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GM Investing in Fuel Cells
artemis67 writes "MSNBC is reporting that GM is getting ready to invest heavily in hydrogen fuel cell technology, believing that it is the way to go to increase fuel economy and reduce emissions. They believe their cars can go 500 miles without refueling, and possibly create their own hydrogen by chemically converting (not combusting) gasoline. The article can be found at MSNBC." Of course, the financial details aren't given in terms of dollars, but when the largest automaker recognizes that a seachange is coming, that's something to note. Or, they could be hedging their bets. Yeah. Probably the latter.
CA, and some other states have a low or zero emission requirement. Anyone that sells more then X cars must sell some small percent that have very little or no emissions.
In my opinion the law is flawed in that electricity is assumed to have zero emissions, rather then a guess at the emissions required to produce the electricity (which may be more then some extreamly efficient gas cars). The Honda gas/electric car for example is assumed to pollute more then the EV1 even though it probably pollutes less.
Anyway the Fuel Cells may well be looked at as a way to meet the low/zero emission laws, and not as a replacement for gas. Of corse if people like the fuel cell cars then that may change. Well, like them for the price they can be produced. The EV1 was liked by a fair number of people (it had a ton of torque), but GM leased it for about $30k, it cost them more like $60k to make them. People would have to like them a whole lot to pay $60k for them!
Actually the law is more flawed then that, but I don't generally like new (or old!) laws anyway.
P.S. yes I do find it ironic that CA has "electric car laws", and is sticking to them in the face of an electricity crisis, but the electric car laws don't actually require electric cars (they are strongly tilted towards them though)
You sound like a stereotypical caricature of a republican: don't give a fuck, long as it makes a buck. Sad, because some republicans care.
A single childs footprint in a 120x120 piece of real estate... Wow, that's small... No. The ANWR is huge. The result is a big-ass footprint. And unlike a child's shoe tread, this footprint is going to be a stinking, filthy, contaminated cesspool of pollution, disrupting the lives of wildlife all around. So I wouldn't see much human presence. How much would I hear? Or smell? It doesn't take much drilling to be drilling the fuck out of something.
And what makes you think it will stop there? Considering that the amount of drilling there is now zero, I observe an alarming trend. And since the oil industry has done such a great job with the coastal plain, I'm sure they'll do a great job preserving the AWNR.
Not that you'd give a shit, and neither would Neal Boortz. Well, I would. I've been to Alaska. I've been to the refuge. And when I go back, I don't want to see a damn oil drill there. How long till someone finds something valuable in Yellowstone?
I'm sure the locals would love the jobs. If I knew a way to give them jobs without drilling, I would. I don't. Sad. But this isn't just about them. I'm not telling them what is best for them. It isn't, in the short term anyway. But what, you think they are the only ones this decision will affect? I'm not saying what's best for them. What I'm telling everyone who will listen is: "Hey, cut it out, or we're all fucked."
What's the lesson of California? Have you ever been to LA? You ever been a few miles out of LA, and not been able to see the damn city? It's fucking disgusting. Or Gary, Indiana, which you can tell when you are driving past by the smell. And it had to get that bad before they started to open their eyes and say "gee, this is kinda fucked."
The answer isn't to expand "present" energy sources. Those sources will be gone soon, ANWR drilling or not. We need to change our methods, and attitudes, or we will be living like our ancestors. And like or not, you will be too.
The enemies of Democracy are
If all you want is a fast quarter mile, electric cars can already do it: modern electrical engines have enormous amounts of torque, and you can simplify the powertrain by moving the motors out near the wheels, saving weight and making it even faster.
1 2, 00.html
The problem is range, but hopefully fuel cells can solve that problem.
People are already making electric dragsters that are seriously fast:
http://www.wired.com/news/topstories/0,1287,119
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
The following is a quote from a well established nationally recognized synicated talkshow host.
Wait... You're using a talk radio host as a source? And I bet you think you're a free thinker, too! "You are all individuals!" "Yes, we are all individuals!"
Mooo, cow, mooooo. Follow the herd. Liberals: Bad. Conservatives: Good. Always. And they're not "environmentalists" they're "environmentalist weirdos." Use the right language, for Big Radio insists on it. Mooooo, cow.
Wow, I disagree with the Republican Party on some key issues! I must be a libruhl! Bwahahahahaa. Morons.
The thing about you Freeper clones is that you really are easy targets. I get this guilty kind of pleasure from fucking with you guys.
