ExxonMobil -- Their "Hydrogen Plan" for Us
Have you seen the latest ExxonMobil TV spot promoting how the corporation is "advancing hydrogen technology" for the cars of the future?
Visually, the spot is typical - boring, even - of what you'd expect from a super-conservative politically-motivated multi-billion dollar quasi-governmental conglomerate using 19th-century ad agency techniques.
But if viewers not just watch, but also listen to the audio track, they're more than likely to be offended; to be perhaps surprised, but certainly not shocked.
On-screen are lush, green, leafy trees, fancy computer-generated schematics of these proposed "hydrogen cars" of ExxonMobil's future and of course beakers, burners and other laboratory equipment.
A somewhat corporate-though-casually-clad (loose tie, suit jacket open, dorky glasses, some facial hair) non-threatening, male, friendly-looking engineering-type (identified as one "Nazeer Bhore, Engineer") in dulcet and just-oh-so-Indian-accented-tones sings the praises of ExxonMobil's apparently very sincere desire (trust us) to save us from ourselves and our history.
(Hey! It's the Cadillac Converj concept car from January's Detroit Auto Show! GM says it uses the same "extended-range hybrid technology" slated for the Chevrolet Volt. Both cars are "kind-of" EVs ... they use "on-board generators" to make electricity powering electric motors in the wheels. What does the generator run on? Gasoline. Oh)
While ExxonMobil tells us of the bright hydrogen future (always a nebulous, undefined "future"), we find that, although hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe and can be hydrolyzed (separated) and retrieved from almost anything, including water and natural gas, ExxonMobil's plan is for the fuel-cell cars of the future to get their hydrogen fuel from ... gasoline.
Here's a transcript of the spot:
We see the words: "ExxonMobil on advancing hydrogen technology"
Then a Mr. Nazeer Bhore, ID'd as "Engineer."
And Mr. Bhore says, in a bit of a stilted, halting fashion and with not the best grammar (can you imagine the hours ExxonMobil's lawyers billed for this spot's script?):
"Most people think ExxonMobil is a company that supplies gasoline to the gas station around the street corner. But we also are working with partners to develop a new energy-saving technology for future decades that takes gasoline and converts it into hydrogen on-board a car with significant lower greenhouse gas emissions. Our on-board hydrogen system on a fuel cell car could enable about 80% better fuel economy than the car you and I drive today."
Then we see these titles:
"More efficiency. Fewer emissions. ExxonMobil. Taking on the world's toughest energy challenges"
See, ExxonMobil's hydrogen-fueled fuel cell system depends on gasoline, so the world can continue to lead lives blackmailed for everything from money to blood for as long as possible. Maybe Charlie Rose bows and scrapes to oil company execs because his show needs their financial support, like he throws softballs to Wal-Mart's top guy a few times a year, but I wish he'd ask an ExxonMobil exec about this the next time he has one on.
They don't even pretend to tell us that their company's plan calls not for a future of full-on hydrogen-fueled fuel cell electric vehicles, but vehicles which "could enable 80% better fuel economy than the car you and I drive today."
Oh, we silly humans! We should just let technology be ... well, technology! Just like we let money be money for the past eight years, with no hindrances or pesky regulations as the free market allowed it to seek its own godly, righteous level throughout the world. And look how great that all worked out!
(Chevy's existing Malibu gas/electric hybrid and Ford's soon-on-sale Fusion hybrid offer reasonably good mileage but still run on - gasoline; ExxonMobil would have us believe all the money and technology which will go into hydrogen-fueled fuel cell pure EVs "could offer (only) 80%" improvements in fuel economy. And shockingly, ExxonMobil wants us to get our hydrogen from - gasoline)
Having seen the riots in Chicago's Grant Park during the 1968 Democratic Convention (and you political junkies would want to know I worked for Allard Lowenstein then, too), 40 years before President Barack Obama's victory speech there, I am still confounded that millions of Americans aren't in the streets demanding to know where that first $350 billion in TARP money went, W's last public gift to "his boys."
