Honda primes the pump for hydrogen with its home refueler

One of the biggest barriers to adoption of hydrogen as a fuel for transportation is refueling. There are just 21 hydrogen fueling stations in the entire state of California. While four more stations will be opening this year, there’s an even more promising technology on the horizon. Developed by Honda R&D in Torrance, it’s a residential hydrogen refueler that uses sunshine and tap water to power a car: A 6-kilowatt array of solar panels powers an electrolysis machine that separates the hydrogen from the oxygen in water. The hydrogen is then pumped directly into the car.

Is this the future? Read the story or watch the video to find out.

-- Susan Carpenter

Video: Jeff Amlotte / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[cebrown]

Only if you like your hydrogen car powered by coal. Look at the way we are planning on getting hydrogen. There is a "clean coal" facility planned in CA that will use coal to create hydrogen and then use carbon sequestration to store that carbon. Lets hope that they have some sense, because a Co2 leak would be as bad as the oil spill. Just see the Journal of American Medical Science for the kinds of scenarios that exist if our carbon were to leak... "Health and Safety Risks of Carbon Capture and Storage" http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CBcQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fjama.ama-assn.org%2Fcgi%2Fcontent%2Ffull%2F303%2F16%2F1601&ei=giZiTPCAH4PSsAPT-vSgCA&usg=AFQjCNFf20ZKjUA-HCcfjW5D8kXeuEDM6g

[Tom]

A 6KW solar system will probably cost 30 grand to put on your roof, and even then it takes 8 hours to power your car for 30 miles? Power your home instead.

Better to power the hydrogen generator from the grid, and that only makes sense if you are out in the boonies. In the city we'd be better off generating the hydrogen at central locations and distributing it by truck to residential storage tanks and/or fill stations.