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EV WORLD EXCLUSIVE ARTICLE |
Before we fuel our cars with hydrogen, we need to be producing a surplus of renewable electricity like that generated by these wind turbines, say the British.
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Is the Bush 'FreedomFuel' proposal putting the hydrogen cart before the horse?
Open Access Article Originally Published: February 02, 2003
You have but to peruse the on-line bulletin boards on Yahoo or Google to realize there is a lot of healthy skepticism about the Bush Administration's "FreedomFuel" initiative announced in the State of the Union address last week. The comments, often full caps for emphasis, talk about American families riding around on hydrogen bombs. Many question where the hydrogen will come from and how much it will cost? Still others are enthusiastic and dismissive of the obstacles saying we can make hydrogen in our homes from tap water or from septic tank methane.
For their part, carmakers were supportive of the $1.2 billion dollar proposal. They should be, given the fact that the idea is alleged by FinancialWire.Net to have been the brainchild of GM's new "superstar" lobbyist, former Republican Congressman Bob Walker. G.W. Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove is also a former GM lobbyist.
Regardless of the politics involved, the question remains, is the US really getting serious about hydrogen? Requesting funding to the tune of $1.2 billion would seem to suggest this.
However, given the true scope of the challenge of moving the United States, to say nothing of the rest of the world, from its over dependence on fossil fuels to one based on a more sustainable model and fuels, the White House's request would seem little more than just so much political window dressing, meant to give the Administration a much needed greener glow and the perception that the government is doing something about Arab oil imports.
The Department of Energy estimates that it will cost the United States alone more than $1 trillion.... that's a thousand billion... to convert its infrastructure from petroleum and natural gas to hydrogen.
Against this staggering sum, $1.2 billion seems positively trivial, assuming the money is even appropriated, something that may be hard to accomplish given the nation's other "War Against Terror" priorities and a looming $200 billion-plus price tag for a war and military occupation in Iraq.
But let's assume Congress finds a way to allocate the money. What are the challenges of creating a hydrogen economy?
Creating Affordable Hydrogen - Hydrogen is not an energy source. It is a synthetic energy carrier. It carries energy generated by other sources. The energy it carries can come from electricity in the form of water electrolysis or from steam-reformed methane or any other fossil fuel.
Ideally, the vision is to use some benign, renewable energy source like wind or ocean waves to generate the electricity to make the hydrogen. Two European researchers, Drs. Ulf Bossel and Baldur Eliasson calculated that it takes 1.2 to 1.4 units of conventional energy to make 1 unit of hydrogen. This economic inefficiency, they argue, has never been a problem as long as hydrogen remained a chemical feedstock for other processes. Its cost is somewhat irrelevant because it can be passed on in the finished product. [See Feasible Future.]
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15 comments so far...
02-Feb-2003
854
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I completely agree with this assessment of hydrogen. It has seemed to me that barring some revolution in the efficiency of electrolysis that the cheapest way to produce hydrogen will be by cracking it out of fossil fuels. This in itself is a wasteful use of a resource. Furthermore, as countries like China and indonesia continue to develop it should be apparent to everyone that their energy demands will also skyrocket, which while not hurting the demand for renewable energy technology, will make the concept of a surplus of renewable energy supplies unlikely. It seems better to me to use that energy directly in the most efficient way by converting it directly to the tasks of powering homes and industry and moving people and things where they need to go.
Posted by: Leif Gerjuoy
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03-Feb-2003
855
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The one thing hydrogen generation has going for it (as far as electrolysis is concerned) is that it can be manufactured off-peak or at odd times when wind may be blowing or when nuke plants are pumping out energy to small off-peak market.
Of course we still have to question the use of hydrogen as it is 3 or 4 times more efficient to charge and discharge a battery than to electrolyze H2O then run it through a fuel cell.
So given that we do have surplus off peak electricity, would you rather spend it on hydrogen or get 3 or 4 times more usable energy (and 3 or 4 times as many miles driven) by charging batteries.... hmmm?
Posted by: Greg Hanssen
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04-Feb-2003
857
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Thanks for an informed, balanced and objective article. It was educational rather than strictly opinion. Easier to make a decision based on facts without "spin." No Lobbyists haunting the halls at EV Update!
