Here’s why Dr. Michio Kaku thinks Toyota’s hydrogen fuel-cell car is ‘perfect’

[nationalize the fed]

Taylor Soper GeekWire January 6, 2015

LAS VEGAS — Dr. Michio Kaku thinks Toyota has developed the perfect car.



Kaku, a theoretical physicist and best-selling author, spoke at Toyota’s press conference at the Consumer Electronics Show on Monday and talked about the new Toyota Mirai, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle combines oxygen and hydrogen to create electricity.

The Mirai, priced at $57,000 and available commercially later this year in California, is unique in that it combines oxygen and hydrogen molecules to generate power and only emits water — no exhaust or fumes. The car has a range of 300 miles and goes from 0-to-60 MPH in nine seconds. Unlike electric batteries, hydrogen tanks can be refilled in three-to-five minutes.

Kaku laid out his vision for the “perfect car,” and offered four requirements — all of which described the Mirai:

A fuel source based on an element that’s the most plentiful in the universe: hydrogen. “Contrast that to oil,” Kaku said. “Nations will kill to secure supplies of oil.”

A car with as few moving parts as possible. “In a hydrogen fuel cell car, the engine has no moving parts, whatsoever,” Kaku said.

A car that emits nothing but water. “The word ‘smog’ is going to disappear from the dictionary because we are going to be entering a new age,” Kaku said.

A car that’s friendly to the consumer. “Usually hydrogen cars are priced at hundreds of thousands of dollars, way beyond the pocketbook of the average person,” Kaku said. “But this car, we’re talking about the neighborhood of $50,000. As mass production, competition, and economies of scale begin to kick in — and as governments begin to subsidize the creation of refueling stations — you’re going to see that cost drop even further.”

MORE: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/heres-expert-physicist-thinks-toyotas-hydrogen-fuel-cell-car-perfect/

Related: Toyota releases fuel cell patents for royalty-free use to all

LAS VEGAS — Toyota just rocked the auto industry by announcing that it is opening to the public 5,680 of its patents related to fuel cell technology for royalty-free use.

Bob Carter, the company's senior vice-president of automotive operations, delivered the news on Monday at CES, following an elaborate presentation that touted the strengths of its fuel cell vehicle, the Toyota Mirai...
http://mashable.com/2015/01/05/toyota-fuel-cell-patents/

A Hydrogen Fueling Station can be installed in 48 hours anywhere there is power and water. (It takes at least 2 weeks to install a "supercharger" site.) If the power comes from renewable sources the Hydrogen is the greenest fuel on the planet

The Future of Energy is Now. The revolution has begun.

[mindwalker_i]

1. This is why I'm sort of unhappy with the crash in oil prices

With high prices, there's more demand for this hind of stuff, which is very definitely the direction we need to go. It feels weird to root for getting screwed by oil companies.

[nationalize the fed]

2. The low oil price won't last

and even if it does Hydrogen is better. It's energy independence. Oil is yesterday. Fracking is yesterday. Hydrogen can *replace* oil. For good. It's history.

The word is out. Maybe that's one reason oil is lower now- they can see their days are numbered- in a real way.

This is the biggest thing to happen to cars and energy in our lifetimes. Watch what happens.

[Fumesucker]

3. The vast majority of hydrogen is inefficiently made from fossil fuels

Not to mention that fuel cells are aren't particularly efficient at turning hydrogen into electricity.

Lithium batteries have a much higher overall charge/discharge efficiency ratio than turning electricity into hydrogen via hydrolysis and then that hydrogen back into electricity via a fuel cell.

Hydrogen is only a means of energy storage, not a source of energy.

[FBaggins]

4. How is hydrogen "energy independence"?

It isn't a source of energy (here anyway).

[Jim Lane]

5. It depends on how we generate the energy to produce the hydrogen

The United States has a lot of coal. If we care a lot about energy independence and nothing about global climate, we could build a lot of coal-burning power plants. Toyota's design would, in effect, enable us to run our cars on coal.

