[Graeme]

Groundwork being laid for rise of fuel cell cars

Japan is gearing up to launch fuel cell vehicles as the next-generation of environmentally safer cars.

Oil distributors have started to establish hydrogen station networks, while the government is set to provide financial assistance and is considering deregulation to make it easier to set up the fuel supply networks.


It’s possible that fuel cell vehicles might replace electric vehicles, Toyota Motor Corp. Vice Chairman Takeshi Uchiyamada says. Toyota and Honda Motor Co. plan to release mass-market fuel cell vehicles in 2015, and Nissan Motor Co. will follow suit in 2017.

Competition is heating up for the development of lower-cost models. “Prices of below ¥10 million have now come into sight,” a Toyota official said.

By 2015, 13 companies including automakers and oil distributors aim to establish a total of 100 hydrogen supply bases, mainly in major cities.

JX Nippon Oil & Energy Corp., one of the 13 firms, installed its first hydrogen supply equipment at a gas station in the city of Ebina, Kanagawa Prefecture, in April. The firm aims to set up such equipment at 40 places.

japantimes

[Graeme]

New Catalyst Turns Seawater in Hydrogen for Fuel Cells

A team of researchers at Australia’s University of Wollongong have found a way to separate the “H” from sea water’s H2O, producing a virtually unlimited source of the hydrogen necessary to power the hydrogen fuel cells that many people believe will, ultimately, replace petroleum gasoline.

These scientists, led by Associate Professor Jun Chen and Professor Gerry Swiegers, have produced an artificial chlorophyll on a conductive plastic film that acts as a catalyst to begin splitting water. They claim that their catalyst is so efficient, in fact, that they can produce enough hydrogen to power an average-sized home and an electric car from a mere 5 liters of sea water.
If that’s even halfway true, it could spark a revolutionary shift in the way the general public views alternative fuels and hilariously upset the oil economies of Canada and the Middle East.

gas2

[Graeme]

Toyota steps up hydrogen fuel cell development

Toyota is branching out beyond hybrids to ramp up its exploration of hydrogen fuel cell technology.
This week, three of the automaker’s reps head to Aspen, Colo., for the TED-esque Ideas Festival to “underscore Toyota’s commitment to fuel cell vehicles,” a spokeswoman said.

But don’t expect details of Toyota’s next venture into hydrogen, beyond confirmation that a production car planned for 2015 will be a sedan priced in the ballpark of $50,000.

“It’s going to be a significant premium to a Prius,” said Jaycie Chitwood, an alternative fuel manager for Toyota. “That doesn’t mean it can’t be cost competitive. It doesn’t need to be the same price if it’s less expensive to fuel in hydrogen.”

latimes

Japanese fuel cell safety standards rolled out globally

Japanese safety standards for fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) are to be rolled out globally as part of an international agreement covering the technology.

Safety regulations from Japan are to be integrated into the final draft of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations GTR (global technical regulation) on FCEV safety, according to the Nikkei.

The agreement will allow a vehicle given the green light in one country to be approved for sale in all UNECE signatory nations.
These nations include the majority of the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

A number of countries that are not signatories will still recognise and permit UNECE regulations, although the USA and Canada will not.
Integrating Japan's safety standards will enable the nation's automakers to mass produce and export their FCEV into at least 33 markets without having to alter domestic specifications.

The World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations will meet in Geneva this week to formally approve the changes.

platinum

[Graeme]

GM Forges Honda Fuel-Cell Alliance in Renewed Hydrogen Auto Push

General Motors Co. (GM) and Honda (7267) Motor Co. are teaming up in a renewed push to market clean vehicles, with the two automotive giants seeking to have cheaper power-making fuel cells and hydrogen tanks ready by 2020.

The partnership between the largest U.S. automaker and Tokyo-based Honda is to include exchanging engineers, joint use of research facilities and shared sourcing of parts and materials, they said yesterday. The goal is a common hydrogen powertrain to make the low-polluting vehicles more affordable, they said, without providing details about prices or investment.

“We’re talking about a complete sharing of all of our respective intellectual properties on the subject,” Steve Girsky, GM’s vice chairman, said at a New York press conference. “The cost of such technology has not come down as far as it must to become more commercially viable.”

The allure of hydrogen as a clean automotive fuel led carmakers including the former General Motors Corp. to predict a decade ago that millions of fuel-cell autos would be on the road by now. While a mass market for hydrogen cars may be another decade or more away, automakers continue to pursue the technology.

businessweek

[Palpatine]

“The cost of such technology has not come down as far as it must to become more commercially viable.”

