BMW brings Hydrogen 7 fleet, MINI E to UN Climate Change conference
Click above for high-res gallery of the Hydrogen 7 in Poland
21 of BMW's Hydrogen 7s are serving as shuttle vehicles during the UN Climate Change conference this week in Poznan, Poland. A pair of all-electric MINI Es are also on hand to show off the German automaker's zero emission skillz. To deflect hydrogen critics, BMW made sure to run the 7's hydrogen combustion engine on "climate neutral hydrogen." It appears this hydrogen was made by electrolyzing water using renewable energy. The understatement of the day comes toward the end of the press release (available in full after the jump) where BMW says that "The key for both hydrogen power and electromobility lies not only in the ability of the vehicles to run CO2-free but also in the development of supply chains and infrastructure to provide them with clean hydrogen and electricity. This represents both a political and an economic challenge." Yup, that's about right.
Gallery: BMW Hydrogen 7 in Poland
[Source: BMW]
PRESS RELEASE:
CO2-FREE TO THE UN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE IN POZNAN, POLAND
12/10/2008
21 BMW Hydrogen 7 cars provide shuttle service for the COP 14 climate change conference in Poznan
+++BMW Group presents hydrogen-powered cars and electromobility+++
Poznan, Poland/Munich, Germany. Using hydrogen as a fuel, mobility generating practically no CO2 emissions is now very much a reality - and one that delegates at the UN climate change conference COP 14 taking place in Poznan, Poland can experience for themselves. A total of 21 BMW Hydrogen 7 hydrogen-powered cars are providing the official shuttle service at the most important climate change conference of the year. The BMW Group is also presenting a pair of electrically-driven MINI E cars at the event.
Practically no CO2 emissions: BMW Hydrogen 7 and MINI E
The BMW Group is using these two innovative models to showcase the possible shape of sustainable mobility in the future. A pilot project involving well over 500 electrically-powered MINI-based cars has been launched to explore the potential of electromobility in both the United States and Europe. The primary aim of the trial is to analyse how electrically-powered vehicles are driven in everyday conditions. To this end, the BMW Group is placing the MINI E models with fleets as well as members of the public. The idea is that the data generated will help the company to channel relevant information from practical experience into the ongoing series development of an electric car. Added to which, the study will also look into the technical and economic challenges presented by the technology, in particular those relating to the lithium-ion battery. The MINI E may develop nothing in the way of local CO2 emissions, but it delivers driving pleasure aplenty. Acceleration from 0–100 km/h (62 mph) in 8.5 seconds and a limited top speed of 95 mph equip it perfectly for everyday use, as does a maximum range of 156 miles. The BMW Group has made two examples of the MINI E available for test drives in Poznan by way of demonstrating this technology. The BMW Hydrogen 7 has already furnished evidence of its everyday practicality in countries around the world. Indeed, 100 examples of the car have together racked up more than two million miles worldwide since the launch of the hydrogen fleet in late 2006. The BMW Hydrogen 7 is fitted with a hydrogen combustion engine, which can be fuelled with either petrol or the cleanest option of all: hydrogen. In hydrogen mode the BMW Hydrogen 7 also emits virtually no CO2 (below 5grams/100 kilometres), yet delivers 260 hp – and thus proves that sustainable mobility and "The Ultimate Driving Machine" can go hand in hand. All of which means that the delegates in Poznan are enjoying familiar reliability and comfort in the fleet of 21 BMW Hydrogen 7 official shuttle vehicles at the summit, but with an extra dose of environment-friendliness.
Focusing on developments further up the supply chain
The use of hydrogen and electrical power ensures that the cars themselves emit practically no CO2. The BMW Group is a leader in the development of these two technologies. Indeed, experts in Munich first began researching and building battery and hydrogen-powered cars back in the 1970s. The BMW Hydrogen 7 shuttles in Poznan run on climate neutral hydrogen. If hydrogen is produced out of renewable energy through electrolysis, CO2 emissions can be cut by up to 90% further up the supply chain. The key for both hydrogen power and electromobility lies not only in the ability of the vehicles to run CO2-free but also in the development of supply chains and infrastructure to provide them with clean hydrogen and electricity. This represents both a political and an economic challenge. The BMW Group is seeking discussions on open questions related to hydrogen and electromobility at both the climate summit in Poznan and in regular stakeholder dialogue.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Peter 2:19PM (12/11/2008)
Electrolyzing hydrogen from renewable electricity doesn't deflect critics at all. The criticism of hydrogen is not that zero carbon hydrogen is impossible, just that it is inefficient and costly compared to battery electric drive.
