Vehicle Hydrogen Fuel Cells Killed
He giveth, and he taketh away.
President Barack Obama has rightfully received positive reviews for his proposal this past week to raise vehicle mile per gallon standards for cars to 39 mpg and light trucks to 30 mpg by 2016, for a combined "corporate average fuel economy," or CAFÉ, of 35 miles per gallon. Harmful emissions will also be lowered dramatically by the rise in fuel mileage.
But his administration also just gutted $100 million worth of federal research into hydrogen fuel cell EV technology for cars and trucks. Is there a White House technology double-standard, is it more Obama-ish realism or are oil companies lobbying as they must to keep their black gold from turning into clean, abundant hydrogen?
People get instructed on how to fill 'er up when their Honda FCX Clarity hydrogen-fueled fuel cell sedan (there's a mouthful) needs a pit stop; the gas station is a Shell facility in West Los Angeles, CA, fitted in 2008 with hydrogen fueling equipment
Some of the people gathered at the White House with Obama to cheer the mpg increase are angry that hydrogen is not only apparently taking a back seat to plug-in EVs and hybrids, clean diesels and conventional gasoline engines as far as Washington is concerned, but is now practically off the table, without the important implied endorsement of the US government which comes from the research project.
Why can't we do it all? This is for our planet's future, after all. What's $100 million these days for such a promising - and proven - technology?
Now, rather than spend $168 million in ongoing automotive hydrogen fuel cell research in 2010, new Secretary of Energy Steven Chu cut $100 million from that total and said the remainder would be spent on development of stationary fuel cells, not for cars, but which are used as backup power systems in factories and as primary electricity providers in remote areas where traditional energy sources might not be the best solution (large industrial fuel cells are already fairly common in Asia and Europe, and they're being developed for home use, too).
Volkswagen's 2009 Jetta TDI clean diesel is a remarkable auto which manages over 40mpg from its twin-turbo, 140-horsepower diesel four-banger; it's the 235 foot pounds of torque which make it fun to drive! But why not continue government R&D funding into hydrogen fuel cell EVs which could eventually replace most internal combustion engines of all types?
Chu has a background in biofuels and has received heavy criticism for this move. Detractors say he hasn't had enough hands-on experience with hydrogen fuel cells to make an informed decision.
The concept of fuel cells has existed for almost 200 years; they were first put into practical use for the US space program, beginning with the first manned Mercury space shots in the 1960s. To this day, fuel cells are used onboard space ships and satellites to help provide power, oxygen and water.
Fuel cells use an electrolytic process to strip hydrogen from whatever is being used as a fuel and remake that hydrogen into electricity and pure water. In fuel cell-powered cars, apart from electricity, the only other product is H2O.
Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, so using it as a fuel for fuel cell EV cars and trucks makes a lot of sense; we won't run out of hydrogen anytime soon. Or, scientists say, anytime.
But the technology has a host of long-term and expensive problems. Just delivering hydrogen to filling stations and storing it safely on-board a car or truck is a big challenge.
Also, many say that no matter how much electricity a fuel cell may make, the entire process requires more energy than the result to produce it.
General Motors' Equinox (shown) led to their Segue, a hydrogen fuel cell EV, 100's of which are being run daily on US roads; killing government hydrogen fuel cell car research casts a pall over the whole industry
Ask most people "in the know" about hydrogen fuel cell automotive technology and they'll usually say, "It's 20 years down the road."
But they've been saying that for 20 years.
In the meantime, Honda and General Motors have put hundreds of their Segue and FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell vehicles into the hands of real drivers and they're on American roadways every day, racking up miles and real-world experience. Those companies have spent hundreds of millions on these projects, while seeing that Washington was supportive, and have budgeted for more; they're not happy with Energy Secretary Chu's decision (I'll be driving Honda's FCX Clarity next week and the Chevy Volt and BMW's Mini E plug-in electric car two weeks after that and will report on those experiences in this space).
A fuel cell EV motorcycle being built and marketed by a company called ENV; fuel cell technology can allow hydrogen to power everything from the smallest to largest vehicles
Overseas, the Japanese government leases fuel cell cars from some of their domestic car-makers for the astounding sum of $7,000 a month to encourage research into the technology; "priming the pump" of their manufacturing industry and protecting car-makers from unforeseen losses. And several companies and governments in Europe are involved in similar programs.
