According to EPA, improvements to CNG vehicle fuel tanks could spell direct gains for hydrogen fuel tanks because they face the same challenges of safely and economically storing a gaseous fuel without limiting vehicle range. Enhancing the availability of CNG cars could also bring natural gas to more fueling stations, which could be converted to hydrogen on-site and help overcome FCEV's infrastructure speed bump.
An alliance with natural gas stations and cars?
But CNG vehicles for passenger use have their own hurdles to overcome. As with FCEVs, public fueling stations are few in number, the cars come at a premium and their fuel tanks are bulky and range-limiting (EnergyWire, July 20).
The Honda Civic Natural Gas is currently the only light-duty CNG model offered in the United States. It drives like a regular gasoline-powered car but produces 20 to 30 percent less greenhouse gas emissions than a gasoline or diesel car. Because of low natural gas prices, the Civic Natural Gas may also offer 30 to 40 percent fuel cost savings. But the fuel tank eats up most of the trunk space, and with a sticker price about $7,000 higher than a traditional Civic, the car would have to cover a lot of ground to recuperate the cost.
Honda will receive a small credit for producing CNG cars under the new fuel economy rules for 2017-2025 but in the meantime intends to keep production steady at around 2,000 to 3,000 at its plant in Greensburg, Ind.
To meet the 2025 target, the company is pushing all its technologies at once, including the Earth Dreams powertrain technology that improves the fuel economy of conventional gasoline vehicles by 10 percent.
"We're not betting the farm on any one technology. We're moving ahead with CNG, fuel cells, plug-in hybrids and battery electrics because there is no single technology that holds the key to the world's energy future," said Robert Bienenfeld, senior manager of environment and energy strategy for American Honda.
Other automakers are pursuing a range of fuel-efficient technologies, too. A number of major automakers offer CNG-capable vehicles internationally, but none seems in a rush to enter the U.S. CNG passenger car market.
Ford, for instance, has offered at least two CNG cars in Germany, the Ford C-MAX CNG and Ford Focus CNG, and the Ford Ikon Flair CNG in India. The company does offer light-duty CNG vehicles in the United States for fleet use, but hasn't announced any plans to offer dedicated CNG passenger cars to the public.
Similarly, Volkswagen AG offers CNG vehicles in Europe but doesn't offer them in the United States and hasn't made plans to because the infrastructure is lacking and consumer demand is very low.
Fiat, a world leader in producing CNG vehicles, offers all types of them, including small passenger cars, buses and large trucks. The company commands more than 80 percent of the European market for CNG vehicles and could be a major player in the U.S. natural gas car market down the line.
Chrysler Group LLC, Fiat's global business partner, is "excited about the potential for natural gas powered vehicles becoming successful in the marketplace," Reg Modlin, director of regulatory affairs at Chrysler, said in his testimony to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in July. But for now, the company is focusing on the heavy-duty sector, because trucks and vans can more easily accept a large fuel tank.
Natural-gas-powered cars play catch-up
Though it's home to a wealth of natural gas, the United States is well behind other countries in adopting natural gas vehicles. There are 15 million natural gas vehicles worldwide and only 120,000 to 130,000 in the United States, where they represent less than 1 percent of new vehicle sales.
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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.