Hydrogen powered Vessels?

And just how much of this solar and wind energy is required just to compress the tiny amount of hydrogen produced?

Marmot is absolutely correct. The Hydrogen Holy Grail is being able to use a free, continually renewable resource such as solar to produce hydrogen. Several years ago (BYF), I was involved in the development of a self-sustained propulsion system utilizing a PEM Fuel Cell and a solar array that reflected sunlight on to a central collecting element, which produced adequate heat to extract hydrogen from water. It was very promising, but not a very compact installation. I'm not sure what became of the technology. I've been away from it for quite a while.

I'm not so sure this is true. And if it were, then why would we even be considering hydrogen as a potential fuel since it does not exist naturally in an uncombined state.

I know that water (HHO) has always been thought of as a huge potential source for hydrogen. The problem is the hydrogen is so tightly bound in the molecule that it originally takes LOTS of energy to break this molecule apart to release the hydrogen. What if there was something that made this process much easier... a catalyst....
(chemistry) a substance that initiates or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected

Isn't that what this group of scientist are saying they've found? ...a catalyst that will promote the production of hydrogen from water (with hopefully less energy input)?

For the storage question, here was one technology that was being worked on:
Hydrogen Storage via Sodium Borohydride

I believe this was referred to as 'Hydrogen on Demand' wherein you extracted just that amount of hydrogen gas that you required for the moment from another catalyst material that helped you 'store it'

Note added: Just did a quick look thru this PDF document...I remember it now....Very interesting,...in depth analysis, ...practical demonstrations in vehicles

If your going to use a solar furnace to produce hydrogen why not combine it with some handy carbon from the atmosphere and produce the hydrocarbon to whatever flavour you want.

Miami Entrepreneur appears to have solved the Solar Generation Problem

Bloomberg News picked this up the other day:

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-...unded-hydrogen-fueling-stations-95289614.html

Given the promise to be online mid-summer, it shouldn't take too long to see whether this is the real deal or not. If it is, and I doubt that it isn't given his earlier track-record, then it's just an engineering issue to make it small enough to go on a boat, either power or sail.

Question is, what power was required to build the solar to hydrogen generator. Wouldn't want to get into another coal fired plant to enrich uranium for an aircraft carrier solution.

Hydrogen from Diesel Fuel

The new generators work by producing hydrogen gas from diesel in a process called reforming (the fuel is heated, but not combusted, and mixed with air and steam). The hydrogen is then fed into the fuel cell to make electricity. Unlike the fuel cells that have been tested in cars, the new ones can tolerate impurities, such as carbon monoxide, that are present in hydrogen made from diesel. In large-scale production, the new fuel cells could also be significantly cheaper than high temperature solid-oxide fuel cells, such as those being sold by Bloom Energy, because they operate at lower temperatures, and so don't require expensive heat-tolerant materials, says Calum Chisolm, SAFCell's CEO

...more here: http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/26594/


Or Army testing fuel cell technology for Abrams tank:
http://www.army.mil/-news/2010/06/17/40980-army-testing-fuel-cell-technology-for-abrams-tank/

Hydrogen Technology

Check out this website, it's no bull.

http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/