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Physical_Growth_4655 t1_j54n9dn wrote

Interesting, and the exhaust would be water vapor and clean air?

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stivo t1_j551ur9 wrote

Correct. Bmw had 50 7 series prototypes built like this in 2000. You could switch between h2 and diesel.

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earthman34 t1_j57pjtc wrote

And they dropped it as pointless, since there's no hydrogen infrastructure, and hydrogen is cracked from hydrocarbons. Hydrogen has poor energy density, it's way cheaper and more efficient to just burn the hydrocarbon.

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stivo t1_j57s02u wrote

You can also crack it from water. Using free replaceable electricity. So if there's no waste product to make it, and no waste product to burn it, is it really inefficient?

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earthman34 t1_j588dl0 wrote

Hydrogen requires much more energy to extract from water than you get from it...which makes it inefficient by definition. There is no infrastructure to power huge cracking operations. The vast majority of hydrogen is currently extracted from methane, which emits more carbon than just burning the methane. Solar/wind infrastructure is going to be needed for the general use grid. Hydrogen requires massively thick tanks and huge compressors to compress it. It's extremely explosive and burns with no flame. It's far more dangerous to handle and store than liquid fuels like gas or diesel.

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stivo t1_j58qwhx wrote

That's all correct. But none of it is a show stopper.

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neglectedselenium t1_j5f5fpt wrote

So are methane and propane and butane. But hydrogen has an advantage in that it instantly evaporates instead of sinking. It's actually less of a fire hazard than other hydrocarbons

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