'The car of the perpetual future'
The Economist agrees with me on hydrogen 21
-
Posted 3:51 PM on 14 Sep 2008
by Joseph Romm -
Posted in
-
Read More About
Joseph Romm is the editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.
Related Stories
Add a Comment
You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have an account, log in. If you don't have an account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.
Comments
View as Flat
GRLCowan Posted 8:29 am
14 Sep 2008
--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan
Permalink
Russ Posted 8:39 am
14 Sep 2008
One audience member elicited boisterous audience laughter by asking another presenter, "Now we have one situation in the market in which we get conventional fuel, namely oil, we burn it in a combustion engine, and we do work. Now what I understand the hydrogen defenders are promoting, led by Mr. Jeremy Rifkin, is a hydrogen economy consisting basically in getting the conventional fuels again and producing alternative/solar energies or clean energy... or a wind generator ...to produce electricity to then split the water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen and then compressing the liquefied hydrogen for transportation and storage and then injecting the hydrogen into the fuel cell to produce electricity to do work in the machine. Do you really believe that this is efficiency?"
Permalink
Jonas Posted 8:45 am
14 Sep 2008
Scientists from Ohio State University have developed a very cheap non-precious metal catalyst that converts biofuels like ethanol into hydrogen with an efficiency of up to 90%. This development opens up a future of decentralised, on-the-spot hydrogen production for use in fuel cell cars. What is more, it makes the prospect of a carbon-negative transportation fuel more realistic.
[...]
using hydrogen in fuel cells is also far more efficient than using biofuels in internal combustion engines.
[...]
Umit Ozkan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Ohio State University, says that the new catalyst is much less expensive than others being developed around the world, because it does not contain precious metals, such as platinum or rhodium. Rhodium is used most often for this kind of catalyst, and it costs around $9,000 an ounce. The new catalyst costs around $9 a kilogram - that's about 35,000 times less.
Source
So if there's any breakthrough in automotive energy technologies, it's this one: a 35,000 times cheaper catalyst...
This will develop as follows:
-hybrids will dump their batteries and replace them by non-precious metal fuel cells instead, powered by the on-board H2-generator (which turns gasoline or biofuels into the gas)
-this will bring down the cost of the fuel cells
-the catalyst is dirt-cheap and allows for a fully decentralised H2 production process - either in each separate station, or in the car itself
-the cheapest way to make H2, by far, is based on the gasification of biomass (electrolysis based on wind or solar are not competitive). So you're only facing a primary fuel supply issue. But given that the use of H2 in fuel cells is much more efficient than using liquid fuels in ICEs, there's much more buck to each ton of biomass we use. The conversion efficiency of the new catalyst is very high (90%).
Now we need a comparison of electric vehicles powered on the basis of the most cost-effective renewable (i.e. biomass), versus fuel cell vehicles based on decentralised, on-the-spot H2 production based on biomass.
Permalink
Duggles Posted 10:15 am
14 Sep 2008
Also, what happens to the carbon in the biofuels when you extract the hydrogen? Do we oxidize it and release it without getting any useful energy from it? The carbon has gotta go somewhere.
Permalink
Sean Casten Posted 10:28 am
14 Sep 2008
As you might imagine, I'm with Joe on this, for two critical reasons:
A pure hydrogen economy requires critically on the ability to store and transport hydrogen cost effectively. That technology doesn't exist, and we don't even really know if it's possible yet. (That niggling detail of trying to compress the smallest element in the universe into a compact, lightweight package is hard to get around.) And if you can't store the hydrogen, there's no logic to convert renewables into electricity into hydrogen back into electricity. Storage is worthy of R&D, to be sure. But until that nut is cracked, all other hydrogen considerations are at risk.
