[The depth and breadth of knowledge on this list is, once again, impressive. The previous message is here: http://www.politechbot.com/p-03020.html I'll post Steven Bond's response first; the criticism follows. --Declan] ******** Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 20:04:08 -0500 From: Steven Thomas Bond <stbondat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: fuel cell cars The response was interesting - it's amazing how many people can read something and not get the point! One other thing people should know is that a recent American Scientist ( published by Sigma Xi, NOT Scientific American) carried a book review written by someone (with good credentials) prediciting the world maximum oil productionwould occur in 2002-2004. The maximum US oil production, predicted in 1956 for 1970, occured just as scheduled. ******** From: "Stephen Downes" <sdownesat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: Re: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 07:46:28 -0400 Hiya, I'm surprised you circulated this old argument. It is based on a false assumption: that the use of hydrogen fuel cells is intended to be a new source of energy. But the use of hydrgen fuel cells is intented instead to create a source of energy which is (a) portable, (b) clean, and (c) renewable. Nobody expects hydrogen to be produced in bulk by burning fossil fuels. It can be produced in bulk, however, through the use of renewable, non-portable forms of energy, such as hydroelectric power or solar power. The process of hydrolysis of water requires only water and electricity. That's what makes it so attractive. Furthermore, as anyone who took high school chemistry class knows, there are low-energy chemical means of extracting hydrogen from complex compounds. While it would be useless to extract hydrogen from methane, which is already a perfectly good fuel, it would be useful to extract hydrogen from, say, hydrogen sulfate, which is not a fuel (hydrogen sulfate might not be the best example, but you get my point). Not all hydrogen production, therefore, needs to be based on high-energy processes (indeed, the whole concept of fuel cells is the use of hydrogen in a compund with is extracted through a low-energy reaction, creating, on balance, energy. I am by no means an expert in the field. Not even close. But the rant you distributed is easily refuted by people knowledgable in the field. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------- Stephen Downes ~ Senior Researcher National Research Council Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada http://www.downes.ca stephenat_private stephen.downesat_private http://www.iit.nrc.ca/e-learning.html Subscribe to my free daily newsletter featuring news and articles about online knowledge, learning, community http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/website/subscribe.cgi or read it at http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm ******** From: "Hermits \(E-mail\)" <Hermitsat_private> To: <declanat_private> Subject: RE: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 13:34:07 -0600 Declan, for the Politech list. ======== While Doctor Bond is quite correct in what he says, although I note that he omitted the immense costs of storing Hydrogen (a relatively incompressible gas) which can sometimes take more than 12 times the energy that it contains and also omitted to note that a bucket of gasoline holds more hydrogen than a bucket of liquid Hydrogen (i.e. while its energy per mass density is high, its energy per volume density is currently very poor. However, I disagree with his conclusion, largely because of what he didn't say. Let me attempt to justify why. If we examine current and potential power sources, they fall into a number of categories (roughly organized by my memory of current usage patterns). Fossil Fuels (Gas, Oil, Coal) Nuclear Power (Fission and Fusion) Hydroelectric Power Renewable Biomass (Wood chips, corn-stalks, animal and human waste and other plant mass including algae) Solar Power Wind Power Geothermal Power Wave Power Sea Currents Of these, only Gas and Oil (and possibly coal or plant derived gasses, liquids or emulsions) are readily transportable at reasonable cost. The balance (other than solar power which is seldom cost-efficient at current pricing) require large fixed installations to be used cost-effectively. All of the renewable resources suffer the common disadvantage of having relatively low energy density (excepting possibly for sea currents, but they have other disadvantages (corrosion, potential environmental damage, storm damage, etc.) Certainly they are not particularly easy to distribute while retaining reliability. Current distribution practice is to convert other sources of energy into electrical energy (with associated conversion losses), transmit it to a point of use (using electrical transmission lines also with various losses), or use it to charge secondary batteries (with very much larger losses) and at the end-user, convert the electric power into the energy form required (light, heat, kinetic energy, etc. again with associated losses). This is a very inefficient process. Particularly when the first step is performed using heat engine technologies - as is done in most power generation facilities today. This is especially relevant in the first step, where the laws of thermodynamics restrict the overall efficiency of the chemical to electrical process to roughly 40% of the total chemical energy available. In addition, this first stage as currently implemented, tends to produce large amounts of pollutants and noise, which is why the conversion plants tend to be centralized and located well away from the end-users. Under slightly different processes, and assuming the availability of appropriate fuel-cell