1. July 2, 2008 @ 3:28 pm
   Stuart Kendall says...
   

   This report seems like it included all of the energy inputs that go into creating the fuels, as well as the drop in pollution that results from adopting of the technologies - this is no small feat. Because the report seems to be so thorough, I wonder if it has been reviewed by any scientific journals, or academies? If it can pass the test with them I can see this model and others like it contributing to the “well to wheels” analysis models that have come out of the DOE recently.

   So is there any news on how far into the DOE or the scientific academia this report has reached so far?

   Thanks,

   S. Kendall
   California

2. July 3, 2008 @ 11:06 am
   fc-skeptic says...
   

   The claim that hydrogen can ever be a more efficient than electricity as a means of distributing energy to vehicles defies common sense. (Electrons don’t require compression to 10,000 PSI.)

   The claim that an H2 fueled engine (20-30% efficient) can ever be more efficient than charging and discharging batteries (80-90% efficient) defies common sense.

   If the starting point is electricity, whatever the source, then BEVs beat H2Vs every time in terms of overall efficiency (the total amount of energy needed to move a car a given distance) and therefore in terms of GHG emissions.

   The infrastructure for BEVs (the electric grid) sufficient to support millions of cars is already in place and can be incrementally improved as needed. The infrastructure for hydrogen would have to be built from virtual scratch.

   The assumption that FCVs based on any FC technology known today (i.e. PEM) will ever be “affordable” is absurd.

   http://platinumprice.org/

   A very large percentage of daily US oil consumption occurs on intra-city trips that are well within the range of today’s BEV’s. BEV’s will always be more efficient than hydrogen for light city driving. So we should get busy with BEVs now and stop distracting the uninformed with false promises that hydrogen is the best way to “maintain our lifestyles”.

   Today’s batteries are good enough to make a huge dent in the problem. Real leadership would be saying let’s get very aggressive now with BEVs where they are suitable (pretty much all light city driving), and stop distracting politicians and consumers with talk about hydrogen (let alone fuel cells) as the “50 year solution”.

   This entire argument is academic anyway unless people are willing to change their behavior. We must change our lifestyles. The rate of GHG emissions from transportation will continue to accelerate no matter what the fuel is unless people drive fewer miles in more efficient cars. The endless arguments between the hydrogen interests, other alternative fuel interests and BEV interests is at best a meaningless waste of time and energy and at worst motivated by nothing more than people in the respective industries wanting to keep their jobs.

3. July 3, 2008 @ 1:40 pm
   Sandy Thomas says...
   

   To FC-skeptic
   You are correct that using electricity in a BEV is much more efficient than electrolyzing water to make hydrogen for a FCV.
   However, consider the total well-to-wheels efficiency, starting with natural gas. If you use that natural gas to make electricity with 32% efficiency (gas turbine), then 92% transmission efficiency, then 95% AC/DC charging efficiency, then 85% battery two-way (in/out) efficiency and finally a 90% efficient DC/AC inverter plut motor, the net efficiency is 21.4%.

   Take that same natural gas and reform it to hydrogen at 76% efficiency, compress it with 92% efficiency, run the hydrogen through a PEM fuel cell at 50% efficiency, and then through the same DC?AC inverter/motor, and the net efficiency is 31.5%.

   Thus the natural gas to hydrogen in a FCV has approximately 47% higher efficiency than taking that same natural gas to make electricity to run a BEV.

   The picture changes, however, if you use a combined cycle NG turbine at 48% efficiency to generate the electricity. In that case the BEV has about 2% higher efficiency than the FCV (32.1% vs. 31.5%)

   As for GHGs, the BEV is a net loser today with the existing US power grid. A 20 mpg gasoline car generates about 570 g/mile of CO2-equivalent according to the Argonne GREET model. That same style car (with equivalent range) as a BEV would generate 715 g/mile on today’s grid, which on the average across the US is 52% from coal. The FCV, by comparison, would generate 306 g/mile assuming that the hydrogen was made from natural gas.

   Nonetheless, we should continue to work on BEVs, and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs), since they do have a major role to play as discussed in my paper. If affordable batteries can be developed that allow ranges of at least 250 to 300 miles and recharge times of less than 20 minutes to allow long-distance travel, then consumers will buy them.

   In the meantime, we should also be pushing ahead with developing FCVs, as almost all major car companies are, since FCVs are the only option today that simultaneously can reduce GHGs to 80% below 1990 levels, virtually eliminate all avoidable urban air pollution, and eliminate nearly all transportation dependence on imported oil.

