AND 
GM Says Goodbye to Oil and Hello to Hydrogen
GM is about to launch a new corporate advertising campaign, beginning with a commercial to be aired on June 22 during NBCs Meet the Press.
The TV commercial will apparently begin with the following Dear John letter from GM:
“Dear Oil,
We’ve had this great relationship for many years. We think we will both be a lot happier and healthier if we see less of each other.”
It truly remarkable to see the changes that are underfoot. A massive industry, and a leading giant within it is beginning to swear off the stuff that made it all happen for the last 100 years.
Source (Automotive News, subscription required)
On a related note, GM has just announced a partnership with Clean Energy Fuels Corp to build a new hydrogen fueling station in Los Angeles near LAX. GM has been engineering hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for some time and already has a fleet of 100 fuel cell Equinoxes in consumers hands called Project Driveway (see my test drive video). The fuel cell generator Volt is also production intent (2012′ish), and now has Nick Zielinksi as its vehicle line director.
Despite GMs clear desire to bring fuel cells to the masses, they have been stymied by the lack of infrastructure. Apparently reluctant to wait for the infrastructure to build itself, and spurred by the latest gas and oil prices, GM has obviously decided to help do it themselves.
In the words of Mary Beth Stanek, director of energy and environmental policy & commercialization at GM, “Developing and growing hydrogen infrastructure is vital to GM’s efforts to bring larger volumes of fuel cell vehicles to the market.”
Source (GM)
June 11th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
I wish them well and I hope it does not turn in to another fiasco like food based biofuels.
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
I like the idea of hydrogen fuel cells; but the hydrogen infrastructure just isn’t in place. If GM can create interest in hydrogen and the development of the necessary infrastructure, more power to them.
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
They do not have to have nationwide infrastructure, they can start with one city and work out from there. It is hard since Gas Stations are bound by contract to only sell gas…..
LA/California seems like the right place to start.
Hydrogen does have issues though….mainly storage and safety issues.
Even if they do not compress it to the point of having to cool it to keep it in liquid form, riding around with compressed hydrogen under my seat would give me pause.
I am sure this can be overcome though. I am still wondering about the life/replacement cost of the membranes in the fuel cells…..Anyone know the life of the membranes and how much they would cost to replace?
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
I’m not sure that this is the direction we should be going in. With an electrical car the individual does have the option to generate power from the sun or wind right at their own home. Hydrogen powered vehicles tether us once again. It may be inevitable…time will tell. I”m waiting for my Volt.
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Hydrogen takes 4 times the energy to create than it does to charge a battery to go the same distance with a car. It just doesn’t make sense. I’m really hoping for a breakthrough technology (EEStor? I know, probably vaporware) that will allow for all the benefits of a battery without the drawbacks of a chemical storage system.
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
Has appealing Hydrogen can be, it is not a short or even a medium term solution… more a long term solution.
Hydrogen will use for house fuel cell before it is commonly use for car
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
I am not a big fan of hydrogen and fuel cells. In fact last week I was reading about some mileage contest. A bunch of students signed up and designed fuel cell cars. The designs were then evaluated. Twenty fuel cells were then handed out for the students to work with.
The story said the fuel cell were worth $82,000. Thats a little steep for me.
Take Care
Arch
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
I guess it is the Toyota/GM battle again.
Toyota have a new hydrogen membrane that gives a 516 mile range.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/feedarticle/7566956
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Setting up hydrogen stations across the country today should be just as important to the government as the Manhattan Project was in the 1940s. It’s that important and should be dealt with the same urgency. Developing more powerful batteries for plugins such as the Volt should also be dealt with just as urgently. Just imagine all the money that would be pumped back into our economy instead of OPEC or some terrorist “KING” in Saudi Arabia!
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Hydrogen is dead. Unless you are going to strip natural gas, which would be more efficient to use directly as a fuel, then you need electrolysis. This process end to end is at least a factor of two less efficient than charging a battery directly with the required electrical energy.
You also don’t have to deal with H2, who has the broadest range of explosive mixture ratios with air of any gas and is the smallest molecule and thus the most easily leaked. Add to that the exorbitant cost of the fuel cell after over 30 years of development as well as the fuel transport, filling and on board storage issues. GM would be much better off diverting all of their hydrogen development resources over to EV’s.
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Hydrogen is STILL a Big Oil idea.
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
What a total waste of money. If they put the same amount of money into EV development as Fuel Cell development they would be a whole lot better off.
If you are getting the H2 from Gas it would be better just to burn it directly in CNG vehicles. If the H2 is coming from Nuclear power stations it would be better to just put the electricity directly into a battery.
Now where is my Volt?
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
They already have 100 fuel cell Equinoxes?
Lets see now, the current average price for a fuel cell vehicle is about a million dollars, multiply that by 100 and you get $100 million already spent by GM.
Now I see why they call them ‘fool cells’.
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June 11th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I can’t stand hydrogen. It’s so much less efficient than just plugging in. Why lose 60% of your electrical energy by converting electricity to hydrogen and then back again? The only quasi-smart argument I’ve heard is to overcome the range limitations of an EV. I guess it’s better to have a fuel cell range extender than a gas range extender but it would be better still to put the $$$ that the fuel cell costs into a larger battery in the first place.
I’m convinced that developing a quick charge system for EV’s isn’t that hard. It’s certainly less of a challenge than making fuel cell’s feasible. With a 110 volt current, it takes what? 6 hours to charge the volt? Double that too 220 volt (dryer plug) and you’re down to three hours. I can’t be that hard to create charging stations that are ~ 2000 volts and can charge your battery in 20 minutes or so.
I guess to really make it feasible you’d need a lot more juice than that to recharge an EV with a 300 mile range but it should still be feasible using capacitors and super duper charging stations.
What I hate is the misconception that hydrogen is this great energy source when really it’s just an inefficient way to store electricity.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I love the idea of a “Dear Oil” commercial and it definitely is a good move from a PR standpoint.
But here are the questions that remain:
1) Infrastructure? 1 station in California is not gonna do it unless a fill-up lasts for a couple years.
2) Is hydrogen really the answer? What this country (USA) needs is to settle on the best energy source to move away from Oil to. Then, through legislation if necessary, get the energy companies to chip in and start implementing that energy source apart of their national product.
I will say it is great to see GM trying to be a leader here. Even though the higher authorities are not being that. I just wonder if GM can get the necessary pieces to follow suit.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
So we’re bringing up hydrogen again, are we ? Well, #4 Eric C is correct. In my not so humble opinion, this Hinden-gas is a dead-end.
1) We would use an enormous amount of electricity to create the hydrogen, compress it to liquid form, and transport it is very heavily insulated container trucks to filling stations.
2) Your “gas” tank would also have to be heavily insulated – and heavy. Hydrogen tends to find the smallest defect in any container, and escape the container. Food for thought when you get in your Hinden-car to go to work, and light that morning cigarette.
3) Hydrogen uses fuel cells to be “green”. Fuel cells are expensive, as they use platinum as a vital component. Does anyone know the life span of a fuel cell used for daily driving ? Fuel cells perform poorly in cold weather, and can be damaged by the bumps and vibrations of daily driving.
4) Hydrogen is a poor substitute for gasoline. Even under cyrogenic conditions, hydrogen’s volumetric energy density (megajoules per liter) is small relative to that of gasoline – not as much bang for the buck.
If you want to educate yourself about hydrogen, use this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_car
Right now ,barring EEStor producing something that actually works, the Volt is our best bet. It is the best marriage of pure electric, the choice to use gas or not, and the advantages of mass production. I believe a natural gas ICE would be even better than gasoline ICE, as natural gas burns cleaner, and the oil in the ICE would stay cleaner for much longer. Availability is the only problem, but LNG is far safer than hydrogen.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
yea right!! I believe it when I there is stations in CA AND!! within driving distance from my local community.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I am also skeptical of Hydrogen as anything other than a longest-range solution … for cars.
However, it might be just what the doctor ordered for Aviation.
I read a lot of comments on this blog about people expecting the Volt and similar vehicles to cause a drop in the price of oil, but few people realize just how much oil is burned in aircraft turbines. (A lot of oil is used in the manufacture of plastics chemicals and medicines, but I’ll leave that alone, for now).
NASA once proposed a test program which would stretch a commercial airliner to accomodate spherical liquid hydrogen tanks (maybe Nasaman can fill in some the blanks in my memory). Among other benefits, thinner wings (no longer holding kerosene) would be more aerodynamically efficient, turbines would burn it more easily, last longer doing it, and be lighter due to shorter combustion chambers. The hydrogen fuel would be much lighter than kerosene, and be easier to for the plane to carry.
The plane would have run a regular shuttle between Vandenburg and Kennedy Space Center (there being a ready supply of liquid hydrogen in both places for Space launches), collecting test data as it did so. It was hoped that this would lead to a commercial adoption of hydrogen fuel for aviation.
The funding was cut, of course, and the plane never flew.
What if this program was revived? There are a lot fewer places where aircraft of this size might refuel, and fewer facilities for providing liquid hydrogen would be needed than a meaningful system for cars. It’s hard to see what else could replace Petroleum for aircraft.
Interestingly, the adoption of hydrogen for cars could be an effect of this Aviation revolution; much of the infrastructure could spread from the Nation’s airports out into the cities, then the countryside.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I’m really glad to see so many savvy responses here. Hydrogen, as sexy as it is, isn’t an economical energy storage material. if we create H2 from natural gas, what is the point? With the inefficiency of electrolysis, we’d me much better off just charging batteries with the electricity and bypassing all the gas compression and safety issues.
Until it becomes cheap and environmentally/politically friendly to fill a tank with Hydrogen, the entire concept of a fuel cell car is academic.
(Tesla motors has some great material on the subject.)
Part of me wishes that the car companies would stop hyping fuel cells and get to work on delivering viable alternatives. I take refuge in the knowledge that most of the strides in fuel cell cars are really strides in electric cars. All you have to do is swap out the H2 tanks and fuel cell for some batteries and presto! Electric cars!
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
GM, ??, Honda with new CR-Z in 2009 @ 40+ mpg and calc the by-back vs. the “Volt”?? or, the new redesigned Prius with 20% more mpg and GM comes the loser…again…bye..bye. Also, Volvo with the the re-charge in “sleeper-mode” could be a “spoiler” for GM’s “Volt”.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
WHAT? They should use that time to promote the Volt or even the EV1. i would take either one instead of a hydrogen. I can’t beleive that are still going around the plug in cars. They have the solution now why not retool several lines of cars and start making them plug ins? All we hear is 2010 maybe for the volt. I want my Volt now or the EV1. I dont care which one, just give me an option that is ready now and not 2 or 10 years from now. It seems they are stalling so they can get the most out of the high price of oil. The economy is going down quickly. We need change NOW!
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
My point above in a nutshell (dang edit timer expired):
There is no compelling case for hydrogen powered cars, but there could be for hydrogen powered aircraft. If the things are done which need to be to make hydrogen the next great aviation fuel, this may result in hydrogen for cars.
Trying to make hydrogen happen for cars as a first case is probably doomed, unless some technology is developed which can only be used for making hydrogen (such as high temperature reactors which cause thermal dissociation of water, or a sunlight-driven chemical reaction to split water with a greater efficiency than would be attained with photovoltaic cells).
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
It’s probably waay too soon to get excited about fuel cells. The fuel cells are going to have to get a lot more durable, reliable and most of all CHEAPER before we can replace the IC engine range extender with a fuel cell range extender.
Maybe by 2015 or so, they’ll finally have mature fuel cell technology that’s cheaper and ready for prime time. Toyota is in the fuel cell technology race along with Honda and GM these days. Toyota said this week they have a fuel cell that can go 520 miles. I’m sure GM will build a fuel cell vehicle that can do the same thing before long.
Once GM and the other car companies can make fuel cell vehicles cheaper they should try to get corporate fleets to buy them …. companies like UPS, Fedex, USPS, Waste Management and Wal Mart. Those corporate customers could work together and build more and more hydrogen pumps in each city for their fleets. If the big corporate fleets like the hydrogen vehicles and they say they that they’re reliable and safe and so forth, then GM and the other car companies ought to get serious about bringing them to us mainstream customers … if they are affordable of course.
I’m sure most people would love to yank the IC engine out of their Volt and drop in a fuel cell in 5-10 years if that’s possible. The 1 liter IC engine in the Volt and a fuel cell are both just battery chargers. But the fuel cell is THE ultimate thing we could do to help the environment (and for energy independence) if they can get the hydrogen CHEAPLY from water via solar power or something. Getting it from natural gas isn’t too environmentally friendly. We’ll NEVER run out of hydrogen if we can get it cheap from water someday … plenty of ocean water you know. If that happens, fossil fuels and ethanol fuels will definitely go the way of the dinosaur.
Hydrogen fuel cells could save a lot of weight in future vehicles if there isn’t some sort of big breakthrough in battery technology like Dr. Cui at Stanford’s nanowire lithium ion battery or EEStor’s ultracapacitor. Hopefully, quick charging, lightweight batteries that have ten times more capacity will emerge and we won’t even need hydrogen. That would be THE ideal scenario. Who knows what’s going to happen in the next 5-10 years. I just know we need to get rid of the IC engine completely as soon as possible if we can do it. The world will beat a path to the door of whatever company can design a better battery and range extender battery charger.