technology, we could do a great deal better. For fixed installations, this might involve the production of Hydrogen using one of the existing mechanisms and distributing it directly (and uncompressed) to the point of use using pipelines. This would involve only the pumping losses which are small, and minor leakages. At the point of use, a fuel-cell would transform the Hydrogen into electricity at efficiencies approaching 85% and the balance, rather than being released as waste heat (as is the case with most current energy sources) would be applied to heating and cooling tasks. This can increase the overall efficiencies to almost 100% - certainly into the 90% range. Pollution would be non-existent (good design would see the "waste water" being used directly. Where the area is fortunate to receive sufficient insolation (sun) to justify solar technology, the addition of solar collectors to produce instantaneous power and converting surplus solar power generated, using the fuel-cell to disassociate water, back to Hydrogen, and "storing" the resulting Hydrogen by pumping it back into the network could produce over-unity returns. The Implementation of such a regime would have the potential of dropping the use of fuel in fixed installations by somewhere in excess of 50% - which, if Keynesian economics still have any validity, should have a fairly marked impression on the cost of energy. Indeed, such a program is close to being viable and would have a very rapid cost recovery - certainly under a decade. For portable installations, the co-generation benefits would not apply, and transformation losses would be greater, but a vehicle using a fuel-cell cycle as its primary energy source would still offer overall fuel energy usage efficiencies of up to around 70% as compared to the optimum attainable of about 40% using diesel-electric technology. Again, such technology appears to be very close to fruition, and the benefits are significant, non-polluting and self-funding, even where the Hydrogen is produced from existing energy sources. The sole difficulty here is attaining a suitably energy dense storage method, which is why this area is receiving a great deal of attention. One of the most promising routes appears to be that of transforming existing fuels to Hydrogen within the vehicle, but even without this, high pressure storage offers the potential of performance similar to existing vehicles, a range of around 300 miles, immediate recharging and zero-pollutants. Probably for a long-term lower cost than existing vehicles. Until we develop other sources of energy to transform into Hydrogen (which will happen), we have already mastered the efficient high-volume conversion of existing hydrocarbons to Hydrogen in reasonably compact, silent and non-polluting packages (a single 40' container would serve the requirements of a suburb). This suggests that, in a major change in technology deployment methodology, that the transition to a Hydrogen fuelled economy might best be accomplished from the consumer upward, in a highly distributed fashion. If I were considering this I would suggest reengineering our reticulation architecture for water, signals, energy, solid waste and sewage, and suggest that this could ultimately result in a 50 to 60% overall reduction in infrastructural overhead and a much small environmental impact than current methodologies. So is fuel-cell technology development a waste of money? I rather think not. I would suggest that the US urgently requires technology in order to remain competitive in a dynamic world. Regards Carl Wagener Chief Scientist, Hermit Technologies, Inc., Iowa, US. tel: 1.641.472.7729 email: hermitsat_private We perform research and write reports for a living. ******** From: mikeat_private Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 08:28:45 -0500 (EST) To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? Declan, Chrysler recently announced a prototype hydrogen fuel cell vehicle that uses sodium borohydride to store hydrogen, which is catalytically converted into free hydrogen and sodium boride (borax) during operation. The borax can then be recycled. This is one example that circumvents most of Mr. Bond's objections to hydrogen fuel cell powerplants in personal vehicles. The main question is still the energy cost of producing the fuel itself, a process which still uses natural gas and is relatively inefficient. Still, as a very new system sodium borohydride seems to show quite a bit of promise over compressed hydrogen as a portable fuel cell power source. ******** Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 12:03:01 +0000 From: Ken Brown <k.brownat_private> Reply-To: k.brownat_private Organization: Birkbeck College Central Computing Services To: declanat_private CC: politechat_private Subject: Re: FC: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? I think the CSM article confuses a couple of completely different issues (and perhaps the US government do too). 1) the prospect of using hydrogen fuel to reduce local air pollution in a smog-prone city. This is the same reasoning as that behind battery-powered cars. Total pollution may not be reduced (though it might be because the burning is done in large plants) and total CO2 production is probably not reduced. Total energy consumption is likely to go up. But the concentration of pollution in some areas is reduced, and the chance of smog lessened. The emissions all happen at an out-of-town plant, not in the city streets. This might actually be a good idea for some big, car-ridden, cities. But it is a way of spending money to improve air quality, not a way of saving money. 