Energy Department to Halt Hydrogen Fuel Cell Research

Here is very good news: The U.S. Department of Energy will stop researching hydrogen fuel cells for cars. Hydrogen fuel cells might be feasible if there were gigantic supplies of cheap wind and solar power available to make hydrogen. It was never a near term concept. In fact, when George Bush proposed a “moon shot” in transportation technology based on hydrogen, my take at the time was that it was being trotted out because of the desire of both Bush and some Detroit executives to defer the inevitable transition to electric power for cars. So hydrogen became a red herring - an excuse for not doing anything with a realistic chance of having a near term impact on the internal combustion engine.

Team Obama is putting an end to that fairy tale promptly. That doesn’t mean the Energy Department will prove greatly effective in defining a practical new energy future for cars. For example it is still mired in the illusion that corn based ethanol can be useful - it cannot. But getting rid of the hydrogen boondoggle is at least a decent start in the right direction.

Energy Secretary Chu seems determined to focus on battery technology and to pursue pure science, basic (theoretical) research focused on batteries by establishing a set of new research centers. That seems consistent with his background as a scientist. It can’t be bad, but it is also not a sure thing. I would not want to bet that such an approach will best the Chinese who are determined to dominate the next generation of transportation power. They are employing a far more developmental approach than a theoretical one. This is an interesting game.

Here’s a New York Times report on the hydrogen decision.

U.S. Drops Research Into Fuel Cells for Cars

General Motors News Photo

Comments

[Prudent Man...:]

Honda and Toyota disagree.

This article is riddled with falsehoods!

He may be right but for the wrong reasons and apparently has a political agenda clouding his ability to reason, which is nothing new these days.

By the way, the Energy Dept. is run by a
Socialist as is Ms. Browner!

And then their is the problem of battery disposal at a time we are having trouble disposing of flashlight batteries.

My bets are on Obama treating this like all of his campaign promises so, for now, plan on the status quo for awhile. The more politics permeates our economics the further the chance of any sound solutions, regardless of political parties.

May 10 01:05 PM

[Windsun33:]

About time - fuel cells have been a boondoggle for the past 10 years. They are notoriously inefficient and expensive, and have yet to be anything close to reliable long term.

One of the few things I agree with Team Obama on. If they are going to waste money, at least waste on something that might show some returns, no matter how small, such as battery/storage tech.

Not that I think that electric cars are the future either for another 15-20 years, but at least better storage technology would help industries and sectors across the board if it ever happens.

May 10 01:41 PM

[Richard K:]

This article is essentially correct.

My own take, when Bush announced his hydrogen car initiative to great fanfare, was of a way to look progressive and "green" while posing no credible threat to Big Oil because this technology will always be 10 to 20 years off.

However I do think more basic battery research is a good idea. All of the current designs have serious practical and economic problems that will limit widespread adoption and profitable production. The real solution has yet to be invented.

May 10 01:49 PM

[BudD:]

Not sure how this is good news.

Predicting the future is hard, and all technologies being pursued have pro's and cons and contain technological risk. A portfolio approach minimizes this risk.

The U.S. in past years invested heavily in advanced battery research, and then in hybrid vehicle research, but it was the Koreans and Japanese who commercialized those technologies. Now we are buying our batteries and hybrid vehicles back from Asia. We can avoid that fate with fuel cell vehicles, but only if we stay the course.

Finally, today's hydrogen from natural gas is lower-carbon on a well-to-wheel basis than BEVs running on today’s grid. Tomorrow's fuel cell vehicles running on a combination of H2 from natural gas, biomass and a low-carbon grid will continue to be lower carbon than tomorrows BEVs.

May 10 03:09 PM

[James Wilson:]

Burning the Natural gas in a engine and than recovering the hydrocarbons from that exhaust in the form of hydrogen to burn again. Strange huh !

May 11 03:50 AM

[Lou Grinzo:]

Jim's right, and he nails the key point perfectly: It's not about the need to build a refueling infrastructure, as so many people say; the problem is supplying that much hydrogen without adding to the climate chaos mess. Simply put, we can't afford the luxury of burning a lot of our relatively scarce clean electricity on making hydrogen from water. I talked about this situation in a couple of posts on my site recently:

www.grinzo.com/energy/.../

www.grinzo.com/energy/.../

May 11 07:23 AM

[31October:]

A few years ago, my House representative wanted to spend $20 billion on hydrogen research. I sent him information from the US Department of Energy and some universities' research that proved it was unfeasible.

He replied with a letter that essentially acknowledged the ridiculousness of a hydrogen economy, and summed by saying he was voting for it -- because it would mean ***federally-funded jobs*** in our area. Years later, I did the paperwork for the F1 students and J1 workers (foreign students & engineers) who got the high-tech jobs.