- Rev.No kidding. Personally, I think they should set up an offshore rig and hire Burns Slant Drilling Co. to get at the oil. Then the pretty animals can run around freely, and we get our oil! It's win-win!
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It seems to me that an ideal solution would be to build a shitload of nuclear reactors, use the electricity generated to power the grid as well as electrolyse water into hydrogen and oxygen, and retrofit current gas stations to handle hydrogen. Fitting fuel cells into cars just adds an unnecessary step, since the eventual goal invariably seems to be to have gas stations serving hydrogen anyway.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Back in the late 70's the Big-3 were having fun producing big muscle cars and fuel economy was not a factor in design or in the forecasting. Most Americans laughed at the Hondas and Toyotas. Then the fuel crisis hit and the Japanese carmakers were suddenly taken seriously by the consumers.
Shortly afterward, the Big-3 made feeble attempts to compete with the Japanese automakers. The Big-3 got through the tough times, but it sure wasn't pretty.
Now it is the really early 90's. The economy is on the rise, gas prices are stable, things are good. Ford throws an SUV chassis onto a pickup frame and the Explorer is born. It is featured in Jurassic Park and suddenly everyone wants one.
The next thing you know, the 'Bigger is Better' mindset catches on. By now, the mid to late 90's are here, the internet is booming, the stock market is great and gas prices are still pretty good! The Suburbans, Tahoes, Expeditions, Excursions etc are the hot thing for the soccer-moms now cuz everyone has one. 9 MPG is the standard, but nobody cares!
Meanwhile, silently Honda and Toyota R&D are working on this concept. It is a hybrid system that will allow a car to use both a gas and electricity. 60 - 80 MPG is the projected outcome. Most scoff at the lack of power and the unrealistic use of this type of car.
Then the bottom falls out. The market goes down, an oil tycoon gets elected, and OPEC thinks that we need a reality-check. The economy settles down, the gas prices skyrocket, Explorers are flipping like hotcakes instead of selling like hotcakes and suddenly the $50,000 SUV that gets 9 MPG is not the best idea.
At the same time, the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius take to the market. Yes, they are small. Yes, they are not speedsters. Yes, they are $20,000 and get unprecedented fuel mileage.
Now, Ford and GM harp up. "Hey, we are working on these nice little fuel-cell technologies. We rule!"
Sounds a little like GM's 'Impact' concept car from the mid-80's to me. That never materialized, nor will this. It is just history repeating itself... so don't worry. Perhaps after you pay off the Excursion you can get a loan to buy a Peterbuilt or Kenworth... just maybe.
Well, that is just my take on the situation. Just some guy from Detroit.
The article goes on to say that 'Big Oil' is really pushing the on-board gasoline reformer technology as it would make very little difference to their bottom line, but people would think it is environmentally friendly. The relevent parts are:
'Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.' B. Pascal
You can't quote a size of an oil reserve without quoting the price that the reserve was estimated at. All oil reservoirs have huge quantities of "marginal" oil that cannot be economically recovered at $12/bbl oil, but CAN be economically recovered at $25/bbl. Remember that the estimate made in 1970 would have been done on an oil price that bears no relation to today's price.
Another problem with this "we are running out of oil" cry is that new technology makes oil available that was considered garbage only a couple of decades ago. I just spent 6 months doing engineering work on a 150k bbl/day oilsand mine in northern Alberta... this mine has a 30 year life (at US$12/bbl oil). Only 20 years ago, this deposit would not have been included in the inventory of available oil because the technology to recover it didn't exist.
At this moment the oil supply is quickly using up the $10/bbl supplies, is tapping much of the $20/bbl supplies, but hasn't touched the $30/bbl supplies. When the cheaper stuff is used up, whole new inventories of expensive oil will appear (get your gasoline charge card ready!). At that crude price, the alternatives to gasoline are beginning to look attractive (read alcohol, coal gasification, etc) and they will begin to take market share from crude oil.
Regarding fuel cells:
Remember that 76% of the US energy consumption comes from oil and coal (Mining Engineering, May 2001, pp40-41). If people want to run electric fuel cells in their vehicles, those cells are likely going to consume power generated by coal.
All a fuel cell does is convert your car from a gasoline burner, to a coal burner!
-AD
Assuming the world, and importantly the US as a major consumer, becomes more energy efficient than lowered demand could string inexpensive energy out for a long time. But more than a decade of US gas prices not rising (actually falling if you adjust dollars for inflation, 1.25/gal 2 years ago was cheaper than 0.25/gal in the mid 60's) have encouraged waste and inefficiency.
