Comments on: Project Driveway Update

By: madhuts

madhuts — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:51:10 +0000

Hi,

I tried to add image but I don’t know how to do this
Can anyone be kind to tell me how?

thanks a lot

By: Ana Russo

Ana Russo — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 19:30:14 +0000

You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.

By: GM-VOLT : Chevy Volt Concept Site » The Garage Doors Have Opened on Project Driveway

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 16:58:34 +0000

[...] We have been hearing for a while about GM’s project driveway (see post). This refers to their large-scale experiment in which 100 people will get to use Fuel Cell Equinoxes for several months of real world driving. [...]

By: Bob Goldschmidt

Bob Goldschmidt — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 01:16:06 +0000

Jeff M. The issue with natural gas vs gasoline is as follows:

Cost per million BTU’s
gasoline — $24
natural gas — %8

Carbon per million BTU’s
gasoline — 20.3 Kg
natural gas — 14.5 Kg

Also according to The Oil Drum and APSO oil will outstrip supply within 5 years while natural gas should last about 15 years.

Seems like a much preferable bridge fuel to Hydrogen. Instead of stripping the hydrogen out of the natural gas, just burn the whole thing and put all of its energy to use.

By: Jeff M

Jeff M — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:55:33 +0000

Neil; I googled for high temperature hydrolysis and found nothing useful. Please provide more info or a pointer to something useful, thanks.

High temp implies the water is being heated… meaning more energy in that you aren’t getting out (of the hydrogen produced). Maybe the hydrolysis of the high temp water will require less electricity at this stage… but that savings there is probably more than negatively offset by the energy to heat the water.

Regrading NG (natural gas) as the source of hydrogen, as I had previously mentioned is indeed more efficient than from water (CH4 vs H2O), but the byproduct is CO2, and because of the energy required to compress and transport, and the inefficiency of the fuel cell compared to a Li-ion battery, well-to-wheel it’s less efficient than a BEV.

Regarding hydrogen from gasification of biomass… like ethanol production, don’t forget to add in the costs of producing the biomass (energy to plant, fertilize, water, harvest). It does look a little more efficient than ethanol production as you don’t need to distill it, but looks like heat and steam is needed in the gasification process. And like all hydrogen sources, add in compressing and transporting, and FC inefficiency.

In any case, bottom line is that there’s a reason why big oil & gas and the Bush admin (made up of individuals from oil and gas) is so behind a “hydrogen economy”. Their products will still be the primary (directly and indirectly) source of hydrogen, and they keep you tied to an infrastructure of filling stations… that means not only that CO2 is still a problem, but we are still dependent on non-renewable fossil fuels from outside the US as we are today.