GM claims it's coming...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JackDodge @ Mar 7 2007, 09:57 AM) [snapback]401553[/snapback]</div>

That depends on how you generate the hydrogen. If you generate it using a coal fired power plant in the US, then sure, you wasted energy.

But what if you generate the hydrogen using the plentiful natural energy sources of regions of the earth that are too far from the US to transmit electricity over power lines.

Iceland wants to become the Kuwait of the hydrogen economy. They have plentiful geothermal energy and can use it to generate vastly more electricity than they could possibly use. The only problem is they're too far away to transmit the electricity anywhere. They need an energy carrier... like hydrogen.

How about the German company who is testing a ocean going tanker ship with a windmill mounted on it. The ship sails out into the open ocean where the winds are strong, sits around generating hydrogen, and sails back into port. What if we had fleets of these ships off of the east and west coasts?

How about solar towers in the deserts of the world? Too far to transmit electricity to the US, but they can get the energy over to us using hydrogen.

If you get vehicles off of fossil fuels and onto hydrogen, which can be produced from any energy source, then you open the door for all kinds of energy sources to be used to generate hydrogen.

Sure, the initial sources of hydrogen will be made from natural gas or using local power plants. Such a strategy will be necessary to ramp up the production of hydrogen in concert with the ramping up of the production of the cars. But, as hydrogen cars become the dominant vehicle, cheaper sources of hydrogen will be developed.

 

With any source of renewable energy, the electricity required to support 1 fuel cell vehicle would support between 4 and 5 electric vehicles.

Hydrogen is just about the least efficient way of transporting energy there is.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Mar 7 2007, 08:39 AM) [snapback]401567[/snapback]</div>

It's not producing hydrogen that takes all of the energy. The real problem is containing it and transporting it. No existing infrastructure can do that. It also binds with other elements very quickly and, as a result, can corrode pipes and fittings. I'm sure that tripp can give us a more detailed description of the problems but lifeaftertheoilcrash.net has a pretty thorough description of its own:

"What About the Hydrogen Economy?"


Hydrogen isn't the answer either. As of 2003, the average hydrogen fuel cell costs close to $1,000,000. Unlike other alternatives, hydrogen fuel cells have shown little sign of coming down in price. Unfortunately, hydrogen and/or hydrogen fuel cells will never power more than a handful of cars due to the following reasons:

I. Astronomical Cost of Fuel Cells

With the fuel cell powered cars themselves costing $1,000,000 a piece, replacing 210 million cars (about 1/4 of the world's fleet) with fuel cell powered cars is going to cost $210,000,000,000,000 (two-hundred and ten trillion dollars).

Furthermore, as a recent article in EV World points out, the average fuel cell lasts only 200 hours. Two hundred hours translates into just 12,000 miles, or about one year’s worth of driving at 60 miles per hour. That's not much of a deal for a car with a million-dollar price tag.

That doesn't even begin to address the cost of replacing a significant portion of the millions upon millions of oil-powered airplanes, boats, trucks, tractors, trailers, etc., with fuel cells nor the construction of a worldwide system to maintain all of these new technologies.

II. Platinum Supply

A single hydrogen fuel cell requires approximately 20-50 grams of platinum. Let's say we want to replace 1/4 of the world's petroleum powered cars with hydrogen fuel cell powered cars. Twenty-to-fifty grams of platinum per fuel cell x 210 million fuel cells equals between 4.2 billion and 10.5 billion grams of platinum required for the conversion. Unfortunately, world platinum production is currently at only about 240 million grams per year, most of which is already earmarked for thousands of indispensable industrial processes.

If the hydrogen economy was anything other than a total red herring, such issues would eventually arise as 80 percent of the world’s proven platinum reserves are located in that bastion of geopolitical stability, South Africa.