We know some of it allowed (Chicago-based) Northern Trust Bank to hire Sheryl Crow and Earth, Wind and Fire to entertain clients and employees at the recent Los Angeles Open (it's a golf match) at LA's swank Riviera Country Club (maybe this aspect of Crow's often-impeccable progressive politics was one reason Lance Armstrong dumped her; hey, just asking).
And TARP money helped pay to fly hundreds of Northern Trust clients and workers from around the world to California and to put some of them up at hotels including the Ritz Carlton during the festive stop on the PGA tour (ah, for the good old days, when Nissan could afford to sponsor the LA Open, which they did for some 20 years).
(An EV concept version of the Nissan Cube; a gasoline-powered 2009 model is on-sale in the US; Scion's xB, 2004 iteration, from Toyota - Can someone tell me why there are still not hybrid or EV versions of these cars? And don't use the "high cost of hybrid" excuse; car companies lose money every day on most of the hybrids sold now)
Now, to be fair, Northern Trust, which received $1.5 billion in TARP funds in November, then in December laid off some 450 of its US workers, about 4 percent of its work force, has since pointed out that it received less money than many other large institutions in the TARP program and hasn't returned to ask for more money from the government, not like those greasy, smokestack, brick-and-mortar car companies, which actually make something. And they want to pay all the money back, too, and real fast. Check's in the mail, Congressman Barney Frank.
Between Wall Street and the banks and the oil companies, and saving Detroit, which has been going out of business on a daily basis for 35 years, is there some way we aren't getting screwed?
But am I bitter? Nah.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
I would be really happy if the fuel of the future wouldn't be one more thing that catches on fire and blows up.
I think the real problem is that we don't have the infrastructure to support electric cars.
But we obviously have lots of gas stations.
Maybe we have to do this intermediate step and not make perfect the enemy of the good.
(I just don't see how we can pick just one solution and run with it. Better to let ideas compete and see what is the most economical and practical).
Don't have the infrastructure to support electric cars? Last I checked, most people and places had electricity readily available. Assuming they don't make it some kind of proprietary plug that requires a special charging station, it would take very little effort to set up charging stations anywhere there is a parking lot. Heck, I could even see places like Walmart wiring a parking lot with simple electric outlets attached to a vending machine. You pay a certain amount for so much time plugged in, when your time is up, it shuts off. So you can park, go in and shop, and come back to a charged car. The limiting factor is really battery technology. People are going to want something as convenient as gasoline. Nobody wants to sit around for 3 hours waiting for a charge. :)
Fuelcells are a scam as they take 4x's the energy/mile as an EV does. It takes energy to make H2 whether from gasoline, water, ect and that process is not eff, only 50-60% eff.
Then the fuelcell itself is not very eff. While the base fuelcell is about 50% eff, the pumps, ect needed to run it cut into that so you are hitting under 25% eff and a regular gasoline engine can be more eff than that!!
So not only is an EV more eff by far but costs much, much less than a fuelcell car does.
I drive EV's that get 200 and 400mpg energy equivalent. Sadly I had to build my own as you can't buy one. Baker Electric in 1911 went 110 miles and Jay Leno's still has some of the original batteries!! It was bought by Detroit Electric which Ford owned until the late 30's so they know what's going on. Ford's wife would only drive electric and you can see her's at the Ford Home in Detroit .
And Chevron bought the NiMH patents and wouldn't let anyone build EV size batteries like used in the 130 mile range Toyota RAV-4EV which sold for $45k new and now goes for $75k. Many now have over 100k miles on them.
Good Li batteries are available now that can get you 300 mile range and since they use inexpensive materials will be cheap once real mass production is started. They just need orders.
Yes, I also saw the latest disingenuous ad by XOM and quickly googled: "first hydrogen car".
The caption that jumped out at me was:
Honda Worldwide : June 29, 2005 "Honda Delivers FCX Fuel Cell Vehicle..." Then I searched for the documentary:
Who Killed The Electric Car? and found that GM had leased thousands of its electric vehicles to satisfied drivers in 1996
and many more after that and then recalled and destroyed all but a few sent to museums.