While "20 years to viability" might be true, why cut this $100 million now, when the rest of the world looks to the US for leadership in this technology? It only moves mass-production of these cars back more and more.
The move puts a chill on hydrogen fuel cell research worldwide; if car-makers think they won't be able to sell a product in America, if the hydrogen delivery infrastructure is not built here for another 20, 50 or 100 years, they won't spend the time, money and brain-power in creating these pure, non-polluting, non-plug-in and off-the-grid EVs of the future.
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Hang in there Mr. Parker. Your logic is good and hydrogen fuel cell technology is viable and ready to go. And since 90% of the global population live within 100 miles of an ocean coastline, you draw and produce hydrogen gas from ocean water and use the energy of tides, waves, solar and wind to run the electrolysis units and pipe the gas to shore for compression and delivery.
Chu was inserted at DOE by the powerful Council on Foreign Relations where he held membership. Obama drew 300+ from the 3000 CFR membership base of administration appointments. CFR is organized, funded and controlled by David Rockefeller, Chairman Emeritus.
If you think drawing renewable energy from a barrel of water is going interfere with the massive profits of Exxon (formerly Standard Oil (Rockefeller controlled)), the oil cartel will do everything to prevent the roll out of the hydrogen economy. This is the sole reason for Chu zeroing out the DOE fuel cell funding programs.
All of these brilliant poster`s here obviously have never used a battery operated electric drill. As the battery nears of the end of it`s charge, power falls off sharply. All the major fork lift operations are now switching from batteries to fuel cells as there is no power reduction during it`s operation.
But don`t ever talk logic to the fast food Americans as they are the perfect mushrooms.
Keep writing and look over the Linde Engineering site.
It's called industrial policy. Get used to it.
Note that the smartest capitalists are going with battery tech. Why shouldn't our tax dollars do the same? The Chinese are going to subsidize BYD electrics to the tune of 60 per cent to produce electric cars. And you want to spend our money on what the oil companies want????
http://www
BYD is a highly profitable battery manufacturer. They bought a money-losing government owned Chinese automobile plant to acquire their license to build cars in China (yes, the number of those licenses are limited, so you have to buy a company which has one if you want to enter this line of business). I doubt they need much government support over there. This they can pull off all by themselves. And if Warren Buffet bets on it... it's probably a rather professionally acting management team over there... which is bad news for our automobile companies over here which seem to be misdirected by a bunch of fools.
The arguments against fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) have been sufficiently made here, so no need to go through them again. There are other reasons that FCVs will not be practical in the marketplace and that has to do with the competing technology, battery EVs. Every car maker in the world is racing to get their version of fully electric, or plug-in hybrid, cars to market.
Nissan, along with the Chevy Volt will debut late next year, followed closely by many others. There will be tens of thousands, and soon millions of plug-in cars in the marketplace by 2015-2018.
For FCVs to be practical, they will need to compete against these cars from both an economic and environmental aspect. Neither has an even remote chance of happening. This is why Secretary Chu was right to cut our losses now.
Further action is needed in the California budget. There is currently budgeted $40 million for FCV infrastructure in California. One example is $2 million to build a single H2 station in Newport Beach, CA. This station is intended for use by a total of 6 FCVs. Sure, maybe in 20 years there will be more, but is this really a good use of our tax money today when we are laying off teachers, police and firefighters?
We have to be practical these days. Wasting funds on the boondoggle of fuel cell cars is not practical.
Big Oil doesn't oppose hydrogen cell technology, in fact they support it--the decision to cut funding for hydrogen is a good one, IMO, as it works towards closing off an avenue of continued oil-corp dominance in future energy production.
Every "green" fuel alternate is better than hydrogen as a transportation fuel option. Hydrogen is just a bad idea that sounds good until you truly weigh the costs--it doesn't hold up against electric.
Hey wait a minute.
We can't afford to spend $100 million for hydrogen, a fuel that essentially burns totally clean; but we can afford to spend $2.4 billion on "clean" coal, a fuel that can NEVER be clean?
