Chrysler Announces Hydrogen Fuel Cell Van

Juanfe writes: "Chrysler group announced a concept vehicle called the Natrium, powered by a sodium borohydride (NaBH4) engine developed by Millenium Cell. NaBH4 can be made from sodium borate -- basic borax, used in laundry detergent. MilleniumCell is a US Company that, not surprisingly, has made strategic agreements with major borax purveyors in the US (which just happens to be thought of as the largest borax reserve in the world). Could this be the start of the end of big oil and the start of the start of big Borax?" superflippy points out that Chrysler's press release is related to the Electric Vehicle Association of the Americas (EVAA) Electric Transportation Industry Conference 2001.

Comments

End of Big Oil?

[Bonker]

Hardly...

The U.S. auto industry and the U.S. oil industry are so tight that work has been slowed or delayed for decades on all-electric cars.

While this fuel-cell uses borax derivatives, I would be willing to bet money that any production fuel-cell based vehicles deployed in the U.S. use hydrocarbon-based cells. They're not going to let you just stop filling up every week, after all.

Re:End of Big Oil?

[DerekLyons]

The U.S. auto industry and the U.S. oil industry are so tight that work has been slowed or delayed for decades on all-electric cars.

Sadly, no. The EV and Fuel Cell folks have continuously shot *themselves* in the foot by insisting that the EV/FC will instantly replace existing automobiles rather than finding a niche and growing from there. Poor planning, poor marketing, it kills 'real world' companies as much as it does dot-bombs.

Re:End of Big Oil?

[Ian Bicking]

Electric vehicles haven't needed any sabotaging to fail. They've failed all on their own, over and over.

Part of this is that there's two big industries involved: the oil industry and the car manufacturers. Car manufacturers aren't going to let the oil companies keep them from doing what they have to to keep their market -- part of which is deflecting criticism about pollution and energy use.

Of course, the car companies don't really seem to want to improve energy use or pollution anyway -- SUVs being a primary example -- but at least they are doing enough to distract attention, and preparing a little for a potential future where they might have to do more for conservation.

But then they still have to figure out how to deal with traffic.

Re:End of Big Oil?

[hawk]

> The U.S. auto industry and the U.S. oil industry are so tight that
> work has been slowed or delayed for decades on all-electric cars.

uh-huh.

You left out "black helicopters," "pough carbuetor," and "trilateral commission" . . .

:)

hawk

There is no such thing as an 'oil company'

[rebelcool]

At least, not anymore.

Being the clever industry they are, the oil companies LONG ago realized they were dependent on a limited resource. Indeed, the reserves wouldnt make it out of the 21st century.

Hence they all now refer to themselves as 'energy companies', and work with all sorts of things, not just oil.

Its in their best interests that things start moving off fossil fuels, given their limited supply, and people move onto things like hydrogen, which is pretty damn common. And they know this.

You'll still be getting your fuel from them in 20 years...it just might not be gasoline anymore.

Huge water tank?

[ukryule]

To generate the hydrogen for the fuel cell the sodium boro-hydride is combined with water:

NaBH4 + 2 H2O ----> 4 H2 + NaBO2
Sodium Boro-hydride + water (+catalyst)-> hydrogen + Sodium borate

So does this mean you need a huge water tank? I saw no mention of this in the article - but I would guess you'd need more water than you need petrol in current cars.

Re:Huge water tank?

[spiral]

>So does this mean you need a huge water tank?

Um, just follow the reaction:

NaBH4 + 2 H2O ----> 4 H2 + NaBO2

Now, burn the H2:

4 H2 + 2 O2 ----> 4 H2O

So, we end up with MORE water than we started with. The other point to consider is that the conversion process is happening on the demand. You don't convert the entire tank of NaBH4 into H2 instantly, that would defeat then entire idea of "storing" the hydrogen.

Re:Get over 'Dubya's Oil folks' stuff

[nyquist_theorem]

Have I seen gas prices in the United States lately? Hell no. I'm nowhere near your country, nor am I a citizen of it. I am, however, aware enough of international politics (and your domestic politics) to understand just how connected your President is to the oil industry both domestically and internationally.