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gorr 3:37PM (12/11/2008)
Instead of making hydrogen with water outside the car they can do it more efficiently with AN inside hydrogen water electrolyser inside the car and we just have to put water in it to start the reaction. If they do that to a smaller bmw , because im medium rich, i will be glad to look at that car at a BMW dealer in canada.
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Chris M 3:45AM (12/13/2008)
Well, it would avoid having to waste energy chilling the H2 to liquify it, so you have a point there. Sort of.
But there's just one MAJOR problem - where would they get the power to run that "onboard electrolysis"? It can't come from the engine, since an electrolysis unit producing enough H2 to fuel an IC engine directly takes 14 times the total power output of that IC engine! And if they used batteries, it would be FAR more efficient and a lot cheaper to just use an electric motor!
Mike!!ekiM 4:20PM (12/11/2008)
If they can BLOW Money on Hydrogen then they can afford to build a Diesel-Hybrid.
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kitko 10:14PM (12/11/2008)
As per usual, BMW lags behind but makes the news.
Mazda has a fleet of hydrogen powered cars leased to companies and government and municipal agencies for about 2 years, it runs its own network of hydrogen filling stations and uses Rotary engines that can run on both petrol and hydrogen. Cars had undergone successful testing in polar conditions.
Mazda's is actually a fully functional program with apropriate infrastructure, while BMW is just showing off - again, I might add as it already had a show-off at Munich airport with hydrogen 7-series. So, what else is new about BMW?
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Chris M 3:58AM (12/13/2008)
Yes, it is possible to power both the Mini E and the Hydrogen 7 from renewable energy sources - but there is a considerable difference in efficiency.
The Mini E would have an overall efficiency of 76% to 80%, and has a high fuel economy to boot.
The Hydrogen 7 would have an overall efficiency of about 5%, and has a horrible fuel economy.
A rough estimate - the Mini E would go about 34 times further on the same amount of electric energy, an important consideration when using expensive and limited renewable sources.
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richmond2000 1:49AM (12/30/2008)
yes the hydrogen system IS not efficient [b] BUT [/b] Batt electric alone will NOT replace dino juice and with out alternatives consumers will do what they do best.............buying what they want NOT what they SHOULD buy
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Adrian Floreani 6:40PM (4/03/2009)
An Energy and Economic Package That Makes Sense:
We need a war effort to save our economy and our planet.
We need to be energy independent.
We need to clean our air.
We need an economic program that has a return on investment, not one that just increases our debt.
I have an idea that will do all the above.
My background has included developing the liquid hydrogen fuel cell power system for the challenging Apollo program. Now, over 30 years later, GM and other car manufactures around the world have developed hydrogen automobiles with refined hydrogen fuel cell power plants. The only waste byproducts from these "green" cars is water. The giant challenge now is we need massive amounts of hydrogen to run them at a reasonable cost of production and distribution. My vision is for our government to fund the construction of an “energy fleet” consisting of ships that would travel the world producing and distributing liquid hydrogen. Selling energy to foreign markets instead of buying it like we do now.
Germany is now undertaking part of this idea to produce hydrogen using wind power on board ships. China is now the first nation to build a high temperature nuclear reactor. Russia now has nuclear power plants aboard ships. Russia has been safely depositing nuclear waste in the zero currents at 16000 foot depths of the Arctic Ocean. Safer than Nevada!
In my vision, the hydrogen is produced on ships from sea water using state of the art high temperature nuclear reactors cooled by sea water. On board production is done far out to sea away from population centers and sensitive eco systems. This relatively newly developed technology can produce energy to run our cars with the cost efficiency close to that of oil. This newer method described above could bring costs for production and distribution under $3 a gallon equivalent. The fuel cell powered cars do not depend on large expensive batteries as do current electric automobiles. They have more power and greater ranges than electric cars.