The environment in polluted countries like China could use fuel cell cars SOON … like right now. You think LA has some air pollution problems? I hear Beijing, China is REALLY bad. They’ll be embarrassed about it during the Olympics this summer. For some stupid reason, I hear they are building new coal plants in China like crazy these days … and they probably couldn’t care less about capturing the CO2 either. People in America would be protesting like crazy if their cities were as polluted as they are in China these days.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Honda is “sleeping”, but that doesn’t mean they are “asleep”. The new stuff from Honda will smoke!!
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I’m trying to get off of the oil merry-go-round, so I’m not about to willingly get on the hydrogen ferris wheel.
I will not buy a hydrogen fueled car and will not recommend it to anyone else. If it was a choice between a GM hydrogen car and another car maker that had a range extended petrol car or a pure battery electric, I’d take anything but the hydrogen car.
GM tell me right now what will a “gallon/litre/cubic liter of hydrogen cost? How much hydrogen migrates out of the cars “fuel” tanks? How much hydrogen is lost while refueling the car?
The life of a fuel cell is very short, costly and I suspect high maintenance, is that the reason it’s being fanatically pushed? Looking for maintenance and parts revenue?
I have a dream of energy freedom and it’s very close to happening with an electric car and photovoltaics. Why would anyone give that up for the hydrogen ball and chain?
GM, please share the facts that we seem to be missing as to why hydrogen is the answer and your spending millions on a technology that isn’t even close to being released. Hmmm… if you had pursued the EV1 program with the same “energy” given to the fuel cell programs, the Volt would be on the roads now.
Change my mind with facts. Educate me, don’t just cram a product down my throat.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
China’s problem is not going to be oil. It will be potable water. The next “world war” will disguised as “oil” but will really be about water!!
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Gripe all you want, but the future will be PFCV’s (plug-in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles). Hydrogen doesn’t go stale, like gasoline, so it eliminates that issue in a range extender.
The city, state and federal governments like hydrogen, because they can tax that like gasoline, so that their road maintenance revenues don’t disappear.
GM is wisely getting into the energy business as well. After the infrastructure is built out, they can always sell their stake in the fueling stations.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
Hydrogen is a “joke” in CA. there is no statioins to “fill-up”
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
If hydrogen is so great, why aren’t we using it in place of natural gas in our furnaces, stoves, hot water heaters, and clothes dryers?
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Regarding China and water, remember, Lake Baikal (biggest fresh water source in the world) is just to their North – in Russia.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Nuclear + wind + solar + electric is the answer.
We’ll use REVs until the electric car is ready to go all by itself. Hydrogen is not the answer.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Buy the time the hydrogen fuel cell in CA is ready, the technology will haven changed, thus making the “fuel-cell” a status symbol for the rich.
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June 11th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
This is purely PR bullshit, Fuel cell may be another 10-30 years away. So long GM is a public company under constant pressure to cook the book every 90 days, it can never learn to act in its best interest in long-term.
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June 11th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
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June 11th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
My understanding is that large quantity, industrial grade hydrogen is produced by natural gas refining and a coal steam refining process. It is certainly not clean and efficient. Is it any wonder that George Bush and the hydrocarbon industry is promoting hydrogen use. Hydrogen is a George Bush red herring!!!
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June 11th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
I believe a diesel (powered by algae diesel) ICE would be even better than gasoline ICE, algae biodiesel is almost carbon neutral, would never run out, and the algae could actually help “digest” millions of pounds of CO2 from coal plants.
http://www.solazyme.com/news080122.shtml
Watch the video – this will work. 1000 plants making 10000 gallons per day = 10 million gallons of American made biodiesel per day! 100 jobs per plant = 100,000 new high paying American jobs.
Algae Biodiesel + Solar + Nuclear + Wind + Geothermal + Conservation + Plug in Hybrid cars = the answer!
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June 11th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
NanoSolar
“”because there is no silicon used in the production of the sheets, they cost only 30 cents per watt of power produced.
“Traditional PV cells cost approximately $3 per watt, while burning coal costs about $1 per watt.
“This is the first time that we can actually drop the cost of solar electricity down to a level that would be competitive with grid electricity in most industrialized nations,” said Nanosolar co-founder Brian Sager.”"
Here’s the link to the article.
http://www.naturalnews.com/023389.html
Will hydrogen cost less than electricity from a NanoSolar array? How does a hydrogen powered car better my life? When I’m off at work the NanoSolar array is busy pumping electricity back into the grid and I’m receiving a check back from the power company. Oh you say, can’t charge the Volt on your solar array while it’s at work. True, but, the array is pumping electricity into the grid at likely peak rates. After work I drive home plugin and recharge the car during off peak rates. That would be a profitable situation. Hmm…. seems like the investment in solar arrays and an electric car would be much better than an expensive, high maintenance hydrogen-gas station tied fuel cell car.
Freedom from oil, freedom from corporate fueling stations, freedom from fuel price speculation, freedom from dealing with barbaric foreign nations, freedom from the carbon issue.
It’s freedom pure and simple.
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June 11th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
I love hydrogen too. Too bad it will not be the fuel of choice for passenger cars. No way will it beat the quick-charge BEV.
Hydrogen is:
1) Four times less energy efficient when compared to BEVs.
2) Ties us to another liquid fuel that can be taxed and controlled.
3) Expensive maintenance required. High pressure systems.
4) Must replace all kinds of filters (water, particulate). Clean water supply is needed.
5) Hydrogen is incredibly hard to store. embarrassingly so.
Don’t worry, the research is funded by us tax payers and is a worthwhile endeavor. Might be good for many niche markets. Much of the money is being used for car electrification development. All is well.
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June 11th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
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June 11th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Hydrogen makes little sense. Expensive amounts of energy is required to sever very tight bonds in molecules to free up the hydrogen. Bob Lutz got this right – “If we can get battery technology to 300 miles a charge, why do fuel cells.” Apologies. That isn’t an exact quote, but this quote came from this website about two months back.
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June 11th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
If anyone watches the video in the “Bob Lutz discusses….test drive” blog post he alludes to how difficult it is to develop H2 cars. Rapid refill is no reason to squander all that energy in conversion when it’s not needed. The rapid refill argument is pointless because by the time H2 vehicles hit the market we may have a 300+ mile range, and even if by that time it still took 30 minutes to charge the batt. what kind of problem is that?
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:03 am
If hydrogen were the answer we wouldn’t have any coal burning power plants. If hydrogen is the answer it would still be more efficient to just have hydrogen burning plants and all electric cars. Apparently the range from batteries is closer than hydrogen cars.
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:24 am
15 Jackson……
I was not involved in the proposed hydrogen-powered airliner test program you mention and I’m not aware of what happened to it, but I agree it seems hydrogen would be a better fuel for planes than jet fuel for the same reasons it works so well for rockets — high energy content and light weight. PLUS, it’s non-polluting!
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Just bought my new to me H1 Hummer , (wife runs Cracker B) free SWO , 75gl week , Keep the faith , times are going south , GM stock 16.20 (close to historic lows) , keep watching . GM stock at below $10 soon . Lets all get rich!!!!!!
The volts a dun deal. we all know that in 2011 gm will be selling e-flex cars like hot cakes . So do your pocket books a favor and GO AWAY . For real , get a life, make love, Go away . My shop is going to hell in a hand basket .My best last chance to make millions GM BELOW $7 soon
PS.. Life goes bye so fast , Stop and give a hug to the ones you love .
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:35 am
The very fact that GM, BMW & other auto makers are still unabashedly promoting hydrogen strongly suggests to me that they know something we don’t. For example, I know there is serious work going on in labs around the world using various means to generate hydrogen locally by means other than electrolysis. Some of this work might be starting to look promising enough that GM, BMW or others are actually funding it –secretly. Intriguing? YOU BET!!!
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Jeff J 39:
What are you talking about?
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Re: my post #40 above…….
By generating hydrogen locally, I mean IN THE VEHICLE. This way, the gigantic problems of storage (high-tech, expensive tanks), boil-off, infrastructure & distribution suddenly go away (or become much easier). VEHICLE-BORNE H2 GENERATION IS AN INTRIGUING POSSIBILITY!!!
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Correct Nasaman #42,
I follow you, three must be a way with gallium and aluminium like they do research in Purdue University.
Let’s go back in 2005 and reread this news :
http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=1326
Hope that helps.
JC
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:25 am
1st I must say I’m so glad to see most folks (from those that have posted thus far) have finally awaken to the “hydrogen hoax/myth”) and are no longer being taken in by this delay tactic of the auto and big oil/gas industries.
Key thing to remember is that hydrogen is NOT a fuel source… it is simply a way to store energy from other sources (electrical or natural gas). Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but unless you go visit a gas giant planet or a sun, you aren’t going to find it naturally occuring on our planet because it’s bonded to other elements (oxygen as in water, and carbon as in hydrocarbons like oil, gas, coal). As has been mentioned it’s a very inefficient way to store electrical energy (by using it to free hydrogen from water) even before you compress (or chill) it and then store it. Natural gas, ie. CH4, is the most economical source of hydrogen using the process someone mentioned above, but guess what happens with that carbon atom, yup, CO2. And you also see why big oil/gas and the Bush admin has been spending so much of your tax dollars on developing.
2nd, folks that think a “hydrogen highway” will free them from the high costs of “filling up” are being naive. You are replacing one single energy source system (gasoline) with another (hydrogen). Hydrogen prices go through the roof and just like today we’ll have to grin and bear it. And since natural gas is the most likely source I can see the price of it skyrocket so those that heat with it will freeze, and electrical utilities using it will have to raise rates. All the while big oil/gas will continue to rank in record profits.
The real flex fuel (energy medium) is electricity… it can efficiently be produced from a variety of sources (coal, natural gas, wood, nuclear, hydro, geothermal, solar thermal, solar PV’s, wind, tidal, wave, garbage, algae, etc), efficiently transported, efficiently stored, and efficiently converted to mechanical energy. No single industry like big oil/gas can control the market. And as solar PV and wind prices comes down, more and more will be able to produce their own to electricity to charge up their BEV’s.
I must say I’m really bothered by GM (and other auto makers) continuing trying to push hydrogen. It really ruins in my eyes GM’s credibility they’ve been gaining with the Volt’s development. Tsk tsk GM.
ps: and to the person claiming hydrogen is better because it doesn’t go “stale” like gasoline… read other threads on this site… it’s not an issue. Hydrogen on the other hand, being the lighest of all elements, is hard to contain for long. You don’t have to worry about it going “stale” because it will boil off or otherwise disappate/leak. There’s a reason why hydrogen isn’t easily piped like gasoline is… it also tends to make things brittle.
pss: while at the point of use the “only” emission from a hydrogen fuel cell EV is water… a battery EV has no emissions! And I still continue to wonder what happens to all that water emitted by hundreds of millions of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Will fog replace smog in downtown LA, or will roads always be wet and slick or ice in the winter?
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:44 am
nasaman… you have too much faith in big auto. If Detroit really knew what they were doing all these years, then why are they all in such bad financial shape?
What big auto knows is that there is money to be made just by keeping up the hydrogen facade. There is plenty of money, lots of it your tax dollars, paying for it. Not much different than the ethanol boondoggle.
And of course it can be generated locally by other than electrolysis… it’s called freeing it from natural gas (CH4). Lyle’s subject of this thread is really misleading… GM is not saying goodbye to (big) oil, they are simply saying goodbye to liquid fuels, and signing up for big oil to peddle their wares in a different form. I wouldn’t be surprised if we also see (if it doesn’t already exist) a process for freeing the hydrogen in oil, still leaving us with the CO2 byproduct.
I hope folks are also aware that syn fuels are making a resurgence. Gas to liquids and Coal to liquids. The latter is at least 60 year old technology the Germans were using near the end of the war. A real desparate measure, and both are a real threat to the environment. Don’t be fooled by their marketing… they make the claim that their synthetic fuels are cleaner burning… and they are right… but they fail to tell you they produce a lot more global warming gases to make. They are only economically feasible now because of gasoline prices… their production won’t help bring prices down.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:53 am
One can understand the apprehensions of some folks here on Hydrogen due to the numerous problems we face today, but I believe Hydrogen and nuclear energy will be fuel for the future.
Here is what Honda think about solving the Hydrogen Cars problems
http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-clarity/fuel-cell/evolution/
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Summary of Weekly Petroleum Data for the Week Ending June 6, 2008
U.S. crude oil refinery inputs averaged 15.3 million barrels per day during the week ending June 6, down 161 thousand barrels per day from the previous week’s average. Refineries operated at 88.6 percent of their operable capacity last week. Gasoline production moved lower compared to the previous week, averaging about 9.0 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel production decreased last week, averaging nearly 4.5 million barrels per day.
U.S. crude oil imports averaged about 9.7 million barrels per day last week, down 98 thousand barrels per day from the previous week. Over the last four weeks, crude oil imports have averaged 9.4 million barrels per day, 819 thousand barrels per day below the same four-week period last year. Total motor gasoline imports (including both finished gasoline and gasoline blending components) last week averaged about 1.2 million barrels per day. Distillate fuel imports averaged127 thousand barrels per day last week.
U.S. commercial crude oil inventories (excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) decreased by 4.6 million barrels from the previous week. At 302.2 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are at the lower boundary of the average range for this time of year. Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 1.0 million barrels last week, and are in the lower half of the average range. Finished gasoline inventories remained unchanged last week while gasoline blending components inventories increased during this same time. Distillate fuel inventories increased by 2.3 million barrels, and are in the lower half of the average range for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories increased by 0.5 million barrels last week but remain near the bottom of the average range. Total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 0.3 million barrels last week, and are near the bottom of the average range for this time of year.