And it never will. Even if you give a hydrogen fuel cell car the most optimistic set of assumptions in terms or energy, storage, range, cost.... it still cannot compete with lithium batteries that are already in use today. In addition, the cost of the lithium batteries are still falling dramatically, so the advantages of a pure EV are going to get even stronger over time. Hydrogren is a dead issue for the purposes of cars.

[Palpatine]

We have already proven that EVs based on lithium batteries are viable as a car. Tesla is proof of that. A viable and sucessful business is succeeding by making commercially viable cars with lithium batteries. In fact, many reviews lately consider the Tesla designs to be far superior to anything possible with an ICE.

The same cannot be said of hydrogen. The entire concept is only given lip service. There is no serious plan to expand hydrogen fuel stations.

[Graeme]

A 300,000 mile fuel cell for hydrogen vehicles?

Would fuel cell vehicles be more appealing to you if they had a fuel source that was comparable to the best light-weight diesel engines? Or, more simply put, could offer you the equivalent of 300,000 driven miles?

That’s a bold claim indeed given the nascent state of this emerging green vehicle market, but one which ACAL Energy thinks it can make.

ACAL Energy said it recently had developed a proton exchange membrane (PEM) hydrogen fuel cell that “reached 10,000 hours runtime on a third party automotive industry durability test without any significant signs of degradation.” This endurance is said to easily beat current U.S. Department of Energy targets for fuel cell powered vehicles to last 5,000 hours, equivalent to 150,000 road miles, with an expected degradation threshold of approximately 10%.

And, to crow even a little more, the company said its “breakthrough approach is also significantly cheaper than conventional fuel cell technology.”

The trick to all of this, according to ACAL Energy, is that its technology

does not rely on platinum as the catalyst for the reaction between oxygen and hydrogen. The platinum and gas have been replaced with a patented liquid catalyst, which ACAL Energy calls FlowCath. This revolutionary approach dramatically improves a PEM fuel cell’s durability and at the same time reduces the cost of a system. The liquid acts as both a coolant and catalyst for the cell’s, ensuring that they last longer by removing most of the known decay mechanisms.

Power output with this fuel cell tied to a “competitive fuel cell drive-train” reportedly would be 100kW, equal to that of a 2 litre diesel engine.

tgdaily

[Graeme]

European Commission launches new $1.8-billion fuel cell and hydrogen research initiative

The European Commission is launching a second phase of the first Fuel Cells and Hydrogen (FCH) Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) set up in 2008. The new Fuel Cells & Hydrogen 2 Initiative—with a proposed combined 50:50 EU-industry budget of €1.4 billion (US$1.8 billion)—will continue to develop a portfolio of fuel cell and hydrogen technologies to the point of market introduction. The new FCH 2 JTI is expected to start in 2014 and will end in 2024.

The JTI is one of five announced as part of a new EU-industry investment of €22 billion (US$28 billion) in research and innovation. The other JTIs address innovative medicines; aeronautics; bio-based industries; and electronics.

Specific objectives for the FCH 2 JTI include:

Reduce cost of fuel cell systems for transport applications by a factor of 10;

Increase electrical efficiency of fuel cells for power production by 10%;

Demonstrate the viability of large scale hydrogen production from electricity generated from renewable energy sources.



Bio-based industries JTI. The Bio-based industries (BBI) JTI will focus on three main streams of activities:

Feedstock, by fostering sustainable biomass supply with increased productivity and new supply chains;

Biorefineries, by optimizing efficient processing through R&D and demonstrating their efficiency and economic viability at large-scale demonstration biorefineries; and

Markets, products and policies, by developing markets for bio-based products and improving policy frameworks.

greencarcongress

[Graeme]

MIT Explains Why Toyota and GM are Pushing Hydrogen

In recent months, GM, Toyota, and Honda have all made big public commitments to put hydrogen fuel cell equipped cars on the road by 2016. Some of their moves can be explained by President Obama’s expected hydrogen push and pressure from oil companies and gas-station owners to keep their infrastructure relevant in a non-petroleum economy.


So, what’s really going on here? Why the sudden spark of interest? Kevin Bullis, of MIT’s Technology Review magazine, explains that, sometimes, “miracles do happen”.

