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.

Comments

I love watching history repeat itself!

[Dman33]

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.

I'll believe it when I see it

[Martini Man]

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.

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" .. if he doesn't get ANWR full of oil derricks by 2003 he will be a one-term President.

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 .. are you ready to practice what you preach? Somehow I doubt it.

Things Ralph Nader doesn't want you to know

[Spamalamadingdong]

However, I think nuclear energy is certainly a great solution for most power needs. BUT UNTIL we figure out a way to either recycle or safely dispose of nuclear waste, it's simply not a good alternative.

That's the stock anti-nuke line: say it would be great if we could just do X, but we can't do X (while blocking efforts to find ways to do X and ignoring known ways of doing X while propagandizing that X is impossible to do). This tactic has taken in lots of unsuspecting people, including yourself from the looks of it.

What do you put nuclear waste IN?

The first issue is how you define "waste". If you are talking about the raw fuel as it comes out of the reactor, cladding and all, you're defining it much too broadly (you're throwing away over 90% of the energy inherent in the original uranium). If you are talking about the fission products, it's a much simpler issue.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.)

Seal it in lead barrels, then dump it? Great, now we drink leaded water until the radioactive material seeps through.

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.
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Metal fuel cells ...

[s20451]

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.