Honda Fuel Cell Concept with Home H2 Refueling

It doesn't come easy writes "Honda unveiled their next generation FCX fuel cell concept car, along with a home hydrogen generation filling station, at the Tokyo Motor Show this week. The car has a range of 350 miles (560 kms) using two separate 350 psi hydrogen storage tanks. The tanks use a newly-developed hydrogen absorption material that doubles their capacity without raising the required storage pressure and thus allows the concept vehicle to exceed the DOE's targeted driving range for hydrogen powered vehicles. The home refueling station uses natural gas to produce electricity, heat and hydrogen. Honda estimates that the HES system [will] lower by 50% the total running cost of household electricity, gas and vehicle fuel. As the FCX is a concept car, no mention of when the technology might be introduced in a real automobile or what it will eventually cost, but the advances demonstrated by the car are quite amazing."

Comments

Great

[HeetMyser]

And just when natural gas is getting so cheap, too....

Re:Great

[vertinox]

Yeah. I thought natural gas was actually scarcer than petroleum...

It is, but we can make methane gas fairly easy with our landfills.

I think the city of LA in California collects methane from their sewer system... Either way, it is easier to manufacture than oil or bio-disel.

What about the stickers and the exhaust tip?

[filesiteguy]

...so if I put some "powered by Honda" stickers around it, lower it, and add a cool exhaust tip, will it be fast just like a Civic?

Why it won't be used for a while...

[MosesJones]

This is a great advance but its unlikely to be massively successful until the point at which Gas Guzzlers are taxed at a rate based on their environmental impact. In otherwords until Gas is $6+ a gallon (about the UK price) there won't be the driver in the US to adopt green technologies, thus meaning there won't be the huge volumes of purchases to make the technology really affordable.

For anyone who wants to understand what I mean, go to Honolulu airport and look at the pollution "clocks".

Re:Why it won't be used for a while...

[Profane MuthaFucka]

It's insightful because gas taxes are not based on environmental impact. They are based on road costs and other factors related to how much income the government wants to get from gas sales. Basing taxes on environmental impact would likely increase the taxes, because the current costs don't come close to covering cost of the environmental damage from burning the gas, and they don't come close to a goal of making gas guzzlers to expensive to run. The factors that are now making SUV's unfavorable are not gas taxes, but gas wholesale prices plus retail markup.

Chicken-n-egg problem

[Erioll]

This is probably the only way to solve the chicken-n-egg problem of hydrogen cars. Sure you won't be able to drive it cross-country for a while, but for burning around town, it should work, and then once enough of them are out there, THEN the commercial stations will follow.

Still, as others mentioned above, with high natural gas prices, I can't see this helping, though if it doubles as your home heating, hopefully the amount of natural gas per household increased useage isn't much.

Mercedes Benz

[Spy der Mann]

Mercedes-Benz also has a prototype. Their concept car will be available for production around 2015, using a fuelcell+lithium ion combo.

How about wind or solar power?

[erroneus]

I'd be really interested to know how well these 'chargers' could be adapted to work with other sources of power for charging the cells. I mean if we had to buy like 3 or 4 cells in order to have them charge for like 3 or 4 days to get that 300+ miles, then okay fine... but to burn yet another fossil fuel is kinda like picking your evils... though I suspect other gases could be used but again, the method of extraction or manufacture almost always leads back to fossil fuels. How soon can we get into a source that is significantly more "free"?

Well, that's cool....

[trailerparkcassanova]

but it still doesn't fly.

Snow!

[Tribbin]

I can imagine, that when it freezes, your pimped & overtuned H2 car leaves behind a trail of snow when you burnout to impress bystanders!

Mazda RX-8 gas/hydrogen car

[timmyd]

Here are some pics of the Mazda RX-8 that has two tanks: the hydrogen can be filled on one side, and regular gas on the other side.

http://autos.goo.ne.jp/motorshow/gallery/car/mazda /gallery4.html

there is an article here in japanese: http://autos.goo.ne.jp/motorshow/news/tms/article_ 75008.html

Re:My ideal car!

[zorkmid]

Get a VW Jetta Turbo Diesel (TDI). My 2003 model gets ~53MPG running on BioDiesel.

Re:Wait wait wait...

[ReverendLoki]

At least in my area of the midwest US, there are lots of natural gas pockets in the ground, and the average person can, local regulations not withstanding, drop a small well and have an ample supply. All it takes is a simple filter system to make it useable. So, for some of us anyways, this is a potential boon. If I'm not mistaken, the number of people who can drop an oil rig and a refinery plant in ther backyard is a lot less...

Still, for the rest of the population, this is just moving from one type of scarce fossil fuel to another. We've all heard about the gasoline substites (ethanol, corn and soy based fuels, greasel, what have you), but is there much R&D on synthetic or renewable natural gas substitutes?

not 350 psi.

[Fix]

The tanks do not only hold 350 psi it is 350 atmospheres. 15 psi per atmosphere sea level so that would be 5250psi.

Re:Wait wait wait...