4. July 3, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
   Sandy Thomas says...
   

   To Stuart Kendall,

   The computer simulation model used to generate the data in my report has been reviewed by a task force of the National Hydroegn Association. Three DOE employees have reviwed the data, and we have incorporated most of their comments. The DOE has not officially reviewd our work yet, in the sense of setting up a team to review it. Several academics have also reviewed some or all of the work, including those at the Argonne National Lab, UC-Davis, Oak Ridge National Lab, NREL, etc.

   Sandy

5. July 3, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
   fc-skeptic says...
   

   Sandy,

   Your calculations all seem to be based on a 50% efficient fuel cell.

   Who has ever demonstrated a 50% efficient fuel cell in a vehicle in real world use?

   Wouldn’t BEVs charged with electricity from nuclear power plants (+renewables to the extent possible) be the most effective way to reduce GHG emissions from cars? Wouldn’t this eliminate the GHGs (as well as the local air pollution)?

   You say: “FCVs are the only option today that simultaneously can reduce GHGs to 80% below 1990 levels, virtually eliminate all avoidable urban air pollution, and eliminate nearly all transportation dependence on imported oil.”

   How can FCVs possibly accomplish these three goals more effectively than BEVs powered with nukes and renewables (zero GHGs, zero oil, zero urban pollution)?

   Is NG really a solution for transportation? What would happen to the price of NG if we had 50 or 100 million cars running on NG? How soon would we deplete domestic NG supplies and end up replacing our dependence on imported oil with dependence on imported NG? Why spend all the money on all the infrastructure for NG and H2 (plus all of the cars) when in a few years we will have to go to nukes and renewables anyway? (Again, as we agree, if the starting point is electricity, then BEVs will always be more efficient than H2 and FCs.)

   You say: “If affordable batteries can be developed that allow ranges of at least 250 to 300 miles and recharge times of less than 20 minutes to allow long-distance travel, then consumers will buy them.”

   WHY is a BEV with anything less than a 250-300 mile range a non-starter? Why wouldn’t a two car household in which one car is used for commuting buy a BEV with a 100 mile range that can be charged overnight? (I certainly would - especially with a tax credit, but even without one.) What percentage of trips driven in cars and light trucks is aready well within the range of today’s batteries? How many people even in one car households would buy the BEV for day-to-day use and just rent a car for the occasional long trip (and still be way ahead cost-wise)?

   Which is easier and cheaper:
   1) building a massive new H2-FCV infrastructure that would still have to be dependent on NG if it is to be more efficient than nuke and renewable powered BEVs, or
   2) getting consumers to accept today’s BEVs, even with their limitations, by getting automakers to stop spending $Billions a year on advertising that tells consumers that they are wimps unless they drive a 4,000+ lb. vehicle that can do 0-60 in 3 seconds and go 400 miles while towing a Space Shuttle? (They really do spend $Billions a year on advertising - I looked it up. Have you seen a commercial for a pick-up truck or an SUV lately?)

   Isn’t this crazy consumer expectation of what a car “must” be (created of course by the automakers) the real problem? Aren’t we really going through the heroics of trying to develop and justify H2FCVs because we lack the political courage to tell ourselves that as a society we can no longer afford to be standing in line at Taco Bell in a Hummer with the engine running?

6. July 3, 2008 @ 9:25 pm
   Sandy Thomas says...
   

   fc-skeptic,
   For a good summary of current fuel cell system status, see “A Comparative Assessment of electric propulsion systems in the 2030 US light-duty vehicle fleet,” by Kromer & Heywood (MIT), SAE 2008 World Congress, Detroit, Michigan, April 14-17, 2008, SAE Report #2008-01-0459. Their Figure 12 shows a baseline FC efficiency plot representing current technology, showing that the FC stack itself has 58% efficiency at peak power, and approaches 70% efficiency at low power. Adding in the system loses, the total FC system has 50% efficiency at peak power, but rising to over 60% efficiency at low power.

   Unlike the internal combustion engine, the FC system efficiency increases with low power. Since car engines operate at an average power draw of only 10% to 15% of peak power averaged over typical drive cycles, this means that the average FC system efficiency is in excess of 50% under actual driving conditions.

