Funding For Automotive Fuel Cells Cut 293
rgarbacz writes "The US will stop funding research on automotive fuel cells and redirect the work towards stationary plants, because of slow progress on the research. Developing those cells and coming up with a way to transport the hydrogen is a big challenge, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in releasing energy-related details of the administration's budget for the year beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Chu said the government preferred to focus on projects that would bear fruit more quickly. The industry and the National Hydrogen Association criticized the decision and declared their intention to fight for funding. Dr. Chu also announced that funding for a coal gasification pilot project, cut by the Bush administration, will be reinstated. The Obama administration will also drop spending for research on the exploration of oil and gas deposits because the industry itself has ample resources for that, Dr. Chu said."
I think plants are already stationary (Score:5, Funny)
I mean... you stick them in the ground, and they stay there. It's really pretty consistent. If your tree walks away, it's probably not a tree. I don't know how much funding this needs, but if it is more than $0, it's too much.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Time for a terrible British pun... (Score:5, Funny)
Run, forest, run!
Re:Time for a terrible British pun... (Score:2)
Re:I think plants are already stationary (Score:5, Funny)
Got to be careful though, you never know when they might cross the street [servimg.com].
csh (Score:3, Insightful)
% If I had a ( for every dollar wasted on fuel cells, what would I have?
Re:csh (Score:3, Funny)
The start of a LISP program?
Re:csh (Score:3, Funny)
Re:csh (Score:5, Funny)
A pretty hardcore lisp.
Re:csh (Score:3, Funny)
"A pretty hardcore lisp."
First you Lisp, then they make you a Unix.
Real problem with auto fuel cells, the hydrogen. (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the real problem was creating the hydrogen in the first place. Not to mention the problem of compressing it to a point that it had a reasonable amount of energy per unit of volume.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I was under the impression that current methods of producing hydrogen for fuel cells was only slightly more intelligent than producing ethanol from corn.
Re:Real problem with auto fuel cells, the hydrogen (Score:5, Interesting)
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I was under the impression that current methods of producing hydrogen for fuel cells was only slightly more intelligent than producing ethanol from corn.
Uh, what? A fish without a bicycle? Look, ethanol from corn is stupid because it's not very energy positive and people eat corn, and corn depletes the soil unless you grow it in a guild with squash and beans, or at least rotate your crops. We don't even use crop rotation any more in big agribusiness; it's basically hydroponics in a soil medium. The corn is fertilized with, guess what, oil. Meanwhile, hydrogen is stupid because it's difficult to store and transport and you have to use [comparatively] exotic alloys with it because of problems with hydrogen embrittlement... oh, and fuel cells are energy-intensive and toxic to make, and they wear out and have to be replenished like everything else. However, we currently have a lot of power going to waste at night and we could be making hydrogen with it. If we're currently wasting it, and we start using it for Hydrogen, then even if it's only 40% efficient we're still vastly better off than we are today.
However, a better plan than either would be to grow craploads of algae in the desert, and use our extra power to run arc lamps to provide light at night to extend the photoperiod and thus speed up the growth cycle. The emissions from the power plants can be piped through algae beds and up to 80% of the CO2 captured for reuse. The algae can be used to make biodiesel and butanol, both of which can be burned in current vehicles, transported in the current trucks, and stored and pumped with the existing tanks and pumps.
Lighting plants with plant power (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of doing this, why don't we grow rats, and have cats eat them. Then we harvest some of the cats, and kill the others to feed to the rats.
Re:Lighting plants with plant power (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with hydrogen isn't that it's not a valid way to store energy, but that we'd have to change too much to make use of it. Biofuels from algae are not only a proven technology, but are entirely compatible with current petrofuels which we need to replace. Manipulation of the photoperiod is a commonly used strategy in commercial agriculture. The electricity I propose to use is currently going to waste and it's not clear what will be done with it; so far the best proposal has been to make hydrogen, which has numerous problems I've already discussed.
Re:Lighting plants with plant power (Score:3, Informative)
I'm just responding to the obvious thermodynamic problem of using plant-derived power as the power input to plant growth.
However, I never actually suggested such a thing, and it's unclear as to how you could make such an inference without going into it assuming that I'm a total fuckhead. That's your prerogative, but history doesn't really support you. (If it required believing I was a complete asshole I might have some sympathy for you.) I said "use our extra power", not "use the additional power produced". I propose to burn the biofuels produced from algae in our cars and homes, replacing fossil fuels; not supplementing them by also using these biofuels to run additional power plants.
If we have night-time surplus electricity from something other than wind power or hydro we can't stop because the reservoir will overflow, shut that off too.
Either you're extremely ignorant on the subject of power generation, or you're being deliberately disingenuous. While wind and hydro have fast spin-up times and can be turned on and off more or less at will (although just try doing that all the time with either and see what you come up with) the other forms of power producing at night don't. It can take days to heat up other types of power plants. It's simply not feasible to "turn them off" when they're not being used. This actually raises a point I wasn't even trying to make; If you had a megalithic power plant running on (say) oils extracted from algae, you would still have the same problem with having excess electrical energy available at night, and you'd still have to do something with it.
Possibly a better solution is to simply mandate that people over a certain power consumption have to consume a certain percentage of it at night. A lot of industries could be operating 24x7 at a lower output per unit of time, and still have the same production. They might need multiple shifts, and filling the night shifts would be difficult at first, but over time the situation would improve.