(The very best we can hope for with “clean” coal is that they bury those millions and millions of tons of effluents deep enough they can't come back to poison us or wreck our climate.)
(The very best we can hope from hydrogen is that we can soon make our own fuel at home.)
Hydrogen is not a "fuel" in the sense of "energy source". It does not grow on trees and there are no natural deposits of it, anywhere on this planet. Hydrogen is, at best, a chemical energy carrier and storage device. That makes it substantially different from coal which you dig up, burn and the energy that was deposited million years ago by sunshine comes out.
While you have a point, you need to understand that using hydrogen to transport energy is wasteful. It does not make ANY known use of energy better or more efficient. The clean burning feature is irrelevant since we know how to burn pretty much any practical fuel cleanly. All it takes is a stroke of the president under a law of Congress and we have much cleaner power plants, cars etc.. None of that is a technical problem that hasn't been solved already.
I really don't know how you want to make hydrogen at home. With electrolysis? What's that supposed to do for you? Cut the efficiency of your solar panels roughly in half? How does that help?
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Honda has a 'machine' which they say will strip hydrogen out of natural gas coming into a home or business. I'll find out more about it this week when I drive their FCX.
Steve
Now, lets talk about hydrogen storage, production, and delivery.
Whether you make every gas station a hydrogen station, or make separate hydrogen stations, you will have a huge cost in additional equipment, along with new tanks filled with a flammable gas that has more ability to escape than anything else known to man. How much steel will be smelted with coal to build tanks? How much fuel will be burned to install these facilites. How much plastic will be formed to make new pumps? Building a new set of facilities carries it's own enviornmental cost.
It is a zero sum game, either you reduce emmissions or increase them, either you burn more fuel or less.
Fuel cells in cars are a great "touchy-feely," way to feel like you are being green because the exaust is water, but the actual byproducts are more CO2, more global warming, more acid rain, more smog, more sulphur in the air.
If you want fuel cells, why don't you buy a few tonnes of dirty coal, put it in a big pit, and burn it. You will do the same enviornmental damage without the middleman.
Argh, this is the second time in two days I have agreed with KillTheMessenger. Someone please take me to the doctor.
Anyway.
There is another problem. If Hydrogen Fuel Cells are used to power cars, as envisioned by you, the enviornmental costs would be horrendous!
First, the law of conservation of energy says that you will make this hydrogen with some other energy, most likely electricity. So now we are replaceing a fossel fuel with electricity in an inefficient form (battery is cheaper and requires less weight to convert back, and that is saying something). Now the problem with any attempt to replace Gas with electricity is that you have to get the electricity from somewhere.
Increases in electric demand are most easily solved by burning coal or oil.
So basically you are saying rather than burn fuel in the car efficiently, we should burn it somewhere else, and transport the energy in the most inefficient manner possible. And of course, by burning fuel, converting it to electricity, moving the power over power lines, and then making something else (hydrogen), putting that in your car, then burning it, you double or triple the amount of gas you have to burn (and exhaust gasses you put in the atmosphere to cause global warming).
All of this, of course, assumes you are burning relatively clean diesel for electricty rather than dirty coal!
Cont...
Weak. This article is weak on so many levels: science, economics, public policy, etc. Hydrogen is a net energy loser. The "20 years from now" is based on the notion that there will be some scientific break through. It isn't because of lack of funding per se. Decisions at the policy level take into consideration the opportunity cost of investing in fuel cells. Nothing currently indicates that these costs are less than the benefits of investing in other potential energy solutions. Also, scrapping one program doesn't imply that there are not other government investments in these areas.
Totally weak article.
Oh yeah, hydrogen is abundant. Sure, but it is still an energy carrier.
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No one is saying technology advancements can be legislated. I "grew-up" in the auto industry where government is hated and mpg increases and emissions decreases were always "impossible" and would add thousands to the cost of a car or truck if not put GM, et al, out of business.
When he was president of Ford, for instance, Lee Iacocca said he "wouldn't want to drive around in a sodium azide bomb" referring to airbags -- until he went to Chrysler and figured out his k-cars needed something new and interesting after they'd been on the market for awhile - so they became the first cars with driver's side airbags standard equipment.