Even if an economically affordable and scalable alternative to platinum is immediately located and mined in absolutely massive quantities, the ability of hydrogen to replace even a small portion of our oil consumption is still handicapped by several fundamental limitations, some of which are detailed below. NASA, which fuels the space shuttle with hydrogen, may be able to afford to get around the following challenges, but there is a big difference between launching a single space shuttle and running a global economy with a voracious and constantly growing appetite for energy.

III. Inability to Store Massive Quantities at Low Cost:

Hydrogen is the smallest element known to man. This makes it virtually impossible to store in the massive quantities and to transport across the incredibly long distances at the low costs required by our vast global transportation networks. In her February 2005 article entitled "Hydrogen Economy: Energy and Economic Blackhole," Alice Friedemann writes:

* Hydrogen is the Houdini of elements. As soon as you’ve gotten it into a container, it wants to get out, and since it’s the lightest of all gases, it takes a lot of effort to keep it from escaping. Storage devices need a complex set of seals, gaskets, and valves. Liquid hydrogen tanks for vehicles boil off at 3-4% per day.


While some research into hydrogen storage technologies looks promising, it is still in the experimental stages and decades (at the earliest) from being ready to scale on an industrial level.

IV. Massive Cost of Hydrogen Infrastructure:

A hydrogen economy would require massive retrofitting of our entire global transportation and fuel distribution networks. At a million dollars per car, it would cost $350,000,000,000,000 to replace half of our current automotive fleet (700 million cars world wide) with hydrogen fuel cell powered cars.

That doesn't even account for replacing a significant fraction of our oil-powered airplanes or boats with fuel cells.

The numbers don't get any prettier if we scrap the fuel cells and go with straight hydrogen. According to a recent article in Nature, entitled "Hydrogen Economy Looks Out of Reach:"

* Converting every vehicle in the United States to hydrogenpower would demand so much electricity that the country would need enough wind turbines to cover half of California or 1,000 extra nuclear power stations.


Unfortunately, even if we managed to get this ridiculously high number of wind turbines or nuclear power plants built, we would still need to build the hydrogen powered cars, in addition to a hydrogen distribution network that would be mind-boggingly expensive. The construction of a hydrogen pipeline network comparable to our current natural gas pipeline network, for instance, would cost 200 trillion dollars. That's twenty times the size of the US GDP in the year 2002.

How such capital intensive endeavors will be completed in the midst of massive energy shortages is anybody's guess.

V. Hydrogen's "Energy Sink" Factor:

As mentioned previously, solar, wind, or nuclear energy can be used to "crack" hydrogen from water via a process known as electrolysis. The electrolysis process is a simple one, but unfortunately it consumes more energy than it produces. This has nothing to do with the costs and everything to do with the immutable laws of thermodynamics. Again, Alice Friedemann weighs in:

* The laws of physics mean the hydrogen economy will always be an energy sink. Hydrogen’s properties require you to spend more energy to do the following than you get out of it later: overcome waters’ hydrogen-oxygen bond, to move heavy cars, to prevent leaks and brittle metals, to transport hydrogen to the destination. It doesn’t matter if all of the problems are solved, or how much money is spent. You will use more energy to create, store, and transport hydrogen than you will ever get out of it.


Even if these problems are ignored or assumed away, you are still faced with jaw-dropping costs of a renewable derived hydrogen economy. In addition to the 200 trillion dollar pipeline network that would be necessary to move the hydrogen around, we would need to deploy about 40 trillion dollars of solar panels. If the hydrogen was derived from wind (which is usually more efficient than solar) the cost might be lowered considerably, but that's not saying much when you are dealing with numbers as large as $40 trillion.

As far as how much you as the consumer would pay for hydrogen fuel derived from renewable resources, Joseph Romm, author of The Hype About Hydrogen, estimates you will have to pay $10-$20 per gallon of gasoline equivalent. That's assuming you can even find a renewable-hydrogen filling station.

