Chrysler Claims Fuel Cell Vehicles Saved More Than 60,000 Gallons of Fuel

[bigtree]

their industry release claims: (http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=ind_focus.story&STORY=/www/story/04-21-2006/0004344684&EDATE=FRI+Apr+21+2006,+09:47+AM)

DaimlerChrysler Fuel Cell Vehicles Save More Than 60,000 Gallons of Fuel
with Zero Emissions Technology

SACRAMENTO, Calif., April 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- DaimlerChrysler
has logged more than 1.2 million miles of zero-emissions fuel cell
experience . . .

This combined mileage is a result of more than 100 fuel cell vehicles
operating worldwide, including Mercedes-Benz F-Cell passenger cars, Dodge
Sprinter medium-duty fuel cell-powered vans and Citaro fuel cell-powered
transportation buses.

The average petroleum-powered vehicle in the United States has a fuel
economy of about 20 miles per gallon. Using that as a base, the operation
of these hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has reduced conventional gasoline and
diesel consumption by more than 60,000 gallons with zero emissions.

BP is the 'energy' partner of DaimlerChrysler in the project.

DaimlerChrysler has been involved with fuel cell development for more
than 10 years and is one of the founding members of The California Fuel
Cell Partnership. The company also works closely with Ballard Power Systems
to further develop the technology.

interesting.

[benburch]

1. But where does the energy come from?

I believe these are all hydrogen fuel cell cars, right?

There are several ways to make hydrogen; You can crack it out of petroleum, you can do any of several chemical reactions with minerals, or you can electrolyze water for it. In all cases, though, hydrogen is not an energy SOURCE, it is an energy storage medium. You have to expend energy to get it.

I'm simply not satisfied that this saves anything.

[MadHound]

2. Yep, you nailed it

It takes a hell of a lot of energy to crack out hydrogen, and I find it mighty damn suspicious that they're not including that tally.

[Canuckistanian]

3. Right, you're not polluting by burning the hydrogen

But you are by creating the hydrogen in the first place.

[bigtree]

4. Chysler cites two ways that they contemplate generating the hydrogen

Two approaches to hydrogen

One way of obtaining a carbon dioxide balance is electrolysis; a decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxy-gen with the help of electricity. This can be obtained in an environmentally-friendly manner from regenerative sources, for example wind and water power or solar cells.

Another approach to obtaining environmentally-friendly hydrogen is presented by the so-called BTL fuels (Biomass-To-Liquid): by means of a special, largely CO2-neutral process which allows methanol, for example, or even pure hydrogen to be obtained from biomass such as wood chippings.

http://www.daimlerchrysler.com/dccom/0,,0-5-7166-1-142462-1-0-0-142465-0-0-135-7166-0-0-0-0-0-0-0,00.html

[benburch]

7. Neither of those two options are commercially viable right now.

Here is an exercise for you;

Compute how many acres of desert you'd need to cover with 10% efficient photovoltaic cells to make enough electricity to make the hydrogen needed to replace all vehicular fuel.

Next

Compute how many tons of biomass would be required to do the same. How many acres would have to be planted in industrial hemp (most efficient biomass fuel) to equal this? You may ignore for this exercise the fuel required for cultivation and transportation of the biomass to the crackers.

I believe you will find, as I did when I did this long ago, that doing a complete replacement would take an effort that makes the Interstate Highway system look tiny.

[bigtree]

10. I know they haven't gotten there yet.

But, there should be no advocation of nuclear production . . . if that's your drift.

No reason why they shouldn't keep trying.

[benburch]

14. My drift is we stop using passenger cars.

We should spend the money instead on electric light rail in the cities and electrifying mainline railroads.

[bigtree]

12. they have found new ways to break down the biomass waste

Penn State engineers boost hydrogen production from fermentation

University Park, PA (June 3, 2002)— {snips}

In the Penn State experiments, fermentation was conducted with bacteria from ordinary garden soil. The soil, collected from local farmland, was heat treated to kill hydrogen-consuming bacteria. While the heat treatment also kills non-hydrogen producing soil bacteria, it leaves hydrogen-producing bacteria in a dormant spore form that revives as soon as it is put in suitable conditions.

The researchers mixed the heat-treated soil with individual samples of glucose, sucrose, cellulose, lactate, potato starch and molasses. Fermentation of both glucose and sucrose with the heat-treated soil under slightly acidic conditions in the absence of oxygen produced high concentrations of hydrogen gas. Releasing the gas continuously during glucose processing resulted in 43 percent more hydrogen than when the gas was released intermittently.

Logan notes that wastewater from confectioners, canneries, sugar refineries, and other industries are rich in glucose and sucrose. "The conversion of the chemical energy in these sugars to electricity in fuel cells via hydrogen gas, provides a method for wastewater treatment and renewable energy production in one step. The greatest savings at treatment plants may result from reducing costs for aerators since aeration is the major operational expense at most wastewater treatment plants," says the Penn State researcher.

In addition, methane could also be generated via the same process and from the same materials to provide an additional source of clean energy for fuel cells.

