CARB chair calls all this hydrogen/battery fighting "madness"
While the California Air Resources Board has certainly played a huge role in putting cleaner vehicles on the road over the years, some plug-in vehicle advocates have a bone to pick with Chairman Mary Nichols (pictured here during the 2007 Alt Car Expo). During the recent UC Berkeley Energy Symposium, Nichols said she had a problem with plug-in proponents as well. Well, not just with them, but with advocates who push one type of technology and have no room in their green motoring vision for another. Specifically, Nichols said that:"There is one thing that has really frustrated me in the last couple of years...it has been the ideological, I would almost say theological, debate between the people who think that hydrogen fuel cells are the answer and the people who think that only battery electric vehicles are the answer. Each of them do their best to trash the credibility, viability and good faith of the other side. ... From the point of view of a regulator, this is madness."
Read more of Nichols' statement, and why she is certain that we need both technologies, over at Green Car Congress
[Source: Green Car Congress]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Dan 9:14PM (2/28/2009)
Mary Nichols is a bureaucrat charged with regulating air quality in California, so of course it makes perfect sense to her that fuel cells and battery electrics are equally good. It doesn't matter to her that most hydrogen today is made from natural gas, a depleting fossil fuel that is already being used for home heating, electric power and fertilizer production. It also doesn't matter that hydrogen made from electricity is a horrendously inefficient process compared to charging a battery. As a CARB regulator, all she cares about is zero tailpipe emissions. For the rest of us, we should care.
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kballs 2:53PM (3/01/2009)
This is the same argument by automakers whenever they're talking up their hydrogen prototypes... see Honda and their FCX TV ad, "it only emits clean, water, vapor". The masses also believe this, and most don't realize that hydrogen is not free, not cheap, not efficient, and not an energy source (only a poorly performing and hugely expensive storage medium).
Now batteries have a way to go, but they're already light years ahead of hydrogen in efficiency and economic viability in current products. Emissions are still an issue at electric power plants, but they are less than for producing hydrogen of equal energy output/range for a vehicle. You'd think CARB would be concerned about this... maybe they think electricity or hydrogen come out of thin air or are just the problem of their neighboring states.
Noz 9:10PM (3/01/2009)
It's funny...the very thing...emissions...that have gotten us into this climate mess are now being downplayed as excuses. Quite amazing.
Chris M 11:02PM (3/01/2009)
I know what you mean, Noz. All those H2 promoters insist that electricity sources are so very polluting and H2 is so sparkly clean, but the fact is that both of those energy carriers can come from the same sources, either clean like solar or dirty like coal. H2 isn't inherently any cleaner.
But H2 is inherently less efficient than electricity, so it would demand much more, whether the source is clean but expensive like solar, or cheap and dirty like coal.
Noz 3:53AM (3/02/2009)
Sure I agree. It's as pointless to make electricity out of dirty sources as it is to make hydrogen out of those same sources.
But it's not just a matter of clean...it's also a matter of application. For some things electricity cannot be used and for some things H2 cannot be used. That's the way it is.
As a fuel, hydrogen gives the highest effective exhaust velocity as well as giving a lower net weight of propellant than other fuels and has the best energy to weight ratio of any fuel. Thus for combustive purposes, such as for aircraft, there is not real comparison between hydrogen and electric. While creating hydrogen takes more energy, it also gives back a lot more than anything else out there.
Chris M 9:19PM (3/04/2009)
A high exhaust velocity is great for rockets, but that is a useless property for cars, ships, and trains that are not rocket propelled. The high cost of storage and the forbiddingly high cost of H2 fuel cells pretty much rule out use of H2 for cars, ships, and trains.
Which leaves spacecraft and airplanes. Oops, turns out, aviation experts at Boeing have pretty much ruled out the use of H2 to fuel commercial aircraft, seems the H2 fuel takes up too much passenger/cargo space.
So, that pretty much leaves H2 with big rockets and maybe some military aircraft. Go for it, Noz!
Yanquetino 9:58PM (2/28/2009)
I am surprised and frustrated that Mary Nichols' would dare to state that strong advocacy of either hydrogen fuel-cell or battery electric vehicles is "madness."
My surprise is because it sounds like she is now "technology neutral," and thus does not favor one solution over another.
My frustration is because her record reveals just the opposite.
Is it not true that CARB's mandate gives Type IV (5 credits) ONLY to fuel-cell vehicles?
Is it not true that CARBs' mandate gives Type III (4 credits) to fuel-cell vehicles with a range of at least 100-200 miles, yet only to battery electric vehicles if they have a range of over 200 miles?
