Fuel-cell car rally opens Norway's hydrogen highway

Fuel-cell car rally opens Norway's hydrogen highway

Mon May 11, 2009 5:39pm BST

By Wojciech Moskwa and Karin Larvik

DRAMMEN, Norway (Reuters) - Norway opened a 560 kilometer (350 mile) "hydrogen highway" on Monday with more than a dozen hydrogen-powered cars rallying along a scenic route between its capital city Oslo and North Sea oil hub Stavanger.

Norwegian oil and gas producer StatoilHydro has built several hydrogen filling stations between the two places to cater for cars with fuel-cells that generate electricity from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen or burn hydrogen in a combustion engine similar to those in petrol cars.

These zero-emission vehicles have short ranges but promising results, and in the longer-term, Statoil may link the road to a hydrogen autobahn in northern Germany. Japan and California already have hydrogen highways.

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Unlike electric motors which take hours to recharge, the nearly silent hydrogen cars can be refueled in a matter of minutes, much like conventional cars.

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Hydrogen Economy – Energy and Economic Black Hole
by Alice Friedemann

The energy literate scoff at perpetual motion, free energy, and cold fusion, but what about the hydrogen economy? Before we invest trillions of dollars, let’s take a hydrogen car out for a spin.

Making it

Hydrogen isn’t an energy source – it’s an energy carrier, like a battery. You have to make it and put energy into it, both of which take energy. Ninety-six percent is made from fossil fuels, mainly for oil refining and partially hydrogenated oil--the kind that gives you heart attacks (1). In the United States, ninety percent is made from natural gas, with an efficiency of 72% (2), which means you've just lost 28% of the energy contained in the natural gas to make it (and that doesn’t count the energy it took to extract and deliver the natural gas to the hydrogen plant).

Only four percent of hydrogen is made from water via electrolysis. It’s done when the hydrogen must be extremely pure. Since most electricity comes from fossil fuels in plants that are 30% efficient, and electrolysis is 70% efficient, you end up using four units of energy to create one unit of hydrogen energy: 70% * 30% = 20% efficiency (3).

Getting hydrogen using fossil fuels as a feedstock or an energy source is a bit perverse, since the whole point is to get away from them. The goal is to use renewable energy to make hydrogen from water via electrolysis. When the wind is blowing, current wind turbines can perform at 30-40% efficiency , producing hydrogen at an overall 25% efficiency, or 3 units of wind energy to get 1 unit of hydrogen energy. The best solar cells available on a large scale have an efficiency of ten percent, or 9 units of energy to get 1 hydrogen unit of energy. If you use algae making hydrogen as a byproduct, the efficiency is about .1% (4).

No matter how you look at it, producing hydrogen from water is an energy sink. If you don't understand this concept, please mail me ten dollars and I'll send you back a dollar....

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/2401

UAVs may fly longer on hydrogen fuel cells

By William Matthews - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday May 10, 2009 9:03:33 EDT

Over the past decade, hand-launched drones have proven so useful that the military has bought more than 12,000 of them. Some weigh less than a pound and have wings that span just 2.4 feet. Others weigh 14 pounds and stretch 9 feet from wingtip to wingtip.

Small enough to be carried in a backpack, they can be snapped together in minutes and hurled into the air. Driven by battery-powered electric motors, they can usually stay aloft for an hour or two.

Now the military wants small drones with longer dwell times. It’s on the verge of getting them, thanks to hydrogen fuel cells.

Fuel-cell maker Protonex has shown it can fly a 14-pound UAV for nine hours on electricity generated by a hydrogen fuel cell and fuel cartridge that together are just bigger than a 2-liter soda bottle.

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Mercedes To Begin Limited Production of B-Class Fuel Cell Vehicles

German Car Maker Also Rolling Out Battery-Electric Smart Cars This Year

Mercedes-Benz has been at the forefront of fuel-cell vehicle development and now says that it plans to begin producing a small number of its B-Class cars (left)outfitted with the hydrogen-to-electricity systems.

The B-Class fuel-cell electric vehicles would begin rolling out in Europe by the end of the year, apparently for testing in the real world, the automaker told reporters during a program held in Germany this week to show off a student-built experimental fuel cell car, the F-Cell Roadster (http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=147050">more about that at InsideLine).

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While Mercedes doesn't sell the B-Class in the U.S., the company has said it is considering bringing the small hatchback over here. At the recent Washington D.C. auto show it showed a http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2009/02/mercedes-considers-selling-b-class-hatchback-that-runs-on-natural-gas-to-us.html">B-Class flex-fuel vehicle that could use either gasoline or compressed natural gas.

We'll probably be hearing more about fuel cells, battery-electric cars and natural gas vehicles in coming months as all three are alternative fuels being pushed for use in California - a sizeable player in the U.S. new car market - under a http://blogs.edmunds.com/greencaradvisor/2009/04/california-regulators-approve-worlds-first-low-carbon-fuels-standard.html">just-approved low carbon fuels standard that aims to help cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the carbon content of fuels used for transportation.

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