Is the best hybrid a fuel cell hybrid?
Because it gives Americans what they wantLast week, essentially every major automaker issued a joint Letter of Understanding regarding the development and commercialization of fuel cell vehicles. By 2015, these automakers anticipate the capability of producing hundreds of thousands of fuel cell vehicles per year.
So what? Won't they still be far more expensive than gasoline vehicles, even pure electric vehicles?
A couple of years ago I attended an event provided by GM called Fuel Cell University. In addition to driving fuel cell vehicles, attendees were treated to the latest details regarding fuel cell technology, at least from GM's perspective. At that time, GM claimed that if they could sell 1 million fuel cell vehicles, they could achieve cost-parity with gasoline-powered vehicles.
The hydrogen highway, or lack thereof, was the real issue GM claimed. Without a hydrogen network, such vehicles seemed pointless. Even if a hydrogen highway were paved, it seemed the US would still be foreign energy dependent.
Since then, however, the US has demonstrated that it has enough proven natural gas reserves to power the auto fleet for somewhere between 50 and 200 years. So, why not tap into these supplies? Couldn't natural gas simply be an interim step to solar, wind and/or algae-powered hydrogen?
Certainly, there are huge obstacles to fuel cell hybrids, but they do offer a package and refueling capability already accepted, and largely demanded, by most American consumers. Does this convenience, coupled with natural gas supplies, necessitate a more robust embrace of fuel cell technology?
Labels: fuel cells
posted by Dahcredyns at
10:43 AM
28 Comments:
okay... so where does hydrogen come from?
how do we produce (refine) it?
natural gas reformation, at least as the pilot. couple it with the whole natural gas truck idea pickens has been throwing around, for instance.
hit the major freeways and build clusters around the major cities.
that's as an interim solution, as in the next few decades.
gm's numbers, although i can't remember them specifically, were far below the cost of the new super grid, for instance. FAR BELOW.
i think it was 10 - 20 billion to support enough fuel cell vehicles to make them cost-effective compared to gasoline vehicles.
in the long term, it probably comes from alternative energy storage, methane, etc.
that's $10 - 20 billion for the infrastructure costs.
In February, the California Fuel Cell Partnership released a vehicle/station deployment plan to meet the needs of the first wave of commercial FCVs in California. It calls for 46 stations in 6 CA cities by 2014 to provide fuel for passenger FCVs and transit buses. The H2 will come from natural gas and renewable sources (electrolysis, biogas, biomass). The cost is estimated at $180 million. You can read the plan at http://www.cafcp.org/resources/print-materials
Chris,
Do you have any estimates on the comparative cost of that hydrogen versus gasoline?
Hydrogen is an energy intensive fuel that if derived from NG releases quite a few GHG.
I don't think it makes much sense as a fuel unless a better way can be found to "crack" it (refine) it from NG or to get it from water but right now - it takes more energy to get it from water than it produces and that's using electricity that comes from coal plants - not solar/wind.
sees like I read somewhere about on on-board car "reformer" that converts hydrogen from NG but still unless I don't understand (which is highly possible) it would seem that you're converting one fuel - NG to another and why would you do that in the first place?
Dahc,
The current cost of Hydrogen at the few retail stations where it is sold (CA, VT) is around $12-$13 per kilogram.
The Honda Clarity has a 6 kg tank and has a range of 280 miles.
That puts the cost of Hydrogen for th Honda Clarity at about 25-27 cents per mile
Comparitively a gasoline vehicle which get 28 mpg can go 280 miles on 10 gallons of gasoline.
At $2.50/gallon, a 28 mpg gasoline car costs 9 cents per mile.
At $4.00/gallon a 28 mpg gasoline car costs 14 cents per mile.
So, just like EV's, economically, Hydrogen is still significantly more expensive than gasoline.
We'll need to see the costs drop by 50-75% for Hydrogen to become viable economically.
