GM, Daimler, Honda Betting on Hydrogen Fuel Cells

Car and Driver reports, “Fuel-cell vehicles -- where hydrogen is converted to electricity onboard and there are no emissions -- are real today and even more feasible tomorrow under a carefully scripted development plan at General Motors that culminates in as many as one million affordable FCVs by 2020.” GM has nearly completed development on a fuel cell propulsion system “that has been reduced to half the size for half the materials, less weight, and less cost” that previous models. “The next-gen fuel-cell stack will hit the road in a still-to-be-decided vehicle (we’re guessing a small car to show off the diminutive dimensions) in four years,” GM VP Larry Burns told C&D. “Burns will only say that the vehicle sports an exciting design.”

Reuters reports, “General Motors Corp plans to have 1,000 hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in California between 2012 to 2014 to comply with the state's goal to put thousands of cleaner cars on its roads.” The automaker already has about 60 hydrogen-powered Chevrolet Equinox SUVs on the road in southern California, and Burns recently told reporters, “The next logical play for us is to take that up to a car scale of about 1,000.”

Those fuel cell powered Equinoxes are part of “Project Driveway,” and effort “designed to get some real-world data on the performance of the hydrogen-powered vehicles – as well as to garner some publicity, since many of the motorists who’ll have the Equinox FCVs – for three months at a time – will be policy makers and celebrities,” according to The Car Connection. GM recently modified one of the vehicles to fit the needs of 6’9” former basketball star Magic Johnson.

Autoblog Green reports that GM’s Burns sees “mainstream acceptance and financial viability of hydrogen cars following in 2017 or 2018.”

All of GM’s green car efforts may ultimately point toward hydrogen. In an interview with Design News, Charlie Freese, the engineer leading GM’s diesel efforts, argues that all green vehicle technologies will “start to dovetail together where one feeds into the other and provides the infrastructure that eventually builds into that next phase. So, this electrification of the vehicle is a basis that you need before you can make a hydrogen vehicle work.”

GM may not be alone in pursuing a fuel cell future. Autoblog Green reports, “Daimler chairman Dieter ‘Dr. Z’ Zetsche believes that the technology for fuel cell vehicles is here today and that vehicles using the hydrogen-for-energy system will be available in five to eight years time.”

Honda is getting into the act, too. Car and Driver adds, “Honda is ramping up for production of its FCX Clarity, the industry’s first dedicated fuel-cell vehicle for customer use. The automaker will begin assembly in May in Tochigi, Japan, and will build a small pool of vehicles available for lease in the U.S. this summer. A still-secret number of consumers will be able to lease a Clarity fuel-cell vehicle for $600 a month for three years, which will include maintenance and insurance. The lessee must pay for the hydrogen, which costs about $5 per kilogram in compressed-gas form.”

Research the most environmentally friendly vehicles on the market now with U.S. News' rankings and reviews of hybrid cars and hybrid SUVs.

The Hydrogen Education Foundation appreciates the concerns about using hydrogen as a fuel. Including hydrogen in our country’s energy portfolio will be crucial to reduce our dependency on foreign energy imports, and reduce greenhouse gases. One of the key benefits for adopting hydrogen is that it truly is a universal fuel that can be produced using virtually any form of energy including wind, solar and nuclear. In fact, Iceland is currently producing hydrogen using geothermal energy by utilizing the earth’s natural heat to split water and produce hydrogen fuel.

Hydrogen is neither more nor less hazardous than gasoline, propane, or methane. Like any flammable substance, it requires caution when using. Hydrogen has been safely produced, stored, transported, and used in large amounts for decades for a variety of purposes such as in agriculture, oil production and even food processing (ever heard of the term “hydrogenated?” – take a look at a jar of peanut butter or the wrapper of a Starburst).

To learn more about the benefits of hydrogen, please visit www.h2andyou.org.

==> “Hydrogen is neither more nor less hazardous than gasoline, propane, or methane. Like any flammable substance, it requires caution when using. Hydrogen has been safely produced, stored, transported, and used in large amounts for decades for a variety of purposes such as in agriculture, oil production and even food processing....” <==

This statement could not be more wrong, or more dangerous because of its falsehood.

First of all, hydrogen is chemically a very active METAL (electron donor), and as such it can dissolve into many metals that would have no problem containing something less chemically active. In addition, hydrogen is the lightest molecule in the universe, and therefore, on average, the fastest diffusing molecule at any temperature. Hydrogen will escape through ANY fault or flaw in its containment, and will penetrate, weaken, and diffuse through most metal tanks that would easily contain almost any other gas.

