HYDROGEN PIONEER: Maria Recchia-O'Neill is one of the first average Americans to drive an SUV powered by a hydrogen fuel cell.
Image: COURTESY OF GM
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Like many of her neighbors, Maria Recchia-O'Neill has a sport utility vehicle sitting in her driveway in Rye Brook, just north of New York City. She drives it to work and around town to run errands. But although her vehicle looks like any other SUV, her Chevrolet Equinox gets excellent gas mileage—and it doesn't emit any pollutants or climate change–promoting carbon dioxide. That is because it is a hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle—one of 40 such automobiles that U.S. carmaker General Motors provided for motorists to road test.
"My average right now is 44.4 miles [71.5 kilometers] per kilogram [of compressed hydrogen gas], which is supposed to be the equivalent of a gallon of gasoline," Recchia-O'Neill says. In only two weeks of driving, the district coordinator of science for the Port Chester, N.Y., public school system has driven at least 600 miles (965 kilometers) on the car and her fuel cell Equinox has gotten as much as 191 miles (307 kilometers) on its three full tanks (each holding slightly more than four kilograms, or 8.8 pounds, of compressed hydrogen gas). "I feel like I'm making history," she says. "It's an exhilarating ride because it's different."
Recchia-O'Neill is not the first American to drive a hydrogen vehicle, nor is her suburban family the first to enjoy it. That honor goes to the Spallino family of Redondo Beach, Calif., who got their Honda FCX sedan for test driving in 2005. Nor is the Chevrolet Equinox the first fuel cell vehicle General Motors (GM) has ever produced: The 1966 Electrovan, an unwieldy and prohibitively expensive fuel cell van that never made it out of the lab, was the first of about 40 or so hydrogen-fueled vehicles that have been built by the U.S. carmaker. She is not even the only one in Westchester County driving a GM fuel cell Equinox.
But Recchia-O'Neill is certainly at the forefront of a transformation of the U.S.—and global—auto market from standard gasoline-fueled internal combustion engines to greener vehicles. From so-called flexible fuel cars (that transition from ethanol to gasoline without a hitch) to gasoline–electric hybrids, new types of cars and trucks are finding their way onto the road.
Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are vying with next-generation hybrid car technology (which can be plugged in to recharge its battery rather than relying on the gasoline engine) to be the electric car of the future. "We've got a real fun race going on here between plugging in vehicles and storing electricity in the battery versus pumping hydrogen into a tank and creating electricity from a fuel cell," says Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development. "We are going to need every Btu [British thermal unit] of energy that can be created from every pathway."
The Chevrolet Equinox starts with a chirping sound, as gas injectors pump hydrogen into its handmade fuel cell stack. Like all electric cars, acceleration is instant, uninterrupted—and silent. "The young guys ask, 'Can't this make some kind of growling sound?'" Recchia-O'Neill says of her son's college roommates. Even turning the car off is different. "The shutdown is the best part. Everybody likes to watch it purge with the water vapor coming out and a futuristic kind of sound."
The whoosh of compressors as the vehicle shuts down—a sound that Recchia-O'Neill says makes "you feel like you're in a spaceship"—is the key to driving it in frigid weather. Producing electricity in a hydrogen fuel cell has one by-product: water. And water can freeze at winter temperatures common in New York State. So GM has designed its Generation IV fuel cell assembly to eliminate all water from the stack when it stops operating. "It started up no problem in cold weather," Recchia-O'Neill says, even in a snowstorm and on days the temperature dropped below freezing.
Save for the quirky noises—or the lack thereof—the fuel cell light truck does not look or perform any differently than regular ones. The fuel cell version of the Equinox outweighs its standard cousin by more than 500 pounds (225 kilograms) thanks to its heavy nickel–metal hydride battery pack, GM says, but press down on the accelerator and the Equinox can run with the rest of the road traffic. "I will pass tractor–trailers," Recchia-O'Neill says. "I can dodge the taxicabs. It responds well. I feel like I'm a match for anyone on a busy road."
