# This Is Not Your Father's Hydrogen Powered Car **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 6, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604 "2006-08-06T21:12:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/1 "2006-08-06T21:12:35Z")
[Not that you’re dad ever had one, but hell, if it was good enough for Oldsmobile, it’s good enough for me.](http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/07/28/1750967.htm) > [@](#): > > Tareq Abu-Hamed, now at the University of Minnesota, and colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, have devised a scheme that gets round these problems. By reacting water with the element boron, their system produces hydrogen that can be burnt in an internal combustion engine or fed to a fuel cell to generate electricity. “The aim is to produce the hydrogen on-board at a rate matching the demand of the car engine,” says Abu-Hamed. “We want to use the boron to save transporting and storing the hydrogen.” The only by-product is boron oxide, which can be removed from the car, turned back into boron, and used again. What’s more, Abu-Hamed envisages doing this in a solar-powered plant that is completely emission-free. > > The team calculates that a car would have to carry just 18 kilograms of boron and 45 litres of water to produce 5 kilograms of hydrogen, which has the same energy content as a 40-litre tank of conventional fuel. An Israeli company has begun designing a prototype engine that works in the same way, and the Japanese company Samsung has built a prototype scooter based on a similar idea. I’d really to find the technical details on this, so that I could go ahead and start converting my cars over to it. (Yes, **Tucker** has toys.) ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/2 "2006-08-07T06:22:03Z")
This was featured in _New Scientist_ three weeks ago, complete with a terrific schematic of the whole chemical cycle including the boron-refreshing plant and the solar power for that! A completely self-contained cycle, it’s beautiful to see. It starts [here](http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/energy-fuels/mg19125621.200-a-fuel-tank-full-of-water.html) but you need to be a _NS_ subscriber to read the lot (which I think may be the same text you have linked to) and see [the diagram](http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2562/25621201.jpg) I’m afraid. ---
**Author:** ![MostlyClueless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@MostlyClueless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MostlyClueless)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/3 "2006-08-07T15:27:54Z")
Funny how all these new developments start popping up now we’re running out of petrol. But yeah, interesting news! Good to see that that hydrogen thing has become a little more feasible again. ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2006, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/4 "2006-08-07T16:07:24Z")
> [@MostlyClueless](#): > > Funny how all these new developments start popping up now we’re running out of petrol. Since it’s not a renewable energy source, technically we’ve _always_ been running out of petrol. We have not yet reached a state of “peak oil” though. I like this idea though. It’s a little more complex than the older ideas, but it has the potential not only to make the _generation_ of hydrogen fuel much greener and requiring of far less effort, but also do so by a means that allows the catalyst to be retained and recycled back to its original state to be reused, thus retaining a zero-emissions engine design. This means that hydrogen fuelling stations would be unnecessary, though you would have to have a means to swap your boron oxide for a new (tank?) of boron – which could probably be set up just about anywhere as part of any automotive shop. A fringe benefit that I can see is that because it’s an exothermic reaction, the heat could be reclaimed very easily to charge batteries that could power the car’s electrical system. Although this already occurs in cars (such as reclaiming the heat generated by the braking system) this seems like it would provide a more constant, more significant head source from which to do so, which may be able to power multiple batteries which could be used to provide additional power for electrical devices or even made into a hybrid engine that could engage if you run out of hydrogen fuel as a “last mile” resort. There is still the question of how expensive Boron would be to buy though. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/5 "2006-08-08T15:55:39Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > This was featured in _New Scientist_ three weeks ago, complete with a terrific schematic of the whole chemical cycle including the boron-refreshing plant and the solar power for that! A completely self-contained cycle, it’s beautiful to see. > > It starts [here](http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/energy-fuels/mg19125621.200-a-fuel-tank-full-of-water.html) but you need to be a _NS_ subscriber to read the lot (which I think may be the same text you have linked to) and see [the diagram](http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2562/25621201.jpg) I’m afraid. Yeah, I’ve got the issue, but the details aren’t really quite enough. I could do it with what’s in the magazine, but it’d require a _lot_ of trial and error, which is _expensive_. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/6 "2006-08-08T16:16:19Z")
