May 13, 2004
TAX GAS, WE'LL CONVERT:
How I almost wrecked a $3.5 million car (Eric C. Evarts, 5/13/04, The Christian Science Monitor)
Driving in the future reminds me a lot of driving in the past.You'd think General Motors' Hy-wire - a fuel-cell concept car - would rewrite the book on driving, with itsfuturistic fuel and its video-game controls. But I haven't driven something this different - and difficult - since the time I sat behind the wheel of a well-preserved 1908 Ford Model T.
For starters, there is no traditional steering wheel in this $3.5 million marvel of technology - a feature that, it turns out, will make this test drive unlike any other.
What it does have, though, is a hydrogen-fuel system that emits only water and heat, an environmental benefit that many hope will make this baby the car of the future.
Of course, even optimists concede you won't see hydrogen-powered cars on the streets before 2010. Pessimists say it may be never.
For the moment, we have to content ourselves with concept cars. So when GM brought its Hy-wire to the Boston area last month, who could resist the chance to take the nonwheel? [...]
But whether anything like the Hy-wire is ever built on a commercial scale depends more on whether society can reinvent its energy usage than whether General Motors can reinvent the car.
Fuel cells create electricity through a chemical process that combines hydrogen and oxygen and produces water and electricity. Unlike internal combustion engines, fuel cells must have H2. Their only emissions are water and heat.
By themselves, hydrogen fuel-cell cars are about twice as efficient as today's gasoline internal combustion cars. However, other energy sources must be used to produce the hydrogen. Because the gas rarely occurs by itself in nature, it must be extracted from other elements. Some fuel-cell cars carry reformers that distill the gas out of methanol or gasoline. Not Hy-wire.
Sandwiched on its 18-inch "skateboard" between the floor and the bottom of the car are a cylindrical tank to store hydrogen, an air compressor to feed oxygen to the fuel cell, the 75-kilowatt fuel-cell stack, and the electric motor. (Almost any body can be bolted to the chassis.)
The Hy-wire requires a refueling truck loaded with hydrogen. In this case, hydrogen is produced from natural gas, one of the most readily available sources to produce hydrogen.
Another source is water. In an ideal world, hydrogen could be separated from water using only renewable energy. But if today's electric grid, powered mostly by coal and natural gas, is used to produce hydrogen from water, overall energy consumption per mile would be 25 percent greater than today's gas cars.
MORE:
To buttress recovery, more oil output urged (BRUCE STANLEY, 5/13/04, Associated Press)
Demand for oil is growing at its fastest rate in eight years, but the economic recovery could fizzle unless suppliers keep pace by drilling new wells and producing fresh crude, the International Energy Agency warned Wednesday. [...]Posted by Orrin Judd at May 13, 2004 9:06 AMThe growth in demand for crude continues to outstrip expectations, the International Energy Agency said in its monthly oil market report. Given China's thirst for imported oil and the soaring demand for gasoline and jet fuel in industrialized countries, the agency revised its 2004 demand forecast upward to 80.6 million barrels a day -- an increase of 2.5 percent over last year. World demand hasn't risen this fast since 1996, the agency said.
The IEA is the energy watchdog for rich oil-importing countries. Although it analyzes the supply and demand for crude, it avoids trying to predict prices.
Reviewing the price surge of recent months, the Paris-based agency said that geopolitical concerns in the Middle East, bottlenecks in the U.S. gasoline market and an increase in speculative buying of oil futures contracts have all had an effect.
Most important, however, has been the stingy output from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. By forcing importers to run down their oil inventories, OPEC has been the decisive factor in creating ''a market on steroids,'' the IEA argued.
Why can't the car just run on natural gas?
What is done with the by-product of the
natural gas cracking process that pulls
off the hydrogen?
Isn't hydrogen gas explosive? I have not seen any comment or explanation about lots of little Hindenburgs driving around on the roads.
Posted by: jim hamlen at May 13, 2004 10:31 AMJim:
Flammable, certainly, but it's really only explosive if the ratio of hydrogen and oxygen is just right; hydrogen is so light that a leak is actually less dangerous than a gasoline leak, as it will rapidly disperse upward.
