Giant NEW Hyundai Environmental Tech Centre -- 700-bar hydro

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0511/S00221.htm
Huge Hyundai spend on new tech
Cleaner, more eco-friendly vehicles will result from a giant new Environmental Tech Centre recently opened by Hyundai which aims to become the world leader in environmental technology.
The US$58m R&D facility in Mabuk on the southern edge of Seoul will be the new home of Hyundai's ongoing drive into fuel cell electric vehicles, gas-electric hybrid vehicles and end-of-life vehicle recycling.
The centre itself was built using highly advanced eco processes. And this is just phase one.
Hyundai is investing heavily in next-generation green vehicles and environmental technologies with focus on development of core technologies for fuel-cell and hybrid cars and mass production of such vehicles, development of technologies for lowering gas emissions and improving fuel efficiency, enhancing vehicle recycling as well as investigation into alternative materials to ferrous metals, and development of technologies for lowering air/water pollution during the manufacturing process and for recycling waste materials resulting from energy production.
Standing on a 30,488 sq m site, the five-storey 14,233 sq m facility is home to 200 researchers and more than 400 pieces of high-tech equipment. Facilities include a 700-bar hydrogen filling station, a fuel-cell endurance tester, an emissions lab, dynamometers and other specialized equipment for testing electric propulsion systems. A pilot plant for automated vehicle dismantling focuses on improving the material recycling rate of end-of-life vehicles.
Of particular note, the 700-bar hydrogen filling station, coupled with the 350-bar station at the Group's Namyang R&D Center, will enable fuel-cell vehicle tests within the Seoul metropolitan area and will help accelerate the commercialisation of fuel-cell electric vehicles.
The centre was contracted using environment-friendly materials and processes such as vacuum toilet systems which in using one-tenth the water of a conventional flush toilet result in 1,500 tonnes of water savings annually; heating and air conditioning systems using heat pumps; natural light systems using solar reflectors; floors made of scrapped tyres; and electric power created from actual fuel-cell tests used during technology development that will result in a 1,000-tonne reduction in CO2 emissions.
"Through world-class environmental management practices, we look forward to playing a leading role in helping to solve global environmental issues," said Group Vice Chairman Sang-Kwon Kim.

That's nice, I guess. Have they figured out a way to make the actual fuel cell cheap? That would be worth alot more than putting up a filling station.
Still haven't figured out why they don't just concentrate on using batteries.

Batteries are heavy and you have to replace about $5,000 of them every so often.

Well I thought they were 100wh / kg which woul mean 10kwh (enough to go 50 miles or so) would be 100kg. They are supposed to be relatively cheap (and getting much cheaper) and last quite a while, thousands of cycles.
Is there any hope of fuel cells being cheap enough to produce en masse? Or are they still using platinum and things like that?

Still haven't figured out why they don't just concentrate on using batteries.

I have long been of the opin that a battery electric vehicle is vastly superior, cheaper, and easier to develope than those insane fuel cell vehicles. What I can't understand is why there are so few aparantly intelligent people diving headlong into fuel cells and ignoring electrics.

Steve Spence wrote:

Science Cop wrote:
Then there is the issue of losing half the kwh making/compressing the hydrogen that could have gone into battery charging .....

Real men don't compress hydrogen, they liquify it, along with oxygen, and use regenerative heating and cooling.
In the transition over to hydrogen, ICE hydrogen conversion is also possible.
http://www.hydrogencomponents.com/

Steve Spence wrote:

hydrogen sucks energy.

And then releases it.
That is so cool, er ... warm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy

lifeform1@atlantic.net wrote:

Steve Spence wrote:
hydrogen sucks energy.
And then releases it.
That is so cool, er ... warm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy

Conservation of energy, of course, is a totally worthless and utterly useless concept by iteself.
It is usually drug up by individuals who do not have the faintest clue what thermodynamics is all about.
Exergy must also be conserved to preserve energy quality and value. As must entropy.
See http://www.tinaja.com.glib/energfun.pdf for a detailed tutorial.
-- Many thanks,
Don Lancaster voice phone: (928)428-4073 Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552 rss: http://www.tinaja.com/whtnu.xml email: don@tinaja.com
Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

Steve Spence wrote:

hydrogen sucks energy.
And then releases it.
That is so cool, er ... warm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
What it releases is miniscule compared to what it sucked.

Sorry, energy is neither created nor destroyed in low energy electronic processes.
You are an embarrassment to the republic.

Steve Spence wrote:

hydrogen sucks energy.
And then releases it.
That is so cool, er ... warm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
What it releases is miniscule compared to what it sucked.
Sorry, energy is neither created nor destroyed in low energy electronic processes.
You are an embarrassment to the republic.
I did not say that anything was created or destroyed. I did say useable energy is less. the rest is lost to the environment as heat.

Heat. Ah, that felt good. I love heat. Too bad your grade school teachers taught you that burning all your plastic insulation is a good thing. I also think cool is cool too, but only when I'm hot. Which is precisely why cryogenic liquifaction is cool, er ... warm.

Science Cop wrote:

Batteries are heavy and you have to replace about $5,000 of them every so often.
Also, they would work, and they don't want us to know that. Instead,

they want you to replace a $100,000 fuel cell every so often. More money to be made that way.
Actually, they really don't want you to replace it. They want to the government to do it. They know you don't have the money, and are too smart. The politicos, on the other hand, have hte money but not the smarts...
Charlie

Tom Simonds wrote:

Still haven't figured out why they don't just concentrate on using batteries.
I have long been of the opin that a battery electric vehicle is vastly superior, cheaper, and easier to develope than those insane fuel cell vehicles. What I can't understand is why there are so few aparantly intelligent people diving headlong into fuel cells and ignoring electrics.

Every form of battery is under investigation, from ones bigger than your house for load leveling at power stations to tiny biopowered ones for implanted medical devices.
Why would you look for news about batteries in a fuel cell topic of discussion?
Where is the fuel cell discussion, then, under "batteries"?
Do try to pay attention to the thread title.

Don Lancaster wrote:

lifeform1@atlantic.net wrote: Steve Spence wrote:
hydrogen sucks energy.
And then releases it.
That is so cool, er ... warm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
Conservation of energy, of course, is a totally worthless and utterly useless concept by iteself.
It is usually drug up by individuals who do not have the faintest clue what thermodynamics is all about.
Exergy must also be conserved to preserve energy quality and value. As must entropy.

Anybody who doesn't regularly use the word SYNERGY as often as he uses the words EXERGY and ENTROPHY knows nothing worth learning from.

Steve Spence wrote:

lifeform1@atlantic.net wrote: Steve Spence wrote:
hydrogen sucks energy.
And then releases it.
That is so cool, er ... warm.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
What it releases is miniscule compared to what it sucked. That just sucks. Batteries release a whole lot more of what they sucked, so they suck less.

Another example of Steve Spense bad economics and bad comprehensive thinking.
Spense still doesn't understand the word SYNERGY or the concept of total life-cycle accounting.