   Kromer and Heywood do show a “conservative” FC efficiency curve (FIgure 13), where the peak system efficiency is approximately 45%, but the low power system efficiency is still above 60%.

   For another example, Amory Lovins et. al. (”Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovation for profits, jobs and securities,” Rocky Mountain Institute, http://www.oilendgame.com ) shows that the average efficiency of a fuel cell system for their “Revolution” SUV FCV in urban driving is 59.4% and 58.7% on the highway (page 62).

   In terms of current FCVs on the road, the Honda Clarity achieves approximately three times the fuel economy of a similar sized ICEV. Given that ICEVs achieve something like 15% to 18% efficiency averaged over drive cycles, this would imply a FCV net efficiency of 45% to 54% for the vehicle, including the DC/AC inverter and motor losses. Assuming they are 90% efficient, then the inferred FC system efficiency in this example would be in the range between 50% and 60%. Honda is leasing over 200 Clarity FCVs this year.

   Question: have you read my paper (link above)?

   If you did, you would see that we are not proposing that all hydrogen be made from natural gas over the long run. That will be the lowest cost option to start, and it will reduce GHGs by 45% to 50%. But we postulate in our modeling that we gradually transition over many years to hydrogen made from biofuels such as ethanol or butanol, then from biomass gasification, from coal gasification (with carbon capture and storage) and, eventually, from renewables and from nuclear when the carbon footprint of the grid is reduced, probably 3 to 5 decades from now.

   This is the main virtue of hydrogen: it, like electricity, can be produced from a wide variety of energy sources, ending our reliance on a single energy source for transportation: petroleum.

   I believe that the societal imperatives of reducing GHGs, reducing imported oil and reducing urban air pollution are so strong that we must pursue all options; BEVs, PHEVs, and FCVs.

   I believe that we should have a crash program to develop better batteries, with the goal of developing a BEV that a large segment of consumer will purchase. (And, of course, better batteries will help both PHEVs and FCVs.)

   For the next few decades, however, BEVs, if drivers accept them in mass, do have the drawback of increasing GHGs. And, believe it or not (I presume you will not!), BEVs do very little to cut urban air pollution with our current electrical generation plants. According to the Argonne GREET model (Version 1.8a), the SOx and NOx from power plants either in or upwind of many US urban areas will contribute significant local air pollution. Hydrogen-powered FCVs, on the other hand, dramatically decrease urban air pollution, and cut GHGs by 45% to 50% if the hydrogen is initially made from natural gas.

   This, then, is the dilemma: BEVs would have higher efficiency than the FCV with electricity as the primary source and be environmentally acceptable in 3 to 5 decades once the carbon footprint of the electrical grid is reduced (assuming we really get serious about climate change.) But what do we do in the next 3 to 5 decades when most electricity comes from coal?

   And should we forgo other sources of hydrogen such as biomass, municipal solid waste, landfill gas, coal-bed methane and coal gasification (with sequestration, of course), direct solar production of hydrogen, hydrogen from algae, etc. where the direct prodution of hydrogen is more efficient than making electricity for a BEV, just as making hydroegn from natural gas is more efficient today than making electricity?

   Add to this that potential that not all drivers will accept limited range and long recharging times of BEVs, and we arrive at the conclusion that hydroegn and FCVs must be pursued with vigor.

   This is the conclusion of most auto companies, as you know.

   Sandy

7. July 4, 2008 @ 12:39 pm
   consumer says...
   

   As a consumer and not a science and engineering person I’m interested in cost and convenience of this vehicle of the future. Where will I go to either recharge the battery or fuel my fuel cell? I’m not comfortable thinking the only place I could get a recharge is at home. Will current gasoline filling stations provide and island for quick charges? I’ve read that it costs only pennies to recharge batteries for an electric car. This sounds like a no profit situation for the filling station. Could they make enough profit to justify putting in the charging island? As for the fuel cell vehicle, I think I’ll be waiting longer before I see them running about the country — because of distribution. Will there have to be specially built trucks or pipelines to handle distribution of fuel or will it be manufactured locally at the pump? Either way sounds like an expensive capital investment. Also being a typical American small investor I’d be looking for a fairly quick return on that capital investment (you know what short term thinkers we are). Depending on what form the FC distribution system takes it doesn’t look to me like a fairly quick move to profitability. The straight battery powered car seems to require the least capital investment for distribution and quicker ROI. So rather than arguing about which is the best science, consider the economics of which is the most affordable in the shortest time. Some global warming science types don’t seem to think this planet has 5 decades for us to clean up our act before the planet is locked in for the worst of what warming has to offer. I don’t know if this is so or not.

