DOE to Award $15.3M to 10 On-Board Hydrogen Storage R&D Projects
14 August 2008
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected 10 cost-shared hydrogen storage research and development projects to receive up to $15.3 million over five years, subject to annual appropriations.
The selected projects seek to develop hydrogen storage technologies to enable fuel cell vehicles to meet customer expectations for longer driving range and performance. The projects include development of novel hydrogen storage materials, development of efficient methods for regeneration of hydrogen storage materials, and approaches to increase hydrogen binding energies to enable room temperature hydrogen storage.
These projects will be part of DOE’s National Hydrogen Storage Project, which also includes three Centers of Excellence and other independent projects. DOE’s hydrogen storage activities for vehicles focus primarily on enabling a driving range of greater than 300 miles, within packaging and cost constraints.
DOE will negotiate the terms of 10 cost-shared projects currently planned for a total of approximately $18 million, with up to $15.3 million total government share, subject to annual appropriations, and $3 million applicant cost share. The organizations selected for negotiation of awards are:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, N.M.) Up to $2.3 million for a novel concept using an electric field to increase the hydrogen binding energy in hydrogen adsorbents.
Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.) Up to $2.2 million to design novel multi-component metal hydride-based mixtures for hydrogen storage.
Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.) Up to $1.3 million for novel hydrogen adsorbent materials with increased hydrogen binding energy through metal doping.
Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio) Up to $1.1 million for development of high capacity, reversible hydrogen storage materials using boron-based metal hydrides.
Pennsylvania State University (University Park, Pa.) Up to $1.5 million for development of novel nanoporous materials for use as hydrogen adsorbents.
US Borax Inc. (Greenwood Village, Colo.) Up to $600,000 for development of a high-efficiency process for the regeneration of spent chemical hydrogen carriers.
University of Missouri (Columbia, Mo.) Up to $1.9 million for development of boron-substituted, high-surface area carbon materials made from corncobs for use as hydrogen adsorbents.
University of Oregon (Eugene, Oregon) Up to $640,000 for novel boron and nitrogen substituted cyclic compounds for use as liquid hydrogen carriers.
University of California at Los Angeles (Los Angeles, Calif.) Up to $1.7 million for novel hydrogen adsorbent materials based on light metal impregnation for increasing hydrogen binding energies.
Sandia National Laboratories (Livermore, Calif.) Up to $2.0 million for development of materials with tunable thermodynamics through the stabilization of nanosized particles
"...up to $15.3 million over five years, subject to annual appropriations."
I hope the next administration puts LOTS more than this into everything for our renewable energy future.
Posted by: sjc | 14 August 2008 at 01:00 PM
These are just tiny little feeler grants to lucky shot in the dark stuff.. The main money is in other massive projects that are less talked about and more military in nature and we dont learn about those till we are allowed to.
Posted by: wintermane | 14 August 2008 at 04:50 PM
It looks like Los Alamos is getting back into cold fusion experiments. It would be more practical to fund cold-fusion experiments for making steam cars than to find a way to store hydrogen for fuel cells that will remain expensive. This money ought to be spent in improving either the energy density or the power density of ZEBRA batteries. Or it could be spent to reduce the production price so that plug-in-hybrid cars are more practical. The energy density of ZEBRA batteries may be greater than any available combination of fuel cell and hydrogen storage, but certainly the cost is far less.
Sodium and water might be the new energy transport mechanism to replace the hydrogen economy. Sodium can be pumped if it is the temperature of boiling water. A sodium-oxygen fuel cell could be invented, and water would allow the production of a sodium hydroxide solution to be deposited into tanks when more sodium and water is bought. Massive amounts of sodium could be made at every Pickens windmill when the power is not needed for charging PHEVs. Or perhaps a sodium- chlorine flow battery could be developed that would salt the roads in the winter time. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | 14 August 2008 at 10:28 PM
Policy Motivation Factoid: The W administration has always been hot on H fuel cells...because the primary way we manufacture hydrogen at this point in time is by extracting it from coal or gas.