Notwithstanding the previous, there is a core question of economics. A competitive stationary power plant needs to check in at something on the order of $1500 - 2500/kW to be at all competitive with alternative power sources. A competitive automotive power plant, by contrast needs to check in at under $100/kW to break even with an internal combustion engine. So suppose that you were building a fuel cell technology - which one would you rather use as your entry market? Again, this isn't to suggest that it's impossible - simply that the fact that fuel cells aren't yet competitive in stationary applications tells us all we need to know about how close they are to vehicular applications.
Bottom line - once we have figured out the science of H2 storage and see competitive stationary fuel cell power plants that don't depend on federal subsidies, we can begin having a conversation about how long it will take until these technologies are ready for automotive applications. Until then, the argument is inane and - as Joe points out - damned expensive.
Permalink
Sean Casten Posted 10:32 am
14 Sep 2008
This is not true for certain fuel cell technologies that can extract the energy from other fuels, but those technologies (molten carbonate, for example) aren't amenable to automotive applications.
In other words, it's all about the efficiency.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 2:57 pm
14 Sep 2008
Batteries run directly on renewable electricity without any fuel. Forget hydrogen. And fuel farming.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
Paleocon Posted 3:25 pm
14 Sep 2008
But seriously, this points to the need for nuclear power and plug in electric hybrids.
"...a 90 percent chance that the US has contributed .2 degrees F of temperature increase in the last 50 years..." The IPCC Consensus in perspective
Permalink
Bob Wallace Posted 3:51 pm
14 Sep 2008
"But seriously, this points to the need for nuclear power and plug in electric hybrids."
Looking forward to a bunch of PHEVs hitting the market in the next couple of years.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 4:45 pm
14 Sep 2008
Audi should be firing up mass production of the A1 plugin hybrid right about now for the 2009 model. The hitch is that the electric rear drive seems to be an option, how many of the 100,000 cars per year will be plugin hybridized?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/8/6/3 ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
Jonas Posted 7:46 pm
14 Sep 2008
If you work with a system of decentralised fuel stations, which generate hydrogen from biofuels, then it is rather easy to separate the CO2. You transport it out to the nearest geosequestration site, and you store it.
The fuel is then carbon-negative, and each time you were to drive your car with this carbon-negative hydrogen, you would be taking CO2 out of the atmosphere.
The big advantage of storing biogenic CO2, is that in case of any leak (highly unlikely), there's not really a problem, because the CO2 is biogenic to start with (contrary to CO2 originating from fossil fuels).
Note, I'm not at all suggesting this is an efficient use of resources. I'm merely reacting to the original poster, who perpetuates a wrong view on the infrastructural needs of a H2 economy.
In my book, the future is electric. Even the staunchest biomass afficionado knows that the most efficient way to use a piece of land is (1) conservation and restoration to wild nature, which automatically sequesters copious amounts of CO2 and presents an 'incalculable value' (so if there's wisdom, money and will to do this, that should be the priority for a piece of land), (2) utilization of biomass for the production of ultra-durable carbon-sequestering goods (like carbon fiber composites), (3) utilization of biomass for the efficient co-generation of heat and power (electricity of which can be used in EVs), (4) utilisation of biomass in biochar energy systems, (5) utilization of liquid biofuels used in ICEs, the worst option.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 1:08 am
15 Sep 2008
Maybe Obama could get everyone here and around the planet working together? That would make GHG and energy problems surmountable.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
gzuckier Posted 1:59 am
15 Sep 2008
on another note, what's with Honda and the hydrogen car? or is it just a one off engineering project for fun and PR, despite the futurism? they're a pretty sharp outfit as far as giving the public desirable vehicles, why go off on this, as you point out, obviously dead-end tangent?
hey, who remembers the chrysler patriot flywheel race car? boy, those were the days.
Permalink
Sean Casten Posted 2:52 am
15 Sep 2008
Companies make bets that may or may not pencil. The problem that arises - as Joe has been lamenting for eons - is when gov't puts the majority of those eggs in one basket.
Permalink
GRLCowan Posted 3:22 am
15 Sep 2008
why go from nuclear to hydrogen, when we can just have nuclear cars? popular science told me 50 years ago that we'd be driving them now, and we're so much more advanced now that they must be just around the corner.
