GM serious about fuel cell vehicles

outsideroutsider
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
<a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/fuelcellcars.html"; target="_blank">http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.08/fuelcellcars.html</a>;



Wired has an extremely interesting article about a new initiative on GM's part to build the car of the future. They have some innovative ideas and I hope they have much luck.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    ... And just how are they producing fuel for these fuel cell? (ans: Oil) <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



    All these "solutions" don't fundamentally change the equation. They need hydrocarbons. And that means OIL.



    Our energy (brain power) would be put into better use developing higher efficiencies for solar energy. Everything else, is just another expensive band-aid solution.
  • Reply 2 of 17
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Photovoltaics still require a lot of energy and toxic chemicals to manufacture. Wind power and hydroelectric solutions would present even more basic solutions...the power of a wave or a breeze is already abstracted from solar energy in a way.
  • Reply 3 of 17
    glurxglurx Posts: 1,031member
    When I can drive non-stop from the Bay Area to LA down I-5 at 90mph, give me a call. Until then I'll stick with the internal combustion engine.
  • Reply 4 of 17
    progmacprogmac Posts: 1,850member
    this is a ploy ploy ploy. bush ditched a perfectly good clinton bill for fuel efficient cars and replaced it with no-deadline hoopla to make people feel better.



    ugh.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    ghost_user_nameghost_user_name Posts: 22,667member
    What about biodiesel? It could make a lot of US farmers happy. Why isn't the US gov pushing on that front? I hear canola oil is excellent for that.
  • Reply 6 of 17
    brbr Posts: 8,395member
    [quote]Originally posted by PC^KILLA:

    <strong>... And just how are they producing fuel for these fuel cell? (ans: Oil) <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />



    All these "solutions" don't fundamentally change the equation. They need hydrocarbons. And that means OIL.



    Our energy (brain power) would be put into better use developing higher efficiencies for solar energy. Everything else, is just another expensive band-aid solution.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Iceland is currently using geothermal energy to produce hydrogen and there are also projects in the design and trial phases that will use genetically engineered plants to produce hydrogen. I'll see If I can dig up these articles.



    Edit: Here are the articles...

    <a href="http://www.worldpress.org/europe/0123iceland.htm"; target="_blank">Iceland</a>

    <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/hydrogen000222.html"; target="_blank">Plants</a>



    [ 07-19-2002: Message edited by: BR ]</p>
  • Reply 7 of 17
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Any of these fuel cells can be easily adapted for use with any fuel with hydrogen (ethanol, methanol, etc.). With no pollution. I agree the answer is to totally cut off any oil consumption from the middle east. America needs to be the number one country in LOW emissions, not high emissions.
  • Reply 8 of 17
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Instead of making a new thread I'll just resurrect an old one. I found this article today on foxnews and it has some interesting comments:



    <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,60070,00.html"; target="_blank">http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,60070,00.html</a>;
  • Reply 9 of 17
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Whatever happened to the purely hydrogen-based fuel cell technologies that had as its only by-product, water?



    Also, I think the idea of making fuel cells that run purely on hydrogen and say ethonol (made from corn) is an excellent one. They should develop and refine the possibilities for this type of thing as much as possible. The day when we so much as cut our OPEC oil consumption in half, is the day they will have to seriously reconsider their place in the world and their resultant behavior.



    If their revenues were cut in half, things might get worse in terms of terrorism and the like before they would get better. But in the long run, the arab nations will be much better off for not depending on oil because it will force them to develop their economies in other ways. That would require a more educated workforce ... which in turn tends to greatly reduce things like terrorism.



    [Amazing to think of how something as simple as a new power cell can conceivably change the world as we know it - ecologically, politically, and economically.]



    [ 08-10-2002: Message edited by: Moogs ]</p>
  • Reply 10 of 17
    scott_h_phdscott_h_phd Posts: 448member
    [quote]Originally posted by Moogs:

    <strong>Whatever happened to the purely hydrogen-based fuel cell technologies that had as its only by-product, water?</strong><hr></blockquote>



    That's what GM is working on.



    [quote]Originally posted by Moogs:

    <strong>Also, I think the idea of making fuel cells that run purely on hydrogen and say ethonol (made from corn) is an excellent one. </strong><hr></blockquote>



    I don't know? Do we grow enough corm to power the driving needs of the US? I really don't know but I doubt it.
  • Reply 11 of 17
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    [EDIT]



    Sorry. Didn't realize whats-his-name was referring to how the hydrogen is extracted currently. That would of course defeat the whole point, but can't hyrdogen be produced / extracted from many other chemical proecsses besides those requiring fossil fuels?



    There was mention of platinum as one of the catallitic requirements. That's another major obstance obviously but again I have to think if more scientists were charged with finding a solution to this problem, we'd find them pretty quick. The more minds at work on it, the sooner the obstacles will fall.



