By 2015, the Battery Electric Vehicle will have been demonstrated in Israel, Denmark, Portugal, and be introduced in Japan.

Any Hydrogen Car will need to compete with this, and as efficiency is at best 50% of what the BEV achieves, it is unlikely to be a good investment.

How very nice that they've agreed. Do you think consumers will agree?

If there's any place hydrogen vehicles can make a go of it, it'll be in Japan with its high population density. I hope it works out - competing technologies battling it out can only help the consumer in the long run.

When consumers in 2015 can no longer afford $12-$15/gal gasoline they'll be falling over them selves in agreement.

Chief among the problems with producing H2 is it takes a high pressure tank, about 6,200 psi that fills the trunk space of a car to provide the equivalent of 4 gallons of gasoline. The range would therefore be about 200 miles if you have a 50 mpg car.

H2 is mainly produced by reforming fossil fuel, i.e., nature gas... hello oil companies! The necessary electrical power to produce H2 by electrolysis and compress it into a liquid is many times the power the H2 will produce when used in the car...so why not use the electricity to directly charge batteries instead. Every process you use to convert power from one form to another costs you in overall efficiency. Me thinks the slowness of bringing BEVs to market is acually being slowed by money misdirected to develop H2 cars.

The Honda FCX costs as much as a Tesla. With all they
have to do to get a Hydogen economy established, BEVs
are the best bet short-term *and* long-term. The grid
is there now. 1st generation BEVs are here now. Use the
H2 in power plants producing electricity. Localize it.

garth: by 2015 consumers will be falling over themselves to buy PHEVs and BEVs. H2 will be relegated to range extenders and niche applications. The only way H2 will win out is if enough very large and powerful companies ram it down our throats (which they are/will try)

@ garth,

If fossil fuels are that expensive what price do you think H2 derived fossil will be? Likely the price of fossil fuels wil be declining at that time, as demand for fossil falls.

Our so-called environMENTAL community won't be asserting the need for high temperature assisted electrolysis, so H2 perforce, must come from prodigious consumption of fossil.

My attitude is to always let a bunch of technologies bloom, and the world will select the winner(s) from the choices.

It did so in Henry Ford's time. He predicted farm grown alcohols would power the Model T, and gasoline won, while eliminating the steam and electric possibilities too.

H2 FCEVs are a loser in that 2015 time frame. Its just not practical on a large scale, although some prototypes and concept vehicles could certainly be created.

Eventually in the far distant future we might need a prime mover source for very large vehicles, perhaps. As battery powered vehicles are unlikely to store enough energy, for such applications.

So a chemical based energy source might be required. At that far distant time a H2 FCEV will still not suffice, but a a converter for a liquid alcohol and a FCEV powered locomotive or heavy truck, might work.

But that is a long, long way off. Besides if you use a carbon liquid like alcohol, why not just make a diesel fuel, it would be a lot simpler and cheaper.

To make lots of H2 cheaply, without fossil, requires either GEN IV nukes; that I or many others, will never support. Or Fusion, which will certainly come, but not for a couple of decades. There the question of 'if' have been resolved now; and it is only a matter to time until 'when' is answered.

The GEN IV nukes don't exist except as paper concepts; and the earliest time frame for a real build-able GEN IV fission plant in the late 2020s. About the time Fusion designs will also be developed.

Even then doing electrolysis at the melting temperature of mild steel, is still iffy, as a paying proposition.

In short this is eyewash and a cover all bases exercise.

This is a time of technical, commercial, and political turmoil in mobile energy storage, reminiscent of one hundred years ago when at the turn of the twentieth century, steam, electric and gasoline competed to power the first cars.

All the stake holders are placing their bets on the successor to fossil fuel. Each candidate technology is deeply flawed and is awaiting a breakthrough that will turn the competition in its direction.

The Japanese are trying to push the hydrogen option by brute force; once established, gradually improving the technology so that it reaches an acceptable level.

The Japanese culture takes a technology and improves it in small increments until it is first in class to the exclusion of all the other contenders.

The many member companies of the FCCJ board produce gas and they see a new market for the product line.

Efficiency is not a priority as long as they can turn the course of events their way and get a foothold in this huge future transportation market.

The auto company members will back all horses until a clear winner emerges.

But if and when that breakthrough does come, it will cause a major dislocation of all these bets that have been placed by the various and sundry stakeholders as well as the fossil fuel giants.

A mad scramble to acquire the rights to the golden patents will ensue to either develop the breakthrough technology or to kill it.