Posted by: Bryan Seigneur | 14 August 2008 at 10:30 PM
Adding to my previous content...think about hydrogen. Think hard. Can you think of an efficient, low-impact method of retrieving it except the current hydrocarbon extraction methods? Only fantasy has allowed it to become a sort of savior. And it jives with the fusion fantasy (as of yet), since fusion will require a supply of hydrogen.
I've not read anything seriously supposing that using hydrogen for energy transport and storage is better than, say, electricity. I've only read of hopes. These hopes are very convenient for the fossil fuel industry.
Posted by: | 14 August 2008 at 10:38 PM
Continuing on my theme...I wonder if hydrocarbon fuel cells are more worthy of use than hydrogen fuel cells. I think they may be. Hydrogen at this point is detrimental to retrieve--you'll use more energy getting it than it contains; it's likely to be energy from gas or coal.
Fuel cell vehicles are already electricity driven, presumably making regenerative breaking easier to build in, saving fuel. So research into hydrocarbon fuel cell vehicles is legitimate, but maybe not hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Posted by: Bryan Seigneur | 14 August 2008 at 10:46 PM
I'm new here, just wanted to say hello and introduce myself.
Posted by: Unsernmon | 14 August 2008 at 10:56 PM
The hydrogen cars tested by car manufacturers are alresdy using 10 000 p.s.i compressed gazeous hydrogen and the autonomy for medium size fuelcell s.u.v are approx 350 miles, so why not let the manufacturers make theses researchs, it's already working normal at 350 miles. No need to pay for more researchs.
Posted by: a.b | 15 August 2008 at 07:36 AM
I absolutely love to see other engineers or engineer-wanna-bes (or engineers who haven't contributed anything modern to society in decades) discuss issues that have absolutely nothing to do with the reasoning of why customers would purchase a vehicle, how industry decides which technologies to undertake and fund, how government funding mechanisms work, what systems are politically appropriate, concepts such as 'diverse fuel source strategy', and other such 'real life' issues...
please don't stop.. it's like being at a first-year physics discussion group... all that idealism and back-of-the-napkin technology knowledge with little real-world relevance...
Posted by: Jer | 15 August 2008 at 09:41 AM
Sodium boro-hydride fuel schemes have been around for ten years or more. The problem then and now is once the H2 is extracted you've got a messy slurry left in your fuel tank. Impractical then and most likely now.
Posted by: Sulleny | 15 August 2008 at 02:11 PM
I've not read anything seriously supposing that using hydrogen for energy transport and storage is better than, say, electricity. I've only read of hopes. These hopes are very convenient for the fossil fuel industry.
Well, perhaps you haven't read any of my previous postings in this GCC forum.
@Jer,
Welcome to our discussion group, and perhaps you'll have more relevant and practical contributions to what are being posted here.
Posted by: Roger Pham | 15 August 2008 at 03:25 PM
I believe that the present administration renamed the PNGV program to Freedom Car and emphasized hydrogen to put the solution off into the distant future. If you actually had a diesel hybrid that seats 4 and gets 70 mpg, the oil company profits would not be as high. If you can convince people that the solution is 20-30 years away, they will accept the status quo and the oil industry continues to make a ton.
Posted by: sjc | 26 August 2008 at 10:06 AM
Ahead I get to that similarity, it should be muricate out that in the postpone superior to before, the Dell’s “$1,432” bonus is after $650 in diversified Dell discount/coupon finaglings. Granted, Internet shopping geeks (and I cogitate on myself to be one, so that’s not an libel) whim be skilled to bring to light a Dell coupon rather most, but your conventional consumer? And balance out then, this one’s a whopper—it’s not on numerous occasions that you can buy a $2,100 computer for less than $1,500. So I’m thriving to look at continuous honorariums and then let you do the “coupon math” at the end.
(It should also be distinguished that the total in this article was based on Dell’s bonuss on a discrete day ultimately week. As anyone who has done grave haggle-hunting on the Dell Web orientation knows, honorariums transform circadian—requite by the hour and minute.)
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Posted by: blemboymn | 26 August 2008 at 02:44 PM