Automakers Put Hydrogen Power On the Fast Track

[Rose Siding]

The brakes are controlled by a computer, so the car can stop a full length shorter than most. Each rear wheel has its own motor and can turn by itself, which not only improves traction but also makes parallel parking a snap. And the only thing this car emits is water vapor.

But for all the exotic gizmos on the Sequel, an experimental hydrogen-powered car to be shown today by General Motors Corp., the biggest breakthrough is that it is designed to drive as far and accelerate as quickly as the cars in most driveways.

The Sequel uses fuel-cell technology that until now has not matched the overall performance of gasoline engines. GM is introducing the car at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit as rival companies make similar announcements.

Passengers at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport will soon ride on buses with hydrogen-powered engines, Ford Motor Co. chief executive William Clay Ford Jr. is to announce today. Ford also is to announce plans to create three gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles for retail sale, and to rush the hybrid Mercury Mariner sport-utility vehicle to showrooms later this year -- a year ahead of schedule to capitalize on consumer interest in hybrids.

more........

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59890-2005Jan8.html

[NNguyenMD]

1. maybe the hot sales of the Toyota Prius finally caught their attention

[Downtown Hound]

4. Yep,

GM and American auto makers dragged their heels for years on developing hybrid cars, until the Prius came out and floored them. They've been playing catch up ever since.

[davidwparker]

2. Please, God, let this be true and fast to market.

I'm tired of all this fighting for oil. I currently drive a 350Z and I hope that this will be available when I have to buy my next one.

Thanks for the post.

[KingoftheJungle]

3. never thought I'd see the day where I would be interested in buying a GM

seriously, who saw this one coming?

[Wells]

18. GM technology is again "planned obsolescence"

GM's 'in-wheel' electric motor is vulnerable to elemental extremes of water, dust and temperature. This, and the lack of shock obsorption guarantee product unreliability. It is wise to be skeptical of this technology. GM knows the 'in-wheel' motor will wear at impractical rates. This is planned obsolescence.

GM's computer-controlled steering, accelleration and braking is vulnerable to many kinds of glitches which render the vehicle dangerously uncontrollable in such mishaps.

The auto industry is promoting Hydrogen because this fuel/energy cannot be produced at the household level. The Hybrid is being downplayed because Hybrids CAN store home-based electricity in their battery packs. And, the larger the Hybrid battery pack, the better, because battery weight lowers vehicle center-of-gravity, thus improving stability and handling. A relatively heavy battery pack requires vehicle strength beyond what the ultra-light Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can practically design, thus making Hybrids safer in a crash.

The Hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is a hoax.
What? You think Governor Grope-enegger is smart enough to see through the hoax?

[magellan]

5. There's an article in last month's Scientific American about hydrogen cars

It says they aren't going anywhere any time soon because there are still too many "daunting technological, financial and political roadblocks" to overcome. Here are some myths and misconceptions, and the truth, from the article. Sorry, no link; I transcribed selected bits from my own issue.

"1) Hydrogen is an abundant fuel. True, but unlike oil, vast reserves of hydrogen don't exist here on Earth. Instead, hydrogen atoms are bound up in molecules with other elements, and we must expend energy to extract the hydrogen so it can be used in fuel cells.

"2) Hydrogen fuel cells will end global warming. Unlike internal combustion engines, hydrogen fuel cells do not emit carbon dioxide. But extracting hydrogen from natural gas, today's primary source, does. And wresting hydrogen from water through electrolysis takes tremendous amounts of energy. The end product may be clean hydrogen, but the process used to obtain it is still dirty.

"In the short term, nuclear power may be the easiest way to produce hydrogen without pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere...But as long as electricity from nuclear power costs more than electricity from other sources, using that energy to make hydrogen doesn't add up.

"6) The U.S. is committed to hydrogen, pouring millions into R&D. Consider this: President G W Bush promised to spend $1.2 billion on hydrogen. Yet he allotted $1.5 billion to promote "healthy marriages". The monthly tab for the war in Iraq is $3.9 billion. In 2004 the Dept of Energy spent more on nuclear and fossil fuel research than on hydrogen.

