Is the Hydrogen Highway going nowhere?
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger loves things that start with H, like Hummers and California's Hydrogen Highway. Well, he used to anyway. We know about the Governator's move away from gas-guzzling Hummers and towards greener transportation options. A recent article in the New York Times (and in WIRED a year ago) show that Arnold's dream of a statewide network of 150-200 H2 fueling stations is slowly fading as well. Schwarzenegger had begun pushing for the Hydrogen Highway not long after taking office in 2003. One of the highways' strongest supporters was/is Terry Tanminen, who likes the BMW Hydrogen 7 and he spoke many times (at the 2006 Alt Car Expo and the 2007 AFVI Show, for examle) on the benefits of hydrogen vehicles on Schwarzenegger's behalf. But now, over five years and countless dollars later, there are only 24 hydrogen fueling stations operating in California. What, oh what, will happen to all of those hydrogen-powered Prius hybrids?
Those of you who are against hydrogen-powered cars will like this: Gerhard Achtelik, manager of the hydrogen highway program at the Air Resources Board, told the Times that people have "not received the vehicles as quickly as we hoped." Pro-hydrogen car advocates will like this: Joan Ogden, director of the Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways program at the University of California, Davis, told the Times that a zero-emissions vehicle rule that will go into effect in 2012 and requires automakers to make thousands of pure ZEVs will really drive the H2 vehicle market.
[Source: New York Times]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jpm 1:42PM (3/11/2009)
"Davis, told the Times that a zero-emissions vehicle rule that will go into effect in 2012 and requires automakers to make thousands of pure ZEVs will really drive the H2 vehicle market."
Yeah, sure.. we'll see. 3 years to go. can they lower the price from half a million? Doubtful.
Just quit wasting money on this hydrogen bullshit already.
Reply
Matt 2:09PM (3/11/2009)
Hydrogen Vehicle:
Electricity Generation --> Electrolysis --> Hydrogen Compression/Cooling --> Transportation --> Storage --> Distribution --> Fuel Cell --> Motor
Electric Vehicle:
Electricity Generation --> Battery --> Motor
You have to be nuts to consider Hydrogen as a viable alternative to fossil fuels. The only proponents of Hydrogen are the oil companies, because it take a lot of oil to produce, compress, and transport Hydrogen.
Phil L. 2:52PM (3/11/2009)
Another CA ZEV mandate. Didn't we go through this once already?
jharlan 2:16PM (3/11/2009)
Matt says it all. There absolutely nothing about the hydrogen vehicle that isn't waaaaay too expensive to develop anytime soon in spite of the hype. Carbon capture would be easier. I'm not saying it's time won't come, but sorry, I can't swallow 2012.
Reply
paulwesterberg 2:32PM (3/11/2009)
It appears that the hydrogen highway is a cul de sac.
Reply
paulwesterberg 2:39PM (3/11/2009)
When a "scientist" is pushing bad public policy, follow the money:
WASHINGTON (21 January 2008) -- American universities are jeopardizing their academic integrity by giving oil, gas, and other polluting industries unprecedented influence over the research those companies fund on campus, according to a report released by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest.
CSPI surveyed nine major universities that recently inaugurated industry-funded research programs on biofuels or other aspects of global warming. In return for accepting grants from industry, the universities are variously letting corporate representatives sit on governing boards (six out of nine universities), giving companies first rights to intellectual property (five), or letting companies review and possibly delay publication of studies (five). In somecases, such as Georgia Tech and the
University of California-Davis,
the universities give corporations a direct role in deciding which specific research projects are funded. And while industry enjoys the green patina that sponsoring university research into global warming confers, companies actually spend very little on research and development, particularly that relate to clean alternative energy technologies.
