March 5, 2010 - A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts a fuel and an oxidant into an electrical current triggered in the presence of an electrolyte. Fuel cells are different from batteries in that they rely on the oxidant and fuel from an external source. Many combinations of fuels and oxidants are possible. They can use hydrogen, natural gas and alcohols as its fuel and oxygen (usually from air), chlorine, and chlorine dioxide as its oxidant. Fuel cells have been hailed as saviors of the environment, because they can cleanly and efficiently turn hydrogen and other fuels into electricity.
The Fuel for Fuel Cells
Hydrogen. In the short term hydrogen will be produced and supplied from natural gas, thereby taking advantage of the existing infrastructure and distribution networks. Over the medium to long term, hydrogen will be produced via electrolysis using clean renewable power from solar, wind, and geothermal sources as well as biomass gasification.
Hydrogen and Syngas from Biomass. Feb 2010. Hydrogen and Gasification production are presently being developed in many countries from waste biomass products such as dead trees, branches, tree stumps, yard clippings, wood chips, and garbage. ClearFuels Technology Inc will begin operations at five commercial biorefinery facilities in the U.S. NLT 2015 on logging sites in the southeast revolutionizing the logging industry; and Alliance Federated Energy is building a renewable energy plant that will be up and running in 2013 and will convert trash into a synthetic gas (syngas).
Nanotubes – Microscopic carbon nanotubes are a material that is at least as light as carbon fiber, but stronger than steel and capable of distributing electricity quicker and more efficiently. Nanotubes are 100,000 times thinner than strands of human hair (light as cotton), possessing higher electrical properties than copper, and are as efficient in conducting heat as a diamond. While carbon nanotubes are an expensive material today, they are getting cheaper.
- Feb. 6, 2009 – A team at the University of Dayton, Ohio, has discovered that a bundle of nanotubes doped with nitrogen acting as the catalyst, can help oxygen react inside the fuel cell replacing the expensive platinum. This new type of fuel cell promises to be much cheaper, as well as more compact and more efficient. “Science,” http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16547-carbon-catalyst-could-herald-cutprice-fuel-cells.html
-Jan 21, 2010 - The Korea Advance Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, Korea revealed a breakthrough in the production of carbon-nitride nanotubes with controlled nano-sized pores on their stems.
-Feb. 23, 2010- Neah Power (Bothell, Wash) announced a new type of low cost liquid electrolyte-based direct methanol fuel cell that does not require air as its oxidant to operate. The announcement marks the first major innovation in fuel cell technology in over 20 years -
The Bloom Box - Feb.18, 2010. Fuel cell company Bloom Energy made quite a stir on CBS "Sixty Minutes" TV program (The Bloom Box: An Energy Breakthrough?) when CEO John Donahoe raved that his little black boxes will “change the world.” Bloom has spent 8 years and close to $400 million developing the Bloom Box. Bloom has had a number of companies testing the product in data centers, including Google, FedEx, Staples and eBay.In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on fuel cells, and it appears Bloom Energy has won the prize with their little wireless power plant-in-a-box that sits in a backyard generating the total home’s electricity. It can even be connected to the power grid to supply additional electricity for a profit to the homeowner. This new concept is envisioned to replace the big power plants and transmission line grids, the same way cell phones are supplanting telephone poles. Natural gas or biofuel (stored in an adjacent tank) are pumped into the Bloom Box which consists of ceramic plates stacked atop each other to form modules. The unit does not vibrate, emits no sound, and has no smell. Stacking them into a bread loaf-sized unit produces one kilowatt of electricity, enough to power an American home. The real question is whether Bloom has unlocked the secret of how to make these things cheap. Bloom's big breakthrough was reducing breakage by figuring out how to get the cells and the metal plates that go between them in the stacks to expand and shrink at the same rate at temperatures up to 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit. The goal for Bloom is a $3,000 box for homes that will last 10 years and recoup its cost in 3 to 5 years. Bloom’s commercial boxes already generate electricity at about 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour running on natural gas which undercuts utility rates in many parts of the United States. Federal and state subsidies may help soak up some expense as well. The federal government offers a whopping 30 percent subsidy for fuel cell projects, and Californians can tack on another 20 percent from their state government.