    As for the ethanol question, I seriously doubt there would be any corn shortage - we plant far more than we can eat and export, that's for sure. A lot of it ends up as livestock food. I'm sure whether or not we could grow enough would depend mostly on the efficiency of the conversion methods. How many ears per gallon? The land required to grow our "fuel" wouldn't be a problem unless the conversion process was really inefficient (in which case I doubt anyone would suggest it until that was no longer the case).



    [ 08-11-2002: Message edited by: Moogs ]



    [ 08-11-2002: Message edited by: Moogs ]</p>
  • Reply 12 of 17
    wyntirwyntir Posts: 88member
    The idea of gas burning (but yet mindbogglingly fuel-efficient) fuel cell cars is that you can actually drive them. (Try finding a hydrogen pipeline in your neighborhood.) They figure once everyone switches to (gas powered) fuel cells, there'll be more of an incentive to build hydrogen distribution infrastructure, plus it'll be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy to switch the cars to pure H2. So overall it's a great plan. As opposed to say hybrid cars which won't run without gas, not for love or money.
  • Reply 13 of 17
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    It's a chicken and egg thing. Some major things that need to be addressed before BP and Citgo start selling hyrdogen:



    1. There has to be a cheap way to mass-produce hydrogen that does not require fossil fuels - except maybe where the production plant's machinery is concerned.



    2. The engineers have to figure out a way to take things like platinum out of the equation to bring the cost of the cars down (though I don't believe they have to be "cheap" to sell well).



    3. Industry has to market the hell out of these things when they're ready in order to convince people that "you can be a "real" man and drive a hydrogen cell truck at the same time", etc. There has to be some sex appeal. This is the average, retahded American consumer we're talking about, after all.





    I don't think there will need to be pipelines at all. There will be refineries and from there hydrogen tankers will bring the fuel to the fuel stations. I can only imagine what one of todays tankers filled with hydrogen would do if it exploded on a freeway, but perhaps there will be a way to keep the fuel relatively stable during transport - chemical additive perhaps.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    scott_h_phdscott_h_phd Posts: 448member
    It's no so much as we don't grow a lot of corn as we burn a lot of fuel.
  • Reply 15 of 17
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    [quote]Originally posted by PC^KILLA:

    <strong>What about biodiesel? It could make a lot of US farmers happy. Why isn't the US gov pushing on that front? I hear canola oil is excellent for that.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I'll post up a few studies on that subject a little later (I also just finished one on the viability of alternative fuel sources too but it isn't being released at the current time) but by and large biodiesel isn't any more sustainable an option than current fossil fuels. There is a very substantial cost from the agriculture involved and frankly there are far better alternatives.



    I'll go into some detail a little later and post up a few government commisioned studies on the subject for anyone wants to read them. I warn you in advance by memory they are around 200 - 500 pages each.
  • Reply 16 of 17
    moogsmoogs Posts: 4,296member
    Scott: I followed what you were saying (about the consumption level being too high). I was just countering that with the possibility that an efficient conversion process would probably be the answer, given how much corn we could grow for these purposes.





    Telomar: Are you actually involved in these studies yourself, or are you just planning to share ones you've read with us for posterity?



    PS - great signature.
  • Reply 17 of 17
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    [quote]Originally posted by Moogs:

    <strong>Telomar: Are you actually involved in these studies yourself, or are you just planning to share ones you've read with us for posterity?



    PS - great signature.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I was involved in a study commissioned for one of the large energy companies (they try to advertise themselves as energy companies rather than oil companies now) that targeted the local viability of biodiesel as a substitute fuel source compared to a range of alternatives and whether it was worth the investment. That study hasn't been publicly released as yet.



    These studies I am posting up are basically what we looked at before we ever began. It's always a good beginning to know what is already out there. We then localised it and expanded certain areas and determined our own lifecycle costs.



    <a href="http://www.dar.csiro.au/publications/Beer_2001a.pdf"; target="_blank">Study 1</a>



    <a href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/issues_trends/altfuelmarkets.html"; target="_blank">Study 2</a>



    <a href="http://www.afdc.doe.gov/pdfs/3813.pdf"; target="_blank">Study 3</a>



    That's a few. They aren't perfect but they will give you an idea of what is out there and what the various concerns are.



    It's worth mentioning one of the things with trying to study alternative fuel sources is it is quite difficult to really pick distinct winners between some fuels. One may excel in a certain area but do poorly elsewhere and depending how you weight each impact category you can attain vastly different results. Very often deciding what fuels to target for development is a case of how much emphasis lies on certain impact areas for that locale.



    In the case of Biodiesel the major concern was from eutrification. Develop better fertilisers and all of a sudden it could become vastly more appealing.



    Edit: Oh and thanks



    [ 08-12-2002: Message edited by: Telomar ]</p>
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