Der Spiegel - BMW's Hydrogen 7 Farcically Inefficient, Dirty

[hatrack]

EDIT

Last week, German car-maker BMW used the facility to present car testers with the first small series vehicle in the world that drives on both gas and liquid hydrogen. The "Hydrogen 7," will be part of BMW's upscale "7" series of vehicles, and BMW is now carefully preparing to make the new car available to customers. Starting in March, the car will be delivered to about 100 celebrities, but so far BMW is keeping mum about their names or what their leasing rates might be. The car's developers are hoping to gain insight into the practical reliability of a technology many consider the be all and end all of the car industry's ecologically clean and climate friendly future.

The Munich-based company is promising "sustainable mobility and sheer joy of driving," citing the car's 260 horsepower, 12-cylinder engine. The Hydrogen 7's standard combustion engine has been adapted to run on both liquid hydrogen and regular gasoline as well -- and tons of it. The company says the car will consume an average of 13.9 liters (3.7 gallons) per 100 kilometers (roughly 17 miles per gallon) using regular gasoline and a whopping 50 liters to drive the same distance when fuelled by hydrogen. In other words, BMW has created an energy-guzzling engine that only seems to be environmentally friendly -- a farcical ecomobile whose only true merit is that of illustrating the cardinal dilemma of a possible hydrogen-based economy.

EDIT

BMW's thermo-tank, specially designed to hold liquid hydrogen as well as regular gasoline, has the same diameter as the drum of a washing machine. It has a volume of 170 liters (45 gallons) and takes up half the trunk. But it can only hold eight kilograms (17.6 lbs) of the extremely light hydrogen fuel -- barely enough for a 200 kilometer (124 mile) trip. What's more, some of the tank's contents have to be released as they heat up and evaporate -- even the best insulation system can't keep temperatures down forever. After nine days, half the tank load has gone bad. BMW's competitors are somewhat puzzled by the company's decision to adapt combustion engines -- known for their high fuel consumption -- so that they will run on a fuel as sensitive and problematic as liquid hydrogen. "We think it's non-sense," says Frank Seyfried, research director for hydrogen-based propulsion at Volkswagen.

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And so, in creating the Hydrogen 7, BMW is announcing a future of putatively clean, full-throttle driving. The new car caters to the pleasing fantasy of customers spoiled by high-horsepower engines: That they can conform to ecological standards without making any sacrifices, burning "clean" fuel to their heart's content. Advertizing images display the Hydrogen 7 against a backdrop of wind turbines and solar panels. But the image is one of deceit. Because the hydrogen dispensed at the new filling station is generated primarily from petroleum and natural gas, the new car puts about as much strain on the environment as a heavy truck with a diesel engine. Add the loss of environmental benefits involved in the production and transportation of the putatively clean fuel to the consumption of the car itself and you get an actual consumption corresponding to considerably more than 20 liters (5.3 gallons) of fossil fuel.

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,448648,00.html

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Meanwhile...

clean diesels, which can burn renewable resources and create essentially zero net pollution have no immediate plans for deployment in the states.

[JohnWxy]

7. good point. Worthy of it's own thread!

OF course we need more stimulus for bio-diesel too.

[Porcupine]

9. H2 would be better spent upgrading carbohydrates to diesels

that can be stored and distibuted in existing fuel systems without the need to replace our infrastructure.

Of course the point could be to make conservation look stupid. That is what the hydrogen future idiots are doing.

[NNadir]

2. But it sounds good.

In these times, it doesn't matter what your result is, as long as you sound good.

The cretin who lives in the California's Governor's office, as I frequently say, has a hydrogen Hummer.

[htuttle]

3. Anyone who needs the power of 260 horses to haul their ass around...

...needs to lose weight. Fast.

[AZCat]

8. Maybe they're very, very small horses? n/t

[htuttle]

11. I looked it up once -- it's based on regular horses

James Watt determined that an average quarter horse can lift something like 550 pounds at 1 ft/sec, and based the horsepower on that.

It would probably help if we didn't construct the 'wagons' out of over a ton of solid metal, etc...Not sure even Caesar had a chariot that heavy...Certainly there are no accounts of any Roman Emperor being pulled by several hundred horses. Heck, sometimes I still feel a bit wasteful using the power of even 9 horses on my scooter.

I guess that's the price of 'fun' derived from speed and acceleration...

[AZCat]

12. I know - I was being facetious.

Regarding wagon weights - don't forget that several SUVs are well over two tons in mass. Most importantly remember that you don't actually need that much power to move large masses, it's only necessary if you want to accelerate them quickly, because (as we all know) Point B is that much more important and immediate than Point A.

[mike_c]

4. OMG, this is laughable...

...in a painful sort of way.

[mrdmk]

5. Here are the rules

1) The more buzzers and bells one has, the more potential problems that can crop-up. That killed the electric car because they were more simple than a 4 cylinder engine with a four speed manual shift, hence less problems.
2) Hydrogen is the smallest and the most reactive atom known to man. There is no tank that can keep the hydrogen atom contained over a period of time. Just look at the Hindenburg for the reaction.

Part of Mr. Bush Jr.'s energy plan for hydrogen fuel is to extract hydrogen from oil, which is very expensive and not friendly to the environment by any stretch of the imagination.

[Odin2005]

6. Hydrogen fuel cells are worthless untill he have Fusion.

Then and only then will he have enough cheap clean energy to make hydrogen viable on a large scale.

[Kolesar]

10. Germany's zeppelins burned "extra" hydrogen in the internal combustion engines

It was hydrogen that would have been vented off to the atmosphere to "balance" the buoyancy as the petro-fuel was used up and the airship was becoming lighter. How did that work out?



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