HYDROGEN ECONOMY: Cheap natural gas may prove invaluable to efforts to promote cars running on hydrogen fuel cells.
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Read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this series.
Only movie stars and select consumers have been able to get their hands on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the United States over the past few years, but now these zero-emissions cars are poised to bust onto the scene in a big way around 2015 to 2017.
A limited number of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are available for lease today, and nearly all of them in California, where refueling stations are slowly cropping up.
Earlier this year, model-turned-actress Diane Kruger was spotted in the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell, the company's compact fuel cell car with a combined U.S. EPA rating of 52 mpg and a range of 190 miles per tank of hydrogen.
Actress Jamie Lee Curtis, another famous early adopter, has been seen driving the Honda Motor Co. FCX Clarity, which has an EPA rating of 60 mpg and 240-mile range.
EPA considered hydrogen fuel cell vehicles "game-changing" in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the new federal fuel economy standards, which require light-duty vehicles to reach a fleet average rating of 54.5 mpg by 2025. The agency included credits for automakers to build FCEVs in the regulation in hopes of accelerating their debut on the market.
California has been leading the way on the road to higher fuel economy. State regulations are pushing for 15 percent of the fleet to be zero-emissions vehicles by 2025. And by 2050, the California Air Resources Board projects that most vehicles in the state could run on hydrogen.
FCEVs enjoy many of the benefits of electric drive: They're quiet, handle well and have no tailpipe emissions. Unlike plug-in cars, they aren't limited by size, range or long recharging times. Drivers simply fill up on hydrogen -- where it's available -- and go.
"A lot of focus is on plug-in vehicles because they're being sold today. And yet, from the state and a policy perspective and the automakers' perspective, they realize [electric vehicles] are going to have limited appeal," said Catherine Dunwoody, executive director of the California Fuel Cell Partnership, a public-private collaboration working to promote the commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
"They really do see the fuel cell vehicle as an all-electric, zero-emission vehicle that truly replaces the cars we drive today," she said.
50,000 cars in California in 5 years?
Although it's still a long shot, the idea that FCEVs could one day replace conventional gasoline cars seems more likely today than ever before.
Department of Energy research has helped drive down the cost of automotive fuel cells by 80 percent. Results of a national FCEV demonstration found that, although less than the range on a tank of gasoline, the range on a tank of hydrogen has consistently increased, and now thousands of cars are being prepared to hit the market.
After decades of testing, automakers are expected to put 50,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the roads in California by 2017, according to Dunwoody.
Mercedes has said it plans to release a mass-produced FCEV in 2014 and will launch a hydrogen-powered SUV or large sedan in the coming years. Honda global CEO Takanobu Ito said last week that Honda considers the FCEV "the ultimate environmentally responsible vehicle" and will launch an all-new fuel cell electric model in Japan, followed by the United States and Europe starting in 2015.
Jim Lentz, president and CEO of Toyota Motor Corp.'s U.S. division, said his company will also add a hydrogen fuel cell sedan to its lineup in 2015 (Greenwire, Aug. 15).
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8 Comments
Add CommentThe beauty of Hydrogen is that it is beyond a fuel...it is an Energy Protocol. Anyone can create hydrogen in their own way -- natural gas, coal, sunlight, wind, hydropower -- and add it to the hydrogen pool. This pool is accessible by a soft, or loosely coupled, grid. You can make and use all your hydrogen at home...or buy it through a store, pipe or cylinder.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHydrogen is a joke. About the worst choice in a fuel.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe conversion of:
water + green electricity --> H2 --> to H2 fuel tank --> Fool Cell --> Battery --> electric motor uses 4 times more energy than the much simpler & VASTLY CHEAPER:
green electricity --> battery --> electric motor.
See:
www.hydrogenhighway.ca.gov/sb76/workshop/brooks_nov2.pdf
The Hydrogen Economy – Energy and Economic Black Hole - by Alice Friedemann:
www.mindfully.org/Energy/2007/Hydrogen-Economic-Hole28mar07.htm
A couple quotes:
"..No matter how it's been made, hydrogen has no energy in it. It is the lowest energy dense fuel on earth (5). At room temperature and pressure, hydrogen takes up three thousand more times space than gasoline containing an equivalent amount of energy (3). To put energy into hydrogen, it must be compressed or liquefied. To compress hydrogen to 10,000 psi is a multi-stage process that will lose an additional 15% of the energy contained in the hydrogen.."
"...Canister trucks ($250,000 each) can carry enough fuel for 60 cars (3, 13). These trucks weight 40,000 kg but deliver only 400 kg of hydrogen. For a delivery distance of 150 miles, the delivery energy used is nearly 20% of the usable energy in the hydrogen delivered. At 300 miles 40%. The same size truck carrying gasoline delivers 10,000 gallons of fuel, enough to fill about 800 cars (3)..."
Oil companies invented the H2 economy concept. They know it is one of the best bait-and-switch scams ever. How do you think Big Oil got the California Zero-Emission Vehicle Mandate revoked. They promised they only needed "a few years" to have H2 Fuel Cell vehicles on the road by the millions, by 2010. Were it not for the H2 economy scam there would be millions of electric vehicles on the road right now.
