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Funding For Automotive Fuel Cells Cut
rgarbacz writes "The US will stop funding research on automotive fuel cells and redirect the work towards stationary plants, because of slow progress on the research. Developing those cells and coming up with a way to transport the hydrogen is a big challenge, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in releasing energy-related details of the administration's budget for the year beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Chu said the government preferred to focus on projects that would bear fruit more quickly. The industry and the National Hydrogen Association criticized the decision and declared their intention to fight for funding. Dr. Chu also announced that funding for a coal gasification pilot project, cut by the Bush administration, will be reinstated. The Obama administration will also drop spending for research on the exploration of oil and gas deposits because the industry itself has ample resources for that, Dr. Chu said."
% If I had a ( for every dollar wasted on fuel cells, what would I have?
Kneel Before Christ!
Its a new team in town, with a different set of friends that need to be 'greased'.
Its just typical ( shortsighted ) politics at work here. Nothing new.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I thought the real problem was creating the hydrogen in the first place. Not to mention the problem of compressing it to a point that it had a reasonable amount of energy per unit of volume.
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I was under the impression that current methods of producing hydrogen for fuel cells was only slightly more intelligent than producing ethanol from corn.
It's had the lion's share of research funding for the past decade, and despite that, has been lapped on pretty much every front by EVs.
It's electric vehicles' turn.
Kneel Before Christ!
Hydrogen doesn't have the density we need and it's difficult to move.
Batteries. Focus on batteries, industrial solar thermal, and Nuclear.
That can solve are energy needs.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That makes sense. The oil industry is already established and making tons in profits. They should be able to fund their own development.
Emerging technologies on the other hand sometimes need a boost.
Dual Opteron < $600
Why so much subsidies around solar and other renewable technologies then - the same theory applies. It's mainly the energy industry doing the research, they have a lot of funds to apply to it.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
From most of the articles I'm seeing, there doesn't appear to be any serious replacement for platinum in fuel cells. That's reason enough to rule them out for mainstream use.
It gets worse. Fuel cells use exotic metals (platinum namely).
That may be fine for a few experimental operations, but what happens when we try to put those in *millions* of vehicles? The price would quickly be impractical / unaffordable.
Yes, you would eventually get to a sustainable level for recycling, but platinum would take a very very long time to get to that level, platinum is just plain rare.
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Right off the bat, as in other things, one size doesn't fit everyone. With that said, the "problem" with the attached generator trailer doesn't exist, people in suburbia would park it in their garage (where it can act as an emergency home generator, something people might want anyway) and folks in town don't even have to buy them, they could be *rented* for the few times a year when they go to the grandparents, etc.
A hundred mile range pure EV is good enough for millions of drivers today, they just don't drive more than that per day. I have read average commute in the US is 33 miles. And being a pure EV, it doesn't have to tote around the ICE and fuel tank, a significant weight reduction, meaning the battery bank is now a more normal load and can be larger than the battery bank in a plug in hybrid, and the vehicle will still weigh less. And when they do need that ICE, the generator trailer, being on its own axle it is easier to tow than carry. Towing occasional decent weight is always easier than carrying, that extra axle works.
Really, there's very little downside to it and it isn't a kludge, it's a remarkably workable and common sense solution.
Cramming an ICE AND the electric drive train AND the batteries AND the liquid fuel tank all in something that is supposed to be light weight is the big kludge. It also makes the vehicle *twice* as expensive as it needs to be, and *significantly* heavier once you start talking about a plug in hybrid with even 40 miles range, let alone a hundred. Most of the time, for most people, they won't be using the generator so it wouldn't be attached, so as a purchase option or once in awhile special trip rental, there's little downside to it. With a hybrid, you are already buying the whole package anyway, jso if you split that up, with the generator part on a trailer instead of built in, you don't HAVE to haul it with you all the time.
If the range you need to drive daily is just too close to "batteries flat" stage, you don't need an electric then, just get a normal gas or diesel and be done with it (my datsun diesel pickup gets 40 mpg!)
My next ride, a project vehicle, will be electric (but I will retain the diesel, I like choice), probably build one of the chevy s-10 conversion kits, they keep getting cheaper.
Instead of doing this, why don't we grow rats, and have cats eat them. Then we harvest some of the cats, and kill the others to feed to the rats.
Bruce Perens.