Hydrogen vs. Battery

[doug]

Discovery Could Make Fuel Cells Much Cheaper | Autopia | Wired.com

Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a platinum-free catalyst in the cathode of a hydrogen fuel cell that uses carbon, iron and cobalt. That could make the catalysts “two to three orders of magnitude cheaper,” the lab says, thereby significantly reducing the cost of fuel cells.

 

[dpeilow]

Professional crystal ball gazers...

 

[doug]

14 Senators urge Secretary Chu to uphold 2010 level of fuel cell funding Autoblog Green

Brown asserts that, "Fuel cell and hydrogen technologies are on the cusp of revolutionizing the way we use energy" and, as such, believes that governments (both state and federal) should "allocate all possible resources" to "encourage ... manufacturers, private sector investors, suppliers, and potential customers to embrace this promising new technology."

We mentioned this before, but I still find it interesting how they've rebranded hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) as fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).

 

[richkae]

Fuel cells are the desperate attempt of the oil industry to stay in the business of selling us chemical energy.
They will do everything they can to push fuel cells and delay the adoption of BEVs.

 

[TEG]

Fuel cells are also an example of space program technology that was supposed to "trickle down" into everyday use. One of the goals of the space program was to develop new technology that could be useful "down on earth". Because of the huge taxpayer monies spent developing it in the first place there was some political motivation so show that it had more use other than just in space.

 

[doug]

Pipeline fed H2 station:

SoCal Gets a Hydrogen Station Unlike Any Other | Autopia | Wired.com

It can fuel as many as four vehicles simultaneously in less than five minutes and can dispense up to 100 kilograms of hydrogen in 12 hours. A Honda FCX Clarity holds 3.92 kilograms of the stuff, while the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell holds four.

So about two cars an hour...

 

[howabout2]

So about two cars an hour...

Does that quote make no sense to anyone else? It can "fuel" (fill?) four vehicles in less than five minutes. And yet, as Doug points out, the next phrase says 100 kg in 12 hours. What is the five minute "fueling" process measuring exactly?

What am I missing?

 

[Doug_G]

What a massive waste of resources.

 

[JRP3]

So about two cars an hour...

Considering the number of vehicles that can actually use it there probably won't be any lines.

 

[JRP3]

What a massive waste of resources.

Indeed. How many EV's could have been built with the money poured into this? The "Shell" logo says it all.

 

[TEG]

http://www.hydrogenambassadors.com/background/h2fuelingstations.pdf

 

[TEG]

Does that quote make no sense to anyone else? It can "fuel" (fill?) four vehicles in less than five minutes. And yet, the next phrase says 100 kg in 12 hours.

Could it be that the pipeline is at lower pressure than the "pumps"? So they can pull in 100kg in 12 hours, and further compress it (slowly) on-site to be ready to do 4 cars at once in 5 minutes? (But then they probably need some downtime to "reload" before they are ready for the next fill.) Just a guess though.

Toyota and Shell open pipeline-fed hydrogen station in Torrance for fuel-cell cars | Technology | Los Angeles Times

 

[stopcrazypp]

From a couple reviews of the Clarity (Jay Leno and also Robert Llewellyn's), it takes 20-30 minutes to fuel up if you have to compress the hydrogen on the fly. This station probably has a couple of buffer tanks that hold compressed hydrogen already. If it runs out on those tanks though it will take 20-30 minutes, so 100kg per 12 hours (~2 cars per hour) is correct on average.

 

[doug]

Could it be that the pipeline is at lower pressure than the "pumps"? So they can pull in 100kg in 12 hours, and further compress it (slowly) on-site to be ready to do 4 cars at once in 5 minutes? (But then they probably need some downtime to "reload" before they are ready for the next fill.) Just a guess though.

It's certainly at least partially that. With fluids you have to consider both pressure and flow rate (analogous to voltage and current, respectively). I don't know the details of the pipe they're using (or the details of its source), but for a natural gas pipeline pressures are typically between 200 and 1500 psi. The Clarity's tank is 5000 psi.

