Green Tech

The Department of Energy's proposed budget boosts research on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources but makes cuts in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles because the technology is many years from being practical.

The DOE published details of its $26.4 billion fiscal 2010 budget request on Thursday, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu held a news briefing to cover the highlights. (Click for a PDF of his presentation.)

"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 a briefing, according to Energy & Environment Daily.

Fuel cells have been touted by politicians and people from the industry for many years. The major auto companies have hydrogen fuel cell development programs and lease a limited number of cars to people near the few hydrogen filling stations in the U.S.

But there are many technical challenges to making fuel cell vehicles broadly used, including compact storage, the distribution infrastructure, and the longevity of fuel cells.

The DOE will continue to fund research for stationary fuel cell applications, such as backup power on the power grid or at commercial facilities. Hydrogen can be captured from natural gas or other sources. A fuel cell makes electricity, generating only water vapor as a byproduct--what's considered zero emissions.

The National Hydrogen Association criticized the DOE funding decision, saying that there should be a range of different vehicle technologies.

Another funding area expected to be cut is the $200 million spent on deep-water oil and gas research, which Chu said that industry could fund on its own.

Chu also said that the DOE will seek to create eight "innovation hubs," which would be small research areas designed to attract more scientists into energy, according to a report in The New York Times.

Other proposed areas of investments are: electricity transmission infrastructure, plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles, nuclear energy, and so-called clean coal technologies to make coal power generation less polluting.

A driver fills up a Fuel Cell Vehicle with hydrogen at one of California's few public hydrogen refueling stations. California is expected to get 46 more hydrogen retail stations by 2014.

(Credit: California Fuel Cell Partnership)

Paving the way for the so-called Hydrogen Super Highway, California Fuel Cell Partnership released a roadmap that details plans for 46 retail hydrogen fueling stations in six targeted California communities by 2014. Hydrogen is considered to be the holy grail of clean transportation because Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCV) emit only water when driven, but a lack of infrastructure is one of the major roadblocks to this advancement.

"By 2017, automotive manufacturers plan to place 50,000 zero-emission fuel cell vehicles in customer hands. FCVs will provide the performance, durability, driving range, and comfort that customers want, and meet the nation's need for a domestic fuel that is better for the environment," said Catherine Dunwoody, CaFCP's executive director in a press release.

For the moment, only six of the state's 26 hydrogen refueling stations are open to the public. Most are privately owned and operated for corporate fleet or testing vehicles. The CaFCP gave details for the cost of building 40 stations by 2012, which is projected to be $181.5 million and is expected to be funded largely by the government to incentivize the industry to begin the transition to hydrogen.

What will it take for hydrogen-powered cars, which emit only water vapor as exhaust, to enter American highways in large numbers? Filling stations are a good start.

The Hydrogen Road Tour was a coast-to-coast caravan of hydrogen-powered cars organized to educate consumers and policy-makers on the promise of the technology. The two-week event, which traveled from Portland, Maine to Los Angeles, was sponsored by trade associations and the U.S. Departments of Transportation and Energy.

The first stop after leaving Portland was Billerica, Mass., where there was a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the state's first hydrogen fueling station. Click on the embedded video image to check out the scene.

The hydrogen filling station is located at the corporate headquarters of Nuvera Fuel Cells, which has developed a system to convert natural gas to hydrogen. The company will be the main customer of the hydrogen, which it will use for its product development and research.

During the event, I spoke to the CEO of Nuvera about what's needed to make hydrogen cars for the masses.

I also took a ride in a bi-fuel car that runs on hydrogen and gasoline from BMW, which it calls a transition technology on the way to widespread fuel-cell vehicles.

There are only a handful of hydrogen refueling stations in the U.S. which will be built around large cities. Fuel cell vehicle advocates say those fueling stations will bring more hydrogen cars and cleaner ways to produce hydrogen.

BILLERICA, Mass.--It's a 21st century twist on the whistle stop train tour.

A caravan of 11 vehicles on Monday started off from Portland, Maine, on the Hydrogen Road Tour, a cross-country trek of hydrogen-powered vehicles that will end in Los Angeles after two weeks.