A few friends have done or are planning electric or other alternatively powered vehicles, but for the most part, the average point of view seems to sum them up as freaks. We'll see how well GM's car moves if/when the new car sale requirements start to kick in in California (or a challenged and thrown out as toothless state laws which interfer with interstate commerce.)
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If this can be done with gasoline this will probably work. All those gas stations have to do something. But... I was thinking about this a couple days ago. Imagine how much money Texaco is worth in land value. Every gas station you see is in prime location.
And yes, you can blame the government and auto companies for "forcing" us to use Artic oil wells, but when someone turns off all their appliances, leaves their 65 degree house, gets in their SUV, drives to the 55 degree airport, boards a huge jet, flies to the Artic and takes a cruise on a huge cruise ship to "appreciate" nature, maybe we should look at our priorities. Using a ton of natural resources to go see them doesn't make alot of sense.
I for one got gas 6 times last year, get over 30 miles to the gallon and ride my bike/bus most everywhere. Conservation is the real short-term solution. People shouldn't keep using as much fuel as possible becuase there will be an alternative one day.
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Oh bother.
The following is a quote from a well established nationally recognized synicated talkshow host.
ROFLMAO! Neal Boortz?
For people who may be unfamiliar with this "man", he is the author of a "book" called The Terrible Truth About Liberals, wherein he accuses anybody who is left of far-right of wanting to confiscate all private property and kill children. Talk about perfecting the straw man argument. For you to suggest that Neal Boortz is an objective source of information and that he is well-versed in matters related to exploratory drilling is ludicrous; it is childish and borderline hateful. It hints at the mentality of an 8 year-old.
The drilling of ANWR will not involve just a single, tiny well in a secluded location. It will involve scores of them scattered throughout the region. It will require the absolute decimation of the landscape. The oil corporations will have to maintain large "kill fires" where the bodies of caribou and bears can be disposed of before they are photographed by the media. In short, it will turn one of America's most cherished national treasures into something out of a Mad Max movie; a post-apocalyptic wasteland that is a mere shadow of its former self. And for what? ANWR doesn't even contain enough oil to run all of the vehicles in the United States for a single day. But we'd better get drilling right away!
I do get a kick out of you accusing me of "falling hook, line, and sinker" for an "agenda" right after you get done quoting a Neal Boortz propaganda piece verbatim. Pot, kettle, black. At least my agenda doesn't involve the rape and pillage of the natural world, and it doesn't involve blaming environmentalists for a California problem that was caused by a right-wing deregulation fiasco of unimaginable proportions.
At any rate, this is all academic now, anyway. Now that we've got a Democratic Senate, drilling in ANWR is dead. It is dead. It's not gonna happen. You oil-worshippers will have to get your fix by putting poisoned water dishes in your backyards and videotaping squirrels in their death throes. The tragic thing is that the movement to preserve the environment used to be a Republican thing (conservationism; an attempt to preserve God's creation.) In recent years, their attitude has changed to "plunder God's creation so we can make as much money as possible." They may not realize the ultimate irony until it is too late.
For years now I've been hoping that somebody would put some serious effort into developing clean fuel technologies that would reduce our dependencies on fossil fuels and other polluting agents. If GM, one of the heavy hitters in the automotive world, is committed to this, that's great. But I have to admit that at this point in time, I'm a bit cynical. How long will it take for the Bush administration (both the President and Vice President are former oil executives are heavily indebted to Big Oil for getting elected) to put a stop to this? Will the Grand Oil Party sit back and watch this without trying to do something about it? Somehow I doubt it.
.. if he doesn't get ANWR full of oil derricks by 2003 he will be a one-term President.
.. are you ready to practice what you preach? Somehow I doubt it.
Bush has already announced his intent to drill the fuck out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. If technologies appear on the horizon that make oil appear less important, the public will be even less receptive to drilling than they already are. This will make it impossible for Bush to help his oil cronies set up lucrative oil wells up there. And if he pisses them off, look for huge repercussions in the 2002 and 2004 elections. For Bush, it's "do or die"
This is why "clean fuel" efforts will be fought to the death. It's interesting that this administration has pledged to take a "hands off of business" approach, and to not impose any more government regulations. Well, the proof is in the pudding, Dubya
Just out of interest, how many types of fuel do you get at a typical US gas station? In the UK, we have 3 or 4:
It's getting so you need a map of the station to pick the right pump. ;)
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
High prices wouldn't necessarily drive lower usage. In the UK, I pay GPB 0.8 a litre, or $4.97 a gallon. Prices in the UK have risen in real terms over the past decade, and yet our energy usage keeps increasing. We bitch about it, but we soon get used to it. We demand higher wages, we cut back elsewhere, we get our employers to pay, but we still keep driving our cars.