In any case, I never suggested that we grow crops with electric light, and then burn them to produce more light. Again, you have attacked a straw man. I suggest that you go back and reread my comment rather than continuing along these lines.
If I wanted to discredit you, I'd be much more vitriolic.
If I've learned one thing about slashdot, it's that if you want to discredit someone you must either have good citations, or be funny. Vitriol only helps if it is especially clever.
Re:Lighting plants with plant power (Score:3, Insightful)
But this is not an unavoidable problem in energy production, it's a problem of old design assumptions not applying to today's needs.
Well, they didn't really apply to yesterday's needs, either... except the "needs" of the power generation companies. Regardless, it would actually take more work to retrofit the existing plants than to build new ones, and you know what building new power plants in the USA is like if you're been following the news. Using the currently excess power is something that we can do right now to improve efficiency. Many of the existing plants will continue to be used in their current form until they explode or fall apart, so we must consider ways to use that power as part of our total strategy.
In the future, I hope that you will be correct; that we will not have excess generated power going to waste because of the basic design of the equipment involved. A more-distributed power generation system is more resistant to failure, so there are multiple reasons to scale down individual generators. Unfortunately, tonight, tomorrow night, and every night for many years, we will be wasting power no matter what happens right now (barring global catastrophe, I guess.)
consider yourself corrected (Score:2)
Hydrogen is generally cracked from natural gas. This is much more intelligent than using the natural gas to produce ammonium nitrate to feed crops that will, when digested by yeast to produce ethanol, yield a little less energy than was contained in the natural gas to begin with. (albeit in a form that is much, much tastier.)
Re:Real problem with auto fuel cells, the hydrogen (Score:4, Informative)
As far as I know, hydrogen fuel was always really an energy storage medium rather than a fuel in and of itself. While it may be the most common element in the universe, free H2 isn't especially abundant on Earth. If you could store it well, it would allow electric vehicles to have the same convenience as petroleum-powered vehicles.
The biggest problems with pure electric cars are that the range is limited and that you can't refill it in a matter of minutes. A pure battery-EV doesn't really allow any kind of long-distance road trip. This is the appeal of plug-in hybrids, it gives you range and easy refilling capability while potentially allowing zero-emissions driving during normal city driving/commuting. Although a hydrogen energy storage system would require new infrastructure, it would serve as a great long-term solution that fits with most peoples lifestyles.
As with any kind of EV, the 'green-ness' depends on the original source of the power. Even from fossil fuels it would probably be slightly better, since large fixed plants are more efficient and cleaner, but definitely better with wind/solar/nuclear/geothermal/whatever.
Note though, that the requirement for all of this is efficient, easy and safe storage, which has been going nowhere with plenty of funding. I think biofuels from non-food crops on non-food-producing land (i.e. not corn ethanol) are a more feasible long term solution, either with or without plug-in hybrid vehicles.
range is fixed already (Score:3, Informative)
Another poster pointed it out up above a little in the thread. It's called a generator trailer for long trips. Short trips (we'll call it 100 miles or less) are now adequately covered with existing battery tech, thousands of home built EV rides have proven this. And AC Propulsion had an interesting variation on the genny trailer, it attached in two points and then made an inline rigid "modular hybrid" that was easy to drive with and didn't have any of the "backing up" problems that some people might have with conventional trailers. Their high performance electric car + the genny trailer still fit inside a normal parking space as well, and gave the electric car an unlimited range using conventional fuels when it was really needed, just like any other normal car.
The main reason we don't have electric vehicles right now is that it is seriously disruptive technology that really screws with and threatens most established motor vehicle manufacturers and their kissing cuzzins in the oil industry. They have fought it severely and want to keep pushing overly complicated and overly expensive "hybrids", and keep throwing one off "concept cars" at the public, because they can make more "per unit" and they make more with repairs and faster replacements with the type of vehicles they make and sell now.
EVs are so simple and robust in design compared to most gasoline cars that built in quantity they can be cheap and last easily twice as long without major repairs. Even with today's average kilowatt hour rates, it is conceivable to only have around a 2-3 cents a mile driving cost. The savings right there might pay for your insurance and eventual battery pack replacement, and then some. think about how easy it will be every 5 or ten years to "upgrade" by just getting a new battery pack that will be more powerful and lighter, etc. You won't *need* to buy a new car near as often.
Either way, the Chinese and Indian builders will win here with really cheap and "good enough" electric cars for the masses, not those lame "start at 50 grand and go up from there" models you read about. They are going to have affordable electric cars out sooner than most other nations efforts, and will be able to stomp on prices. The only other company in the running now (of the majors) for real electric vehicles is Renault/Nissan with their tie in to the Better Place project, which is developing the whole EV stack, vehicles plus charging stations plus battery pack swapout stations. They are planning on using the subsidized cellphone and plan model for this. You'll get the vehicle cheaper upfront, and buy the electricity from them with some dedicated charging card. All the other electric vehicle makers are niche and boutique makers, all with high prices and very limited production runs, like Tesla.
It gets worse... (Score:2)
Another interesting statistic was that fueling all of the cars currently on the road in the US would require covering everything but the state of Florida in corn crops.
