"The entire world production of platinum isn't large enough for 10 million cars"

I noticed you stayed faaaaar and cleeeaaaaar from this.

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I must say, Greggi, you are persistant. I have never seen somebody like you. Spamming this blog like there is no tomorrow, not even getting kicked out and repeating the same $@#t over and over again. Look, if you need some professional help let me know.

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I wonder if Greg is into kinbaku? it'd fit in nicely with his Japanese theme and make his dream (of feelinf like a living fuel cell) come true, ugh.

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It's like pulling a string on a talking doll...

If you post it, he will spam it!

Hey Greg... How come you ignore the other manufacturers, like GM, who have posted much better efficiency figures for their fuel cells?

How much is Toyota paying you?

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Wow. Give up. A financially interested party v. 2 nobel laureates . . . hmmm.

Oh, and what happened to your rallying cry about Honda not making EVs . . . oh that's right, they are making one.

And Toyota . . . what about that plug-in Prius.

Just give up with some dignity.

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I love how people talk about a platinum shortage yet we have enough platinum to piss away on mostly useless after market platinum spark plugs and we also have plenty to use in the all important catalytic converters used on all cars since the 80s and all 25bhp or larger engine since 2004...

I find all this anti-H mindset rather disturbing. You all make it sound like it's worse then oil and ethanol sometimes. Given China is considering restriction litium exports and the country with largest supply in the world is on way better them with China then any western nation the all battery plan has its own shortages since Mitsubishi estimates we'll need 500ktonnes a year of lithium with a shortage start in 2015.

Lithium mining can also be very damaging to the environment since for the most part consists of pumping water into dried out salt flats and setting up massive evaporation ponds and as I recall something about a future fresh water short I don't see the point in making fresh water into salt water. It is in theory possible to draw lithium from ocean water but at 0.1ppm the power need to draw that from the oceans in enough quantity to be useful we might as well do hydrogen separation and desalination all in one massive plant.

In the end it's all about balance the suggestion and arguments we focus all our money and effort on one path is shortsighted and moronic and will lead us all down the same path we face today with oil given enough time.

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Yeah, keep plugging that $8,000/mo lease FCHV-adv, Greg. I dare you to mention the price in your posts from now on. And while you're at it, I double-dog-dare you to mention the efficiency of going from wind power to hydrogen to motion versus wind power to batteries to motion.

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How many H2FCVs has Blencoe designed, built, and sold? Let me guess - zero? Yet that doesn't stop him from pontificating on how wonderful they will be. Ulf Boessel has researched fuel cells, and he has pointed out the inefficiency inherent to fuel cells when compared to batteries. So while we have both "experts" and "amateurs" on both sides of this issue, some with strong biases, expertise is no guarantee of correctness.

Yes, Toyota has sold millions of Priuses, and have sold several hundred BEVs, but haven't sold a single H2FCV. In fact, Toyota has sold more BEVs than the total number of H2FCV prototypes they've made! Moreover, Toyota plans both a new BEV and a PHEV to be introduced before any H2FCV! So it sounds like Toyota is supporting hybrids, BEVs, PHEV along with H2FCVs - with H2FCVs coming in last.

The FCHV-adv that Blencoe gushes over is leasing for $7,500 a month, consistent with its million dollar cost.

In conclusion, I should say "when you support technologies that are not viable for mainstream consumers, you support the status quote which is oil." Considering the cost and lack of fueling and delays, that certainly seems to apply to H2FCVs.

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Here is what I dug up in terms of platinum - the stats aren't pretty.

#1 According to the USGS: In 2007, South Africa was the top producer of platinum with an almost 78% share followed by Russia and Canada." 78% from South Africa! Man I thought OPEC was bad. And to think there was hype about a "Lithium Cartel"! Looks like the "Platinum Cartel" could consist of South Africa, South Africa, and South Africa. In 2007, South Africa produced 166,000 kg, Russia produced 27,000 kg, Canada accounted for 6,200 kg and the US produced a whopping 3,860 kg.

#2 Also according to the USGS: In 2007, total global platinum sales were 213,000 kg.

Source for both: http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/platinum/mcs-2009-plati.pdf

#3 According to Autoblog.green, GM's next generation fuel cell gets the total amount of platinum needed down to 30g per stack, (for a 93 kW output)(the current model took 80g).

