Open Access Article Originally Published: October 11, 2003
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Governments and auto industry giants have spent billions of dollars on hydrogen research and development, and the results are impressive and incredibly expensive. The pay-off of that costly effort was on display at the 2003 Michelin Challenge Bibendum, held in Sonoma, California. Here were amazingly quiet, totally pollution-free automobiles from the major carmakers: DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan and Toyota, as well as from several small development firms including Anuvu and ECD.
But perhaps the most intriguing and encouraging hydrogen-fueled entrant was a virtual one-man band in the form of Tai Robinson, who with the assistance of his father, brought along his hydrogen-powered Toyota Tacoma pickup truck. Where the big boys had spent hundreds of millions on their projects, the youthful Robinson had spent a mere ten grand or so to convert the gasoline engine in his used 4x4 truck to run on gaseous hydrogen.
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With support from Dennis Weaver's Ecolonomics Institute, Robinson had be able to install two state-of-the-arts carbon-fiber wound tanks into the bed of his truck in place of the industrial gas cylinders he'd used to drive the Tacoma across the United States and back earlier this Summer.
So, if there's a "hero" in the battle to produce affordable hydrogen vehicles, my vote goes to Tai. His stars-and-stripes emblazoned truck shows that hydrogen is not only a workable fuel, but getting it to burn in an conventional internal combustion engine is a very real option, though some sacrifices will have to be made in terms of range until ways can be found to increase the energy density of hydrogen storage on the vehicle.
But these are the challenges what engineers and entrepreneurs find so compelling. And some of their solutions were showcased during the 2003 Challenge Bibendum.
Ford's Fast Track to Hydrogen Cars
If Tai Robinson showed its possible to create a relatively low-cost approach to using hydrogen as an automotive fuel, Ford Motor Company intended to demonstrate that it doesn't intend to wait a decade to begin deploying large numbers of affordable hydrogen-powered cars. Like Robinson, their approach is to convert a conventional internal combustion engine to burn gaseous hydrogen, while overcoming the range and power issues through the blending of several technologies.
Because hydrogen has only a tiny faction of the energy density of gasoline by volume, you have a store a lot of it to have any kind of appreciable range. This also means the vehicle's power suffers. One way to overcome this drawback is to blend hydrogen with a fossil fuel like natural gas, but this approach doesn't solve the problem of CO2 release or eventual fossil fuel depletion.
Ford's solution -- and others including BMW -- is to use a supercharger to help boost the vehicle's power. The Dearborn manufacturer brought its second and third generation Hydrogen ICE or H2ICE prototypes to the Challenge -- interestingly leaving it's fuel cell cars home, a move that strongly suggests Ford is seriously looking at this technology for production in the near future. This impression was further reinforced by its announcement that the company plans to begin marketing hydrogen ICEs in significant numbers to fleets in about three years.
While I simply didn't have the time to drive the two models Ford had available for the media drive, I did have a chance to speak with Dr. Arun K. Jaura, one of Ford's H2ICE engineers, who explained that these cars are a considerable improvement over the first generation version I drove last year. That car demonstrated that the concept was feasible, though it wasn't really ready for "prime time."
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2 comments so far...
12-Oct-2003
1120
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Thanks for the report on this event - its very encouraging to see signs of a new, and productive, high tech wave. To fuel demand and ramp up the rate of innovation, all that is required is to make the price of fossil fuel reflect some approximation of the cost to society.
And "easy" way would be to tax fossil fuel use using a VAT tax scheme. Imported goods would pay a fossil fuel VAT and exported goods would result in a fossil VAT credit. If the proceeds from this fossil VAT were then credited to each American on a fixed credit or grant, individuals would be highly motivated, and paid, to limit total fossil fuel use.
Are current incumbent politians likely to pursue such a strategy? Nope! The entrepeneurs who would get rich developing the technologies that will change the face of transportation don't yet have the cash to buy the political policies needed to make the US a leader in transportation technologies.
Clearly it will be the Asians and Europeans who will bring us the disruptive technologies that will further destroy manufacturing in the US.
Posted by: michael pettengill
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23-May-2004
3051
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I'd like to know more about the metal hydride technology being developed by ECD....Like how it works.
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Posted by: John Scruggs
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