Total products supplied over the last four-week period has averaged nearly 20.4 million barrels per day, down by 1.3 percent compared to the similar period last year. Over the last four weeks, motor gasoline demand has averaged 9.3 million barrels per day, down by 1.3 percent from the same period last year. Distillate fuel demand has averaged 4.1 million barrels per day over the last four weeks, up 0.7 percent from the same period last year. Jet fuel demand is 0.4 percent higher over the last four weeks compared to the same four-week period last year.
Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/current/txt/wpsr.txt
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:16 am
Don’t have much time to post
1) There are at least 10 hydrogen stations throughout CA. This isn’t the first one.
2) Storage and “explosion” issues are taken care of long time past issue.
3) Already been proven in Europe.
4) Can’t charge batteries in ten minutes. Can fill a tank in 5. Sorry but in long trips I’m not waiting 3 hours to have my batteries charged. That’s what makes E-rev’s so popular quick recharge if necessary. Best combo: E-Rev Hydrogen Fuel Cell.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:58 am
Hydrogen is a crap idea pushed by oil companies for the status quo.
Why not store and use electricity DIRECTLY it’s lot more efficeint.
I’m disappointed GM is still following this pointless fuel delivery – invented by oil companies to keep their foot in the door.
Absolutely stupid.
Go Volt – Use electricity directly – MUCH more efficient !
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:10 am
If you think an erev with a battery is expensive, just wait until you replace that with a fuel cell. On top of that, you still need a ready source of h2. Even if onboard generation were possible, it will be a very cold day in hell before that solution is cheaper or less complicated than a battery. The idea of spending any more effort on this makes me a little ill. I fully expect batteries to improve from a size and cost perspective to a point that a consumer could own two packs and swap them at home each day before fuel cells become any kind of comparable alternative.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:36 am
How much does a liter or gallon of hydrogen costs?
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:49 am
Marcus #48
Very well stated indeed! And why does anyone think that there will ever be vehicle onboard H2 generation with big oil pushing this from all ends? So you can fill your car by garden hose and it’ll produce all the H2 you need?? Anyone seen the recent Shell, Chevron ads trying to promote H2? If I were big oil I wouldn’t be advertising H2 if I thought people would soon be filling their cars by garden hose and the car produced H2 at will. Would you?
Everyone….QUICK…what do Hydrogen and Eestor have in common?
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:00 am
Nasaman, I’m surprised at your statement in #42. You want to use massive amounts of electric to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, to run a fuel cell, to get a fuel cell to make ELECTRICITY? It would be much simpler to chuck the fuel cell, and just use electricity.
To all the rest of the fuel cell fans, good luck with your platinum mines. It’s the only way to make fuel cells that are reasonably priced. Making hydrogen – an expensive way to use a lot of power to get a little power back. I guess there IS one born every day – by the way, I have a slightly used bridge in New York I’m willing to sell you – cheap.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:24 am
#50 Grizzly
Both require specific-built high capacity fuel / dispensing stations= no infrastructure from what I have read.
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:31 am
I’ve read about 25% of the top remarks and I can’t believe all the negative responses by them about fuel cells. Hey, for those who think they know so much, lay off. You are not experts and give it a change! GM is not saying they are giving up the batteries. GM is probably looking at using both technology because they work hand in hand. Besides, the Germans, Japanese,Chinese, Koreans, and Americans are working on fuel cells so their must be something to it.
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Jeff M, Grizzly and other fellow H2 cynics:
Thanks for posting your words of reason – at least somebody around here is talking sense!
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:05 am
OFF TOPIC (BUT WELL WORTH 10 MINUTES OF YOUR TIME)……
http://www.westwoodone.com/pg/jsp/drew/audioarchive.jsp?pid=22506
For anyone who missed it LIVE yesterday afternoon, this replay of the Dr. Drew interview of our Dr. Dennis, although not a lot of new stuff to us here, is excellent! –GREAT JOB, Lyle!!!
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:12 am
Well now Joe, Toyota is investing in Fuel Cells because they are getting millions in subsidies from the Japanese government.
Gm is also getting subsidies. I Wonder who got the governments so interested in fuel cells?
Grizzly,
Q. What happens if you put the EEstor 50kw recharge plug into your H2 tank by mistake?
A. Sprinkle with pixi dust to make the dream go away.
Nasaman
I am shocked by you. I thought you understood the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:15 am
The answer to the hydrogen infrastructure question will be answered by home fueling stations:
http://www.hydrogencarsnow.com/home-hydrogen-fueling-stations.htm
The only problem with them is the fact that hydrogen is so inefficient. It would require much more electricity to generate the hydrogen required to go 40 miles than it will to charge the Volt to go 40 miles. This is where, in the future, consumers will be offered a choice, and I think pure economics will win out. BEV’s, once heavily entrenched in the personal transportation market, will not succumb easily to hydrogen. The car companies will have to do some tricky marketing to sell these guys….the only tag line I can think of is “Hey, come buy this car that drives just like the electric car you have now, only it costs more to buy AND to drive! AND you have to buy a home fueling station for X,000 dollars!)
Fuel cell = Fool cell. Great idea sure, but there are much better ideas out there. They are in development because of the tax breaks involved.
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:19 am
51 Terry K ……
My statements in #40 and 42 speculate that on-board hydrogen generation might conceiveably be possible OTHER than by electrolysis —hopefully, by a cheap, efficient, practical method!
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:21 am
The only way I will be interested in hydrogen is if,
I can create it at home with energy created from electricity. This way I have several options on how to get that electricity.
I don’t want another fuel for the huge oil companies to sell me and be stuck paying whatever they want and have to go to stations to fill up.
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:22 am
#32 Avatar,
I completely agree with you, and I’m very interested to see biodiesel from algae. The only problem is that, to date (as far as I know) they have only been able to produce mililiters of fuel, not gallons.
There is some very intensive research being performed however, to determine which species produce the most natural oils and under what conditions. I wholeheartedly applaud their efforts, and hope that some major breakthroughs are made soon.
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:24 am
57 Nasaman,
But without some other form of an external fuel source, (like gasoline or an onboard battery) wouldn’t this equate to that ever elusive perpetual motion machine? Being able to completely refuel itself as it moved?
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:30 am
#55 I totaly agree. End the subsidies and the hydrogen technology will vanish.
I think this is a place where the tax rebates which go directly to the consumer will help better than subsidies. This is what we should have:
$6,000 back for cars purchased over 50mpg with a phase out
$8,000 for hybrids that can drive daily 25 miles or more without gasoline.
$10,000 back for cars that will never use gasoline and have a range of at least 250 miles
If you had this instead of the billions of money spent on hydrogen I think we would have more cars available right now with alternative energy options instead of the very few.
Make the automakers earn their money not just receive it out of thin air to promise to develop something.
Consumers scare automakers while the government does not.
Consumers will cause change way before the government does. By offering governemnt tax breaks to consumers we let the government empower consumers.
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:32 am
NEWS FLASH:
“New York City and New York State launched a joint project yesterday to use six million dollars in the most direct action possible: funding half of the cost of new electric or natural gas vehicles.” This will be worth keeping an eye on —will NYC’s taxi fleet be among the first to go plug-in (or at least hybrid?!?
—source: EcoTech Daily
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Hydrogen? Again?
Hydrogen is just like pulling some crude out of the ground refining it and putting it in a big tank waiting for someone to come along ang pay $5 bucks a gallon for it. I’m not sure if people understand the difficulties with it.
Besides that point is infrastructure….there is none.
So you having a good old time in your hydrogen car in California. You thought you’d be like Ed Begley Jr and have a fancy ‘new tech’ car…everything is pretty sweet…you can meet up with all your fancy friends at the pump everyday, life is good. But wait, turns out Hollywood doesn’t need a middle-aged pudgy white guy actor (how did that happen?). Now you have to move back to ‘hole-in-the-wallsville’ where you were born to work in dad’s tire store. I’m sure they will have a nice fancy, kazillion dollar hydrogen station ready for you to use there.
Just a quick example of a problem with hydrogen I don’t think people realize, beside infrastructure, cost, in car systems, etc. Simple transportation….to move hydrogen it has to be compressed or made into a liquid. Sounds easy, right?
Well…to liquify it, you need to get it’s temperature down to -250 deg C. If you know much about thermodynamics at this temperature, you realize this isn’t like popping it into the fridge. And more good news, you lose almost half it’s energy to complete this process.
You could compress it…you only need about 5,000 PSI…and in that state a tanker trailer would net you about 25 people filling their cars.
This is worse than bio. Why, oh why do this?
C’mon…electric people. Nanosolar quote not withstanding (you can’t get any at the retail level…still…or in the next…decade?) You can now buy raw paneling under $3/watt now…and the gov’t is pumping out the rebates like crazy. Couple that supply with electric cars…seems prettty easy/simple. And all the infrastructure is made grassroots by individuals, I can speak personally from the great feeling of accomplishment when you make your own power.
I have no clue, why this is not the ‘choix du jour’ for alternate fuel. Why is this not preached as the Bible?
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:00 am
The sort of vague image advertising in the goodbye letter is just wasting time and money. GM would use their TV dollars better to explain their system for accepting deposits on Volts — that is, to sell cars and generate income by (?) visiting your local dealer (?) going to the GM web site (?) doing something else.
Right now their corporation is dying, and the marketing department is circling the water cooler dreaming up all sorts of stuff that is not bringing in any actual dollar income — that has to change.
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:04 am
This is how the commerical should go:
“Dear Oil and Hydrogen,
We’ve had this great relationship for many years. We think we will both be a lot happier and healthier if we see less of each other.”
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:06 am
I’ve never seem such a large bunch of experts on fuel cells at one place. I suspect none of you are scientists, but yet know so much about the subject. I guess all those real scientist don’t know what they are doing. And of course, they are only working on fuel cells because of government subsidies or because the oil companies are behind it. Get real!!
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:15 am
Hmmm…did GM discover a technology that redefined hydrogen?
Hydrogen is an energy storage method…not an energy source.
At least until a dramatic tech is discovered to extract it from a raw material (like water) with little energy use.
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:16 am
I really like the idea of focusing this hydrogen fuel cell concept on the airplane as opposed to the automobile…
I’m no expert but;
- I think there are a lot less airports than there are gas stations (less infrastructure to deal with)
- I think its lighter (planes must create lift to overcome their weight in order to fly)
- I think there are a lot less airplane accidents than auto accidents (if your plane goes down doest it really matter if its full of jet fuel or hydrogen?)
Just seems to make more sense to focus this particular ‘alternative’ on airplanes…but…I guess the Hindenburg keeps people focused elsewhere even though that was a freakin’ BLIMP that was painted w/ flammible paint !! not a jet !!
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Jason @ 23:
I don’t think that stale gas is going to be a major problem. I’ve stored gas for my lawnmower for more than a year without any kind of stabalizer and it worked fine when I used it the other day. Even if stale gas were an issue, a switch to hydrogen entails solving many more complicated problems than the relatively small problem of stale gas. In other words, switching to hydrogen fuel cells isn’t a very effective way to solve the stale-fuel problem.
I think the fact that tax revenue for roads will decline if people use less gas is a legitimate concern. However, I suspect that governments will find a way to tax electricity for the purposes of road construction just as easily as they will tax hydrogen. I’m not sure what they would do to tax people who are generating their own electicity via wind and solar… tolls maybe. Or just raise other taxes and pay for road construction out of a more general tax fund.
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:26 am
I am NOT at all a fan of hydrogen. GM doesn’t have the cash to be toying around with implementing the infrastructure of the United State’s hydrogen system… Can you say GM is biting off more than it can chew? choke choke…gag choke.
Moreover, why would we limit ourselves to one fuel AGAIN? Electricity can be generated from solar, wind, water, coal, and numerous other sources. STICK WITH BEVs; THEY ARE MORE EFFICIENT BY FAR!
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Looks like GM still has too many idiots. Instead of wasting money on hydrogen should put that money into battery research and development, including supercapacitors.
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:34 am
Hydrogen refueling stations… I don’t know… Seems like reinventing the wheel to me. Kind of like “What are we going to do with all these gas stations when cars go electric”?
I think “hydrogen” is the “cool” thing to be involved in or to toy with. When GM can develop a fuel cell that intakes H2O from your waterhose then I’ll be interested. Don’t get me wrong, this will probably happen in the next 20-30 years but not now.
One further thought. In 20-30 years the fuel cell that breaks down water for fuel will probably be used to generate electricity to power the car and charge the batteries.
Now I’m rambling… In WWII the diesel subs we used were really electric boats. The motor to drive the props were electric motors (developed from train locomotive technology (did you know trains were electric?)) and the diesel engines were used to generate electricity to charge the batteries and drive the props when the sub was on the surface.
Sounds like the VOLT setup…
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:36 am
#79 Brad G
You know…
What are they going to do with all the gas stations as cars go all electric?
How is our government going to collect taxes (supposely for road maintence and construction, ha ha) as cars go all electric?
What are environmentalists going to bitch about as cars go all electric?
What will oil companies do as cars go all electric?
What will accountants do if we can ever get a “flat tax” as cars go all electric?
http://www.cse.org/flattax/index.php
What will mechanics do as cars go all electric?