Ethanol fueled vehicles don't exactly work when you need to drive through the corn.
Re:Real problem with auto fuel cells, the hydrogen (Score:3, Insightful)
That may be fine for a few experimental operations, but what happens when we try to put those in *millions* of vehicles? The price would quickly be impractical / unaffordable.
Yes, you would eventually get to a sustainable level for recycling, but platinum would take a very very long time to get to that level, platinum is just plain rare.
fuel cells are/were a pipe dream (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:fuel cells are/were a pipe dream (Score:5, Interesting)
Not more efficient. 1/4 to 1/2 as efficient, between the electrolysis and the fuel cell itself. Li-ion batteries are nearly lossless, chargers are usually around 92-93% efficient, and the grid is 92.8% efficient.
Hydrogen fuel cells were researched, despite its huge cost, durability, and efficiency problems, because at the time it did so much better than EVs in terms of range and charge time. But the fill time on FCVs has been going *up* as their range has increased, and the range hasn't gone up nearly as much as EVs have -- the best FCVs being passed out to limited numbers of people on a rental basis (because they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each) have worse range than the Tesla Model S or the T-Zero.
Re:fuel cells are/were a pipe dream (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:fuel cells are/were a pipe dream (Score:2)
Motor efficiency applies to both BEVs and FCVs, so it's irrelevant to this discussion.
what took so long? (Score:2)
When Bush/Cheney took office in Feb 2001, it was only a month or so before they created the hydrogen program and then axed the hybrid vehicle program.
I guess since both Obama and McCain were involved in all the hydrogen hype there wasn't anyone cracking jokes about hydrogen like there was Bush putting down hybrids in the campaigning upto the 2000 election*.
Still good to see this finally happening. I wonder if the Governator is still backing that Hydrogen Super Highway to the tune of $200 million out in California?
LoB
Re:what took so long? (Score:2)
Have you noticed that they're just rearranging deck chairs? Hybrids are a boondoggle because they take more energy to make yet get worse mileage than small turbo diesels. The infrastructure for hydrogen doesn't exist and making the stuff is currently highly inefficient. And "Clean Coal"? What the fuck is that? You know, those who think that global warming is a scare tactic of the nineties should realize that some visionary climatologists were talking about this stuff back in the sixties, before it ever came up in a bond movie :P
Re:what took so long? (Score:2)
Anyways, most mileage could be handled by electric-only cars, which would save a huge amount of weight on the engine, gearbox, and fuel. These should be great commuter cars for many people and can charge at night when demand on baseload generators is lower.
It's about time (Score:3, Interesting)
It's about time this was submarined. I don't know what kind of craziness has led to the obsession with fuel cells. Not only is there no hydrogen distribution infrastructure of any kind, but fuel cells still haven't gotten out of the spaceship era.
We'll be driving cars on Mr. Fusion power before we drive them on fuel cells, unless someone gets fuel cells that use something other than hydrogen working in a way that's suitable for automotive use.
Re:It's about time (Score:2)
I don't know what kind of craziness has led to the obsession with fuel cells.
If I were paranoid, I'd wonder if maybe the oil-baron President deliberately chose a technology that sounded good but would in fact go nowhere, thus ensuring an extra decade or so for oil company profits.
I'm not paranoid, and I think the oil companies could have made equal profits by backing the right horse.
But maybe I'm just a little paranoid, because I can't shake the feeling that they should have known hydrogen made no economic sense.
Look Around (Score:2)
It's about time this was submarined. I don't know what kind of craziness has led to the obsession with fuel cells. Not only is there no hydrogen distribution infrastructure of any kind, but fuel cells still haven't gotten out of the spaceship era.
Look around. We distribute liquid fuels all over the place today.
Hydrogen cells make a lot more sense than batteries do for cars, because they can be refueled instantly instead of having a delay.
And as for "spaceship stage", I guess you think the highways of today are futuristic - the FCX Clarity [honda.com] uses fuel cells. Yes that's a limited trial but those are real production cars o n the road. They'd be a lot LESS futuristic if people would spend more money developing them.
The future needs a mix of traditional batteries and fuel cells for the same reasons the world of today does. You can't just drop one and put all your research eggs in one basket.
Re:Look Around (Score:2)
Do you really think that we'd be distributing liquid hydrogen? To cars? It's both expensive and dangerous (you have to let some evaporate, so any enclosed space could develop an explosive hydrogen oxygen mixture).
Good riddance (Score:3, Interesting)
Hydrogen-powered cells for autos are a pointless waste of time with out a LOT of pre-requisite technologies. Generating the Hydrogen is an energy-wasting PITA or involves oil. Storing it in a form that even comes close to the energy density of gasoline is extremely difficult. Compressing the Hydrogen is energy-intensive. (CNG gets a LOT more energy out of the same volume of compressed gas at an identical pressure, so NG actually makes sense to compress.)
There are a LOT of things we can do to reduce pollution before we have so much spare electricity lying around that we can crack and store Hydrogen in amounts large enough to feasibly power a car.
SirWired
suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (Score:2, Redundant)
"The Obama administration will also drop spending for research on the exploration of oil and gas deposits because the industry itself has ample resources for that"
Re:suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
That makes sense. The oil industry is already established and making tons in profits. They should be able to fund their own development.
