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      07-27-2008, 10:17 AM   #1
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Hydrogen 7er banned in NJ/NY tunnels

Interesting read from bimmerfile. Might even potentially affect somebody on here. I guess they banned it because they are worried about it blowing up and the tunnel collapsing. I guess nobody cares about it blowing up outside of a tunnel and potentially blowing up whoever else is around. I don't understand the logic behind this rule...I think BMW has proved that the technology is safe.

Anyway...jump:

http://www.bimmerfile.com/2008/07/26...-nynj-tunnels/
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      07-27-2008, 10:33 AM   #2
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Hydrogen isn't any more dangerous than the thousands of gallons of gasoline that transit the tunnels every minute in the gas tanks of the cars going through the tunnel.
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      07-27-2008, 10:35 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by skierman64 View Post
Hydrogen isn't any more dangerous than the thousands of gallons of gasoline that transit the tunnels every minute in the gas tanks of the cars going through the tunnel.
that is why I don't understand this law.
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      07-27-2008, 08:20 PM   #4
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Politicians are ignorant, making decisions based on science they don't comprehend.
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      07-27-2008, 09:00 PM   #5
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BMW's safety instructions concerning these vehicles includes not parking them in enclosed garages. Perhaps some bureaucrat read those instructions and decided that tunnels should be included also. I think that's that a pretty dumb decision.
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      07-27-2008, 09:40 PM   #6
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When the car is parked for extended periods, the evaporating hydrogen builds pressure that must be safely released. A boil-off system mixes the hydrogen with air, runs it through a catalytic converter and releases water vapor through a rear-bumper vent.

Redundant safety systems abound. If the pressure inside the tank rises too high, a vent in the roof can release gaseous hydrogen directly. And if the car happened to roll over and block the roof opening, hydrogen would reroute through the underbody. A hydrogen detection system makes the car’s four door locks glow red to warn of leaking fuel in the trunk, fuel nozzle area or under the hood; windows automatically open if hydrogen should enter the cabin.
ignorant policy makers...
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      07-27-2008, 09:42 PM   #7
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They may be ignorant but by doing nothing, we say, we agree with their law making. If it don't fit, GET rid of them!
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      07-27-2008, 11:55 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by H2 View Post
BMW's safety instructions concerning these vehicles includes not parking them in enclosed garages. Perhaps some bureaucrat read those instructions and decided that tunnels should be included also. I think that's that a pretty dumb decision.
well, that doesn't mean you can't drive through a parking garage...i think we are all in agreement here that this law is dumb. It is going to be impossible to transition to alternative fuel solutions if boneheaded politicians start making these types of laws and rules. If anything, they should be making rules that encourage or reward people that seek fuel efficient technologies.
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      07-28-2008, 12:29 AM   #9
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i still think hydrogen gas is more dangerous than gasoline, but yeah in those tunnels both are gonna produce a lot of damage.
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      07-28-2008, 01:10 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by just4kickz View Post
i still think hydrogen gas is more dangerous than gasoline, but yeah in those tunnels both are gonna produce a lot of damage.
your right, it is.....but what about all those natural gas burning cars out there? Is natural gas that much safer then hydrogen? I dunno, but I really thought we had a future with hydrogen powered cars, I mean, they seemed like the only real true solution to both environmental problems and oil consumption problems. True 0 emissions vehicles, but without the lack of power of electric vehicles, or without needing a long battery re-charge.

And can someone please clear something up for me......how does a hydrogen burning engine work exactly? Same basic principles of 4 strokes, cylinders, pistons, and all?
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      07-28-2008, 01:38 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Boost_Nation View Post
Is natural gas that much safer then hydrogen?
Hmm let's think about that one.

Hydrogen will burn at a ~4% concentration in air and needs very little catalyzing agents to produce a 'big bang'

Natural gas needs significantly higher concentrations and more energetic catalysts to release it's potential energy.

The sun is powered by Hydrogen and not Methane.

The Hindenburg was an airship filled with Hydrogen and you all know the outcome of that.

Rocketships are powered by Hydrogen, not Natural Gas.

etc etc etc


Reason why NY/NJ bans Hydrogen in tunnels (whether they thought about it or not):

Hydrogen is lighter than air and could collect at the tops of the tunnels and ignite and cause major damage. Out in the open H2 will harmlessly vent to the atmo and have less of a chance of igniting.
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      07-28-2008, 01:45 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Boost_Nation View Post
your right, it is.....but what about all those natural gas burning cars out there? Is natural gas that much safer then hydrogen? I dunno, but I really thought we had a future with hydrogen powered cars, I mean, they seemed like the only real true solution to both environmental problems and oil consumption problems. True 0 emissions vehicles, but without the lack of power of electric vehicles, or without needing a long battery re-charge.

