[Graeme]

US drives hydrogen fuel cell vehicles forward with $7 million investment

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he US Department of Energy (DOE) is investing $7 million in four projects aimed at advancing hydrogen storage technologies for use in fuel cell vehicles.

The three-year projects at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Washington state, University of Oregon, HRL Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California, aim to lower costs and improve performance of storage systems.

PNNL will receive up to $2.1 million to develop carbon fibre composite materials for advanced high-pressure storage tanks for hydrogen, working with carmaker Ford, Lincoln Composites, Toray Carbon Fibers America and AOC.

The other three projects, meanwhile, will investigate novel storage materials. HRL Laboratories will receive up to $1.2 million to try using engineering liquids to store hydrogen gas.

[Graeme]

The Coming Vehicle Fuel Cell Revolution

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')nvestors have their eyes on 2015 as the big year for fuel cell actualization. This will be the year the technology will enter the mainstream auto industry both domestically and abroad. Daimler (DDAIF.PK), Ford, Nissan, Toyota, and others are committed to roll out cars using fuel cell technology that year in markets with the hydrogen infrastructure, which includes many states from California to Michigan.

Honda may be looking to become the long-term leader in the market. The company has pushed its date of release of its fuel cell vehicle to 2018 as it attempts to approach the market in a different way. The company is pairing a home energy station that domestically produces hydrogen with their FCX clarity automobile to circumvent a hydrogen infrastructure problem. The home fueling station was developed and miniaturized with the collaboration of Plug Power (PLUG). Honda claims that using its hydrogen fueling station can reduce domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 30% versus a home that uses gasoline power cars and commercial electricity.

[Graeme]

In Post-EV World, Will Hydrogen Rule?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ydrogen fuel cell vehicles might well be the real “cars of the future,” as the narrator of a short film asserts. Citing the fact that hydrogen is twice as efficient as gasoline, and sourced from the most abundant chemical on the planet, the clip also points out that the sole emission substance is water vapor.
Indeed, one of the interviewees, a GM spokesperson, claims that hydrogen fuel cells will revolutionize transportation of the modern era much the way combustion cars overtook horse-drawn conveyances in the very early 1900s. A good measure of hydrogen’s importance is the fact that every major automaker in existence is actively testing fuel cell cars and trucks. As with many new technologies, hydrogen powered vehicles are quite expensive. But the advocates say that science, infrastructure, and politics will aid development and acceptance of fuel cell transportation.

[Graeme]

Giving Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Cars Another Chance

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hree years ago, the Obama administration abandoned another of its predecessor's central tenets—that the future of vehicle propulsion was zero-emission hydrogen fuel cells. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, backed by Obama, instead launched an aggressive program to develop a new generation of high-performance batteries, the factories in which to manufacture them, and the vehicles they would power. Lithium-ion technology and electrified cars offered the best chance of achieving three key policy objectives, the administration asserted: get the country off of oil, reduce emissions of CO2, and invigorate a new age of American manufacturing.

But electric vehicles are off to a sluggish start in the United States and around the world. Battery costs seem likely to be high for the foreseeable future, and consumers are not buying electrified cars at the rates originally foreseen. Major oil companies are getting the impression that they can relax: The gasoline age will still be with us for at least another two decades, they believe, perhaps even longer.

No one can say whose bet will prove a winner—Obama's or the oil companies'. Yet it is fair to ask: Would the president have been wiser to hedge his gamble by sustaining the George W. Bush-era hydrogen fuel-cell program while also pursuing electrification? The answer is found in a habit of some of the biggest risk-takers of all—venture capitalists, who tend to spread their wagers around rather than hoping a single flash of intuition will pay off. Now it seems that the Obama administration may be reconsidering its distribution of chips—and that change can’t come soon enough. Just as Washington has incubated the battery and electric car industries, it ought to play a larger, proactive role in fuel cells, which solve some of the main problems hobbling batteries (though they have their own challenges).

[Graeme]

DOE Study: Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles Advancing Rapidly

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') seven-year US Department of Energy demonstration project to evaluate hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, which GM, Daimler, Hyundai-Kia, Ford, Shell, BP, Chevron, Air Products and Chemicals Inc. participated in, found rapid progress in driving ranges and durability of fuel cell stacks.

The DOE in 2003 established interim, high-level technical targets for FCEVs to be reached by 2009, which included a 250-mile driving range, 2,000-hour fuel cell durability and $3 per gallon gasoline equivalent for hydrogen production cost.