Since 2009, the costs involved with fuel-cell vehicles have fallen. The prototypes that GM and Toyota built a few years ago cost well over $1 million each. Now Toyota says its goal is to sell its fuel-cell sedan for less than $100,000. Costs fell as Toyota found ways to reduce the number of parts in its fuel-cell system and to decrease the amount of costly platinum needed. The company says it’s pushing hard on R&D for manufacturing technology, among other things, to lower costs still more ahead of the 2015 launch …

… “Costs have come down at a pretty steady rate,” says Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute for Transportation Studies at the University of California at Davis and a member of California’s Air Resources Board, which oversees vehicle emissions regulations. “Most people in the auto industry think that, once in large-scale production, cost won’t be a barrier.”

gas2

[Graeme]

Climate Friendly Fuel Cells for Hydrogen Cars Have Come One Step Closer

Climate friendly fuel cells for hydrogen cars have come one step closer. Researchers at the Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen, have shown how to build fuel cells that produce as much electricity as current models, but require markedly less of the rare and valuable precious metal platinum. Their discovery was published in the journal Nature Materials.

Cheaper hydrogen cars with new fuel cell design
Fuel cells ought to replace internal combustion engines in our cars. They are better for the climate and for the environment. Partly because fuel cells use the fuel much more efficiently. Partly because they emit no smoke, no smog, no CO2.

Unfortunately the fuel cells have a technical limitation. They only work if they contain the metal platinum which is less common and more costly than gold. This has been a considerable obstacle to the development of the energy efficient power generators.


The key factor leading to platinum savings might never have been discovered by the group. They had produced a number of catalysts with varying sizes of platinum particles. By chance the particles were very tightly packed on a few of the sample catalysts and as it turned out, the packing of the particles was much more significant than the size. An effect, that the researchers have dubbed the "Particle Proximity Effect."

Next step will be to develop a chemical method to produce tightly packed catalysts on an industrial scale. Arenz has a few ideas for that as well, so he and his group have started applying for grants.

sciencedaily

And this:

EU Driving Into Second Phase of Fuel-Cell and Hydrogen Research Initiative

The European Union and other participants plan to invest €1.4 billion ($1.8 billion) in the second phase of a public-private partnership, including the auto industry, to expand the use of clean, efficient technologies for transportation and energy, the European Commission says.

EU institutions and Europe’s transport and energy sectors (together) will contribute €700 million each ($915 million).

The first phase of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative (FCH) was launched in 2008 as part of the EU’s research-and-development funding program. Under the latest announcement, the program now will be extended until 2024.

FCH-1 has been operating with €1 billion ($1.3 billion) in seed money for the first phase, which runs until the end of this year and funds the development of fuel-cell and hydrogen technology for transport and static-energy installations.

“Bringing new technologies from research and development to consumers requires substantial efforts,” Henri Winand, CEO of U.K.-based Intelligent Energy, tells journalists at a recent briefing here.

“Fuel cell and hydrogen-(powered vehicles) can help the EU reduce its greenhouse gas and particulate emissions in cities,” he says, noting that while some technology already is available, it needs scaling up.

One of the primary projects financed by FCH-1 integrated 26 hydrogen fuel cell-powered buses into daily public transport operations and bus routes in five locations across Europe: Aargau, Switzerland; Bolzano, Italy; London, Milan and Oslo.

wardsauto

[Beery1]

Maybe I've been out of the loop on this issue, but isn't the basic problem with the hydrogen fuel cell the fact that you have to make the hydrogen to start with? I thought that made it a complete waste.

[Graeme]

Hydrogen production is not a limitation. Off the top of my head - infrastructure and FCV production costs are. See some of the ways hydrogen is produced on page 10 (H2 production from solar will likely win although). Here's another I saw recently.

Sweet hydrogen: how sugar could help satisfy the world's energy needs

Hydrogen makes an extraordinarily efficient and clean fuel. Three times as energy-efficient as petrol, Nasa used it to power its space shuttles. It can be used to generate electricity and only produces water as a byproduct.

And yet, scientists are struggling to scale up hydrogen production. Ironically, given hydrogen's green potential, the cheapest and most viable sources are hydrocarbon-based compounds such as natural gas. But liberating hydrogen from fossil fuels creates carbon emissions that outweigh any environmental advantages.

Percival Zhang, professor of bioengineering at Virginia Tech Institute, says that the problem is not just technical but that, sometimes, "scientists have poor imaginations". And so he wants to try something different: why not take advantage of an abundant natural resource, sugar? "Our idea is that simple," he says. "We call the project Sweet Hydrogen."

