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Fuel & battery technology : The Race to Hydrogen

The Race to Hydrogen – Who’s Winning?
In his 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush announced that hydrogen would be America’s alternative energy source for the future, and he challenged Congress to appropriate funding for research and development to get the USA there. Like a lightening rod, his announcement electrified the alternate fuels community and charted a course amid otherwise uncertain energy times. With unreliable petroleum imports now topping 65 percent, OEMs are competing in the race to put sustainable hydrogen-powered vehicles on the streets.
People are asking how soon we’ll see hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, and, more immediately, how do we make the transition from gasoline engines (ICE’s) to fuel cells? It is taking a variety of alternate fuels to usher in the hydrogen economy, making the outlook for these fuels no less promising than for hydrogen. For example, both natural gas pipelines and ethanol’s fledgling distribution infrastructure will serve us. Liquid ethanol (and also methanol) is a good “energy carrier” for storing, transporting and reforming to hydrogen.
Electricity, the cleanest alternative, is obviously used in both gasoline-electric hybrids and fuel cell vehicles and is used for electrolyzing water into hydrogen.
Let’s take a closer look at some of these alternate fuels and vehicles in the context of who’s competing and winning in the race to hydrogen.

Hydrogen

A Hydrogen Infrastructure
How and where will motorists be able to find a hydrogen “gas” station?
Options include:

Produce gaseous hydrogen (H2) or liquefied hydrogen (called LH2) fuel from hydrogen-rich materials (feedstocks) off-board at centralized locations or at the refueling site; store pure gaseous or liquefied hydrogen on-board the vehicle

Ship hydrogen-rich feedstock(s) to refueling sites; store feedstock(s) on-board the vehicle for use in a “reformer” to extract hydrogen fuel as needed

Ship/store pure hydrogen onboard within a variety of nonconventional media

To avoid contamination, most fuel cell stacks must use pure hydrogen. Delivering pure hydrogen (option a) requires an entirely new hydrogen infrastructure. Presently, 95% of hydrogen is extracted by industry from natural gas (CH4) through steam “reforming” (or other means) for private use. For vehicle use, hydrogen could be similarly produced and shipped using pipelines, railcars and trucks for storage in high-pressure tanks at refueling sites. Already, several private pure-hydrogen producing/dispensing “gas stations” have been built. As with natural gas, gaseous hydrogen can be compressed and stored for fast-fill or timed-fill dispensing.

Propane
If you’re a technician from the Southwest U.S., chances are you already know about propanepowered vehicles and equipment. But if you’re in the automotive profession and are not yet familiar with propane vehicles, read on. In this article we’ll explain the basics of liquified petroleum gas (LPG), or more simply “propane,” and of propane-powered vehicles. Hopefully, you’ll come to appreciate the relative safety, economy, and clean performance gaseous propane offers.

Propane tank pressure rises rapidly as tank temperature increases. Tank pressure feeds propane to the carburetor; injection systems require a fuel pump. (Data courtesy NAFTP)

Overview
Farmers and construction outfits have used propane trucks, tractors, and other equipment since the ’20s and ’30s, and many automotive techs are somewhat familiar with propane. In the ’70s, some OEs called for making “propane enrichment” carburetor adjustments; and we routinely use propane to find elusive vacuum leaks or to check fuel mixture problems. Propane motorfuel is used widely overseas, and here in the U.S. an estimated 270,000 propane-powered vehicles are on the road. Non-road propane “industrial trucks” (forklifts, tugs, etc.) amount to another 395,000 … that’s a lot of vehicles!

Fuel cell vehicles

Ford’s Focus FC-5 sedan is fueled with methanol.
It’s a 2000 model prototype FCV.
GM’s HydroGen I is a good example of a fuel cell hybrid electric vehicle. It runs on liquefied (cryogenic) hydrogen and the emits only water and oxygen.

While running a vehicle on water may have seemed the stuff of folklore a few years ago (remember rumors of the elusive “water carburetor?”), it’s now a reality thanks to the hydrogen fuel cell electric engine. If you want to know more about how hydrogen fuel and fuel cell powered vehicles will change our transportation landscape, read on.
The fuel cell “engine” runs on pure hydrogen, perhaps the most abundant element on earth, and oxygen. What’s more, hydrogen has “three times the energy content per pound as either gasoline or diesel fuel”, and has “71% less greenhouse gas emissions per unity energy over the whole fuel cycle relative to gasoline”¹. The fuel cell itself emits no pollutants.