The National Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle Learning Demonstration Final Report found that at least one of the four teams, which each comprised an automaker and energy provider, exceeded each of the DOE’s targets for driving range and fuel cell durability. One industry team achieved a 254-mile driving range and another showed projected average fuel cell stack durability of 2,521 hours.

The DOE names the four teams, which were Daimler and BP; GM and Shell; Chevron, UTC Power and Hyundai-Kia; and Ford and BP. However, the report does not reveal which teams hit particular targets.

Hydrogen production costs were more difficult to demonstrate through the project because current hydrogen stations were not designed, constructed and used as full-scale commercial stations, the DOE said.

The demonstration project generated data from more than 500,000 individual vehicle trips covering 3.6 million miles and 152,000 kg of hydrogen produced or dispensed. Over the seven-year demonstration period, 183 fuel cell electric vehicles were deployed, 25 project fueling stations were placed in use and no fundamental safety issues were identified, the DOE said.

[Graeme]

Hydrogen fuel-cell cars look to overtake electric autos

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s electric cars try to forge more than just a niche in the market, the auto industry is already looking to another form of clean technology that could overtake today's battery-powered vehicles.

Commitments by automobile manufactures to develop hydrogen fuel-cell cars have surged in recent months. Toyota, Hyundai, Daimler and Honda announced plans to build vehicles that run on the most abundant element in the universe and emit only water vapor as a byproduct.

"A lot of auto makers believe the fuel-cell vehicle is just a better performing vehicle and just makes more sense," said Kevin See, a senior analyst of electric vehicles at Lux Research in Boston.

A fuel-cell-powered car can travel much longer distances than battery-powered ones before needing to be refueled, and fuel cells can be more readily used in large vehicles like trucks and SUVs.


Byung Ki Ahn, the general manager of fuel-cell research at Hyundai, said the company's fuel-cell vehicles are not directly competing with its battery-powered ones.

"There might be some overlapping in-between, but basically, our strategy is that we are developing fuel cells for heavier and mid-size cars and (battery-powered) electric vehicles for smaller ones," he said.

Although Hyundai claims that it will be the first to offer fuel-cell vehicles commercially, other carmakers will be right behind it. Toyota and Honda have said they will release a fuel-cell car in 2015.

[lper100km]

From a car designer's point of view, I can see the attraction to this fuel as an alternative, despite issues of storage and fuelling.

From a macro look at the situation though, it makes little sense. There is no free hydrogen – it has to be separated from other bonded elements, typically in water or natural gas, using considerable energy. As usual, there will be more energy expended in the separation process than will be recovered in the recombining process, both of which will suffer inefficiency losses. Thus, the energy required to create the fuel – electrolysis or reforming natural gas - will be much more than the energy required to propel the vehicle. Imagine what would be needed to power the entire fleet of vehicles on the roads and the issue becomes enormous and highly improbable. On top of that, there would be a need to develop a hydrogen infrastructure. How would that work? Thousands of local hydrogen producers basically serving as filling stations or a few mammoth central producers distributing their product …. how exactly? Hydrogen will leak through just about anything.

We're back to the eternal problem – where does the fuel come from to power the power stations that supply the power to create the hydrogen once FFs are out of the equation? While FFs are still in the equation, their use is simply transferred from vehicles to the power stations.

Apart from all of that, there is no economic evaluation of such an approach. After seven years there is no cost benefit analysis? But they are proud of a 250mile driving range and a 2,000 hour fuel cell lifetime? (Can you bet there is a fuelling station less than 100 miles away?)

Despite the idea that this is a future technology, it is really a subset of the FF economy and will die with it. Mainstream, never. Maybe another short term niche market.

[Timo]

100km, i disagree. While i do understand your skepticism abut the existing technology regarding hydrogen storage and production, i don't see that being the deal killer to the greatly expanded uses of hydrogen to power our future. One thing i always repeat to myself on a near daily basis is that technology builds on itself. I've been reading several reports recently about very big advancements in the seperation of hyrdogen from oxygen using nothing more than solar power with very cheap and abundant catalyists. I've also read recently that fuel cells, themselves, have recently been made much more efficient by placing graphene between layers of silicone, thus extending their recharge capacity and durability, and increasing their electric conversion rate. No technological miracle happens overnight, and necessity is the mother of invention. And perhaps the biggest reason that i see hydrogen as a BIG player in our future energy needs is simply the paradigm established in the 20th century, that someone, or a very few people, must retain control and power over the resources everyone else needs. The infrastructure to distribute hydrogen will evolve fairly rapidly because, 1) there will be money to be made in doing so, and 2) it perpetuates the control in the hands of the few over a resource that everyone needs on a daily basis. Some current energy giant will see the writing on the wall, and will make all of the investments necessary to maintain their role of King of our energy needs. Business interests trump egalitarian parity when it comes to energy. Hydrogen will become a hotly controlled commodity, traded just like any other commodity, used just like any other commodity, priced just like any other commodity. And, you'll just have to take my word for it, but as much as i hate to say this, if/when that situation becomes reality in our world, i expect that will be a good thing for the long-term survival of the planet.