2) the fantasy of getting cheap hydrogen from hydrolysis powered by fusion, or orbital microwave generators, or geothermal power, or whatever. (And of course the even fantasticker fantasy of getting free hydrogen from some as-yet-undiscovered cold-fusion-like handwaving involving magic membranes or clever catalysts or some such hope of getting something for nothing) This is probably a red herring, because (a) we don't know how to do it and (b) for most applications other than motor vehicles it is cleaner, safer, and cheaper, to use the electricity directly rather than go through a hydrogen stage. Personally I think that greater use of wind, waves, solar, geothermal & hydro power (as well as local methane plants) are a very good idea. But the main reason for using them are to reduce CO2 emission, pollution, world dependence on a few oil-rich regions, reduce local and personal dependence on a few large corporations or the State, etc. etc. They aren't magic bullets that will give us free, or even cheaper, fuel. Of course we /had/ a "hydrogen economy" once upon a time. The "town gas" that lit our streets and warmed our houses from the mid-19th century was dirty hydrogen made from coal in coking plants. Most towns and cities in northern Europe (I don't know about the USA) are piped for gas right now, it is the cheapest and cleanest fossil fuel and nearly everyone uses it for domestic heating. We converted the infrastructure from hydrogen to methane in the 1960s and we could go back if we wanted to and were willing to spend the money. But why bother? As Bond points out it makes more sense to just burn the methane. The way to reduce global CO2 emission or is to burn less fuel; not to burn it in giant state-sponsored oxygen plants and then pipe it to LA as a sort of Gasoline Nouveau (Or should that be Nouvelle Gasoline? I failed French at school) Ken Brown Oh, and anyone remotely interested in this sort of thing and with a sense of humour should be looking at Bruce Sterling's http://www.viridiandesign.org :-) ******** Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 10:18:40 -0500 From: Kent Borg <kentborgat_private> To: Steven Thomas Bond <stbondat_private>, Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? Steven Thomas Bond <stbondat_private> wrote (and Declan posted on his public list): > The really big problem with hydrogen is where to get it. Yes, it grates whenever I hear that hydrogen is plentiful, as though these cars could simply burn water and produce, um, water. Steven Thomas Bond writes well about how many ways of producing hydrogen are unappealing, but he leaves out any of the good ideas. The idea I like is that of putting up windmills where farmers once upon planted trees as windbreaks. Windmills are getting reliable and putting a row at the edge of a windy field doesn't much interfere with farming. It just so happens that many US farming areas are also really windy. One of the key problems becomes what to do with the electricity generated. Feeding it into the local rural electrification grid isn't going to work because it can't handle very much juice, and the big power lines to get power from farms to cities are also not there. Enter hydrogen as a form for shipping out the power. How nice if there were also cars wanting it. Transportation from windmills does raise questions, but those questions are not altogether different from how to distribute hydrogen to neighborhood filling stations. -kb, the Kent who doesn't know if it would all work, but who does think it is worth considering. ******** Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 06:42:50 -0300 From: Fernando Cassia <fcassiaat_private> To: declanat_private, politechat_private Subject: Re: FC: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? Interesting, specially since I just saw a documentary by the BBC about the hydrogen car trials in europe, (more specifically in Germany, which, btw, s WAY ahead of the USA both in technical lead and environmental policy) and where there are a few hydrogen fuel stations already operating... The power of the oil and nuclear lobbys in the usa is amazing... at a time when for example Germany has made the strategic decision to shut down all their nuclear power plants and replace them with clean power sources, USA VP Cheney had the nerve to suggest early last year (before the 9/11 tragedy) that hundreds of nuclear power plants spread all across the usa was the "solution" to the energy crisis!! (He has since backed off since it turns out nuclear power plants are excellent terrorist targets...) Just my $0.02 Fernando Cassia Buenos Aires, Argentina PS: Every time I read about "big bad government WASTING *our* tax dollars" I remind everyone that the technology and the first backbone (Arpanet) of the current internet started as what today they call "government waste" (people with some brain disease that I call government and public investment-hatred). ******** From: "august west" <augustwest1at_private> To: <declanat_private> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020111002027.00a6cd10at_private> Subject: Re: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 10:32:27 -0500 Critics are often quick to judge the situation based on their dislike of the individual in charge, rather than the facts and possibilities around them. I'm not a fan of the current administration, but I'm glad they've decided to look into hydrogen as an alternative fuel source. What Mr. Bond is missing in his post to the list is that there are many, many possible ways of obtaining hydrogen. One possible source is algae, a completely renewable resource: "Researchers have found a metabolic switch in algae that allows the primitive plants to produce hydrogen gas - a discovery that could ultimately result in a vast source of cheap, pollution-free fuel. Hydrogen, which can be used as a clean-burning fuel in cars and power plants, is virtually limitless in availability, because it is part of the water molecule. It is a candidate to