The event, which will make 31 stops in 18 states, was organized to educate U.S. consumers and policy makers about hydrogen and fuel-cell vehicles. It's sponsored by nine automakers, the U.S. Department of Energy, the California Fuel Cell Partnership, the National Hydrogen Association, and the Department of Transportation.

The stop on the tour after Portland was here at the headquarters of Nuvera Fuel Cells and now the home of the first hydrogen refueling station in the state.

During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Cheryl McQueary, the deputy administrator of transportation research and innovative technology at the Department of Transportation, said that the U.S. currently produces enough hydrogen to power 34 million vehicles.

Right now, however, there are only 16 hydrogen refueling stations in the U.S., used by hundreds of consumers. Most experts expect that the distribution infrastructure will develop as a series of clusters around cities like Los Angeles and New York.

"The question is not if hydrogen-powered vehicles will be available commercially, but when," Paul Brubaker, the head of the U.S. DOT's Research and Innovative Technology Administration, said in a statement.

That's a sentiment voiced by many politicians and technologists. Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles only give off water vapor as exhaust, and hydrogen can be produced domestically, potentially decreasing the use of imported oil.

Fuel-cell vehicles, which convert hydrogen to electricity onboard, ride largely the same as gasoline cars but are far more quiet. Some of the demonstration models on the Hydrogen Road Tour also incorporate batteries as a plug-in hybrid does.

But there are several practical and technological hurdles blocking fuel-cell vehicles from the road. In addition to a lack of a refueling infrastructure, engineers are working on ways to make fuel cells more durable and to expand the storage capacity.

The driving range of Nissan's X-Trail Fuel Cell Vehicle, for example, is rated at 200 miles but practical use is more like 150 miles, according to a representative.

I took a "bi-fuel" BMW 7-Series for a ride, a model which lets you switch between hydrogen or gasoline. Unlike a fuel-cell car, this car has an internal combustion engine that burns hydrogen or gasoline. The fuel economy and performance are the same as a traditional 7-Series but has much cleaner emissions, according to the company.

Fill 'er up with H2. The first hydrogen refueling station in Massachusetts will be used primarily by its manufacturer, Nuvera Fuel Cells.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET News)

The reason BMW chose to build this model is to show politicians that hydrogen is a viable fuel today, said Jason Perron, clean energy program manager at BMW of North America. The consumer also has the flexibility of taking trips to places that don't have hydrogen filling stations.

Other auto manufacturers with cars on the tour are DaimlerChrysler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai-Kia, Toyota, and Volkswagen.

Making H2
Beyond the political speeches and looks at the cutting-edge fuel cell vehicles, the event here demonstrated on-site hydrogen production.

Filling stations often use an electrolyzer which splits water to make hydrogen using electricity.

The Nuvera hydrogen refueling station will make hydrogen from natural gas and water. The natural gas-based system, which also has a storage tank and refueling pump, is more energy-efficient than an electrolyzer, said Wes Hansen, the lead systems engineer at Nuvera Fuel Cells.

Nuvera is first targeting the market for forklifts powered by hydrogen fuel cells. But hydrogen-powered passenger cars are about a decade away, said Roberto Cordaro, the company's president and CEO.

Today's fuel-cell vehicles will mature over multiple generations, much like hybrid cars have.

"These cars (here) will be the first generation. The second and third generations will be needed before we move to products with hundreds of thousand or millions made a year," Cordaro said in an interview. "So it will probably take no less than 8 years and no more than 12 years before you get to that level that we have seen with the Prius (hybrid)."

Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor John Heywood, an expert on automotive technologies, said that hydrogen faces many questions on the role it will play in transportation.

Hydrogen is being used to fuel fleets but whether it becomes widespread and environmentally beneficial for a large part depends on where the hydrogen comes from, Heywood said in an interview last week.

"Whether it starts to take off in a serious way towards big time depends a lot on (whether) we see good ways to produce hydrogen that fit our future energy strategies," he said. "People are working hard on these questions, but it's going to hover at the modest level for quite a while before we get a sense of whether this is ready for big time."

As in years past, fuel cell-powered vehicles are the technology of the future, according to a report published on Thursday by the U.S. National Academies.

Despite a great deal of technical progress, the study concludes that fuel cell vehicles will only make a significant dent in oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions with decades of coordinated government policies and commitment from industry.

