"Episode 917 - Chu Changes Mind on Hydrogen, Volvo Seeks N. America Partner, Ghosn May Retire" Autoline Daily Sorry, I don't have a hard link to the interview and can not find a write-up or transcript. But the essential part of Dr. Chu's interview is the use of natural gas, methane, to hydrogenate heavy bunker oil to make lighter hydrocarbons such as fuel oil and gasoline. Now this makes sense although there are a few details missing. How does the methane get transported to the refineries? Is a similar hydrogenation feasible for coal? Before the Chu interview, AutoLine Daily reported that 'we are back to cheap oil for the next 10 years.' ... right. So I take this AutoLine report with a 'grain of salt.' But they are plugged into the automotive community and in spite of their spin, sometimes news happens. Bob Wilson
Here is the Chu interview, or at least part of it: Basically I think Chu is saying low Nat Gas prices allows making Hydrogen (H2) more cheaply. If you can make H2 more cheaply, then H2 fuel cells have more potential then Chu thought 3-years ago. I also tend to feel the DOE may have made a mistake cutting fuel cell funding at a time when some good technology advances were being made. So the lower cost H2 argument perhaps gives DOE a do-over in this area. US industry makes and uses quite a lot of H2. Example- H2 used to refine oil: to get the sulfur out and upgrade yields and quality. H2 is typically made fom Nat Gas in a process known as steam methane reforming (SMR). The other common thing to do with natural gas is burn it for elec power generation. Chu seemed to be suggesting a third nat gas alternative (partial oxidation) to make three products: H2, elec power, and pure CO2 (for enhanced oil recovery/sequestering) in one plant. However, I would say, instead of making H2 you could optionally make methanol, or via Fischer Tropsch process, diesel fuels; for gasoline you can make it from from methanol. Coal/trees/biomass can also be similarly used, but nat gas is easier/cheaper feed to process. But if we inisist on using biomass to make fuels (and Congress has already mandated that for the near future) the availability of cheap nat gas helps the economics of biomass-to-fuels, in part because cheap nat gas means cheaper H2 to help make synthetic fuels from biomass. Biomass-derived oil refineries generally need some H2 treatment just like regular refineries. In general, cheap natural gas, if that is long term trend, implies many possibilities. USA recent energy policy has been to mandate/favor renewables (biomass to gasoline) over fossil fuels processing, but you are correct to assume cheaper H2 could also be used to improve refinery yield and/or for advanced coal processing to liquid fuels.
Hydrogen is pretty wretched stuff so consumption at the point of generation in a refinery or industrial setting makes a lot of sense. What doesn't make sense is trying to transport hydrogen to retail outlets, much less into vehicles. Then there are the technical challenges of fuel-cells and they are not trivial. Of all fuel cell technologies I've read about, the only ones that make sense: spacecraft - where costs are less important than weight and feedstock quality can be assured direct methane - we're seeing these on the margins, co-generation and emergency refractory temperature, liquid salt cells - only because they solve a lot of feedstock problems There may be a materials-chemical break through coming but nothing I've read about lately. But the impression I have are the current systems have too many challenges to be practical. I'll be happy to 'eat my words' when retail fuel cells show up for laptops and cell phones. BTW, I read a report that some of the Marine units in Afghanistan are using solar-cells to good effect. It reduces the amount of fuel needed for generators, especially field locations, where all fuel has to be imported. Bob Wilson
I also have trouble visuallizing anyone actually using H2 as a transportation fuel as a mass appeal concept. But I can see the theoretical/DOE logic of saying use nat gas to make H2+elec+CO2 and sequester the CO2. Now you can use nat gas with no carbon footprint. Here is a successful coal gasification plant built in North Dakota in 1984 that makes CO2 "sequestered" by using it for enhanced oil recovery, which is what Chu was talking about. This is the clean coal nobody wants (except me and AustinGreen) due to more expensive. Dakota Gasification Company's coal gasification plant clean-energy.us - case studies - eastman chemical
I like "coal gasification" but "clean coal" has been abused by the coal advocates. It was used by a previous administration to justify allowing slacker EPA regulations on coal fired plants. In reality, the stiffer regulations should have encouraged coal powered plants to move towards gasification. Thanks to slacker regulations, in 2002 we started reading about mercury contamination in one watershed. It is high enough that there are warnings pregnant women and growing children should not eat their catch. Then locally we had a story a couple of years ago about a Boy Scout area that became an EPA clean-up site. Back in the early 1900s, Huntsville had a manufactured gas facility by one of the railroad spurs close to the natural spring at the center of town. Coal was brought in and with water converted to manufactured gas. With electrification, the plant was shutdown. Many years later after the old building was cleared, the land was given to the Boy Scouts. Then ground contamination was found left over from the old factory. Almost any day of the week, coal trains pass through Huntsville. As each gondola car passes I can't help but remember that they used to drop cars off in Huntsville. Bob Wilson
I'm sort of disapointed that chu appears to be refersing himself. There is a great deal of politics going on here, and perhaps that is part of his softening of position for fuel cell vehicles Fuel-Cell Frenzy Looks to Convert Obama Favoring Plug-Ins - Businessweek Unlike Toyota that is talking about 2015, GM has talked about 2020 at the earliest in vehicles. Ford and BMW seem to be going the lip service route and doing hydrogen vehicles that burn the fuel in an ICE. That allows those pushing the infrastructure to have test vehicles without these companies having to waste resources on fuel cells before they are ready. Then again the bmw and ford vehicles could just as easily burn cng, but use less expensive 3600psi tanks. Bloom boxes seem like a fairly major breakthrough in fuel cells. Chu has supported research into fuel cells for power storage. If these hydrogen fuel cells drop in price, natural gas/hydrogen combination power plants could replace gas turbines entirely for peaking power. This path would lead more naturally to portable vehicle fuel cells. I see no reason to kow tow to the fuel cell interests and waste more federal money in a california experiment in 2015. Chu was right the first time, these things aren't ready. Maybe he was too pesimistic about 20 years versus 10, but there are big problems with fuel cell vehicles, and manufacturers need a phev platform to run these things anyway.
Remember that "cleaner coal" should at a minimum be IGCC. Its even better if it gets like the new plant going up. Cleaner coal should not mean laxer regulations, that is a whole different PAC point, having nothing to do with coal gassification. The question of natural gas being converted to hydrogen to used for fuel cell vehicles seems to be political not science based. The picken's plan to just convert 8 million heavy trucks to natural gas, would save 3 million barrels of oil a day. The big opposition to the picken's plan is the koch brothers. If you dangle the hydrogen carot, for the future, you don't actually do anything about fixing the problems today.