Emerging technologies on the other hand sometimes need a boost.
Re:suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (Score:2)
You will undoubtedly hear the rest of it on your favorite pro-establishment news source. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, you can try to figure out why gasoline prices have risen nearly 10% this month, in spite of the deepest worldwide recession in two generations and in the presence of a petroleum glut.
Re:suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (Score:2)
Uh, that storm in... no.. not that. Uh, the spring shutdown of the.. no? Ok, to mix metaphors: sticking their toe in the water to see how far they can throw us?
Re:suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (Score:2)
If you can demonstrate otherwise, by all means enlighten us.
Re:suddenoutbreakofcommonsense (Score:2)
No, I agree with you. I think it's _only_ about 10% because they are testing the waters with the new admin. If the new admin doesn't bark then expect the "summer driving season" (WTF is that anyway?) to see a nice 30-70% bump because uh, "Cavitations in the pipe-line are delaying shipments" or something.
gasoline prices and summer driving season (Score:3, Informative)
Well, part of the "summer driving season" prices are due to increased demand from more individuals and families taking long car trips on vacations (basic econ: fixed supply + increase in demand => higher prices). Another big difference in costs is that they tend to use different formulations and additives in the summer [mapllc.com]. Note that the change-over starts happening in May [slashdot.org] which just might explain the recent price increase you've been seeing. See if your location corresponds to the areas covered by the regulation. Note that even if you aren't you may still be obtaining gas from a refinery in a covered area, which only produces summer RFG for efficiency.
On the other hand, if you'd tried to argue that the gasoline refiners are deliberately shutting down refineries to decrease supplies and increase prices, you might be able to find some supporting evidence. [slate.com]
Follow up - isn't that true of everything? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why so much subsidies around solar and other renewable technologies then - the same theory applies. It's mainly the energy industry doing the research, they have a lot of funds to apply to it.
Re:Follow up - isn't that true of everything? (Score:2)
Easy (Score:2)
because he and his type find it politically expedient to vilify the oil industry.
Doing so to the solar industry, regardless of how true, has no political mileage.
Remember, Obama has advisers whose entire job is to determine how to release information and in what form. They recently released information that their studies shows the public in general cannot wrap its mind around the three trillion dollar budget but has an easier time understanding sixteen billion in savings. In other words, they are playing with public ignorance, fears, and jealousy, to do what they want. It is a brilliant show of marketing.
On a side note, with no support for nuclear what is going to be our base load supplier of electricity?
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Hydrogen doesn't have the density we need and it's difficult to move.
Batteries. Focus on batteries, industrial solar thermal, and Nuclear.
That can solve are energy needs.
Hydrogen "economy" (Score:4, Interesting)
The hydrogen economy is a bit screwy anyway. While we already know very well how to run a car on methane, how to distribute and store methane (most homes get it through a pipeline already), and even how to retrofit existing cars for methane, AND how to synthesize methane given a good energy source, we've been throwing money down a hole for the "hydrogen economy".
That is, for a fuel we don't know how to store without it escaping and making the tank brittle in the process, that has additional hazards because it burns invisibly. Meanwhile, we're trying to come up with fuel cells to use it. It's a perfect recipe for looking like you care but delaying an actual solution for as long as possible.
Being "green" isn't just inventing new stuff... (Score:2)
Another part of being green is fixing all the screwed up horrible polluting technology that isn't likely to go away for decades and decades!
Inventing new "green" stuff is nice, but sometimes fixing the old extremely common stuff makes a bigger difference!
More efficient cars, and less polluting coal plants? Sign me up!
No Hydrogen Economy? (Score:2)
[pulls out beloved pipedream list from pocket, crosses something off with a small, chewed-up #2 pencil, and returns the wrinkled scrap of paper to pocket]
Includes using Hydrogen with normal IC engines? (Score:2)
Honda and Mazda had done research in using hydrogen to replace gasoline in a more or less normal internal combustion engine . While straight forward, producing and storing the hydrogen is incredibly wasteful of energy... as well as the problems of having a 15000 psi storage tank in an accident.
BMW took the cake, though, with their hydrogen powered 7 series. It maintained its fuel in liquid form... that involves maintaining the tank at -252.87 degrees C or -423.17 degrees F. Real energy efficient, I'm sure.
Supposedly, the insulation on the tank was such that an ice cube placed inside would take 16 years to melt when the tank was maintained at room temperature
Re:Includes using Hydrogen with normal IC engines? (Score:3, Interesting)
Little known fact about liquid hydrogen: as per a NASA hydrogen safety guideline document I was reading a while back, air accidentally ingested with the hydrogen during the liquefaction process makes a solid explosive with the explosive power of TNT.
A joke at your own expense? (Score:2)
You said:
Real energy efficient, I'm sure.
Immediately after you said:
Supposedly, the insulation on the tank was such that an ice cube placed inside would take 16 years to melt when the tank was maintained at room temperature
So what's so funny? It seems like in fact yes, it's damn energy efficient.
Stupid, Stupid, Stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
I question Chu's objective logic.
The U.S. sits between 2 of the largest sources of Hydrogen on this planet. Dangerous to ship? How about shipping it as Water? Then at the "Filling Station" Use Solar, and or Wind Electricity to separate the Hydrogen out. This is already being done in Norway [ecofriendlymag.com].