Honda, GM and other major carmakers, including BMW, Toyota, Ford and Daimler, are all currently testing model hydrogen cars and trucks. Recchia-O'Neill became one of GM's hydrogen truck test drivers by accident when she visited the auto giant's Web site, which called for volunteers to participate in Project Driveway, an effort designed to have consumers put the Equinox through its paces. She is one of 11 "real customers" (as opposed to celebrities, politicians or the like) now taking the car for a trial run; GM plans to eventually have 100 such test vehicles on the road. As part of this effort, GM has also teamed with Virgin Atlantic airlines to provide pick-up and drop-off services in fuel cell cars to first class passengers at Los Angeles International Airport starting next month.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has already certified hydrogen vehicles as zero-emission vehicles—they only produce water. And the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has certified them safe to operate and refuel.
But two major roadblocks remain: The Equinox costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to make and it can be hard to find hydrogen fuel. The first will only be solved when companies begin to mass produce such vehicles, according to GM's Burns, which could happen as soon as 2012 when a law is set to take effect in California requiring that a portion of new cars emit no pollution. "It has one tenth the moving parts, and the geometry of an assembly line is easier than for an [internal combustion engine]," he adds. "This technology has low-cost potential."
As for the fuel, more than 45 million metric tons (45 billion kilograms) of the lightweight gas is produced every year as part of making fertilizer, chemicals and the gasoline used to power cars today. In fact, fully 25 percent of global hydrogen production is made by oil companies themselves at refineries to improve the quality of crude oil. "Why not just put the hydrogen in a fuel cell instead of putting it into petroleum? It's economical to do it at a refinery today," Burns says. The oil business makes enough hydrogen to fuel more than 30 million hydrogen vehicles, he notes, adding, "the petroleum industry will provide us with the hydrogen infrastructure." Already, GM has partnered with Dutch oil giant Shell to open hydrogen fueling stations.
Critics note, however, that hydrogen is simply an energy carrier—and not a particularly good one, effectively delivering less than 25 percent of the electricity required to produce it from water as energy to move wheels. Today's lithium ion batteries can return roughly 75 percent of the electricity put into them as motive force. Even GM's vice chairman of global product development, Bob Lutz, said recently that if energy storage in lithium ion batteries improves, it might not make sense to employ hydrogen instead of electricity directly.
But fuel cell advocates point out that given the space available in a car frame and the laws of thermodynamics, today's batteries can only provide a limited driving range—40 miles (65 kilometers) for GM's own Chevrolet Volt—before requiring a recharge, such as by the gasoline motor in a full hybrid like the Toyota Prius. Current hybrids without this feature already cost several thousand dollars more than their conventional counterparts and converting them to plug-ins would cost at least $10,000 more. The feasibility—and cost—of future plug-in hybrids will depend on advancements in battery technology.
Hydrogen production may also prove to be a better way of storing the energy from intermittent but renewable power sources, such as wind farm generation or solar photovoltaic panels on a future garage rooftop. Iceland and other countries are already testing such closed loop systems. And hydrogen can be produced from a wide array of processes, ranging from water electrolysis to the fermenting of biofuels like ethanol.
For now, Shell has two hydrogen refueling stations in the New York City area—one in Ardsley and the other newly opened in White Plains, both in Westchester County—and a third is planned at John F. Kennedy International Airport. The National Hydrogen Association counts 122 at present in the U.S. and Canada—most clustered around major cities, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. The association estimates that an adequate hydrogen refueling infrastructure of 12,000 stations—less than one tenth of the roughly 170,000 gasoline stations in the U.S.—could be built for no more than $15 billion.
Recchia-O'Neill says she can pump enough compressed hydrogen into the Equinox's three carbon–fiber storage tanks in six minutes when the hydrogen gauge tells here she is "running on fumes—literally."
The next generation of GM's handmade fuel cell stack was showcased in the luxury crossover Cadillac Provoq at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this past January. By doubling the power density of the fuel cell stack, GM engineers halved its size as well as halved the amount of expensive materials, such as platinum catalysts, that such fuel cells require. "That's the key to getting the cost reductions we're seeking," Burns says.