And can someone please clear something up for me......how does a hydrogen burning engine work exactly? Same basic principles of 4 strokes, cylinders, pistons, and all?
howthingswork.com? haha i dunno hydrogen fuel cells.

in one of my classes, i learned that the average hydrogen car (to-be produced or current) has a range of under 300 miles. hydrogen fuel cell stations in california are only located in norcal and socal, with about 4-6 stations in each part of the state (i can't remember the #s of stations). this means that you wouldn't even be able to travel out of region because of the vehicle's range.

electric cars are just substituting oil for coal (majority of energy generated by the US is from coal), so that does decrease dependence on foreign energy sources because we have the largest known coal reserve or whatever, but that still shits our environment despite all this "clean coal" stuff and carbon sequestering and yadayada. lol if we could run on nuclear power, terrorism wasnt a problem, and we could store nuclear waste on mars, electric cars would be the shit!

and yeah about the natural gas...dunno. i think it would be just as volatile as hydrogen... how bout the car that ran on water... lol.

there is a old guy at UC Davis who's been researching on ways to convert cars into hybrids for the last 20 some years... supposedly a plug and play conversion in 2 hours. not a solution but definitely could be used at this point.
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      07-28-2008, 01:58 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gum5h03 View Post
Reason why NY/NJ bans Hydrogen in tunnels (whether they thought about it or not):

Hydrogen is lighter than air and could collect at the tops of the tunnels and ignite and cause major damage. Out in the open H2 will harmlessly vent to the atmo and have less of a chance of igniting.
+100000000

Guys this isn't a stupid law it makes perfect sense. In a tunnel situation Hydrogen is much more dangerous than gasoline or natural gas.
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      07-28-2008, 02:13 AM   #14
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Developing hydrogen vehicles is just another ploy by the automobile industry to go GREEN......
- too expensive to produce and own
- i know the 7er hydrogen is not for sale.....but i reaad it would be around $1,000,000 to buy....
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      07-28-2008, 02:32 AM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gum5h03 View Post


Reason why NY/NJ bans Hydrogen in tunnels (whether they thought about it or not):

Hydrogen is lighter than air and could collect at the tops of the tunnels and ignite and cause major damage. Out in the open H2 will harmlessly vent to the atmo and have less of a chance of igniting.
that would make sense if the car gave off H2...but it doesn't. The byproduct is H20. last time i checked, water wasn't very combustible.

also, the 7er runs on hydrogen or premium...so if you can't find a hydrogen fueling station, you can go to a regular gas station.
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      07-28-2008, 02:50 AM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Windy View Post
that would make sense if the car gave off H2...but it doesn't. The byproduct is H20. last time i checked, water wasn't very combustible.

also, the 7er runs on hydrogen or premium...so if you can't find a hydrogen fueling station, you can go to a regular gas station.
Better check your facts again bud.


I love how the laymen try to say that H2 propulsion is safe. You wait until the first bimmer goes critical mass on the NJ Parkway and you'll be one of the first ones screaming that Congress should never have let them do this.



When the car is parked for extended periods, the evaporating hydrogen builds pressure that must be safely released. A boil-off system mixes the hydrogen with air, runs it through a catalytic converter and releases water vapor through a rear-bumper vent.

Redundant safety systems abound. If the pressure inside the tank rises too high, a vent in the roof can release gaseous hydrogen directly. And if the car happened to roll over and block the roof opening, hydrogen would reroute through the underbody. A hydrogen detection system makes the car’s four door locks glow red to warn of leaking fuel in the trunk, fuel nozzle area or under the hood; windows automatically open if hydrogen should enter the cabin.
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      07-28-2008, 03:02 AM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gum5h03 View Post
Better check your facts again bud.


I love how the laymen try to say that H2 propulsion is safe. You wait until the first bimmer goes critical mass on the NJ Parkway and you'll be one of the first ones screaming that Congress should never have let them do this.



When the car is parked for extended periods, the evaporating hydrogen builds pressure that must be safely released. A boil-off system mixes the hydrogen with air, runs it through a catalytic converter and releases water vapor through a rear-bumper vent.

Redundant safety systems abound. If the pressure inside the tank rises too high, a vent in the roof can release gaseous hydrogen directly. And if the car happened to roll over and block the roof opening, hydrogen would reroute through the underbody. A hydrogen detection system makes the car’s four door locks glow red to warn of leaking fuel in the trunk, fuel nozzle area or under the hood; windows automatically open if hydrogen should enter the cabin.