become the world's primary fuel in coming decades. But until now, it was obtainable in quantity only through relatively expensive extraction procedures involving the electrolysis of water or processing natural gas." (the full article can be found here: http://www.zetatalk.com/energy/tengy14r.htm) Perhaps Mr. Bond would rather we didn't research alternative fuels, and instead continue to burn oil? Maybe coal? Because while he's quick to criticize current research, he's not doing any of his own, nor is he suggesting any alternatives. thanks, John Stotler ******** Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 04:36:59 -0700 To: declanat_private From: shane <shaneat_private> Subject: Re: FC: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? Not only was the problem to storing hydrogen discovered years ago but so were many solutions like the following from http://www.powerball.net/concept/index.shtml The Powerball Concept . . . The concept behind Powerball Technologies is to tame energy, (so to speak) and to store one powerful element - sodium (or sodium hydride) - in order to later get Hydrogen on Demand. Powerball fuel pelletsTM store and produce hydrogen on demand. Each gallon of powerball fuel pellets produces hundreds of gallons of hydrogen upon contact with water on an as-needed basis. Powerball fuel pelletsTM offer a safe, compact, and inexpensive alternative to the delivery, storage and use of compressed or liquid hydrogen for a wide range of applications which require a clean source of hydrogen. Powerball fuel pelletsTM are not an energy source. We will never drill a hole in the ground and discover a large reserve of hydrogen or hydride pellets. Instead, fuel pellets can be used as an efficient energy carrier. The hydride pellets can be produced using energy from diverse energy sources all over the world such as biomass, natural gas, wind energy, hydroelectric power, and solar energy. Because they are safe and energy dense they can be distributed to buses, boats, houses, and hydrogen users by rail, sea, or highway. Powerball fuel pelletsTM offer new options for the distribution of energy that do not rely on oil pipelines or electricity transmission lines. Even a disruption in a natural gas pipeline, for instance, would not preclude the distribution of powerball fuel pelletsTM via trucks, trains or ships to where energy is needed. Additionally, when powerballs are used to provide hydrogen to vehicles or stationary applications there are no point-of-use hydrocarbon emissions or carbon oxide emissions. When powerballs are transferred from one tank into another tank, there are also zero emissions. Therefore, powerball fuel pelletsTM are a responsible and environmentally friendly energy carrier. ******** Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 09:16:23 -0500 From: Nick Bretagna <onemugat_private> Reply-To: afn41391at_private To: declanat_private CC: stbondat_private Subject: Re: FC: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? Declan McCullagh wrote: >Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2002 22:32:25 -0500 >From: Steven Thomas Bond <stbondat_private> >To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> >Subject: fuel cell cars > >Actually this is as big a scandal from a scientific standpoint as any >you handle regularly: ><snip> Notes: I didn't read the article he refers to, only his refutation. He appears, however, to be refuting fuel cell utility as a whole, not merely the automotive application suggested by the subject. I don't have a Ph.D, but I have an above-average background in college-level physics (i.e., well beyond introductory classes). I have no particular love for so-called "natural" or "renewable" systems. I have yet to see any total-power concept except for solar satellites and ocean thermal that I consider at this point to be even worth considering (and that does not mean those are close, either) for any but the most specific of cases. I also have no vested interest in fuel cells, by either job, training, or investments. ------------------------------------------------- He disputes the use of hydrogen, because there are no natural sources. This is obvious. It's been obvious from day one. Yet venture capital investment companies (usually run by some shrewd cookies) pour money into the technology, despite it. Perhaps this is not relevant, for the perceived uses? They can't all be going after government grants. --- You might fool the pols and the reporters, but so many *investors*? As a "power system" (actually, as a storage mechanism), it may conceivably solve some of the other extremely weak points of "natural/renewable" fuel sources -- in short, it can act as a storage mechanism for solar (and I suppose wind systems), which otherwise require use of power exactly when/as generated, which is one of their most critical shortcomings. Anybody with a brain knows batteries just don't cut it. I'm no fan of solar/wind sources, but to suggest it is a total boondoggle IF YOU HAVE A SUITABLE STORAGE MECHANISM, is debatable. Together with these systems (I am aware of no study, and certainly Mr. Bond provides no related refutation) fuel cells may well offer value. We are primarily interested in total-cycle efficiency (particularly the cost of production for "natural" systems, including solar cells and fuel cells combined, vs. far-from-negligible transmission losses in centralized systems and cost of powerplant, over the life cycle of each). Certainly, for example, a car might have a solar-cell system over part of its area, and create at least *some* of its own fuel, lessening the need to charge/convert *all* of the hydrogen used from centralized power sources. A 10% or 20% rate may well pay for itself, given the number of miles driven by Americans, to say nothing of the developing world. It