A gas station at home? It's Honda's vision of the future

Honda's FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel-cell car made headlines when it premiered a couple of years ago, and with good reason.

The only emissions from the tailpipe are droplets of water. Who wouldn't want that?

But one of the obstacles to wider adoption of the emerging technology has been the question of gas stations: Places where drivers could refill their tanks with hydrogen were few and far between.

Times staff writer Susan Carpenter, however, recently got a peek at one potential solution: a Honda Clarity home refueling system that essentially turns your house into a personal gas station.

A car that's refueled at home using solar panels and water? Could this be our future?

Read the story to find out. Carpenter and Times videographer Jeff Amlotte also have put together an accompanying video showing the Honda hydrogen refueling station in action.

-- Craig Nakano

Illustration credit: Ellen Weinstein / For The Times 

Comments

[jorge mercado]

Great vision, but
1. How much?
2. Safety?
3. Rezoning of residential?

[hb]

Any technology can be developed...for a price. Several million dollars to drive a car 30 miles per day doesn't make sense and never will. A 6 kW solar system could power at least two battery vehicles for 100 miles each.

Also ask the reporter to remove her sunglasses for the videos. If there's glare, move the camera.

[ex0du5]

The hydrogen fuel cells do not solve the problem of carbon dependence. Either the hydrogen molecules come from carbon products (usually methane) or they use electricity produced by coal for the hydrolysis. If, as this article suggests, the want to use solar to provide the energy for hydrolysis, then they could use the power directly without the inefficient conversion to chemical energy. Any direct use of electricity is more efficient than use of the heavier protons (1800x heavier), due to effort to ship and inefficiencies in conversion.

The reason oil companies like the fuel cell concept is because they see the cell market as equivalent to the gas market for purchase of petroleum byproduct. The cost of solar still doesn't match coal for energy production and it takes much less energy to produce hydrogen from the carbon market than from water. I don't see how this product changes any of that.

[Lawrence Weisdorn]

Transportation fuel made at home. How much opposition do you think that hte oil companies will throw into the path of this?

[Arno A. Evers]

To commenter: "hb" and all others, interested in technologies, how to make hydrogen:
You are right, when someone today is making hydrogen, it is in fact made out of fossil fuels. The process is called steam reforming, 95 pc of all marketed hydropgen is made so. the rimaing 5 pc are made by a process called elctrolyzing, that means, from electricity. Once you know, how electricity is made, you better also take your finger off this.

But there are better ways: In Spain, a process to make hydrogen only from concentrating solar power (CSP) and water (plus a little nitrogen) is splitting the water into oxygene ad hydrogen at a size of 100kWth.

This HYDROSOL process was funded by the European Union over many years. More about all this in the new book: The Hydrogen Society...more than just a Visison? ISBN-13: 978-3937863313 Available at amazon.com and your local bookstore.

For additional information, go to: http://www.hydrogenambassadors.com/the-hydrogen-society-more-than-just-a-vision.html

[john]

I wonder if Honda is going to promote this alternative fuel as well as it does the naturgal gas civic they currently produce. That fuel type is here "now" and they don't promote the sale of the Civic's. All thi fanfare for something we the consumers cant even use.