Saturday, December 05, 2015
Afford a fully Hydrogen power vehicle?? Part 1
A hydrogen vehicle is a vehicle that uses hydrogen as its on board fuel for motive power.
Can we (you) afford a fully Hydrogen power vehicle??
Not really - cost and obtaining the fuel is high; plus Hydrogen is very explosive.
{Just remember the Hindenburg Disaster-
https://youtu.be/CgWHbpMVQ1U -- while hydrogen tends to burn invisibly, the materials around it, if combustible, would change the color of the fire.
The motion picture films show the fire spreading downward along the
skin of the airship. While fires generally tend to burn upward,
especially including hydrogen fires, the enormous radiant heat from the
blaze would have quickly spread fire over the entire surface of the
airship, thus apparently explaining the downward propagation of the
flames. Falling, burning debris would also appear as downward streaks of
fire.
The Hindenburg disaster took place on Thursday, May 6, 1937, as the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, which is located adjacent to the borough of Lakehurst, New Jersey, United States
Hydrogen vehicles include hydrogen fueled space rockets, as well as automobiles and other transportation vehicles. The power plants of such vehicles convert the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy either by burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, or by reacting hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to run electric motors. Widespread use of hydrogen for fueling transportation is a key element of a proposed hydrogen economy.
Hydrogen fuel does not occur naturally on Earth and thus is not an energy source; rather it is an energy carrier. As of 2014, 95% of hydrogen is made from methane. It can be produced using renewable sources, but that is an expensive process.
Integrated wind-to-hydrogen (power to gas) plants, using electrolysis of water, are exploring technologies to deliver costs low enough, and quantities great enough, to compete with traditional energy sources.
{Water is one of the world's most critical elements supporting life for both for plant and animal.}
Many companies are working to develop technologies that might efficiently exploit the potential of hydrogen energy for use in motor vehicles. As of November 2013 there are demonstration fleets of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles undergoing field testing including the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell, Honda FCX Clarity, Hyundai ix35 FCEV and Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell.
The drawbacks of hydrogen use are high carbon emissions intensity when produced from natural gas, capital cost burden, low energy content per unit volume, low performance of fuel cell vehicles compared with gasoline vehicles, production and compression of hydrogen, and the large investment in infrastructure that would be required to fuel vehicles.
This is where we separate fact from profit - fiction...
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** Why automotive fuel cells have no future
A lot of big companies, including automakers such as Ford, GM, and Toyota (NYSE:TM), have spent billions researching fuel-cell cars, with Ford, Daimler, and Nissan announcing a partnership to develop a "common fuel cell system" they could bring to market by 2017.
Toyota recently doubled-down on fuel cells with its North American CEO, Jim Lentz, stating that the company was focusing on hybrids in the short term and fuel cells in the long term (as opposed to EVs). The company recently unveiled a 300-mile range fuel cell concept car that it claims might be available for a starting price "in the neighborhood" of $50,000 in 2015, putting it in direct competition with Tesla's Model S.
Despite support from these major corporations there are two very fundamental reasons why hydrogen fuel cells will lose to battery electric as the technology of tomorrow.
The cost of building a hydrogen infrastructure to replace petroleum and natural gas would be an estimated $200 trillion. Compare this to the cost of a smart electric grid, $338 billion to $476 billion, which would impart $1.4 trillion to $2 trillion in economic benefits.
Updating our aging electrical grid is something that America will need to do anyway to keep our lights on and economy running. In the process we can help expand the existing infrastructure to accommodate electric cars which cost $0.75/gallon equivalent to fuel, as opposed to $4.5/gallon equivalent of hydrogen, which the department of energy believes may drop as low as $3.75/gallon equivalent by 2020.
This brings me to the second fundamental problem with fuel cells -- the fuel. Hydrogen is not an energy source but a store of energy, much like a battery. Today 96% of hydrogen is made from natural gas, in a process that is 72% efficient. Hydrogen can be made from water in a process called electrolysis -- which is 70% efficient. However, because it is the smallest, lightest, and least dense element hydrogen must be compressed to be stored. When one considers the energy losses of creating hydrogen (say from wind or solar powered electrolysis) then compressed into a vehicle's fuel tank, it will never be as efficient, nor as cheap, as taking that electricity and putting it straight into a battery.
The bottom line is that EVs, such as Tesla's Model S, will always have the upper hand over fuel cells due to higher efficiency and lower fueling costs. Throw in the lack of hydrogen infrastructure and more expensive price tag to build said infrastructure and it becomes clear that hydrogen fuel cells have a very limited future, if any.
Foolish takeaway Plug Power's recent stock price rise and fall are examples of pure speculation, and long-term investors should steer clear of the company, if for no other reason than hydrogen fuel cells are simply inferior to battery electric technology on an efficiency and fuel cost basis. Tesla motors, though also highly speculative, is a far better investment, representing superior technology, exceptional management, and incredible optionality opportunities.
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Adam Galas
has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends
Tesla Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of Tesla Motors. Try any of
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