Hydrogen: The Fuel for Losers

How many cars has this guy built and sold in his life?  I’m guessing one or two less than Toyota.

7 reasons to love Toyota hydrogen fuel cell vehicles

Here are 7 reasons to love Toyota hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (which the company started developing in-house back in 1992 when I was a senior in high school):

1.  431-mile real-world driving range with Toyota FCHV-adv (mid-size SUV) hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (See YouTube video below)

2.  68.3 real-world miles per kilogram fuel economy with Toyota FCHV-adv (See YouTube video below)

3.  Ability to operate in temperatures as low as minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 degrees Celsius)

4.  Irv Miller, TMS group vice president, environmental and public affairs, made the following comment on August 6th:

“In 2015, our plan is to bring to market a reliable and durable fuel cell vehicle with exceptional fuel economy and zero emissions, at an affordable price.”

5.  Masatami Takimoto, a Toyota executive vice president and board member, made the following comment in January at the North American International Auto Show:

“By 2015, we will have a full-fledged commercialization effort.”

6.  The Toyota FCHV-adv (Highlander) hydrogen fuel cell vehicle has the same trunk and passenger space as the gasoline-powered version.

Click on the following link to see a picture of the trunk in the Toyota FCHV-adv hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.

7.  Here is a comment made by Justin Ward, advanced powertrain program manager-Toyota Technical Center, in a Ward’s Automotive article (subscription required) that was published on July 16th:

“We have some confidence the vehicle released around 2015 is going to have costs that are going to be shocking for most of the people in the industry. They are going to be very surprised we were able to achieve such an impressive cost reduction.”

http://hydrogendiscoveries.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/7-reasons-to-love-toyota-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles/

Greg Blencoe
Chief Executive Officer
Hydrogen Discoveries, Inc.

LOL on this headline. Who knows maybe better mem"brains” will get us there

Thanks for the reality check on hydrogen. I am a hydrogen supporter, but we need to think critically about the infrastructure, large-scale production, storage etc before we expect it will be the saviour for our energy needs.

Richter might know particle physics, but I think maybe Richter’s the one that needs to go back to the R&D lab.  It’s pretty apparent he’s only given fuel cells a cursory glance because his figures and conclusions are way off.

For example, he totally ignores that most of the platinum used today is recycled, not mined from the ground.  He also totally ignores that even if you save $1,000/year on gas costs with a plug-in, you’re still not making back your money for a LOOONG time if the plug-in costs $10,000 more than a gasoline car.  The point is Richter’s jumping to inaccurate conclusions and needs to spend some time looking more deeply into the state of the technology before he makes such wild “loser” claims.  Short-sighted.

Hydrogen vehicles and batteries both have unique challenges.  But they also have unique benefits.  That’s why it’s so important to continue development for both.  It’s too early to choose one and frankly, I hope we have both technologies, working cooperatively, on the same vehicle.

The tragedy of the hydrogen cash cow is that it diverted so much money from more practical technology.  Recently, when Steven Chu tried to balance the playing field a bit, he found out how entrenched the hydrogen interests are:
http://www.businessinsider.com/congress-forces-the-doe-to-take-hydrogen-funding-2009-7

Consumers want cars. Old guard automakers and R&D labs want more funding, but aren’t interested in getting cars to market.  The best bang for our taxpayer buck is investment in forward-thinking automakers like Tesla whose interests are aligned more closely to consumers’:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062301444.html

The findings at the DOE Merit Review in 2009 don’t support Richter’s statements. The CaFCP web site has the DOE’s progress to targets here. http://www.cafcp.org/progress/technology/doetargets All are on their way to meeting or beating the 2015 commercialization goals.

While Dr. Richter’s 10 million cars number is about right, that hardly seems like the only problem with FCVs. Over time technologists will give us better, cheaper batteries and they will give us better, cheaper fuel cells. Twenty years from now, when the technologies are more mature, the fundamental problem with FCVs is that they will take 2-4x as much renewable electricity to produce hydrogen from electrolysis, and the cost per mile will be 3-5x the cost of mile of driving from grid electricity. This is not a technology issue, the reasons are more basic physics.

