GM Looks Beyond Oil

“One of the most serious business issues currently facing General Motors (GM) is our product’s near total dependence on petroleum as a source of energy. To address this issue, we have been implementing a strategy to displace petroleum through energy diversity and efficiency,” explained Dr. Larry Burns, Vice-President of Research and Development for General Motors, during his keynote speech on April 2 at the National Hydrogen Association [NHA] Conference.

When Dr. Burns speaks, the industry listens because he directly influences the future of General Motors and of the auto industry. March was one of the worst in years for all vehicle makers. GM and Chrysler saw a 19% drop in sales; Honda a more modest 3% drop. There was a direct correlation in sales loss and fuel efficiency. GM and Chrysler fleets gulp oil refined fuels; Honda’s takes large sips.

Make no mistake, GM is determined to be less dependent on oil as Larry Burns clearly stated, “We view renewable biofuels, electricity, and hydrogen as the most promising alternative energy carriers for automobiles. We are working very hard and fast on all three fronts to develop and implement meaningful technology solutions that provide our customers with a range of choices from “gas-friendly to gas-free” vehicles.” Next generation biofuels, however, will likely take years to get from labs to large scale production. When available, they will primarily be blended with gasoline and diesel, rather than requiring new stations. GM, and other auto makers, is frustrated to see hydrogen in only a few dozen stations globally.

Electricity is the most promising alternative fuel for GM and most auto makers. Electric motors are far more efficient than gasoline engines. Electric motors are used in hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electric vehicles, and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. In late 2010, General Motors will start selling the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid that will give many drivers 100 miles per gallon of gasoline, because it will primarily run on electricity. In three years, consumers may have multiple plug-in choices including Toyota’s planned offering.

The Volt is an implementation of E-Flex. GM’s E-Flex is an electric drive system centered on advanced batteries delivering power to an electric motor. Additional electricity can be delivered by a small engine coupled to a generator, or by a hydrogen fuel cell. In the future GM could elect to implement E-Flex in a pure battery-electric vehicle.

Over two million vehicles now use electric motors and advanced batteries, thanks to the early success of hybrids. Electric drive systems will continue their strong growth as they are implemented in battery electric vehicles, hybrids, plug-in hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

The plug-in hybrids’ big competition will be battery electric vehicles [EV]. London’s congestion tax is cascading into a growing number of cities that will require zero-emission vehicles. Announced EV offerings are coming by 2010 from Nissan, Renault, Mitsubishi, Subaru, and emerging players such as Smart, Think, Tesla, Miles, and a host of Asian companies. With the average U.S. household having two vehicles, these EVs would be perfect for the 80% of U.S. driving requires far less than 100 miles per day.

Where does this leave hydrogen? Fleets. Hydrogen’s fleet use continues to grow, especially in public transportation. Three factors are contributing to the growth of hydrogen vehicles: energy security, success of natural gas vehicles, and the growth of electric vehicles.

Hydrogen delivers energy security by being available from a wide range of sources including waste hydrogen from industrial processes, electrolysis of water, biosources, and steam reformation of natural gas. Where truck delivery is avoided, all of these approaches significantly reduce greenhouse gases, source-to-wheels, in comparison to diesel, gasoline, and current biofuel alternatives. Emission Comparisons from LCFS [pdf file]

In transportation, hydrogen may be the long-term successor to natural gas. There are about five million natural gas vehicles in operation globally. Over 90% of the natural gas used in the USA is from North America. Transportation use of natural gas has doubled in only five years. Natural gas vehicles are popular in fleets that carry lots of people: buses, shuttles, and taxis.

Natural gas is primarily hydrogen. The molecule is four hydrogen atoms and one carbon. Steam reformation makes hydrogen from CH4 and H2O. Hydrogen is used in fuel cell electric vehicles with three times the efficiency of the natural gas engine vehicles that they replace.

Most early adapters of hydrogen vehicles are natural gas fleet owners with vehicles that use compressed natural gas. Some fleets are mixing hydrogen with natural gas and running it in the existing CNG vehicles. A common approach is a 20% blend with minor changes such as timing in existing engines.

Public transportation is hydrogen’s biggest success. The San Francisco Bay Area is now upgrading from six hydrogen fuel cell buses to twelve. The area will grow from carrying two thousand passengers a day on hydrogen, to five thousand, using lighter next generation drive systems with fuel cells whose warranties have expanded from 1,000 hours to 12,000 hours.