Logan says, "Both hydrogen and methane production via fermentation could save money spent on aeration while at the same time making a wastewater treatment plant into a local power plant."

http://www.engr.psu.edu/ce/enve/h2e/H2E-news.htm

[ProfessorGAC]

5. Everything Is Just Energy Storage

Even fusion. I don't understand the point of this argument. I've seen it plenty of times, but it just doesn't wash for me.

The energy in everything is just stored. That's the whole premise of E=mc^2. It seems like a statement in search of meaning.
The Professor

[benburch]

8. Energy that is already stored, as in petroleum, is stolen from the past.

And it was stored over about a billion years. so we don't need to store it now. It is a much different proposition for us to create the electricity to store energy in hydrogen at a rate that approximates our present use. I am not even certain it is feasible.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. Certainly It's Feasible

But, the initiating source of energy has to be far more efficient than burning something. High yield nuclear fission is a strong net gain energy source, in the the total energy used to mine, transport, refine, purify and react the radionucleotide is far less than the output energy of the system.

Obviously, fusion would be ever moreso, but we can't do that yet. But, high yield nukes allow it. The trick there is the horrible public relations issues around nuke plants, because of the shoddy construction and operation of some of these places. Once they get a bad name, fixing the reputation is REALLY hard! One Three Mile Island screws up everything for the entire concept and industry for a long, long time.

And, there are far more efficient systems than those used in that design.

So, it's totally feasible, it's just hard!
The Professor

[Squeech]

16. Yeah, but

the issue for me, I realized just this morning, is: Who would I trust to run the reactors?

There was an article recently (The American Prospect?) arguing that the problem with nuclear power is at base a PR problem, exacerbated by the figure of Homer Simpson as Springfield's nuclear safety officer. That's certainly a problem for me, but Mr. Burns is an even bigger problem. I look at the country today, which corporations are big enough and politically connected enough to negotiate the contract to run the nukes of the 21st century, and the answers I get are: Halliburton (currently making billions on Iraq cost-overruns and supporting the troops with high coliform content water), Bechtel (not so bad, except they recently "finished" the Big Dig tunnel with hundreds of leaks), and maybe Big Oil (which at $36 billion profit for Exxon-Mobil could certainly afford it, but again, would you trust them to manage it properly, given the history of the Exxon Valdez oil spill?).

On top of that, David-Bacon limits the legal and economic liability for nuclear plant failure. If we have nukes, I want them to be run in full cognizance of the price of failure, I don't want somebody like FEMA cleaning up after a meltdown. I want the manager of every plant to start his working day every day by walking down to the river in which they discharge their cooling system effluent, dipping a glass into that river, and drinking it all. Nothing less is acceptable to me.

[benburch]

22. The only organization I would trust is the US Navy.

They have been doing it safely for fifty years now.

[johnaries]

6. Toyota was using Solar Cells to make the hydrogen for their

fuel cell prototypes. You are correct, hydrogen is just a storage medium, but it can be generated using Green sources. But, we need to continue to question how it is produced to ensure that Green sources are being used.

[benburch]

9. See above.

Compute the number of acres required.

[kestrel91316]

11. If you use solar power to obtain electricity to make the hydrogen,

either PV or other solar heat-collecting/steam-to-electricity generation, or other nonpolluting renewables, I think it's a good deal.

Using dead dinosaurs to fuel the process is a BAD idea.

[benburch]

15. I agree, but look at the number of acres of solar collectors!

I just don't think we could do this or maintain it economically. And if we CAN make that many acres, electric light rail and electrified mainline railroads would use that electricity with a MUCH higher efficiency!

[Coastie for Truth]

18. Are you mocking Stan Ovshinsky. NT

[benburch]

19. Nope! Wouldn't dream of mocking him.

I simply believe that electric rail transport replacing automobiles is the way the world needs to go!

We can make the electricity to power electrolysis, with its inherent losses, and then we compress or liquify and transport that hydrogen with additional losses, and then put it into a vehicle and lose energy in heat from the fuel cell and inefficiencies with the rather small electric motors an auto would use and heat from the fuel cell...

Or we can put that energy into the grid and power mass transit that directly uses the electricity with much lower transport losses than the above system.

So, nope, not mocking anybody, but in this Engineer's opinion, personal transportation vehicles are NOT the way of the future.

There still might be room for hydrogen fuel cells to act as load levelers in hours of darkness or times of calm breezes, but honestly I would look to flywheel storage and hydroelectric storage first because they are, again, more efficient and of lower technology.

[benburch]

21. I also think that biomass is best burnt directly in a steam engine...

Conversion schemes for biomass are all more lossy than directly burning the same mass in a steam engine. I even think that domestic solid waste would make a good locomotive fuel. (This was looked at carefully near the end of the steam engine era, but cheap oil killed it.)

[Coastie for Truth]

17. A "pure EV" is actually more energy efficient then a fuel cell

because you avoid the losses inherent in hydrogen processing. It's all in Berkeley Prof John Newman's (out of print) book Electrochemical Systems.

You avoid either the adsorption/desorption or the compression.

[benburch]

20. And a flywheel vehicle even moreso than that.

And a modern flywheel is mostly carbon-carbon composites that are not a hazardous waste when scrapped. All batteries I know of are hazardous when scrapped.