Many Hydrogen infrastructure estimates have the cost at $5.00/kg when mass produced, but I'm not sure where those projections come from.......
The best plug-in-hybrid is a-- methanol fuel cell-- plug-in-hybrid.
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2009/09/methanol-fuel-cell-plug-in-hybrids.html
We need to think about what a hybrid really is.
It's basically a computer-controlled electric motor that shuts off at traffic signals.
The savings come from not running when stopped, a smaller powerplant and less mechanical gears between the engine and the drivetrain/wheels.
Think of the newest navy ships which use electric turbine engines or diesel electric locomotives.
The drive unit is electric and it gets it's electricity from a power plant that can run off of a wide variety of fuels.
So.. the question is .. what is the best fuel for an automobile hybrid and ..why....
what goal are you trying to achieve?
we keep getting mashups of different concepts... are we talking about efficiency, energy independence, cleaner air ????
they are different things.. not necessary mutually exclusive but depending on what your PRIMARY goal was - you would always pick a hybrid - but what fuel best fits what goal?
it's hard to see what goal that hydrogen would achieve.. at least for me to see...
marcel,
i've stated it before, but i'm a huge fan of electromethanogenesis.
i'm certainly not stuck on hydrogen fuel cells, but that does still seem to be the focus of automakers.
smurf,
according to GM, production to pump costs would be about $2.00 - $3.00 per gallon, not including taxes with mass production.
on an interesting side note, GM claimed that the world already produces 40 B kg of hydrogen per year to desulfarize gasoline. that amount of hydrogen alone would power 130 million fuel cell vehicles.
larry-
according to the data i've seen, natural gas reformation still reduces CO2 emissions from well to wheel by 50 percent compared to gasoline vehicles.
likewise, america has enough natural gas to end foreign oil dependency.
so, if the goal is ending foreign oil dependency and reducing CO2 emissions, hydrogen fuel cell hybrids offer, minimally, interesting potential.
right.. my view.....
I'm just thinking that a the core technology of a hybrid is basically a computer-controlled electric engine coupled to an internal combustion engine which essentially is used as an electricity-generator.
no?
maybe that depends of the type of hybrid... "mild" or i dunno the other categories...
at any rate.. are we asking what is the most efficient automobile electrical power plant?
Instead of an internal-combustion engine - would it be a miniature version of a turbine that the peaker electricity plants use or the turbines used on modern destroyers or diesel electric locomotives?
larry,
i don't think we can look only at the car. minimally, we have to be looking well-to-wheel over a vehicle's lifetime.
in the short term, we're going to have to be prepared for multiple solutions.
still, a gas prius, natural gas prius, plug-in prius, full EV prius, and a fuel cell prius share many of the same components, thus, providing an adaptable, evolutionary path forward.
that is, essentially, what Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive has been about for more than a decade now.
interestingly, at least in theory, for less than 20 billion america could develop a hydrogen fueling infrastructure that would open up fuel cell vehicles to 70 percent of americans.
perhaps, for instance, that's smarter than a smart grid.
instead of spending about a trillion to develop a super grid, maybe you spend 50 billion (guess) on a comprehensive hydrogen/natural gas infrastructure that works immediately for all vehicles - after a conversion already commonplace in places like Argentina - and we could store and transport the future's renewable energies via this powergrid, rather than a super grid.
not that a super grid isn't a worthwhile project, but maybe a natural gas/hydrogen infrastructure is more cost-effective in the short term.
"according to GM, production to pump costs would be about $2.00 - $3.00 per gallon, not including taxes with mass production."
Did you mean $2-$3 per kg?
Once again, those numbers are "projections".
Today's "real world" price is $13 per kg.
I'll believe $2 - $3 per kg when I see it....
Who did GM's projection? The CBO? :-)
if we have natural gas pipelines... do we still need hydrogen pipelines?