Battles reminiscent of the early telephone and electric light industries will erupt but with far greater ferocity and far greater consequence for our future.

We will all watch this battle with much emotion, opinion, and interest to see how our world turns out in the future.

From the major companies involved I can see oil companies, gas companies, and motor companies. If their scenarios become true, I can see the doubling or tripling of natural gas prices, which would be devastating to the regular folks on the street.

@LuLu

Agreed.

Any commodity that gets entangled in the transportation energy sector will explode in price: e.g. food. Now, gas tracks oil but at a slight discount. This discount will vanish if the entanglement increases.

@stan

Thank you for signing your post.

By doing that, I can judge that your political and social ideology distorts your proper analysis of the current scene.

Another truism that I think applies is that great age does not guarantee wisdom.

Let me take you aside like a kindly professor correcting a confused student.

If fossil fuels are that expensive what price do you think H2 derived fossil will be? Likely the price of fossil fuels wil be declining at that time, as demand for fossil falls

The study rise in the price of fossil fuels is paralleled be the steady rise of the car culture in Asia. A political calculation of the Chinese government to keep the Chinese people diverted and happy is to makes priority investments in auto infrastructure and fuel subsidies. This suppy side pressure will force a continuing escalation of fossil fuel prices into the indeterminate future.

I will correct more points from your post as time permits; it is a huge job!

Don't worry, Hydrogen will win not just because im pusching for that but mainly because it can be produced in ulimited quantity for cheap. The best is to produce it from water electrolysis in-board the car or the building if it's an electrical producing machine. It can be produce too by various other means too with water and catalysts like ammonia or aluminium powder and gallium or even algae bio-reactor. Hydrogen will never be transported because it can be produced anywhere near the place we use it. A lot of business opportunities have been abandon when they discover the cheapness of producing it so they cannot charge too much money for it. The best is to put the hydrogen producing machine on-board the car like genepax a few dollar compagny, LOL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb9urNUFzAM

@stan

My attitude is to always let a bunch of technologies bloom, and the world will select the winner(s) from the choices.

It did so in Henry Ford's time. He predicted farm grown alcohols would power the Model T, and gasoline won, while eliminating the steam and electric possibilities too.

Your attitude might have been formed at the time of Henry Ford when you were young, but it does not conform to the reality of the current business scene.

Microsoft (your oft quoted example of antitrust principals in past rants) demonstrates that the best technology seldom prevails in this world.

First, ingenious business tactics applied a just the right time to gain an edge; next that edge is gradually built upon until a dominant tactical commercial position is achieved. That is what wins the day in business.

The decision of the world has nothing to do with anything, regrettably.

I know that this fact is foreign from your idealistic and noble world view.

An how do you plan on bring down the price of the fuel cell ?
The best hydrogen would be used for will be commerical transportation eg trucking.

HFCVs are needed today.

They should focus on a bare minimum of the modern era comforts to reduce draw on electricity. Make it an open architecture so 3rd parties can bring in stereo, CD, microwave, toaster, coffee, hands-free phones, laptop for passengers, ditto for HDTV reception (US goes all HDTV in Feb 2009), ...

Make it cheap.
Produce in volume. Maybe an Internet order placed from Home, and then verified at a Dealer where you pick it up. Market this well in advance of Production start, offer Prizes (like a free HFCV top prize), but keep the buyin down low so many can afford it.

What came with the Henry Ford Model A when he introduced it? I think back then they opened the window for "air conditioning". Carry your own portable boom box or radio etc. Skip the eating in the car. Turn off the phones... Get real...

As for Hydrogen infrastructure in the US, wait for it. When a sufficient number of vehicles can be forecast, it will come.

First up would probably be one of those Road Rescue Vehicles that responds to about everything including towing or putting on a trailer bed etc. Need a mobile unit design that delivers Hydrogen Gas to stranded HFCVs that ran out of gas.

Best to see that one in an HFCV format where it can deliver a lot more Hydrogen to stranded HFCVs than use in it's own system. A home base for such a rescue unit could be a small business strategically located or at a Dealer location.

All Dealers should have a requirement for Hydrogen Gas supplies. Whether they buy the equipment to convert Water (H2O) into Hydrogen Gas or not is up to them.

Do you remember the official Japanese targets for FCVs? It was 50,000 FCVs, on the road, by 2010. Not sure if that target is still mentioned anymore, but it certainly was just a few years ago.

