what is the current state of fuel cells and why is it not being deployed?

Question

fuel cells eg oxygen +hydrogen=water+electricity

Answer 1

Two reasons. First, the cells themselves are costly, and a bit fussy to keep running, so they only get used in things like the space shuttle where cost takes a back seat to performance. Second, present fuel cells use hydrogen, which cannot (unlike natural gas) simply be dug out of the ground: hydrogen has to be made, and the processes for doing so require lots of energy, so hydrogen is not cheap. Also, hydrogen is badly suited for vehicle use because its density is so low: a standard gas cylinder full of hydrogen contains about as much energy as half a gallon of gasoline. Liquid hydrogen is used for rocket propulsion because it releases lots of energy, but liquid hydrogen is the second coldest liquid there is so it takes special materials and handling to use it.

Answer 2

There are lots of fuel cells in use today and you will see a lot more in the next few years. But, they are quite expensive to manufacture and will be reserved for special purposes for years to come.

We all would like to see fuel cell cars running on hydrogen produced by renewable sources like wind and solar power, because that would be a transportation system that would never run out of fuel. Before that could happen we have to solve the problem of being able to manufacture very large numbers (100 millions) of large fuel cells, and we have to figure out how to carry the hydrogen in the cars -- liquid hydrogen as someone here pointed out, is really cold, so a storage compartment for liguid hydrogen is a real engineering challenge.

Answer 3

its true they are expensive etc but the biggest problem is this. unlike oil and gas etc there are no deposits of hydrogen and oxygen on there own. there is however a huge deposit of them both together known to most as water. however to get the hydrogen and oxygen from water you have to electrolyse it and this requires electricity which comes from the burning of fossil fuels. so its not that they don't work its just that they are worse for the environment at the moment than using the petrol in the first place as some energy is lost in the process

Answer 4

Bagpuss claims that we can but dual fuel cars today. Perhaps he/she can quote an example of a dual fuel car that uses a fuel cell?

Dual fuel cars are availble, but almost exclusively they are either petrol-electric hybrids, or petrol-LPG. The petrol-electrics use batteries charged by otherwise waste output (direct & indirect)from the petrol engine (and therefore not strictly dual fuel as all the energy derives from the petrol in the tank).

Fuel cells have the advantage of using the fuel at the point-of-use. I suspect that electric cars will never be environmentally friendly when charged with power derived from coal or gas power stations due to the inefficiency of power generation and distribution.

Answer 5

Right now there are cheaper ways to do the same job, except in space vehicles and maybe a very few other places. As oil gets more expensive, fuel cells will have a place in moving away from oil. There's a lot of research going on, deployment will take place when it makes economic sense.

Answer 6

They exist and work well but most of these have patents held by petroleum companies and utilities, as such they hold the patents and "shelf" them in order to use up current fuels at higher prices, once these run out, they will turn to renewable sources and fuel cells to make money. Basically its just a question of time and politics.

Answer 7

Hello!! the two previous answers haven't heard of the duel fuel cars that we can go out and buy today then...

http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/

this is a pretty comprehensive site listing the modern advances in fuel cells.

Answer 8

very expensive i think. Our local waste water treatment plant set up a fuel cell system to operate equipment, but it had so many bugs i think they gave up on it