Tamminen took a lot of heat from our readers for his seemingly dismissive comments about the dangers of coal. One well-known anti-coal activist, Judy Bonds, passed an email through us to him. He responded:Hi Ms. Bonds
Thanks for your note and please believe me, I know how destructive coal mining is. As a founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance and colleague of Bobby Kennedy Jr, I have supported his outspoken criticism of mountain top mining. Here in the west, I funded the work of Hopi elder Vernon Masayesva against the Peabody coal company, which led to the closure of a massive coal-fired power plant. The interview was about my book, which focuses on oil, so of course I tend to see things thru that lens, however I do not mean to minimize the impacts of coal mining or its current uses. By the way, I hear very good things about your work and please feel free to call on me if I can be of help.FYI.

www.grist.org

"There's enough water dumped from Los Angeles sewage treatment plants alone to power the entire U.S. transportation fleet on hydrogen."

Very encouraging for biogas I would say!  Any links to this data?  

I favor plugin serial hybrids using batteries for 40 mile range then solid oxide fuel cell/microturbine backup using  biodiesel from algae grown in solar collectors.  CO2 from fuel cells using biogas would boost the algae growth and sequester the cO2.

Actually the tiny amount of hydrogen fuel needed by a hypercar with this design might make hydrogen acceptable.  Maybe in prefilled recyclable canisters you plug into you car.  I can't see 3000 ib per square inch fueling by consumers as an insurable commercial activity. It was even deadly for the space shuttle!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I still don't see why the argument of Hydrogen vehicles is still going on. There are some hard facts that need to be brought up with Hydrogen. For one it's the energy density. To power a car with hydrogen you need a fair amount of it. The best hydrogen cars of today are still only getting in around 150 miles to the fill. An electric gets this range at a fraction of the cost (yes. the PEM membrane based fuel cells are EXPENSIVE). Then there is the strong argument regarding the infrastructure. Who is going to build all of these fueling stations? We do have an electrical grid. And YES, if we ALL switched to electrics tomorrow we would have some issues with generation and distribution, but it takes time for people to get on board and adapt so I am positive that solutions will be made. One other interesting note is that most people can and would be charging vehicles at night (when sleeping) or around the middle of the day (while at work) when there is generally a surplus base load. Many people don't realize that you cant turn down the juice on a coal or nuke plant based on demand. So there is always extra power over the course of the night. Other solutions include generating your own power via renewable sources (solar, wind, hydroelectric) on-location. I know of people who already charge EV's off the grid at home. I am guessing that this would be more efficient then creating hydrogen on site considering the direct losses in electrolysis?

You bring up the point that hydrogen is fairly abundant. But keep in mind that hydrogen is only an energy carrier (like a battery) and that it still has to be produced in some way. It is a fairly energy intensive process to use electrolysis, to extract it from natural gas or from coal (steam reforming). With any process, you incur efficiency losses. Picture it as adding another middle man between the coal plant and your car. At least with batteries you are taking a direct path without shaking hands with more players. So why not just take that initial electricity (energy) and put it into a battery bank of LiIon's? Seems simple.. no? With hydrogen you have to produce, store, transport and distribute (via truck?) and then build the gas pumps. It's no wonder Shell and other Oil and Gas companies are pushing it.. it's the same game that they play now!  

I believe you are a bit misguided when it comes to  the lifetime of batteries too. 3500 every 5 years?   Battery technology has come a long way since the days of lead acids. NiMi and LiIon's have a life of 10+ years now when maintained. I have yet to hear of a fuel cell that has that kind of track record. One could argue that batteries loose efficiency in cold temps, but don't forget that fuel cells suffer from the same problems.. even ICE's do.

What about efficiency? Fuel cell's have an efficiency that is better then the best gas cars which come in at 40% max. Fuel cells are 50-60% efficient.. but electric is 90%. Thats a BIG difference on it's own. And thats after you have to source the energy.

So lets get to hard numbers here. Dollars. Is hydrogen going to win over the consumer when the cost of the energy is more then that of gas? When the cost of the technology is VERY expensive (Pallidium costs $328 usd/oz! Platinum.. im not so sure) Currently, the cost of a fuel cell would have to come down LOT to make it viable for the every day Joe. I personally cant afford a half million dollar car.

Anyways.. yes I do like electric vehicles. But I too have done a LOT of research into Hydrogen cars and technology. I know people who work at the companies developing Fuel Cells and have spoken to them regarding the technology and its future and even THEY will tell you that a consumer product (car) is a long, long ways off. It does hold some promise, but not in the automobile sector as of yet. Currently the only real demand for fuel cells is for forklifts as it provides a quick and efficient means of refueling and doesn't give off the emissions, but even that is a changing landscape.

Fuel cell has been considered a future means of power source for vehicles by some people, and the government and private sector have invested billions of dollars in this area. The problem with fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) is that there are too many issues with the fuel cell technology, among which the following is fatal in my opinion: that is, di-oxygen (O2) is too inactive to react at ambient temperature. As a consequence, we have the following two issues:
1)    The (lower heating value of hydrogen to electricity conversion) efficiency of a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell, the essentially only type of fuel cell underdevelopment for vehicle applications, is rather low-it typically does not exceed 50% when the fuel cell works at a decent power density. When the parasitic losses, including that for running the air blower and that for thermal management system, are included, the typical net efficiency of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell running at 80 deg C is in 35-45% range at the name-plate power of a fuel cell. This is only about the half of the round-trip efficiency of a typical rechargeable battery, which runs at ambient temperature.
2)    PEM fuel cells have to be operated at an elevated temperature, typically at around 80 deg C, in order to have the desired power density/specific power to run a vehicle. Therefore, it is necessary to have an additional energy/power source for the period during which the fuel cell is being heated up, from, for example, sub-freezing temperatures. This problem is currently solved by adding a large battery or supercapacitor for running the vehicle before the fuel cell is heated up. This significantly adds to the cost of the fuel cell.

