Hydrogen Fuel

With petroleum prices out of control, other alternative fuels like Hydrogen are making their way to the front of the pack of growing alternatives to petroleum based fuels. Hydrogen is a renewable resource that can be used for fuel, and until recently has not been thought of as a viable solution to the energy problem because of its volatility. In recent years, there have been huge strides in Hydrogen fuel cell technologies so that Hydrogen fuel can be able to be used by people like you and me.

Below we will outline some of the latest Hydrogen fuel advancements and technologies, as well as explain some ways that you can produce your own Hydrogen to use as a fuel in your home, or perhaps your own Hydrogen fueled vehicle. This is a new technology for us and and we are excited about its potential to be a revolutionary fuel for the future. You can be sure will report as much as possible to you, our readers.

Hydrogen Fueled Vehicles

There are several automobile companies that are in the process of developing Hydrogen fueled vehicles using certain fuel cell technologies. This is a big step in the Automotive industry away from Big Oil as the big player in the auto fueling market. Hydrogen cars and trucks mean cleaner burning vehicles as well as hopefully lowered fuel costs as it is so inexpensive to make. The fuel cells maybe a different story in terms of the price, but we all know that when something catches on, the price eventually drops.

One of major automobile manufacturers that is making a Hydrogen fueled passenger car is BMW. Their new 7 Series is powered by a Hydrogen fuel cell and boasts Zero emissions and only emits water out the tailpipe. There is a commercial out for BMW that ends by showing just a drop of water coming out of the tailpipe after a long sprint down the road. It looks amazing and if it does what it says, there could be a lot more people driving BMWs around the world. Other automobile manufacturers looking to release the first production model Hydrogen vehicle include Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, and even GM is trying out one. Perhaps it's just seems to be the latest fad, but at least some manufacturers seem to be owning up to their job to lower emissions.

Currently the major setback to the advancement of this fuel as a real player in the market is that right now there are limited stations to fill up. California is the state with the most and they are only host to about 25 or so at this point. Considering the size of the state, that is not very many stations to fill your Hydrogen fueled car or truck up at. Other states need to start doing the same, or more for this to really catch on.

Homemade Hydrogen

As we have been doing more research on Hydrogen, we have found that there are fairly inexpensive ways to produce both Hydrogen and Oxygen with Water and an Electrolyzer. An Electrolyzer uses electrolysis to separate Hydrogen and Oxygen with small amounts of electricity. Some units I have seen that are commercially available run on as little as 1 Watt to create the chemical reaction needed to split the water molecule. You won't be producing a lot Hydrogen with 1W of power, but you can see how easy it is to create the fuel itself

Basically, you charge the water with 2 electric probes, preferably stainless steel to prevent corrosion. One being the positive node and the other is negative node. From there, the Oxygen and Hydrogen molecules are pulled to the oppositely charged probe through basic chemistry. Ok, it is not exactly that easy, but many people have created their own Hydrogen generators and are making the gas to heat their homes and more by just using purified rain water and solar panels. The solar option is the way to go for ultimate savings, but an Electrolyzer can be powered by your regular grid electricity just as easy. It just makes more sense to let nature make the fuel for you instead of having to pay for it. This maybe more difficult in states with less sunshine, but you probably get more water there instead of the sunny states, so its probably an even trade.

Hydrogen is a cleaner fuel for tomorrow

Overall, we feel Hydrogen fuel technology could revolutionize the energy market by leading to a much greener Earth and cheaper fuel prices across the board. If every home had some sort of Hydrogen generator that used its rain water along with the sun to fuel the home for hot water and heat, it would be a much better planet for our children's children. In all reality, once the systems are in place to make Hydrogen fuel by Solar Energy only, it would be the ultimate renewable fuel. It would pay for it's infrastructure costs in no-time as there would be essentially no refining costs at that point, at least in no way like refining petroleum.