Posted by: Victor Nittolo
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04-Feb-2003
858
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A visit to the Whitehouse web site shows that the new funding is called the FreedomFUEL initiative. President Bush doesn't like details, so his State of the Union address failed to describe the new initiative, only reiterating the end goal for our feeble minds. A more realistic and informative description of the programs is found at: http://www.eren.doe.gov/freedomfuel/
If the new initiative is for real it will be used for alternative energy programs and research into high density hydrogen storage. They put the cart before the horse for a while, but now the horse (or at least a small pony) is in place.
Posted by: Mike LaBonte
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04-Feb-2003
861
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My initial investigations into fuel cells began many years ago reading promos from Ballard. Though the system supported by Bush promises zero emissions, the cost is prohibitive and useable water is not plentiful. We own a Honda Civic GX (dedicated CNG) and would love to see plug-in battery hybrid models which use CNG as the fuel when an extra boost or range extension is necessary. Since CNG can be processed from our waste (nice to get something back from what our society dumps) and manufactured from renewable biomass sources with little refining (primarily filters) and home compression units (Phill from FuelMaker) are available along with a small, but effective network of commercial fueling stations, this offers much to consider over a hydrogen economy which uses much more energy to produce, transport, and compress than any other energy source used today. Yes, solar and wind power could lessen the costs, but I agree that they would be better used directly in electric propulsion systems which would only occasionally need IC engine boosts (might as well be from the cleanest IC engines on earth, CNG, until all EV vehicles improve). By the way, whatever happened to quality mass transit?
Posted by: David Link
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04-Feb-2003
863
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The article by Drs. Ulf Bossel and Baldur Eliasson contains one enormous flaw - it assumes that a comparison of the costs of alternative fuels to hydrogen in today's economy represent is a valid comparison. It's not. It's a lot like comparing the cost of solar electricity (in terms of recovery of capital expense over a reasonable lifetime) to the fuel costs of nuclear power (ignoring the cost of the plant, the cost of disposing of the waste and the cost of decommissioning the plant). If you compare the full costs of one fuel cycle with only part of the costs of another, the partial cost alternative is very likely to win. So what might hydrogen mostly displace? Diesel, gasoline? These fuels (just as much "energy carriers" as hydrogen, by the way) have raw material costs that have nothing to do with their actual cost and which are arbitrarily set by a few producing nations, fuels whose consequences of use generate enormous additional environmental, health and military/defense costs, costs which are not reflected in the analysis. Hydrogen does not share these consequential costs, except in the instance where the carbon produced in its production is sequestered - sequestration costs that the other fuels would face if carbon became a priority.
Posted by: Gerry Runte
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04-Feb-2003
864
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Hi Bill,
Just a few comments on this mornings words from the editor.
On Ms. King points against hydrogen. Of course hydrogen is an energy carrier and not a source (although there is a lot on Jupiter I hear) The Brits are right unless we have large surplus amounts of renewable source electricity we haven't improved things by making hydrogen from electricity. But if we go to another alt fuel in the interum what have we gained? We spend a lot of money on technology and infrastructure that we are then going to discard and switch to hydrogen???
So lets say we don't develop the technology to produce hydrogen then we have what?... business as usual fossil fuels. How did we get the huge infrastructure for delivering gas? We started building a hundred years
ago and spent a trillion dollars on it over time. Of course when you put a price tag of a trillion dollars on doing something it is a good way to make people think it's too expensive. If we don't start now we won't have an infrastucture when we need it. And if we wait untill we have a surplus of renewable energy to build the hydrogen economy we will never get there.
We give a billion in subsidies to fossil fuel every year. No one ever complains about that!
Mrs King say that other alt fuels haven'rt succeeded in the market place. Battery electric ev's have found no favor in the market place either. What good suggestions do the naysayers have? All I hear are reasons why we shouldn't the one thing that might actually work. So what should we do? Give up?
We have to do every thing we
possibly can to improve fuel efficiency and rather than debating the advatages of this or disadvantages of that alternative
while Rome burns let's bring more renewable energy to the grid and support every ev and alt fuel program we can including hydrogen.
I also think Mr. Hansens numbers on hydrogen vs battery efficiency are debatable especially in the real world and not on the lab bench where temperature is constant and you don't factor in self discharge rates for batteries. In the market place we are
competing with vehicles that get a range of 400 miles. Fuel cell- battery hybrid vehicles are at half that in the first generation. Where is the battery only vehicle that is showing promise of improving to be competive in the market place?