(1/10th the moving parts compared to ICE vehicle)
How will the terrorists get funding and Iran afford to build nukes as cars go all electric?
Things that make you go hummm….
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:37 am
I know this is a bit off topic, but I came across an internesting article on edmunds.com: “Payback Period for Many Hybrids Grows as Demand Raises Prices”
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=127047
Their math seems wrong to me, especially regarding the Malibu, but I didn’t have time to run the numbers myself (I’m at work at the moment… BTW, this Volt Web site is too addictive). Either way, dealer markup and demand that initially outstrips supply is probably going to be a major problem for the Volt, especially if gas is north of $5 per gallon.
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:48 am
Someone mentioned govt. subsidies, etc. above
This is from this morning’s Detroit News:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080612/AUTO01/806120334/1148
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:52 am
It is truly remarkable how people are so easily distracted by any ploy to take the pressure off of our fuel of choice, GASOLINE! The current problem stems from several related areas:
1. The congressional representation in Washington is totally in the dark for the most part on the subject of fossils fuels. All they care is that the taxes from them keep flowing. Your problem of cost and availability is of no concern to them, if it were a concern they would have done something already!
2. The petroleum corporations do not want the truth about their business know by the voting public. It’s not a pretty picture.
3. There is technology that exist today that could get this country and the world off of fossil fuels, however the powers that be have decided that until we really reach the point where oil is no longer available it will never see the light of day. There is no shortage of oil; there are just a lot of people who want what’s available!
One interesting side bar, China’s oil, that’s the oil they drill, will never be on the commodities market like ours and if you haven’t heard China is drilling just off Cuba’s northern shore. That’s right, they are drilling in the Gulf of Mexico! Maybe we need to be protecting our oil interest closer to home?
Bottom-line, be prepared to pay higher cost for anything that is a product of fossil fuels or requires fossil fuels for its transportation. The “Free Lunch” was never free, welcome to the new world and adjust your budgets accordingly. Have a nice day!
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June 12th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Benson #82 noted:
“Someone mentioned govt. subsidies, etc. above
This is from this morning’s Detroit News:
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080612/AUTO01/806120334/1148”
After reading the article, I would conclude that the Ford executive just doesn’t get it. It seems that they simply don’t recognize how conflicted the average American driver is between their desire for fun, powerful, fast, sexy cars, and their distaste for the expensive, imported oil that fuels them. Maybe the single largest benefit of the Volt concept is that it relies almost entirely on domestic energy sources for propulsion (if the range extending engine is fueled with ethanol, it could operate ENTIRELY on domestic energy sources). No, this isn’t necessarily a rational perspective, but I would argue that emotion plays at least as large a role as rational thinking as we Americans select new vehicles.
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June 12th, 2008 at 8:42 am
I’ll just add (repeat) to the Hydrogen-is-a-dead-end-solution bandwagon.
1) The energy math doesn’t add.
2) The infrastructure is impossibly expensive and non-existant
3) The storage issue is ridiculous and has no functioning tech at this time for long range.
4) Electricity will ALWAYS be cheaper, so more direct use of electricity will ALWAYS be cheaper
5) There is no way the market will embrace this money-losing proposition
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June 12th, 2008 at 8:49 am
It is always a good day when we agree with Statik (71)!
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Honda thinks enough of Virent Energy Systems ability to produce H2 from biomass that they gave them a fair amount of money ( as did Shell and Cargill )
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Hey!
That isn’t some kind of backhanded compliment is it? Hehe.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:00 am
I think the push for hydrogen fuel is misplaced, we should be building lithium battery production facilities. Hydrogen from fossil fuel is no solution, because fossil fuel is not renewable. Hydrogen from water produced by electrolysis requires nuclear or renewable generation of the electricity used to produce the hydrogen. Seems the long way around the barn.
Trains for freight and mass transit can be electrically powered, but airplanes might need to use hydrogen fuel, once the storage puzzle is solved.
Another avenue to explore is liquefying air, then separating the nitrogen and oxygen and using the LN2 to turn a micro-turbine generator range extender. Meanwhile, the LOX could be used to burn any remaining fossil fuel without the production of smog.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:06 am
#82 benson
“Ford has said it would be five to 10 years before the Dearborn automaker would offer plug-ins to consumers. GM plans to bring its Chevy Volt to market by the end of 2010.”
Ford is dying, dead, gone. They have their heads so far up they have to look out their belly buttons to see.
I e-mailed Ford (because I use to be a ford fan) about 3 months before GM announced the VOLT and told them that they need to produce a diesel car that would get about 60 mpg because Ford owns CAT, International, and Cummings. They know diesels.
I then told them they needed to develop an electric car and that then they would be #1.
The response I received by e-mail was that ford knew what they were doing and that an electric car was starwars technology that would not be around for another 10-15 years.
Bye Bye Ford
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:10 am
Where is “Big Electricity” in all this? We clearly see Big Oil pushing Hydrogen. Where are the coal/wind/renewable lobbiests when it comes to EV’s??? They should be ALL OVER congress to get us tax incentives for vehicles like the Volt. More EV’s on the road means money in their pocket!
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:11 am
They tried electric taxis in New York, but it didn’t work, because it took too long to recharge them. A hydrogen powered E-REV seems to be the solution to this, if you desire zero emissions and a movement away from petroleum.
Your gasoline generator will still produce emissions that are harmful particularly to children and the elderly. It will still produce noise pollution. It will still transfer your wealth to overseas hostile countries. And a plugin will not solely power a large vehicle like a bus, SUV, truck.
The market and urban emissions regulations will indeed determine the viability of any approach in the long run.
I’ve made these points before, but bringing up the subject of hydrogen in an EV forum is like someone preaching the benefits of carbs in an Atkins Diet message board, and you’ll be quickly shut down, if not bullied away. There is no inbetween.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Why won’t a plug in power a large vehicle such as a bus, suv, or truck. Almost 10 years ago they first build some Rav4 Electric SUVs (they now fetch upwards of $50,000 on ebay because of the huge demand) and they had Ford Ranger Electric Pickup Trucks. Those were plug ins and worked and the ones that weren’t destroyed still work. Rapid charge technology is starting to appear and I believe that is going to be a much better than hydrogen. I also beleive that technology is much further along then hydrogen technology. An 80% charge in 15 min or less would elimanite the need for hydrogen especailly if the range is 250 miles or more. Once we get something on the road like the volt its just a mater of time. Just like the horsepower wars we are so familier with. Hydrogen is very unstable, remember it was used in Hot Air Balloons and they all kept exploding. Now they use heilum.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Don’t you just love all the closed minds on the possibilities of hydrogen fueled vehicles.
I agree with nasaman that on-board hydrogen generation might conceiveably be possible one day by means OTHER than by electrolysis —hopefully, by a cheap, efficient, practical method!
We’ve heard about the research going on at Purdue University regarding gallium and aluminium. We’ve also heard about InnovaTek’s micro-reactor and research going on elsewhere.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring? But, I have full confidence that some bright scientist will one day solve the hydrogen extraction, storage, transportation & safety issues. When that happens, we will all be better off. And, I hope that bright scientist makes a fortune for his/her efforts. It is CAPITALISM at work!
Is hydrogen a near term solution? Of course not! But, one day it just might given enough research and those willing to fund that research.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Another problem with H2… If you compress it to LH2, won’t it boil off? I know our LN2 dewar tanks used to boil off about 25% of their volume in just a couple of weeks.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:23 am
The big car companies are in bed with the oil companies to make it as difficult as possible to use alternative fuels. The all powerful computers that control your engines are limiting hydrogen as a fuel because it burns at a lower temperature. If you try to supplement your gasoline with hydrogen, that burns cooler, the computer pushes more gasoline in and ends up dumping raw fuel out the exhaust.
Does everyone agree that hydrogen could be used as a supplement to gasoline? The car computers won’t let us, unless we send in a false signal to make it think that it is burning hotter and not send the extra gas to the throttle.
There is a system out there to have hydrogen on demand, without storing it in the car. Yes this does run on water from your garden hose, but it will run about 900 miles on a quart of water. The inventor claims as much as 30% gas mileage increase with this system. It could be used on gas or deisel engines if the computers would play nice.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Well, if they can figure out how to extract hydrogen that doesn’t cause more carbon emissions and use too much energy then I’m all for it. It doesn’t look like that will happen in my lifetime. Heck, someday they may figure out how to commercialize fusion reactors, too. Someday.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:34 am
We gotta hope that the battery technology starts making progress at a FASTER rate … a la Moore’s Law with semiconductors for computer technology. According to Nissan, that might be what is going to happen in the next 5-10 years. If so, we won’t need no stinking hydrogen … or ethanol or gasoline or diesel or other exotic biofuel …. just good ole electricity like we’ve had since the early 1900s.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121320799221764997.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
The better the batteries get, the less we need liquid/gaseous fuels at all. The “fuel” will be ELECTRONS … straight from the electrical outlet you have in your garage right now. Better yet, have a “home electricity storage unit” that pulls cheap electricity off the grid at night … or from your solar panels or “mini-wind turbine”, etc. Just transfer the electricity from your “home electricity storage unit” to your Volt ANYTIME at those cheap nightime electricity rates. Hopefully, they’ll come up with safe, cheap high capacity electrical cables that can transfer the electricity from your “home electricity storage unit” to your electric car or series (E-REV) hybrid in 5-10 minutes.
Trust me, Big Oil, Wall Street speculators and OPEC will NOT like this scenario to happen.
They would much prefer to have a commodity like oil that they play games with and gouge us financially with if they think can get away with it.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:37 am
This is off subject, but where the heck is Rashiid Amul? We haven’t heard from him since the Volt Video Update topic. Maybe he is on vacation or tied up at work.
Rashiid, I hope all is fine and you will be back with us very soon. We miss reading your comments!
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:06 am
I would like to see GM do some research on onboard electrolysis HHO injection techniques as a means to help fuel economy on their current fleet. If guys on You+tube can do this in their garage and get up to 50% more mpg with $100 in parts from Ace Hardware, then surely GM can perfect it.
If you think this does not work, think again. It’s been commercially successful in Canada for large diesel trucks (they guarantee a minimum 10% increase in mpg) and recently announced to be onboard the first production HHO car, the scorpian by Ronn Motor Company (as appeared on auto+blog+green a few weeks ago).
This is real, it does not violate any laws of science, and it is magnitudes cheaper than hybrid powertrains for the same or better MPG increase.
Google HHO or hydrogen fuel injection for examples.
I’m excited about Volt, but there are technologies available right now that people are using to wring every mile out of a gallon of gas. We should consider all options. And this option is proving to be a very compelling technology.
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:06 am
IT’S THE OIL COMPANIES THAT ARE PUSHING HYDROGEN!
The oil companies know that hydrogen is extremely inefficient.
The oil companies know that fuel cells cost a fortune.
The oil companies know that an infrastructure of hydrogen filling stations will take at least 20 years to roll out (if ever).
The oil companies know that storing hydrogen is dangerous.
The oil companies know that every dollar spent of fuel cell development is a dollar that could have been spent on plug-in hybrids.
Bottom line: The oil companies know that the promise of hydrogen and fuel cells will keep them selling oil for many, many more years.
After all, the oil companies used the promise of fuel cells to kill the California zero emissions mandate, which essentially killed the EV-1.
Hydrogen and fuel cells are the biggest scam going. That’s why they call them FOOL SELLS!
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:14 am
On CNN’s Mad Money they discuss how the US has become 67% oil dependent on foreign countries. There are estimated 8.5 BILLION barrels of oil and 29 TRILLION cubic feet of natural gas on our coasts which are restricted to drilling to the US.
We used to own 8-10 million barrels of oil as reserve. That’s not there anymore. In the past, we wanted to not drill into our own oil and purchase from other countries while it was cheap and just use theirs. Now times have changed and we need to tap into our coastal oil before other countries take it all.
Lets get our own oil, lower prices, and continue research.
Read this:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/25105982
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:33 am
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Just a quick note:
We do these things not because its easy because it is hard. If many of you people were around during the time of Columbus we would still be worried about falling off of the edge of the earth. GM should be commended for the work they are doing with no help from President DUMB ASS AND THE DO NOTHING CONGRESS. You have to crawl before you can walk and once you learn to walk you can run, WAY TO GO GM THE TRUE HEARTBEAT OF THE AMERICAN SPIRIT.
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:39 am
So much negativity toward Fuel Cells.
I wonder why? Because they are a junk technology for cars.
They don’t help us get away from the oil companies. There isn’t any infrastructure. They are too expensive. The list goes on.
Joe #60 claimed we are not experts. I know that I am not, but I do have some common sense. And common sense says to forget H2 for now and concentrate on a solution that is attainable soon. Plugin battery technology is that solution.
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:40 am
#98 is right on. Shell is a sponsor with GM (they do andvertising together in magazines) for…..Hydrogen. The Oilies want to have something to sell you (and control) when the Oil eventually gets too expensive to be practical. (Toyota’s chairman said he expected worldwide Oil production to peak in the near future: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/06/plug-in-hybrid.html)
The ad mentioned in this article is a total piece of hypocrisy. BTW, the reason the automakers have all this money in Fuel Cells is because the Bush admin has been funding them with huge amounts of money fo research and development. Orders of magnitude more than is allocated for better battery research and development, hybrid research and development etc..
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Hello Estero. I’m here. I coach Little League and it is playoff season.
I am very busy, but that should wind down soon.
