No, you need the oxygen to act as an oxidizer in the fuel cell. Otherwise the hydrogen protons have nothing to recombine with once they cross the membrane and into the cathode side of the reaction.

Wow, like I could run my car on water – let’s all do that!

Maybe you meant this as a joke, but this is exactly the kind of thing that upsets me about fuel cells. People come up with all these pie-in-the-sky ideas that sound great, but fall apart once you look at them realistically.

Take this one for example. The idea is to use the electricity from the car battery make hydrogen to power a fuel cell to make electricity to power the electric motor. Since cracking water to make hydrogen is inherently inefficient, you would need a lot of electricity in the battery – where does that come from? If you have all that electricity in the battery, then why not use it to power the electric motor directly?

Here are the realities of hydrogen.

1) Hydrogen is not a fuel source, it’s a fuel carrier. In other words, some other energy source is required to make hydrogen.

2) The main energy sources for hydrogen are electricity (to crack water) and natural gas. Of these, natural gas is much more economical. Cracking water is inherently inefficient. There are other ways to make hydrogen, but these are even more expensive and inefficient.

3) Current electricity production uses 70% fossil fuels, 20% nuclear, and 10% renewable. The economics of renewables is such that this won’t change significantly anytime soon. So hydrogen in the U.S. will most certainly be created from fossil fuels.

4) The efficiency of hydrogen conversion, transportation, storage, and fuel cell electricity production is poor.

5) The net result of all the above is that hydrogen cars would create more CO2 emissions than our current gas engine cars.

6) The infrastructure of hydrogen fueling stations is nowhere in sight.

7) The big oil companies are pushing the hydrogen economy the most. They are also using the promise of fuel cells to help delay or prevent other solutions from fully taking hold. This is how they managed to kill the California zero emission vehicle mandate.

That’s why they call them “FOOL SELLS”

Wow, like I could run my car on water – let’s all do that!

Maybe you meant this as a joke, but this is exactly the kind of thing that upsets me about fuel cells. People come up with all these pie-in-the-sky ideas that sound great, but fall apart once you look at them realistically.

Take this one for example. The idea is to use the electricity from the car battery make hydrogen to power a fuel cell to make electricity to power the electric motor. Since cracking water to make hydrogen is inherently inefficient, you would need a lot of electricity in the battery – where does that come from? If you have all that electricity in the battery, then why not use it to power the electric motor directly?

Here are the realities of hydrogen.

1) Hydrogen is not a fuel source, it’s a fuel carrier. In other words, some other energy source is required to make hydrogen.

2) The main energy sources for hydrogen are electricity (to crack water) and natural gas. Of these, natural gas is much more economical. Cracking water is inherently inefficient. There are other ways to make hydrogen, but these are even more expensive and inefficient.

3) Current electricity production uses 70% fossil fuels, 20% nuclear, and 10% renewable. The economics of renewables is such that this won’t change significantly anytime soon. So hydrogen in the U.S. will most certainly be created from fossil fuels.

4) The efficiency of hydrogen conversion, transportation, storage, and fuel cell electricity production is poor.

5) The net result of all the above is that hydrogen cars would create more CO2 emissions than our current gas engine cars.

6) The infrastructure of hydrogen fueling stations is nowhere in sight.

7) The big oil companies are pushing the hydrogen economy the most. They are also using the promise of fuel cells to help delay or prevent other solutions from fully taking hold. This is how they managed to kill the California zero emission vehicle mandate.

That’s why they call them “FOOL SELLS”

“’m sure there are several thins I missed. Fuel cells aren’t 50 years down the road, they’re 100 years down the road! This is a ridiculously over complicated solution when you have batteries that can utilize the grid and a grid that can easily be expanded with renewable sources if needed.”

And importantly a grid that is *Not* controlled by Big Oil, but rather most are regulated Monopolies that are *not* free to gouge the public.

I’m sure there are several thins I missed. Fuel cells aren’t 50 years down the road, they’re 100 years down the road! This is a ridiculously over complicated solution when you have batteries that can utilize the grid and a grid that can easily be expanded with renewable sources if needed.

E-Flex and the Volt’s design are new and somewhat unproven technologies and thereford should be given all of GM’s focus. GM must get the Volt right or they will damage the public’s view of PHEVs (and their commitment to PHEV technology).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzULkAOvris&mode=related&search=

There are a lot of websites on this issue. In theory …we would fill our cars up with water and the electric current from the battery would split water (H20) into hydrogen and oxygen on demand. The hydrogen would be used to run the car and the oxygen would go out the exhaust.