might not even require the car itself have the solar power system (and possibly better for it not to). The car may well simply pull up to a parking space and be plugged in while the owner is at work. This eliminates the weight problem of the cells, plus the expense of transporting gasoline or its effective equivalent to a distribution location, plus the problem of "aiming" towards the sun. There are plenty of factories/large office buildings/parking garages (with extensive roof areas and external surfaces) which might be able to justify this, if it would cut down on their purchased power by allowing them to use solar energy AS NEEDED rather than only when the sun shines, especially if the employees supplemented the expense by buying a percentage of the production in lieu of gasoline-equivalence. How about a downtown parking garage that charged up the cells of a car parked in it? I'd also wonder about how these systems might well extend the utility of, say, the Segway by extending its range and/or speed -- if only by providing the option of varying the size of the hydrogen tank to fit the purpose. This is clearly a semi-automotive function, especially as Kamen suggests it for the developing world. Further, there's another issue Mr. Bond blithely ignores -- the fact that it is better to run large-scale generators consistently and keep the power demand balanced. By running generators at slow times, and creating hydrogen (directly at the power plant itself, perhaps, for off site sale, eliminating or reducing the 40% to 60% transmission losses), you may well be able to justify this, as that hydrogen could then be used to reduce demand at peak load times, either directly (by feeding back into the systems for a double hit) or, more importantly, by transport to various locations, like large-users, who could use less transmitted power on request when peaks occur. This is largely a matter of the efficency of the fuel-cell systems themselves. In short, centralized power plants could run at a far more consistent level at all times. It might also save on the need to build co-generation plants, by replacing some applications with delivered hydrogen. Alternately, perhaps more co-generation plants, to produce the hydrogen, may well be applicable. I repeat my point: the key factor here, and the one Mr. Bond pretty much avoids, is that total-cycle efficiency (cost of ALL equipment, cost of production/generation, cost of transmission, for any given system of providing a kilowatt-hour of power where it is needed, for the life cycle of the given devices) is what is *important*, and while the issues he raises effect that, they do not describe the whole of it by a very, very long shot. I do not suggest he is unquestionably wrong, only that his missive shows he may well be overly focused on a small part of the picture, and almost certainly he is being disingenuous by suggesting that his issues are even remotely enough, by themselves, to dispute the effectiveness and utility of fuel cell systems -- either for an automotive or general power standpoint. They are but a component part of a complex mix of power-supply solutions, and probably less a means of "power production" than one of "power storage and transport". -- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Nicholas Bretagna II <mailto:afn41391at_private>mailto:afn41391at_private ******** From: "777" <777at_private> To: "Declan@Well. Com" <declanat_private> Subject: RE: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 09:29:59 -0500 Oh, I see... because a technology if difficult (hydrogen power or fusion) we should not pursue it. Right? That seems to be what he is saying. And his parting comment indicated that we should be seeking help from God rather than science. Yes, and the next time I am deathly ill I will not seek out the doctors and their scientific cures... but rather I will ask God to heal me. And if he doesn't and I die then it was just God's will. Well, I have to go prepare the horse and buggy for my commute to work now. BTW: BMW already has a hydrogen powered car. It's a 7 series they call the 750h. Guess it's not that hard. Mark Pelts 777at_private ******** From: "Micha Schellingerhout" <m.schellingerhoutat_private> To: <declanat_private> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020111002027.00a6cd10at_private> Subject: Re: Are Feds wasting tax money on hydrogen full cell technology? Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 21:20:12 +0100 Declan, Absolutely not a hydrogen expert, but the post reminded me of an article I saw on the BBC site. Got any members in Iceland? Best, Micha By environment correspondent Tim Hirsch http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1727000/1727312.stm In 1874 the science fiction writer Jules Verne envisaged a world in which water would replace coal as the fuel of the future. Now the Icelanders believe they can turn that dream into reality within a generation - and they are taking the first steps next year in their project to create the world's first hydrogen society. Iceland has already gone further than any other country in exploiting its abundant sources of renewable energy. Virtually all of its electricity and heating comes from hydroelectric power and the geo-thermal water reserves tapped from the hot rock layers lying just beneath the surface of this extraordinary island. But with no fossil fuel resources of its own, the country relies on imported oil to power all its cars, buses and fishing trawlers, which provide 70% of its income. Fuel cell key Despite its natural advantages, the tiny population (around 270,000 people living in an area the size of Britain) produces more greenhouse gas emissions per head than any other country. ******** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Jan 11 2002 - 17:49:45 PST