So... 213,000 kg = 213,000,000 grams/30g per stack = Enough platinum for about 7.1 million cars using the entire 2007 world production of platinum. (the US produced enough for 3860 kg = 3,860,000 g/30g per stack = 129,000 cars)

For reference, this is from automotive.com: "The gloomy storm clouds hovering over the U.S. automobile market will not dissipate in the next twelve months. Based on expectations for demand-side fundamentals, CSM Worldwide is forecasting light-vehicle sales to descend to a 10-year low of 15.8 million units in 2008."

In other words, if we used the entire worldwide platinum production for the year 2007, 75-80% of it coming out of South Africa, we would have enough platinum to produce fuel cells for roughly HALF of the worlds automobile production. What are the other 50% of cars supposed to run on? Hmmm... I wonder what all this new demand for platinum would do to the price of platinum per ounce/gram too... whatcha think?

Now, in fairness, the GM article said they were going to try to get the platinum down to 10g per stack, but if we are going that route, Toyota, the company that Greg likes to continually (selectively) quote also said that they will be able to increase the efficiency of current batterys 10-fold within 10 years.
Source: http://green.autoblog.com/2009/08/20/toyota-university-of-tohoku-improve-lithium-ion-batteries-ten-f/

So lets see... a platinum cartel or an electric car capable of ~1000 miles per charge. Which future do you want to invest in?

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@Posterboy,
Actually it's even worse than you say for the platinum supply vs. the number of cars produced. There will actually be over 10 million cars sold in the US alone this year, even in a down economy! World wide, it is more along the order of 80-85 million cars per year depending on whose estimates you believe.

That world wide supply of platinum won't even make a dent in that number and don't forget that all of that platinum being produced today is already being used for things like catalytic converters! That will not go away anytime soon so for the next 10 years, or many more, there will still be plenty ICE cars requiring catalytic converters and then to try and also supply some mythical fleet of fuel cells from that same supply??? I'd be surprised if the price didn't triple (or much worse) and there still would only be enough to produce a few hundred thousand FC cars because of simple limitations of supply.

And of course, all of this ignores the fact that hydrogen waste a huge amount of energy from production-to-wheels compared to BEV's....and even worse, the lack of a hydrogen infrastructure. It's just so silly to even take it seriously.

Some people argue: "these car companies wouldn't keep trying to make FC's if they were not viable". WRONG! Haven't any of you ever worked in a large company or government? What happens in ANY large organization when they've already spent a lot of money on an idea and the people in that program want to protect their jobs...and the execs who sponsored it know their careers are on the line??? EXACTLY! They go into denial and try to find a way to prolong the program as long as possible and then most of those execs "jump ship" to some other program or even better...another company and leave their successors holding the bag. It happens every day at every large company in the world.

We've all seen it, don't be naive. These FC people are fighting a rear-guard action while they look for a way to save themselves. LOL

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According to a recent article on AutoBlogGreen, the amount of platinum in
production fuel cells will be about the same as present day catalytic converters.
There are many millions of catalytic converters on the road today.

http://green.autoblog.com/2009/08/17/honey-i-shrunk-the-fuel-cell-next-gen-gm-hydrogen-stack-gets-s/

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Good analysis, posterboy and Dave D. Platinum is indeed the big bottleneck for H2 fuel cells, and increased demand will only drive prices upwards. So much for "mass production" making H2FCVs cheap!

RB: Current price is about $1,245 per oz, or about $43.56 per gram, so the current automotive fuel cells using 80 grams each would have about $3,485 worth of platinum. The next generation fuel cell using 30 grams each would have about $1,307 worth of platinum. The average catalytic converter has about $25 worth of platinum, about half a gram. Big difference. That article got it wrong.

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I see Posterboy got most of the USGS platinum stats, which are for all the metals in the platinum-metals group. Most of the platinum metals in cars, computers, medical equipment, etc. is recycled from scrap. According to the US Geological Survey, an estimated 10,400 kg of "platinum group metals" was recovered in 2006. Most new platinum is used for jewelry.

Comparing the amount of platinum in the fuel cells of today is like comparing the amount of precious metal in your laptop today to one tens years ago. Or like comparing the lithium in a battery today to one that will go into mass production 5 years from now. First you make something work, then you figure out how to make it smaller, cheaper and faster.

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bu..bu...buut hydrogen fuel cell cars have a "recharge" time of 3 minutes. How isn't that worth an extra $600K??

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