The latest solution to the hydrogen problem: biodiesel?
This is weird. One of the easiest arguments to make against hydrogen fuel cells is that you have one too many energy conversions going on (first, you need energy to make the hydrogen, then you use the hydrogen to make electricity onboard the vehicle). Why not just use the initial energy - usually electricity - to power up a battery and move the car that way? Well, "the battery" and range anxiety are two obvious answers, but still, the idea that we keep refining energy sources until we get to hydrogen is one that not a lot of people are buying.
So, what will they think about turning biodiesel (and vegetable oil) into hydrogen? That's the idea behind Innovatek's latest proposal, according to Biodiesel Magazine. Innovatek's president, chief executive officer and founder Patricia Irving (pictured) said that her company has reduced the size needed for making hydrogen through steam reforming to "something more portable."
So, basically, the idea is that we make biodiesel (or vegetable oil), transport that over long distances (instead of hydrogen, which is pretty hard to transport) and put it into a small steam reformer that can then make hydrogen to make electricity in a fuel cell.
Whew.
[Source: Biodiesel Magazine]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tim 8:07PM (2/13/2008)
Exactly how is this efficient?
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BillySharps 9:02PM (2/13/2008)
This is the worst idea I've ever heard. You'd be taking a fuel with a higher energy density than gasoline, transporting it to a steam reformer using a non-existent infrastructure and stripping it to obtain a fuel that is terribly difficult to store and transport just so you can put it into a fuel cell that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and generate electricity. We already have devices that burn biodiesel and turn it into motion. They're called diesel engines.
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Mike Z 9:11PM (2/13/2008)
The entire idea is to reform diesel to hydrogen at the same location the fuel cell exists--and such you don't have to worry about hydrogen storage. A Fuel cell is more efficient than a ICE.
Put this in a diesel and you might get 60%-80% boost in MPG compared to a diesel ICE engine.
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BillySharps 11:07PM (2/13/2008)
QUOTE--------------------------------------------
--A Fuel cell is more efficient than a ICE.
--Put this in a diesel and you might get 60%-80% --boost in MPG compared to a diesel ICE engine.
-------------------------------------------------
Even IF this were true, a fuel cell vehicle costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. The battery pack in the Tesla Roadster costs ~$20,000. Double the size and range of the pack, and you get to $40,000. $40,000 is right around 10 times less expensive than a comparable vehicle of the fuel cell variety. I'd like to emphasize this: 10 times LESS expensive. It makes no sense.
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Matthew Zacherle 12:20AM (2/14/2008)
Electric Cars seem so much more compelling and useful compared to all this hydrogen stuff. *KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid*
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Chris M 3:18AM (2/14/2008)
While fuel cells are more efficient (50% or more) than IC engines (under 25%), the steam reforming process also adds some energy losses. The end result is that the biodiesel reformer/fuel cell combo is only slightly more efficient than a standard diesel, and could be less efficient than a diesel hybrid. So, at 10x the cost and with little or no efficiency advantage, it is doomed to failure.
Plug-in battery technology, on the other hand, offers a substanial increase in efficiency, with a very modest increase in price.
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jj 4:58AM (2/14/2008)
Why do people dwell on fuel cell tech? It should be secondary at best and direct electric usage ought to be ther primary focus.
If we have quick chargers at gas stations then 10 minutes is all you need to charge up your EV. So all the ethanol and biofuel money ought to be used for more realistic advances that are possible NOW, not 30 years from now.
There is no vehicle "fuel" more efficient than electricity especially since you can get it for FREE from renewable energy sources.
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rgseidl 7:09AM (2/14/2008)
Braindead! If you have expensively produced biodiesel, please burn it in a diesel engine and clean up the exhaust gases to meet emissions regs.
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Snowdog 10:02AM (2/14/2008)
Nothing is said about the efficiency of the conversion process. I am betting it gets less than 50% of the energy from the diesel out into hydrogen once the generatiing the High heat needed to pull this off.
In which case simply burning it would be more efficient, than some involved process to injecting heat/water/diesel to strip out hydrogen, to pump into a fuel cell to convert into electricity, to feed electric motors to convert to kinetic energy.
Just burn it, and use heat expansion to create kinetic energy.
Hydrogen seems like a complete dead end. All we need is better batteries and stations with quick chargers. Distribution for electricity is already universal.
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Mike Z 10:03AM (2/14/2008)
The public target of GM is $50/kW for a fuel cell. Now there is a massive question about if they can meet that goal, but that does translate to fraction of the cost of a battery pack. Even Lead-Acid battery packs, which are made from cheap components and are easy to manufacture, cost about $100/kWh.
I used to be very anti-hydrogen, but if they can hit the price targets, I do believe that it could be a lot cheaper than battery packs and would be a great complement to a REEV.
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Tim 11:31AM (2/14/2008)
I think somebody's fishing for tax money to fund "research."