Even if the costs of these projects are cut in half, that makes little difference over the course of a generation, as our economy doubles in size approximately every 25-30 years. In other words, by the time we will have made any real headway in constructing a "hydrogen economy", the problem will have already compounded itself.

If the "hydrogen economy" is such a hoax, why then do we hear so much about it? The answer is simple when you "follow the money" and ask "who benefits?" (Hint: GM, Shell, et al.)"
http://lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/SecondPage.html

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(john1701a @ Mar 7 2007, 01:55 AM) [snapback]401492[/snapback]</div>

The fact that the Prius makes the top20 for most sold cars must be so annoying to GM/FORD/BMW/MERCEDES and others. Must be hard to be proven wrong about people caring for anything else then to bolster their insecure ego with "masculine" cars. Where I live I think the Prius would probably make top10. It's a VERY common car. People are proving that they buy cars that makes sense to them. The prius makes more sense then most other mid sized cars on the market! It also gives more prestige (i.e ego) then it's price tag.

It will be hard for other manufacturers (apart from maybe Honda) to change this and it will get worse. When my family buy our next car in a couple of years we will buy nothing less then a hybrid (would prefer EV and are willing to pay extra for that). Unfortunately I doubt anyone but Honda and Toyota will be able to meet our demands at that point so one of them will most likely get my money. I think many feel the same as I do and for GM and others this is hard. They are basically shut-out from my money until they even enter the market I'm in. If they deliver the Volt and it is better then the Prius (read longer EV range) then I will buy it (same goes for Ford or any other brand). But GM don't lose track of practicality. I'm sure you are reading these boards and as you can see from it what most people love about these car is the practicality.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Mar 7 2007, 09:39 AM) [snapback]401567[/snapback]</div>

Energy carrier like hydrogen? It's a heck of a lot simpler to store the energy in BATTERIES then in high pressue / super low temp tanks. A heck of a lot cheeper and energy efficient, too.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JackDodge @ Mar 7 2007, 11:33 AM) [snapback]401606[/snapback]</div>

That article is so disingenuous it's pathetic.

Take the first point:

Fuel cell cars cost $1 million dollars at the moment. Well gee, they're prototypes that are hand built in small numbers. No ability to spread the tooling costs across millions of vehicles. I bet you that the first prototype Prius cost millions of dollars too. Look how much the tesla car costs. I guess that means EV cars are doomed too.

That first statement in the article, claiming that $210 trillion dollars to replace 210 million cars should have signaled to you right up front that the article was a load of BS.

It then goes on to lament the cost of transforming the fleet of oil-powered planes, trains, trucks, and boats. Would an EV economy be doomed because it would be impractical to make an electric airplane?

Then there's platinum... Just two months ago Berkley scientists announced that they discovered a platinum-nickel alloy that contains 30% nickle and is 10 times more effective than pure platinum. Another company has announced a "nano-nickel" material that could completely replace platinum. This is just the tip of the iceberg, research is ongoing and making progress.

You and others would be the first defend batteries by stating how research is making great strides and super batteries are just around the corner, while at the same time refusing to acknowledge that any research is going on in fuel cells and denying that any progress is being made.

The article then goes on to babble about how hydrogen is an energy sink. So what? Electricity is also an energy sink. It requires much more energy to generate the electricity you use in your home than what you get out of it. Did you know that 10% of the electricity is lost just transmitting it around the power grid? What percentage of the energy in coal ends up at your electrical outlet? Not much. So there you go. Electricity is bad and wasteful. Stop using it.

But back to hydrogen. What if you use energy from a natural resource like geothermal, wind or solar? Who cares how inefficient it is? Especically if it's energy that can't be utilzed any other way without an energy carrier such as hydrogen. Energy like open-ocean winds, solar in the Saharas, geothermal in iceland.