Is it not true that battery electric vehicles with the same range as the Type III fuel-cell vehicles above only qualify for Type II (3 credits)?
Is it not true that Nichols' right-hand man on CARB, Dan Sperling, is the co-director of UC Davis's "Hydrogen Pathways Program" --which receives funding from ConocoPhillips, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, British Petroleum?
WHY???
For someone who claims to be "technology neutral," Nichols most certainly has NOT put her regulations where her mouth is!
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Chris M 2:50AM (3/01/2009)
Well, CARB didn't specifically limit the "type IV" credit only to H2 FC cars, they just wrote the rules so it would only apply to H2FC vehicles, such as requiring a "10 minute or less refill time".
But along comes "10 minute charge" batteries from companies like Altairnano and Toshiba, and Aerovironments successfully demonstrated a "10 minute or less" EV charger using those high performance batteries. Now that battery EVs could qualify for those "type IV" credits, the H2 promoters are in a panic. The plug-in revolution is coming, and it threatens to totally overwhelm the market and render H2 cars obsolete even before they can come to market.
Of course, those whose livelyhood depend on the hydrogen hype reacted badly, who could blame them? But what is baffling is why some continue to push H2, though there is no obvious motive for them to do so.
Yanquetino 10:19AM (3/01/2009)
Chris M:
Yeah, you're correct about CARB assuming that its "10-minute refueling" requirement would limit Type IV (5 credits) to only fuel-cell vehicles.
However, there is still the obvious bias of mileage discrepancies between the two technologies. Even if a BEV incorporated technology from Altairnano, Toshiba, and/or Aerovironment, CARB is still demanding that its range be greater than that of a fuel-cell vehicle to qualify for the same credits.
WHY? What do they care about either refueling time or range, as long as the vehicle produces ZERO emissions? I thought their charge was to clean up the air!
What disgruntles me is that Mary Nichols is now talking the talk of "neutrality," but in reality CARB has never walked the walk. It makes me wonder if perhaps the Governator has recently phoned her to question CARB's bias --now that he has a Tesla. Hmmmm.
kballs 3:01PM (3/01/2009)
...and on the technical side of the 10-minute refueling time, while hydrogen may refuel like gasoline, it doesn't stay in the tank for weeks/months like gasoline (hydrogen boils off and the overpressure safety valves have to vent it, so your tank will be empty in 2-4 weeks if you don't use it... not to mention it could even be a safety issue if you leave such a vehicle parked in a non-ventilated garage where it could cause an explosion - same issue as with EVs that use non-sealed lead-acid batteries, which vent some hydrogen when recharged).
King Leonidas 11:02PM (2/28/2009)
MADNESS?!
THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
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Doug 12:20PM (3/01/2009)
that was funny
BlackbirdHighway 12:50AM (3/01/2009)
CARB took a big credibility hit when they allowed the automakers to destroy hundreds of electric vehicles that were already on the road, being driven every day, and changed to rules to favor hydrogen vehicles that were 10 years away.
Now, it's been 10 years since that day, and those hydrogen vehicles are still 10 years away. I'll bet that by 2019, if we provide billions of dollars in gov't support, we will be just 10 years from having hydrogen vehicles for sale.
If the EV program had kept going, GM could have been up to EV3 by now and gotten the price below $30,000 and they would be selling 50,000 EVs a year.
But then our petroleum overlords would like that.
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jake 1:22AM (3/01/2009)
Lol, just look at the comments in the article: it seems fairly natural for these advocates to be arguing. As others have pointed out, there's a good reason why BEVs advocates are so antagonistic to hydrogen. We view that the favoritism CARB showed toward hydrogen (and apparently still shows) have set back BEVs at least 10 years. We would probably be on Gen 3 of modern BEVs rather than starting the process all over again if it weren't for this. Luckily this time it's the industry moving towards BEVs, so we are not so dependent on CARB to support the technology.
If BEVs become accepted by the public then there is almost absolutely no hope for hydrogen making it to passenger vehicles (esp with the infrastructure thing); though they have a chance of making it on semi-trucks, airplanes, or large scale energy storage. And I'll give it to them, they are making good progress in range and possibly price (though this has almost always been hidden from us, so it's hard to judge), so they have good reason to argue too.
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kballs 3:16PM (3/01/2009)
You are right, economics alone will keep FCVs in the prototype/hype/vaporware/greenwashing/experimental-fleet stage indefinitely, regardless of belief that it is better or not.
Noz 9:06PM (3/01/2009)
H2 will be used for large transport type vehicles before it is used in smaller vehicles. That's where the usage will gain most use and sense first. It will be used in places where batteries do not have the capability to be used or do not make sense to use.