Next I located an article about a cartel formed between Standard Oil (now XOM),General Motors, Mack Truck & Firestone Tire ( National City Lines-NCL) to eliminate electric powered transportation systems, because in the 1920s city-dwellers commuted on electric trolleys, and the cartel wanted to sell cars, buses and tires.
When the Great Depression deepened, over 100 electric utility companies, located in most major cities,
were forced to sell their trolley lines at a sharply discounted price to cash rich NCL.
Now fast forward to the current depression where cash starved companies are being taken over for
pennies on the dollar and we see the fascist descendants of the first great depression orchestrators
are executing the same strategy as their predatory predecessors, with the big difference that today
a $billion is the new $million and they are robbing us blind at a mind numbing speed.
They are all full of it and they will all find a way to try to screw the average consumer. It is pitiful.
Please understand what a fuel reformer is. A prototype on-board fuel reformer was developed in 2004 by the Pacific Northwest Lab. They showed that the reforming process could be made to be exothermic to the point where the reactions involved were self-sustaining. This means that the vehicle doesn't have to contribute any of the energy produced by the engine of the vehicle to produce the hydrogen fuel.
The reaction(s) involved combine a carbon or hydrocarbon "fuel" with water at elevated temperature in the presence of a catalyst. The result is that the oxygen from the water combines with the carbon and the reaction releases the hydrogen from both the water and the hydrocarbon. So up to 60% of the hydrogen fuel the car is running on comes from the water, not the hydrocarbon.
Technically you can use almost any carbon or hydrocarbon source for this process including coal, vegetable oil, ethanol, methanol and even glucose (sugar). In each case a large percentage of the fuel produced comes from the water. Because of this any fuel source can be made much, much cleaner.
In addition this technology could produce fuel for an internal combustion engine just as easily as for a fuel cell vehicle. Wide implementation of such technology could end our dependence on foreign oil in a short amount of time. Please don't shoot the messenger in this case as it is a fantastic technology with huge potential.
And by doing all of this you end up with a rather inefficient machine. You are way better of putting a larger battery in the car and making it a plug-in hybrid. Of course, Exxon is not going to earn any money on that.
Bummer!
Good catch, yet another dumb idea from the self serving oil industry.
Make multi fuels cars!: plug in hybrids you can run on gasoline, natural gas and yes, even hydrogen.
But that might cause some competition amongst the energy suppliers...
Problem there is that all those fuels come from the same places: coal and oil companies. If we are really serious about this, we need the option of fuels that completely bypass both.
Soylent Gas is people!!!
mostly true. but there is some competition, adding diesel to the mix would help too.
you can also add veggie oil, biogas, charcoal, alcohol and sugar to the mix of fuels that can be reformed into hydrogen
Thank you Steve,
Your articles are always interesting - cheers !
Whatever the technology, I hope Detroit makes elegant cars with it. The quantum leap for Detroit is not so much in adopting a specific technology, but in changing their mentality towards excellence, towards making cars with beauty, refinement and emotion.
hydrogen fuel cells may some day be useful to power something besides electricity on a rocket....
but first we need to solve our energy problems
and to do that..., you need to find substitues of dwindling PRIMARY sources of energy, like hydrocarbons..., and replace them with some other PRIMARY source of energy like wind or solar energy.
you can't solve our energy problems with batteries alone, you must deal with replacing non-renewable PRIMARY sources of energy with renewable sources of PRIMARY energy.
in other words
the hydrogen economy will never come..., unless we figure ways to generate much more electricity without burning more stuff
primarily because all the stuff we burn in bulk depletes by following a bell curve
I saw that ad too and thought to myself... What the hell happens to all the Carbon released during the process of turning gasoline to hydrogen?
Does it just spew out the tailpipe like some black exhaust similar to that of a bad running diesel?
It gets emitted as CO2. What did you think? That you can get any meaningful efficiency by leaving half the chemical energy in the fuel? No to mention that most of the mass in gasoline is carbon. So for every gallon you put in, you'd have to take something like four lbs. of coal out if you didn't burn it along the way. Sounds reasonable? Hardly.
Coal is a complex hydrocarbon. Carbon is carbon. This will certainly not be a hydrocarbon in/hydrocarbon out process, will it?