The oil and gas interests, including civil servants, would not like that, but neither, it turns out, would the laws of physics.
Fission's docility seems mismatched with hydrogen's extreme combustibility and fuel-air detonation tendency. If a car is indirectly nuclear-powered, shouldn't the onboard energy release be fission-like in its forgivingness? That thought is what led me eventually to become a tame-combustion fan. Some nuclear people have been persuaded to give my thoughts on this some shelf space, link below. See what you think.
--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 5:32 am
15 Sep 2008
This standardization would make conversion of front wheel drive economy cars to plugin hybrids fairly simple by producing the key part to fit with standard parts already being manufactured.
Without a million vehicle government contract specifying this approach, the big three will continue dithering and delaying. It's sort of like the jeep design during WW2 in government picking the design, then different companies manufacturing it. Except they all get to add the plugin battery/motor to their own cars, only the motor is standardized.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
Bob Wallace Posted 6:00 am
15 Sep 2008
Electric motors are real old school. Lots and lots of companies can make them. It's not like this is something new that needs an economy of scale needed to get it going.
Same with transmissions.
Let the market invent and refine. The cost of electric cars is not in the motors or transmissions, it's the batteries.
As soon as someone brings an affordable battery to market electric cars are likely to take off.
Some promising developments lately. Using microwave technology to reduce the amount of heat and time needed to 'cook' the batteries.
(BTW, the jeep? That puppy could have done with some refinement.)
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 6:29 am
15 Sep 2008
They have dithered for decades, they can't be trusted anymore. Just like the US did not trust them to come up with the jeep. They made them agree to standardize production and get the job done.
It's the only way it WILL get done. A standardized electric rear axle electric drive conversion for front wheel drive cars. This will be good enough to rescue our economy and climate, just like the jeep was good enough.
This is an emergencey every bit as urgent as WW2.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 6:35 am
15 Sep 2008
This economic crisis is very serious. Oil and oil war is behind it. this is a way to get off of oil quickly. No whole new car design is needed, just a plugin rear axle for existing models with front wheel drive gasoline engines.
That's how the new 2009 Audi A1 and VW are built. It's a good first generation design.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
patrickS Posted 5:51 am
16 Sep 2008
The fact is that there are lots of alternative vehicle technologies out there and they will be ready at different times. No one in the hydrogen industry that I work with will deny the challenges everyone is working to address, just the like the battery industry is addressing challenges as well. That's why neither plug-ins nor hydrogen vehicles are in your showrooms yet. There's work to be done.
In a few years, plug-ins from some automakers may make it into to the marketplace before hydrogen vehicles. And that will be GOOD, if people actually buy them, because it will give us another alternative to choose from when we buy our next vehicle. But plug-ins alone won't be good enough in the long run. They won't have the several hundred mile range and quick fueling that hydrogen vehicles can offer, and it's arguable in the long term if they can even match the emissions benefits depending on how you do your calculations and projections.
It just doesn't make practical sense to count out hydrogen cars right now. Like I've posted before, let's talk about the challenges of both batteries and hydrogen--this Economist article sure does point out the hydrogen ones--and let's work to address them all instead of having a pissing contest over which one is better when no one actually knows in this pre-commercial stage.
All we know right now is that we have some great alternatives that have real promise to meet our energy, environmental and even economical needs. We'd be a bunch of fools if we didn't try to make them all work.
Permalink
Biodiversivist Posted 7:27 am
16 Sep 2008
That's why you run the numbers first. If the numbers are not promising and you build it anyway, you probably threw your money away. The sum of the numbers for hydrogen are a net negative. Proponents focus on the positive values, ignore the negative ones, and never sum up the positive and negatives to see what the total would be. Biofuel enthusiasts do the same thing.
Do all the research you want. Just stop short of talking politicians into funding infrastructure to support unproven hypothesis. We should not be building charging stations for electric cars yet either.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
Permalink