Biomass – trees, plants and other waste vegetable matter – is an abundant and rapidly renewable source of starch and sugars, that is nowadays used to produce biofuels. Exploiting biomass to produce sugar, and turning that sugar into hydrogen, could lead a change in global energy production.

guardian

And this:

EU Driving Into Second Phase of Fuel-Cell and Hydrogen Research Initiative

The European Union and other participants plan to invest €1.4 billion ($1.8 billion) in the second phase of a public-private partnership, including the auto industry, to expand the use of clean, efficient technologies for transportation and energy, the European Commission says.

EU institutions and Europe’s transport and energy sectors (together) will contribute €700 million each ($915 million).

The first phase of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative (FCH) was launched in 2008 as part of the EU’s research-and-development funding program. Under the latest announcement, the program now will be extended until 2024.

FCH-1 has been operating with €1 billion ($1.3 billion) in seed money for the first phase, which runs until the end of this year and funds the development of fuel-cell and hydrogen technology for transport and static-energy installations.

“Bringing new technologies from research and development to consumers requires substantial efforts,” Henri Winand, CEO of U.K.-based Intelligent Energy, tells journalists at a recent briefing here.

“Fuel cell and hydrogen-(powered vehicles) can help the EU reduce its greenhouse gas and particulate emissions in cities,” he says, noting that while some technology already is available, it needs scaling up.

One of the primary projects financed by FCH-1 integrated 26 hydrogen fuel cell-powered buses into daily public transport operations and bus routes in five locations across Europe: Aargau, Switzerland; Bolzano, Italy; London, Milan and Oslo.

wardsauto

[Graeme]

Will Toyota Have The First Hydrogen Powered Mass Market Vehicle?

Toyota appears on the verge of releasing the first hydrogen-powered mass-market automobile in 2015, unveiling it in November of 2014.

While there’s been considerable interest in low-emission vehicles of late, hydrogen fuel cells take automobile propulsion to a whole new level. A hydrogen fuel cell hybrid burns hydrogen as fuel, producing water vapor as exhaust, essentially resulting in an emission-free automobile, or so its proponents claim.

Toyota engineers have been using hydrogen fuel cell hybrids for the past six years. Now they seem to be in the lead in terms of rolling out the first commercially available hydrogen fuel cell car, although other companies are jumping on the hydrogen-powered bandwagon.

hydrogenfuelnews

[Timo]

Hydrogen fuel cells driving change in the residential market? Testify!!!!
Hydrogen fuel cells driving change in the vehicle market? The key to that will be infrastructure. Right now, electric cars can plug in at home every night, and drive away in the morning fully charged. Tesla is also installing their Supercharger infrastructure along with the development of their vehicles. So far, they're winning! This approach works for 95% of all vehicle trips per day. Hydrogen fuel cells, while they are a remarkable technology, and they definitely have their place in our collecive future energy needs, are much better suited to serving the energy needs of the built environment, and not the mobile environment. Given the choice between plugging in at home, or pledging allegiance to Exxon Hydrogen, i'll take the plug-in, every time. Actually, if i had a fuel-cell generator at home, that would be the absolute best of both worlds.

http://insideevs.com/has-tesla-killed-the-fuel-cell-vehicle/

[Graeme]

Fuel cells could soon be free from the constraints of platinum

A German-US collaboration has made a major breakthrough in the field of fuel cell technology this week. The collaboration is comprised of OH-Energy Germany, the University of Delaware, Fraunhofer ICT, and Leibniz Institute for Polymer Research. Together, these organizations have been experimenting with fuel cell technology, hoping to find a way for these energy systems to produce electrical power without having to rely on platinum. Platinum is a common component in hydrogen fuel cells and is part of the reason that these energy systems are so expensive.

The collaboration has released information that shows the successful demonstration of a fuel cell that is capable of delivering 616 megawatts peak power density at 80 degrees centigrade. This shows that the collaboration is well on its way to developing a fuel cell that is capable of delivering 600 megawatts of power density. Moreover, the fuel cell that was demonstrated by the collaboration is entirely platinum-free, which makes it significantly less expensive than its conventional counterparts.

hydrogenfuelnews

[Graeme]

Sustainable Energy Breakthrough: Hydrogen Fuel from Sunlight

A University of Colorado Boulder research team has moved closer to what some call the Holy Grail of a sustainable hydrogen economy — splitting water with sunlight.

The CU-Boulder team has devised a solar-thermal system designed to use a vast array of ground mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a single point atop a central tower up to several hundred feet tall. The tower would gather heat to roughly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,350 Celsius) and then deliver it into a reactor containing chemical compounds known as metal oxides.

