The Larger Energy Implications of Hydrogen Autos 24 comments
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By Richard T. Stuebi
Although much of the ink these days about innovative vehicles relates to plug-in hybrids, work continues to explore the potential for hydrogen-based fuel cells to play a key role in the transportation sector -- particularly in light of the recent decision by Congress to reauthorize funding for hydrogen autos.
Admittedly, as hydrogen critics and skeptics are quick to point out, the vision for personal automobiles running on hydrogen is very long-term and thus quite murky due to a number of factors, perhaps most notably the lack of a ubiquitous hydrogen refueling infrastructure. The challenges facing hydrogen vehicles are real, but for fleet vehicles with limited service radii, the lack of refueling infrastructure is less of a problem, as one dedicated refueling system can fit the bill. As a result, fleet vehicles – especially inner-city buses – are the primary focus of current testing activities for hydrogen fuel cells in transportation.
Of course, to achieve the full environmental benefits of the hydrogen economy vision the hydrogen will need to be derived by electrolyzing water via renewably-sourced electricity (e.g., from the sun or the wind) to power the electrolyzer.
Although conceptually straightforward, renewably powering electrolyzers turns out to be a non-trivial challenge. This is mainly because solar and wind electricity voltage and current are highly variable, and the electronics of the control systems in electrolyzers tend not to like fluctuations in input power.
To address this challenge, a team here in Cleveland is spearheading a project to install a solar/wind-powered electrolyzer to generate hydrogen from Lake Erie water, with the hydrogen to supply a refueling station that will power a fuel cell bus serving Cleveland-area riders.
With seed funding from the Cleveland Foundation, the project is being managed by the Ohio Aerospace Institute, and the team includes NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Cleveland’s Regional Transit Authority (RTA), the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin (NYSE: PH), and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX) The Great Lakes Science Center is already home to a 225 kw wind turbine and a 32 kw photovoltaics installation, and will be home to the electrolyzer-fed fueling station. RTA will run the fuel cell bus on the recently-renovated Euclid Corridor.
United Technologies will be providing the fuel cell bus, and Parker Hannifin is providing key control systems for the fueling station. If all goes well – meaning, primarily, raising an additional $1 million or so to fully complete the project – the hydrogen fueling station and fuel cell bus will operate on a demonstration basis in a couple of years.
Of particular note, NASA is providing the intellectual expertise in developing the algorithms for controlling the electrolyzer to match the variable input power from the solar and wind generating systems. This expertise comes from considerable mission experience, in which photovoltaics systems generate electricity from the sun to power the spacecraft, and energy storage and charge control systems must accommodate power supply interruptions as planetary bodies transit in front of the sun.
To the team’s knowledge, because managing the intermittency of electricity supply in electrolyzer operation is non-trivial, there is only very limited experience with renewable electrolysis for hydrogen production, and virtually none involving more than a little bit of hydrogen production daily. So, this Cleveland project could be an important step along the path to developing truly carbon-free hydrogen-fueled transportation solutions.
As the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at the Cleveland Foundation, Richard T. Stuebi is on loan to NorTech as a founding Principal in its advanced energy initiative. He is also a Managing Director at Early Stage Partners, and is the founder of NextWave Energy.
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This article has 24 comments:
HYGS is an American company but my guess is that its too small to be considered. They have been selling portable Hydrogen generators for years to the Chinese.
H2 is a scam. The only ones for it are either ignorant or making money, grants from it.
Why is H2/fuel cells are very ineff, 10x's to costly both for equipment and fuel.
For instance a BEV goes 4x's as far on the same total cycle energy at 1/10 the cost for the vehicle. In our energy constrained future we can't afford such waste of energy or money. Investing in H2 is foolish.
www.google.com/search?...
for cleveland the variability of solar/wind to drive the electolyzer will require H2 storage to shave the peak demand. let's hope the storage facility is sited well away from highly populated areas. i'm concerned about leaks.
about 1944 in cleveland there was a massive LNG spill & it blew up several city blocks. perhaps some of today's local residents remember this one. of course it is not the same technology, but bad things can happen.
everybody is scared of hindenburgs.