Oh, the article also goes babbles about things like needing to spend $200 trillion on a hydrogen gas pipeline network. Do we currently distribute gasoline to gas stations using pipelines? I thought we used trucks.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(hill @ Mar 7 2007, 12:27 PM) [snapback]401638[/snapback]</div>

Really? You think it would be pratical to fill a cargo ship with 500,000 tons of batteries to ship energy from Iceland or Africa to the US?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Mar 7 2007, 10:45 AM) [snapback]401653[/snapback]</div>

Your response suggests that you're reacting instead of thinking. You don't even have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of this discussion. You have several errors in reasoning and the word 'disingenuous' seems carefully chosen since it's subjective and you don't have to defend it. A convenient way of trying to invalidate something that you disagree with without having an educated and valid stand on the issue to counter it. If you don't want to believe it then stick your head back in the sand but you haven't put forth anything that gives a valid, cognitive rebuttal. My reference to lifeaftertheoilcrash.net was about hydrogen and had nothing whatsoever to do with batteries by the way.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JackDodge @ Mar 7 2007, 01:13 PM) [snapback]401666[/snapback]</div>

Ha. Whether or not you believe I don't have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of the discussion and have errors in my reasoning, at least it was my own reasoning. I suppose I could have just regurgitated an article containing several errors of reasoning, such as "since a prototype of a fuel cell car costs $1 million, then mass production of 210 million cars will cost $210 trillion dollars." And I suppose that instead of offering a rebuttal that pointed out the errors in reasoning in the regurgitated article, I could have simply accused you of sticking your head in the sand.

Oh, and my choice of the word "disingenuous" was careful indeed, because the exaggerations and flaws in your regurgitated article made it more akin to political commentary than an unbiased criticism of hydrogen.

 

Marlin,

HVDC is probably superior to hydrogen transportation as you propose. Until carbon nanotube containment structures are seriously advanced (or some other radically different form of hydrogen storage) hydrogen seems a big loser to me. There are a substantial number of technical barriers at the moment which make BEVs a superior choice in every way. That doesn't mean that we should abandon hydrogen research because there are HUGE opportunities here to advance basic knowledge in a variety of scientific disciplines. FCs still make a lot sense in stationary power even if they never play out in the automotive world.

 

It's clear to me that fuel cells / and the hydrogen economy is not exactly ready for prime-time - at least not like PHEVs and EVs technology is, and I hate that fuel cells get more time, money and attention from government and industry. And I especially hate that governments are neglecting their responsibilities to cut carbon emissions, something that the widespread adoption of PHEVs and EVs could quickly if only partially address.

BUT Marlin's posts don't indicate to me that he doesn't have a firm grasp on the fundamentals. Some day, in some situations Hydrogen can probably be utilized as an energy storage/carrier device for electricity. Batteries aren't great electricity storage devices either and they are still useful to us.

Still, hydrogen, if it is a solution, is for the more distant future. We can do affordable electric vehicles now and the emphasis (money) should be place on that.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Mar 7 2007, 08:39 AM) [snapback]401567[/snapback]</div>

Personally, I would prefer a clean source of hydrogen, if we must do hydrogen, to a cheap now but will cost much more in the long run source of hydrogen. Your post mentions wind power for the production of hydrogen. As you probably already know, it is clean. Solar is clean, too. However, it is well known that almost any other means of hydrogen production is a dirty, energy inefficient process. In general, using hydrogen as an energy storage medium is energy inefficient.

Unfortunately, I think that the powers that be were thrusting a solution on everyone just so they could say they had a solution. Hydrogen, depending on how it is produced, could be just as bad or worse than fossil fuels.

 

GM's is in scrabble mode. They're business model still doesn't work. Spin, marketing and BS isn't going to do it . Even if they come out with the Volt, hang on if you buy one......

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Topgas @ Mar 7 2007, 07:46 PM) [snapback]401962[/snapback]</div>

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artic.../703070365/1148

And then there's the latest that GM may have to cover $1,000,000,000 in risky loans made by GMAC. It just keeps getting better.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Mar 7 2007, 07:45 AM) [snapback]401653[/snapback]</div>

We will likely never have enough "natural" energy to squander. If we have a practical solution that uses 1/4 of the resources TODAY, why would we spend so much time and energy heading another direction in the hope that it'll be better than what we already have... at some undisclosed time?

