And, I just have to say:
Hydrogen is MUCH harder to “make safe” than gasoline.
Gasoline is way more than “hard enough”.
Ask the Pinto engineers/marketing idiots.

No, I did not work for Ford.
But, “our competive testing” early on showed they had a “real problem”.
And, it took them way too long to address “their customer problem”.
It was not just the Pinto, it was their entire fuel system design philosophy. $$$

Hydrogen makes solving the “Pinto problem” look like a piece of
cake. “We” knew how to solve the Pinto and all of their other similar designs from our very first tests of their “sh_t”.

Money. A very small amount of money. A change in their philosophy,

Put a “few hydrogen examples” out on the road, no problem.
Make “the entire fleet” hydrogen, “OH, MY GOD” ! ! !

Unfortunately, the weight penalty of carrying around several hundreds of pounds of finely powdered nickel alloys was enormous, and rendered the entire concept moot.

I experimented extensively with metal hydrides for hydrogen storage, and can state quite explicitly that hydrogen fires burn:
A) EXTREMELY hot, and
B) Almost invisibly.
You typically notice it when something starts to melt…

Gasoline in liquid form is impossible to ignite, since it’s the vapors that burn. Diesel fuel is even harder. Try pouring a small pool of diesel in a metal pan (outdoors, of course) and try to ignite it. Use a blowtorch, and you’ll be standing there heating up the entire pool until enough vaporizes to start burning. It’s slightly easier to vaporize gasoline, but you can still toss a lit cigarette into a pool of it…and put out the cigarette.

Well, the Akron crashed into the ocean at speed. The argument is that a catastrophic failure is more likely with hydrogen over helium. If the Hindenburg had caught on fire 2500 feet in the air, everyone would have died.

Of course, there seemed to be a hell of a lot of structural failures in all those airships, so it’d be hard to tell the difference.

As for hydrogen vehicles, pressurized air vehicles are a well-established field. They can’t get nearly the same range as hydrogen, but they’ve shown that pressured gases can be used without making life too dangerous.

Bulk transportation to the actual problem, but there are better methods than simple pressurization. There are a lot of things hydrogen combines with; while it’s not free to remove from (for example) borax, it’s relatively cheap, and extremely dense.

Once you put gas, any gas, under extreme pressure, the vessel that holds it will explode violently if it fails.

Maybe we could just electrify the interstate and force all cars onto “rails”. That’s still kind of crazy, but less so.

I’m fairly sure that “thermite paint” is a myth. It did exist, but it wasn’t the sole cause for the burning (the hydrogen did most of that work). (I’m not talking about ignition, just burning.)

VERY scary shit. Also how heavy would said tank need to be to keep a freeway pile-up from creating a crater…

This is also why a good deal of research is being done in storing Hydrogen in a structural matrix, much like how a sponge can store water.