Hydrogen fueling stations have been hitting the alternative energy media sources lately. Recently I was watching a PBS episode on ‘Cars Of The Future’. In the second chapter of the episode they talk about the possibilities of hydrogen and the current developments of hydrogen technology.

One of the major places where hydrogen fuel is being tested and developed is in Iceland. Currently Iceland is the greenest country on the planet and soon they expect to be completely self sufficient in energy production and have zero fossil fuel emissions.

One of the most interesting things they discussed was how the hydrogen was being tested and used. Iceland has the first public hydrogen fueling station in the world. It’s currently being used to fuel city buses with hydrogen which are very clean and well designed. The hydrogen technology they use takes hydrogen from the fueling station, stores it in tanks, fuels the vehicles storage tanks which is then used to make electricity as it passes through organic membranes, which then powers the electric engine.

To me this seems like around about, inefficient way to use such a powerful fuel source. “Hydrogen, just like gasoline, is a volatile fuel“. A quote from the ‘Cars Of The Future‘ episode. Hydrogen and gasoline are excellent fuels because they are volatile energy sources. The key is that one fuel source is dirty and is responsible for most of the pollution on this planet and the other very clean and beneficial which can come from many clean sources like water.

Here’s where it get really interesting. The way most hydrogen fueling stations produce hydrogen is through electrolysis. If you recall, that’s how dry hho is made, through electrolysis. Here is a picture of the hydrogen fueling station in Iceland:

And the hydrogen is produced by electrolysis using a generator that looks exactly like this one:

Ok, sure. That looks just like any other hydrogen generator. But here are picture that put into perspective how big these hydrogen generators really are.

The first image is only a model to show the a design and scale. The second picture shows 2 engineers standing next to it. This hydrogen generator has to have steel plates at least 6.5-7 feet tall. That’s huge. The third photo show an enormous hydrogen generator. There is no telling how large this one is compared in scale to the second but it must be extraordinary in size. Estimated at 30-50 feet long.

All of these are hho generators that separate the hydrogen and oxygen into different containment units. They also look exactly alike the hho generators that both you and I can make… just in smaller size of course. The amount of hydrogen produced from these huge generators has to be insane.

One of the spokespersons being interviewed (from a non-Icelandic company) stated that current hydrogen technology isn’t ready for market distribution. This statement is a complete contradiction because the technology is right inside that building and being used in many other hydrogen fueling stations. The only issue is that they are using it to create and store hydrogen. The solution has already been solved by creating hydrogen on demand using hho generators right on board the vehicle which solves the storage problem that they focus on in the video instead of talking about the hydrogen technology, except for a brief second.

This was probably done on purpose because it’s common sense that the technology producing the hydrogen inside the fueling station would be a rather important aspect of the show. The hydrogen generator or the facility inside isn’t even mentioned. It’s likely that these companies don’t want people to realize that these facilities produce hydrogen this easily and make it seem over complicated. Truth is that hydrogen fuel cells are easy to make. The other issue is that companies want to keep consumers reliant on the ‘system’ so they have to come back an refuel, ensuring profit through fuel sales but causing tech issues in the process. What they don’t realize is electrolytes are still needed. They can just sell those instead and still make a profit and everyone is happy.

The other point of view is that companies may be using the hydrogen fueling stations because they are already established and people are already used to this system. On the flip side, companies also talk about hydrogen development in countries like China where the growing need for gasoline stations and gasoline vehicles can be substituted for the new hydrogen fueling stations and vehicles. If that’s the case then why not sell electrolytes and on board hho generators that require minimal adaptation? It comes down to profit. It’s clear as day that hydrogen production, big or small (either by hydrogen fueling stations or on board dry hho generators) is most efficiently made using the simple electrolysis inside a dry hho generator.

What’s really important is that we make the change to using clean hydrogen which not only helps the economy but also helps our planet in every way. Written by Jacob Jacobson.