The only advantage to chemical fuels in a vehicle is increased range. Therefore logic dictates using concentrated liquid energy fuels, where electricity doesn't supply sufficient range. Methanol contains 40% more H2 than liquid hydrogen and is dirt cheap and environmentally friendly. For those who think hydrogen is a panacea, escaped hydrogen reacts with hydroxyls in the upper atmosphere and removes them. Hydroxyls are one of the gases that reacts and removes methane. So a hydrogen economy may increase the longevity of the 72X stronger than CO2 GHG methane. and is also, like CFC's, is an Ozone depleting chemical. And unlike CFC's it is the hardest gas to stop from leaking, and as a fuel the quantities used will be a million fold what CFC's were used for.
to dwbd:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll cited information from Alice Friedemann article is too old. The most recent is from 2004. Hydrogen technologies are far ahead since this time.
For example:
"Toyota Motor Co. said that it expects its per-vehicle cost of a hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle has dropped about 90 percent in the past five years and will fall another 50 percent or so when the world's largest automaker plans to make its first FCEVs available to the public in 2015."
www.autoobserver.com/2010/05/toyota-fuel-cell-vehicle-costs-to-fall-95-between-2005-and-2015-executive-says.html
Annual production of hydrogen is about 50 million tons per year (enough for 330 000 H2 cars) and there is no problems with leaking now. There are also 15 millions CNG cas, also without leak problems. Why you think it will appear in the future?
You idea would makes sense if and only if battery and capacitor technology was good enough to provide the range and power requirements necessary. Unfortunately, it isn't and is not unlikely to get there in the next 25 years.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDwbd is correct and nothing is going to change basic physics of it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFact is a H2 ICE is as eff as a foolcell so why not just run an ICE on mehane of other preferably biofuel?
If one takes the full EROI/mile FC's are not viable. I can make H2 for about free from biomass but my EV's can go as far on the energy needed to compress H2!!!
Next FC's are expensive and have short lives.
UCaps' are even worse.
My EV costs so little in fuel I can't tell it on my $15/month electric bill in spring/fall.
Next present lithiums can give well done, not what is available, EV's 300 mile range though 100 mile and a 5-10kw biofueled generator gives unlimited range.
And since one can make RE electricity cheaply, easily and price now is around $1/wt retail, sunelec.com I only need 500wt/$500 of panels to drive my EV for 25 yrs!!
My lightweight but stronger than steel composite body/chassis EV's using 1910-1970's tech only cost $10k in mass production and using 50wthr/mile means not a chance foolcells will ever catch up. Meanwhile I laugh all the way to the bank. What do you pay for gas/yr?
Total costs are about 25% of a similar ICE version of my 2 seat EV sportwagon.
Nope, you're wrong, most of the Friedemann article remains true today. As jerry says you can't change physics, it doesn't go out of date after 8 yrs. H2 is a terrible fuel and the fool cell offers absolutely nothing to a vehicle that can't be achieved far better with numerous ECONOMICAL & PRACTICAL methods. The only thing that has changed in 8 yrs is the price of the fool-cells has dropped from a ridiculous amount to just a outrageous amount. The H2 storage issue still remains a deal-breaker on its own.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere do you get there are no leak problems with CNG. Deadly explosions due to leaks that happen to be ignited are a DAILY occurrence in the USA. And propane has similar leakage and deadly explosions, and both of those are much less likely to form an explosive mixture than H2 and much harder to ignite. The explosions at Fukushima were entirely due to H2 leaking into the upper building structure, no power, no ignition sources and yet four buildings blew up due to H2 leakage. It can be detonated by a lightning strike 1 km away or a cell phone tower and is explosive anywhere from 4-74% concentration. A crazy fuel that offers absolutely NO BENEFIT.
And yeah, lot's of H2 is used at Oil Refineries, which they produce on site from NG - SO?
Latest & greatest fuel cell available is the H-5000, buy one now - just the stack, is $22k and weighs 38 lbs for a lousy 5 kw:
www.fuelcellstore.com/en/pc/viewPrd.asp?idproduct=1452&idcategory=155
Fuel cell vehicles need 100 kw fuel cell stacks. And still need batteries, the fuel cell costs more than the batteries that would give substantially more range than the H2 storage would.
"..battery and capacitor technology was good enough to provide the range and power.."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNonsense, they already easily supply the power needed, you can buy them yourself from a store or in a battery drill, A123 2.4 AH cells that put out 160 amps, just one example. And fuel cells relay on batteries to supply the peak power output. So nope, power is not an issue.
As for energy storage, that ain't a problem either, the Tesla Model S with 85kwh battery has a 300 mile range with an 85 kwh battery. Li-ion battery prices are already down to $250 per kwh in automotive volumes. And Tesla is building solar-powered charging stations in California which will fully charge a Model S in one hour, 1/2 hour for an extra 150 mile range. That is more than adequate for 95% of vehicle usage.
And if you really need more than that just buy a hybrid or a PHEV like a Volt. So what does the Fool Cell vehicle offer? Absolutely Nothing. Use 4X the energy for MAYBE, if you're lucky an extra 20% range at a much higher cost. A crazy idea. You might as well just add a small range extender diesel or atkinson generator to an EV for added range. And newer tech batteries, like Li-Air will have every bit the range of a H2 Fool Cell vehicle long before they become remotely practical.
Amazing how the Fool Cell - Hydrogen Economy was dead & buried and now Big Oil has resurrected the bait-and-switch SCAM again, lot's of hype in the mainstream media again. They must be getting afraid the EV is going to rise up and displace significant fuel consumption.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRemember H2 is an energy carrier, not a fuel, like electricity, only far less eff.
Another thing is H2 leaks through 2" steel plus makes it brittle!!! Holding it just is not easy or cheap.