If we care about energy independence and about global climate but not about several other problems, we could get the same effect by building nuclear power plants.

Most optimistically, we continue to ramp up wind, solar, and other renewables, and perhaps down the road (not too far down, we hope), we can get the electricity from fusion.

I agree with you that hydrogen itself is not a source of energy unless there's an abundant supply of it available. That it's the most common element in the universe, as noted in the OP, is immaterial to this discussion, because we can't access that hydrogen.

[tinrobot]

6. He's so full of it.

A fuel source based on an element that’s the most plentiful in the universe: hydrogen. “Contrast that to oil,” Kaku said. “Nations will kill to secure supplies of oil.”

He forgot to mention the majority of that hydrogen is currently extracted from natural gas. Natural gas that is fracked.


A car that emits nothing but water. “The word ‘smog’ is going to disappear from the dictionary because we are going to be entering a new age,” Kaku said.

He also forgot to mention the methane emitted from the natural gas wells, and the oil burned by the trucks delivering the hydrogen.


A car that’s friendly to the consumer. “Usually hydrogen cars are priced at hundreds of thousands of dollars, way beyond the pocketbook of the average person,”

A $67,000 car is not consumer friendly. There are also less than 100 hydrogen stations nationwide, so again, not consumer friendly.

[phantom power]

9. You'd think a physicist would know the difference between an energy source and storage medium

But apparently not.

[dumbcat]

7. No moving parts?

A car with as few moving parts as possible. “In a hydrogen fuel cell car, the engine has no moving parts, whatsoever,” Kaku said.

Uh, no. Every fuel cell power source I have ever worked on used pumps and fans to move the reactants to the stack. Even the pressure regulators in a compressed hydrogen system have moving parts.

ETA: Even calling the fuel cell assembly the "engine" is kinda weird. The "engine" in a fuel cell car is the electric motor that drives the wheels. Calling the fuel cell source the "engine" is like calling the battery pack i an electric car the "engine" rather than the electric motor.

[hunter]

8. It's "perfect" because it preserves the obsolete business models of the automobile industry.

Last edited Thu Jan 8, 2015, 05:31 PM - Edit history (1)

Actual perfection would be wide scale abandonment of the personal automobile. I already see this happening, largely for economic reasons. Young people simply can't afford cars anymore, and they don't have the high-tech equipment and expertise required to maintain them.

Increasing numbers of young people here in California don't even bother to get driver's licenses.

When I was a kid in Southern California, getting your learner's permit at fifteen-and-a-half and your license shortly after your sixteenth birthday was a rite of passage. And maybe half of all young men (yes it was a sexist thing) acquired some mechanical skills keeping their crappy used cars running.

It seems to me many of my kids' peers want to live in vibrant communities where cars are unnecessary, not the dead boring suburbs. I see this as a hopeful trend. The automobile culture was one of the worst inventions of the twentieth century.

When my wife and I met, we were both Los Angeles automobile commuters. Blech.

We managed to escape that lifestyle more than a quarter century ago, but the structure of our community still makes it very difficult to live without an automobile. I resent that.

It's also very unlikely I'll ever be able to afford a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle even if I desired one, and it seems obvious that the actual source of the hydrogen for these cars would be fracked natural gas, or maybe worse, coal.

[bananas]

10. Richard Stallman and the Open Source movement have changed the global culture

"Toyota releases fuel cell patents for royalty-free use to all"
That would have been unthinkable not long ago.
Musk did it, and now Toyota.
Who's next?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

Richard Stallman, 2014

[NYC_SKP]

11. I guess he is just a shill then. "“Contrast that to oil,” Kaku said. “Nations will kill"

He's a liar.

[quadrature]

12. a typical 'jet set' Greenie

he does not want low lifes to own a car,
but can't come out and say that.