Are you trying to suggest that the present depression in US gas pricing provides any evidence for or against the suggestion that US President Bush is involved in the oil business?

To attempt to drag this stuff back on topic and away from Republican American ethnocentrism, let me try this:

I would humbly suggest that this venture will face significant opposition from the traditional energy (nee oil) companies.

You're right tho, facts don't get points unless they're relevant or related to the discussion. Otherwise we could all get our 50 karma by posting mathematics formulae, now couldn't we?

Re:Get over 'Dubya's Oil folks' stuff

[homer_ca]

If our fearless leaders in bed with big oil actually wanted to help big oil, they'd be propping up prices to stop them from falling so low.
This is all about supply and demand. The summer road trip season is over. The economic downturn since 9/11 really cut into people's travel plans. Sucks to be you if you built a new refinery during the $2/gal gas days and it's just coming online now.

Re:More on Millennium Cell

[Dyolf Knip]

The article states that the process of charging up the borax produces pollution, though so does this not just represent the "make the pollution elsewhere" paradox of electric cars, whereby one uses coal-generated electricity to drive around instead of gasoline, substituting one fossil fuel's energy for another?

I'm assuming that you are only referring to pollution from generating power to generate hydrogen to run the reaction, not the reaction itself.

In which case, I will point out the huge differences between the little generator in your car and the big generator downtown. The little one must be lightwieght and portable. It has to have a power-to-weight ratio sufficient to cruise itself around town. I don't know about you but I have yet to see a 200MW power station tooling around on the interstate!

Furthermore, not every country thinks fossil fuels are wonderful like the US. France, for all their other shortcomings, generates most of their power with nuclear fuels. Much cleaner than coal. Furthermore, You can use things like that nifty solar chimney going up down under. True solar powered cars are a joke, but if the car charges off the grid and the grid were powered by solar (or hydro, or wind, or tides, or...) then wouldn't that be a very clean car indeed?

k5 is still down I see.

[On Lawn]

The U.S. auto industry and the U.S. oil industry are so tight that work has been slowed or delayed for decades on all-electric cars.

This makes a good story for movies in need of a bad buy but I've not seen any reason to believe it. As a matter of fact, no one in the industry (except the water injected carburator guy thats been in urban lore since the 40's), has ever accused big oil of maligning or hedging their work.

Its time to get out of fantasy land and into real life. Theres to many problems that need solving to get worked up over movie plots.

While this fuel-cell uses borax derivatives, I would be willing to bet money that any production fuel-cell based vehicles deployed in the U.S. use hydrocarbon-based cells

Its possible that this is a notion of the past. However, hydrocarbon fuel cells are non-puluting to California standards. So, I have no problem with it. After all, the energy has to come from somewhere no matter what transport agent is used.

Is it worse than Gasoline?

[jcr]

I don't see anything you've cited that indicates that the stuff is likely to blow up in a wreck. Gasoline is toxic, too, especially here in California where the air-quality geniuses have demanded that it include the carcinogenic MTBE.

I'd also point out that you don't often encounter palladium, ruthenium and other metal salts on your daily commute.

-jcr

Re:Pollution Free?

[Dyolf Knip]

If they are getting electricity generated from a dirty power plant are they really helping the environment?

Ok, most everything before this is quite correct, but it drives me crazy when people say this. You can't put a nuclear power plant in a car. Nor tidal power, nor hydro power, nor solar chimneys, nor any other type of clean, non-fossil-fuel source of power. But you can put them on the power grid and then run your car off it, so all of this is quite worthwhile.

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Not the end of big oil

[Eric Smith]

Could this be the start of the end of big oil

No, because to produce large quantities of hydrogen, you still need a lot of energy. Right now the only cost-effective energy sources for that are fossil fuels, nuclear, and hydroelectric, and in the US we don't seem to be building more nuclear power plants. Not much new hydro either, AFAIK.

What fuel cells do for you is provide a better way to store energy. The energy still has to come from somewhere.