GAS-FREE: Chevrolet's "Project Driveway" program is a test of the infrastructure required to serve hydrogen-powered hybrids as much as it is a test of the cars themselves.
Image: Courtesy of Eliot Caroom
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With the price of oil cresting over $130 per barrel, the timing of Chevrolet's "Project Driveway" field market research could not be better. The program is an opportunity for consumers in California, New York State and the District of Columbia to test about 100 of the company's Equinox sports utility vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells. In addition to letting drivers take a spin, the project is also a trial for prototype hydrogen stations.
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The test hydrogen fuel cell–powered cars have a range of up to 200 miles (322 kilometers) per tank. As part of Chevy's program, east coast test drivers can refuel at two stations in Westchester County (just north of New York City), while a third is being built near John F. Kennedy International Airport.
About a dozen test drivers fill up their fuel cell cars each week at the Shell hydrogen-refueling station in White Plains, N.Y. The station makes hydrogen fuel using city water and electricity from the local grid and also buys electricity generated by the Niagara Falls hydropower complex some 380 miles (610 kilometers) to the northwest.
Niagara's falling water "produces energy to compress the fuel into the vehicle so it has a full tank," says Brad Beauchamp, a customer--or in this case "driver"--relationship manager for GM's Project Driveway. "What you've got from the time you actually produce the fuel to the time you consume the fuel is a well-to-wheels carbon-free and petroleum-free transaction."
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16 Comments
Add CommentWhy doesn,t sciam dedicate a several page article to compressed air cars. To me they are the best way to save great amts. of gas and end our dependance on oil. The tech. is already here and they are already being mass produced. Yet few people in the US, even know what they are. Educate us!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt looks like all the right decisions are being made on this project, I just hope they don't drop this like they did with the electric car. (We weren't privy to their reasons for doing so.) By employing "specialists"to perform the refueling tasks they might considerably reduce most of the inherent hazards. We often forget that "self service" gas stations are a fairly recent development, judging from some of the stories I've heard of people driving off with the hose still attached and so on, this would most likely be the way to go, in the beginning at least.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a joke, did anyone stop to think about how hydrogen is currently made? Hint: think negative EROI with 60+% of electricity coming from fosil fuels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnergy density of a fuel cell: 13,000 joules per gram.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnergy density of gasoline: 47,000 joules per gram.
Quit wasting time on fuel cells and concentrate on making synthetic gasoline.
And remember, children, you all learned in third grade that CO2 is a plant nutrient, not a pollutant.
Energy density of a lithium ion battery: 600 joules per gram.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEnergy density of gasoline: 47,000 joules per gram.
QED.
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Edited by frgough at 06/03/2008 3:21 PM
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Edited by frgough at 06/03/2008 3:21 PM
Yes, because the thing I want most in a car is an air tank pressurized to 10,000 atmospheres.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRemember, kids, in third grade you all learned that CO2 is plant food, not a pollutant.
I can understand the obvious as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere is the point:
"Someone is trying to do something positive".
If hydrogen isn't the currently best alternative, ok, what it?
It is all to easy to throw darts in the name of showing how "smart" we are. If we were that "smart" we wouldn't be on the way toward destroying our planet.
Compressed air has issues with condensation/corrosion and combustion from trace amounts of lubricants, solvents, etc. Just think diesel engines here. The Germans tried synthetic gasoline during WW II, remember? Shall we all get together and see if we can't bring buggy whips back into production? Your condescension toward new technology and fresh ideas is tedious and overblown.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn your zeal to dazzle us with your acumen for statistics, you overlooked one salient fact. Batteries, steam, hydrogen, compressed gas et all, are power mediums, not fuel sources. Your argument is baseless; you're simply comparing apples to oranges.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey Frhough,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"And remember, children, you all learned in third
> grade that CO2 is a plant nutrient, not a pollutant"
Yes, it's a plant nutient - but then, Vitamin D is a human nutrient, yet it is poisonous in large doses. Just because something is beneficial at a certain point does not mean it is beneficial in enormous quantities. We are overdosing our planet with C02. Those plants that survive having their ecosystem wrecked will, I am sure, be well fed and happy, but it is not going to do us humans any good.
Additionally, I am sure that a gallon of gasoline contains more joules of energy than a gallon of chlorophyl, so why not teach plants to run on gas instead of sunlight?
Good idea, but according to the laws of thermodynamics ( as every diver knows ) if you fill a high pressure air ( or hydrogen) bottle she will get warm. Every diver puts the airbottle in seawater to cool it down. How about the hydrogenbottle? Is there a heat exchanger after the high pressure inlet ? Best regards Dr.Kamlander@aon.at
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAn article about GM and Shell, the only sponsors on this site, nice work SCIAM.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScientific American should not be publishing stories like this, without pointing out the TRUTH, the science. I bought the movie http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/ that tells about the five (5) miracles that would be needed to make the hydrogen car PRACTICAL! I am an engineer and I knew that they were telling the truth and GM and Shell playing the shell game are not telling the truth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot enough range.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee the movie from http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/ that tells about the five (5) miracles that would be needed to make the hydrogen car PRACTICAL! I am an engineer and I knew that they were telling the truth and GM and Shell by playing the shell game are not telling the truth. GM and other car companies, Shell and the other oil companies, Bush and his faith based energy plan, The easily conned California Governor, the California board with a conflict of interests, and ignorant public killed the electric car. The oil companies are fighting the coal companies to run our cars and the coal companies are not at peak coal yet, but the oil companies are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome kids for a science fair could show that for the same electricity a battery car would go far further than a hydrogen car that used the same electricity to separate the hydrogen from water and to compress the hydrogen to 10000 psi. Then they could show that for the same amount of natural gas and same energy to compress it to liquid you can go far further in a Civic GX than you can in a hydrogen car that had to separate out the hydrogen from the same natural gas and then compress the hydrogen to 10000 psi with the same energy that also had to separate the hydrogen. Your would end up with far less energy.
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