Do you remember that just a week ago or so I was writing about Honda’s new FCX Clarity, and the exaggerated worries that humankind won’t find a cheap and reliable way to get hydrogen to customers? Well, like magic, like I knew, today I found out that a British company, ITM, has already invented a device that does electrolysis and splits water into hydrogen. They even modified a Ford Focus to run on the hydrogen they make(basically no big deal, just a few adjustments to the top dead center of the pistons and a little chip tricking on the exhaust).
The invention is not their invention after all, it’s been here since the universe exists, and it probably approaches the same technology that Stanley Meyer and others use in the making of the so called “water cars” – cars that run on nothing but water, with hydrogen produced on-board. The problem is not that hydrogen can’t be extracted from water, but to make the process energy efficient, use much less power to extract than it’s produced by explosion in the engine. Remember, you still have to have useful power to move your car!
Anyway, the fueling station aims to overcome one of the biggest stumbling blocks to running vehicles on hydrogen – the lack of a refueling network.
The developers say it has taken scientists and chemists at its Sheffield research base – Europe’s largest fuel cell development center – eight years to create a low-cost means of manufacturing hydrogen.
This Focus they modified can travel only 25 miles for a beginning, but they are looking for methods to overcome that problem (it’s probably limited by the power of the compressor or the tank capacity and resistance).
So, dear fellow readers, the solutions exist! We now have hydrogen – fueled cars, hydrogen from water for under £2,000, what do you want more? Still believe in the immortality of fossil fuels? Still believe that anything can be changed? I think it can be. And the change is starting to happen, whether some want it or not.
There is a company in the U.S. that also sells pre-fab kits for splitting water for hydrogen on board. It’s not 100% conversion of the car to hydrogen fuel, but partial conversion to a hybrid, which does help with gas mileage. Elbert County Sherriff’s Department in Colorado tested it with good results. Video here.