8. July 7, 2008 @ 10:07 am
   Jennifer says...
   

   Here is a good presentation by General Motors about the hydrogen infrastructure.

9. July 7, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
   Bob Rose says...
   

   Skeptic asks “Who has ever demonstrated a 50% efficient fuel cell in a vehicle in real world use?” NREL is collecting data from the road on more than 90 fuel cell vehicles, and reports that efficiencies are above 50%. Data are posted on the internet for those who want to dig in. Honda publicly speaks of 60% and of achieving the 3x fuel efficiency compared to a comparable conventional vehicle that was the original goal of the DOE program. http://www.world.honda.com/news/2008/4080616First-FCX-Clarity/

   Here’s a summary of early DOE program results asserting efficiencies above 50%. http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/review08/tv_0_garbak.pdf, slide 3.

   A more detailed presentation is at http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/review08/tv_5_wipke.pdf

10. July 7, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
    a.bri says...
    

    Nothing beat fuelcell cars and it’s very cheap to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen fuelcell car drive better too and should last longer and need less maintenance. Hooray for electric technology.

11. July 7, 2008 @ 9:48 pm
    Sandy Thomas says...
    

    To “Consumer”
    Good questions about sources for electricity and hydrogen.
    I think most analysts assume that most people would prefer to recharge their car batteries at home if they owned a BEV. Other options are to recharge at work, and possibly at the mall, etc. Unless quick-charge (less than 20 minutes) batteries are developed, BEVs would probably not be “re-fueled” at a station. But if quick charge batteries are developed in the future, I would argue that the low cost of electricity compared to gasoline would allow more margin for the fueling station while still keeping the net cost to the driver well below the cost of gasoline.

    As for hydrogen, most analysts and studies for the DOE have concluded that the lowest cost hydrogen would be produced at the fueling station by reforming natural gas initially. This avoids the necessity of installing hydrogen pipelines or a fleet of hydrogen tanker trucks before there are millions of FCVs on the road.

    Our own computer simulations (see paper on main blog page above) have shown that the cost of gradually adding distributed hydrogen on-site fueling systems would be considerably less than the cost of maintaining the existing gasoline infrastructure system. In other words, it is less expensive to drill for and clean up natural gas and reform the natural gas to hydrogen on-site, than it is to explore for and produced crude oil, and refine that crude oil to gasoline, and distribute that gasoline to local fueling stations.

12. July 8, 2008 @ 12:48 am
    Rei says...
    

    1. Batteries that charge in less than 20 minutes *do* exist. And so do their chargers. Why is it that fuel cell people continually assume that they don’t? phosphate, spinel, and titanate cell users already charge their packs in 5-10 minutes.

    2. As for “figure 12″ of a paper predicting efficiency in 2030 in some unstated drive conditions. Try this:

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2006.12.073

    That’s 36% for the Fuel Cell Equinox — an actual vehicle — when driving the New European Drive Cycle — a normal drive cycle. Paper from 2007. For comparison, the average EV charger is around 93% efficient at slow charging and ~90% efficient with fast charging, while Li-ion batteries are ~96% efficient at with fast charging and as much as 99.9% at slow charging.

    3. The argument that hydrogen generation gets to come from natural gas but electricity has to come from coal is just plain silly. If you’re going to build all of these natural gas plants to generate hydrogen, the *equivalent* would be to build natural gas plants to make electricity, which have far less CO2 emissions than coal. Of course, contrary to your statements, according to the DOE study conducted at PNL, even *coal* fired electricity for PHEVs produces 30% less GHGs than gasoline.

    Of course, that is assuming natural gas dependency. If you want to switch to electricity, fuel cells must suffer electrolysis losses on top of this. Here’s power plant to well for you (~20% or so):

    http://www.efcf.com/reports/E04.pdf

    4. 32% efficiency for a gas turbine… is this a joke? The *average* efficiency of natural gas power plants in the US is over 40%,and they can go over 50%. Even *coal* averages 33-34% in the US. 85% battery efficiency? Twice? That’s absolutely nothing like li-ion. Why is it that hydrogen proponents always seem to do this? Your way distorted “off the cuff” calculations say:

    “Thus the natural gas to hydrogen in a FCV has approximately 47% higher efficiency than taking that same natural gas to make electricity to run a BEV.”