[Leomania]

There was a press release from U.C. Berkeley in 2000 (also discussed on Slashdot) that discussed a finding about a particular kind of algea that, when a key nutrient was withheld, produced hydrogen instead of oxygen. This is a conversion of solar energy into hydrogen that is certainly much more efficient than using electrolysis. The problem, as usual, is converting a laboratory observation into a viable commercial production method (assuming that it's viable at all and not just some side effect).

If hydrogen is to become viable for personal transportation, it will need to get past the need to use petrochemicals. I am optimistic that this will one day happen, but hopefully not before we've exhausted most of our oil resources. It would sure be nice to slow down consumption and save that for other uses.

Re:My ideal car! - Your missing the point of HP.

[Anonymous Coward]

What I want is a electric/diesel car. Something more along the lines of 200hp and 50+mpg! While the newer Prius, Civic, etc hybrids are nice and all they are just way too underpowered. By swapping out the gas engine with a diesel one you can get better gas mileage AND better performance.

So tell me again why you want 200hp? 200hp has no intrisic value, it can only be used to accelerate you faster or to give you higher top speed. Most of these cars can do 80 or 100mph (unless they are computer limited), so lets talk acceleration.

Cars with internal combustion engines need all that power since these engines have very low toque at low RPMs, so need to rev up, then shift, and shift again, to keep the torque on. The beauty of electric motors is that they have max torque at 0 rpm. When you are accelerating from 0 with your 200hp pocket rocket, you are actually only using a fraction of that horsepower. Of course if you have a 300hp engine, that fraction is higher, but you are not really using all 300 horses.

Back when GM was promoting the EV1, I drove one at a demo event at Caltech. Those things were rockets off the line. The computer kicked in at 30 mph and limited acceleration to reduce energy consumption. They found that people were racing around town and getting very low distance between charges. But from 0-30, the EV1 would easily beat a 300Z.

So what you really want is to either hack the computer to not limit your acceleration, or perhaps a larger electric motor or higher current draw capability. But a 200hp diesel would be a complete waste, expensive, heavy, and slow.

Scarce

[Wyatt Earp]

Theres ALOT of petroleum left on Earth in the normal form "Oil", Tar Sands and Shales. Hundreds of years worth at 2000 levels if all the known Shale, Tar Sands and Rock Oil is added up. Theres lots of it left, the idea that it's "scarce" is a fiction, right now the price is high because of speculation, storm damage and a lack of refinery capacity.

Combustion of one cubic metre of commercial quality natural gas yields 38 MJ (10.6 kWh). Natural Gas import and movement is difficult from a safety and logistics standpoint due to the nature of a tanker full of it and the ports needed. Moving NG through pipes is hard, so the best way is to liquify it and move it then in chilled pipes and on tankers.

In the US there are between 1,300 and 1,779 Tcf remaining in proven and unproven deposits, theres estimated to be about 5,210.8 Tcf in the world in proven deposits.

In 2003, world natural gas consumption was 95.5 Tcf. Russia, which consumed 15.3 Tcf, and the United States, which consumed 22.4 Tcf, accounted for 47 percent of the total. Consumption of natural gas is projected to increase by nearly 70 percent between 2001and 2025, with the most robust growth in demand expected among the developing nations. By the year 2025, total world consumption of natural gas is expected to bet 151 trillion cubic feet.

If there are 5,210 Tcf of NG, at 2003 levels theres about 54.6 years of proven Natural Gas.

Re:Scarce

[Jeremi]

Theres ALOT of petroleum left on Earth [...] the idea that it's "scarce" is a fiction

Sure, if you define "scarcity" in such a way that you only take into account whether or not the substance physically exists. But that's only the first criteria.

In real life, we have to take into account the costs of getting to it, and the costs of using it. Those costs include the costs of pollution, the political/military costs involved in getting access to the areas of the world involved, costs of transporting the material, and costs incurred by global warming if we burn all that fuel.

If the sum of all of the above is greater than the costs of switching to and using alternative energy sources (or greater than the costs of simply using less energy), then the wise choice would be to switch away from petroleum.

Re:Scarce

[Xyrus]

"Hundreds of years worth at 2000 levels if all the known Shale, Tar Sands and Rock Oil is added up."

Except it is more expensive to extract useable oil from these forms. And these might not be conveniently located in a friendly nation, so you have to add in the costs of aggressive negotiations, bribes, regime changes, etc..

Now, if we are talking proven oil reserves, the top 10 producing countries have a total of 1.092 trillion barrels left according to some quick googling. World oil consumption in 2000, again according to some quick googling, was roughly 75 million barrels a day.

That gives us about 39.89 years left, if oil consumption rates stay the same. But they aren't. They are increasing quite a bit with countries like China and India rapidly industrializing. So as far as the world's proven oil reserves are concerned, the future is pretty bleak. And this isn't even saying anything about the trillions of tons of CO2 we'd be dumping into the atmosphere.

Okay, so lets say we have all this oil locked up in other forms. Lets use a nice number like 200 years worth of oil. Well, that would mean that 5.46 trillion barrels of oil are locked up.