Is burning NG in a car going to produce more GHG than the processing of cracking hydrogen from NG?
all things considered, what's the advantage of Hydrogen over NG?
smurf-
i think it's a $2.00 - $3.00 gallon equivalent, but my notes are more than a couple of years old.
larry -
it takes an extra 20 - 30 percent natural gas to provide the power to reformulate natural gas to hydrogen.
that extra natural gas should be more than recovered via the efficiency of the fuel cell and hybrid technology.
moreover, natural gas is an interim fuel.
hydrogen won't and shouldn't be dependent upon natural gas forever. natural gas is just a natural, immediately-available source.
today, hydrogen is produced via more processes than just natural gas, and in the future those alternative processes will only increase.
I found this interesting:
..." ... It takes about 60 kilowatt-hours of electricity to gin a kilogram of hydrogen from water. The FCX Clarity's tank holds about 4 kilograms of H2 and that gives it a range of about 270 miles on 240 kWhs.
The all-electric Tesla Roadster has a 53-kWh lithium-ion battery and a range of 220 miles. So the Tesla's per-mile costs in electricity are roughly one-quarter what they are in the FCX Clarity."
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/feb/13/business/fi-neil13
at ten cents a Kwh... is that $24 to go 270 miles or have I got my math messed up again.
but something does not seem right because it sounds like the Telsa can go that far on $6 worth of electricity.
anyhow.. this guy doesn't see it becoming a viable fuel - because of the cost of obtaining the hydrogen
hydrogen stored in a car is very similar in concept to electricity stored in a battery - no?
then this fellow said this:
"According to former U.S. Department of Energy official Joseph Romm, "A hydrogen car is one of the least efficient, most expensive ways to reduce greenhouse gases." Asked when hydrogen cars will be broadly available, Romm replied: "Not in our lifetime, and very possibly never."[51] The Los Angeles Times wrote, in February 2009, "Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won't work in cars.... Any way you look at it, hydrogen is a lousy way to move cars."[52]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_vehicle#Criticism
now, I'll admit that opinions are like back ends.. we all have one....
:-)
well to wheel.
how much is it going to cost to power that Roadster if everyone drove a Roadster? how many more coal plants would have to be built?
this idea of cheap electricity seems silly to me. for a limited number of EVs charging during non-peak hours, electricity is cheap.
if the EV revolution occurs, however, i guarantee costs will go higher, even very significantly higher.
even without EVs, electricity costs are supposed to increase significantly in the next few decades.
to go fully electric we'd, minimally, need the supergrid. al gore put such a grid at a cost of at least $700 billion. so i'd call it a trillion, possibly even more.
doesn't that cost have to be added to the future price of electricity?
so comparing fueling a roadster today to today'a hydrogen vehicles is largely irrelevant to the future.
but let's get back to hydrogen. most major technological breakthroughs throughout history faced the same critics.
furthermore, hydrogen as a fuel has to be viewed more wholistically. for instance, there is very interesting work on combining water desalination and hydrogen production.
i'm not saying that's the most promising angle, but just using that as an example of how hydrogen might become viable, as a piece of a bigger system, a bigger system that we probably can't even fully contemplate today.
still, today, if you have a solar array on your house, you have to have a heat dump to send, essentially, wasted energy.
as solar power becomes more efficient, there is going to be much more wasted energy. using that energy to create hydrogen might actually be very cost effective in the future.
today having a huge amount of batteries to store a massive amount of electricity is far from efficient and/or cost-effective.
i spoke with the CEO of A123Systems about this once and he said large scale energy storage via lithium was worth exploring, but far from feasible based on today's technology.
certainly, there is reason to believe the hydrogen might end up being nothing but a boondoggle, but i don't believe you can make that case from an objective, scientific perspective today.
if hydrogen is so inefficient and battery powered vehicles so obvious, why is every automaker still pursuing fuel cell technology? why not just focus all that R&D money on battery powered vehicles?
honda, for instance, is largely staking its future on the fuel cell. is honda just that stupid if its so obvious? obviously, some bureaucrat at the department of energy knows more about hydrogen that honda's massive team of R&D researchers, right?
likewise, why are universities throughout the world still researching this issue? there is great research coming out of europe and japan.
have they all been duped by some huge powerful grant-providing conspiracy?