Currently, as far as I know, there is even no speculation on how to solve this fundamental problem, let alone a plausible proposal for its solution. Such a situation is understandable since the relative inactivity of dioxygen at ambient temperature is after all the fundamental reason why the world as we see exists: without it, our furniture, all the plants and animals, including ourselves, would have been oxidized to form carbon dioxide, water, and some ashes, or rather, we would not have existed on the first place!

The above mentioned problems are not the only serious problems with FCV's. The issues of high cost of building a hydrogen fueling infrastructure, the lack of a satisfactory hydrogen storage means, the currently too short fuel cell life, owing to catalyst deactivation due to Pt particle migration towards the separator, due to loss of active site area resulting from catalyst particle growth, due to the peeling off of the electrodes from the membrane owing to repeated dry-wet cycles that come with the use pattern of passenger cars, due to fuel cell poisoning by sulfur-compounds and other poisons, lack of enough platinum resources to support the large number of vehicles in the world, the high cost of manufacturing fuel cell stacks etc. are all difficult problems that may or may not have technical solutions, let alone cost-effective, solutions. That compares very unfavorably with the fact that ICE-battery hybrid cars, clean diesel cars, and Miller cycle cars are already commercialized and competing in the market place-the major technical problems for them are already solved.  

that would beat hydrogen in safety and convenience and come from recycled waste.  It will work in fuel cells too.  At very high efficiency.  Methane is a heavier easier to package gas than hydrogen, the lightest element and thus the least dense in terms of energy storage.

With cars that get over 200 mpg it doesn't take a very big gas cylinder to go 200 miles.  It would be safe and consumer friendly.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Laurence busted him.  But I still need a link to that statement that the waste from LA could power all the cars in the US, via biogas converted to hydrogen.

I'm still hoping he can prove that.  It makes a biogas energy/fuel cell backup plan for wind, solar, and water power very practical.  Hydrogen remains problematic as an energy storage media.

Come on Terry.  Join the fray!  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Yes Amazing, he lost my interest at that statement...
There's enough water dumped from Los Angeles sewage treatment plants alone to power the entire U.S. transportation fleet on hydrogen.

Of course you need the electricity, or some other way of breaking hydrogen out of the water. But we're not short of hydrogen.  I think Terry is saying LA has water in the sewer, so we do not need oil.

I missed that part.  I thought he meant hydrogen from biogas from sewage.  The way he worded it he could have meant hydrogen from the water instead of the sewage.  Obsfucation.

A very poor spokesperson for  the fabled hydrogen economy.  Which is good actually, since it is primarily a scam.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

Whod've thought the entire US transport infrastructure could run on the shit of Los Angeles? Anyway. Let's talk about the grid.

Idle capacity in the existing electric power system can recharge 180 million vehicles, or 84% of the existing U.S. fleet.

Then shouldn't this idle capacity be used to make hydrogen for flex-fuel series hybrid vehicles until the number of those vehicles on American roads is 180 million?

Then shouldn't this idle capacity be used to make hydrogen for flex-fuel series hybrid vehicles until the number of those vehicles on American roads is 180 million?

No, because electrolysis is so inefficient. Using grid electricity to make hydrogen gives you a fuel that is extremely expensive and too limited to power anywhere near 84% of the U.S. fleet.

Electrolysis is indeed inefficient, but it isn't expensive, especially if you're using idle capacity of nuclear power plants, each of which are about a whopping 1000 MW of power and around 100 of them already existing in the US. Buying bigger lithium ion batteries for a pure EV can be expensive. Buying a solar cell for your house can be expensive.

Hydrogen has some other benefits. Unlike a diesel or gasoline generator on board a series hybrid, it produces no emissions (smog, NO, or CO2) around the area your breathe. Nor does it produce noise pollution around the area you sleep. Fuel cells like pure EV's are not oily and greasy under the hood. These factors increase quality of life.

Hydrogen does have some disadvantages that you mentioned. However, it isn't the only option with disadvantages.

Buying bigger lithium ion batteries for a pure EV can be expensive.

Sure, but nowhere near as expensive as fuel cells. Hydrogen cars: Cost millions of dollars, are in prototype only, available in 15-20 years, no existing refueling infrastructure.

Battery electric cars: Cost tens of thousands of dollars, are in production and available now, refuel with existing transmission infrastructure.

Not to mention all the operational difficulties with fuel cells outlined very ably by other commenters on this thread.

1...Hydrogen tanks loss 10% of their hydrogen in two weeks.
2...Hydrogen tanks are super expensive and corrode easily and must be changed much more frequently then say the Nanosafe battery.
3...EV can be charged in 10 minutes - see PhoenixMotorcars
4...Hydrogen leaks cause holes in the ozone layer
5...Hydorgen cars may explode when have a strong storm or static electricity on driver's seat.
6...Losses 20% of energy in conversion from fossil fuel.