For the 2010 Winter Olympics, Whistler will use twenty hydrogen fuel cell buses which will transport over 100,000 visitors during the games, then continue as the majority of Whistler’s fleet.

Although hydrogen will grow in fleets that can install the fueling and the vehicles, it will be many years before average consumers consider hydrogen vehicles. Outside of Southern California there is a lack of public infrastructure. To achieve a range of 300 miles, most auto makers want high pressure (700 bar). In California, only Irvine offers the higher pressure. GM is putting nine temporary 700 bar fuelers in Southern California. GM is also putting another 100 hydrogen vehicles on the road. Project Driveway Article

Honda is ahead of all other hydrogen vehicle makers in offering its acclaimed FCX Clarity for $600 per month. It does fine with the 350 bar pressure offered at California’s 24 hydrogen stations and delivers a 270 mile range. The vehicle will probably only be offered to select individuals in California communities where public stations are available such as Irvine, Torrance and Santa Monica. Even for Honda, Fuel Cell Marketing Manager Steve Ellis observes that “Success with hydrogen is more like a marathon than a sprint.”

To succeed, all businesses must monitor their industry, looking for points of inflection that lead to a new paradigm. In talking with Larry Burns at the NHA conference he told me that he has seen the signs since 2001. 9/11, Katrina, and oil prices have signaled major changes. All the world’s major economies from the USA to China are highly dependent on imported oil. Dr. Burns now concludes that in 2008 we are at a tipping point.

He stated, “We truly are at a defining point in the development of the technology. What and how we execute over the next 5 years will shape the next 50 years!...Together, we must act rather than debate, create the future rather than try to predict it, and solve the challenges we face now rather than handing these challenges off to future generations.”

Disclosure: None

Comments

[Dr T Reg]

So, who is going to foot the approximately $150 billion bill for developing the hydrogen infrastructure? Electricity that is delivered to 99.99997% of the homes and businesses in the US and a very large percentage of the world that relies upon personal vehicle transportation already has that infrastructure. Be smart, Dr. Burns, go for electrons produced by clean production technologies (wind, solar, steam-hydro, etc.), if want to wean the world from petroleum-based fuels.

[bluesmoke]

I have a battery powered 4 wheel scooter. I've owned it since 1999. It has never failed me. I take to the grocery store, and around town. Just keep it charged and the battery life is indefinite. Lots of golf carts are also electric. Why is the electric vehicle so difficult to embrace? I think GM needs to get with the times here. Forget biofuels - leave that for the farmers to use.

[bluesmoke]

Here's an easy way to save the US economy - give me a tax deduction towards the purchase of any Electric vehicle made in America.

[jack kreg]

If we converted 1/2 of our auto's to electric, where do we get the power to charge the battery's. Currently, over half of our electric power comes from coal-based power plants.
Answer, yes convert auto fleet to electric, and reduce gasoline consumption, less imported oil and less pollution, that's great. But, we still need major new sources of electric power, nuclear power is the answer. Further, begin converting our coal powered plants to coal to liquid fuel refinery's, which are much cleaner that current plants. CTL produces a variety of clean liquid fuels, gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, we will need these fuels for decades. CTL production will reduce our dependence on imported oil.
All of this delays Peak oil, and increasingly makes America less and less dependent on imported crude oil.

[Dr T Reg]

Jack,

The electric companies are designed to make peak power reqiurements; typically for daytime peak load requirement in most areas (Las Vegas being one exception that comes to mind). Therefore they typically taper down generation at night by spinning less of their turbines. That results in inefficient utilization of resourses (turbine-based power generation equipment). Since most people would charge their car battery packs at night, the power companies could simplify operations and create better plant utilization by producing power on a more constant bases day and night to give us all of those nightime electrons for our car battery packs.

[OliverUgarte]

Whatever solution we come up with to solve our dependence on oil, they all depend on us producing large amounts of electricity.

Only nuclear energy can provide enough clean power to handle the load that tens of millions of electric vehicles would require. Even if every single home in the U.S. had a solar panel on the roof, we would still need to get 90% of our energy from other sources. The only real options for energy production are coal and nuclear.

