Alternative . Renewable . Energy

Positive predictions for hydrogen vehicles

This post is brought to you by  Curt Rosengren ~ Passion Catalyst TM   "Love your work. Change your world."

Yesterday I posted about the prediction in India that hydrogen energy will be a viable alternative to fossil fuels for its transportation sector by 2020. In a story about efforts to develop hydrogen options, there are more glowing predictions for hydrogen fuel's potential...

Honda, BMW and General Motors Corp. report they are developing vehicles that will run on hydrogen, the simplest, lightest and most abundant of elements.

GM predicts it could have cleanburning, hydrogenpowered fuel cell vehicles on the road within the next five or six years. The company estimates that fuel cell propulsion is about twice as efficient as that of an internal combustion engine.

Earlier this year BMW presented its new hydrogen vehicle, the Hydrogen 7, as part of the company's global clean energy promotional campaign.

Not everybody has a rosy view though...

Other major automakers do not predict mass production of hydrogen vehicles until at least a decade from now, citing the difficulty and cost of producing, storing and transporting the element in either its gaseous or liquid form.

But even in that arena, some are decidedly bullish on the possibilities...

The FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership, made up of the U.S. Department of Energy along with BP America, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Conoco Phillips, Shell Hydrogen LLC and a council of three major automakers, believes that by 2010 it can create the national hydrogen fuel infrastructure needed to support fuel cell vehicles.

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India predicts hydrogen fueled transporation by 2020

This post is brought to you by  Curt Rosengren ~ Passion Catalyst TM   "Love your work. Change your world."

According to scientists in India, hydrogen as a viable energy source for transportation is not as far off as some might think...

"India will be ready with Hydrogen fuel for its transport sector as a major alternative to fossil fuels by 2020, according to scientists.

Hydrogen will be ready in terms of production, storage and supply chain to be used in the transport sector by the end of the next decade, they said.

Various laboratories in the country are developing different technologies of production, storage and transportation and "we are sure that by 2020, India can use hydrogen as an alternative fuel," Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) Director S Banerjee said."

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Biorefinery turns biomass into hydrogen and fertilizer

This post is brought to you by  Curt Rosengren ~ Passion Catalyst TM   "Love your work. Change your world."

Here's a new technology that creates hydrogen fuel out of waste or other biomass:

...you can put almost any type of waste or biomass in the Noah biorefinery, and it produces gas that is mostly hydrogen, without pollution of any kind and with very little ash, according to its inventor, Mike Rogers of El Dorado.

That hydrogen gas can be used in place of propane or natural gas or to power a generator that produces electricity. And the ash makes good fertilizer, Rogers said.

The Noah, granted a patent just before Thanksgiving, is marketed by Rogers’ firm, Power Reclamation Inc.

What little ash is left is an almost perfect 3-3-5 to 7 fertilizer, suitable for vegetables, pasture, and other crops...

I like the story behind the technology and the name.

During the Noah’s eight years of development, chemists and others kept telling Rogers the concept would not work and could not work...

...Rogers wife, Ann, named the portable biorefinery after the biblical Noah, who was ridiculed during the years he was building Noah’s Ark.

“We just had naysayers and doubters, and we were sitting on the back porch one day and I said, ‘We’re just going to have to call it Noah because they’re going to stop laughing, too,’” she said.

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Advance in hydrogen separation technology

A cost-effective way to separate out hydrogen is one of the bugaboos standing in the way of making hydrogen a viable energy source.

Green Car Congress points to recent progress being made on that front:

FuelCell Energy has developed a cost-efficient system to separate pure hydrogen from a gas mixture that then can be sold as fuel for hydrogen vehicles or industrial uses. Fuel Cell Energy is a leader in the development and manufacture of high-temperature direct fuel cells (DFC) for electric power generation, with more than 45 installations worldwide.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded FuelCell Energy $1.36 Million to advance this Electrochemical Hydrogen Separator (EHS) project for use with the company’s Direct FuelCell (DFC) power plants.

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GM exec: Hydrogen fuel cars competitive by 2010

I keep reading about how hydrogen has too much standing in the way to become the "fuel of the future." Here's someone with a positive view. GM VP for research and development, Dr. Lawrence Burns, had this to say at a recent talk in response to audience questions about GM's fuel cell research...