i should have been more specific, you are right. the car does NOT give off H2 while it is running on hydrogen power. "When running on hydrogen the only byproduct produced is the good old H2O." that being said, and like you quoted in nice bold letters , the car does release gaseous H2 from vents in the top when it is PARKED. this is also clearly stated in the owner's manual not to park the car in parking garages for this reason. however, i don't believe that this is a factor in a tunnel because even in bumper to bumper traffic (which some might consider to be similar to parking), the engine will still only give off h20 as long as it is running.
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      07-28-2008, 03:16 AM   #18
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did anyone see what happened with gasoline and cabbage on the I-5 in california? i'll try and find a link, but an accident and a lot of gas and produce can really fuck things up in a tunnel
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      07-28-2008, 03:38 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Windy View Post
i should have been more specific, you are right. the car does NOT give off H2 while it is running on hydrogen power. "When running on hydrogen the only byproduct produced is the good old H2O." that being said, and like you quoted in nice bold letters , the car does release gaseous H2 from vents in the top when it is PARKED. this is also clearly stated in the owner's manual not to park the car in parking garages for this reason. however, i don't believe that this is a factor in a tunnel because even in bumper to bumper traffic (which some might consider to be similar to parking), the engine will still only give off h20 as long as it is running.
Still, I would not want to risk it on an unproven technology. Even NASA has blown shit up with their Hydrogen applications. Do you really want to chance it on a for profit company that is just starting to enter the Hydrogen era? Car companies have been known to royally f' up when it comes to safety and make harsh calculations (read "the Ford Pinto Memo")on how much it will cost to retrofit vs pay out settlements. Go ask ford why their Pintos exploded or Chevy why their trucks would catch fire if they were hit from the side. I'll leave the blowing stuff up to NASA TYVM.

Oh and can you imagine the vast hordes of stupid people driving around with enough explosiveness in their trunks to wipe out a small village? I can't wait until the 5 o'clock news when the latest gas station fire wipes out half of the state of Minnesota. Hydrogen in ordinary people's hands == FTL
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      07-28-2008, 04:10 AM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gum5h03 View Post
Still, I would not want to risk it on an unproven technology. Even NASA has blown shit up with their Hydrogen applications. Do you really want to chance it on a for profit company that is just starting to enter the Hydrogen era? Car companies have been known to royally f' up when it comes to safety and make harsh calculations (read "the Ford Pinto Memo")on how much it will cost to retrofit vs pay out settlements. Go ask ford why their Pintos exploded or Chevy why their trucks would catch fire if they were hit from the side. I'll leave the blowing stuff up to NASA TYVM.

Oh and can you imagine the vast hordes of stupid people driving around with enough explosiveness in their trunks to wipe out a small village? I can't wait until the 5 o'clock news when the latest gas station fire wipes out half of the state of Minnesota. Hydrogen in ordinary people's hands == FTL
I totally hear where you are coming from. I agree that it is a scary idea to put such destructive potential in the hands of an idiot.

What bothers me is that if this technology can't go in tunnels, it shouldn't be allowed on the road at all. To me, it seems like they really aren't really sure how safe it is, so they just make ad hoc decisions about where it can and can't go. If it can't go in a tunnel, they should make a law saying that it can't go in an underground parking garage. This opens up a slippery slope for what should and shouldn't be allowed. We are a long long time from actually seeing these things en masse on the roads (probably not even in our lifetime), but it seems that politicians are setting it up now to make things very restrictive to progress in the future.

The article didn't say, but I'm curious what a fine for driving your hydrogen car in the tunnel would be.
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      07-28-2008, 04:28 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Big Windy View Post
I totally hear where you are coming from. I agree that it is a scary idea to put such destructive potential in the hands of an idiot.

What bothers me is that if this technology can't go in tunnels, it shouldn't be allowed on the road at all. To me, it seems like they really aren't really sure how safe it is, so they just make ad hoc decisions about where it can and can't go. If it can't go in a tunnel, they should make a law saying that it can't go in an underground parking garage. This opens up a slippery slope for what should and shouldn't be allowed. We are a long long time from actually seeing these things en masse on the roads (probably not even in our lifetime), but it seems that politicians are setting it up now to make things very restrictive to progress in the future.

The article didn't say, but I'm curious what a fine for driving your hydrogen car in the tunnel would be.
I think the lawmakers are just being overly cautious and in this case I think it's correct. *If* an incident were to happen in an enclosed space such as the tunnel the Hydrogen gas would build rapidly to concentrations that would support combustion. Add in other factors like additional pressure and other unknown internal variables and it becomes a nightmare to predict how the gas would behave.

I suppose the safety devices mitigate a majority of those concerns but the "what if's" are still for the most part largely unknown. What happens if the car is rear-ended and the system is compromised? Would you want to be in that tunnel and find out? I'd rather take my chances in a nice wide open space if nothing else than for the fact that if it did explode the concussive force would be able to radiate outward more evenly than being trapped by re-enforced concrete walls.

I don't think this is a viable long term solution, but in the interim the engineers need time to properly assess the situation and come up with countermeasures in case the unthinkable happens. The current vents in the tunnels need to be retrofitted to support not only relatively heavy CO2 and CO exhausts but lighter and highly flammable H2 exhausts.

And as far as why tunnels and not parking garages...

If the Lincoln tunnel was blown to pieces it would affect millions of people whereas if a simple parking (or several even) structure was nuked the damage would be locally isolated.
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      07-28-2008, 08:04 AM   #22
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pretty stupid law , like most of them in US
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