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Derek 11:42AM (2/14/2008)
Let's see the math. What power output can we get from a diesel engine per gallon of biodiesel? What power output can we get from a fuel cell with the hydrogen generated from a gallon of biodiesel (minus, of course, the added costs of transportation and any energy input for the conversion process)
You know, I think I can develop a process to turn potato chips into H2 as well.
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mrbell321 11:59AM (2/14/2008)
Ok, there's a ton of things in these response that don't make alot of sense. Someone mentioned non-existent infrastructure for transporting and storing biodiesel. What? We have exactly that, and have had it for almost 100 years.
Someone else mentioned the high price of fuel cells. Yes they are expensive, but they are also very clean. There is very little hazardous material in their production(compared to most batteries) and I believe they are fairly clean at the end of their lifecycle, unlike batteries.
And quick chargers are going to be very difficult. The Tesla has a 56kWh battery pack. Normal high power is 220V at 30A or 6.6kW. To charge that battery pack would takes 8.5 hours. Now, a filling station might be able to get a very large pipe, but even if it were 10x that size, there is the possibility of having 10 or more cars at the station at one time. You could have batteries at the station to store power while no one is using it. But the cycling of commercial use would kill them in very short order.
Liquid fuels, on the other hand, don't have any of those problems. I'm not saying this is the way to go. Actually, i think cars are a losing battle. I don't know if there's any way to make it sustainable.
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jj 12:49PM (2/14/2008)
@mrbell321
I believe you are misinformed. If you charge a Tesla from your household outlet it might take 8 hours but with the quick charger you can get a 100 % charge in 3.5hours. It's the same for the EV1 and Rav4EV And an 80 % charge over lunch. Just check out their website.
Batteries are supposed to be recycled. Second if you claim that manufacturing batteries pollutes then what do you call digging up a hydrogen station and building pipes and new infrastructure called? no pollution there, right? Not to mention that hydrogen is highly explosive if the wrong chemicals or flames get to it.
I also dislike just looking at the cost-manufacturing and the end of the lifecycle. What about when you, the consumer, are using it in between for maintenance?? You have hundreds of gears and metals to turn in the ICE or hydrogen engine while an EV virturally has no maintenance since it has 12-15 moving parts compared to several hundred. Plus EVs are easier to build since there's less stuff, in fact some don't even need a transmission.
Why would you have battery stored at the stations? You just need solar panels to sell back the electricity to the grid and then use it from the grid when you need to charge it. That way you need no new re-construction of an infrastucture.
Electricity in batteries are CLEANER and THE CHEAPEST. Hydrogen is less clean than electricity and very EXPENSIVE. Now which one seems more practical?
Oh yeah forgot, I don't think you included the complication of making hydrogen which takes even more energy even before it is transported to the pump. The illogical part is you spend energy to make hydrogen then you turn it back into electricity when you can just use it straight as electricity.
My question is why won't we use what's FREE like sunlight or wind turbines or ocean turbines? Instead we're using money to fund the next type of "oil" fluid.
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marvin 6:47AM (2/18/2008)
In the 1970's gasohol days in nebraska 2000 gals hemp oil/acre were produced. the government threw everyone involved in jail. Hemp cloth turbines do convert wind energy to electricity and also hydrogen which can be stored in cylinders and changed quickly at fuel stations. Add a very small bio-diesel engine to burn the hemp oil. Add the carbon fibre from the celulose of the hemp plant to the passanger van and you now have 1 acre of hemp powering this van at least 20,000 miles verses corn ethanol moving the van 5000 mi. at most
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Snowdog 1:12PM (2/14/2008)
Agreed; This appears to be a research money grab.
Start point should be a well (or vegtable patch) to wheels energy conversion comparision between the steam conversion to hydrogen, fuel cell conversion to usable energy vs simply burning it to get the energy. Unless this comes out ahead of burning, it is simply another boondoggle looking for cash.
Lets not create another boondoggle of Ethanol proportions.
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Chris M 3:07AM (2/15/2008)
A much more promising research program would be to devise a fuel cell that ran directly on vegetable oils, without use of an H2 reformer. Enzymes could be used as a catalyst, similar to the enzymes that oxidize oils for energy in animals and plants. The result would be considerably more efficient, and likely to be far cheaper than the costly platinum catalysts in H2 fuel cells.
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davewin 7:10PM (2/19/2008)
Unreal. Mainstream media will probably trumpet this as the future. Hydrogen is going to be "the future" for a long time. Fortunately, most people here seem to agree with me on hydrogen and fuel cells:
http://www.automanifesto.com/2008/02/hydrogen-emits-more-than-water-vapor.html
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PM 2:27PM (3/13/2008)
I agree with the poster that said to stick with electric cars. Why not? Let these innovative companies out there let us know when they have something better. Hopefully they'll let us know before they come out with it so the investors among us can make our moves...
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