Burns says hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, like the one being developed in Honeoye Falls, will begin competing with the internal combustion engine by 2010. “We think we can create a more exciting car. We think we can create a car that's going to be more affordable.”

Dr. Burns painted a disturbing picture of increasing global demand for oil and he said that the future is vehicles that will rely on renewable sources of energy but the technology still has challenges.

“Performance. Acceleration, range, cold temperature, high temperatures. We understand that. We have that checked off our list. Cost. It can't cost more than a gasoline engine or we won't sell in high volume. We believe we have a roadmap to meet that target. We have to prove it out.”

OK, so that still doesn't address little issues like, oh, creating hydrogen fuel, and reliably and safely transporting and storing it, but it's still an interesting positive note.

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Nano-graphite may store H2 gas

Some news on the hydrogen storage front...

Graphite films only nanometers or billionths of a meter thick could help store hydrogen in an inexpensive, easily manufactured, lightweight and nontoxic manner, an international team of scientists told UPI's Nano World.

"If -- and that's a very large if -- a practical method for preparing the nanostructures can be found, there is a possibility for large-scale, economical production," said researcher John Tse, a materials scientist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon.

An effective hydrogen storage method has been a big stumbling block for, for example, hydrogen fueled vehicles, largely because "storing hydrogen often demands extreme cold, heat or pressure, which requires equipment that is heavy, bulky or expensive."

Previous studies had concluded that nano-graphite was a poor storage option and that carbon nanotubes were much better, but that could be wrong.

Tse and colleagues at the Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences in Ottawa and the Technical University of Dresden in Germany reinvestigated graphite via mathematical models and found the prior studies were incomplete when it came to exploring interactions between carbon and hydrogen on a quantum level.

They found graphite layers spaced slightly less than a nanometer apart can store hydrogen at room temperature and moderate pressures at close to a good weight. So the researchers contend graphite is a better option than carbon nanotubes, because it is far easier and less expensive to prepare. Another good possibility is the use of porous carbon foams.

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How a hydrogen fuel cell works

Want to know more about how a hydrogen fuel cell works? Here's a page with a short video clip giving a basic explanation.

And here's a good article on howstuffworks.

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New hydrogen powered motorcycle

A new hydrogen powered motorcycle will be hitting the market next year, according to USA Today...

A British firm showed off a hydrogen-powered motorbike to the USA Tuesday. Intelligent Energy hopes to begin selling it late next year. It could be priced at about $6,000 once mass production of about 10,000 units begins, the company says.

While attention has been focused on developing pollution-free hydrogen-powered cars, Intelligent Energy and some others have turned instead to two-wheeled transportation.

The firm, which is relocating to Los Angeles from London, says the motorcycle's fuel cell develops the equivalent of eight horsepower, good for speeds up to 50 miles an hour. The cycle has a range of about 100 miles on a tank of fuel. Currently, a hydrogen fill-up would cost about $3, says the cycle's project director, Andy Eggleston.

[Via Technocrat.net]

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Hydrogen storage with carbon nanotubes and titanium

Effectively storing hydrogen is one of the big challenges in harnessing its potential as a fuel source. Tim McGee on Treehugger points out new developments in hydrogen storage...

The National Institute of Standards and Technology theorist Taner Yildirim and physicist Salim Ciraci of Turkey's Bilkent University have a possible fix for storing/using hydrogen safely as a fuel – and it involves carbon nanotubes, titanium, and attention to design.

By placing a titanium atom in the correct position over the regular geometry of the carbon atoms of the nanotube, the scientists believe conditions would be ripe for holding onto hydrogen atoms. The kind of chemical bond formed between the carbon, titanium and hydrogen is unusual, but they believe not only will the arrangement exceed the 6 percent minimum storage-capacity requirement set by the FreedomCar Research Partnership, but that the chemistry is entirely reversible and reusable.

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Hydrogen boondoggle

I'm interested in all sides of the alternative energy discussion, not just what the cheerleaders have to say, so I was interested in Odograph.com's Hydrogen boondoggle, and Hydrogen boondoggle, Part II. Good food for thought.

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