Okay, you have the H2... now what? (Score:2)
Okay, you've now generated a bazillion liters of H2 at the gas station next door. How do you plan to haul it around in your car?
SirWired
Ask Honda. Or Mazda. (Score:2)
How do you plan to haul it around in your car?
It seems like a few [honda.com] car [ecofriendlymag.com] companies have already answered that.
Gee dude, the Norway link was right in the main post you replied to... perhaps you should have read a little further before you fired off a response. If Obama says Hydrogen is evil, it must be evil I supposed even if there are working solutions today... Better to run off chasing the new shiny thing!
Re:Ask Honda. Or Mazda. (Score:2)
But I notice that neither of those are cars that are in wide release or with the actual purchase price available (I'm sure the $600/month lease isn't break-even, its still an R&D project).
While it's certainly possible to store hydrogen, its certainly not cheap. I remember for a project I was involved in a couple of years ago, a DOT approved storage vessel that really would have been too small for a production vehicle was ~$10k. Surely this could be brought down some, but I can't see any way it could be brought down to the point of not being one of the main cost drivers.
Combine that with conversion inefficiencies (compared to batteries/capacitors) and the need for a completely new infrastructure (compared to biofuels) make think this is probably the right choice. EVs and biofuels are much closer to achieving cost-effective solutions, and it seems like a reasonable and responsible move. Plug-in hybrids using biofuels for range extension and quick refueling seem to me to be a lot more effective than hydrogen.
Maybe I'm wrong, I don't think this will completely kill fuel-cell research, if car companies are still interested they'll keep going on it. However shifting funding to something showing more signs of progress sounds like a responsible use of our tax dollars. And I'm not an Obama-ite, I just happen to think this particular decision is correct.
Re:Ask Honda. Or Mazda. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep. Obama's Energy Secretary pick, Steven Chu, is a Nobel prizewinner. While I think picking Geithner was a mistake because he was too beholden to a failed financial system, Chu's strong scientific background is leading to energy decisions based on sound scientific principles as opposed to lobbying and politics. If Obama fired Geithner and replaced him with Paul Krugman, there might actually be hope for a proper housecleaning in the financial industry, too.
Re:Stupid, Stupid, Stupid (Score:2)
The U.S. sits between 2 of the largest sources of Hydrogen on this planet. Dangerous to ship? How about shipping it as Water? Then at the "Filling Station" Use Solar, and or Wind Electricity to separate the Hydrogen out. This is already being done in Norway.
The problem is ENERGY EFFICIENCY, not SAFETY. There is no science or technology that suggests that a H2 fuel cell is going to be nearly as efficient in a car as, say, an internal combustion engine. The only advantage of the fuel cell is that you can obtain the H2 from many sources. In contrast, the current fleet is powered by oil/fossil fuels alone.
Not surprisingly, there are other energy storage technologies, such as batteries, which can be more efficient and lower cost than a fuel cell.
Fuel cells are a great technology for some applications, but they don't make sense for cars.
Re:Stupid, Stupid, Stupid (Score:2)
I thought about that, Bolivia [nytimes.com] has One answer. But unless there is a Major deposit of Lithium that no one has discovered, or the rest of the Lith' is easy to get to, then all the D.O.E. has done is trade one monopoly for another. Oil, and Lithium are by nature, not renewable. Generating electricity from combining Hydrogen, and Oxygen is renewable. The energy sources to separate Hydrogen is the Sun, and Wind. Converting cars to run on natural gas from gasoline is fairly straightforward, going from Natural Gas to Hydrogen is also straightforward. What needs to be done is to Venture Capital conversion kits and refueling stations. The stations are already there, the owners just have to put a hydrogen tank in the back next to the natural gas tank. Nothing is free in the Transportation industry, especially Oil, and Lithium.
Science vs politics (Score:2)
Makes sense in light of battery development (Score:4, Interesting)
Hydrogen for cars mainly looked promising because the alternative non-carbon fuel was batteries, which ten years ago were nowhere close to the required performance. Then the explosion in mobile consumer electronics like laptops and cellphones brought a lot of battery research which resulted in high energy density Li-ion batteries and more recently fast-charging batteries that can be charged in a matter of minutes rather than hours. Basically developments in battery technology during the last decade has pretty much made hydrogen for automotive purposes obsolete before it was ready. There are still some issues with batteries ( mainly their high price compared to present petroleum prices) but the more recent battery generations are up to the job, and if you look at stuff that is at the engineering stage and will likely be commercialized in the near future, hydrogen seems to be a solution looking for a problem. In my opinion that application will likely be aviation where liquid hydrogen can offer an unbeatable energy/weight ratio ( in fact the highest possible of all chemical fuels ). Of course at the moment liquid hydrogen is far too expensive to produce in a CO2 neutral manner as compared to jet fuel, but that may change as Oil reserves dwindle.
Unusually perceptive of this administration ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Fuel cells for cars are interesting, but hydrogen is over-hyped. Vehicles powered by batteries or capacitors are also emission-free (looking at the vehicle) and viable and promising. At least for distances less then 30 miles (which so happens to constitute more than 95% of all trips). So it's not a critical technology but it's a "nice to have" technology. Besides, like Chu says, hydrogen powered cars are looking at a long list of pesky and fairly fundamental problems which will take time to solve.