 

[TEG]

SoCal Gets a Hydrogen Station Unlike Any Other | Autopia | Wired.com

...The hydrogen will come from Air Products plants in Wilmington and Carson that serve several industrial sites, including the Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance...

Exxon Mobil Refinery
3700 West 190th Street, Torrance, CA

Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability News: First Pipeline-Fed Hydrogen Refueling Station Opens in the United States

The station is located right next to Toyota's sales and marketing headquarters campus.

Torrance - Shell | California Fuel Cell Partnership

Torrance - Shell Address: 2055 W. 190th Street, Torrance, 90501

So I gather Air-Products has a H2 pipeline to the Exxon refinery on the same street, so the new pipeline may have been really short.

SoCal Gets a Hydrogen Station Unlike Any Other | Autopia | Wired.com
comments:

"This fueling station will be a tremendous model to show how effortless a pipeline supply of hydrogen can be..." ...provided, of course, that you happen to live across the street from a refinery. Building a pipeline twenty feet long is not that impressive, wake me up when you have hydrogen in Omaha. Hydrogen is the fuel of the future, and always will be.

 

[TEG]

0510-air-products-technology-integral-to-another-us-first-with-hydrogen-supplied-via-pipeline

...The station, which received project funding assistance from SCAQMD and DOE prior to 2011, is situated on land adjacent to the Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Inc. (TMS) sales and marketing headquarters. It is fed by Air Products’ hydrogen pipeline located less than 50 feet from the station and connected to Air Products’ Wilmington and Carson, Calif. hydrogen production facilities....

 

[TEG]

I guess they were already in the business of providing hydrogen to the oil refineries...

Experience and Benefits

...With over 60 plants and over 500 miles of pipeline, Air Products is the world's largest producer of outsourced hydrogen to oil refineries, which use hydrogen to get the most out of every barrel of oil...

http://www.airproducts.com/en/company/Sustainability/environment-health-and-safety/~/media/Files/PDF/company/product-summary-hydrogen.ashx

Technical details of the H2 production:
http://www.airproducts.com/~/media/Downloads/Other/events-sour-PSA-nov-2010.ashx

...Hydrogen production from natural gas with CO2capture –For power generation, vehicle fuels, refinery applications...

(Get ready for "Sour Syngas", "H2 PSA" and "Tailgas" terminology...)

 

[doug]

By "details of the pipe ... or source" I meant things like supply rate, line pressure, and pipe material. Thanks for the links, though.

“Pipeline distribution of hydrogen offers the lowest delivered and dispensed price for hydrogen supply on a mass scale..."

errr... yeah. I'd like to see the cost of creating that pipe infrastructure.

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/hpwgw_chevronrefining_niccolls.pdf

 

[doug]

Despite the approach this article takes, I support this kind of research. I.e., FCVs that use an on-board reformer and can get by with the existing liquid fuel infrastructure.

Can Fuel Cells Help the Battery EV Market? Pike Research

The company’s strategy is to combine a 1-20 kW high-temperature PEM with an onboard reformer that can reform any commercial fuel, including gasoline, to hydrogen. It is not a new concept to use a reformer with a fuel cell car. Several auto OEMs tried this approach in the early days of FCV development, as a way to avoid the problem of hydrogen infrastructure, only to abandon it as an overly complicated, and expensive, engineering challenge. Enerfuel says that high temperature PEM (HT-PEM) fuel cells make this concept viable. Since HT-PEMs are more tolerant of carbon monoxide (CO), EnerFuel’s system does not have onboard CO removal, one of the major engineering challenges.

 

[JRP3]

Considering the neighborhood destroying NG pipe failures we've seen I'm certainly against a larger hydrogen pipeline infrastructure.
http://www.naturalgaswatch.org/?cat=8