GM says fuel cell cars will be ready by 2010

http://www.detnews.com ^ | February 11, 2003 | By Ed Garsten / The Detroit News

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The Bush administration's timetable for bringing fuel cell vehicles to showrooms by 2020 is out of step with how quickly the nonpolluting technology can be brought to a mass market, the head of research and development said Monday.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Very Interesting Tell me again why would we be going to war over OIL ? I think theres a lefty in the Freedom pile

[hoosiermama]

Thanks for the post. Have been following the development of fuel cells cars for several years. Appreciate any news.

[Thebaddog]

The cost of the car will be another story, but I do think that we have to do something to break our dependence on foreign oil. Hey! I've got an idea, where's that oil in Alaska?

[Willie Green]

The cost of the car will be another story,

LOL! And you can also figure several thousand $$$ for the "home electrolyzer"
Not to mention a horrendous electric bill to run the blasted thing.
Heck, Kalifornia can't generate enough electricity in its grid as it is,
And everybody there is supposed to start generating hydrogen for their cars???
ROTFLMAO!!!
What a bonehead idea this "hydrogen economy" is!!!

[the bottle let me down]

Not to mention a horrendous electric bill to run the blasted thing.

I predict that state regulators will force all of us to subsidize the electricity used to run these things.

[libstripper]

Where, perchance, is the electricity for all of these wonder home machines to come from? Electricity, mostly produced by burning coal, therby putting more pollutants and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than burning gasoline does now. If the electrolizers are used to separate the hydrogen in hydrocarbon fuels from the carbon, you lose at least half of the energy in the feedstock. Further, the resulting carbon will need to be disposed of, possibly as carbon dioxide, thereby frustrating the greenies.

All of this hydrogen technology talk is pie-in-the-sky wishful thinking. Hydrogen must be extracted from either a hydrocarbon or water, and more energy is used extracting it than comes from actually using it. Further, if the feedstock is a hydrocarbon, then you lose the energy in the carbon and still have to disposse of the carbon. That leaves water as the feedstock, and the need to expend prodigious amounts of electricity, mostly produced by burning hydrocarbons, to obtain the hydrogen.

[chindog]

They just need one of these.

Mr. Fusion

[longtermmemmory]

For the consumer this will shift the cost of gas from the gas station to the electric bill.

They are correct about the fuel infrastructure. What about those of us who drive more than 240 miles a day? Fuel cells will not work unless I can get a 600 dollar speeding ticket for diving 180 on the highway with these cars.

[Free the USA]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[sam_paine]

mostly produced by burning hydrocarbons

Good. Maybe it'll force us to go to more, smaler nuke plants!!! Unintended consequences of greenies!!!!

[USNBandit]

Dude, it will come from all the solar panels and windmills we are going to put in our backyards.

[1ofmanyfree]

>That leaves water as the feedstock, and the need to >expend prodigious amounts of electricity, mostly produced >by burning hydrocarbons, to obtain the hydrogen.



Why can't we use Solar pv array "farms" to break down water into the gasses off grid? The farmed Hydrogen could then be transported for sale at stations like propane.

I know solar panels can charge deep cycle lead acid battery banks. These also provide inverted AC that I can use to power lights, computers and many modern small appliances.

If the idea is to be self sufficient, lets take it to the next level. While we're at it lets cut our dependancy upon the "grid" too.

[ModelBreaker]

Why can't we use Solar pv array "farms" to break down water into the gasses off grid? The farmed Hydrogen could then be transported for sale at stations like propane.

because solar pv is really, really expensive. If you want your driving to cost about $5.00 a gallon, this is a great way to do it. Otherwise, the cost of solar pv has to drop a LOT before it is anything other than a bit player in the energy market.

[Orangedog]

Actually, one or several solar panels could be installed on the roof of the garage to extract smaller amounts of hydrogen along with the big honkin' extractor inside the garage that is hooked up to the power grid. Solar wouldn't generate as much, but it could help. Pure solar is a non-starter with the current tech.

Imagine how some of the home owner's associations would react to windmills in their neighbor's backyards! I'd almost pay to see them geek over THAT being built next door!

[1ofmanyfree]

"because solar pv is really, really expensive. If you want your driving to cost about $5.00 a gallon, this is a great way to do it. Otherwise, the cost of solar pv has to drop a LOT before it is anything other than a bit player in the energy market."


I can only wish that solar tech. could have kept pace with say the computer chip industry. If it had... we'd be making Hydrogen for $.50 a gal. by now!

Good point though. I wonder how long it will take untill demand puts us over the price hump.

[El Gato]

Hydrogen must be extracted from either a hydrocarbon or water, and more energy is used extracting it than comes from actually using it.

This is really no different than with gasoline, more energy, in the form of crude oil, is used to produce it than you get out of it. But thought about another way, gasoline is just a convienient way to storee and use the energy available from crude oil, which itself cannot be used in any internal combustion engine you'd want in your car. Similary hyrdogen could be a convenient way of storing and using nuclear energy, solar power satellite energy or a number of other forms.

As far as having leftover carbon if hydrocarbon is used as the feed stock, is this not true of crude oil too? Only a small portion of the crude is made into gasoline, diesel or other light fuels, the rest must be disposed of, often by burning as "bunker fuel" in power plants. I'm sure some use could be found for all that carbon, and maybe not just burning it. Fuel cells have the additional advantage of being a non-thermodynamic process, and not subject to the same "rules", so the higher effeciencies are *theoretically* possible.

[El Gato]

If they can build a home electolyser, they can build a comercial version for a "gas" station as well. That would have the advantage of not requiring all the infrastructure to transport the hydrogen itself. It would also mean the stations would not need to store large amounts of hyrdogen, as they must now store large amounts of gasoline. Of course gas stations might need a mini electrical substation of their own. :)

[Monty22]

I'll make a prediction. Fuel cells won't get more than 1% of the future auto market. Oil burning cars will last 50-100 years as the dominant transportation system.

There are two big lies I've heard now since I was a kid in the late 70's.. "We'll run out of oil" is the big one.

[No Left Turn]

I'm glad you pointed this out. I never understood the criticism of needing energy to produce the hyrdrogen needed for fuel cells. The amount of energy needed to crack crude oil into gasoline is enormous, as is the overall expense of running aging refineries. What also costs a whole heap, though it's not paid for directly at the pump but is syphoned off by your tax bill, is the hundreds of billions we've spent over the years keeping Mid East shipping lanes open.

[WOSG]

The cost of the car is the WHOLE story.

Alas, they are following a pipe dream. the costs, weight and feul costs of a hydrogen fuel cell car is likely to remain much higher than an ICE car for decades to come.

I know. I studied the economics of PEM cells, materials, the catalysts (platinum) etc., and studied also the possible improvements. even today, the costs are 2 orders of magnitude away from practical use, and improvements are being made only slowly. A PEM cell is basically a hydrogen-fed battery. A cell stack's power density is not high compared to an ICE. that means these cars may not be lighter, when fact a HYBRID car *could* be lighter, because electric motors are able to be quite powerful for low weight. But it is the materials, especaily PEM membranes etc., that make this a unrealistic goal. An ICE just needs to be well-engineered hunk of metal. And the fuel? gasoline is far easier to handle than hydrogen - another level of impracticality for fuel cells.

I am sorry Bush is spending so much money on the feul cell chimera. He's been sold a bill of goods by northeast politicians and CEOs. it has the same practicality as the SynFuels project ($20 billion down a rathole).

we should instead just promote hybrids for the next decade. they are at least nearly practical and available in showrooms.

"the good is the enemy of the best"