Hydrocarbons have the atoms of two and only two elements in every molecule - carbon and hydrogen. If the hydrogen is used as energy in the form of H2 the vast proportion of the carbon should/would come out as solid carbon (I assume collected in solid form for disposal). Is this wrong? Can someone correct me?
If the gasoline is separated (catalytic process, separator film or what?) prior to combustion, then there should not be CO2 if I understand the fundamental chemistry of this process.
I may be wrong but there seem to be a lot of conspiracy assumptions displayed here.
It seems to make a lot of sense for Exxon to work on a technology that preserves a role for gasoline and oil but vastly minimizes greenhouse gas emissions, and it makes a lot of sense to preserve the hundreds of billions of dollars of crude oil and gasoline related infrastructure we have in the world and USA.
This technology certainly doesn't sound any more far fetched than replacing hydrocarbon-derived electricity (coal and natural gas) with wind and solar - for which there can be found huge cheering sections on Huffington.
it is CO2 that is produced by the reformer reaction. The carbon from the hydrocarbon joined with the oxygen from water.
There is no water in this process, so the carbon will be in a solid form.
So they're gonna provide an 80% improvement in fuel economy compared to the vehicle they now drive. That means the 10 mpg his truck/suv gets will now be a whopping 18 mpg.
My 11 year old Mercedes gets 22mpg in the city, and about 30 mpg cruising the highway. Problem is, Mercedes has been putting larger and less efficient engines in all models, just like GM/Ford/Chrysler.
In 1985 you could get cars with much better mpg than today.
fuel cells are much more efficient than internal combustion engines. Reformers do significantly reduce hydrocarbon fuel consumption on internal combustion engines though because 40 to 60 percent of the hydrogen fuel the vehicle runs on comes from the water used in the reforming process.
in the early years of the bush (w) administration, doing the state of union address, w spoke highly of fuel cells as the future of energy.
then i found out that the oil companies own the largest share of the worlds hydrogen. next i learned this is a by product of oil refinaries. so a zero sum game.
btw anybody remember the hindenburg
Electricity is required to producuce hydrogen, that true. Its also true that electricty to isolate hydrogen is mainly produced by burning coal and oil ( so is the electricity keeping your computer running, should we ban your computer, or find better ways to make it run?). We arent going to have a total energy regime like oil, anymore. wind is useful and solar as well but not so portable. something will have to replace fossil fuels used for transportation and sustainably produced hydrogen is one possible method.
BTW: WHAT does "the Hindenberg" have to do with modern hydrogen tehnology? i might well say to wind enthusiasts "remember Don Quiote?"
BTW BTW, hydrogen stores energy efficiently, but is less volatile than other gasses we use, like propane, for instance . if the hindenberg had been filled with say, propane, no one would have survived. if it had been filled with acetylene, the explosion would have been comparable to an atomic bomb.
most of the hydrogen in the world is in water....
I do not understand why the oil companies do not invest their R&D money into some truly different and innovative energy sources. Haven't they ever heard the business investment advice "Diversify, diversify, diversify" ? They could continue to own the energy industry in practical terms for perpetuity, instead they are clinging to the past - literally, since fossil fuels are just that, fossils - when the signs are clearly pointing in another direction. What do they think they are going to sell when all the oil runs out, if they don't start to branch out in some meaningful fashion now? I think they need to re-think their mission statements to get with the times.
Exxon is so successful, in part, because they've stuck to their guns over the years (conventional oil production). They didn't jump into oil shale, they haven't jumped into NGL, they haven't jumped into coal based liquid fuels, etc. etc. This is one competitive advantage they've had over their competitors.
In general, I think you don't see oil companies jumping over themselves to stray away from the core business, is because they have absolutely no reason to believe that oil and natural gas are not a part of future energy needs.
I've been saying that for years!
With just a portion of that $45 Billion in profits last year they could have installed a Hydrogen refueling station in every major city in the US.
You must be kidding - clearly ExxonMobil is the most deeply troubled and least successful company in the USA! Their business model seems to have served their shareholders very well over the years, as compared to, oh, say, GE, Citibank, GM, Goldman Sach, etc.
