Fuel cell vehicle research funding to be restored?

Congress is seeking to maintain funding for fuel cell vehicle research, rebuffing the Department of Energy's proposal to cut $100 million in funding.

The Appropriations committees from the House and Senate earlier this month published budgets that have significant sums devoted to hydrogen research and specifically for fuel cell vehicles.

The House plan calls for $40 million in research through the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies program and the Senate plan would provide $190 million to various hydrogen technologies, according to Environment & Energy Daily. (Click for PDFs of House appropriations and Senate appropriations.)

In May the Department of Energy proposed slashing fuel cell vehicle research by about 60 percent, which would have been a cut of about $100 million. At the time, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that after years of research, hydrogen-fueled cars were still years away from commercial viability.

"We asked ourselves, 'Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?' The answer, we felt, was 'no,'" Chu said in May.

That proposal was criticized by hydrogen industry trade groups, arguing that fuel cells have a role among other power train technologies.

All the major automakers have fuel cell vehicle programs with small numbers of cars leased to consumers for testing. Although these cars are available, they can only be fueled in the few locations that have hydrogen filling stations.

In addition to the lack of distribution infrastructure, storage of hydrogen remains a technical challenge. Hydrogen also has to be produced from other sources, such as natural gas.

The House Energy and Water appropriations, which includes Energy Department funding for 2010, passed on Friday with $45 million for "hydrogen vehicle technologies" added to the $40 million the appropriations committee had originally called for, according to the National Hydrogen Association.

Robert Rose, executive director of the United States Fuel Cell Council, told The New York Times that he hopes a vote on the Senate appropriations bill comes before the August recess.

[willdryden]

Hydrogen fuel cell cars are a non-starter. The fuel cell stacks will never last, the hydrogen is too expensive to produce, and hydrogen can not be stored for long perods of time. Electric cars are the way of the future, but hydrogen fuel cells will not be the range extender of choice.

[tech_crazy]

Fuel cell cars are electric cars just that unlike a conventional battery, the fuel cell is the "battery".

[pserfass]

These are common myths, but fortunately ones that are not true. Much of the technology available even today has shown that the cost, durability and storage challenges have been or will be overcome. No breakthroughs are needed. Instead, iterative improvement.

+ DURABILITY: cars on the road today have demonstrated more than 60,000 mile durability of the fuel cell stack and in the lab, it's well over 100,000 miles. http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/review09/program_overview_2009_amr.pdf

+ HYDROGEN COST: Hydrogen producers have said that when vehicles are for sale, customers can expect that the cost to fill up will be comparable to the cost of gasoline. Already with today's technology, hydrogen can be delivered at the pump for the equivalent price of $3/gal http://www.h2andyou.org/tenThings.asp

+ STORAGE: With compressed hydrogen storage, which is what most of today's vehicles use, you can sit the car parked for weeks, months, even years, and when you come back to it, you'll still have every molecule of hydrogen in the tank that was there when you left it. And did you know that the newest hydrogen vehicles on the road today get more than 300 miles on a tank? http://hydrogenroadtour.com/node/173

In the end, we need batteries AND hydrogen to make the best cars. The approach to develop both is the smart one and in this case, Congress has it right.

[gertruded]

Hydrogen fuel cells are not practical for transportation. Hydrogen is very, very difficult to store and use. Hydrogen is not a fuel source, just a carrier of other forms of energy, and very inefficient at that. One sentence above tells it all:

"That proposal was criticized by hydrogen industry trade groups, arguing that fuel cells have a role among other power train technologies."

just another special interest lobbying group.

[pserfass]

I represent the National Hydrogen Association, one of those industry trade groups and yes we have an interest in developing hydrogen technologies. But we also have real technology and scientific facts to back up why it makes sense to do so. Let's talk the facts and leave the politics out. The NHA says that we need a portfolio of alternative vehicle technologies to meet our transportation needs--including batteries, hydrogen, some biofuels, and others.

The reason Congress has needed to add money for hydrogen is because the Administration tried to eliminate the hydrogen vehicle program when hundreds of companies have shown with real technology that hydrogen vehicles are an important part of what we need to clean up vehicle emissions. We're working hard to make sure that the U.S. provides a fertile environment for the vehicle development to happen here, because if we don't, the global companies will find other governments that will support them and then we'll all end up losing those jobs and importing the technology, like we do for all our batteries today. This is federal funding that can help us all in many, many ways.

[mattie121]

During times of tough choices, we should stick with the few that we actually can make. While fuel cell work for the light vehicle fleet was zero'd out, not all fuel cell work was.

This is just congress caving to special interests. I'm a physicist and love innovative energy technology, but hydrogen as a light vehicle fuel isn't smart, for lots and lots of reason. Too bad we're wasting more time on this, instead of stuff that will really provide benefits in the near term.

This isn't saying that long term interests should be ignored. Far from it, but we do know enough about the hydrogen infrastructure, energy costs and the like to know that the light vehicle fleet isn't the place to put fuel cells.

[JimHorwitz]

The proposal was criticized by many in the research community like myself as well as non-profit environmental institutions and some members of congress who actually did not have a vested interest. And the National Hydrogen Assoc.

Fuel cells are an exciting versatile technology which have finally reached the commercialization level, although the US is far behind Asia and Europe in supporting most widespread applications, from residential heating and power systems to barge and mini-bus power. The $100M level for vehicle research and implementation is a drop in the bucket compared to advanced battery funding and clean large scale power generation which is years further away than FCV's: "Obama Administration?s action paves the way for Hydrogen Energy?s low-carbon power plant in California with $308 million of funding" - link to: (http://www.hydrogenenergycalifornia.com/news.aspx?id=11). And Korean Hyundai/Kia has announced expected mass production beginning in 2012 of a fuel cell vehicle priced in the $50,000 range. Question: Is that an American RCA flat-screen TV you're watching? Let's not get fooled again.

[mattie121]

The problems with fuel cell LIGHT vehicles are many. Storage capacity and infrastructure are the two largest one. In the US, hydrogen will be made by stripping it off of methane, and without capture of the carbon, the goal of hydrogen as a carbon free fuel is totally undermined.

If you use compressed hydrogen gas, it takes a significant amount of energy to compress the hydrogen. If you use liquid, it takes a lot of energy to cool it.

All of these factors lead to a significant reduction in the potential benefit of hydrogen power for the light vehicle fleet.

Because of non-existant hydrogen fueling infrastructure, the technology is really only applicable to fleet deployments with local routes. Then the setting up of a local refueling station can actually meet the needs of the fleet owner.

I'm all for energy efficiency and the like (I"m a physicist by training), but really, the fuel cell for the light vehicle fleet isn't where fuel cells will have their best application.

[jwhenry25]

You can buy or trade in both domestic and foreign vehicles so not just the US made cars.

henry
Blogger
www.cashforclunkersfacts.info
http://www.cashforclunkersfacts.info

[rpwmson]

The actions of the Congress are gratifing and the prospect of having a sustainable hydrogen fuel cell vehicle are most exciting. I hope we will continue to look to how we can improve the future and make it more liveable. This will definately take a SEA change and I think hydrogen is the best answer at this point in time.