    Now, here’s what peer-review says:

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V2S-4M04DW9-1&_user=440026&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000020939&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=440026&md5=e7b3b8bfb288aaed28ee38d247e49a24

    p5 — PEMFC - Central reform incl CO2 capt: 25%

    p11 — El. car - NG power plant incl CO2 capt.: 35%

    Do you disagree with peer review?

    “That same style car (with equivalent range) as a BEV would generate 715 g/mile on today’s grid, which on the average across the US is 52% from coal.”

    Once again,I must refer you to peer review. In this case, a DOE study from PNL; can’t get much better than that.

    http://www.pnl.gov/energy/eed/etd/pdfs/phev_feasibility_analysis_combined.pdf

    That’s a 27% *reduction* in transportation GHGs from today’s grid.

    5. “Unlike the internal combustion engine, the FC system efficiency increases with low power. Since car engines operate at an average power draw of only 10% to 15% of peak power averaged over typical drive cycles, this means that the average FC system efficiency is in excess of 50% under actual driving conditions.”

    That’s not how it works in practice. Fuel cells are so incredibly expensive that most commercial and even prototype fuel cell vehicles don’t provide peak power with the fuel cell. Peak power is provided by either li-ion batteries or ultracapacitors. The average drain on the fuel cells is maximized to reduce costs, but thus ruining efficiency.

    6.”Honda is leasing over 200 Clarity FCVs this year.”

    Under tremendous subsidy. And?

    “BEVs do very little to cut urban air pollution with our current electrical generation plants”

    Refer back to the DOE/PNL study.

    “the SOx and NOx from power plants either in or upwind of many US urban areas will contribute significant local air pollution.”

    Not only does PNL disagree, it points out why that’s *impossible* in the case of SOx. Coal plants are generally already at their Clean Air Act SOx limits. To cash in on the profit bonanza from selling extra power to BEVs/PHEVs, they’d need to install better scrubbers.

    7. “Add to this that potential that not all drivers will accept limited range and long recharging times of BEVs,”

    Defend this. Use: LiP, spinel, or titanate batteries, and Aerovironment PosiCharge 60-250kW chargers. Charger prices are half that of an equivalent hydrogen pump. Battery pack prices are nearly order of magnitude less than an equivalent fuel cell stack. Go ahead.

    Why do H2 advocates always insist on this old stereotype?

    8. ” showing that the FC stack itself has 58% efficiency at peak power, and approaches 70% efficiency at low power”

    But you see, there’s the rub. An ICE would be ~35% efficiency, but the parasitic losses of actually *running itself* lower this to ~20%. PEMFCs have the exact same problem. You lose energy in the air supply system. You have to compress it (small compressors are only 10-20% efficient)and dehumidify it. In cold weather, you have to heat the exhaust system. And so on. This lowers it to 30-50%. You can cheat and use bottled oxygen and only operate at higher temperatures, and thus get higher efficiency numbers, but that’s obviously not realistic.

13. July 8, 2008 @ 6:37 am
    BlackbirdHighway says...
    

    Isn’t this all way too early? Practical fuel cells are still decades away.

    The cost of the Honda FCX is up around a million dollars.

    One Honda exec said in an interview that in ten years they hope to get the price down to the level of high-end sports cars, in other words about $100,000.

    As long as they are that expensive, fuel cells are going nowhere.

    The only purpose they serve at this time is to get R&D handouts from the government, and distract people away from other, more imminently viable solutions.

14. July 8, 2008 @ 9:44 am
    Joachim Colling says...
    

    Hydrogen (if available) can be used today in a combustion engine without a fuel cell.
    What are the advantages of also using a fuel cell?
    asks “Not a fc-sceptic”
    http://www.collings-system.se

15. July 8, 2008 @ 10:56 am
    GoodCheer says...
    

    “That same style car (with equivalent range) as a BEV would generate 715 g/mile on today’s grid, which on the average across the US is 52% from coal.”

    I don’t know how the GREET model works, but I do know that EVs typically use about 250 Wh per mile, measured at the battery. This was the case for the EV1, is the case for the Tesla (EPA certified), our ACP eBox, and every other car-sized EV for which data exists (of course the Aptera uses about half that). If we are conservative with transmission and conversion losses we could say about 320 Wh must be generated to drive a mile.
    At the same time, according to the EIA, the carbon intensity of the existing US electric grid is just UNDER 600 g(CO2)/kWh. So all the EVs produce about (600 x .32) <200 g/mile. I would have to know more about GREET to understand why they come up with 3.5 times that much, but the EIA numbers are pretty straight forward.