According to the Wiki, there's about 1.6 trillion barrels of oil locked up in the world's oil shale. That'd buy about another 59 years. However, to get the oil out requires a process called pyrolisis, which as the name implies requires heat (450-500 C). That takes a bit of energy to do, but that's only the beginning of the problems. The byproducts are extremely toxic with various carcinogens thrown into the mix for good measure. It also requires a 3 to 1 ratio in water. On the plus side, shale becomes economical at barrel prices above $40.

Alright, were at 100 years worth of oil. Now lets see what else there is. Tar sands. Again according to the great Wiki, we've got an estimated 5.25 trillion barrels locked up. That gives 193 years more, burning at 2000 levels. And again we've got more bad environmental impacts. But with rising oil prices, it's becoming to economically feasible.

That's a grand total of 252 years of oil at 2000 levels. Hundreds is a little much, but technically you are correct.

Now to throw some cold water on this party. According to the DOE, even if we extract all this lovely oil, at the current growth rates the high estimate is that production will peak around mid century, and fall off rather quickly, dropping to almost nothing by early next century. So there goes the "hundreds of years". If we're lucky, we'll make it to the next century.

What about the environment? Trillions upon trillions of tons of toxic wastes will be generated from extraction of hard oil reserves. Even in-situ methods aren't clean. And then there's the tremendous amount of water needed to process this stuff.

And last but not least, our old friend CO2. At 83.2% carbon and an average weight of 1 metric ton per 7.3 barrels, burning all that oil would add about 1 trillion metric tons of CO2, not including the CO2 that comes from everywhere else and our diminishing flora that reclaims it. That's enough to raise the CO2 content of our atmosphere (assuming a 100km cieling) by .24 kg/m^3. The density of air at sea level is 1.2 kg/m^3, thus yielding an atmospheric content of about 20% CO2, or about the same as when the dinosaurs roamed the planet.

Back then, the average planet wide temps were around the century mark (deg F), enough to comfortably bake most modern day species, including ourselves.

At this point, I guess I don't even need to mention the other noxious gases that would constitue significant fractions of our atmosphere at that point. Eventually, the planet would recover after we die off, as it always recovers from such disasters.

Even if we had trillions of barrels just ready for the taking, I'd push for renewable energy. Burning oil for the next 100 years or so is not only completely stupid, but also incredibly dangerous (from a human perspective, the planet could really care less).

But you were right about the oil.

~X~

Misinformed People

[kahrytan]

I see many people really don't understand Hydrogen fueled cars. Natural Gas is one of many sources used to produce Hydrogen but currently is the cheapest method to do so. It can also be made from petroleum, coal, various chemical reactions, and from biomass (landfill waste, wastewater sludge, and livestock waste). Solar and Wind can also be used to produce hydrogen.

Now to address hydrogen safety for those who might worry about it.

  1. Hydrogen combusts at 550 degrees celsius. Gasoline will combust long before Hydrogen does.
  2. Hydrogen disperses rapidly because it is lighter. Ignition is unlikely.
  3. When Ignition takes place, It burns upward and quickly.
  4. And tanks that are used to store hydrogen have been subjected to firing .357 magnum at it, detonating a stick of dynamite next to it, and subjecting it to fire at 1500 degrees F.

  You can find useful information at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen/
http://www.hyodrogennow.org/

Yes

[malsdavis]

From Wikipedia Fuel cells are electrochemical devices, so they are not constrained by the maximum Carnot cycle efficiency as combustion engines are. Consequently, they can have very high efficiencies in converting chemical energy to electrical energy.

For starters, theres a lot more too it then that but the Wikipedia article gives the jist.

Natural gas is also a lot more abundant so isn't as likely to undergo quite the same massive cost increases over the next decade and beyond like petroleum will.

Re:Yes

[Smidge204]

can have very high efficiencies is very different from are much more efficient. I agree that they are not bound by Carnot, and in theory can have excellent efficiencies, but do they?

A little searching tells me that the popular type of cell used in automotive applications is the PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) type. These seem to peak out at just over 50% efficient. Not bad, but a well build IC engine can get into the upper 40's, so "much more efficient" becomes a point of contention.

Then consider that the PEMFC's output is electricity, which must be put through a motor to drive the vehicle. If we're generous and assume the motor is 90% efficient, you are now on par with a well built ICE powered vehicle...

This says nothing about the cost of the fuel. Even if you could "generate" the fuel yourself, the primary source of power is still fossil fuels. The only difference is the problem isn't in your back yard anymore. To add insult to injury, the best method to produce hydrogen (energy-in versus yield) is reforming of natural gas (methane) - as the home-refueling station in the article does. Guess what? You'd get more energy if you just burned the NG straight and you're still releasing CO2 into the atmosphere from the reforming process. At least they recover some energy for domestic hot water with their system, so it's not a total waste.

So again, what data is there to back the claim that this is "much more efficient" than an ICE and that you get "more bang for your buck"?
=Smidge=