If Ms. King and her employer are not buying green power they are part of the problem. What is she doing to bring solutions to the market place. If we want renewables we can vote with our dollar every time we pay our utility bill. If we don't buy green power we are voting for coal.
Lets quit talking about why we are spending a measly billion over ten years on fuel cells and start asking why we are spending $400 billion on the military and another ???hundred billion to bomb Iraq and are doing so little to get alternatives to fossil fuels out of the lab and into use.
Steve
Posted by: Steve Clark
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04-Feb-2003
865
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Nice article Bill.
Why has the cart been placed before the horse? The reason is oil dependency.
Here in Australia, we have dwindling domestic supplies of oil, but enormous reserves of coal and natural gas. The situation in the USA is similar. Our oil imports account for roughly 40% at present, but this is predicted to rise to 70% by 2010.
Since hydrogen can be produced from gasified coal or natural gas, this gives car-dependent nations such as Australia and US a way out. They can replace oil with gas and coal. I'm not sure they care about the environment or renewables - they simply want to correct the balance of trade and reduce the national vulnerability to unstable foreign oil supplies.
Of course the environmental implications are readily combatted by invoking those magical words 'carbon sequestration'!
This is definitely becoming part of our national policy here in Australia - I'd be very surprised if things aren't the same in the US.
Posted by: Andrew Simpson
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05-Feb-2003
869
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It would be more interesting if you, Bill Moore, Democrat, had found anything nice to say about a Republican President's Hydrogen policy. The objective is to promote alternative energy sources not to offer a complete solution. All the objections to the hydrogen plan are based on current engineering techniques. It would be like saying to President Kennedy in 1961 that the space shuttle could not work because we did not have the developed technology to build one. Forty years later, note the passage of forty years of trial and error engineering effort, we have a somewhat viable product with much room for improvement.
Bill, please stop being a whining, foot draging Democrat. Be a foward looking American for once and support the effort to born an alternative hydrogen fuel supply for our children and grand children. Yes the plan is limited, but it is the start of engineering the problems listed in your critical essay into solutions for a monumental problem. You make it sound wrong because GM is one of the lobbists supporting the effort. GM, I am sure lobbies both side of the asile. Why can't you support our President instead of complain because he isn't a Democrat?
RLL
Posted by: Robert Luttrell
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05-Feb-2003
871
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Just for the record, Robert. I am NOT a registered Democrat. If I remember correctly, I think I switched from being a registered Republican to an Independent twenty years ago.
As for Mr. Bush's proposal, you'll recall that I call it laudable, but if you've read the New York Times oped, you'll see that this proposal isn't about renewable energy, its about the chemical and petroleum industries.
Also be sure to read the British report I linked to. You'll find it very interesting in its conclusions.
Posted by: Bill Moore
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05-Feb-2003
872
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Hi Robert,
it is interesting how you have asked Bill Moore to focus on the issue yet peg his position to his political preference. Sounds much more like you are the one who is choosing a political position rather than an informed one. As far as the science goes, much of it indicates action now, not during the next administration. I am assuming we all recognize that 'pass the buck' is standard politcal doctrine, don't fall for it.
And yet your commentary, "All the objections to the hydrogen plan are based on current engineering techniques." Well, no, physics actually. And the shuttle reference.... I watched PBS's two hour documentary regarding the future fighter competition between Lockheed-Martin and Boeing, fantastic developement, with a big procurement prize and set goals. In other words a level playing field and a genuine choice for the Forces at the end of it. If only Bush were more American and said "Give me a zero-pollution car at an affordable total cost of ownership, all recyclable and in general a better solution than anyone else could come up with." That would let science sort out the solutions and encourage real American ingenuity. Bush and the oil lobbies are fettering this ingenuity and if you are having trouble seeing that, research your own history. American airline developement was built on competition with appropriate targets, not inappropriate limitations.
Who are the losers? We all are. But mostly my concern goes out to an innovative American company, Metallic Power in California. Their website is viewable by Republicans though ignored by Republican energy policy. Oh, damn if they didn't get a running prototype going for a minute fraction of the funds the big three have milked for tax write offs. Why on earth would Bush ignore an energy carrier technology that is source flexible, non-polluting, enviromentally benign and has the milage equality of gas that has spelt the death knell for GM and Ford electric cars? Because the main 'alternative energy sources' being considered are the energy industry's other kids, natural gas and coal, and decentralization means erosion of control to big oil. And, why on earth would the big three bother jeopardizing free R&D write-offs when they are available in only one area of research?