Even if you could produce hydrogen directly from sunlight without first making electricity, it turns out that it is more efficient (and cheaper) to immediately turn it into electricity in a power plant and ship it across the grid to battery cars than it is to ship it hydrogen fueling stations and turn it into electricity in FCVs.

In the end the limiting factor for EVs and FCVs will be how quickly we can build the renewable electricity production to fuel them. EVs have a clear advantage here that will not change with tomorrow’s technology announcements.

Renewable electricity is not the only way to make hydrogen, no more than burning coal is the only way to make electricity. Biogas and biomass to make both energy carriers is the future, although both are small-scale experiments today. And, by the way, a few universities are making H2 directly from sunlight using a process similar to photosynthesis. And the H2 stations that use electrolysis do it at the station; there’s no shipping the hydrogen.

Right now, and for the few decades, most H2 and electricity come from fossil fuels. It will take a very long time to transition to mostly renewable energy. The fuel cell partnership has a good document that shows the w-2-w from a couple of different government reports. It shows that FCVs and BEVs are about equal in energy efficiency. http://www.cafcp.org/why-h2/comparisons/well-wheels

Chu didn’t balance out the playing field, he made it lopsided by cutting out hydrogen.  Congress is leaving in all the money for other alternative energy technologies and batteries and adding a little to hydrogen (from $0) so that the development can continue.  The Members of Congress are the ones trying to level out the playing field.

If several of the worlds smartest companies say that they will be able to mass produce hydrogen vehicles and other technologies that are affordable, I think it’s worth a few dollars to give them the chance.
http://www.cafcp.org/recent-announcements-show-progress

Thats right Greg.  Don’t address any of his points, just ignore them and quote then specs of a million+ dollar prototype along with some PR statements.  Oh and question his knowledge of the subject.

Fuel cells are not cars.  He didn’t question Toyota’s ability to make frames, or transmisions or ICEs or anything that they have so much experience making.  He just pointed out that hydrogen fuel cells can’t compete with batteries without some major fundamental improvements.

I wonder what you would say if your personal financial future wasn’t dependent on a hydrogen infostructure getting built.

Taking into consideration a few of the comments defending hydrogen, here are a few problems with hydrogen:
Durability: sure they have improved, at about at ~60k miles currently, it’s not going to fly with consumers. This point is almost never mentioned when hydrogen is brought up.
Station costs: @ ~$4 million each (from CA’s station building costs), it’s going to be expensive. A gas station costs ~$1-2million and a battery charger ranges from a couple $1000 to $100k for the fastest charging ones you can find.
Car costs today (not just projections): The prototypes so far costs about ~$1 million each. Honda said hopefully with mass production they can bring it down to under $100k. It’s relatively hard to tell what the real costs of hydrogen cars will be, esp. given we don’t even know what they are today (except that the prototypes are insanely expensive today), even though Greg will constantly tell you Toyota promises they will be “shockingly” low. On the other hand, we know very well how much batteries cost: $10-15k will be the typical smaller batteries for plug-ins & smaller BEVs, the highest so far is the $36k battery (replacement cost to consumer) in the Roadster, which costs about $100k (pretty much the most expensive plug-in/EV you can find). ~ $45k is the least expensive highway capable EV (the iMIEV). A plug-in Prius will be ~$35k, the Volt will be ~$40k.
Virtually no infrastructure today: For plug-in hybrids they obviously have no problem being a practical car for people today. For BEVs, they are a practical for daily driving for those with garages, esp if they also have another car. For hydrogen they are practical only for a limited amount of people near existing hydrogen fueling stations, and this means southern CA today.
The pluses are that it’s fast to refuel (with the appropriate compression equipment), better than gasoline in terms of being clean, and it allows for range that pretty much can match gasoline cars.

The problems with plug-in hybrids:
Still can’t recoup initial costs from fuel cost savings and needs more charging infrastructure to support charging. Not the greenest choice since it still uses gasoline. However, they can be used by anyone and have no technology hurdles to implement (durability set at 150k miles already by CA and we have seen Prius taxies which have gone further in real life).

