Fuel cells versus batteries: We need them both
Fuel cells and batteries will electrify the future
The realities of oil dependence
Later this year, and through the next few years, a number of plug-in vehicles will finally be offered for sale. For many this means that the battery-powered car is the indisputable technology of the future, and that fuel cell vehicles should finally be put to death.
For many in the auto industry, as well as those studying the future of the auto industry, however, the future isn’t nearly so clear.
Study after study – from automakers, governments and universities, etc. throughout the world – has consistently cited the need for significant battery breakthroughs in order for the cost-effectiveness of plug-in vehicles to result in anything more than niche status, and to have any real world, significant impact upon oil dependence.
Even if these breakthroughs are achieved, however, many researchers still conclude that pure battery powered vehicles might still have a limited, although significant, role in the future.
Last week, for instance, the FreedomCAR (Cooperative Automotive Research) and Fuel Partnership—a research collaboration among the US Department of Energy, the US Council for Automotive Research, five major energy companies, and two electric utility companies advised the National Research Council that based on the science available, three key areas need to be focused upon as the path to reduced oil consumption.
1.) Improving current internal combustion engines with the increased use of biofuels.
2.) Using plug-in hybrids and battery-powered EVs to switch from petroleum to grid energy.
3.) Making hydrogen a major transportation fuel to be utilized by fuel cell vehicles.
Likewise, recently researchers from Electrochemical Energy Research Laboratory (EERL), General Motors Research & Development found that while “Li ion batteries provide a pathway for efficient use of renewable-sourced electricity in the transportation sector, it is possible that fundamental physical limitations may prevent pure Li-ion-based BEVs from ever delivering the freedom of providing long trips, with intermittent quick refills, that consumers currently receive from their cars.”
Additionally, the researchers also speculated that pure battery powered powertrains could forever be limited to small vehicles.
Inevitably, America is still on a several-decade long path to oil independence, and numerous breakthroughs across many technologies are still needed, at least based upon our current box of transportation. Unless we can think outside of the box, oil dependence and foreign oil dependence will continue to be just buzzwords for a very long time.
Interesting, Laurent.
I’m on a limited work schedule – trying to squeeze in a vacation, etc., but I plan on checking out your article next week.
Can that be done in any way other than some kind of competition?
Certainly, grants,etc. would still be necessary as seed money for promising technologies that can’t yet compete, but isn’t a more “level playing field” for alternative energies required?
Laurent-
Ultimately, without major technological breakthroughs in batteries, a new infrastructure will also be required for battery-powered cars. The new grid proposed by Al Gore had a price tag of 1/2 trillion if i’m not mistaken.
Anyway, there has been some very recent and interesting breakthroughs in both onboard hydrogen reformation and localized hydrogen production where no new infrastructure would be required. There are still many barriers to hydrogen, but I’ll bet that in the next decade most will be resolved. In my opinion, the rate of hydrogen and fuel cell breakthroughs has been increasing exponentially, particularly in just the last 2 – 3 years. Before then the game did indeed almost seem over – which I believed after following for almost 10 years. The last year in particular, however, has given me renewed hope that hydrogen – or something akin to it, such as methanogenesis – could be a price competitive in a decade.
Based on the current trajectory of battery technologies, hydrogen should in no way be discounted. Certainly, in the interim, BEVs deserve more attention and funding, but hydrogen is still worth a good bit of effort.
Of course, new energies will need new infrastructures. And there’s no doubt that electricity has a clear advantage over hydrogen.
We need them both plus maybe a few other alternative technologies.
I also am frustrated when people pick sides, especially when they use one technology that does not yet exist as an excuse not to develope the other technology.
We need to develope multiple energy sources and multiple infrastrucures to deliver those energy sources.
BP, Exxon and Chevron are really infrastructure companies that deliver oil and gas. Until we develop alternative infrastructures to deliver energy we will remain slaves to the only one that exists today…
Of course, we need them both. I’m always surprised when I see people siding with one technology, and looking down at the other one. Electric drives on batteries are fine for a roadster or a small car, but how about a big SUV with a 500-mile range?
That’s what the buyers of a Volkswagen Touareg diesel get. Today. Will those people accept to get less tomorrow, running on batteries? The fuel cell is the solution.
I wrote about it earlier:
http://www.motornature.com/2010/06/14/first-hydrogen-taxi-get-rolling-in-london/
It’s about a british taxicab, and the team who made it just couldn’t make with batteries, they had to do it with hydrogen.