hydrogen hydrogen fuel cells first started to be referenced in december 1838.
hydrogen hydrogen fuel cells first started to be referenced in december 1838.
when did hydrogen hydrogen fuel cells first start to be referenced?
december 1838
the first references to hydrogen fuel cells appeared in 1838. in a letter dated october 1838 but published in the december 1838 edition of "the london and edinburgh philosophical magazine and journal of science", welsh physicist and barrister william grove wrote about the development of his first crude fuel cells. he used a combination of sheet iron, copper and porcelain plates, and a solution of sulphate of copper and dilute acid. in a letter to the same publication written in december 1838 but published in june 1839, german physicist christian friedrich schönbein discussed the first crude fuel cell that he had invented. his letter discussed current generated from hydrogen and oxygen dissolved in water. grove later sketched his design, in 1842, in the same journal. the fuel cell he made used similar materials to today's phosphoric acid fuel cell.
fuel cell
in 2014, electric automotive and energy futurist julian cox published an analysis that used us government nrel and epa data that disproves widely held policy assumptions concerning claimed emissions benefits from the use of hydrogen in transportation. cox calculated the emissions produced per epa combined cycle driven mile, well to wheel, by real-word hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and figures aggregated from the test subjects enrolled in the us doe's long term nrel fcv study. the report presented official data that firmly refutes marketer's claims of any inherent benefits of hydrogen fuel cells over the drive trains of equivalent conventional gasoline hybrids and even ordinary small-engined cars of equivalent drive train performance due to the emissions intensity of hydrogen production from natural gas. the report went on to demonstrate the economic inevitability of continued methane use in hydrogen production due to the cost tripping effect of hydrogen fuel cells on renewable mileage due to conversion losses of electricity to and from hydrogen when compared to the direct use of electricity in an ordinary electric vehicle. the analysis contradicts the marketing claims of vehicle manufacturers involved in promoting hydrogen fuel cells and whose claims are frequently reflected in public policy statements. the analysis proved that public policy in relation to hydrogen fuel cells has been misled by false equivalences to very large, very old or very high powered gasoline vehicles that do not accurately reflect the choices of emissions reduction technologies readily available amongst lower cost and pre-existing new vehicles choices available to consumers, and also to the taxpayer that funded superfluous hydrogen infrastructure on a premise that on scientific grounds is factually false. instead the marketing and consequently public policy claims for hydrogen can be proven by the official us doe figures to be highly misleading. cox wrote in 2014 that producing hydrogen from methane "is significantly more carbon intensive per unit of energy than coal. mistaking fossil hydrogen from the hydraulic fracturing of shales for an environmentally sustainable energy pathway threatens to encourage energy policies that will dilute and potentially derail global efforts to head-off climate change due to the risk of diverting investment and focus from vehicle technologies that are economically compatible with renewable energy." "the business insider" commented in 2013: pure hydrogen can be industrially derived, but it takes energy. if that energy does not come from renewable sources, then fuel-cell cars are not as clean as they seem. ... another challenge is the lack of infrastructure. gas stations need to invest in the ability to refuel hydrogen tanks before fcevs become practical, and it's unlikely many will do that while there are so few customers on the road today. ... compounding the lack of infrastructure is the high cost of the technology. fuel cells are "still very, very expensive".
fuel cell vehicle