For now, Recchia-O'Neill will be one of the few to drive a prototype car of the future—and even she will only have it for three months total. But for those three months she'll need to set aside more time to go to the supermarket. "If I go grocery shopping, people stand around it," she says. "We go down the street and people look at you because they don't even know the car is running. … This is a real car for regular people, we're just waiting for the infrastructure to catch up."
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34 Comments
Add CommentHydrogen production is not pollution-free until it relies exclusively on solar or wind generated electricity. Biofuel raises issues of land use, food costs, and total global-warming emissions. Petroleum refineries are not a long term solution as the goal is to reduce the carbon content and increase the hydrogen content in petroleum based fuels and, most importantly, reduce over-all reliance on crude oil.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI seem to recall that in the 1950's Mercedes Benz or BMW produced some experimental passenger automobiles that ran on hydrogen. They used compressed gaseous hydrogen and modified carburetors. They were quickly dismissed by the recollections of the Hindenburg disaster. This despite the fact that the Hindenburg used hydrogen at atmospheric pressure whereas the subject automobiles stored the gas at high pressure. I have used high-pressure hydrogen to create an non-oxidizing atmosphere in a simple electric heat treating furnace. You just turn on the gas and quickly ignite the exhaust from the furnace. Perfectly safe. I suspect that the current fuel tank technology in automobiles that encourages the formation of gasoline vapor by using engine vacuum to produce a negative relative pressure in the tank is probably less safe in a crash than hydrogen in a sturdy high pressure tank.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat irritates me about all this is that the general public is told by the industry that hydrogen is a fuel. Hydrogen is no more a fuel than steam was. The energy is in fact taken from all the usual sources with little impact on the producers bottom line.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI recall GM threw out another red herring during the 1970s by "smoging up their big 500 cubic inch plus vehicles. Rather counterintuitive perhaps? Why not focus on reducing weight & increasing efficiency to reduce pollution. No way, again it would reduce profit margins. It took a oil embargo to revise the status quo.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere are we getting the energy to convert water to hydrogen? Oil and coal I assume. In the end, I wonder how much fossil fuel it takes to produce one tank of hydrogen, and how this compares to a tank of gasoline.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll fair points. Certainly, the key will be where we get the hydrogen from and--as many of you note--it can be derived from some pretty carbon-intensive processes. At present, it's mostly steam reformed natural gas. But hydrogen has the benefit of being produceable from an endless array of feedstocks: fossil fuels, biofuels, electrolyzing water (and the electricity to do that can come in a variety of ways too). Now, the energy-water nexus? Well, that's a whole 'nother question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for safety, I find it highly unlikely that gasoline would be approved as a fuel today. Shall we list its finer qualities in the event of a spark or crash? But, there is no doubt that fossil fuels are the best fuels going. So energy dense and all the hard work has been done for us. Too bad they're going to run out (but not before changing the heating effect of our atmosphere.)
If every car today were powered by hydrogen and emitted only water vapor, would all that water vapor have any climatic effect?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWater vapor wont have any climate effect because its concentration in our atmosphere is inherently limited. When it peaks, it rains. The hydrogen we get comes from steam reforming or water splitting anyway, so its just another simple step in the water cycle. Though, as everyone else mentioned, consuming hydrogen does not release only water when you include the production of said hydrogen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Edited by hathawbj at 03/21/2008 10:14 AM
As I mentioned earlier, I have deep suspicions regarding those promoting this technology. I own a hybrid & am quite impressed with battery technology at present. While I think the hydrogen concept is ultimately doable. If it doesn't address the overall pollution & energy efficiency issues in a very real way, then it's just another great idea that went nowhere.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is crap. They critesize hybrids as being thousands more and phev's as being as much as ten thousand more than traditional vehicles. Yet they have no problem with a vehicle that costs and i quote "hundreds of thousands of dollars" Wake up people! This is nothing more than a diversion from EV's which are getting real close to matching current auto performance and price