I applaud the decision to set up 8 smaller research establishments for 5 years instead of "one big one". Less photo opportunities perhaps, but (taking into account that they will work with local research centers and with industry) more chance of someone having a bright idea. And long enough to make it attractive for someone considering what field to specialize in to choose energy research.
I also like the decision to let the government stop looking for oil and gas. We have private industries that are quite adept at doing that, and (as Chu says) they have plenty of money to fund exploration. So pouring government funding into it is a dead waste. It's nice to be able to pick up the tab for costly and risky research for your oil-industry buddies, but that doesn't help the public.
I think this shows what can happen when you put an actual scientist in charge of research. And yes, Chu's freedom of action is severely limited by previous commitments, including the one to do research and produce material for nuclear weapons.
You mean redirect the funds. (Score:5, Insightful)
Its a new team in town, with a different set of friends that need to be 'greased'.
Its just typical ( shortsighted ) politics at work here. Nothing new.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:3, Interesting)
and it's not like NASA and other Fed agencies haven't been working on fuel cells for like 50 years or so.
Talk about a clue, all the hydrogen hype that started in early 2000 was designed to stop the US auto industry from bringing out any fuel efficient hybrids. You know, like the ones they'd been working on through the 90s. And there was probably nothing behind how the hydrogen hype was used to get the CARB board to eliminate high fuel efficiency requirements for California and eliminate the zero emission requirements which caused GM to product the EV1.
This is all just shortsighted politics taking money away from the industry Bush created to chase after unicorns instead of fuel efficiency. Bush is a visionary isn't he? Gheesh, some peoples kids.
LoB
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly, mod up.
Cutting funding for the pie in the sky, futuristic hydrogen research that Bush shooed in as a distraction while killing all viable research that could credibly be competitive with Saudi oil (or Iraqi oil once he freed it with the blood of thousands of Americans and trillions of dollars of our children's future for short term profits for his partners, a plan that subsequently failed to work out as planned) is just as sensible as cutting funding for Bush's failed "abstinence-only" sex education/state religion, which was just as misguided.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:5, Insightful)
You may disagree with the conclusion, but don't write it off as simply shortsighted politics.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hydrogen power sounds good on paper, but we need something that works soon.
Quoting Patton: A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
We, as a country, have limited resources. We have a lot that needs to get fixed. Let's be smart about it.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand government's primary job is to fund research positive outcome of which is not so obvious in the present. It is government's job to take risks and invest in longer term research which potentially may have bigger pay outs 20-30 years later.
I assume here that the governments are usually more stable than all these vulture capitalists, and US government can take losses for prolonged periods of time for the greater good of being more advanced than the other more shortsighted governments.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand government's primary job is to fund research positive outcome of which is not so obvious in the present. It is government's job to take risks and invest in longer term research which potentially may have bigger pay outs 20-30 years later.
The problem with this idea is that most governments can't keep policy stable enough for a decade to fund the kind of long term research and projects you're talking about. Every decade you get a president or two, a few "new" Senates and Houses, 20 budget meetings and hundreds of eager beavers trying to make their mark while slashing at someone else's budgets to do so. This is not an environment that breeds any kind of stability at all.
What the government is really good at funding is the middle-term research. Things that take maybe 10 years, maximum. The best example of this is probably the Apollo project and the life cycle of power plant construction in the US (from planning to construction generally takes about 5-8 years, nuclear power plants and large hydro plants run longer, but the need is more clear and so they're generally not terminated as soon).
There are outliers (like the Space Shuttle program which somehow miraculously lasted for nearly 30 years without its funding being cut to nothing, and programs that got cut almost as fast as they got funding like many of the stem cell programs that Clinton funded and Bush destroyed), but the pattern is very easy to see. Short term: venture capital. Medium term: the government. Long term: Wall Street and a prayer to $DEITY (you may have to build a whole conglomerate around the core idea just to get it to stick, see drug companies). This country forgot how to think in the long term a century ago.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:2, Interesting)
I can hardly wait for $6/gallon gas this summer!
Me too. Only I'm not being sarcastic.
($6 is, of course, over the top; the size of the subsidies is pretty tiny compared to the size of the industry. But I would like to see prices up in the $3-$4/gal range. Preferably via taxes rather than supply/demand or OPEC limits, so that the money could be used to offset the pain caused by those prices via either additional services or tax cuts.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:3, Insightful)
Effectively tactics like this destroy economic freedom, much as how over-zealous right wingers destroy some civil liberties with censorship.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:3, Informative)
There is a rather large difference between letting market forces have their way with oil prices, and actively banning marijuana or profanity
But the poster clearly stated that he would rather the increase be because of taxes, something that the government does, rather then natural market forces.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:4, Interesting)
No, corporate welfare is bad because corporations are legal fictions; they have no natural right to exist. (Please don't bother quoting Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific at me; that particular decision -- or more particularly, the interpretation of that decision -- joins Dred Scott v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson on the list of Dumbest Court Decisions Ever.) Individual welfare is ... not good, exactly, but sometimes a regrettable necessity, because people do have a right to exist. If you claim you can't see the difference, you're being deliberately blind.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not let supply and demand do the trick? Right now the costs on the supply side are distorted by the welfare checks the US government doles out to the oil industry on a regular basis; as I note in another post farther down in the thread, ending that practice would probably cause prices to go up, and certainly would leave a great deal of money for helping out the people who would pay more at the pump. New taxes really aren't necessary for this result.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not let supply and demand do the trick? Right now the costs on the supply side are distorted by the welfare checks the US government doles out to the oil industry on a regular basis; as I note in another post farther down in the thread, ending that practice would probably cause prices to go up, and certainly would leave a great deal of money for helping out the people who would pay more at the pump. New taxes really aren't necessary for this result.