So, Mr. Robert Luttrell, be a forward looking American and realize Presidents come and go, none of them get into office without a lot of help and speach writers are hired to make people look good. In the end though, one good decision outweighs a thousand unfulfilled promises and equivocations. So quit whining Robert, and support the effort to find the best alternative energy carrier, hydrogen or otherwise, so we can stop the Republican foot dragging that really will limit the options our kids will have.
We need true and honest accounting, not an Enron-esque hiding of the shortfalls.
Geoff Buddle
Posted by: Geoff Buddle
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07-Feb-2003
876
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I would like to see Greg's numbers on the 3 to 4 times
more efficient to pump electricity into a battery
than to hydrolyze water into H2 and then run it
back thru a fuel cell. Does this count the inefficiencies
of getting the juice back out of the battery?
That is, if you take 50 kwh from the wall socket and
charge up the batteries on my Chevy S-10, I will
probably only have 40 kwh in the batteries, as the
charging isn't 100% efficient. Then, when I run the
truck, I may only get 35 kwh out of the batteries
as they are not 100% efficient at storing and returning
the charge they were given.
Numbers please, so I can convince my friends.
Posted by: Charlie Garlow
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09-Feb-2003
881
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Thanks to Drs. Ulf Bossel and Baldur Eliasson for a decent article. As founder of Inter. Electric Vehicles, I have naturally moved into the fuel cell and hydrogen front. Politics aside, civilization needs to move towards more earth friendly energy. I view ANY move to a cleaner energy such as hydrogen beneficial to future life on earth. The reality of FreedomFuel is that we need to know current costs of hydgrogen systems and methods. This will allow us to make much more informed decisions on the investments to be made, where, when, and how much.
All politics should embrace this quest, because we need to preserve very precious natural resources, such as coal and oil, for higher order needs..... Medicines, Lubrication, Fertilizers, Chemicals, for our children and theirs. To me, its criminal to BURN oil and not preserve it for higher order needs in all areas of our modern complex society. One should ask... What is the TOTAL COST of any given energy source. As early as 1992 I read that the real total cost of retail gasoline was actually $13.60 per gallon. This was due to tax subsidies, unaccounted costs, and 20% of our Defense Budget at that time. Now, with us spending over $2 Billion a DAY in Afghanistan alone, one wonders if the total cost of gasoline is closer to $15.00 per gallon. By contrast, hydrogen, especially from Biomass, Solar, and Windmill sources, will be a pittance, although its first cost at retail will likely be functionally priced higher.
Philosophically, we must get a handle on real world costs of hydrogen as an energy medium, and then move on to investments in technology and systems that moves us closer to clean, renewable energy, compatible with our planet. The President's FreedomFuel program moves us forward, albeit too slowly. I would guess that in ten years..... we will be very lucky if hydrogen is more than 2-5% of our national energy matrix. $1 billion federal research budget for this area ? Just not enough in my view. Energy is at the core of our modern society and that amount is shamefully low.
I pray that all modern citizens of our planet know how important it is that we face this question of energy source, total cost, and efficiency. Hydrogen must and will be part of the solution.
Posted by: James H. Smith
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14-Feb-2003
889
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In response to the remark about Republican vs.
Democrat, I was at a lecture a few days ago
where it was pointed out that the biggest
beneficiaries of support for wind energy would
be the wind resource-rich *Republican* MidWestern
states. Still, I assume that big oil and big auto
contribute more to campaign funds than farmers
from the MidWest, so they get the $1.2bn hand-out
with no commitment to put vehicles on the road.
Posted by: Nick Carter
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12-Aug-2003
1058
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Wrong, wrong, wrong! I understand you don't like George Bush. That's fine. I understand you are disappointed because he proved that he does not cater the "big oil guys" in Texas. That's fine too. I can only imagine how upside down you must feel when the man you are so intent on disagreeing with is actually doing something that you DO agree with. Why not just support this very important initiative and stop trying to demonize it just because you don't like his political affiliation. Don't fall back on the the ridiculous argument that we have a water shortage. H2 is borrowed from water and then returned back into the water supply (Law of Conservation of energy: "energy is neither created nor destroyed".) Look it up.
Posted by: Doug Forbush
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