Think of all the people we could put to work building this energy fleet of ships and the hydrogen powered automobiles. And put this investment back into our treasury from the proceeds. Selling stock in the government, i.e.. treasury bonds, like we did so well during the second world war, could help fund this program. Remember the Liberty ships? The US built over 2700 ships in four years to support the war effort. Now we have a greater war to win, not save our liberty, but to save our planet and our economy. Even with all the projects Roosevelt started to bring us out of depression, it took the Second World War effort to bring prosperity back to our country.
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Chris M 9:32PM (4/03/2009)
Adrian Floreani, you must be new here. Welcome. There has been much discussion on H2 fuels, and for the most part it hasn't been favorable to H2. Noz would be delighted to meet you, he's one of the few H2 supporters left.
It's been 40 years since H2 fuel cells were first used for spacecraft and proposed for automotive use. But NASA had a huge government budget and didn't wince at the multi-million dollar costs involved in spaceflight. Unfortunately, there wasn't a market for 2 million dollar H2FC cars back then, but researchers were hopeful, and put strenuous effort into improving reliability and reducing costs, and after 40 years they've brought the price down to... a half million dollars. Still not ready for prime time. Most of that cost is for the fuel cell and the platinum it needs, but the H2 storage is also expensive, costing more than the LiIon battery for a BEV would. So, instead of an expensive battery in a BEV, a H2FC car has a more expensive H2 high pressure carbon fiber tank and a 20x more expensive H2 fuel cell! Oh, yes, those H2FC cars also have a LiIon battery pack, to provide extra power allowing the use of a smaller cheaper fuel cell, to store regenerative braking energy, and to run the car for several minutes while the H2 fuel cell starts up.
To make matters worse, the cheapest source of H2 is from steam reformed fossil fuels, at a retail cost of $8 to $10 per Kg of H2, a Kg being the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline. H2 fuel cells are more efficient than Internal Combustion engines, so the per mile fuel cost of driving an H2FC car from the cheapest H2 source, untaxed, is only slightly more than the per mile cost of driving on gasoline, taxed. H2 from electrolysis costs more, making it at sea on a ship would increase costs, and that seawater would have to be desalinized before electrolysis - electrolyzing saltwater produces sodium hypochlorite, that's how chlorine bleach is produced commercially. I hope you aren't proposing to dump massive quantities of clorine bleach into the oceans!
No, a better solution would be to use those shipboard reactors to power the ships in hauling freight and maybe passengers, it would be 4x more efficient than powering ships using H2 fuel cells and H2 made from stationary reactors. 4x more efficient means only 1/4 as much nuclear waste. It would certainly save a lot of fuel oil now being used to heat shipboard boilers.
The combination of water electrolysis, compression for storage, and H2 fuel cell is only 23% efficient at storing electrical energy. Compare that with 85% efficiency for charger and batteries, and it is clear - going the H2 route requires 3x more electricity than a plug-in. That means either more coal burning, or less renewable electricity available to displace fossil fuel usage. H2 will always be more expensive and less efficient than "electric fuel".
As Tesla Motors so ably demonstrated, BEVs can match the driving range of H2 FC vehicles, and developments now being researched in the lab could increase battery capacity 5x to 20x, making BEVs with far greater range than would be possible in a workable H2 FC vehicle. The sole remaining advantage to H2 cars, fast refilling, disappears with the advent of "swappable batteries" or quick "10 minute" charging (already demonstrated!) or "powered roadways" to provide power "on the move", or a "thousand mile per charge" EV.
Oh, and before I forget, Tesla Motors also clearly demonstrated the far higher performance capabilities of BEVs, their Roadster has a 0 to 60 mph time of 3.9 seconds. The most powerful H2FC prototype takes 10 seconds to reach 60 - thanks to the LiIon battery assisting its fuel cell.
Adrian Floreani 10:30PM (4/06/2009)
1. High cost of platinum fuel cells:
a. There is an IPO that claims to have developed the cheap alternative to Platinum fuel cells. The total cost being under $1000 more for the equivalent power of a gas engine.
b. Check out the latest info here:
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/news/87/i14/8714notw7.html
2. Transportation and storage:
a. The cheap power from this proposed reactor can reasonably make liquid hydrogen for storage and distribution like we do today for oxygen at hospitals.
b. There is another company that proposes mass production of light strong carbon fiber low pressure cryogenic storage tanks.
