Honda Hearts Hydrogen: Let The Sunshine In!

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Just when you thought hydrogen was dead, Honda comes up with a system that allows you to make homemade hydrogen, using nothing but free sunshine. In the grand tradition of hydrogen cars, the sunny technology is just not quite there yet.

You need to put 48 solar panels on your house, building a 6-kilowatt solar array. You then feed it water, which is broken into hydrogen. No word on what the gadgetry costs.

Eight hours of home solar refueling would yield you 30 miles in Honda’s hydrogen-propelled FCX Clarity. No word on what that thing will go for.

Actually, you’d have to wait longer than 8 hours.

The FCX Clarity is scheduled to be available around 2018, says Reuters.

The solar hydrogen refueling system is expected to be market-ready by 2015.

And then, it’s: “Look, the sun is out. Let’s drive to the store tonight.”

Probably makes more sense to solar power your water heater.

Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • Jack Denver Jack Denver on Mar 14, 2010

    Solar water heaters have been around forever. Like all of these technologies, the problem is cost. My gas bill for water heating is maybe $20 month and gas water heaters are as reliable as bricks, so a solar water heater would have to be REALLY cheap and maintenance free to beat that. Same thing is true with cars. Maybe if we were starting fresh some of these alternative systems might have a chance of competing economically, but since gasoline has a 100 year headstart the rest have an awful lot of catching up to do. The government can try to rig the game a little with tax credits, carbon taxes, etc. but there's a limit to how much thumb on the scale the people will tolerate.

  • The Walking Eye The Walking Eye on Mar 14, 2010

    "Poor Honda, they probably spent billions on this nonsense, during the height of enviro-hysteria, but now the bottom is falling out of that market, and it never had much of a top to begin with." Yeah, damn that environment! I know change of the status-quo is scary, but we have a responsibility to the future to keep things clean. People would do well to remember their Boy/Girl Scout training (if they had it) to "make the campsite cleaner than you found it." I don't agree with the hyperbole, but without it we wouldn't be able to effect any change. "Watch these OEMs close now, they’ll all have to slide away from this foolishness. Government Motors’ IPO will never move if it’s weighted down with uneconomical adornments, and I’m sure Rattlesnake Ed is making that clear to the congresscritters, even as we speak." What does that have to do with Honda and their hydrogen? I say good for Honda for exploring this. They're building our knowledge base and exploring OPTIONS for our future energy needs. We need people doing this now, because we will run out of nice cheap oil, possibly before some of us here pass on (the cheap part for sure). Could we please, please, have a post about energy that doesn't include political rhetoric and a willful ignorance of facts because they don't fit your world view? (BTW, I subscribe to no political party and like good ideas no matter where they come from)

    • See 1 previous
    • Grinchsmate Grinchsmate on Mar 15, 2010

      "I think I’ll leave your “Peak Oil” hysteria alone, as it speaks for itself." by saying that you have not left it alone at all you have made a political comment based on your world view. i dont know The Walking Eye's exact opinion but peak oil, like peak potassium peak coal and peak uranium, is an economic certainty weather we are hysterical about it is another thing

  • Mach1 Mach1 on Mar 14, 2010

    What the hydrogen folks like to claim is that a "Fuel cell powered car emits only water and heat". What they don' tell you is that in the USA, th vast majority of Hydrogen gas is produced by the low cost process of steam reforming natural gas. The reaction takes place in two steps: CH4 + H2O → CO + 3 H2 CO + H2O → CO2 + H2 So to get 4 molecules of Hydrogen you also get a molecule of CO2 and consumes a fossil fuel. If you just burned the molecule of natural gas directly in an IC engine, CH4 + 2O2 → CO2 + 2H2O Exactly the same amount of CO2 and more efficient process to boot.

  • Mach1 Mach1 on Mar 14, 2010

    What the hydrogen folks like to claim is that a "Fuel cell powered car emits only water and heat". What they don' tell you is that in the USA, th vast majority of Hydrogen gas is produced by the low cost process of steam reforming natural gas. The reaction takes place in two steps: CH4 + H2O → CO + 3 H2 CO + H2O → CO2 + H2 So to get 4 molecules of Hydrogen you also get a molecule of CO2 and consumes a fossil fuel. If you just burned the molecule of natural gas directly in an IC engine, CH4 + 2O2 → CO2 + 2H2O Exactly the same amount of CO2 and more efficient process to boot.

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