> jack
At least, that's what I remember from the Nova video I saw years ago.
This is exactly right. There will soon be a study published that will show that renewables can meet a massive proportion of the US energy demand, particularly because solar and wind resources are non-coincident. After all, wind is really solar energy from the night (imbalances of pressure).
In Australia all gas stations have LPG, most fleet cars run on LPG and many other vehicles. I think in New Zealand they already use compressed NG (someone may confirm). So if you have a feedstock that can already be used in vehicles and can already be incorporated into existing gas station infrastructure why would you want to turn it into H2?
On Oct 27 09:51 AM tuj wrote:
> Wow, massive issues here. First off, h2 production can be done better
> using NG as a feedstock, way better than using h2o. Second the specific
> energy of h2 is low compared to any petrol fuel. Third h2 is hard
> to contain without leakage (not dangerous, just an issue). And of
> course fourth, there is no good infrastructure. Better to use straight
> up NG as a fuel or EV. H2 cars are not likely to penetrate the consumer
> market, probably not even the fleet markets in any size. Even NG
> faces challenges to penetrate the consumer market, namely distribution.
> But an EV? Everyone has an outlet in their garage....
You need platinum and palladium as the catalyst in fuel cell. You need pure palladium for hydrogen purification. These two precious metals are extremely scarce, with very limited global production.
One unique mining comnay stands to gain tremendously is Montana based SWC, Stillwater mining, one of world's only two primary palladium producers, the other one is PAL.
More importantly, I think humanity's only hope of overcoming the Peak Oil crisis is in Cold Fusion, which made remarkable recent progress despite of lack of government support. Cold Fusion rely on palladium. If successfully commercialize it provides virtually unlimited energy supply to humanity. Watch a CBS 60 Minutes program on Aprl 19, 2009 on a special report on Cold Fusion.
I think I am the most outspoken palladium investment advocator. Read my articles:
seekingalpha.com/autho...
Some details, NG in Aussie land is used because gasoline, diesel is too expensive. For cars NG like H2 takes up too much room. Here you can't drive through tunnels with either or LPG/Butane.
Now for trucks, semi's Ng is the best by far, worth converting even without subsidies. NG is about $.60/gal equivalent now.
H2 can't be used in NG pipelines or stored for more than 2 weeks because it leaks even through 2" of steel. It also makes steeI, metals brittle, not something you want if holding 5000psi of anything. If liquid storage it needs as much energy to stay cool as it has in a week.
Norway, Finland is going EV, not H2.
Iceland is an exception as they have way more hydro, geo energy than they can use and can't export it because of location. That is not the case anywhere else. They also use it in ICE motors, not fuel cells.
H2 is fairly safe s if it leaks, it goes up. In fact after the Hindenburg skin which was painted with the same material as a solid fueled rocket fuel caught fire, the H2 then took the flames up when it finally caught fire, saving most of the passengers, crew.
Again H2/fuel cells are too ineff, costly, expensive fuel to ever be practical unless you have excess power and have no other choice like Iceland. Even there soon as EV battery costs will drop making H2 not worth the costs, hassle.
Go ahead and invest in it and you'll get what you deserve, losing your money.
Those who disagree please show any place it with fuel cells is cost effective? Or other than Iceland with ICE's.
Many of the comments regarding hydrogen vehicles, e.g. Iceland are actually hydrogen internal combustion engine powered.
Sticking with ICE allows other fuels and the car companies don't want to give up the ICE foundries (except Nissan).
Powering electric vehicles from hydrogen fuel cells sounds like a stretch.
I doubt it's being funded for anything more than research purposes.
www.hydrogenics.com/hydro
www.hydrogenics.com/fuel
www.hydrogenics.com/renew
Your Turn, do you have anything substantial to back your view, anything at all?