Coal, besides being filthy to burn, and dangerous and destructive to mine, actually releases more radiation into the air than nuclear energy does!

The green movement needs to embrace nuclear power, otherwise none of these new technologies will be accessible to the general public.

[jwt]

Re. hydrogen powered autos has any study been done re. effect of exhaust (water) on atmosphere conditions in areas of high auto use ex. New York city, L.A. etc.

[Mr. RobertG.]

.
Dr. Burns you are probably correct, that "2008 will be the tipping point" !!

Nuclear power is not the answer, unless we store the waste in Dr. T Reg's back yard for 10,000 years (PERIOD) !!! Electric is not the total answer either, have you seen how the public is being gouged lately on your electric bill and it will get worst as they dig up the earth and burn-up those limited fossil fuels.

The future is in Hydrogen and Fuel Cell vehicles, as of now, PERIOD !!! I applaud you Dr. Burns !!! GM and Honda are thinking outside of the 'SQUARE BOX' !!! As Steve Ellis from Honda observes, the “Success with hydrogen is more like a marathon than a sprint.” We need a new way to think and to fuel our passion for Energy.

Fuel Cells should be the answerof the future !!!!
Thanks for the good article John Addison!
I AM
Mr. Robert G.
.
.

[jack kreg]

Dr. Robert G. Nuclear fuel can be recycled in a reactor, what we call spent fuel today still has considerable energy left in it. We can convert our auto fleet to over 50% electric fairly quickly, like 10 or 20 years, and build th nuclear plants to charge them. That would cut imported oil a considerable amount.
The nuclear waste problem can be solved by re-cycling it and using it over and over.

[User 169775]

jackkreg: Reprocessing nuclear fuel will not solve the nuclear waste problem. It will actually make it worse.

Trying to recover fissionable material from spent fuel rods requires an enormous amount of equipment and chemical reactants, all of which will be radioactively contaminated over the course of the fuel reprocessing and will end up as nuclear waste that requires long-term storage.

Check out the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State where they have industrial plants that produced Plutonium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program by recovering Pu made from Uranium-238 in breeder reactors. Those facilities are so badly contaminated with radioactivity that they cannot be safely demolished when the DOE stopped producing weapons-grade Plutonium there. Those facilities will remain hot zones for thousands of years.

What the nuclear physicists and engineers need to do is figure out how to produce energy via nuclear fusion. That presents a much smaller danger in terms of radioactive waste.

[Dr T Reg]

Mr. Robert G., I'm afraid my backyard is not that big - not that deep. Please see the very first comment on this article. Who is going to pay for the hydrogen infrastructure for delivery to end-users - proposed as being somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 BILLION. And then once you can distribute it, where are you going to get all of that hydrogen ? I can tell you where, but you aren't going to like it. Your going to do a partial oxidation of a hydrocarbon source like coal, petroleum or natural gas to make some H2 and carbon monoxide and then do a water-gas shift with the carbon monoxide to make CO2 and more hydrogen. Your still making CO2 when your making hydrogen from any hydrocarbon unless it is from a natural source whereby you can mitigate the total balance of CO2 entering the atmosphere. The other way is to burn hydrocarbon fuel(s) to spin turbines to make electricity to split water to hydrogen and oxygen and then separate the hydrogen. You're still making CO2 to make electricity. Electricity made from renewables, solar or wind could offset the CO2 production.

Ethanol is the ultimate answer - we need to make sure we make enough to continue to keep everyone from "really" being concerned through adequate consumption.

[John Addison]

There are some excellent points made in the above discussion. First, the person who has been driving their light electric vehicle (LEV) since 1999 has lots of company. 40 million people globally are riding LEV today. Look around when you visit a university town. You may see over 100 of them, often displacing gas guzzlers.

Our energy sources for next generation vehicles will make the difference between a climate solution and a climate crisis. Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis write that by 2050 solar power could end U.S. dependence on foreign oil and slash greenhouse gas emissions. A massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants could supply 69 percent of the U.S.’s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050. This quantity includes enough to supply all the electricity consumed by 344 million plug-in hybrid vehicles. Scientific American Article: www.sciam.com/article....

[wakeupamericasoon]

Who will pay to cool the spent fuel rods from DR T's nuclear plants in the future??? 10,000 years of dedicated mechanical refrigeration is a lot of energy.