I agree. Let supply and demand work. However, that means you must free the supply, which is something that has yet to happen.
Re:You mean redirect the funds. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyways, you'll only get raped if you have a gas guzzler. If you have at least a half-decent fuel efficient car, you'll be just fine. If you drive an alternative fuel vehicle, you won't even feel a thing.
Having the customer pay the full, unsubsidized price for gas may actually create real competition in the vehicle fuel market. If people had a choice between gas or an alternative fuel, then the gas companies would have no choice but to keep their prices competitive to that alternative fuel, wouldn't they?
Or worse yet, people may actually get used to driving less and taking public transit as part of their daily commute instead!
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And redirect the work? (Score:2)
I'm pro biofuels, but how are they going to know what technology will pan out?
Fuel Cell cars are still 15 years away [reuters.com]. Bio fuels, and bio/petroleum mixes are here now as well as hybrids and electric cars that are coming out again.
Re:And redirect the work? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pro biofuels, but how are they going to know what technology will pan out?
You never know. But wise investment involves making your best judgment based on what is known, and what is known is that fuel cell stacks cost an order of magnitude more than even a large li-ion battery pack, have no better range or fuelling time than EVs (the only exception to the latter being if you have the fuel super-compressed at the stations, which is both dangerous and makes the stations even more expensive), have 1/3rd the fuel-cycle efficiency, have half the lifespan in the fuel cell stack, have many more moving parts than an EV, fundamentally require new infrastructure for all modes of operation (versus EVs which only need new infrastructure for long trips), and in general involve having to deal with hydrogen -- a chemical that leaks through almost anything, weakens metals, enters pipes and follows them to their destination, destroys ozone, pools under overhangs, has an incredibly low ignition energy, burns in almost any fuel-air mixture, readily undergoes deflagration to detonation transitions, and is a general PITA to store and transport.
Hydrogen fuel cells have failed to advance sufficiently to become marketable, affordable, reliable products that are decisively better for the environment, despite getting the lion's share of research funding in the past decade. EVs are far closer to this, esp. with the modern fast-charging, long-range, nontoxic li-ion variants, and hence the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction.
No New Infrastructure Needed (Score:3, Informative)
...require new infrastructure for all modes of operation (versus EVs which only need new infrastructure for long trips)
There was an engineer on the west coast who electrified his Honda CRX. His solution for long trips -- hitch a little cart on the back with a generator. You could even fuel these with propane bottles, and so avoid the whole petroleum infrastructure. Or, you could use the petroleum infrastructure, but use it to distribute biofuels for the generator modules.
Re:No New Infrastructure Needed (Score:2)
Re:No New Infrastructure Needed (Score:4, Informative)
And the fact that you can build the equivalent of those big-company factory cars in your garage and achieve fairly similar performance and practicality says a lot about how hard building one of these cars is NOT.
Re:And redirect the work? (Score:3, Interesting)
That is simply wrong. The "cost of a large battery pack that can provide > 300 miles range per charge" depends on the chemistry, of course, but excluding the titanates, you're looking at $0.35 to $0.50 per watt hour. A Tesla or Volt-like vehicle gets about 200Wh/mi. That's $21k to $30k. Fuel cell stacks are about $10/W. A 30kW fuel cell stack -- which *also* needs a large battery pack for current buffering -- costs $300k An order of magnitude more.
As for the safety of *any* hydrogen system, check out NASA's handling guidelines [docstoc.com]. People who make money on hydrogen systems can say whatever
they want, but the facts about hydrogen are the facts.
Re:Brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
It's had the lion's share of research funding for the past decade, and despite that, has been lapped on pretty much every front by EVs.
It's electric vehicles' turn.
Re:Brilliant (Score:3, Informative)
1) Laptop batteries != EV batteries. Except in the case of Tesla; they're kind of doing their own thing, different from pretty much everyone else.
2) Despite the common notion, batteries are just one aspect of EV technology that's undergone major advancement. Just to pick a random example: IGBTs.
3) Fuel cell vehicles, while technically "electric", are traditionally abbreviated FCV.
Re:Brilliant (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Brilliant (Score:2)
Even if that description is reasonable for automotive fuel cells (it's not; all it does is move the CO2 emissions from the mobile sources to the sources feeding the electric grid, so unless you eliminate CO2 emissions from large scale generation first, automotive fuel cells don't eliminate transportation CO2 emissions) transferring funding to stationary fuel cells would not be ignoring that field of research, since improving technology for stationary fuel cells will advance the starting point for automotive fuel cells. It also offers more prospects for near term improvements, since stationary cells don't have the high infrastructure demands that mobile cells face.
Re:You don't need to transport hydrogen. (Score:2)
Small scale electrolysis is even less efficient and more expensive than large scale, and takes bloody forever to boot.