I am shocked to agree with anything that comes out of DC. There must be a serious cash crunch for them to take away such a politically favorable item.

May 11 09:39 AM

[La Marque:]

The oil companies are the ideal producers of hydrogen. The offshore platform structures are the best place for production. Mr. Kingsdale is simply pointing out that it will take a lot of energy to do this; this will be solved by a solar/wind/battery solution.

May 11 10:07 AM

[milburnski:]

The headline, "Energy Department to Halt Fuel Cell Research" is quite misleading. What Secretary Chu said is that they're halting fuel cell automobile funding in favor of stationary fuel cells that are likely to generate more near term benefits. Two weeks ago the DOE announced $40 million in stationary fuel cell funding, so they're not kidding.

This is a smart move. Stationary fuel cells make economic sense at ten times the price of automotive ones, and you don't have the hydrogen refueling infrastructure issue compounding the problem.

If the government helps jump start a fuel cell industry based on stationary fuel cells, eventually they'll develop enough cost out (think PCs, cellphones & flat screen TVs) that they'll make sense in cars.

And don't blame Bush. He was just following Clinton who started the whole thing almost 20 years ago, and fuel cell cars are still "20 years in the future". Time for a new plan.

May 11 10:40 AM

[Road Runner:]

Your opinion is correct, in my opinion. We can make huge reductions in oil use by just migrating to hybrid electric vehicles.

Note that even if we had a solution today to the major technical issue of hydrogen storage in a vehicle, and we had reasonability priced fuel cells (both are decades away), vehicles will still need to be hybrid electric with a battery. There must be a means to recover braking energy for higher fuel economy. And, there must be a way to provide high surge power for take off from standstill or going up hills in order to minimize the size and cost of the fuel cell. So, no matter the energy source, whether a combustion engine, a fuel cell, or hundreds of mice running on circular treadmills, the energy generated will do the same thing - generate electricity to recharge the battery.

So, lets perfect the hybrid electric vehicle platform now, which will lay the groundwork for the migration to hydrogen powered vehicles if and when they do come along.

Don’t give up on hydrogen. I’m still dreaming of the day when the excess electricity from the inexpensive and powerful solar cells on my roof is used to generate hydrogen from water and store it in carbon nanotubes. I’ll put that hydrogen in my full-sized car (no tree hugger compact car death trap here). That car will go 200 miles on the battery and an additional 800 miles on the hydrogen via a fuel cell. I’ll be able to take a weekend trip from Dallas to Austin (300 miles one way) totally powered by energy from my solar cells. Now that’s energy independence nirvana.

May 11 03:31 PM

[DLB40:]

Hydrogen Boondoggle? Ethynol Boondoggle? Wind Boondoggle?
Solar Boondoggle? The government is here to help, and is throwing billions of our tax dollars at all of these terrific concepts. What can possibly go wrong?

In the meantime, companies like Clean Energy Systems, Westport Mfg. and Fuel Systems are quietly and very cost effectively converting/replacing tens of thousands of over the road trucks, buses, refuse haulers, cabs, as well as some Fortune 500 companies fleets to Natural Gas. This while also building several refueling centers around the country able to service these fleets with the capabilities to expand their service to your new LX or LP/Elec automobile as soon as they're able to be sold in this country in quantity.

I'm constantly mystifyed by the incredible number of obviously very smart people who are spending 100% of their time on the 2% solution. [Wind and Solar].
It seems that these very smart people have forgotten that the number one reason we are racing to develop alternate energy solutions is so we can begin to stop sending 500 to 800 billion dollars overseas every year. Most of these dollars going to a lot of people that don't like us very much, to pay for our oil habit. The number two reason of course is that we want full energy independence, ultimately with no pollution.

The interim 20 year solution however, is here now. We have natural gas available today in huge quantities. We have natural gas technology now, meeting 2010 pollution standards. All of the over the road truck mfrs. that you can name are on board with LP or LP/Elec. vehicles. They're building them and they're on the road working today. Every car mfr. that you can name has LP vehicles that are being sold in other countries in great quantity.

What is it going to take to get us as a country to stop thinking that all of the pie in the sky solutions that won't be viable for 20 to 30 years or more can somehow be created tomorrow. We need to stop thinking that these 2% solutions can be a solution for our energy needs in the foreseeable future, and start today, taking back our country from OPEC with our own American natural gas.

May 11 05:01 PM

[a. palmer jr.:]

I believe that for short hauls electric cars are the way to go. I'm not sure about long drives at least for now, but eventually we can set up battery changing stations and quick charge stations, maybe combined with something like a Starbuck's or an internet cafe, etc. It would certainly be nice if all the cars eventually used the identical battery so that battery changing would be easy, but knowing auto people, that probably won't happen. Every car will have it's own type of battery so the automotive industry can still run their little scam.

May 11 10:01 PM