* University of California at Davis: Chevron's 5-year, $25 million grant to U.C. Davis, also for biofuels research, gives the company an unusually long period of three to four months to review research results to remove confidential business information and to identify potential intellectual property worthy of filing for patents.
http://www.shunpiking.com/ol0603/0603-AC-corpresearch.htm
Reply
Ari 3:16PM (3/11/2009)
Mat/jharlan,
You both hit the nail right on the head. Inefficient electricity is a make-work project for people who can profit from government squandering of funds to friends who are already very committed to expensive and old systems. And carbon capture, similarly is an incomplete thought. Carbon is not created nor eliminated... just stored and released. If it happens that a sequestration system fails... a LOT of carbon will be rapidly released. Anybody remember the effects of a toxic gas release by Union Carbide in Bopal, India? While vegetation is alive, it is a good way to sequester carbon and as it decays, it releases the stored carbon fairly slowly.
The best we can do is to try to use much less carbon releasing energy and what tops the list for clean and efficient generation is gravity created electricity. Falling water, tides and wind do this well.
Also of note, we need to use the right energy source for the right tasks - don't convert energy where we really don't need the conversion. If the goal is to generate heat, then recover heat. This planet has a molten core and temperature rises with depth - we need to go get that heat. If the goal is a portable energy source for transportation, then generate and store electricity, not an intermediary (hydrogen) and try to generate electricity at the end of a very expensive and logistically difficult venture.
Finally, we need to wrap our heads around battery technologies that make sense. There are more concrete results of thought expended on getting the right battery into my iPod then there is in getting electricity efficiently stored for transportation.
I drive an old beater, but swear my next car will not stop at a station to get liquid fuel. Where I live, there are laws that discourage plug-in electric vehicles. So, if the automakers don't give me what I want and pressure the government to let them sell it, then I'll quietly convert my beater so it runs with existing storage technology and pay about $3.00 for a full day of city driving.
Reply
stas peterson 9:39PM (3/11/2009)
The only people still pushing fool cells are the CARBite idiots with their REQUIREMENTS to construct thousands of these Gold Star white elephants. It is a great technology that has proven unequal to the economic realities. Batteries and electricity are proving more economical.
They are the idiots who read somewhere that the only thing out the tailpipe was H20, and fell in love. They never read what it takes to manufacture the H2 in the first place, or that H2O is the most powerful GHG there is, as if that mattered any. They also tend to disregard how far we have come in cleansing the ICE. Even though the output from the tailpipe of a PZEV ICE is cleaner than the ambient Southern California air, they are unhappy with this success, as it no longer provides a way to keep their lucrative jobs.
Buy them all a gold watch, declare Victory, abolsih the Gold star requirements, and close that goofball bureaucracy. They are also desperately trying to preserve their jobs by regulating a harmless trace gas that is benign . One that we already sequester more than we make in North; America. while we also sequester some from the pits of Eurasia as well.
.
Reply
Chris M 10:44PM (3/11/2009)
Quite right about H2 technology succumbing to economic reality. California just can't afford to subsidize this kind of foolishness, especially when there are far cheaper and more efficient options available.
Now for a minor nitpicking: There are many good arguments against the H2 fuel cell folly, but the "H2O is a greenhouse gas" isn't one of them. While water vapor is a greenhouse gas, it is also self-regulating, precipitating out if the concentration gets too high. Also, existing gasoline and diesel powered vehicle already produce much more water vapor from burning hydrocarbons than a fuel cell car would. Switching to fuel cell cars would actually reduce water vapor emissions.
We don't really need that argument, as the high cost is argument enough.
stas peterson 9:38PM (3/11/2009)
paulwesterberg.
Oh you hate it so, when some other ideas are being funded? I think bio-fuels are based on idealogical sophistry and stupid. But if someone wants to fund them, other than the goverment, they are welcome to do so, as far as I am concerned.
Perhaps you would complain about the huge $5-20 Billion or so that the government is-spends, every year, propping up the AGW hoax? I certainly do. Now if you want to dig into your own pocket for the $20 billion, I welcome you to do so, and encourage it, heartily. .
UC Davis is a unique place for you to criticize. Surely this was carefully crafted attack, and carefully chosen as a place to demonize.
You must realize that it was the good Doctor Frank of US Davis Engineering, who created many examples of the both parallel-series, (Prius), and series-electric, (Volt) concepts. It was he and his graduate students who published the efficiency papers in the SAE, and produced actual running examples of hybrid vehicles that all the world's manufacturers are now preparing to build in vast numbers?