Second, hydrogen gas forms an explosive mixture in air at any level from 4% (LEL, or lower explosive limit) to 75% (UEL, or upper explosive limit. By comparison, gasoline vapor explosive range is 1.4% to 7.6%; propane, 2.2% to 9.5%; and natural gas, 4.8% to 13.5%.

So. Without extraordinary measures, hydrogen gas will tend to leak out of its containment and form a mixture in air which will be more likely to explode than any other gas.

And for what? Read my posts 7 and 25. Incredibly hazardous and difficult storage (totally impractical pressure [150-250 bar] or totally impractical temperature [-400F] and transport.

In fact, gasoline is the safest, easiest way to handle, transport, and store hydrogen for use as a fuel. 56% MORE hydrogen can be extracted from a gallon of gasoline without additional energy input than a gallon of pure liquid hydrogen, or the gasoline can be burned as fuel to produce 3.7 TIMES the BTU’s as burning an equal volume of liquid H2.

I'm sorry, but in fact the post above couldn't be more unrealistic.

The figures on flammability ranges and explosive limits do not have the catastophic, unsafe effect claimed. I'm happy to report that hydrogen is transported and delivered safely thousands of times every year. And in fact many of the properties that you cite are the very things that allow hydrogen to provide benefits to energy security, the environment and our economy.

Safety? Hydrogen tanks have been drop tested, bullet tested, bonfire tested and put through tons of rigorous tests to make sure you and everyone else can handle them safety. Hydrogen cars are crash tested too. While hydrogen is flammable just like other fuels we use everyday, have no fear that you can handle hydrogen products just like you handle batteries, gasoline at the pump or even natural gas right in our homes.

In fact, many of hydrogen's properties make it safer. The tendency of hydrogen to dissipate is actually a huge benefit, because it won't pool on the ground like gasoline or propane, but rather will rise up and away so that it won't be able to catch on fire.

The hundreds of companies that are selling hydrogen products today are smart enough and have been working at this long enough to know how to make hydrogen devices that work safely.

Still unsure of hydrogen's safety? Become more familiar with the world's most abundant element by either reading about how it's being used today:
http://www.h2andyou.org

OR learning about the safety aspects at: http://www.hydrogenassociation.org/general/factSheet_safety.pdf

OR you can even take a free, short online course offered by the Department of Energy:
http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/firstresponders.html

The hydrogen fuel tank will be at least partially enclosed, so the idea of rapid diffusion as a safety characteristic is misplaced at best. And it is not just a question of vehicle design. Many of us park in enclosed spaces that could allow leaking gas to concentrate to explosive levels. Gasoline vapor does not usually present an explosion hazard because the vapor pressure will not produce a high enough concentration of vapor at ordinary temperatures. The same cannot be said for hydrogen or any of the gaseous hydrocarbons.

It is true that hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, and is plentiful on the Earth as well - but NEVER as a pure element. We can easily produce pure hydrogen - from water, or from hydrocarbons - but unlike gasoline made from from crude oil, it will require more energy to produce than it will provide when consumed as fuel. In other words, hydrogen as fuel would be an energy VECTOR - a secondary instead of a primary energy source.

Fuel hydrogen would need to be stored at very high pressure, very low temperature, or chemically bound. But the most effective chemical combination happens to be gasoline, which requires neither unusual temperature nor pressure. We have no infrastructure for fuel hydrogen at present, and creating one will be both difficult and costly. I believe that the only practical means would be tank exchange, because transferring high-pressure gas is a very inefficient process.

We need to leave hydrogen for the space shuttle, and focus our efforts on synthesizing light liquid hydrocarbons, including development of appropriate feedstocks and processes. That will be our transportation fuel of the future.

Greens and their fellow travelers are now willing to accept nuclear power

No, they are not. And that is the trump card. When the fact that nuclear power is the only practical means of cutting CO2 emissions (for electrical generation), and when concrete action begins to shift the U.S. to nuclear power, the enviromentalist wackos will proclaim that CO2 isn't a problem, after all.

Just watch.

Am I the first one to notice that Honda wants $600 a month for the lease on their vehicle? Yeah, I saw that includes insurance, but my insurance and car payment are about a bit more than half of that. And I don't have a lot of problem finding gasoline

Well the insurance costs is for Southern California and at the $600 lease per month rate also includes all service on the car. Do not know what the going rate is for car insurance is in Southern California, but with the service included, it maybe a good deal to some.

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