"7) If Iceland can do it, so can we. Iceland's first hydrogen fueling station is already operating on the outskirts of Reykjavik. The hydrogen, which powers a small fleet of fuel cell buses, is produced on-site from electrolyzed tap water. Meanwhile the recently formed Icelandic New Energy...is planning to convert the rest of the island nation to a hydrogen system.

"Impressive, yes. But 72 percent of Iceland's electricity comes from geothermal and hydroelectric power. With so much readily available clean energy, Iceland can electrolyze water with electricity directly from the national power grid. This type of setup is impossible in the US, where only about 15 percent of grid electricity comes from geothermal and hydroelectric sources, while 71 percent is generated by burning fossil fuels.

"9) Fuel cell cars can drive hundreds of miles on a single tank of hydrogen. A gallon of gasoline contains about 2600 times the energy of a gallon of hydrogen. If engineers want hydrogen cars to travel at least 300 miles between fill-ups -- the automotive-industry benchmark -- they'll have to compress hydrogen gas to extremely high pressure: up to 10000 pounds per square inch. Even at that pressure, cars would need huge fuel tanks.

"...Liquid hydrogen works a bit better. GM's liquid-fueled HydroGen3 goes 250 miles on a tank roughly double the size of that in a standard sedan. But the car must be driven every day to keep the liquid hydrogen chilled to -253 degrees Celsius -- just 20 degrees above absolute zero and well below the surface temperature of Pluto -- or it boils off. If your car sits at the airport for a week, you'll have an empty tank when you get back."

Excerpt from conclusion: "Physicist Amory Lovins, who heads the Rocky Mountain Institute, a think tank in CO, fastidiously rebuts the most common critiques of hydrogen with an armada of facts and figures in his widely circulated white paper 'Twenty Hydrogen Myths'. But although he's a booster of hydrogen, Lovins is notably pragmatic. 'A lot of silly things have been written both for and against hydrogen,' he says. 'Some sense of reality is lacking on both sides.' He believes that whether the hydrogen economy arrives at the end of this decade or closer to mid-century, interim technologies (like the gas-electric hybrid) will play a signal role in the transition."

[bpilgrim]

10. The direct solar conversion of sunlight to H2 is one of the most fascinati

The direct solar conversion of sunlight to H2 is one of the most fascinating developments in water splitting.4 Established technology splits water in two steps: conversion of solar radiation to electricity in photovoltaic cells followed by electrolysis of water in a separate cell. It is well known that the photovoltaic conversion occurs with an efficiency up to 32% when expensive single−crystal semiconductors are used in multi−junction stacks, or about 3% with much cheaper organic semiconductors; remarkably, the cost of delivered electricity is about the same in both cases. Advanced electrolyzers split water with 80% efficiency.

The two processes, however, can be combined in a single nanoscale process: Photon absorption creates a local electron−hole pair that electrochemically splits a neighboring water molecule. The efficiency of this integrated photochemical process can be much higher, in principle, than the two sequential processes; it has now reached 8−12% in the laboratory4 and has prospects for much greater gains as researchers learn to better control the nanoscale excitation and photochemistry. The technical challenge is finding robust semiconductor materials that satisfy the competing requirements of nature. The Sun's photons are primarily in the visible, a wavelength that requires semiconductors with small bandgaps—below 1.7 eV—for efficient absorption. Oxide semiconductors like titanium dioxide that are robust in aqueous environments have wide bandgaps, as high as 3.0 eV, and thus require higher−energy photons for excitation. The use of dye−sensitized photocells that accumulate energy from multiple low−energy photons to inject higher−energy electrons into the semiconductor is a promising direction for matching the solar spectrum. Alternatively, oxide semiconductors can be doped with impurities that reduce their bandgap energies to overlap better with the solar spectrum. In both cases, new strategies for nanostructured hybrid materials are needed to more efficiently use solar energy to split water.

more...
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-12/p39.html

the japanese already have a test Hydrogen/Solar cell car on the road... will look for a link =)

peace

[Strelnikov_]

17. Pluggable Diesel-Electric Hybrid Would Be A Big Step Forward

About the size of, and with the low drag, of a Prius.

If the battery could get you 30 miles between charges, the energy most people use on an average day could be obtained through nightly charging.

Diesel engines seem to be more efficient, and it appears that there are various processes to manufacturer synthetic diesel.

Another option would be multi-fuel engines (gas, 80% ethanol, etc.).