Re:You don't need to transport hydrogen. (Score:2)
Small scale electrolysis is even less efficient and more expensive than large scale, and takes bloody forever to boot.
The wildly optimistic estimates I've seen have been $600k per "gas" station, and I don't believe those for a second.
Re:You don't need to transport hydrogen. (Score:2)
"What they need to work on is a cheaper way to generate electricity."
Which of course you could just put into batteries.
Re:You don't need to transport hydrogen. (Score:2)
And with a smart grid, which they've already started investing in via the stimulus bill, EVs can adjust their charging rate based on the needs of the grid. Or, in the case of V2G, even output power to it.
Re:You don't need to transport hydrogen. (Score:2)
That same energy could instead be used to charge a battery. Lithium-ions are already close to 90% efficient, which no method of producing hydrogen can even approach. Combined with supercaps and high-voltage "fueling" stations, charge time would be a non-issue. So what does hydrogen get me?
It's not the pipeline that is the problem... (Score:2)
In this case "transport" refers to moving it around as an energy source for your car. It's more difficult than it sounds, as a usable size supply of Hydrogen must be compressed to far higher pressures than CNG to perform the same task. (CNG has far higher energy densities, even if a ICE is less efficient than an electric motor.)
SirWired
Re:You don't need to transport hydrogen. (Score:2)
If you do that, you lose energy cracking the hydrogen, so why not just put the electricity directly into a battery rather than cracking hydrogen and putting it into a fuel tank. Even the method you suggest, which makes hydrogen into a transfer mechanism and not an energy source, takes more infrastructure changes than supporting pure-electric vehicles would.
Energy storage is the issue (Score:2)
The real issue we have with electricity is storage. Hydrogen was never, and will never be, a fuel source, rather it is an energy transportation medium. What I mean is that in order to have hydrogen you need to get it from some medium, such as water or another compound. Since you need to do electrolysis to extract Hydrogen from water, you might as well look into skipping the step and using is straight. This reminds me of using natural gas to extract oil, as another energy wasting endeavour, but that is another story.
Now the issue is the storage of electricity, which currently has Lithium based batteries as the best method. The ideal solution, will probably be a super capacitor based system, since you will get the advantages of charge time and reduction of chemicals. Storing Hydrogen has one set of issues, which is compounded by the issues of making it safe in an accident.
Having said all this, batteries currently fail in very cold climates, and this is a place where Hydrogen could find its place. Given that this suddenly reduces the potential market for Hydrogen based vehicles, it is probably money better spent to find a solution to getting an electric vehicle starting at -30C. Heck, given the advantages for Moon and Mars missions, maybe we could even get NASA involved. Another advantage with electric vehicles, is that electricity can be produced by plenty of different sources and is easily transported (even if there is some loss).
Re:start building nuclear plants NOW (Score:2)
A) Expensive to build and secure
B) Few locations for it, even though it is going to create a lot of new jobs, no one wants another Chernobyl, so no town is going to want a nuclear power plant close to it
C) No safe place to store waste.
D) Waste must be secured, this involves more manpower in contrast to coal power plants that need comparatively less security
The thing is, coal is cheap, reliable, and pretty decent overall, especially for a temporary solution. Nuclear energy just is too hazardous/expensive to be building many of them.
Re:start building nuclear plants NOW (Score:5, Informative)
B) Chernoby was so completely different from any reactor the US has ever implemented (including the lack of a containment dome) it is just pure FUD to even bring it up.
C) Recycling the so called waste will yield a sizeable amount of fuel and the remaining short lived waste could be stored in the mines the uranium ore came out of in the first place.
D) See C combined with: I thought the idea was to get away from coal?
Oh, and to E from the AC: Actually, we have about a few thousand year supply of Uranium in the US alone (Virginia) and that does not include sea water extraction. Breeder reactors also allow the production of more fuel. It is either a renewable or going to last so long that fusion will come about before we run out.
Re:start building nuclear plants NOW (Score:3, Interesting)
We should immediately begin constructing new reactors globally. We need to build something like 3TW of new power generation to get the rest of the world to a standard of living approximating that of the USA... Think about 3TW of continuous power. It's impossible without nuclear or coal... Why do you want to go backwards in technology? By far the highest energy per unit is found in nuclear... we must rapidly roll out nuclear plants, for those are the only kind that suit our needs.
Fusion is seriously around the corner... we only need to get about 3 times more efficient to reach ignition. It's a walk in the park with the proper funding...
Re:It's all Enviromentalist BS (Score:2)
People like Obama who basically hate capitalism and individual liberty realized that hydrogen fuel cells are too efficient to allow to freely come to the market.
Oh. My. God.
You actually believe that, don't you? I mean, at first I thought your post had to be a joke. But it isn't, is it?
There are a great many posts attached to this story which explain, quite clearly and accurately, what the major problems with hydrogen fuel cells are. Hint: too much efficiency isn't one of them. You could read those posts or, better yet, do a little reading on your own and educate yourself on the issue. But if you prefer your paranoid fantasies, you go with that.
Just be aware that sane people will feel free to regard you as clearly being a nutcase who has nothing worthwhile to say on this or any other subject, ever.
Re:Anyone else notice this part? (Score:4, Informative)