Why? Same story as in the US, I expect. Our public transport is privatised, unreliable and lousy (figuratively and literally). I can commute ten miles from my suburban home in comfort in 15 minutes, or can pay more to make a horrid 1.5 hour, 30 mile meandering trip via 2 busses and 2 trains, if they all feel like showing up that day. I could cycle, I suppose, but I can think of less painful ways of committing suicide.
On the other hand, our domestic energy isn't taxed anywhere near as harshly, so there's no incentive to insulate (other than token gubmint grants to the poorest peons).
It's all very frustrating. I'd like to make a difference, and I don't like being beaten with the fuel stick, but the alternative carrot is a pretty unappetising prospect.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Actually, in the 70's the warnings were for a LOT less than 40-50 years. In some cases, as little as 10. Once the panic calmed down, and OPEC made a few more billions, suddenly there seemed to be a lot of extra oil. New reserves were discovered, and things like the Alberta Tar Sands suddenly got a lot more viable. The sands have been estimated to have anywhere from 10, to as much as several HUNDRED years worth of the world's current oil use, it all hinges on being able to extract it for a reasonable cost.
After 20 years of cheap oil prices, the shieks and dictators in the middle east are a lot poorer than they want to be (20 years of near-constant warfare in a 3rd world country doesn't help many economies). Suddenly, OPEC cuts production - they don't even lie about it, claiming it's due to supplies getting low. Their official statements basically add up to 'we feel the prices are too low, so we're raising them', ie: WE WANT MORE MONEY AND THERE'S SWEET FUCK ALL THAT ANYONE CAN DO ABOUT IT. That's why they're called a 'cartel'.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
The problem with running on such hydrocarbons, at least as far as global warming is concerned, is that you're producing the CO2 at the vehicle tailpipe. This makes it difficult and expensive to do anything other than release it into the atmosphere.
Eh? Methanol itself comes from reforming (oxidizing) methane, then you have the same CO2 issue. You may be able to get rid of all nitrogen oxides and most hydrocarbons and CO, but you're not going to be able to deal with CO2 as effectively as you can with off-vehicle reforming.--
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Fission products have an inherent environmental advantage over most other poisons. The mercury from the coal plant, the lead in old house paint, the arsenic in your well water... these things are toxic forever. Fission products decay away! Even icky nasty plutonium decays back to uranium with a maximum half-life of less than 25,000 years; if you can put it someplace where it can't leak out for a million years, 40 half lives will have passed and only a trillionth will remain.
There are a few fission products that last millions of years, like technetium-99. The anti-nukes raise this like a banner, but they don't tell you these two important things:
- An element with a half-life of a million years is 100,000 times less radioactive than one with a half-life of ten years. In other words, it takes a whole lot of technetium to be dangerous.
- It's easy to stop technetium from migrating in groundwater. It's less chemically active than iron, so all you have to do is plant your waste deposit in the middle of a bunch of scrap iron or steel. The technetium plates out on the steel and iron ions go into the seeping water instead. (This is how dissolved copper is recovered from the water trickled through piles of ore; the mining companies buy the steel cans from your recycling bin and run the copper-sulfate mixture through them, let the iron-sulfate run off and smelt the remains for the copper.)
Convert the metal radwaste ions to salts, absorb the salts in zeolites, press the zeolite powder under heat to form it into solid billets (inside stainless-steel cans), stick the cans in concrete bunkers above ground until the fast-decaying isotopes have bled off most of their energy and the heat output has mostly disappeared, then dump them in the mine shafts under Yucca Mountain with a few feet of iron filings as a buffer against groundwater seepage (the iron will be there for much longer than the technetium; there's still native iron on Earth from before the rise of oxygen-producing plants). That's a lot more secure and responsible than anyone has ever been with the nasty crap from coal ash.--
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Metal-based fuel cells (using aluminum or zinc) may prove a better solution than hydrogen, providing better energy densities and less hazardous handling.
There's a relevant and interesting article in IEEE Spectrum this month.
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