[Beery1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', '.')..I've been reading several reports recently about very big advancements in the seperation of hyrdogen from oxygen using nothing more than solar power with very cheap and abundant catalyists. I've also read recently that fuel cells, themselves, have recently been made much more efficient by placing graphene between layers of silicone, thus extending their recharge capacity and durability, and increasing their electric conversion rate.

[Timo]

Beery, there will be a transition period where fossil fuels are used to create the next generation of technology. That said, remember that technology builds on itself, and no miracle technologies are created overnight. Sad and frustrating, but true. But, if we can use a lesser volume of fossil fuels to build an infrastructure that produces a greater volume of non-fossil fuel energy, i'll take it. That appear to be where we're collectively headed. Energy will always be created by burning anything that's combustible. That's just the way our universe evolved. But, i'm of the opinion (and i emphasize that word) that we're headed for a long transition away from combustibles as our primary means of generating consumable energy. That's the optimist in me. The pessimist in me sees this transition taking too long to be of any benefit for human survival, and hence a mass die off. There's another thread on that very subject, if you care to visit that one, too. Either way, though, humanity will have no choice but to seek alternatives to our usual diet of coal, oil, wood, natural gas, and all the other by-gone means of producing energy. Don't underestimate the human ability to profit off of any situation. Money will be the goal, not planetary health.

[lper100km]

Timo: Yes, there will be improvements in technique over the years, but one remaining issue will never be cracked by a technique. That is, the energy required to separate a hydrogen atom from an oxygen atom or any other atom will remain the same as it always has been. So it's possible to use a solar array to reform hydrogen. That's cool. Except that you won't get very much of it. Many things can be done in labs which are not economically scalable, or physically scalable, incapable of being scaled to the degree commercially needed or will even work outside the lab. So the macro energy picture remains the same regardless of what technique is used and that will determine the outcome. Basically the big picture becomes using more and more energy to produce less and less energy, a downward spiral that even a diehard pessimist should find depressing. The only caveats to that scenario are hydro power and nuclear, though whether sufficient infrastructure could ever be maintained in the long run to support them is problematic and a different story.

As an aside, with all the basic research into physics etc over the past 100 years or so, the possibility of other energy sources would have been identified long ago. The physical world is well understood now. The rabbit in the hat was always an illusion, but that's the show that people are now lining up to see.

[Graeme]

Nanotechnology simplifies hydrogen production for clean energy

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n the first-ever experiment of its kind, researchers have demonstrated that clean energy hydrogen can be produced from water splitting by using very small metal particles that are exposed to sunlight. In the article, "Outstanding activity of sub-nm Au clusters for photocatalytic hydrogen production," published in Applied Catalysis B: Environmental, Alexander Orlov, PhD, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at Stony Brook University, and his colleagues from Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Laboratory, found that the use of gold particles smaller than 1 nm resulted in greater hydrogen production than other co-catalysts tested.

"This is the first ever demonstration of the remarkable potential of very small metal nanoparticles [containing fewer than a dozen atoms] for making fuel from water," says Orlov. Using nanotechnology, Orlov's group found that when the size of metal particles are reduced to dimensions below 1 nm, there is a tremendous increase in the ability of these particles to facilitate hydrogen production from water using solar light. They observed a "greater than 35 times increase" in hydrogen evolution as compared to ordinary materials.

[Beery1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Beery1', ' ')What we need is a truly clean, environmentally friendly, carbon-neutral and renewable way to build our descendents' energy future. Getting us through the next 50 years isn't good enough.

[Beery1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Timo', 'B')eery, there will be a transition period where fossil fuels are used to create the next generation of technology.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Beery1', ' ')If the next generation of technology doesn't exist now, it never will.

[Beery1]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Beery1', ' ')If the next generation of technology doesn't exist now, it never will.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Beery1', '
')The fact is, the latest invention that will actually be useful for the next century is probably the bicycle.