As developments in material science and other technologies progress, it will be even more widely used and available. It's as simple as that.
Chris M 6:20PM (3/03/2009)
Noz, the only "large transport vehicles" that will be routinely fueled by H2 only is large space rockets and some military aircraft with tiny cockpits. H2 is too bulky for commercial jets, they need room for passengers and freight, and aerodynamic drag rules out large external tanks.
Ships have several options that are less expensive and more compact and more efficient than H2 fuel, weight is much less of an issue for ships.
HAL 1:56AM (3/01/2009)
100 kWh: Renewable AC electricity
I
Hydrogen
I
AC-DC conversion (95%) 95 kWh
I
Electrolysis (75%) 71 kWh
I
Compression(90%) 64 kWh
I
Transportation (80%) 51 kWh
I
Fuel cell (50%) 26 kWh
I
Fuel cell (50%) 23 kWh
OR
100 kWh: Renewable AC electricity
I
Electricity
I
AC via Grid transmission (90%) 90 kWh
I
AC-DC conversion and Battery Charging (85%) 77 kWh
I
Electric Vehicle with regenerative braking (90%) 69 kWh
Remaining Energy:
FC : 23 kWh
EV : 69 kWh
Conclusion:
Battery-electric is 3X more efficient than Hydrogen Fuel Cell
And this CARB chair is obviously ignorant and unqualified.
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LaughinTooHard 2:49AM (3/02/2009)
Hal,
Just three points of clarification to your little chart if you would entertain them?
#1 Can we remove the "AC-DC conversion (95%) 95 kWh - Transportation (80%) 51 kWh" part by making hydrogen on-site at the Fuel Cell user's home using renewable power systems generating DC?
#2 Losses of kW during generation vary but grid losses at at least 7.2% so I am thinking grid losses will 10% but storage of renewable energy is part you left out, SciAm estimates about 90% efficiency.
#3 Honda is claiming 60% FC efficiency and many prototypes are approaching 80-90%. Yes they are not real world but I think at least giving the reader the anticipated 2009 mark of 70% is fair, no?
Lastly, few high current AC-DC converters are near 90% efficiency plus most fuel cell cars do regenerative braking as well.
Those changes make my numbers:
On Site Power generation: 100kW (2 days of 6.5kW@8 hours)
Electrolysis @80% = 80 kW
Fuel Cell Use @70% = 56kW of usable electricity
VS
Utility Renewable Power: 100kW
Storage @90% = 90kW
Transmission @90% = 81kW
Charging @85% = 69kW of usable electricity
Once you factor in the additional power used to move the 2000lbs of batteries to go 200 miles vs 150lbs of fuel cell and 10lbs hydrogen needed to go 300 miles, the two options are more alike than different.
For sake of simplicity let's ignore the cost/footprint of the battery pack vs the cost/footprint of the fuel cell/related hardware.
Right now, Gen1 Consumer Fuel Cells don't really compare in efficiency to the advanced batteries of today - I totally agree.
But to include transport costs for a hydrogen infrastructure that doesn't need to exist is akin to EV's being forced to use batteries delivered daily via UPS.
No one in their right mind would plan it that way.
I think hydrogen will made on site at home, work or other refilling points using on-site dedicated renewable energy generation.
A much smaller, lighter hydrogen Fuel Cell car with several hundred miles of range from still sounds like a slightly more universal solution than a car with thousands of pounds of batteries that will have half the range AND will need dozens of hours to recharge.
Chris M 7:15PM (3/03/2009)
Laugin, the record efficiency for fuel cells is 85%, but that was under optimum conditions using pure H2 and pure O2 and cannot be achieved using air for the oxidizer. We're unlikely to see automotive fuel cell efficiency much above 60% for that reason.
Where did you get that "2,000 lbs of batteries" from? The 53 Kwh battery pack in the Tesla Roadster weighs less than half that figure. Also, while you gave the weight of fuelcell and H2, you forgot the weight of the H2 storage tanks! Also, fuel cell cars all carry batteries (or ultracapacitors) to store regenerative braking energy and to run the vehicles until the fuel cells can get up to operating temperature and to supplement the fuel cell during acceleration. So, when it comes to weight, H2FCs and BEVs are a lot more alike than you'd care to admit.
Yes, transportation and conversion losses could be reduced by "homemade" H2 from solar, but the same goes for BEVs. Moreover, BEVs would still be more efficient (and less expensive), even if they had to use a 2nd bank of batteries for storage! That means that going the H2 route would require more solar cells, or conversely would leave less electrical energy for other uses.