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:55 am
#100 Chevonly says:
“GM should be commended for the work they are doing with no help from President DUMB ASS AND THE DO NOTHING CONGRESS”
Actually, the president has spearheaded a fuel cell development initiative that provides millions of tax dollars for fuel cell research & development, a big chunk of which goes to GM.
As the head of the European Fuel Cell Forum says:
“There is a lot of money in the field now,” he continues. “I think that it was a mistake to start with a ‘Presidential Initiative’ rather with a thorough analysis like this one. Huge sums of money were committed too soon, and now even good scientists prostitute themselves to obtain research money for their students or laboratories—otherwise, they risk being fired. But the laws of physics are eternal and cannot be changed with additional research, venture capital or majority votes.”
Google “Why a hydrogen economy doesn’t make sense” for details.
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Scott, #90. Excellent question. Were the heck are they? They should have their arms wrapped around GM right now. They should also be hounding Nanosolar to produce their product for all of us consumers.
If they make solar cheap, my roof (along with millions or others) will be covered. Probably my siding as well. IMO, the US government should give up those H2 subsidies and poor that money into technology such as Nanosolar and battery research.
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am
#106 Rashiid
EXACTLY!!!
It is like rungs on a ladder. You have to go up one rung at a time to get to the top. Evolution. I hate it when “experts” say why develop plug-ins now when in 20 years we might have fuel cells.
#102 Dave G has nailed it. The oil companies are pushing hydrogen so they can have another 20-30 years to screw us.
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June 12th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Hydrogen would be acceptable if there were places to fuel up.
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June 12th, 2008 at 11:22 am
The boil off rate of LN2 is primarily a function of the insulation and pressure rating of the tank, the higher the pressure and the better the insulation, the lower the boil off rate. A compressed air drive supplied with the boil off of LN2 would seem to be a possible range extender. I think compressed air cars can go about 40 miles on tanks of high pressure air, so I think liquefied N2 might provide more than 150 miles of range extension.
Liquefied Air would have the safety advantage of a leak not creating an oxygen deficient atmosphere.
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June 12th, 2008 at 11:23 am
I can only echo Electric Dan at #19 about the savvy responses here.
9:00 AM PDT and 110 highly reasoned, well thought out, comments here already? It’s really pretty amazing and overwhelming.
Lyle, what have you started here? If there are Oscars or Emmys or Golden Mikes for blogs, you must be on the short list.
Sorry to repeat myself, but you GM-Volt bloggers are AWESOME!!!
Hello GM!!!!!!
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June 12th, 2008 at 11:31 am
When we see hydrogen in fleet vehicles we’ll know that hydrogen-powered vehicles are real. There much less infrastructure is needed, since many fleets operate from a central station where they get fueled up each day. So let’s see what happens at LAX. Until we see it’s real, we can understand the ads as “just pretend we are green and forget about the Hummer” image advertising.
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June 12th, 2008 at 11:34 am
Feeling…so…bored…
…must….have….new topic to discuss.
How bored am I? I just flipped past Urban Justice, with Steven Seagal playing the distraught hero and Eddie Griffen (Eddie Griffen as the bad guy?) and thought, hmm…I could watch that.
Tagline for this masterpiece: When revenge is personal, justice can be brutal
How could it be worse than talking about the development, production and distribution of hydrogen? Oh yeah…it has 400 pound, looks like he got stung by 10,000 bees, Steven Seagal in it.
Maybe I will watch it, then explain it here in great deal on the forum and see which conversation sends more people into a coma.
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June 12th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Here is some food for thought.
http://www.video.google.com click on “The Energy Non Crisis.”
This may get you to thinking !
God Bless America.
Tom
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June 12th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Joe, I’m not an expert in hydrogen, just informed. I have read a lot of information about alternative energy in my quest to escape the tyranny of oil. Should we fund fuel cell tech ? Yes. Should we incorporate it into vehicles today? No, the tech just isn’t cost effective quite yet.
Fuel cells will improve given time, but hydrogen will not. It is a poor energy source – very expensive to produce, and difficult to store. Maybe we can make it on Venus someday (where 250 degrees below zero is a nice day) but not today.
I wish some would provide a link to that wonderful device that can power a car on water. I’ve read about these things in the back of Popular Mechanics magazine, along with how to make a fortune using the Internet in my spare time. It would be nice if it was true.
Yeah, hydrogen is cool (no pun intended), but don’t let “cool” blind you to the science of hydrogen. Wanting something doesn’t make it happen, or I would have a Volt right now. Research and hard work makes things happen. Maybe in 20 years we will have good fuel cells, but not today. Cheer up though – science always marches forward and makes things better.
Except for the AMC Pacer – OMG, I’m still trying to forget THAT nightmare ! LOL
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June 12th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Statik,
Under Seige and Under Seige 2: Dark Territory are the only ones worth watching.
Seagal is extremely good in Executive Decision because he dies early in the movie.
Blog of the living dead.
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
#117 Brad G,
Yes, I agree.
Statik,
Watch Executive Decision and let us know what you think…
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Jason M. Hendler:
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
its about time that we switch to hydrogen. as for an infrastructure if GM makes there own throughout the country they will make money just like the oil companies do and on scientific frontiers they had a show that in Greenland they had hydrogen gas being made on the spot with a unit about the size of a tractor trailer rig that all you need is water and electric. last I looked all gas stations in the U.S. all have water and electric. every gas station could make there own hydrogen on the spot.
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
GM and the other auto companies are pushing hydrogen as a vehicle fuel because of two primary reasons.
1) Hydrogen vehicles will require more maintenance and parts than an electric vehicle. Therefore, dealer service departments will not be as affected as with electric vehicles due to loss of business. The auto companies make a lot of money supplying parts for the dealers and the various parts stores.
2) Big oil has a tremendous investment in people, equipment and property in service stations. Hydrogen would see that investment utilized.
As I see it, these two are the primary reasons, although there can certainly be others. Hydrogen as a fuel would tie our hands just like gasoline and diesel does today. I say no to hydrogen as a vehicle fuel. I used to support the idea of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel, but no longer.
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Hi OhmExcited,
I don’t think so much focus should be on “eliminating emissions”. Continuing to reduce emissions is an important principle, but in the next 10-20 years, as we move to cars powered by electricity, tailpipe-based emissions will cease being a problem.
I have read no convincing arguments as to why hydrogen should be used for powering vehicles. It makes more sense to continue to develop biofuels, which can be used in situations where battery storage falls short.
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
rw –
Are you familiar with the water shortages being faced by many big cities in the Southwest part of the country?
What would you suggest they do for hydrogen production?
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
IMHO, hydrogen only makes sense if it can be made locally from one of the renewable energy sources. Granted that’s a pretty inefficient process, but if the renewable energy is plentiful maybe that doesn’t matter. Hydrogen might make sense to replace the generator in an E-Flex vehicle since the refill is quick. I’m skeptical that a pure battery-electric car will ever provide cross-country range, and even if it came close, the recharge would probably take a lot longer than a hydrogen transfer. E-Flex needs a way to be refueled quickly that does not involve gasoline.
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June 12th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
#72 RB:
Well said.
#115 Statik:
I hear you man.
This is all a diversion from the real issue. GM – Get the !@#$% volt to the market place before you belly up!
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Biofuels still cause smog and noise pollution. And while there is no significant infrastructure for hydrogen, there are few places you can actually buy ethanol as well. Many vehicles are flex fuel already, but they still aren’t being filled up with E85.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
hydrogen production can be made using salt water. there is a story about it in an old popular mechanics mag from about 1984 using solar power to convert salt water into hydrogen
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Hydrogen may be useful in the near future for fleets like UPS and governments. If battery powered cars become popular then a lot of gasoline stations will be struggling, they claim to be struggling already. I wish the trucking industry could use a clean fuel instead of diesel. The trucking/bus industry is some what ignored in all this discussion.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
We have been talking about hydrogen as the fuel for the future ever since about 1960. Or at least as far back as I can remember. We are really no closer than we were 30 or 40 years ago. It seems about the only thing successful about hydrogen fuel is the unbelievable ability of companies and universities to swallow grant money from the tax payers with little to nothing to show for it. It is just like a lot of the other research programs in the country. They are fantastic methods of spending tax payer money. The purpose is not to produce a result that would end the research money tree, but to prolong it by only finding ways to ease our pain and keep the money be extracted from the national treasury.
Hydrogen is not the way to go. Unless some method is found that can extract or create hydrogen with out using more energy than you would get out of the hydrogen. I am sorry, but I say no.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Hydrogen as a fuel for airplanes may make sense. I suspect the reason the “research” plane never was funded for flight was Big Oil’s friends in congress would not allow funding.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
#127 rw,
Solar power is expensive. Why waste 2/3 of it cracking water to make hydrogen? Just use the solar power directly into a battery or ultra-capacitor. For those rare cases you need range, use a gas generator. The electric/gas/E85 E-REV is the obvious answer.
Why do you think Big Oil is pushing Fool Sells?
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Why do you have your heart set on burning gasoline in the range extender?
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Hydrogen could be a valid fuel for large 18 wheelers and delivery trucks. Not for personal vehicles. Maybe even for pickup trucks. I don’t know. It will be years before we know the answer to hydrogen fuel.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
OhmExcited
I am not sure any of us have our hearts set on gasoline as a fuel for the range extending ICE. (I know I am answering for someone else.) At this time gasoline is the most available fuel for that purpose. The range extending ICE will be a flex-fuel engine with the ability to run on E85 and possibly clean diesel. There could and will be other possible fuel types made available to it in the future. But right now, try crossing this country (or other places in the world) on some fuel other than gasoline or diesel. You will spend a lot of time just trying to find a fuel source. That is time lost for no real gain.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:25 pm
#126 OhmExcited says:
“Many vehicles are flex fuel already, but they still aren’t being filled up with E85.”
How do you define “many”?
If 1/3 of all vehicles were flex fuel, then E85 would start being common at filling stations. We’re not anywhere near 1/3 market penetration yet, so I would say that relatively, there aren’t many flex fuel vehicles today.
If the government mandated that all passenger vehicles were flex fuel, then E85 would be available almost everywhere. Unfortunately, I think it will take a government mandate to make this happen. Fortunately, it will only add $100 to the cost of the car.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
nasaman
Your friends in NASA should be able to tell you why the hydrogen fueled plane was not funded. How about asking around. Bet it was as I said earlier – Big Oil stopped it through their lap dogs in congress. Just like they have stopped other programs and will try to stop any others that threaten their hold on our pocket books.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
The main issue is to stop sending money to OPEC/terrorists. Cellulosic ethanol even if not the ultimate fuel is satifactory in my opinion.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Dave G
Government mandates are partly to blame for the lack of gasoline supply we are faced with today. Government mandates just how many blends of gasoline around the country? I don’t remember the number of different blends, but I do know it is terribly hard to refine enough of certain blends and keep supplies on hand. That is expensive to keep changing blending formulas at refineries. It would be much better if the country could use the same fuel blend everywhere. Government mandates will not help. Government getting out of the way could help.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
California will be doing a test program at two waste treatment plants to separtate hydrogen from human waste. So if this works tell me hydrogen is not a viable technology. The one thing that humans can create without deep thinking and blogs. I still think that they should have done the pilot program in Washington DC there should be an ample supply of human waste available there.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
#135 N Riley says:
“It will be years before we know the answer to hydrogen fuel.”
Yes, and this is precisely why Big Oil is pushing Fool Sells.
By the way, to be accurate, hydrogen is not a fuel. Electricity is also not a fuel. These are called “fuel carriers”. Some other fuel source is required to make a fuel carrier. In the case of electricity, it’s mostly coal, natural gas, and nuclear. In the case of hydrogen, itwill be mostly natural gas. Cracking water to make hydrogen is way too expensive and inefficient. In fact, if you use today’s mix of fuels for electricity to crack water, a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle actually puts out more emmissions than a gas engine car.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Dave G
Now, let’s not get too technical. Some of us (mostly me) might not be able to understand the difference. But, thanks. It is nice to know someone who knows the difference.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I will be on vacation next week traveling to North Carolina for a few days before going to South Carolina for another couple days. Will be burning a lot of gasoline and I don’t look forward to all those fill-ups. Sure wish I had my Chevy Volt. (Right now I would settle for a Prius on this trip.) Come on GM. Get the lead out. Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Volvo, Ford and no telling who else is going to beat you to the punch. I do not want that to happen. But you are the one who has captured our hearts and imaginations. If only you can capture our business, also.
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June 12th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
No to hydrogen…yes to electricity….and hoping the Volt is out early and in sufficient quantities that I am able to purchase one.
My 2000 Bonneville won’t go much longer than mid-2010 and I really don’t want to buy anything but the Volt….but may be forced to if I can’t buy one….and that bothers me.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
While I think hydrogen as a fuel is a bad idea from the perspective of storage, liquid fuels that can use hydrogen as a feedstock in their production (like DME or even methanol) do make sense. It’s even more compelling if direct methanol fuel cells overcome their technical hurdles.
About hydrogen: Electrolysis is not the only way to make it. Another method is the thermal-chemical method, such as the Sulfur-Iodine cycle. In fact, the Generation IV nuclear technology being investigated now is amenable to the thermal-chemical generation of hydrogen (cf. the Molten Salt Reactor).