As the metal oxide compound heats up, it releases oxygen atoms, changing its material composition and causing the newly formed compound to seek out new oxygen atoms. The team showed that adding steam to the system would cause oxygen from the water molecules to adhere to the metal oxide surface, freeing up hydrogen molecules for collection as hydrogen gas. To get the steam, the concentrated sunlight beamed to the tower would heat the water to boiling.

yahoo

[Beery1]

Sustainable Energy Breakthrough: Hydrogen Fuel from Sunlight

So by 'hydrogen fuel from sunlight' it means 'hydrogen fuel from sunlight, a huge tower, lots of mirrors and metal oxides'. Not only that, but judging by the photo at the link, these towers and their surrounding banks of mirrors take up a huge amount of space - at a rough guess, 40 acres each. And how much energy will these things produce? A cupful per day? We have no idea because the article's author doesn't seem to care. All he's interested in is that this chemical reaction is possible. I mean, that's great, but it's not at all helpful.

And how much excess heat do these towers put into the atmosphere? I have no clue because the article doesn't bother to even mention it.

Are the metal oxides also produced in a truly sustainable way? Somehow I doubt it. How about the tower? I doubt it. What about the mirrors? I seriously doubt it. What sort of waste product is left behind from the entire process? Is it environmentally friendly? The article answers none of these questions.

Simply labeling something 'sustainable' doesn't make it so. Any article claiming sustainability ought to answer at least the questions I've posed above.

[ROCKMAN]

Beery, beery, beery...everything is sustainable as long as you don't inject that silly notion of economics into the process. We're talking ''technologically'' sustainable, man.

[Graeme]

The authors demonstrate that it is technically feasible to make hydrogen from water, sunlight and a metal oxide. Details are described behind a paywall but here is their abstract:

Solar thermal water-splitting (STWS) cycles have long been recognized as a desirable means of generating hydrogen gas (H2) from water and sunlight. Two-step, metal oxide–based STWS cycles generate H2 by sequential high-temperature reduction and water reoxidation of a metal oxide. The temperature swings between reduction and oxidation steps long thought necessary for STWS have stifled STWS’s overall efficiency because of thermal and time losses that occur during the frequent heating and cooling of the metal oxide. We show that these temperature swings are unnecessary and that isothermal water splitting (ITWS) at 1350°C using the “hercynite cycle” exhibits H2 production capacity >3 and >12 times that of hercynite and ceria, respectively, per mass of active material when reduced at 1350°C and reoxidized at 1000°C.

Regarding economic feasibility quoting UBC, Gizmag says this:

"Our objective is to produce hydrogen (H2) at $2/kg H2," Weimer tells Gizmag. "This is equivalent to about US$2/gallon (3.7 L) of gasoline based on mileage in a fuel cell car versus a combustion engine today." The team believes that a site with five 223 m (732 ft) tall towers and about two million sq m (21.5 million sq ft) of heliostats on 485 ha (1,200 acres) of land could generate 100,000 kg (222,460 lb) of hydrogen per day, which is enough to run over 5,000 hydrogen-fuel cell buses daily.

Though the technology has the potential to be a game-changer in pushing the hydrogen economy forward, commercialization might still be several years away thanks to continuing stiff competition from fossil fuels.

UBC says this:

Despite the discovery, the commercialization of such a solar-thermal reactor is likely years away. “With the price of natural gas so low, there is no incentive to burn clean energy,” said Weimer, also the executive director of the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels, or C2B2. “There would have to be a substantial monetary penalty for putting carbon into the atmosphere, or the price of fossil fuels would have to go way up.”

The US has to decide whether it wants extreme heat induced by global warming or clean fuels.

Nevada scientist Hanington has found yet another way to make hydrogen:

Researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have discovered certain microorganisms growing in the desert salt flats of our state may allow for the cheap generation of hydrogen gas from only sunlight and saltwater.

A protein found in the membranes of some halobacteria act as a proton pump, effectively capturing light energy and converting it to chemical energy. These tiny creatures, a class of Euryarchaeota, who just love the taste of salt, are responsible for the pink color of brine crystals found along the Humboldt and Carson Sink regions of our state.

Argonne scientist Elena Rozhkova and her colleagues combined a pigment called bacteriorhodopsin with semiconducting titanium nanoparticles to create a reaction that uses sunlight to spark a catalytic process creating hydrogen fuel.