According to EcoFriend.com
Researchers at the Ohio University are trying to solve the riddle by generating hydrogen from a cheap and readily available waste – urine. These researchers believe that electrolyzing urine for hydrogen is easy as compared to generating hydrogen from water as in urine, hydrogen molecules aren’t as tightly held as in water. The system breaks down urea at a voltage of just 0.37 volts, which is significantly less than the 1.23 volts required to split water.
According to inhabitat.com:
“Chicken consumption in the US creates over six billion pounds of feathers each year. Previously discarded as waste, researchers at the University of Delaware are developing an innovative way to put all that wasted plumage to use — as fuel to power hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. If this technology was implemented in a fuel cell vehicle, it would cost about $200, as opposed to using carbon nanotube tanks (which cost about $5.5 million) or metal hydrides (which cost about $30,000).
Yesterday at 13th Annual Green Chemistry and Engineering Conference, a team of scientists announced that they developed a way to store hydrogen in carbonized chicken feathers. At present, the major hold-up with making cars powered by fuel cells, is that no one has come up with a way to inexpensively and effectively produce and store all that hydrogen. Researchers Erman Şenöz and Richard P. Wool found that when they heated up quill fibers to extremely high temperatures, carbon nanotubes with nanoporous walls formed, allowing the substances to absorb and store hydrogen.”
Hydrogen cars seem to good to be true. They don’t pollute, they don’t use gas. They’re also non-existent on North American roads. Why, you may ask? They’re difficult and extremely expensive to put together - costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to build. You may also have noticed that there are few hydrogen refueling stations (there are three in California). A few companies are hoping that within the next five years they’ll have hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in their showrooms. However, some experts estimate that with everything involved, the hydrogen car fad won’t likely take-off for decades. Read more…
WatchMojo got to test drive a BMW hydrogen car. Check it out:
And for more background on hydrogen cars, take a look at this:
GM vice president Bob Lutz was brought in to the company in 2001 to help turn things around. Since then, the company has only lost market shares and has continued to rely on gas-guzzlers for sales. In 2005, Lutz wrote a blog post explaining that GM was being all maverick-y with their SUV initiatives. And although we may have seen a small jump in SUV sales recently since gas prices lowered, it’s probably unlikely these gas-guzzlers will ever rule the market again. Read what Lutz had to say three years ago:
We began developing these trucks three years ago when fuel prices were stable and historically low in real-dollar terms. Nevertheless, we made fuel economy an extremely high priority item, even back then.
This is one reason why we are still very confident of their success. In addition, we have a huge owner body, it’s a segment we think will level off at about 750,000, and we’re going to have the newest and best products out there, with substantial improvements in fuel economy. If you’re using our Displacement on Demand technology and you carefully manage when and how often you go on four cylinders, you can do better than the EPA ratings!
Let me make this clear: I don’t think anything exemplifies the state of our art today like our all-new full-size sport-utilities. We’ve made significant strides forward in exterior styling, interior refinement, vehicle dynamics, safety, quality and reliability.
You think he’d agree now with his past self? Read more…
Read more…
If you need to change your oil, check out WatchMojo’s handy instructions on how to do so:
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