" how many more coal plants would have to be built?"
but that's the point Dach.
in order to produce hydrogen, we have to generate the electricity for the conversion...
it's a two step process with Hydrogen and a one step process with the battery.
there's another way to think about this also.
if we really do have "extra" power at night.. rather than put in on the grid and lose much of it in distribution...
why not use it to create hydrogen - at the plant so the energy loses are minimal?
Of course then you have the 'distribution" costs for the hydrogen, right?
I think.. this whole deal is much, much more complex than what we'd like it to me.
and... it's not static.. the whole mess is a changing mass... with the potential that a breakthrough could be a game-changer and all the conventional wisdom turns on a dime.
I think that is what is going on right now.
No one wants to put major money on any one direction for fear that it will end up a bad bet so everyone is holding back and essentially betting on the status quo -until something happens to force them off the dime.
you make an excellent point.
still, we've spent many billions this year alone on auto efficiency, solar grants, battery grants, etc.
on the other hand, the government tried to cut fuel cell funding, and it's done little on natural gas.
likewise, clean coal technology - CO2 sequestered - is being embraced. is that because they lobby washington with 4 times the money as the natural gas industry?
i don't know. you tell me.
yet, i've heard a number of energy analysts claim that CO2 sequestration from coal is at least a decade away and, even then, it might be too cost-ineffective.
yet, until solar and wind are cost effective and we have a trillion dollar super grid, coal powered plug-in vehicles are the future?
i just don't think that's a realistic vision forward.
for less than we've invested in all of these other future technologies, we could kick start the natural gas industry, have an immediate and significant effect on foreign oil dependence and CO2 emissions while providing lots of jobs.
we're already putting $100 billion into the US auto industry, not counting $50 billion in loans and billions more in grants, etc., why not try to get some real bang for our buck, especially when the independent bailout panel claims much of the bailout money will never be repaid?
likewise, in no way would a move to natural gas hurt hybrid, EV or fuel cell technologies, in fact it could help advance them.
with solid natural gas distribution, hydrogen could become readily available and we could aggressively, yet in a controlled fashion, go after fuel cell vehicles.
if they don't work out, they still help scale down the costs of every component that goes into hybrids and electric vehicles, including the ever important battery.
in my opinion, the potential upside is worth the risk, worth making the investment. besides, being able to instantly scare the energy future's markets while creating a real path to foreign energy independence will pay for itself.
" yet, i've heard a number of energy analysts claim that CO2 sequestration from coal is at least a decade away and, even then, it might be too cost-ineffective."
my view is that this is a bogus discipline.. until I see the science that shows that the CO2 combines with something else to become a different substance that is stable.
otherwise CO2 is probably going to find it's way back to the surface and of course we won't really find this out until someone does a study and says "hey guys..you know all that stuff we were pumping into the earth....."
so I think it's snake oil...
until I see technology to take C02 + xxx = yyy which is a stable compound that does not break down...
likewise .. I don't think coal-powered "anything" is in our future.
I mean this is like saying that we know cigarettes are killing us but we're only going to go from one pack to two packs...
geeze...
I'm betting on a breakthrough in solar or perhaps tides or perhaps run-of-the-river turbines... or other breakthroughs and innovations.
Here's my theory.
In someone said to you 25 years ago that you and I and virtually everyone else on the planet (the developed part) would have dick Tracey or star trek "communication" devices, you probably would have been pretty skeptical and yet look what has happened.