I suggest you go back to your anti-Science and Anti-western ideologues, and dream up a new attack on technology, as you all seek to return to your Noble Savage dreams of existence for all of us other peons. This one is not selling.
Reply
Carney 3:34PM (3/11/2009)
Hydrogen is a hoax. The economics don't work now and never will, since there will always be superior alternatives. The physics don't work now and never will, since most of the problems are intrinsic to hydrogen's properties as an element.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax
The most prominent and influential booster of hydrogen in recent years has been former Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham, now formally registered as a paid agent of the Saudi government.
Reply
jake 5:52PM (3/11/2009)
This is why I'm skeptical of the claim by some hydrogen proponents that it is possible to develop a hydrogen network with little subsidies. It is a struggle to develop a small network right now even with subsidies; it seems to develop a practical large scale network, we will need even more subsidies along with a lot of private funding. That's even ignoring the costs of the cars.
So in a nutshell, the biggest problem of hydrogen is the cost equation doesn't work out. The cars, I can see the prices eventually coming down as they improve the technology. But until then, there will be little incentive to create the necessary fueling stations.
Reply
Chris M 11:53PM (3/11/2009)
I think the Governator got hit upside the head by a big dose of reality. His initial enthusiasm was prompted by propaganda from the H2 promoters, including his friend Mr. Taminen, and a lack of knowledge about all the problems and high costs involved. Those unrealistic predictions about how cheap it would all be helped obscure the facts.
His first hint came when he ordered that Hydrogen Hummer, which made a big splash but quietly vanished. Seems that the driving range was cut way short, shorter than the average NEV, but the fuel cost per mile more than doubled, and the retrofit cost more than the Hummer (large high pressure carbon fiber tanks aren't cheap!) , and worst of all, from Arnold's point of view, power and performance was reduced.
Then as the years passed and billions were spent in research, the prices remained stubbornly unaffordable and it was becoming clear that the original rosy predictions wouldn't hold up. Plans for introductions kept getting pushed back and delayed.
Along comes Tesla Motors, producing a car that was 3x more efficient than the proposed H2FC cars, far better performance than any fuel cell prototype, and actually available to buy and affordable to the well-off, unlike the million dollar H2FC cars. Schwartznegger gets a test drive, is impressed, and puts in an order. It dawns on him that Tesla Motors is working on a better alternative.
Inspired by Tesla Motors, GM introduced the Volt plug-in hybrid concept, and suddenly interest in PHEVs and BEVs heats up, just as the interest in H2FC cools down. H2 car plans get scaled back, delayed, or quietly canceled, as it dawned on auto executives that batteries might be more practical after all.
The final coup-de-grace for the "H2 Hiway" was, ironically, the soaring gas prices that triggered economic chaos and battered budgets everywhere. It soon became obvious that we couldn't wait for some far future "H2 paradise", we needed solutions now, solutions that were affordable and practical and efficient, and H2 cars were not. Ambitious plans to open a string of H2 filling stations from LA to Sacramento were quietly shelved, and some H2 stations that had opened to great fanfares were quietly closed due to lack of business.
The H2 enthusiasts are still pushing, but they aren't making much progress, prices remain unaffordable, success remains decades away. Even Honda has scaled back their FCX Clarity leases, and that program will be canceled when the subsidies run out.
The plug-in revolution has begun, and the first casualty was the hydrogen hype.
Reply
Randy S 2:36AM (3/12/2009)
Kudos to Chris M! Well said my boy, well said! Nice story on the history of Hydrogen in California, and thank you to Tesla for showing CA the way.
Now, how many more times do we have to have this discussion on H2? Everytime there is an article concerning hydrogen, the flood gates open again and out spews the same arguments and facts over and over. How much longer do we have to beat this dead horse? Die H2 horse...DIE!
Reply
Doug 9:09AM (3/12/2009)
"What, oh what, will happen to all of those hydrogen-powered Prius hybrids?"
Sent to the crusher?
Reply