If renewable energy ever becomes so cheap, easy and plentiful that we can not care how efficient anything is, then we'll have solved so many problems that we won't need to argue about what sort of transportation is best. Until then, we've got to use our resources wisely. Go four miles on a kWh of renewable energy in a cheap battery car, or go one mile in an expensive H2 fuel cell (relative prices in similar built quantities).

You think that transporting H2 in big tankers is practical?! I dare say that it is no more practical than transporting batteries. I think that point was that electricity can *domestically* be transmitted all over the country conveniently, cheaply and efficiently - regardless of how it is made. Not so with H2. I think we can safely assume that we will not be importing significant quantities of H2 from off-shore.

The auto makers were forced to make EVs in CA. In literally just a few short years, the cars were produced and put on the road under duress, and the drivers loved them. These same car companies have said that they really, REALLY WANT to make FCV's - ever since the late 60's! And what do we have on the road today, 40 years later? Does that say anything about the practicality of making the two types of vehicles?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(JackDodge @ Mar 7 2007, 08:24 PM) [snapback]401981[/snapback]</div>

I didn't realize GM owned Ditech, too.

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clu...ng_the_veg.html

That's right, Ditech, the outfit that advertised incessantly on TV, promising that house-buyers could sleepwalk their way into mortgage approvals -- and thus frustrate all the smarmy, over-fed, punctilious bankers who obstructed such requests with pain-in-the-nice person qualifying protocols and burdensome paperwork. Last week GM put off filing regular required financial reports because of disarray in its Ditech operation. Ditech is responsible for as much as $80 billion in mostly sub-prime house loans -- i.e. given to people with dubious prospects for repayment. But GM's Ditech is but one of scores of entities now choking on non-performing paper (and many of Ditech's rivals are now bankruptcy road kill).

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(toyotablackbox @ Mar 6 2007, 06:06 PM) [snapback]401300[/snapback]</div>

Ah, I see: It's all-electric because it only burns gasoline to produce electricity. NOT! A gas-electric hybrid is not 100% electric. The Volt, as described, is a PHEV. Maybe it'll be a great car. But as described it's not an EV.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(darelldd @ Mar 6 2007, 11:17 PM) [snapback]401478[/snapback]</div>

My guess is both the FCV and the Volt are hype, and neither will ever be marketed.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Marlin @ Mar 7 2007, 08:45 AM) [snapback]401653[/snapback]</div>

The Tesla Roadster's base price is $92,000. There's a $950 destination charge, and if you live outside their service area, there's another $8,000 which covers delivery of the car and all service/transportation during the warranty period. Round it off at about $100,000.

The car will out-perform any other $100,000 sports car.

It is a high-performance sports car, sold at a high-performance sports-car price. That's because that's the only arena where a small company can compete. Due to economies of scale, a small company cannot compete with the giants in the econo-box market.

The big problem with Tesla is the question of when the Roadster will actually make it to production.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Mar 11 2007, 07:12 PM) [snapback]404000[/snapback]</div>

I suggest substituting the word if for the word when.

From what you have written in the recent past, that deposits are not placed in an escrow account, it would appear that this venture is severely under capitalized.

Remember the Bricklin SV-1? How about the De Lorean DMC-12? Both cars were developed by experienced auto industry executives and both failed due to financial reasons.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Mar 12 2007, 03:48 PM) [snapback]404455[/snapback]</div>

That's true, the Bricklin and the De Lorean both failed as companies. But both actually produced and sold cars.

My guess is that if Tessla fails, it will fail this way, after having produced and sold cars. They seem pretty serious and their roadsters are being built by Lotus, a real company that produces real cars.

That's no guarantee, of course.