In less than a generation.. our world has been transformed from a land-line world where pay phones were on every corner to one where we now fret about people killing themselves while "texting"....
so.. I think it will happen.. and it may come from a direction that none of us are looking at... that's the way sometimes things happen...
and.. I think.. to do govt policies that favor one direction over the other - has the danger of actually forcing us in a different direction and actually delaying innovation that might come about on it's own if we don't get into the business of picking winners and losers at this stage of the game.
Well, there are others out there that could prove to be a better alternative.
larry-
again, good points. i agree with you.
yet, the government is already spending billions on plug-ins and related technologies and much more is forthcoming, I'd bet.
I'm simply stating that for that same kind of money, i believe the investment into natural gas and hydrogen is worth the risk.
and, unfortunately, i do think far more coal action is coming. obama has already been bedded by the industry. also, without cap and trade, i don't think anything is going to compete with coal for a decade or two. even with cap and trade that might still be the case.
that's the bet most experienced energy traders are making. its the unsophisticated traders that are making the solar bet - largely because of their belief in obama's green investments and cap and trade. in fact, most of this new money has never invested in this segment of the markets.
maybe that will be the next bubble in a few years, or maybe it will lead to the breakthroughs you and i hoping.
however, considering the state of the economy and growing deficit, isn't cost-effectiveness going to be the key metric for some time, at least according to the average voter?
The ultimate hybrid would probably be a methanol fuel cell/electric battery hybrid(The addition of an ultracapacitor would improve performance and battery longevity even more).In recent years,progress has been made on methanol fuel cells that operate close to room temperature instead of the sky-high fuel cell temperatures of the past.
It would make the ultimate hybrid because both methanol and electricity can be made from highly versatile and diverse sources.Electricity can be made from all sorts of non-fossil sources such as solar,nuclear,wind,geothermal,various ocean waves,temperature gradients,and etc.And methanol can be made from renewable biomass crops such as hemp,switchgrass,etc.that does not necessarily have to compete with food and more efficient than corn.Methanol can also be made from throwaway trash,garbage,or chemically synthesized from natural gas.
And furthermore,storing hydrogen in the form of liquid alcohol molecules is far more practical and energy dense than hydrogen itself,and can be dispensed into a fuel tank more easily.It would also be a more practical way to run cars on America's plentiful natural gas reserves like Boone Pickens envisions instead of the transportation sector being dependent on imported oil from unstable Middle East.When converted to methanol,natural gas would no longer be bulky and difficult to dispense into a fuel tank.
It would give an electric the unlimited range of an internal combustion engine while requiring very little methanol for the longer trips.That's because about 90% of all miles driven is short range within a few miles of a person's hometown,while methanol could handle the other 10%.That is,unless a person does more long range commuting.Then the methanol requirement would be more than that percentage.
methanogenesis!
i'm all for it. a few months ago i blogged, Forget electric cars. I want a methanol PFCHV.
And furthermore,in addition to methanol fuel cell/electric battery/ultracaps being the ultimate combo,why plug-ins? Why not the greater convenience of cordless electromagnetic induction?
If you forget to unplug while in a hurry to go somewhere,you're likely to damage the the extension cord and wall socket.Why not have an electromagnetic coil mat that you lay on the ground in your driveway,garage,etc.? As soon as the car parks directly over it,some type of sensor would activate the electromagnetic coil and begin cordless electromagnetic induction charging.
Not only would a methanol fuel cell/electric battery/ultracapacitor be the ultimate hybrid......but why plug-ins? Why not cordless electromagnetic induction? If you're in a hurry to go somewhere and forget to unplug,you're likely to damage the extension cord and wall socket.Just lay an electromagnetic coil mat down in your driveway,garage,etc.When you park your car directly over it a sensor activates cordless charging.
why not? i agree.
still, i just threw that in to keep it easily fungible, especially in the short term, as standards are developed.
inevitably, it might be more cost-effective to be either pure battery electric or methanol fuel cell hybrid, the non-plug-in version.
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