And these advancements were made in spite of the adversarial relationship (and because of it, too) between Detroit and DC.
Having seen so many 'miracles' developed in my lifetime, perhaps I hold out more hope than some others for what we can achieve. Maybe it's the Buddhist in me.
Steve
You are completely missing the point. That hydrogen is nonsense has nothing to do with legislation but is a consequence of the laws of nature. Dr. Chu has done the one thing a scientist should do when confronted with a situation like this: make a decision based on his knowledge of science and not based on political notions or some bearded history of what other people without science insight have done in the past.
You just got REAL CHANGE, Mr. Parker... it's just so sad that you can't appreciate it.
Mr. Parker, please read up on the chemistry and physics of hydrogen fuel cells instead of whining about not getting funding for another "corn ethanol" scheme. When something does not work based on simple laws of natures it just does not work and no amount of R&D can change that.
Dr. Chu actually understands the scientific reasons why hydrogen is a poor energy storage medium. Most pundits and bloggers do not. That's not something Dr. Chu can change. He can only hope that YOU take the time (yes, it will probably take you weeks or months to understand) to learn that little bit of high school level thermodynamics that it takes to get the full picture.
I can only ask you to take that time. And if you do, I promise that you will have an epiphany.
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I test-drove an Epiphany once - a blue one with the five-speed.
Seriously - thanks for your comment. If Dr. Chu does have an attitude of "It can't be done and that's it" then maybe he is the wrong person for the job, as much as I loved the build-up Obama gave him and the reasons he stated for picking an actual scientist, rather than say, an Episcopal minister, for the job. But another poster here expressed my feelings: Lots of things "couldn't be done" and we did them. With all the obstacles to, for instance, superconductivity, don't you think that someday it'll be achieved in a useful way?
Am I just too much of a scientific optimist? Should I be stuffy and negative? I remember that 35-story building called the Saturn V taking off for the moon after decades of hearing why it could never be done, why there'd never be a rocket with the power to escape earth's gravity. It was impossible. Until we did it.
Steve
Mr. Parker, it saddens me to see you exhibiting your failed science education as a badge of honor. You are waiting for a "miracle" that can not happen. Dr. Chu can not repeal the laws of nature and neither can Congress.
Let me explain something to you that you and others get consistently wrong:
"Lots of things "couldn't be done" and we did them."
There are things that can not be done... because they violate the laws of nature. Building a perpetual motion machine is one of those. No amount of research can change that.
And then there are things that fall well within the laws of nature but are not within immediate technological reach. Flying until roughly the mid to late 1800s was one of those. The people who said that "man can not fly" where not knowledgeable enough to make that deliberation. So they simply said something that was wrong but that appeared plausible to them. Subsequently smarter men who were knowledgeable in the science of aerodynamics proved them wrong.
Your problem is that you can not distinguish one from the other. Dr. Chu and many others, myself included, however, can. We can do so because we did study the laws of nature in great detail (Dr. Chu much more so then me :-)).
It is up to you to follow us in that study. As of now, I am afraid, you are wasting your time and mine.
20 years to viability assumes that for the next 20 years there will be actual investment in the technology! Without that investment, 20 years translates into never!
People are trying forever to beat the law of energy conservation by building perpetual "motion machines". None of them work because the laws of nature do not care about our wishes for free energy.
With hydrogen it's the same. The basic thermodynamics of the redox-reaction between hydrogen and oxygen makes it a very poor reaction for the storage of energy. Moreover, elemental hydrogen is a rather light material and can not be compressed by any other means than by chemical bonds (to e.g. carbon!) into a density that makes sense for applications in transportation. But that we have already... it's called gasoline! Now, if we were to do research into other compounds like diethylether or dimethylether, that would be something. But free hydrogen is as a waste of time.