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI haven't heard any criticisms of hybrids yet. However, three reasons I like mine; 1. An honest 30% increase in fuel economy over an identical vehicle I previously owned with a V6. (With no discernible loss of power) 2. A 150,000 or 10 year warranty on batteries. 3. A $2000.00 federal tax credit. This vehicle was priced almost exactly the same as my previously vehicle. True, it's a small step, but I could feel a lot worse at the fuel pump.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow much you bet filling up at a hydrogen station will end up costing just as much as petrol? Who will control the infrastructure and supply of hydrogen gas?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Who will control the infrastructure", "all the usual suspects of course"! An interesting tidbit; The story goes that while Bush & Cheney were demonstrating the "ease" of filling up a car with hydrogen, they almost blew themselves up. Interesting to contemplate that one on any number of levels.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydrogen infrastructure isn't the demon it appears to be at first glance. A Google search of "hydrogen Norway" yields a slew of articles highlighting the work being done and thought involved already in other countries around this issue. Is it really necessary for us to reinvent the wheel, again...just because we can?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI admit I'm not familiar with "hydrogen Norway", but it raises an interesting question in my mind of where Europe might obtain hydrogen since they don't have an oil producing legacy like the US. Is it a byproduct of nuclear fission from their reactors? If so, how much is available for that purpose?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI just read 49 pages of "Twenty Hydrogen Myths" by Amory B Lovins. Although I rarely take things at face value, I found his overall analysis impressive. As might be expected his prospective was taken from a production angle, but for me at least it sounded like they were for real. Only time will tell.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm still not sold on the infrastructure. It takes 33kWh to produce one kg of hydrogen from water electrolysis. For example, fueling up a vehicle with about 10 kg of fuel would take 330 kWh, a 1MW powerplant could produce 730kg of hydrogen a day. So about enough to fuel 73 cars. That's it. Another way to think about it is 1 sq meter of solar panel in the southwest might produce 1kwh a day. So 1kg is 30 sq meters. one fill up is 300 sq meters. 1 million cars is 300 million sq meters. That's about 100 square miles of solar panels. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, but hydrogen won't be our magic lamp to solve our energy crisis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm no expert on anything but I do realize all these so called new energy sources rely on energy to produce. Until we come up with a clean energy such as solar, everything (hydrogen, electric, ethanol, etc.) still relies on fossil fuels to produce. If I'm wrong please correct me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe more alternative technology that is developed to take the place of traditional gas guzzlers the better it is. Hybrids, electric vehicles and vehicles powered by solar or wind energy are really the vehicles for the future
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRemind us of the weight of toxic gases emitted in the manufacture of the Hydrogen?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthe fuel cell car power plant can also work as electrical power source to houses. by rcdohare
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy can we not make a home hydrogen generator that uses solar cells to split water, then compress the product overnight while the car is in the garage?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a better alternative for producing Hydrogen using only sunlight. See http://www.unsw.edu.au/news/pad/articles/2004/aug/Solar_hydrogenMNE.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA better method for splitting water molecules and producing Hydrogen using only sunlight as an energy source, may be found by going to google and type: university of new south wales titanium oxide hydrogen. Select the first web site from the University of New South Wales..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis maybe overlooked but if it emits water as a byproduct where does this water go? On a cold day does it make ice on the roads? It has to be released at some point
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInstead of the old philosophy of dumping the water out of the exhaust pipe, why not route it to a storage tank, then when you fill up with a fresh supply of Hydrogen, the water storage tank is drained into a reservoir at the filling station. The reservoir water would then be pumped through titanium oxide panels to extract the hydrogen again. This would help better manage water resources in countries like Australia and Israel that have water rationing during droughts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother idea may be to route some of the water through filters to make it safe enough and to taste good enough for people inside the vehicle to drink it. Or it could be drained off at home for washing the car. Another idea would be to drain off the water into the house's rain water storage tank to make more Hydrogen fuel at home, or to provide water for flushing the toilets.
Go see the movie from http://www.whokilledtheelectriccar.com/. You will discovery the same axis of evil at the top.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe real problem is not saving water retention, it is saving energy!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou could, but difficult, and lots of energy lost. Better to put to use or in batteries.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEach step takes energy, there are better uses for the energy. Cars are a hydrogen hoax.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this10 thousand the man till 2 thousand dollars will create fund. The fund can organize mass release of microcircuits of isothermal converters of heat in a constant electrical current. One microcircuit can have capacity more than 8 Вт.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn Russia the working breadboard model of a fragment of an integrated microcircuit of the converter is made which straightens thermal noise (Н. Nyquist) independent electrical conductors and puts(folds) capacity of separate sources, uniting them consistently and in parallel for reception of a source with necessary by a pressure(voltage) and current.