16. July 8, 2008 @ 10:54 pm
    giyad says...
    

    Rei… I’ve seen you post about BEV’s vs Hydrogen on so many different pages, and every time you do no one ever responds haha… I’m dying to hear a response from someone with a technical background in this stuff just to believe that this really is a debate still, but so far it seems like you can’t lose!

17. July 10, 2008 @ 4:15 am
    Joachim Colling says...
    

    This blog is about “Comparing Transportation Options”.
    I asked a simple question:”Hydrogen (if available) can be used today in a combustion engine without a fuel cell. What are the advantages of also using a fuel cell?
    Is here nobody who can answer or is the question to simple. Already during the 80th Russian car makers and Mercedes experimented with such a solution. What happened?

    July 8, 2008 @ 9:44 am
    Joachim Colling says…

    Hydrogen (if available) can be used today in a combustion engine without a fuel cell.
    What are the advantages of also using a fuel cell?
    asks “Not a fc-sceptic”
    http://www.collings-system.se

18. July 11, 2008 @ 7:23 am
    Joachim Colling says...
    

    My question is very well answered in Wikipedia under “Hydrogen vehicle”. There is no need to answer my quesion here.

19. July 12, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
    Sandy Thomas says...
    

    To Joachim Colling: You are certainly correct that hydrogen can be used in an internal combustion engine. BMW and Ford have been developing hydrogen ICEs for many years, and BMW has built a small fleet of hydogen-powered ICEVs for demonstration projects around the world. Mazda is also developing their rotary engine to run on hydrogen.

    However, the ICE still has very low efficiency when running on hydrogen. Ford showed that efficiency could be improved up to 25% by running the engine with high compression ratio and lean burn.

    But a fuel cell vehicle (FCV) achieves 2.2 to 2.4 times higher fuel economy than an ICE. Thus the FCV running on hydrogen can dramatically cut the cost of fuel per mile, and hence the GHGs.

    The other disadvantage of hydroegn ICEVs is urban air pollution. While hydrogen burns much cleaner that gasoline, the nitrogen in the air combines with oxygen in the ICE combustion chambers to form NOx, a key ingredient of urban smog precursors. In addition, small amounts of CO and VOCs are also formed from engine oil.

    Finally, FCVs will eventually be lower cost and have much lower operating costs than ICEs. The fuel cell itself has no moving parts. Some day you will have to explain to your grandchildren how an internal combustion engine worked when all cars run on fuel cells. They will be amazed to find out that we actually set off explosions in these little cans and had pieces of metal that were rammed up and down, with connecting rods to convert linear motion from these explosions into rotary motion to drive the wheels.

    So a hydroegn-powered ICEV (particularly a hydrogen-powered ICE hybrid) would be a good stepping-stone to the eventual winner: the fuel cell vehicle.

20. July 13, 2008 @ 4:13 am
    Joachim Colling says...
    

    Comparing Transportation Options: Thanks Sandy, for your reply to my question about hydrogen vehicles.

    The problem is that there seem to be many fuel options. In Sweden there is regarded 85% Ethanol from mainly sugar cane with 15% gasoline a short term solution.

    Even Biogas from mainly municipal waste is used for a local captive market, usually municipal vehicles. Methane can be used but has only a slightly less CO2 output than gasoline. Electricity can be regarded as a fuel to simplify definitions. In this blog there seem to be a number of advocates of BEVs - but the problem is how the electricity is produced.

    I agree that the FCV is the most important alternative, but a future solution. The costs are at present to high and one has to think about the best way to reach this aim: an affordable FCV.

    Fuel cells of many different kinds are already at present commercial viable for small to medium sized stationary electricity generating plants, especially if cogenerating heat. The more such installations are promoted the more the public will become concious of the future of fuel cells also for transportation and support the development. Production and distribution of hydrogen for these plants might be a way to also start production and distribution for transportation purposes.

    My question about Hydrogen vehicles was prompted by the thought that they might be a stepping stone to FCVs because they would require the build up of an hydrogen infrastructure. Apparently,as you say, hybrid hydrogen vehicles are already viable if there were an hydrogen infrastructure.

