Honda is going to be putting its FCX Clarity on lease in California this coming summer. As in a production ready (more or less) fuel cell car. That's right!
Now, right, you're thinking, big freakin' deal. Even if they rock how can they be sold anywhere else? There's no infrastructure to deliver the hydrogen!
True. Or it was. Maybe. Some long-haired learnin' dudes might have cracked it:
"We now have an economically viable process for producing hydrogen on-demand for vehicles, electrical generating stations and other applications," said Jerry Woodall, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue who invented the process.
The new alloy contains 95 percent aluminum and 5 percent of an alloy that is made of the metals gallium, indium and tin. Because the new alloy contains significantly less of the more expensive gallium than previous forms of the alloy, hydrogen can be produced less expensively, he said.
When immersed in water, the alloy splits water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, which immediately reacts with the aluminum to produce aluminum oxide, also called alumina, which can be recycled back into aluminum. Recycling aluminum from nearly pure alumina is less expensive than mining the aluminum-containing ore bauxite, making the technology more competitive with other forms of energy production, Woodall said.
Dude! On demand hydrogen production! On demand hydrogen production!
In unrelated news, Mr. Woodall has gone into hiding based on a hit being put on him by Exxon Mobil and BP and Texaco and...
Referenced articles:
From Physorg.com: New aluminum-rich alloy produces hydrogen on-demand for large-scale uses