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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."
I mean... you stick them in the ground, and they stay there. It's really pretty consistent. If your tree walks away, it's probably not a tree. I don't know how much funding this needs, but if it is more than $0, it's too much.
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.
I'm pro biofuels, but how are they going to know what technology will pan out?
You never know. But wise investment involves making your best judgment based on what is known, and what is known is that fuel cell stacks cost an order of magnitude more than even a large li-ion battery pack, have no better range or fuelling time than EVs (the only exception to the latter being if you have the fuel super-compressed at the stations, which is both dangerous and makes the stations even more expensive), have 1/3rd the fuel-cycle efficiency, have half the lifespan in the fuel cell stack, have many more moving parts than an EV, fundamentally require new infrastructure for all modes of operation (versus EVs which only need new infrastructure for long trips), and in general involve having to deal with hydrogen -- a chemical that leaks through almost anything, weakens metals, enters pipes and follows them to their destination, destroys ozone, pools under overhangs, has an incredibly low ignition energy, burns in almost any fuel-air mixture, readily undergoes deflagration to detonation transitions, and is a general PITA to store and transport.
Hydrogen fuel cells have failed to advance sufficiently to become marketable, affordable, reliable products that are decisively better for the environment, despite getting the lion's share of research funding in the past decade. EVs are far closer to this, esp. with the modern fast-charging, long-range, nontoxic li-ion variants, and hence the pendulum is now swinging in the other direction.
Kneel Before Christ!
...if you think it's a tree but it gets up and walks away, then it probably Ent.
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Funding is not unlimited; you make the decision about what to fund by doing a cost-benefit analysis using current estimates. This is exactly what they did, and they arrived upon the conclusion that plug-in hybrids and electric cars are current the most effective use of research monies.
You may disagree with the conclusion, but don't write it off as simply shortsighted politics.
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
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.
Uh, what? A fish without a bicycle? Look, ethanol from corn is stupid because it's not very energy positive and people eat corn, and corn depletes the soil unless you grow it in a guild with squash and beans, or at least rotate your crops. We don't even use crop rotation any more in big agribusiness; it's basically hydroponics in a soil medium. The corn is fertilized with, guess what, oil. Meanwhile, hydrogen is stupid because it's difficult to store and transport and you have to use [comparatively] exotic alloys with it because of problems with hydrogen embrittlement... oh, and fuel cells are energy-intensive and toxic to make, and they wear out and have to be replenished like everything else. However, we currently have a lot of power going to waste at night and we could be making hydrogen with it. If we're currently wasting it, and we start using it for Hydrogen, then even if it's only 40% efficient we're still vastly better off than we are today.
However, a better plan than either would be to grow craploads of algae in the desert, and use our extra power to run arc lamps to provide light at night to extend the photoperiod and thus speed up the growth cycle. The emissions from the power plants can be piped through algae beds and up to 80% of the CO2 captured for reuse. The algae can be used to make biodiesel and butanol, both of which can be burned in current vehicles, transported in the current trucks, and stored and pumped with the existing tanks and pumps.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Wow, paying the unsubsidized market rate for a commodity is getting raped?
Anyways, you'll only get raped if you have a gas guzzler. If you have at least a half-decent fuel efficient car, you'll be just fine. If you drive an alternative fuel vehicle, you won't even feel a thing.
Having the customer pay the full, unsubsidized price for gas may actually create real competition in the vehicle fuel market. If people had a choice between gas or an alternative fuel, then the gas companies would have no choice but to keep their prices competitive to that alternative fuel, wouldn't they?
Or worse yet, people may actually get used to driving less and taking public transit as part of their daily commute instead!
A) We haven't built a plant in 30 years. How do you know that it is expensive when you have no data to back it up? Or have you looked at France's and Japan's data for their standardized reactor design?
B) Chernoby was so completely different from any reactor the US has ever implemented (including the lack of a containment dome) it is just pure FUD to even bring it up.
C) Recycling the so called waste will yield a sizeable amount of fuel and the remaining short lived waste could be stored in the mines the uranium ore came out of in the first place.
D) See C combined with: I thought the idea was to get away from coal?
Oh, and to E from the AC: Actually, we have about a few thousand year supply of Uranium in the US alone (Virginia) and that does not include sea water extraction. Breeder reactors also allow the production of more fuel. It is either a renewable or going to last so long that fusion will come about before we run out.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars