that you are pro-that-topic, frustrating I know. Please keep up the good work mate!
Well I disagree, this is quite educational to the people that think hydrogen is as simple as hooking up an LPG cylinder. You and I know the whole idea of hydrogen as an automotive fuel is fundamentally is flawed. but ALLOT of people don’t, I hear allot of people when I talk about EV’s, say “I’ll wait for hydrogen”. I would say this video is for those who don’t know better. Correct my if I’m wrong Rob, but I don’t think he’s trying to sway our vote. To me, this solidifies my belief in battery’s.
I see UFOs coming. where we’re going we don’t neeed… roads
I agree completely. There is always impressive and (relatively) affordable battery and charging technology that is improving by leaps and bounds. However I could certainly see fuel cells going into larger transportation systems, including as ships, planes, trains, tractor trailers, etc. In those instances, this high cost might be reasonable considering their high use and their need for dense fuel and rapid refueling.
not really. just look at Norway and Sweden
As I see it bio gas is just really crappy solar power. Its very inefficient, an requires huge territories.
Parking meters with plugs on them?
Inductive charging?
Or, how about they just stick to normal cars? How many people are there that don’t have somewhere to park at work or home?
Yup, no imagination.
However, this is real life, not science fiction, so imagination isn’t as good as fact.
I don’t have the evidence. The court that found him guilty of fraud did though.
How about you show me the evidence that he drove anywhere powered by tap water?
Second law of thermodynamic, look it up you mug.
Robert has turned to the Dark side!
Lame. Lets see your evidence for con man. Becuz he raised money before he could prove his invention worked, then had to refund the money in court? Then 11 months later drove across the country in his tap water powered vehicle? Is that why he was granted patents for his inventions? Take your PSYOP responses to twitter where all liars live.
Well HFC have lots of downsides but how you going to power cars which have no fixed car park space ? There’s Better Place that occupies that niche but how widespread can you make such complex operation and at what cost?
No, I consider battery technology a more realistic future.
All Hydrogen FC cars are basically extended range EVs anyways. It’s MUCH simpler to just install a larger battery in an EV to get more range rather than install a 5,000 psi Hydrogen fuel tank to supply a FC that is orders of magnitude more expensive than the larger EV battery it is supposed to be substituting.
Talk about “dispatches from the bubble”…
1. The materials used are expensive (unless you consider materials like platinum is as affordable as stainless steel) and research is in progress to find cheaper ways of building HFCs.
2. If they were easy, everyone would be building them ala airfix models.
3. Minus the sarcasm, HFCs are indeed highly reliable and don’t require another sarcophagus.
4. It’s stored under pressure, not in a balloon. Do you consider a petrol/diesel vehicle to be safer?
This is the thing, and we won’t know if hydrogen will be or not if we stick to the thinking of “lets not invest in it at all so our self-fulfilling prophecy will be realised”. I’d also further your point on increasing monetary investment with increasing education, as clearly we can’t rely on burning stuff forever and therefore electric vehicles (regardless of how the electricity is stored or generated) is the immediate future.
I found that the area between 1:34 to 10:22 explained why hydrogen fuel cells will never be mainstream. They’re as cheap to buy, easy to make, and endlessly reliable as a Soviet nuclear reactor. Oh, and there’ll be a tankful of viciously explosive hydrogen under your seat.
The production of hydrogen is not the only problem, hydrogen fuel cells also have a very long way to go before they become practical.
Hydrogen fuel cells don’t even begin to compete with BEVs in the price arena. The FCX would cost something like 1 or 2 million dollars if it could be purchased.
Some exciting development of H2 production from ‘artificial’ photosynthesis techniques – akin to real plant production rates. This is great for stationary power. Conceivably, in the near future, H2 production for solar energy storage to compliment solar thermal. Perhaps solar thermal for large generators and H2 photosynthesis for domestic ?? Just perfect for battery alternative and/or recharging your Nissan LEAF
At 6:38: “George Monbiot, do you agree with Helen Caldicotts assessment?”. He could have said “well it doesn’t relate to what I said, or to the debate at hand, so ham sandwich milkshake”. Instead, he gives a very balanced response I think.
You are an idiot and obviously uneducated.
Also, Helen Caldicott, you are a douche.
Bravo Mr Monbiot.
What matters is Energy Returned on Energy Invested.
That measure is how to set our strategic energy policy.
Wind power is one of the best.
1 Acronym — EROI Energy return on investment. become familiar with it before spouting your rubbish. Right now ”Renewable energy” is heavily funded with R&D, it is not being held back because of a conspiracy you nut.
We can easily replace nuclear power with SOLAR not coal. People look up nanosolars printable solar panels and Affinia’s solar stirling engine. These known solar technologies alone could easily solve energy problem’s if profit and evil weren’t holding such technologies back. We the people and our technology are being greatly suppressed.
There is a quick simple solution to global warming and climate change. It is called Muon Catalysed Fusion. As worked on Star Scientific. NO CO2. NO Greenhouse Gases. NO Toxic Waste. The source is dueterium from the World’s Oceans – virtually limitless. It is cheap to produce. WE NEED IT NOW. See the website “Star Scientific Limited”, Blog “The Big Picture by Andrew Horvath”, Youtube video – “In the Footsteps of Fusion”
Too simplistic. If you can’t understand that the Co2 in coal heats the planet but the sulphur in un-scrubbed chimney’s *temporarily* blocks sunlight with a temporary cooling effect, then that’s your malfunction. When Chinese power scrubbs their chimney’s for public health reasons, we’re going to see even faster warming than we did last decade, the hottest decade on record. You’ll see.
Who cares about Co2? Climatologists care mate — and they are the scientists we listen to on this — not you. But because you don’t like their conclusions you just sneer and wrinkle your nose like a child. And no sources of worth? How predictable. What Denialist myth are you going to quote next, “It’s all cosmic rays?” It’s been done. Dogma doesn’t change to new data, but science does. You’re all politics and no science my boy.
I am trying to grt some science into your thick skulls. Who cares what wavelength co2 absorbs light at? it is insignificant to our climate. The main source of climate change is the Sun followed by the Oceans. I do not recall being your friend! No politics just science.
You, my friend, are a walking cliche, quoting from the top 28 Denialist myths.
Scan down to myth 8 “Human Co2 emissions are too tiny to matter”.
newscientist[dot]com/article/dn11462
If the universe applied your lack of confidence in spectrometry (which measures how particles and wavelengths interact) then the internet would evaporate and we would not have this conversation. I’m sorry that your political beliefs make you blind to the real world in front of you.
Who needs the Sun to control our climate when the Sun shines out of Al Gore’s arse. co2 is a minor trace gas in the atmosphere which has nothing at all to do with past warming. The abrupt cooling in future winters due to the grand solar minimum will disprove the greenhouse theory. The only things escalating and running out of control are egos.
Look, IF I could be guaranteed that renewables could do it cheap enough to not bankrupt any nation that tried, I’d say GO FOR IT! I loved renewables for 6 years and campaigned against nuclear power. I thought every nuclear power station was a sitting time bomb. It’s not. Banning today’s Gen3.5 nukes because Fukishima’s old Gen2 reactors blew is like banning all aviation because the Hindenberg crashed.
No they’re not because relying on renewable energy as we hit peak oil could start oil wars! We need safe, reliable, baseload GenIV nuclear power that EATS nuclear waste, has ‘passive safety’ physics built into it in case Homer Simpson falls asleep, and can truly run the world. Electric cars NEED nukes to charge them overnight, as the world will need more and more electricity to replace oil as we pass peak oil.
You need to check out this wiki. en.wikipedia[dot]org/wiki/Megatons_to_Megawatts 10% of American electricity comes from burning old Soviet Warheads! 1/10th! There you go! Nuclear bombs are being decommissioned worldwide and the numbers are REALLY dropping. 95% of the world’s nukes are held by American and Russia. They’re ‘friends’. We’re burning them for fuel in modern reactors. New Reactors don’t produce bomb grade plutonium. We’ll make it.
Caldicott comes across as a shrill idiot not quoting the peer-reviewed science. She’s totally unprofessional. Grab a coffee, and have a good, long, slow, careful read of Monbiot’s critique of the rubbish she refers Monbiot to. tinyurl[dot]com/3oevrt2 Replace the [dot] with a . Remember, new nukes are self-cooling, safe, EAT nuclear waste and could run the world for 500 years on the waste we have today! Google Integral Fast Reactor.
Constantly burning Chinese dirty coal (without scrubbers) adds sulphur to the “Global Dimming effect”. Now here’s the thing. The sulphur cleans up quickly, but the Co2 will stay for thouands of years. If they install scrubbers or run out of coal, they’ll stop adding that sulphur! That means global warming will SUDDENLY ESCALATE OUT OF CONTROL! World Coal says 119 years LEFT, and coal production will peak and begin to decline long before then. One way or another we’ll leave coal.
never mind burning coal causes global cooling. Has he not heard this one yet?
Even if you think that Caldicott is a liability or hasn’t got all of the right information, (which I disagree with by the way) her heart seems to be in the right place. At least she’s fighting to bring such a massive issue to the attention of the people and I am surprised that she actually gets any press at all.
I seriously doubt they’ll ever get rid of nuclear weapons and energy, it will destroy life on this planet and for what? So few can become richer than many of us could imagine.
I think we can safely say that the batteries from hydrogen cars are safer than strontium or plutonium from nuclear power. X
…hydrogen cars have little emissions in themselves, but the energy stored in these batteries, and the energy required to recharge is most definitely powered by external sources such as coal, nuclear, solar, etc. Hence, emissions are not eliminated, but are simply displaced.
She doesn’t even know the difference between radiation and radioactivity, which is actually pretty important when you’re putting yourself up as an authority on the subject. Verdict: she’s a liability.
I wonder how much money the coal industry has donated to Anti Nuke campaigners like Caldicott ?
I doubt their blind passion would turn down large anonymous donations.
Coal is multi-billion dollar business that won’t go down without a fight. They are prepared to poison the planet to make a dollar. How many dirty tricks would they play to protect their business ?
My partner and i look forward to meeting up with anyone! Wonderful blog by the way!