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Only hydrogen gives you rapid refill, so it would be excellent as a range extender.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
#101 Voltme,
It sounds like you and I have been reading the same literature. I believe that hydorgen- on- deman (HOD) is definately possible to increase your existing mpg.
The biggest problem, I have experienced, is getting past the on board computers. I can build this $100 kit to supply the HOD, but it doesn’t do any good if the computer just sends more gas to make up for the cooler temps.
I would love to be able to increase my existing mpg by 30 – 50 %. The hole in my pocket has gotten 30 – 50 % larger in the last year.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Jason M. Hender
Not if you can’t find hydrogen filling locations.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Sorry Jason M. Hendler. I missed the spelling of your name.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Brad G # 91,
I e-mailed Ford (because I use to be a ford fan) about 3 months before GM announced the VOLT and told them that they need to produce a diesel car that would get about 60 mpg because Ford owns CAT, International, and Cummings. They know diesels.
Ford does know diesels. In fact, Ford makes the car you’re looking for — it’s the version of the Focus that they sell in Europe! They already make it! They sell thousands or hundreds of thousands of them every year! I’m not sure what the MPG numbers are, but when I went to the UK last summer, I saw lots Diesel-powered Focii driving around the Lake District. Ford doesn’t even need to talk to the guys at CAT, International, or Cummins — they just have to stop sending the good stuff overseas. Oh, and the Euro Focus is reputed to handle like a sporty-car. I even heard a rumor that the Focus may come in AWD there in the near future, too.
I spent a good portion of the trip wondering aloud why Ford and GM (Opal/Vauxhall) were sending all of the good stuff over there… Yes, I know the European environmental and safety standards are a little different than ours are in the USA, but engineers solve harder problems than that every day… So my question remains: why can’t I get an AWD Diesel-powered Ford Focus hatchback here?!?
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
This topic has certainly brought out many comments. Most of them have been somewhat negative to hydrogen as a fuel source for the future vehicles. Those of you who have been positive about hydrogen does not (IMO) appear to have sold us on your belief. Like I said earlier, I am not a believer in hydrogen for the same two reasons I stated earlier. Maybe this will change, but not anytime soon. We need do concentrate our attention and efforts to bringing about the Volt drive train concept. I am not opposed to Toyota’s hybrid Prius and its drive train. Both are much better than the gas burners most of us drive now. I just want to move forward and get onto the road of fuel savings and gasoline elimination as much as possible. I believe the vast majority of you do as well.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Here’s a recent article on the Euro Focus:
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/12/is-this-the-next-ford-focus-rs-for-europe-yes/
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Luke
Good question. Several European auto makers have announce plans to produce “clean” diesel engines and export them in cars to the U.S. in the next year or so. I suspect Ford’s diesel can not meet California’s smog emissions standards. That would be the only reason except the American public has not accepted diesel engines very well. I agree Ford’s engineer’s should be able to get around those problems. Ultra-low Sulfur Diesel, which is now mandated as the only highway diesel, should be a “cleaner” fuel that may be more acceptable to the American public. The auto companies seem less likely to pursue diesel because of supply problems with diesel in the winter because much of it is used as “fuel oil stock) for parts of the U.S. and Canada.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
#151 Luke says:
“… I know the Euro environmental and safety standards are a little different than ours are in the USA, but engineers solve harder problems than that every day…”
Have you ever driven behind a diesel car in Europe? I have. It’s nasty. My friends who live in Germany also complain about the dirt and smell of diesels.
Yes, car engineers have figured out how to meet U.S. emissions with diesels, but the result is significantly more cost, more weight, and less fuel efficiency. If there was an easy fix, I bet they would be doing it in Europe already.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Hydrogen economy will not take off in our lifetime, mark my words.
It is not a fuel, it’s just an energy carrier. Where do you produce hydrogen? It requires MASSIVE energy, in short – nuclear plants. That’ll never fly in the US.
Storage will also never work, unless somebody comes up with a cheap hydride solution or something. Hydrogen storage and transportation losses are HUGE, worse than electricity.
You are aware that hydrogen leaks even from air-tight tanks?
And that with liquid hydrogen tanks, you MUST allow hydrogen to evaporate little-by-little or risk spontaneous explosions ?
BTW, China is not drilling next to Florida, that’s a myth.
Some other companies are, but not Sinopec. Check the facts.
It is Coal to Liquids would make the US completely energy independent, but guess what, environazis would block every single plant, no matter how clean.
It is very unfortunate, but the US will remain incredibly dependent on energy imports for the foreseeable future. Even if we all suddenly go electric.
(The US is a net electricity importer)
Just think about it, so 80% commute within 40 miles or so?
Say 30 on average. Therefore you’ll need to charge your volt battery to say 13kwh or so daily. Rough approximation, say we have 100 million commuters.
Therefore we will require:
13 * 100,000,000 = 1,300,000,000 kwh daily.
now, annually:
1,300,000,000 * 365 = 474,500,000,000 kwh anually.
Per CIA world book, annual USA production is:
>>> United States 4,062,000,000,000 kWh 2005
we require extra: 474,500,000,000 kwh
so around 10% extra or so. and that’s VERY optimistic estimate, realistically we’ll need probably 20%.
20%, that’s how much entire nuclear generation accounts for.
Coal is 50%.
renewables and wind is a blip on the screen.
So given our current grid can support all that extra energy (doubtful, but possible) we’ll need to ramp up production in huge numbers.
And given that new coal and nuke plant construction will not go ahead in the US with our current political climate, and with renewables capacity remaining a big question, the future is quite clear.
What do you think?
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
MEANWHILE, HERE’S A DOSE OF REALITY FROM TODAY’S NEWS IN BUSINESS WEEK…..
Washington: “The U.S. government will need to drastically increase spending on research into plug-in hybrid vehicles, as well as provide incentives to buyers, in order for them to become viable, Ford Motor Co.’s North American chief said today.
“It seems clear that a business case will not evolve, in the near term, without support from Washington,” Ford North American President Mark Fields said in remarks prepared for a plug-in hybrid conference here.
“Ford has pledged to build a demonstration fleet of 20 plug-in hybrid Escape sport utility vehicles, and handed over a flex-fuel capable version to the U.S. Department of Energy for testing today. Ford said the first vehicles were achieving 120 miles per gallon when driven fully charged in urban areas.
“But Fields said that the costs of such technologies, along with some technical and logistical challenges, would require government aid and policy changes. The battery packs alone in Ford’s Escape hybrid plug-ins likely cost about $6,000 each at today’s prices — more than double the typical cost of a traditional hybrid system.
“”We are doing our part to transform the industry and invest in new technologies,” Fields said, noting that two-thirds of Ford’s $7 billion annual development budget goes toward boosting fuel economy.
“However, in a global environment, a substantial government partnership is required.”
Detroit automakers have complained for years that foreign nations spend far more on research into the advanced batteries needed to make plug-in hybrids. While Congress has approved the idea of boosting funds, and the White House supports some increase as well, no extra money has been set aside.”
IT SEEMS WE ALL NEED TO EMAIL OUR CONGRESSMEN & SENATORS AGAIN, GUYS!
Source: Business Week at http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/news/article.asp?docKey=600-200806112113KRTRIB__BUSNEWS_3313-4AF25JUOBHG11BFL5G1N4ED6JG×tamp=06/11/2008%209:13%20PM%20ET&headline=Ford%20exec%3A%20Federal%20government%20must%20invest%20in%20plug-in%20hybrids%20%5BDetroit%20Free%20Press%5D&docSource=Knight%20Ridder/Tribune&provider=ACQUIREMEDIA&symbol=TM
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Thanks for the link, Luke. The Focus is a sharp looking car. Ford should put some hybrid technology into it in the USA. That would be a real competitor. Up until the last few years, I was down on Ford cars although I liked Ford trucks. But, Ford has gotten its act together in design and quality. Performance never was a problem. Fuel economy lagged behind GM, but up now, who really cared about a couple mpg less. If Ford would get their hybrid technology working they could become “HOT”.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
I’ve been looking on the web for a link to a story about the old 1980’s NASA proposal to modify an airliner to use liquid hydrogen, and haven’t found anything, so far.
However, I found a large number of links for more modern proposals which can only be done using hydrogen: it’s the fuel-apparent for hypersonic air travel, using the Scramjet engine. At several times the speed of sound, only hydrogen combusts quickly enough to not be ‘blown out’ like a candle, by air entering the engine.
As to why the original project was canceled, I doubt very much that we have to invoke the “Oil Company Lackey” theory: In my experience, Congress can nearly always come up with “better” uses for NASA funding (”better” = “buys more votes”).
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
#147 Jason M. Hendler says:
“Only hydrogen gives you rapid refill, so it would be excellent as a range extender.”
What about ethanol? Hydrogen will be made mostly from natural gas. That’s the cheapest method by far. So we would still have lots of emmissions with hydrogen. Cellulosic ethanol is carbon neutral, so this would be much cleaner than hydrogen.
Also, since we’re talking about future technologies like fool sells, then why not consider other future technologies like ultra-capacitors?
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Raphael, I think that at some point our “political situation” will have to change or we will find ourselves walking to work. The ultimate goal of the environazi movement in our country is to get rid of the personal automobile and have everyone dependent of government run mass transportation. The problem with that is that IT WILL NOT WORK. But they don’t believe that. They just keep plugging away with their long range plan to control everything you do or want to do. And, the way things have gone the last few years, they will succeed. Not right away, but over the next 20 or 30 years. It will be a very different world. GOD HELP US AND GOOD LUCK TO US ALL.
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June 12th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
#156 Raphael,
Yes, I agree. Hydrogen is the biggest scam going.
But I think there is more hope for electricity that you let on. Specifically, off-peak electrical production capacity is huge. If everyone charges at night, our current grid and power plants will be more than enough.
Also, with regard to nuclear, I think I heard there were 36 applications for permits to build new plants in the U.S., so this is already in the works.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Before dismissing wind energy out of hand, read this:
http://www.technologynewsdaily.com/node/9874
Georgia Power has just applied for licensing for a new reactor at Plant Vogle, which would be the first in decades.
If you believe in Global Warming, you’re for a vast increase in Nuclear energy; you just don’t know it yet.
Thermal Solar (think fields of mirrors pointing at a central tower, or long parralell rows of trough-shaped reflectors heating pipes filled with oil) is enjoying a resurgence.
All alternative energy programs not focussed on distributed use (solar cells on our roofs) suffer from a pressing issue: it’s expensive to get the power from where it’s collected to where it’s used.
Congress could really help things along, if they were inclined to, by funding a superconducting power line between the coasts, through the SouthWest and Texas (leading candidates for Solar and Wind, respectively). No, the tech isn’t ready for this yet, but there’s surveying the route, acquiring land, working out the legal framework which would allow energy companies to use it equitably, etc, to get started on now.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
See the below statement from GM and read the article.
“General Motors showed off the 300-mile driving range of its Chevrolet Sequel hydrogen prototype this week, and GM R&D Vice President Larry Burns said the automaker targets 2012 as a date by which fuel-cell vehicles will be in GM showrooms.”
http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=120821
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
To 161. Dave G:
Dave, I realize that, but those were just very rough approximations to see the order of magnitude we are dealing with.
I’d really would like to see how peak/baseload generation spreads out over 24h spectrum.
Going fully electric is somewhat within our reach today, both technologically and financially.
in fact a huge solar panel + two batteries will do it. Charge one during the day while you’re away, swap them at night.
The only limiting factor is batteries life. If batteries can last 20 years (we’re not there yet, unfortunately.), it can be equal to gasoline financially right now, even at current prices for solar panels and batteries.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Dave G
There is a nuclear plant (plant #2) planned in Mississippi for the near future. It is in its final approval stages. Only another 30 years and 200 lawsuits and they will be able to scape the plans and start all over. No, really, it is not that bad. I don’t know when it is to be in production, but the energy company wants to start charging higher rates now while it is being built to “save” future interest cost.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Does solar panels or mirrors to catch and re-direct the sun’s heat and energy create extreme heat that is bled off into our environment? Doesn’t that contribute to “Global Warming”? I’m just saying….
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
#143 N Riley says:
“Now, let’s not get too technical. Some of us (mostly me) might not be able to understand the difference.”
OK, let’s forget about all the technical reasons why fool sells won’t work, and believe in hydrogen like it’s some sort of religion. That’s what seems to be happening anyway.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
Afaik, there are 35 or so applications for nuclear plants pending in the US.
It’s just that we’re moving at snails pace, and still using very old tech, which is rather stupid. Uranium supply is not infinite, and we need breeder reactions and reprocessing. Otherwise we’re going to hit the wall in 50 years or so with uranium fuel for current nukes.
Fast neutrons nukes is where the future is. Practically unlimited cheap fuel, and very cheap hydrogen production (which can be used in Bregius process with coal (basically compressing hydrogen and carbon under high temps and pressure) to produce liquid fuels on industrial scale somewhat cleanly and inexpensively.)
The technology exists, and proven in real world production.
BTW, those plants can also be desalination plants, they’ve got loads of thermal energy to spare, and water shortage is something we’ll be dealing with very soon as well.
*** fuel cells might work, but that’s probably way too far in the future, just like nuclear fusion.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Dave G
If you have read my post, you certainly could not think I believe in hydrogen except in some limited capacities. Like 18 wheelers and delivery trucks or airplanes or even ocean going ships. Not for personal cars. Electric is the way to go for most of us. Some here do seem to think of hydrogen as next to religious belief. Only believe in hydrogen if you want to be ‘”saved” from petroleum. Not me.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
# 156 Raphael ;
Lighting represents about 22 % of US electrical load . LED developement is proceeding at nearly a Moore ‘ s Law pace . Lets hope that in a few years that figure can be cut in half , so we can use that power for our Volts .