The problems with BEVs:
In general should cost more than a plug-in hybrid (though the Nissan Leaf might change the game). Also hard to recoup extra costs from fuel cost savings and similar still needs infrastructure support, though pretty much anyone with a garage can use one. Range is limited (~100 miles) for the lowest end models and recharging time can be an issue, esp without a rapid charging infrastructure yet. However, it’s the most efficient of the bunch, esp if we are talking about utilizing renewable energy. A plus is the fuel cost tends to be quite low, esp with off peak charging. It should be able to hit 100k mile durability no problem, and can hit higher if using more expensive cells.

Both plug-in hybrids and BEV bring side benefits of encouraging cleaning and upgrading the grid.

In the near term, capital costs kill fuel cell vehicles - well over $1000/kw for vehicle-capable hydrogen fuel cells, which require carbon-fiber storage tanks that themselves cost as much as a vehicle.

Over the long term, operating costs kill hydrogen fuel cell vehicles - 3-5x the cost of running directly from batteries. if you are using the same source of electricity to make hydrogen.

Fuel cells might have an application to transportation if a fuel cell that can run directly on a cheaper, easier to handle fuel (natural gas, alcohols) can be adapted to vehicle use.

We can make fuel cell power by starting with natural gas and alkaline membranes, which do not require Pt. catalysis
The Secretary will be surprised!

“For example, he totally ignores that most of the platinum used today is recycled, not mined from the ground.”

From USGS:
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/platinum/mcs-2008-plati.pdf

World mine production of platinum in 2007: 232Mg (462Mg total PGM).

“Recycling: An estimated 12,700 kilograms of PGMs was recovered from new and old scrap in 2007.” (no note if this is the US or World - but even the small US mining production of PGM was about 17Mg). If it’s the US, I don’t imagine the rest of the world recycles that much more platinum-group metals.

“He also totally ignores that even if you save $1,000/year on gas costs with a plug-in, you’re still not making back your money for a LOOONG time if the plug-in costs $10,000 more than a gasoline car.”

Try again: “At $10,000 to $15,000 [for the battery] it will not pay off,” said Richter. At $7,000, electrics start making a lot more sense.

He acknowledged that battery costs are too high, at least a factor of two higher than they need to be for mass consumer acceptance.

I enjoy how the battery proponents acknowledge the shortcomings of both BEVs and FCVs, and ultimately select BEVs.. and the hydrogen proponents appear to only have eyes for their darling.

Hydrogen FCVs are the answer in the long term. Until the fuel cell stack is price-competitive with an ICE powertrain or (soon) a BEV battery pack, they will remain a long-term solution.

By the middle of decade (eg around toyota’s 2015 FCHV) GM’s fifth gen fuel stack is expected to use only 30g of platinum.. or about $1600 for the platinum at today’s prices. If the rest of the fuel cell stack is inexpensive, then it may be price-competitive with a BEV at that point.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles’ real-world ranges have recently reached 310* to 320** km, not the larger figures asserted in comments above.

*The Honda Clarity goes 310 km (http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/hot_lists/high_performance/honda_acura_central/2009_honda_fcx_clarity_road_test ) on a tankful.

** It goes 320 km (http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/handed-the-keys-to-an-alternative-future/?apage=4 ).

This is fully 10-20 km more than what the BMW 520h was doing, 30 years ago, on hydrogen internal combustion! (http://www.netinform.net/H2/H2Mobility/H2MobilityMain.aspx?ID=218&CATID=1 ).

—- G.R.L. Cowan
(Internal combustion made continent)

When comparing fuel cells to batteries, they’re two different versions of the same thing. Energy is used to electrolyse water - not brilliantly efficient due to electrochemical considerations - the hydrogen is stored then recombined with oxygen to form water and electrical enerrgy. But you might consider electrolysing other things than water. One might be nickel hydroxide which splits very easily into nickel oxyhydroxide and a proton. You capture the proton reversibly in a rare earth metal matrix, and the entire process from electrolysis to recombination is over 80% efficient. Beats water based fuel cells any day; we call it a NiMH battery and it’s a mature technology and you can buy them over the counter in pretty well any volumes you like. I think fuel cells will score when the ratio of power to energy is low - like for ships, trains and so on. When the power/enerrgy ratio is high like cars and planes, I don’t see fuel cells being better than batteries, and probably more expensive.