Automakers have been working on fuel cells powered vehicle using hydrogen as the fuel for vehicles for years. In 2003 President George Bush proposed the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative (HFI), which was later implemented by legislation through the 2005 Energy Policy Act and the 2006 Advanced Energy Initiative. These aimed at further developing hydrogen fuel cells and its infrastructure technologies with the ultimate goal to produce commercial fuel cell vehicles by 2020. By 2008, the U.S. had contributed 1 billion dollars to this project. In May 2009, however, the Obama Administration announced that it will "cut off funds" for the development of fuel cell hydrogen vehicles, since other vehicle technologies will lead to quicker reduction in emissions in a shorter time. The US Secretary of Energy explained that hydrogen vehicles "will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years," and also mentioned the challenges involved in the development of the required infrastructure to distribute hydrogen fuel. Nevertheless, the U.S. government will continue to fund research related to stationary fuel cells. The National Hydrogen Association and the U.S. Fuel Cell Council criticized this decision arguing that "...the cuts proposed in the DOE hydrogen and fuel cell program threaten to disrupt commercialization of a family of technologies that are showing exceptional promise and beginning to gain market traction." However, this cancellation should bode well for Republicans in their efforts to cut federal spending and let private enterprise fund research.
Pike Research Challenges Govermnent’s 10 to 20 year FCV Claims- Market intelligence firm Pike Research predicts Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCV) will be launched on a commercial scale in most of the world by 2014 and cumulative sales of fuel cell cars and trucks should hit almost 3 million worldwide in 10 years. And industry analyst Dave Hurst said "Fuel cell vehicles have been an elusive goal for the automotive industry, but they are on the verge of commercial reality.” With substantial support from the largest automakers, the pressure is on gas companies and governments to make sure that hydrogen fueling stations are available to support this emerging market. One of the primary attractions of FCVs is their emissions: oxygen, heat and a little water.
South Carolina Leads Nation for Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV): Oct 2009.South Carolina has a hydrogen freeway in the works with two hydrogen fueling stations now in operation in Aiken and Columbia, SC. Additional stations are expected in places around South Carolina such as Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Greenville, and Florence with future plans to develop on-site hydrogen production. There is extensive funding for hydrogen fuel cell research and infrastructure at the University of South Carolina, a founding member of the South Carolina Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Alliance. And ClemsonUniversity's InternationalCenter for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) has an opportunity to be the national model for producing the car of the future. The University of South Carolina is on the cutting-edge in hydrogen fuel cell energy, and its ongoing bio-mass and alternative fuel research is making a real impact on the Marion / Florence Pee Dee region -http://www.southcarolinaengineering.org/newsletter.pdf
The Fuel Cell Vehicle Competition.
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV)- As supported by the Obama Administration retail sales for the PHEV will start in late 2011, three years ahead of FCV and will...
* Will not save their owners significant amounts of money;
* Will not be as fuel efficient as HybridElectric Vehicles (HEV) or Natural gas Vehicles (NGV) when battery capacity is factored into the equation.
* Will not be as CO2 efficient as HEVs when utility emissions are factored into the equation.
* Will be feel-good, taxpayer subsidized vehicles
* Will shift emissions from cars to coal-fired power plants
* Will add $2,000 to $3,000 to the cost of a conventional hybrid
* Will put resale values in the toilet when factoring in the replacement cost of $5,000 for a lithium battery (after 100,000 miles).
Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) –Available Now and Little Recognized. While the Obama Administration says PHEV’s will lead to quicker reduction in emissions in a shorter time, all beginning in late 2011 at the earliest, NGV are here now. The UScould be producing NGV’s that are 90 percent cleaner than the average gasoline-powered car, full sized four passenger sedans, get 36 MPG with natural gas fuel @ $0.63 per gallon, and unlike oil, 98 percent of the natural gas fuel the vehicles uses is taken out of US soil. And on the safety side, natural gas is actually lighter than air, so any leakage tends to dissipate very rapidly and harmlessly into the atmosphere, which makes it even safer than gasoline. Ignition temperature is also twice that of gasoline, so the possibility of explosion is remote. This all sounds too good to be true, but that is exactly what the specifications for the only car sold in America are, the Japanese Honda Civic GX NGV. Then why do the big three US auto makers have little desire to make such a vehicle? The US automotive industry, led by money hungry CEO’s, must be deaf, dumb, and blind. With all the natural gas we have the US automakers should have been a world leader in the manufacture of natural gas vehicles (NGV) a long time ago. The Honda Civic GX NGV, uses compressed natural gas (the simplest and cleanest-burning hydrocarbon available) and has been acclaimed the “world’s cleanest internal-combustion vehicle.” The US could be a leader in producing NGV’s that combine top performance with low emissions. There are more than 7 million NGV’s in the world, but only 2% of them (150,000) are in the US. Having more natural gas than any other country (except for Russia ) we could have taken oil down a long time ago (we have a measly 3 percent of the world’s oil supply) by switching to NGV’s. Being the world’s largest auto consumer, the rest of the world would have to follow, not the opposite way around as US automaker scramble to catch up with just about every new innovation coming out lately. While the US automakers have little incentive to make NGV's, up north across the border, the Canadian Natural Gas Vehicle Alliance is making an all out effort to promote NGV's.
Priced at $25,860, Honda Civic GX NGV is $1,540 more than a Civic Hybrid and almost $7k more than a gasoline-powered Civic LX, though the GX is eligible for a $4,000 Federal tax credit. This price is only reflective of its limited production and could easily be manufactured for the same cost as a gasoline-powered Civic LX.More recently there has been a growing level of interest in natural gas as a serious alternative to hybrids and gasoline engines. It’s like Rip Van Winkle waking up from a long sleep which occurred in America after the first lunar landing.
Diesel Vehicles - Honda will bring a clean-diesel car to the U.S. this fall 2010. It gets 62.8 miles a gallon on the highway, a savings of 50% over a gasoline Honda Accord and 2.8 mpg more than a Prius. At this mileage level it is about as "clean" as a new Toyota Prius. But if run on biodiesel, it will be even cleaner than a Prius. In Europe more than 50 percent of new cars purchased are diesel, but here in the US, automakers are instead pushing small unsafe hybrids. The reason you see so fewer diesel cars in the U.S. is because US automakers have chosen not to push diesel cars because they last longer. Remember how “planned obsolescence” almost killed Chrysler before Lee Iacocca stepped in back in 1979? Currently only Volkswagen, Mercedes and Jeep sell diesel-powered cars in the U.S. The new turbo-charged diesel cars give the driver the sort of get-up-and-go that leaves a gasoline engine in the dust and, unlike the smelly, hard-to-start, and loud cars of 20 years ago, the new turbo-charged diesel cars are virtually indistinguishable from gasoline powered cars. Plus they have much better resale value because the engine is virtually indestructible, and as far as gas mileage in some cases they get better gas mileage than hybrids. But there’s even better news for diesel. Biodiesel can be mixed in any proportion with fossil fuel diesel and pure biodiesel reduces net carbon dioxide emissions by 78 percent compared to 100 percent petroleum diesel, a perfect marriage for environmental concerns and an energy hungry public. And to think that we could be producing all of our fuel for diesel cars from algae-based biodiesel and the jatropha plant, all grown in the US. Remember how two years ago the failed biodiesel plant in Chesapeake was going to buy all the jatropha oil it could get its hands on? As biofuel production picks up in the US, the big three automakers are making only meager plans to build diesel cars. As in the case of the Canadian NVG’s, we’ll end up trying to catch up with European diesel vehicles.
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