The primary barriers to adoption are high costs and the absence of an infrastructure to distribute hydrogen, the report said, which was commissioned by Congress and sponsored by the Department of Energy.

Honda CEO Takeo Fukui earlier this year drives some of the first people who will lease the Honda's FCX Clarity hydrogen car: actress Laura Harris (front passenger), Southland Industries CFO Jon Spallino (behind her), and film producer Ron Yerxa.

(Credit: Honda Motor)

Fuel cell vehicles use hydrogen as a fuel and emit water vapor and heat. In a fuel cell, the hydrogen passes through a membrane to produce an electrical current to power the car.

In 2003, President Bush announced a $1.2 billion initiative to encourage development of hydrogen production technology and fuel cell vehicles.

Fuel and auto companies have invested in them as well by creating cars and setting up a handful of fuel stations.

The authors said that the best-case scenario would result in 2 million fuel cell vehicles by 2020. Adoption could increase rapidly thereafter if products were competitive on cost, the study found.

To move completely off oil and onto hydrogen fuel would require a hefty investment: $55 billion from government and $145 billion from industry between 2008 and 2023. "To put these numbers into perspective, the government subsidy for ethanol fuel could grow to $15 billion per year by 2020," according to the report summary.

How much hydrogen fuel cell vehicles reduce greenhouse gas emissions depends on how the hydrogen is made.

A Shell station in Los Angeles, for example, uses an electrolyzer that converts electricity made from renewable sources to hydrogen, but that approach doesn't scale to very high volumes, according to Shell.

The National Academies recommended a "portfolio approach" of pursuing different transportation technologies, including fuel cells, biofuels, and fuel efficiency.

BOSTON--Shell is preparing to open a fueling station in west Los Angeles later this month that will dispense gasoline or, for the right car, hydrogen.

Duncan Macleod, vice president of Shell Hydrogen, gave the keynote talk on Tuesday at the CTSI Clean Technology conference, where he said that the Santa Monica Boulevard station will be followed by a few more in the coming months.

The Los Angeles station will use an electrolyzer to manufacture hydrogen from electricity on site.

GM's fuel cell vehicle, the Chevy Equinox.

(Credit: GM)

The Los Angeles station was part of a U.S. Department of Energy hydrogen research program with Shell and General Motors. But Shell will build a few more stations in Los Angeles area on its own in coming months, Macleod said.

In his talk, Macleod argued that fuel cell vehicles will be mass-produced by 2020. To make that happen, "mini networks" of hydrogen filling stations in densely populated cities need to take root now.

Macleod said that fuel cell vehicles are at a pivotal point in development: With the proper government incentives and technology investments now, hydrogen can be produced in cleaner ways.

Options for making hydrogen
Hydrogen has been touted as the successor to gasoline for many years. Automakers believe that they could make money from fuel cell cars because there are fewer parts. Environmentally, the big advantage of fuel cells is that they emit only water. But making hydrogen requires an energy source--which, ironically, can be polluting fossil fuels.

The electrolyzer used in hydrogen stations can run on electricity from renewable sources, as Shell is doing with wind power in the Netherlands and geothermal power in Iceland.

But electrolyzers cannot scale to serve thousands of passengers, Macleod said. That means that hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles in the short and medium term will be made at petrochemical plants that make hydrogen as part of their industrial process.

"We can make hydrogen from anything," Macleod said, but the input into a petrochemical plant or refinery is either oil or gas. "That means you are making hydrogen from hydrocarbons, which isn't a long-term sensible way of doing things."

There are also several technical challenges, not the least of which is making hydrogen cost-effectively.

To get to cleaner sources, Shell Hydrogen envisions the manufacture of hydrogen from fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage. That would mean natural gas would have hydrogen split off from it to be used as a fuel (or generate power with a turbine), while the carbon dioxide would be pumped underground.

Farther out, Shell is doing research on making hydrogen from renewable bio-feedstocks or even municipal solid waste.

Macleod said he anticipates that hydrogen will become one option among several power sources, including electricity, biofuel, and gasoline.

"I don't now think that hydrogen is the ultimate fuel, but it is part of the answer," he said. "It's not the energy companies that decide. It's the governments and the consumers."