And since we now need an almost infinite amount of tax dollars to pay for the endless government spending in the offing, perhaps it is good that the biggest corporate taxpayer in the country is making big profits which can then be tax, as well as paying dividends that can be double-taxed.
Dont laugh at XOM. they day hydrogen technology becomes "economically feasible", XOM will bring its war chest to the party and pick maybe top 2 companies. maybe overpay a little because late to teh party but hey, what needs to be done, will be done.
You need to read up on the science here. None of this makes sense except as a marketing vehicle for heavy duty greenwash. And that's all it is.
What is your basis for saying on board H2 reforming cannot work? Reference science please?
This is simply oil companies trying to remain in relevance as long as possible. Using gasoline to produce hydrogen is literally, the least they could do. They have no interest in putting themselves out of business by developing technologies that would eliminate the need for fossil fuels, after all, getting hydrogen from sea water would no longer require the multi-billion dollar business of drilling rigs, super tankers, and oil refineries. They are probably loving this economic crunch, because people still have to buy gasoline to get around, but car companies can't afford to dump enough money into research and development to change what we are using to power our vehicles... which will ultimately force them into cheaper stop-gap measures, like what Exxon is proposing. We're simply painted into a corner. Oil companies have the fuel and they have the distribution network. Unless we find another fuel that completely bypasses them, we'll never be off our dependence on gasoline.
As for hybrids losing companies money, I think that's because they've including R&D in their figures for what a hybrid costs them to make.
See Steve Parker's Profile
You're right about the car makers rolling their R&D costs for hybrids into the price of those cars and trucks - but 'twas ever thus for all technology presented honestly to the public. Not like the Bush Administration hiding the cost of the Iraq war in supplemental budgets. Corporations don't have that kind of luxury, especially those owned by stockholders.
Saturn cost GM a minimum of $10 billion in the years leading up to its advent - and the company knew they'd probably never turn a profit on that division, at last not for several decades. The problem there is GM is now looking to sell-off or kill Saturn outright and are not passing on what they learned to their other divisions. In fact, the things which made Saturn exciting and interesting, from plastic body panels to no-haggle pricing to a progressive UAW contract, have already been bled out of the division.
And you're right, too, about the infrastructure to deliver hydrogen to every neighborhood in the country already existing to a great extent, except they're now called oil pipelines. The oil companies will always control those, unless they're nationalized, so they do have a huge stake in any future hydrogen economy.
But I never thought the Detroit Three wouldn't respond properly to the import car challenge in more than 35 years, either ...
Steve
why should they have? why should they have behaved any differntly than any other American "free market" enterprise. they have been rewarded for not "properly responding" and threatened with punished for any talk of "properly responding". remember the US has NO ENERGY POLICY other than : drain and sell every drop of oil left on Earth.
Hybrids aren't losing money. That's a myth perpetuated by car companies who do not offer them.
If you look at the Prius engine, it's for the most part quite conventional and the hybrid part of it is engineered so well that it must be dirt cheap to produce (I got one and I know what's under the hood... and that ain't much).
That's my point. They're including the cost of 10+ years of R&D to claim they're losing money on them, but when it comes to pure parts & labor, it is unlikely they're losing money. It wouldn't be worth it to make them if that were the case. Now that the technology is more mainstream, it should be cheaper to produce future models...
...but my primary complaint with hybrids all along has been the maintenance cost and resale value. Hiring someone with the knowledge and ability to repair a more complex engine, transmission (CVT) and braking system (regenerative) is no doubt more expensive, plus the increase in number and complexity of the parts. Not to mention we haven't even gotten to the point of addressing end-of-life battery replacements. Ultimately all these things will make the current crop of hybrids all but worthless in the long term resale market - who wants to buy a used car and risk immediately having to replace a battery that costs thousands of dollars? I know right now I could go out and buy an older model Honda Civic with 150k miles on it, give it a tune up, some new tires and brakes, and likely put another 50k miles on it without much more thought. I wouldn't feel the same about a Hybrid Civic at the same point in its working life.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
