Hydrogen power for bikes and toy cars

A hydrogen-powered bike sounds like a Cub Scout project from the 23rd century, but there's a good chance such a vehicle will hit the roads later this year in Canada or China.

Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies is readying an electric bike that gets its energy from a hydrogen fuel cell rather than a rechargeable battery, according to Taras Wankewycz, co-founder and vice president of Horizon. The company is talking with government officials in both countries to get these bikes out in 2007, he added.

"About 10 million electric bikes in China get sold every year and the lead acid batteries get discarded all the time," Wankewycz said.

The company is also trying to prime interest for hydrogen-powered fishing boats, mini-cars, golf caddies and toys.

Rather than try to develop hydrogen cars, Horizon is attempting to keep the idea of hydrogen power alive by showing how fuel cells can power smaller items.

Horizon's H-racer, a hydrogen-powered remote-controlled car for hobbyists, for instance, comes with a solar panel that harvests electricity that gets utilized to split water to create hydrogen.

"The reason it works is that people can refill it," Wankewycz said. "We think big but we start small. We want to see the larger applications but we are realistic about when they are going to hit."

Even hydrogen proponents admit it's somewhat easy to come up with reasons the hydrogen economy may never come to pass. Hydrogen can be expensive to make, and production can generate significant amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Producing hydrogen cleanly with chemical reactions or solar power is possible, but these methods remain expensive for generating large volumes of gas. Hydrogen power also is not as efficient as simply using solar power to recharge batteries.

Hydrogen, however, does have this over batteries: it takes only a few minutes to refill a gas cylinder or a tank in a hydrogen car, according to, among others, U.C. Berkeley researcher Tim Lipman. A battery, particularly a large automotive battery for an electric car, can take hours to recharge. Batteries are also expensive and need to be replaced at some point, thereby creating toxic waste. (Hydrogen fuel cells and batteries essentially perform the same task--they generate electrons for an electric engine--but harvest and deliver those electrons in a different manner.)

Until some of these problems can be ironed out, Horizon is trying to zero in on scenarios that can skirt the difficulties. One application Horizon has hopes for is powerboats. Switzerland has banned gas engine boats in many of its lakes. "You can only sail or use a battery," he said. Horizon has created, and has been testing, a hydrogen-powered trolling motor in that country. It's silent and can pull a boat forward at a low speed, two things fishermen want.

Docks typically also sell propane and other gases, so getting hydrogen in the mix should be somewhat feasible.

[Blito]

No sparks

Keep away from open flame.

[Oleg Simkin]

cause you know gas is better.

and non flamable.

[Oleg Simkin]

cause you know gas is better.

and non flamable.

[rdill]

Hydrogen .. let's get serious

Hydrogen is an extremely explosive material. Its use needs great care because it is explosive in air over an extremely wide range of mixtures.

Any hydrogen usage (fuel cell or other) needs great care to make sure that there won't be a fuel leak and explosion. In an very well engineered fuel cell vehicle, this is unlikely, but in trivial applications where the engineering is more marginal accidents are not only likely to happen, they are certain.

50 years ago I scattered glass throughout a laboratory when I caused a hydrogen explosion from a poorly purged furnace. I had been poorly instructed, but the education I got from the explosion is still strong. Fortunately, I was the only one present and looking away from the explosion.

Hydrogen toys will have to carry a rather large product liability, as I see it.