I think the main issue is to look for short-term gains. The US government has a nasty habit of looking at everything, especially spending, in four year increments. Right now, they're looking for a quicker fix. Something that will give a more immediate return for the investment, or at the very least show some progress, so the opposition can't point and say "look at all the wasted spending!" - though, I'm sure they'll be criticized anyway. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Fuel cells have been tossed around places like Popular Science magazine for ages, and the technology is still very expensive and limited in application. But really, if there was a lot of potential in the technology, private industry wouldn't hesitate to dump large sums of money into it... though, it's hard to judge the lack of seriousness about it, seeing that there is a general widespread lack of commercial seriousness about alternative fuel sources.
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At least mention my alma mater, Popular Mechanics ... I was an editor there in the mid-1980s (It's coming soon - Mid-engine nuclear-powered Corvette!" was a fairly typical cover). Washington may look at things in four year increments, but industry is worse: They work on three-month cycles. Can't get a lot of long-term "20 year down the road" technologies done with that mind-set.
Steve
One does not learn thermodynamics from PM. But there are excellent online resources these days. I would suggest MIT Open Courseware.
http://www
This is the real thing and if you combine this class with some basic chemistry, you can easily see what I am talking about.
Just as well, hydrogen as stated in the article is an energy sink and not an energy source.
Fuel cells are a pointlessly complex tech for personal automobiles. Existing FC vehicles are little better than science fair experiments.
And for the record I can remember reading about fuel cell cars being '20 years away' in the SIXTIES. I fully expect them to occupy that status in another 20 years.
You're right, at the moment, gaining hydrogen for a fuel cell is a losing proposition. However, amazingly enough, there are MANY things that couldn't be done, and yet have been done! Pour enough money and researchers into the study, and something will happen!
LeftRight.
With hydrogen it's similar. The thermodynamics of the oxidation of hydrogen is a dog and there are losses that one can not, by any means, reduce. Other redox-systems, especially the ones used in practical rechargeable batteries, do not have these limitations to the same extent. That's why we need to spend money on improving those good redox systems to make better batteries instead of hunting down the best possible, yet theoretically always crappy, hydrogen fuel cell.
One would think that the $100 million for fuel cell research might produce something - perhaps jobs?
But, the Obama Administration clearly needs the money to give to bankster salaries - I mean we have to get the money to suppot the already rich from someplace.
Cut reasearch, cut jobs, pay bankers - got it.
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Geithner is too close to Wall Street and many say that apparently Steven Chu is too close to biofuels and the oil companies which have had a big hand in developing (or not developing) them. A top GM EV engineer resigned his Energy Dept appointment after this $100 million cut and sent a scathing letter to Chu - I should reprint it here.
Steve
Mr. Parker, you are making yourself look rather foolish by arguing a totally nonsensical conspiracy theory. Dr. Chu is a scientist who understands that hydrogen is a loser. Your insinuation that his ties to BP have anything to do with this are nonsensical. BP happens to be one of the premier companies on the face of the planet which would have an interest in a hydrogen economy... people who do hydrocarbons have all the tools to do hydrogen. So why would BP want to kill hydrogen when they could make a killing with it... at the cost of taxpayers, of course?
So, a GM EV engineer resigned from his Energy Dept. appointment. Let's insinuate that Geithner is too close to Wall Street and Chu is too close to oil, but let's give the GM EV engineer a free pass? Makes sense to the clueless.
Going around town breaking every window would also create a lot of jobs. That is the economic equivalency of your comment.
What is the reason stated inside the WH for no hydrogen vehicles?
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That the viable technology is too far away - that there are short-term solutions which must be developed first. I don't buy it; $100 million isn't that much when you look at the benefits and every delay puts off the technology another decade ... And I don't see $100 million going into plug-in hybrids or EV R&D or clean diesel and etc. Why spend $68 million on stationary fuel cells - which are already highly-developed overseas - when another $100 mil will hasten development of this truly clean and revolutionary automotive technology?
Steve
Stationary fuel cells actually make sense. If the heat that is inevitably generate by the entropy of the redox reaction gets used to heat nearby homes, the efficiency of a stationary fuel cell based co-generation plant is close to 100% because the energy is used partly as electricity and partly as heat.
The very same argument can be made for local electrolys
But if the same technology is built into a car, almost none of the waste heat from the fuel cell can be reused. Ergo the same technology becomes a loser.
It's quite easy to understand once one looks at the details.
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