3. Low cost of hydrogen from high temperature reactors 900+ C is shown to be now under $1.50/ KG:
The following is from: World Nuclear Association Annual Symposium
3-5 September 2003 - London
Table 2. Economics of a 2400 MWt H2-MHR at 850°C and 950°C.
850°C, 42% efficiency 950°C, 52% efficiency
Reactor capital cost, US$m 968.2 1098.0
Hydrogen plant capital cost, US$m 643.2 796.3
Reactor fuel + operating cost,
US$m/yr.
93.9 97.1
Hydrogen plant operating cost,
US$m/yr.
50.7 62.7
Hydrogen production rate, kg/yr. 213 x 106 264 x 106
Cost of hydrogen, US$/kg
— Public utility – 10.5% CRF 1.53 1.42
— Regulated utility – 12.5% CRF 1.69 1.57
— Unregulated utility – 16.5% CRF 2.01 1.87
4. Desalination of sea water: A new pumping process has dramatically lowered the cost of desalination and with nuclear power it is a no brainer i.e. 4000+ sailors taking showers etc on a nuclear carrier.
5. Electric cars: Using mostly coal to charge electric cars is going the wrong direction.
This is about saving our planet and our economy. We need the same mental determination we used to win the second world war and put a man on the moon.
Yes we can!!!
Chris M 2:32AM (4/07/2009)
1a - there are a lot of extraordirary claims that turn out to be bogus, having an extraordinary claim associated with an IPO makes it doubly suspicious. I'd demand some really good proof before considering investing in that "almost as cheap as a gas engine" fuel cell.
1b - The Iron based catalyst sounds interesting, but it is still less effective than platinum, leading to larger heavier fuel cells, and as the report noted "The team notes that after extended use in a fuel cell, the catalyst's high initial activity decreases significantly". In other words, early failure. Not ready for prime time.
2 - Cryogenic liquifying of H2 is energy intensive, and even the best vacuum insulation admits too much heat causing the H2 to boil away within just 2 weeks. Compression takes less energy, but also takes more space and requires expensive carbon fiber tanks. Combining compression with cryogenic cooling can reduce but not eliminate "boil away" losses, but it makes the storage tankis even more expensive and still requires energy wasting cryogenic refrigeration.
3 - That claim of H2 at $1.50 per Kg is from the same folks that once predicted nuclear derived electricity "too cheap to meter". Those estimates are highly suspect, probably made up to promote their nuclear industry. Fact is, 5 years after that rosy prediction, actual retail price of H2 fuel is $8 to $10 per Kg. Please understand that since batteries are 3x more efficient at storing electric energy, the per mile cost of H2 fuel must be at least 3x more than driving electric, meaning at least 3x the price they are predicting. Probably a lot more, considering the amortized cost of the equipment that will need to be paid off.
4- Yes, there are methods for desalinizing large amounts of seawater, but that adds to the energy costs. Contrary to what some would like you to believe, nuclear energy isn't "free". Desalination onboard military ships isn't free either, and suffers typical high military costs.
5 - Using mostly steam reformed coal to produce H2 would also be "going in the wrong direction", but that's what was being seriously proposed by the Government, as it would be cheaper than making H2 via electrolysis. That's what the so-called "clean coal initiative" was all about.
Seriously, the "EVs burn coal" argument is dowright silly. Electricity is made from the same energy sources as H2, including fossil fuels and nuclear and renewables, the difference is that for nuclear and renewables, electricity has to be made first, and as I've already pointed out, going the H2 route demands 3x more of that electricity, leaving less "clean renewable" electricity available to displace fossil fuel usage. So, if you think EVs would somehow result in more coal usage, well, so would H2, but to a much greater degree!
But what really blows that argument out of the water is that here in California, we get 20% of our electricity from renewables (wind, solar, geothermal), 20% from hydro, and only 20.1% from coal. That's down from 40% coal just a few years ago, and that percentage keeps dropping as more renewable sources come online. So, if H2 can come from renewable sources, so can electricity, but electricity goes 3x farther.
Want to save the planet? Choose the more efficient less expensive more effective plug-in option. The future is electric.