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Raphael, I agree with what you are saying.
France does what, 80 or 90% of their electricity with nuclear. They reprocess their spent fuel and reuse it. I saw a documentary not long ago about the French nuclear program and they are far, far, far ahead of us. I believe some of the new plants being proposed in the U.S. are of French design.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
#164 Raphael says:
“I’d really would like to see how peak/baseload generation spreads out over 24h spectrum.”
There is no significant storage in our electrical grid, so electricity has to be produced as it is used. This means production and grid transmission over 24 hours varies a lot. Daytime peak usage is about TWICE (2x) the usage in the early morning hours.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
169. N Riley – Liquid Coal is still better for planes, trucks, or ships than hydrogen. Heck, it’s even better than real diesel or jet kerosene. Much cleaner to refine and burn. and much cheaper, plus we already have the infrastructure.
But hydrogen can be used to produce liquid fuels cleaner. I just doubt it’ll be used as energy carrier, too low density, too many engineering problems that are not easily dealt with because they are of fundamental physics sort.
The main issue with CTL is ofc global warming potential, etc.
Although I don’t see how having lots of water vapour in the atmosphere will help.
170 John – I hope LED will make a dent in electrical loads as well, but that remains to be seen, very interesting point, I will have to look into numbers.
LCD monitors have already made a huge difference, by the way. hooray !
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
Dave G – 172:
AFAIK, only natural gas and hydro plants can adjust production on demand very quickly. especially nat gas. Coal and especially nuclear, are much slower, and are usually used for baseload, if i’m not mistaken, I do not deal with power generation details all that often
However, if we indeed have that much spare capacity at night, we’re all set, let’s start saving up for batteries.
N.Riley:
France is ahead in nuclear, but they are not all that advanced.
Their fast breeder SuperPhenix had to be eventually shutdown, due to protests and also some engineering issues, after all those are not easy to run and a cooled by liquid sodium which is difficult to handle.
( solid sodium will explode in water)
Belarus has an operating fast nuke, and so did Kazakhstan, just until very recently, and Kazakhstani plant was a desalination plant as well.
Both of these were bleeding edge Russian designs, designed and built in 70ies or 80ies. developed in 60ies.
Now, of course, everything Russian will have the stigma of Chernobyl (the incident in which soviet military had a hand, since most of nuke plants have been breeding plutonium for the nuclear weapons program).
Designs are completely unrelated to the ill-fated Chernobyl plant and have been operating for over 30 years without any serious incidents.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-350_reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BN-600
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superphenix
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
GM’s “reaching” for hydrogen as a fuel only seems to be “over-reaching” due to our addiction, for various reasons, to oil. Anything that doesn’t come from OPEC and is even somewhat enviromentally cleaner than oil is ok by me. In other words, I’d rather have a nuclear power plant in my backyard than OPEC on this planet.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
It would seem if the government wants to spend all this money on hydrogen development they would better served in helping along solar panel development and give large tax credits for installation on our home roofs. Just think of the electrical savings if we could convert 2% of our roofs to solar each year. We would never have an energy crisis again. Plus, think of all the energy forcharging our electrical Volts and other cars and trucks. But government has only dabbed in support of home installation credits. If they do more than dabbing, I haven’t heard of it. This would be much more beneficial to our national interest than all the money wasted with tax credits to the oil companies. I don’t agree with the current trend in congress to add extra taxes on the profits of the oil companies. If a company is profitable, they should pay their fair share of taxes like the rest of us, but we should not punish them for being very profitable. At the same time, we should not be giving them tax credits. Individuals need the tax credits more than businesses. I am not saying all business tax credits and research grants are bad, but they should be studied very carefully by congress, the administration and the public before being enacted. The current farm bill is a prime example of a give away program gone bad. This opinion comes from a person who grew up on a farm and still has close farm ties. Farm subsidies have been know by farm communities as a rip-off of taxpayer money for years. But, it helps to buy votes that congressmen need to get re-elected.
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Raphael ;
You mention LCD monitors : OLED monitors / televisions are said to save another 40 % over LCD . LED lighting in Southern climates should also save a lot of AC load .
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June 12th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Well, I have thoroughly read over all your posts threads since I last posted and this is my rebuttal”
Urban Justice
- Judge David Johnson
starring Steven Seagal and Eddie Griffon
Ballister (Seagal) embarks on a destructive spree, aimed at tracking down his son’s killer and rearranging his or her spinal column. His quest for revenge brings him second-chin-deep into the world of street gangs and with each successive visit to a hideout, more and more mofos get themselves smoked, much to the consternation of big-shot gangster Armand (Eddie Griffin). Who whacked Junior Ballister? How deep does the conspiracy go? And will anyone ever learn not to point a gun five inches from Seagal’s face and start trash-talking?!?
As for the fights, if you’re even relatively familiar with Seagal’s flicks—they’re hugely lopsided. At this point, I’m pretty sure Seagal’s contract explicitly states that no one is to lay a finger on him at all. The result is our hero just slaughters everyone he finds, with no hope of resistance or suspense in the bouts. This was kind of cool in his heyday when he had the physical presence to sell it, but now? At least take a punch man! Anyway, typical Seagal mayhem: quick hand strikes, some snapped necks, lots of throwing people into tables, etc
I will say this for Urban Justice: it may have broken the record for most blood squibs used in a feature film.
We’ll just hope the inevitable follow-up Rural Justice is better.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
176 John.
I thought OLED are less efficient than LED today.(and have some blue OLED life issues still) Theoretically they have higher upside in energy efficiency, do you have any links regarding 40% ? (sounds awfully high and must theoretical limits)
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
All of those who know that hydrogen fuel cells will not work and is not worth the effort, please give me your names and addresses so I can send you all a doctorates degree on the related field of study. Thank you. You people really deserve a degree with all that knowledge that purported today on this web site.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
For those interested:
http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/news1.html
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
I agree with Adam #53, I like the idea of a Hybrid fuel cell car. I’m no scientist and I’ve put in absolutely zero garage time attempting to determine the efficiency of hydrogen cells as an energy source but it SOUNDS better than petroleum so I’ll enjoy the bliss of my ignorance for now. As well, the post that mentioned to fill up times for hydrogen (regardless of how it happens) versus charge time is something to consider as well in my opinion.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
hydrogen fuel cell in a car is lunacy. (today).
Why does it have to be molecular hydrogen, anyway?
Hydrocarbons store more hydrogen than pure liquid hydrogen, why do we need to go through more trouble? BTW, hydrocarbons don’t need to be stored at -270 degrees or very high pressures, a glass jar would do
Now, if only somebody came up with a fuel cell that would burn gas or diesel or something liquid and convert it into electricity with higher efficiency than ICE at around the same cost as an ICE engine, that would be a MAJOR improvement over ICE that are inherently limited in their efficiency by thermodynamics.
Don’t hold your breath.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
What is the purpose of hydrogen?
My guess is that this is one proposed solution to global warming, by using a fuel that creates no CO2.
If that is the goal, then hydrogen from either coal, oil, or natural gas must be produced in a process where the CO2 from the hydrogen generation process must be separated and sequestered. This is very expensive, and also energy intensive. As mentioned by others, it is less efficient than direct use of electricity.
However, we must remember that the US creates 6 billion metric tons per year of CO2. Only 2 metric tons comes from the transportation sector, and 2.4 tons comes from power generation (the remainder is from residential, commerical, and industrial sectors). Of this 2.4 tons for power generation, 2.0 comes from coal fired power. So to drastically reduce CO2 emissions, we must reduce transportation CO2 emissions AND power generation emissions.
With vehicles like the Volt, we can reduce CO2 emissions by a factor of 5 or more. However, large vehicles like tractor trailer trucks and jet aircraft cannot “plug-in”. This is where I see fuel cells potentially playing a role, in long range applications where battery power will not be sufficient. However, the use of biofuels could greatly reduce emissions for these vehicles as well.
Although the transportation sector can shift to electricity, it will also require the grid to produce less CO2. This means probably more nuclear power, more renewables, and clean coal. And yes, coal to liquids can be included, but it needs to be clean (i.e. CO2 needs to be sequestered).
The future doesn’t require that we stop all CO2 emissions (whose ready to stop breathing). However, we need to reduce to a point where the atmospheric levels are no longer increasing (175 ppm in 1840’s to 375 ppm today, and still rising).
I see a future where hydrogen has some applications, however, they will be limited. E-REVs or BEVs will be prevalent for personal transportation, and biofuels will be used more. Oil will still be used for many applications (large transport vehicles and aviation). The US grid will see a shift towards 40% nuclear, 20% renewables, and 40% clean coal.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
#179 Joe,
If you don’t believe us, maybe you’ll listen to the head of the European Fuel Cell Forum, Ulf Bossel. He has a Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley (1968). Just Google “Why a hydrogen economy doesn’t make sense”.
Actually, I see this totally opposite. Most of the people preaching the virtues of hydrogen seem to be non-technical. Most qualified people that look at the big picture don’t think hydrogen will work.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
#181 Scott says:
“I agree with Adam #53, I like the idea of a Hybrid fuel cell car. I’m no scientist and I’ve put in absolutely zero garage time attempting to determine the efficiency of hydrogen cells as an energy source but it SOUNDS better than petroleum so I’ll enjoy the bliss of my ignorance for now.”
I rest my case.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Fuel cells are probably the strongest part of the hydrogen-for-autos equation. It’s the storage, distribution and creation issues that need tons of work.
I strongly feel that the solution for these times is something very like Volt, if not the Volt itself; but that’s not to say that hydrogen won’t be a major solution for other times.
I don’t think those times will come closer because of Equinox experiments by GM or BMW, but it might lay the groundwork for exploiting some new, H2 development yet to come.
We really do have to be prepared to do everything at once to get out of our current troubles. That includes biodiesel, ethanol (flawed as it is), solar, wind, electrification of cars, nuclear, conservation and drilling for more oil domestically. We’re not really in a position to pick and choose. Fossil fuels are a huge thing to replace.
Basic research into energy is never wasted.
And that’s true even if it turns out we Volt fans are wrong, and the hydrogen lovers are right.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
#181 Scott:
Just so you know, hydrogen cells are not an energy source. Hydrogen is an energy carrier. In other words, you need some other fuel to make hydrogen. The typical fuel soruce for hydrogen will be Natural Gas. That’s why they call them Fool Sells.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
180 Joe
I didn’t say hydrogen fuel cells would not work. I did say that I did not like hydrogen as a automobile fuel source. There is a difference. Doesn’t mean that I know what I am talking about. Just that I no longer like hydrogen as a fuel source for a personal automobile. I did say “personal automobile”. Could be ok for other, larger vehicle types.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
If they are using natural gas to make hydrogen….why not just convert the Volt ICE to propane? That technology is already here.
I could convert my 07 MAXX to propane/gas for about $ 1300 (Canadian) if I ran out of propane the engine would automatically switch back to gas…
The thing with propane (here in Canada) is that it costs more than 1/3 less per liter (87 cents) or $3.82 Canadian per gallon compared to $ 5.99 per Canadian Gallon for Gas.
It does use about 20 % more fuel for the same result in power as gasoline but your net 13% savings would easily recap your cost with in a year at today’s prices.. and we have propane stations throughout Canada.
GM …. Are you listening
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
#188 Theoldguy asks:
“If they are using natural gas to make hydrogen….why not just convert the Volt ICE to propane?”
1) Because storing propane in automobiles is dangerous, especially in accidents.
2) Because electrical power plants that use natural gas are very efficient, and cars that run on compressed natural gas or propane are not so efficient. Even with grid transmission, battery storage, and electric motor losses, a car running on electricity made from natural gas is more efficient than a car that runs on natural gas directly.
3) Because electricity costs the equivalent of $1/gallon U.S.
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June 12th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Hi Brad G. I don’t think Ford can go to CAT for diesel engines much longer. CAT announced they are leaving the on-highway engine business:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/caterpillar-exiting-highway-truck-engines-navistar/story.aspx?guid=%7B72E5EA62-6BD4-4063-9693-E5D902C3AF6B%7D&siteid=yhoof
Here are some quotes from it:
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Caterpillar Inc. said Thursday it will exit the on-highway truck engine market by 2010, opting instead to work with Navistar International Corp. to develop commercial trucks for distribution in global markets.
The deal essentially removes Caterpillar from the highway-truck engine market, which represented just 6% of its total engine sales, said Eli Lustgarten, analyst with Longbow Research.
Keeping it would have also required significant investment to comply with Environmental Protection Agency emission rules that go in affect in 2010.
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
For those who think hydrogen would work for airplanes, google “Ulf Bossel” and “E17″. Here’s some quotes:
“At least 25 nuclear power plants plus the entire water consumption of Frankfurt needed to serve all 520 jet aircrafts per day at Frankfurt Airport”
“Heavy duty and long distance transport by land, air and sea will be powered by ‘the last drops of oil’ or hydrocarbon biofuels”
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Ulf Bossel’s work is interesting, but why does he think that nuclear is unsustainable? I mean, replacing 1GW nuke plant with windmills and solar panels is cheap and easy, and does not use any rare materials
?