In 2013, we'll be 2 years away from 2015, and as close to the Hydrogen Dream as we are close to 50,000 FCVs today...

That is the (sad) truth about hydrogen. Luckily we have more alternatives now.

If you believe "Who Killed The Electric Car," you will believe that the H2 car was introduced by the auto and oil companies as a "red herring" to divert funding from the development of the Zero Emissions Vehicle requirements issued by CARB, that is, plug in battery electric vehicles. It seems to me that had the project not been killed, GM and the other American car makers would be seated in the first row of an audience of "cat bird seats" by now.

Lets not repeat bad history and be diverted again by H2 cars from development of direct electric mass transportation, trains, and battery transportation, cars. I think our future energy needs will be met mostly by electric drive transportation and powered by solar devices locally or on the grid.

Both batteries and hydrogen are pain in the b.u.t.t technologies.

Their concept and promise are good but when it comes to using them, they stink. Remember, the first DOS computers, they were fine when they were up, but they failed all the time and lost your data.

I don’t think the average car driver will put up with it, at least in the beginning. Something better will come along, at least I hope so.

@stan
So a chemical based energy source might be required. At that far distant time a H2 FCEV will still not suffice, but a a converter for a liquid alcohol and a FCEV powered locomotive or heavy truck, might work.

Rail will be electrified.

Heavy truck companies and air lines will enter into long term coal to liquid deals, to the dismay of my environMENTAL sympathies.

@Stan
To make lots of H2 cheaply, without fossil, requires either GEN IV nukes; that I or many others, will never support. Or Fusion, ....

The GEN IV nukes don't exist except as paper concepts; and the earliest time frame for a real build-able GEN IV fission plant in the late 2020s. About the time Fusion designs will also be developed.

GEN IV fission plants are perfectly safe in the dessert next to were they tested the A-bombs in the 50’s. They don’t need cooling water and can be air cooled even in the middle of the hot desert.

The enabling technology is HVDC grid connection and hydrogen pipelines.

That being said, the time and capital to get hydrogen off the ground will be a drag on the FCEV.

The “breakthrough” is almost at hand so why waist all that GEN IV effort.

Fusion progress is a function of government support so don't get your hopes up.

This is pure bullshit

this programm focuses on pushing the fuel cell which is not the problem of an H2 ecomomy

- you don't need a fuel cell for an H2 economy since a ICE run on H2 as clean and as efficiently as a fuel cell with an existing technology.

- the problem of an H2 economy is again production, distribution and storage of H2 as well as well to wheel efficiency. None of these problems have a satisfying solution today so an H2 economy won't happen anytime soon if ever.

So promoting the developpement of H2 powered solely based on the progress of fuel cell is useless and costly distraction for japanese who have too many engineer that they don't know how to keep busy.

Reference:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=can-hydrogen-replace-gas

Excerpt:

But right now 95 percent of the hydrogen available in the U.S. is either extracted from fossil fuels or made using electrolytic processes powered by fossil fuels, thus negating any real emissions savings or reduction in fossil fuel usage. Only if renewable energy sources—solar, wind and others—can be harnessed to provide the energy to process hydrogen fuel can the dream of a truly clean hydrogen fuel be realized.

Stanford University researchers in 2005 assessed the environmental effects of three different hydrogen sources: coal, natural gas, and water electrolysis powered by wind. They concluded that we’d lower greenhouse gas emissions more by driving gasoline/electric hybrid cars than by driving fuel cell cars run on hydrogen from coal. Hydrogen made using natural gas would fare a little bit better in terms of pollution output, while making it from wind power would a slam-dunk for the environment.

This article should be good news for all environmentalists.
Concrete steps and clear-cut agenda are being set for mass adaptation of the Hydrogen economy in the very near future.

BEV enthusiasts/promoters should not despair! There will be room for BEV to prosper as well, if the factories can crank out enough battery packs to satisfy looming demands. So far, they can't as yet.

Whether the H2 will come from fossil sources, waste biomass, nuclear, or solar or wind, the market and/or the carbon tax or future-carbon-reduction acts or laws will decide. Whether Fuel cells or H2-ICE, the technology in the near future and the market will see to it that the most practical will be adapted.

But, the most important idea is Hydrogen, like Diamond, will be FOREVER. Once the transition to H2 will be made, our energy future will be secure. It will be pollution-free, at least at the point of consumption, like in a busy inner city wherein smogs and fumes and CO can wreak havoc on people's health.

Let's cheer, everyone!