This is neat-but I remember an electric car design , around and aluminum-water battery. the idea was similar-you goit electric currrent out of oxidation of the aluminum, and the resultant oxide sludge could be reduced back to pure aluminum. Anybody know what happened to this? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/7 "2006-08-08T16:55:24Z")
Misread as: **This Is Not Your Father’s Hydrogen-Powered Cat** I figured it probably wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/8 "2006-08-08T17:39:22Z")
…so, it hasn’t even been built yet? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/9 "2006-08-08T17:56:38Z")
> [@MostlyClueless](#): > > Funny how all these new developments start popping up now we’re running out of petrol. > > But yeah, interesting news! Good to see that that hydrogen thing has become a little more feasible again. Necessity is the mother of invention. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/10 "2006-08-08T18:23:56Z")
> [@](#): > > The team calculates that a car would have to carry just 18 kilograms of boron and 45 litres of water to produce 5 kilograms of hydrogen, which has the same energy content as a 40-litre tank of conventional fuel. That doesn’t sound particularly attractive to me. The average driver would need to buy a 40-pound bag of powdered boron every week or two. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/11 "2006-08-08T18:30:29Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > That doesn’t sound particularly attractive to me. The average driver would need to buy a 40-pound bag of powdered boron every week or two. What’s the going rate for boron these days? I know borax ain’t too terribly expensive, but that doesn’t mean anything. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/12 "2006-08-08T18:57:16Z")
[Well, according to this page, it looks like it’s going for about $5/_ **gram** _!](http://www.answers.com/topic/boron):eek: ---
**Author:** ![Zeriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/58956e/32.png) [@Zeriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeriel)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2006, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/13 "2006-08-08T19:06:17Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > That doesn’t sound particularly attractive to me. The average driver would need to buy a 40-pound bag of powdered boron every week or two. Presumably there’d be either a convenient apparatus for filling the sucker up in your garage, or convenient apparatus that would be retrofitted onto existing gas stations to just fill that sucker up. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/14 "2007-02-22T17:31:16Z")
A bump, because I just found [this article](http://www.caranddriver.com/features/1920/look-ma-no-gas.html) showing that DCX built a prototype vehicle **five** years ago! ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/15 "2007-02-22T17:55:46Z")
[QUOTE=scr4] That doesn’t sound particularly attractive to me. The average driver would need to buy a 40-pound bag of powdered boron every week or two. [/QUOTE] Yeah, the current system sucks too. I have to buy 80 pounds of toxic, flammable, volatile liquid every week or two. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/16 "2007-02-22T21:57:23Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] [Well, according to this page, it looks like it’s going for about $5/_ **gram** _!](http://www.answers.com/topic/boron):eek: [/QUOTE] I see a price of $5,000 a kg for crystalline boron – so let’s see, times 18 is… $90,000. Plus, is the production capacity there, or will demand cause the price to shoot up even further? Ah, there’s always a catch. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2007, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/17 "2007-02-22T22:31:16Z")
Ah, but it’s not really a matter of _buying_ the boron, is it? It’s more like you’re renting it for a while. Also, the process is not destructive, so the same boron (fluctuating with demand) is used over. If this becomes a feasible mass-market possibility, fortunes are going to made on cornering the boron market. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/18 "2007-02-23T02:34:05Z")
[QUOTE=Sal Ammoniac] I see a price of $5,000 a kg for crystalline boron – so let’s see, times 18 is… $90,000. Plus, is the production capacity there, or will demand cause the price to shoot up even further? Ah, there’s always a catch. [/QUOTE] It could be the other way around. Boron could be expensive becaus there’s so little demand for it that it’s never made sense to set up mass production and mining. Lots of products fall into that category. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/19 "2007-02-23T03:33:18Z")
Possibly, but I don’t think so, since boron seems to be widely used to make fiberglass, and a fair number of other things. Current global production is nowhere near what would be needed if suddenly every car owner needed 18 kg of the stuff. This is a cool idea, but it ain’t going to work, unless somebody invents a new and easy process for extracting boron. The price has to come down a hundredfold before you’re in spitting distance of feasibility. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-is-not-your-fathers-hydrogen-powered-car/367604/20 "2007-02-23T16:11:09Z")
This isn’t a particularly new idea. A company called PowerBall Technologies was working on a similar technology based on sodium hydride maybe four or five years ago. They were selling fuel balls and fuel processors on a small scale. I think they even got a pilot recycling plant running in Utah at one point, but they seem to be defunct now. Given the industry already in place around sodium hydride and sodium hydroxide (lye), this might be more practical than boron in terms of supply.