The French are already using nuclear sustainably, I’m just curious when solar/wind/etc can possibly eclipse it. Probably never.
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
#191 Raphael asks:
“Ulf Bossel’s work is interesting, but why does he think that nuclear is unsustainable?”
Uranium 235 is a scarce metal. Once used as fuel, it can’t be refreshed and used again for fuel. When Uranium is mined from the earth, that leaves less available for future use. Bottom line: Uranium supplies will run out, just like oil.
Once depleted, uranium is either:
1) Dumped in a big hole in the ground.
2) Used to make Plutonium for atomic bombs.
3) Recycled for other beneficial purposes besides making energy.
The French are using option #3.
Note that option #2 requires vasts amounts of energy, so as far as I know, that’s not really useful for anything but atomic bombs.
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
#188 Theoldguy:
In Europe you can buy new GM cars, including the Aveo, equipped for propane from the dealers. I guess the tax structure in Europe really makes propane attractive. So GM knows all about it already. They just don’t choose to make it available here. Along with 49 mpg diesel Opels and 56 mpg gas Vauxhalls. Go figure.
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Dave G:
Plutonium is produced in breeder reactors, that produce more fuel than they consume.
It does not require any more energy than any regular fast neutron nuke, it’s just a different fuel cycle.
While it is true that uranium reserves are finite, we barely use them. Depleted uranium is another word for untapped fuel, we do not even use 1 percent of all energy available in uranium. It can all be burned, even depleted uranium, thorium (currently not even mined), any byproducts of nuclear fuel cycle can be burned further.
Thermal neutron nukes (The vast majority of current designs in operation) = 50-60 years of fuel supply (uranium)
That’s not even taking into account we can burn thorium that’s 3-4 times as abundant as uranium.
Fast neutron breeders (the inevitable future) = 10,000 years of fuel or more at current consumption level. Say energy consumption will grow exponentially, then at least for a few hundred years. That’s not even accounting for huge, untapped thorium reserves.
Just enough to buy time before nuclear fusion becomes possible, and once it is – windmills and solar become as outdated as stone hammers are today.
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
#191 Raphael:
Go take a look at the Navajo reservation. Uranium mining has left nothing but a legacy of sickness, death, and ruined land.
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Dear God. Please not Hydrogen. Please. Thank you.
Everyone’s covered this topic from just about every angle possible, today, but I have one thing to add.
Historically, fuel cells barely put out enough power to even move the car. Honda is probably the farthest along and managed to get 100kW out of the stack and included a bunch of ultracapacitors to make the car accelerate… as slowly as a Prius. These are not going to be fun cars. And unlike the battery/electric motor combination which can currently power any sized vehicle up to buses; fuel cells are stuck to operate only the tiniest of cars for the forseeable future. It does not make any sense to build out infrastracture that is so limited in application at such great expense. Unless, of course, you’re an oil company which has the potential to provide gobs of hydrogen from natural gas and you want to keep selling energy based on fossil fuels. No, thanks, I’m not interested in voting for you with my checkbook. I’ll vote for better batteries, electric motors and solar, thank you.
The technologies I will pay a premium for are the ones that I see leading to the elimination of ALL our energy overlords. If it looks like a tech I can use to make my own energy, use my own energy or store my own energy, it’s going to get my vote. I don’t see Hydrogen helping that enough to be as useful as say, better batteries.
Although, eventually, I’d like to be able to make my own hydrogen to use for the gas stovetop. Electric stovetops just aren’t the same as gas.
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June 12th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Sure, let’s go all emotional on poor Navajos.
Highways kill ***40 THOUSANDS EVERY YEAR*** in the US.
so 400,000 people died from those most evil creations of human madness, those despicable killing machines, the highways, in the last 10 years.
******** FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND ***********
Where is the outrage? Why is nobody protesting ? Why isn’t anybody campaigning to ban highways?
That’s almost twice as many Navajos exists on this planet.
And in last 20 years, around 3 million deaths ? or more? And that’s just in the USA. So a small country has been completely wiped out, and nobody’s sobbing yet?
Now, answer, how many people did nuclear industry kill in the last 10 years?
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
I have found todays topic very interesting. I spent 3 years on president Carter’s National Alcohol Fuels Commission. The oil companies said hydrogen was the answer then. Here we are 30 years later and it has not happened yet. The ONLY real change is that some of the car companies that are in real trouble are saying alcohol might work but they still like hydrogen. We shall see.
Take Care
Arch
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
In other, less brain numbing, but all too familar news:
Another multi-decade low achieved by GM’s stock again today.
Down 2.23% at $15.76. Market cap getting down in the mid 8 billion range…nice yield if you believe they could keep paying it, 6.4% ($1/sh)
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Texas @ 38
I agree with your whole post, except the first sentence (”I love hydrogen too”).
No matter how you cut it, H2 “costs” 4X the energy to make as it carries. Why bother putting yet another bottleneck (like oil) in the transportation equation? ANY single source, is a terrible idea. Electricity, at least in the USA is ubiquitous. Granted, everyone at this point doesn’t have exterior access to a plug at this point, but that can surely be more easily addressed than wasting time and energy duping people about H2.
Be well,
Tag
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Hyddrogen keeps the money going to big oil, taking away your options of where and how to get electricty would be a big mistake. The money would still be going overseas.
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
A gallon of gas costs $8.75 in Britain now and it could go up to $10 a gallon pretty soon for all we know. I thought this picture was kind of funny when I saw it today.
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.autobloggreen.com/media/2008/06/gas_prices_arm.gif
Paying an arm and a leg for gas may not be funny for much longer though …. for millions of people. Things could get ugly if gas prices continue to go up dramatically. Could you imagine the outcry in America if gas was $10 per gallon? Scary to think about.
All those SUV and big truck owners with long commutes to work would freak out. So would the folks who use trucks and SUVs in their work every day like the construction industry. Some of these trucks and SUVs get like 10-14 miles per gallon. Visualize throwing a $10 bill out the window of your big SUV or truck every 10-14 miles. That’s PAINFUL for 95% of us Americans just to think about.
America doesn’t have many alternative transportation systems such as trains like they have in Britain. We’d be SOL …. pay the fatcat oil company man or ride a bike … or get a horse and buggy? Low income folks in rural areas would be particularly outraged. Super high gas prices is like some country attacking us and trying to take our freedom away. We like our freedom in America you know … freedom to move around … freedom to get in a car and go on a road trip to the beach or the mountains with your buddies, etc.
The Chevy Volt is going to be a godsend for a LOT of people in America and all over the world once it comes out in 2010. The Volt can’t get here soon enough. GM is going to get VERY popular once the Volt comes out.
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
I am not a believer in hydrogen for passenger cars but I am wondering how this will play out.
In the US, the refineries and importers are a handful of corporations.
The price of gas is now going to force the oil companies to compete at some level with many different electricity suppliers, battery manufacturers, etc. Big game change. The only thing the oil companies can do is try and get the car manufacturers to use their products (petroleum based). I don’t see any way they are going to allow the consumer transportation market to get away from them without a fight.
Hydrogen requires a major new distribution infrastructure and guess who has that investment money? Yep….. And frankly I don’t think they are interested in developing any alternative that doesn’t involved their product.
If we go hydrogen we will lose. This is the one chance the consumer has drive the solution. IMHO.
I’m waiting for the oil companies to start pressuring the government for changes to the commodities market. If the speculation continues at some point they will lose money because demand will drop way to much. And if a global depression is due to the prices, it will be taken away from them first.
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Can I buy 30 seconds of additional editing time? ;^)
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
__________________________________________________
Breaking CNN News:
ExxonMobil to sell 2,220 gas stations
The nation’s largest oil company, which earned nearly $41 billion last year, says it will sell more than 2,000 stations over the next few years.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/12/exxon.mobil/index.html
Question: What is the commercial market value of an American soil gas station if 50%+ of all new cars sold in America will be EV after the year 2015? I think you are going to see a lot more guys looking to sell their American soil gas stations while they can. There will be a much lesser need for gas stations after 2015 even if Hydrogen fuel caches on as an extended fuel source for plug-ins. There are over 16,000 gas stations currently operating in the United Sates.
__________________________________________________
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June 12th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
That is an interesting perspective.
Oil is still going to be needed for centuries so I am guessing the oil companies will press to raise the prices in other areas where it is needed.
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
“To that end, Watanabe revealed that this month Toyota is setting up a new special division in Japan that will research batteries which “far outperform” lithium ion cells. The new division will start with 50 engineers, rising to 100 within two years with a view. The bad news, according to subsequent media reports in Japan, is that commercialization isn’t expected until 2030. Clearly, Toyota’s rep for thinking long term remains well founded.”
Found this on the net. Anybody want to wait until 2030 ? But knowing the progress of practical science, I doubt it will take nearly that long.
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June 12th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
I am not sure that I like hydrogen yet. If it can be produced cheaply then it would be ok.. if you can get around the fact that you _could_ be sitting on a bomb. So much energy is wasted from nuclear power plants. They could easily adapt a site to handel hydrogen production.. however, nuke+hydrogen= potentially bad day. Nuke plants are 30% efficient on a good day and 97%( ?) of electricity is lost in transmition.
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June 12th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
Serpent,
Your facts ???. Even if you had a nuke plant make H2 directly it would be far less efficient than storing that electricity in a battery. First of all you would have to squander countless energy to produce that H2, then you’d have the storage problems, then you’d lose even more efficiency by converting that H2 back to electricity. Makes no sense whatsoever.
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June 12th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I applaud any company that is seriously researching hydrogen power just like I applaud any company that is seriously researching teleportation technology. It sounds cool… but it’s just not going to work any time soon.
Hydrogen just isn’t ready. It’s a very promising idea that I think we should continue researching in the future, but it’s not the next logical step in the evolution of the automobile. Battery electrics are (or more specifically, E-REVs are). And I think that’s where we need to focus our attention right now.
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June 12th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
#210 Serpent2 says:
“I am not sure that I like hydrogen yet. If it can be produced cheaply then it would be ok..”
Google “Ulf Bossel” and “E17″. Heres a quote:
“Electricity derived from hydrogen with fuel cells will be
at least four times more expensive than power from the grid”
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June 12th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Help with conventional Nuclear energy may come from a surprising place: biotechnology. Some microorganisms may be able to scavenge much of the useful Uranium which is left over in waste which is now consigned to long-term confinement.
But why moan about Uranium? It’s been known for decades that a fuel cycle based on Thorium was possible. Guess what? The US is sitting on the world’s second largest known Thorium reserves, after Australia. Of course, it will take at least a decade of concentrated and serious research to begin.
I recall the First Scientist in the White House (that’s Jimmy Carter, for you youngsters), telling a reporter that he thought the US should commit to a standardized-reactor design utilizing a Thorium fuel cycle, but as far as I know, he never lifted a Presidential finger to do anything about it.
Guess where, in the World, the most research is being done on Thorium for Nuclear Fuel? India, which has some Thorium, but almost no Uranium. Seems like it would be more in our interests to pound the physics labs for solutions, than India.
An intriguing footnote to Thorium-based energy is the possibility of sub-critical reactors. Thorium can’t sustain a reaction all by itself. It must either be combined with conventional fuel (which can bombard it with the necessary particles), or be bombarded by particles from an accelarator. Accelarator on: Fission happens. Accelarator off: Fission stops. Also, you could make energy with much less fuel than we’re used to thinking about with a reactor.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
My LORD, we have a lot of knowledeable people in our group!
I wonder why we don’t have more nuclear power plants? (evil grin)
Be well,
T
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
It’s reassuring to see that virtually everyone realizes hydrogen is a joke. Hopefully we can move past this silly phase quickly and really get the EV’s rolling.
It would be way easier to develop a quick charge (5-10 min) EV OR a battery exchange system (swap it out at the gas station like a propane tank) than it would be to develop fuel cells for cars. There are easier solutions to the range limitations of an EV than fuel cells.
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Jackson, Thorium will never work as you can’t use the output to make nuclear bombs. You still need a small amount of U235 to get started as well. The Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, some AGR’s and the CANDU designs are equiped to handle Thorium.
Personally I like the Pebble Bed design as you can drop them into existing coal fired plants and recycle the switch yards and turbine halls. In fact all you need are the reactors and a heat exchanger. For safety, their normal operationg condition is off, so any loss of coolant and they just shut down. This does make them less efficient though. I guess that’s why the pellets get recycled.
Over 200 posts on H2. Lyle, it’s taking up too much of my day keeping up
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June 12th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
I would become a crackhead and suck D for a living before I would buy even 1 dollars worth of hydrogen from big hoe oil.
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:04 pm
New Headline
GM says no to oil and Hello to Vaseline. LOL OMG GM is being
such a looser, Stockholders grab your ankles and wait for market
penetration,lol
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Jeff M hit it right. The real flex fuel is electric. In all ways, universal, and abundant since it can be produced by so many sources. He lists wood, solar, gas, geo, nuclear, hydrogen, etc., I’m just glad to hear the push is on by GM to make electrifying the automotive industry the next phase in our lifetime. And electric distribution channels as everyone knows, is here right now, today, to the same number of households as can access gas at a gas pump, although for much less $$$$.
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
JBALASKA@222
Absolutely! BTW, the Govt just awarded GM, Ford, and GE 30M in funding – to get a plugin vehicle on the road BY 2015???
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June 12th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
By 2015 gas will cost twice as much as your monthly house note.
Too little too late!!!!!!!
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