In соотвтетсвии with accounts, panel, on which are placed of 10 thousand microcircuits will to give back in electric motors, which are located in wheels of the automobile, more than 80 kw.
Cost and weight of square meter of the panel is equal to cost of the solar battery of the equal area, but the capacity of the panel nyquistjres in 300 times more, even if the solar panel works in optimum conditions.
Without loading the panel with microcircuits has temperature of an environment. At connection of loading temperature of the panel falls and that the target capacity of the panel did not fall, it is necessary to blow the panel with in microcircuits by air. At movement of the automobile обдув is made automatically, on parking it is necessary to include the fan.
At capacity of the panel in 100 kw, the capacity of the fan обдува should be no more than 0.8 kw.
In Russia this invention is not necessary for anybody. There is a sanction from РОСНАУКИ and from ФСБ on interaction with the foreign investors. Interestingly, in USA this offer can interest the investors?
10 thousand the man till 2 thousand dollars will create fund. The fund can organize mass release of microcircuits of isothermal converters of heat in a constant electrical current. One microcircuit can have capacity more than 8 Вт.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn Russia the working breadboard model of a fragment of an integrated microcircuit of the converter is made which straightens thermal noise (Н. Nyquist) independent electrical conductors and puts(folds) capacity of separate sources, uniting them consistently and in parallel for reception of a source with necessary by a pressure(voltage) and current.
In соотвтетсвии with accounts, panel, on which are placed of 10 thousand microcircuits will to give back in electric motors, which are located in wheels of the automobile, more than 80 kw.
Cost and weight of square meter of the panel is equal to cost of the solar battery of the equal area, but the capacity of the panel nyquistjres in 300 times more, even if the solar panel works in optimum conditions.
Without loading the panel with microcircuits has temperature of an environment. At connection of loading temperature of the panel falls and that the target capacity of the panel did not fall, it is necessary to blow the panel with in microcircuits by air. At movement of the automobile обдув is made automatically, on parking it is necessary to include the fan.
At capacity of the panel in 100 kw, the capacity of the fan обдува should be no more than 0.8 kw.
In Russia this invention is not necessary for anybody. There is a sanction from РОСНАУКИ and from ФСБ on interaction with the foreign investors. Interestingly, in USA this offer can interest the investors?
Hydrogen Research Grants was just another Bush boondoggle for his cronies. There is no need to create Hydrogen Storage tanks and Pipelines to replace the Gasoline infrastructure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydrogen can be made from water and electricity ON BOARD THE vehicle, or with a home generator.
You can see hundreds of home hydrogen generators on youtube.com.
Obama needs to cut the red tape that Oil Companies sponsored which prevents GE and Ballard Power from selling small home hydrogen units.
The Electric grid will do the distribution. And many folks will generate power locally with Solar.
Obama needs to lift the Prohibition on the Sale of Hydrogen Vehicles!!
UC Davis and UC Irvine have had Toyota Hydrogen Hylanders on campus for FIVE Years.
LET THE PUBLIC BUY THEM NOW!
www.My-Representative.org
Your Article fails to Mention the Number One Hydrogen Fuel Cell Auto Manufacturer with 200 cars Leased to the Public
http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/drive-fcx-clarity.aspx
I can't hardly wait to get to own a hydrogen suv. I live in Colorado and I hope fueling staions are located here soon. I'm waiting to buy anf so are many of my friends. I don't want to purchase another gas fueled vehicle. I hope someone else produces hydrogen fuel, besides greedy oil companies. The oil companies have had too strong of a hold on American's transportation advances for too long -to peddle for ridicules profits by selling their primative energy source (oil). Future American lives will also be spared, because the middle east oil fields won't be a vital interest to our country anymore
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