Hydrogen cars show clean, green transport closer to reality

BRUCE MCMAHONTHE
SEPTEMBER 25, 2014
AUSTRALIAN

A hydrogen fuel station in California. Source: Supplied
HYDROGEN-fuelled, electrically powered vehicles developed by Toyota, Honda and Hyundai are ready to roll into mainstream showrooms abroad, bringing to life the prospect of clean, green transport.
In fuel-cell vehicles, or FCVs, a simple chemical reaction between oxygen and hydrogen, stored at 10,000 psi on-board, produces electricity to drive the electric motor. There is no internal combustion engine, no bank of batteries, and just clean water exhausted.
Despite issues with refuelling infrastructure and costs, FCVs are the right solution at the right time, says Scott Samuelsen, director of the US National Fuel Cell ­Research Centre.
Professor Samuelsen accepts that the combustion process, which turns fuel-bound energy into thermal energy, has provided useful power for 80 per cent of the world’s transportation and power generation for decades.
“It’s been a very reliable and effective soldier for more than 100 years in driving living standards, lifestyles and economies,” he says.
But this process has also given us carbon emissions and greenhouse gases, some 90 per cent of the world’s pollutants. And it also uses around 90kg of oxygen per tank of fuel, he says.
The 1980s energy crisis, ­climate change discussions since the 1990s and the 9/11 attacks have driven the American push for alternative fuel sources for transport, industry and homes.
Fuel cells date back to 1842 but there was little development until the 1950s-1960s space age, when the power source became a perfect fit for space exploration, with potable water a byproduct. “[Today] there’s no question car companies are driving fuel cell technology,” Professor Samuelsen says at the University of California’s Irvine campus.
“It goes back to the late 1980s and the realisation that petrol was finite. They recognised more than any politician that their future and the future of the car is this future [fuel cells].
“It’s kind of the only business model which will survive for a ­vehicle production company.”
FCVs, he says, are 66 per cent efficient at releasing energy from fuel compared with a petrol engine’s 16 per cent efficiency and electric-petrol hybrids — and hydrogen-burning combustion engines — at 32 per cent.
They take fuel and air and through one step of electrochemistry (thanks to an electrolyte, cathode and anode) produce a DC current to drive an electric motor. No exhaust emissions aside from water and nitrogen. And no noise.
Other attributes include a possible 640km range, tank refuelling in less than five minutes and a range of vehicle sizes and styles. “This technology is … effectively an electric vehicle with an extended range that we’re used to today with our gasoline engine.”
Toyota’s 100kW FCV sedan, costing around $72,000 (before any subsidies), goes on sale in Japan within the next 12 months and in California, Germany and perhaps the UK next year. It should average 88km for one kilo of hydrogen at a mandated price of $9.60 per kilogram.
It’s understood Hyundai, with a hydrogen-fuelled SUV, and Honda will soon have FCVs to market. Toyota has two more models in the pipeline.
Fuel cells are already used across the US to power forklifts and some buses. Stationary fuel cell applications include hospitals and a casino in Connecticut with an operating efficiency of 92 per cent in winter when steam exhausted from the fuel cell is used for heating.
Studies of California’s refuelling needs have found that motorists, given cars with better fuel consumption, would need just 15 per cent of current filling stations. Professor Samuelsen says in the real world it’d be more like 30-35 per cent.
There are plans in California for the provision of 68 hydrogen stations to allow FCV drivers to get around the state with confidence; that number is considered the tipping point for private ­investment to take over.