The problem with the Hindenburg was not the hydrogen, but the skin. The original design had been modifed, and the the fabric skin had been waterproofed with a mixture including iron oxide, cellulose acetate and aluminum powder!
This doesn't change JH's point though; hydrogen is a battery technology, not a fuel. If we have cheap electricity (nuclear?) it makes sense, otherwise...
Posted by: mike earl at May 13, 2004 10:58 AMToo bad natural gas production is also headed down.
OJ is right though, a gas tax would encourage more conservation.
But wait, didn't Cheney say that conservation is useless? What will OJ's loyal hackery to the GOP do to his brain? I expect a similar scene from the old Star Trek when Kirk fooled some robots by saying "Mudd always lies," and then Mudd says, "I'm lying," and the robot's brain exploded.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at May 13, 2004 11:43 AMex-vice president cheney
Posted by: oj at May 13, 2004 12:22 PMWhat he really said was "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."
Short of a breakthrough in nuclear fusion or a willingness of the public to accept a return to use of large-scale nuclear fission, there are simply
no viable energy alternatives that can replace oil and gas.
But today, Personal Virtue (TM) -- i.e. "I'M HOLIER THAN THOU!" -- trumps everything. Like that predatory homosexual ehebephile years ago who got so Morally Righteous and sanctimonious about being anti-smoking.
("I thank thee, Lord, that I am not like other men...")
Posted by: Ken at May 13, 2004 4:41 PMThey deliberately made the car hard to drive to kill off the hydrogen contraption.
Or something.
Pretty funny.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at May 13, 2004 5:20 PMI wonder if these things will be any more dangerous than the hybrid cars already on the road. I just spent a week going through some training with a local volunteer fire department. They have all sorts of notices posted on how to respond to a crash involving a hybrid such as the Prius. Basically, these things are big batteries on wheels - all sorts of dangerous chemicals, plus high voltage (for a vehicle) wiring running through many of the pillars.
Some municipalities are asking people that buy these things to notify the fire department so that they can prepare in case they ever crash.
Posted by: Jason Johnson at May 13, 2004 7:16 PMThere is no current shortage of oil. This price bubble is a political, not a supply, effect that hopefully will succumb to market forces.
Not to say that we shouldn't make a Herculean effort to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Otherwise, prices will continue to rise in the future until we see the light. Whatever price the market will bear you know.
Posted by: genecis at May 13, 2004 10:12 PMGideon:
After reviewing Den Beste's objections, I agree... Unless one combines alternative energy schemes.
For instance, there's enough potential energy in the winds of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana to supply electricity to the entire US... If it could be cheaply transmitted.
And, of course, the wind blows when it will.
However, suppose that we build giant wind farms in the wastes of the upper mid-west, and use that electricity to produce hydrogen from water, whenever the wind blows.
Then, it's merely a matter of transporting the hydrogen to convenience stores, where we can fuel up our future-buggies.
Michael, there may be lots of wind in those states but not much water, and it's already called for.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at May 14, 2004 3:18 PMMichael H:
Really? I doubt there's terawatts of windpower available, but I might be wrong. Have a reference for that?
And don't forget the environmental impacts of massive windpower farms; they're already blocking deployment of one on the Cape here in MA...
The Internet is a rarish place. Today I find, at volokh.com, a reference to a Caltech study that a hydrogen fuel economy (no matter how derived) might be a threat to the ozone layer.
Tee hee.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at May 14, 2004 10:10 PMmike earl:
www.nrel.gov/wind/wind_potential.html is a great site, with a graph and map that illustrate well.
The Cape project is being blocked by NIMBY attitude, not out of any environmental concerns.
Harry:
The water is spoken for, but supplying America's fuel needs is likely to be far more lucrative than farming and ranching, (as Texas and Oklahoma can attest to), so I would expect that the water can be freed up for conversion to hydrogen.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at May 15, 2004 5:54 AM