    In this connection one should discuss the ways and means of transporting and storing hydrogen as part of the discussion of transportation options, as compressed gas or in metallhydrids.

    I am now 81 years old and there are no grandchildren who might wonder in the future about the pistons of combustion engines. I am only an amateur “thinker” because I was involved in the energy supply in the Stockholm area as a locally elected politician.

21. July 14, 2008 @ 11:02 am
    Joachim Colling says...
    

    Comparing Transportation Options:

    This blog is, of course, concerned with the development of fuel cells for transportation purposes. See sponsor! There are not many fc-sceptics participating in the discussion. The different opinions arise from opinions of what are the best steps to reach the aim.

    I have until now been a believer in the “Hydrogen Economy” as the next step from the “Coal and Oil Economy”. Sandy who introduced this thread is involved in the production of hydrogen from Natural Gas but also aiming to used Ethanol - and I hope also in the future from alternative renewable sources.

    Recently I have observed in literature the concept of a “Methanol Economy”. Methanol can also be produced from Natural Gas but instead of waiting for alternative renewable sources it can be apparently also sequestered from CO2. How efficient is this process?

    A German research institute has developed a vehicle (scooter) using an effective fuel cell for Methanol - DMFC (Direct Methanol Fuel Cell).

    What is the opinion of participants in this discussion regarding the parallell development of an Hydrogen Economy and a Methanol Economy in the transportation sector?

    Joachim Colling - http://www.collings-system.se - joachim.colling@bredband.net

22. July 17, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
    Bud says...
    

    Blackbird,

    I’m amazed at the skepticism on this board. Are fuel cell vehicles going to be available next week at your showroom? No, but you offer no solutions. Technology takes time to develop, and that’s what you’re witnessing.

    I say hats off to the private industry, largely spending their own money on R&D to pursue this, and other vehicle options!

23. July 18, 2008 @ 3:46 am
    Joachim Colling says...
    

    On July 17 Fuelcell Jennifer placed a link here called “Here” to information about Hydrogen availability.

    However, it is unclear to me if the number given of retail outlets (stations with 900 bar pressure) is the planned number or the existing.

    How many stations are there today in the New York and the Los Angeles areas. What price do they charge as compared with gasoline

    Which type or how many vehicles are using the existiong outlets?

    The information also states that there are larger hydrogen producing plants near most of the larger cities of the US.

    What is the rentability if the hydrogen is produced in a smaller local plant at the station as compared with delivery from a large station.

    Sandy mentioned that hydrogen hybrid vehicles might fill the gap until fuel cells become economically viable. Toyota experiments also with hydrogen hybrids. Are there any on the market yet?

24. July 19, 2008 @ 2:44 am
    Joachim Colling says...
    

    Jennifer placed her link “Here” on the 7th not 17th. Sorry.

25. July 19, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
    fc-skeptic says...
    

    “Honda publicly speaks of 60% and of achieving the 3x fuel efficiency compared to a comparable conventional vehicle that was the original goal of the DOE program.”

    Honda also calls 200 vehicles over 3 years “production” in a 60 million vehicle/year market.

    Honda is no more credible than any other automaker.

26. July 28, 2008 @ 2:04 am
    How To Run A Car On Water says...
    

    How To Run A Car On Water…

    Is there any way I can subscribe to your blog? Thanks!…

27. August 8, 2008 @ 2:21 am
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    I didn’t agree with you first, but last paragraph makes sense for me…

28. August 10, 2008 @ 12:48 am
    Best Buy Cheap Wedding Invitations Online Shopping says...
    

    Best Buy Cheap Wedding Invitations Online Shopping…

    I didn’t agree with you first, but last paragraph makes sense for me…

29. September 3, 2008 @ 3:09 pm
    Fuel Cell Insider » Recent Reports Highlight Commercialization Targets and How We Can Achieve Them says...
    

    [...] is coming down dramatically (based on various conference presentations in Europe, Asia, and the US), at least two technology pathways now exist to get high-volume “fuel cell engine” costs below [...]

30. October 15, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
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    That’s redonkulous, but I like it anyway….

31. October 24, 2008 @ 9:18 am
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    Anyone up for trying this out with me?…

32. October 27, 2008 @ 4:02 am
    Run Your Car on Water Scam says...
    

    Run Your Car on Water Scam…

    Just out of curiosity, has anyone installed a water fuel cell kit in their car here?…

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