What is the point of having hydrogen powered vehicles when it takes huge amounts of power to produce the required hydrogen?

Answer 1

A combustion engine is typically less than 20% efficient. Meaning for every $1.00 of gas you put in the engine, less than $0.20 actually does something useful in your car, (make it move, turn on your lights, play music in your radio).

At some point, we will run out of crude oil, so gasoline powered cars, at some point, will be a big paper weight. To make a car move, you need energy from something. Direct Solar power cars won't be a great solution as they won't work at night or in cloudy conditions. Therefore we must store energy and then use it over time. The current solution to store energy is batteries.

Another possibly storage system is through Hydrogen. Use some source of energy to split water through electrolysis, (solar, wind, nuclear, etc). Then provide Hydrogen to pump into cars. The combustion of Hydrogen only produces water, so that's a better than water and carbon dioxide (plus other contaminants) that current cars release. Will that prove to be a more effective means of storing energy than a more traditional battery, time will tell. The hope for those developing Hydrogen powered cars, is that it might provide a better overall process than traditional chemical batteries (whether those be Lead batteries, Lithium Ion, or others). One upside is that they should be able to refill faster than chemical batteries. As was seen with the Hindenburg disaster, there will be definite safety concerns.

Answer 2

There are a number of reasons:

It also takes significant energy to transform oil into diesel fuel or gasoline.

Hydrogen is a renewable resource because when burned it becomes water vapor. Oil is a finite resource which is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to find and extract.

Internal combustion engines, while cleaner today than in the past, still produce pollution. Hydrogen engines are practically pollutant-free.

Filling station fuel tanks tend to leak as time goes by and can contaminate groundwater. Similarly, oil tankers such as the Exxon Valdez and drilling platforms like Deepwater Horizon can cause catastrophic environmental damage when a disaster strikes. Hydrogen doesn't have anywhere near that potential impact.

Answer 3

Producing hydrogen is rather easy, actually...just toss a 9V battery in a glass of water (add some vinegar to speed the reaction) and you will witness the splitting of water to form hydrogen gas and oxygen gas instantly! (Safety note: wear safety glasses and remove the battery after a few moments of watching the bubbles). Hydrogen -powered vehicles produce NO greenhouse gas (CO2)! This is the number one reason to switch to using these vehicles, since greenhouse gases cause global warming via the greenhouse effect. Also, over-reliance on petroleum-based fuels causes political problems with other countries. In addition, the drilling and transport of petroleum-based fuels has led to major environmental disasters in the past (ie: Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010).