And all of the above uses existing technology.

Per the EIA, 67% of U.S. petroleum is refined to gasoline, and 67% of this gasoline is used for personal transportation. Therefore, 45% of U.S. of petroleum is used for personal transportation, at an average of 20.8 mpg in 2004.

If we increase this to 60 mpg, which seems attainable with hybrids in a few years, we can reduce petroleum use to 71% of the current level. Per the latest ASPO estimate, worldwide petroleum production will be 71% of current levels in 20 years.

I agree that Hydrogen may be an option, but it may not be until mid-century before it is widely implemented. In the interim, we are going to need practical solutions to stretch that gallon of petroleum farther. Once the initial economic transients of peak-oil strike home, there will be demand for immediate solutions.

[NEOBuckeye]

6. Forget Hydrogen. Pure electric is the best solution for the short term.

Though not the ideal by any means, as it cannot provide the same power as oil, it should work for anyone travelling less than 50 miles total in one day.

Oh, wait. Most people travel that much coming in one way from the suburbs. There goes the suburban American Dream!

Seriously though, electric should be at the forefrunt of alternative power development for vehicles. The technology for this already exists, and is gaining ground at the fringes. Check this baby out!

Unfortunately, Hydrogen as a replacement for oil in transportation is a long shot with little promise of any real return on investment in the next few years -- when we're really going to need something to pick up the slack for our oil dependency, as global production peaks. In addition, we are also going to need a massive grid overhaul to handle the additional electric demand. Tons of solar panels, wind turbines, hydro-electric dams and nuclear power will be absolutely essential.

For long distance travel, restoring and extending passenger railways for longer trips, particularly for interstate travel, wouldn't hurt either. Isn't it way past due for high speed rail? As for air travel, airplanes should really only be used for international travel overseas between continents.

[0007]

7. ....yeah, grease up the tract real good for junior and then let dick

chase the fuck out of him.

I was talking to the Toyota dealership the other day and they tell me they have a long waiting line for the hybrid vehicle. The race is on!

Japan put in its first hydrogen service station months ago.

[TroglodyteScholar]

8. There's not going to BE any hydrogen economy....

Don't people understand that we're too far in this mess to just assume hydrogen will save the day? It's impractical, too -- wouldn't be much of an improvement if it DID happen.......

Just another way to keep us hooked to petroleum products -- but different enough from gasoline to make people think it's better. Pheh.

[Gregorian]

19. Hydrogen is a mistake, right now. Don't let them fool you.

Thanks GA Voter.

People don't know the truth about it yet. But the petroleum companies will be selling a lot more fuel, if we go to the hydrogen economy.

[Massachusetts]

9. Ethanol..........................Hydrogen

MKTY - Mechanical Technology - C/O

[hatrack]

11. Blahblahblahblahblahblah . . . .

Whoop-de-doo. Detroit trots out the obligatory Cars Of The Future as the annual round of car shows begins, and the Post sits up and salivates.

The same Big Three promised hybrids by 2000 when Toyota rolled out the first Prius in 1997. To date there is one - ONE - American-made hybrid in limited release (Ford's hybrid Escape) and one GM hybrid pickup in extremely limited research release (GM's hybrid pickups, of which a total of 1,500 will be built over the next two years). Meanwhile, Toyota just sold their 250,000th Prius, and by the end of the year, Toyota & Honda will have a total of six hybrid models available to the general public.

Given the difficulties of hydrogen fueling, cost and (above all) thermodynamic three-card monte, I'm not holding my breath. :eyes:

[AlbizuX]

12. thank god..

less Mideast oil wars...less environmental degradation...

Finally humanity is progressing...

[Mr.Green93]

13. Water vapor

is the number one green house gas.

[Freebird12004]

14. sounds better than what we have goin on now

[jmowreader]

15. Folks, screw this "direct hydrogen" shit

Now that I see they're using a fuel cell instead of some sort of hydrogen engine, the way to deal with this problem suddenly becomes clear.

Understand first that this setup won't work in a Prius-type car. You'll need something a lot larger, something like...oh, a Honda Element or a Scion xB. That's because a lot of the guts of this car DO NOT want to be in a place where they can be easily damaged in an accident--specifically the fuel tank, the reformer and the fuel cell. They need to be under the passenger area.