Room-temperature electrolysis is only about 50% efficient, and the PEM fuel cells used for vehicles are not ever going to be better than about 60% efficient (most are about 40% efficient now)
Those are unacceptable losses when the lithium batteries used for EVs are over 90% efficient.
Shoot, even storing electricity in flooded lead-acid cells would be more efficient than converting to hydrogen and then converting that hydrogen back into electricity!
In the future the only practical source of hydrogen for fuel cells will continue to be from natural gas.
> Jerrydd: HYGS links
>
> www.hydrogenics.com/hydro
>
> www.hydrogenics.com/fuel
>
> www.hydrogenics.com/renew
>
> Your Turn, do you have anything substantial to back your view, anything
> at all?
What price are they?
How eff are they and why don't they have any info??
Notice the first thing next to their name is investor info.
Why Did Prof Ho cancel Fed H2 funding?
There is plenty, just google it and avoid anyone making money from it. I base my info on physics, known eff and problems H2, foolcells have. These have been known well since the 60's.
Please prove any of my points wrong but you can't. I never said it can't be done, just isn't worth it. Please invest in it if you think it's so good. Many billions already have and it's all been lost.
On Oct 27 09:17 AM doubleguns wrote:
> Iceland is already using hydrogen powered cars. They are moving to
> power both cars and ships with hydrogen.
>
> www.google.com/search?...;ie=utf-8&oe=u...
On Oct 27 11:11 AM Mark Anthony wrote:
> The greatest implication of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is it will
> create a tremendous bull market for PGM metal, platinum and palladium.
>
>
> You need platinum and palladium as the catalyst in fuel cell. You
> need pure palladium for hydrogen purification. These two precious
> metals are extremely scarce, with very limited global production.
>
>
> One unique mining comnay stands to gain tremendously is Montana based
> SWC, Stillwater mining, one of world's only two primary palladium
> producers, the other one is PAL.
>
> More importantly, I think humanity's only hope of overcoming the
> Peak Oil crisis is in Cold Fusion, which made remarkable recent progress
> despite of lack of government support. Cold Fusion rely on palladium.
> If successfully commercialize it provides virtually unlimited energy
> supply to humanity. Watch a CBS 60 Minutes program on Aprl 19, 2009
> on a special report on Cold Fusion.
>
> I think I am the most outspoken palladium investment advocator. Read
> my articles:
> seekingalpha.com/autho...
So what if its a "Money Pit", put a Trillion behind it and you will be Fossil Fuel Independant.
Its going to cost a Lot Upfront, So what? You're going to save Hundreds of Billions on everything from Infrastructure build to Shipping cost VS CNG.
Where are your Links?
I didn't think you had anything to contradict the Technology.
And they are really doing well in their economy......
"On Oct 27 09:17 AM doubleguns wrote:
> Iceland is already using hydrogen powered cars. They are moving to
> power both cars and ships with hydrogen.
>
> google.com/search?...;ie=utf-8&...
Embrittlement of metal used to be an issue, but thanks to work at US national labs, it was solved many years ago. H2 pipelines and tanks are safely used in manufacturing and food processing. The H2 station at our office is 10 years old and has never had an issue with gaseous H2 seeping from the pipes or tanks.
Two researchers at MIT, Kromer & Heywood, did a great study of vehicle cost. They estimate the FCVs wil 350 mile range will cost about $3600 (US) over the base model, a PHEV-60 will cost about $6,100 above the base, and a BEV-250 will cost about $10,000 above base. H2 today costs about $6.40/kg, with a goal of $3/kg (before taxes) by 2015. See www.cafcp.org/sites/fi...
All signs point to fuel cell vehicles as being affordable, economical and sustainable.
On Oct 27 11:55 AM jerrydd wrote:
>
> Some details, NG in Aussie land is used because gasoline, diesel
> is too expensive. For cars NG like H2 takes up too much room. Here
> you can
Chris, Then why did the GM CEO just say H2/FC cars costs 10x's an EV?
Cherry picking data isn't smart, physics don't lie.
Oh, I get it now you work on FC cars!! Like I said, check out anyone not making money from H2/FCs.