The heart of the JimCar is a hydrogen reformer, a device which takes in a hydrocarbon fuel at one end and puts hydrogen out the other. The fuel of choice seems to be methanol, although I want an ethanol-conversion capability. Methanol is CH3OH, while ethanol is C2H5OH--you get more hydrogens for your money.

The exhaust from the reformer is CO2 and H2O; if the CO2 is sent to some sort of a catalyst, the carbon can be recaptured as carbon black, stored in a tank, and recovered at the filling station. (The quick way to do this is to make the carbon black capture tank a quick-disconnect module like the toner catch basin on a laser printer--pop open the little door, turn a Dzus fastener, take out the capture tank, stick in a new capture tank and drop the old one into a bin. The carbon black buyer dumps the contents into a barrel and puts the empty tanks onto a shelf for the next person to use. And because all JimCar-engined cars from the fifty or so makers of them would use the same capture tank design, like all cars now use the same fuel nozzle, you can be sure that the little tanks will fit.) Carbon black is a marketable commodity; the JimCar owner will receive a lower price on her alcohol because she turned in her carbon black. This leaves water vapor and oxygen as the liberated exhaust products of the reformer; how many people are gonna bitch about a car that exhausts pure oxygen and pure water? However, in the JimCar the water itself is necessary for operation, so it won't be exhausted but rather fed into a condenser and stored in a tank. Hence, the exhaust of the JimCar will be oxygen. (Which could bring about a rather blackly-humored commercial--the rescue squad is surrounding the garage where a man is attempting to commit suicide by car exhaust...they've got on their respirators...they open the garage door to find a JimCar with the windows taped up, a hose running from the exhaust pipe to the driver's window, and a very alive man sitting inside the car beating his fist against the dashboard going "I'm a failure at everything...my wife left me...my kids hate me...my dog shits in my shoes...and I tried killing myself by breathing the exhaust of a car that makes pure air when it runs. I can't do anything right!")

Hydrogen reformers are exothermic, which will be compensated for by encasing the reformer in a water jacket--and using the steam thus generated to drive a turbine, hence generating even more electricity.

The hydrogen will be fed into a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell using DuPont's Nafion membrane. Once again, the waste product is water, and once again the fuel cell is exothermic--necessitating another water jacket.

Each of the four wheels will be driven by its own motor, which as in a current-generation hybrid will use regenerative braking. These need to be 120V AC motors because AC power is more efficient than DC power, and because 120V power in a car opens a wonderful world of possibilities.

We now have six devices generating electricity at different times--the fuel cell, the steam turbine generator, and the four wheel motors. All of these generators will feed a battery bank just like the one in a regular hybrid car. We could get really slick and throw a wind-powered turbine behind the grille to capture the power of the air flowing past the car.

When someone starts driving the car, three things will happen: the wheel motors will start drawing power from the battery bank, the reformer will start generating hydrogen and the PEM fuel cell will start heating up. When the fuel cell reaches operating temperature, it will start charging the battery bank.

The JimCar has a few wonderful features. First, it runs off a liquid fuel--alcohol. We've been handling liquid motor fuels for over 100 years, so we know how to do it. We already have plants set up to produce it for industrial use, so the infrastructure's partially there--it can't handle 10 million JimCars on the road tomorrow, but as demand for alcohol rises we know how to build a good alcohol plant and can do it fairly easily--as easily as building any other chemical plant. You can make alcohol from any cellulose source--it's called "wood alcohol" for a reason. You're not driving around with a tank of hydrogen pressurized to 10,000PSI or a tank of cryogenic liquid (that you have to figure out how to KEEP cryogenic--that is the third big problem after How Do You Sell Cryogenics To People Who Don't Know How To Handle Them? and How Do You Keep From Freezing Paramedics To Death During A Rescue Operation?) in your car. It runs off 120v AC power, so you can plug your boom box or drill battery charger into its handy convenience outlets.

And we're looking at 65-percent efficiency with CURRENT technology. Ya can't beat that with a stick.

[IDemo]

16. Shrub and Ahnold are pushing the Hydrogen Economy,

so that alone should tell you it's a bad idea:

http://www.betterworld.com/getreallist/article.php?story=20040128124539442