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Gas Powered Fuel Cell Could Help EV Range Anxiety
thecarchik writes "While electric-car advocates may avoid the issue, some buyers simply won't choose a plug-in car that can't travel unlimited distances. That's where the Chevy Volt-style range extender comes in, though the Volt adds unlimited range by burning gasoline in a conventional engine to generate electric power. Now, a new type of fuel cell offers the potential for a different kind of range extender, one that removes the enormous practical problem facing hydrogen fuel cells: the lack of a distribution infrastructure to fuel vehicles that require pure hydrogen to feed their fuel cells. Researchers at the University of Maryland have managed to shrink the size and lower the operating temperature of a solid-oxide fuel cell by a factor of 10, meaning it could conceivably produce as much power as a car engine but occupy less space. The advances come from new materials for the solid electrolyte, as well as design changes, and the researchers feel they have further avenues for improvement left to explore."
Hehehe. It's tech like this that sounds promising and hopefully will allow us to remove the oil yoke from our necks?
Severely offtopic but much less racist than usual. Our trolls are getting a tiny bit classier.
They say the most Harley owners 'detune' their new bikes just to get the right sound out of the muffler. With the way that things might be going, I wonder if some won't miss their cars making engine sounds, not to mention blind people.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
At first glance, the summary fails to say how this development (which appears to make demand more likely) manages to ease the problems on the supply-side of the hydrogen fuel cell option. What it didn't include is the information that a solid oxide fuel cell can conceivably burn any hydrocarbon fuel stock. TFA mentions gasoline, diesel, natural gas and propane. The idea is that a fuel cell extracts more energy from hydrocarbon fuels than the pitiful 25% claimed for ICE technology. What isn't stated is whether this new fuel cell can handle any of the hydrocarbon fuels without any hardware changes. e.g. pipe in propane or natural gas or supply liquid diesel or gasoline for either gas or liquid based fuelling.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
If they could also shrink the cost by a factor of 10 we would have a winner.
Surely, it would only [Big Oil funded?] "ostrich researchers" who'd keep their heads buried in the past of oil-based sources of energy, right?
Even if EV's lead to more uranium-based power stations (eg, until we can develop & build non-nuclear, renewable ones), it's got to be worse to use even "a little gas (petrol)" to drive EV's.
Who's funded this research? Big Oil, maybe? 'dunno, but it wouldn't have been any of the many proponents of renewable energy sources doing it.
Standards-based (ie, compatible across all EV makers' cars) battery swap stations would solve the "range problem" with renewable energies.
Look at the business plans of EV proponents, like Shai Agassi's BetterPlace.com, who plan to help fund renewable energy industries, eg, by buying renewable energy to power their cars, with each 1,000 cars purchased.
(See his talks on TED.com and FORA.tv)
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BTW, I note that only Germany seems set up (by years of good planning rules (eg, requiring nearly "super windows" in their homes & offices) & R&D) to be able to say No to nuclear, in future.
I say: Watch Germany, Denmark & other "renewable lights to the nations" for clear, practical examples of how to throw-off much if not all of our habit of oil-based thinking, while keeping even nuclear energy at bay.
Is the article saying they've developed a gasoline-based fuel cell that you can recharge at a 'fueling station', with which you can generate electricity to power your electric car?
Doesn't this just turn your EV into a less-efficient gasoline-powered vehicle?
It's got electrolytes!
hey!
Temperature is actually more important than the energy density in this case. At 650C never mind 900C, you'll still have a lot of trouble with heat--material have an unfortunate tendency to expand and warp (or, worse, snap) at that kind of temperature. Thus, you may be able to turn your car on and off only dozens of times before the SOFC breaks down. This is the real reason why SOFC has never been seriously considered for cars--SOFC has always been relatively compact for the amount of energy they produce (except for the apparatus you'd need to get rid of the huge amounts of heat).
Now, 650C is easy, at least if you are using natural gas as feedstock. (Gasoline may be somewhat more difficult, but not impossible.) Other solid oxide fuel cells that are trying to enter the market operate at or near that temperature range. 350C, though--wow. That will be remarkable, and may indeed be able to brings in an era of fuel cell vehicles, but it'll involve whole new set of chemistry, and I won't believe it until I see it.
The other advantage of using a fuel cell is that it makes it feasible to capture the CO2. In an ICE because you burn the fuel the concentration of CO2 in the exhaust is low, making it impracticable/expensive to capture the CO2.
It may be possible then that when you are filling up to return the CO2, which can then be used to produce a synthetic hydrocarbon based fuel.
Major technology hurdles, but a possible route to solve both the range problem of electric vehicles and the emission problems associated with hydrocarbon fuels.
You don't need new batteries, just rename it duravolt and do a superbowl commercial with Madonna riding the E-street band's EV.
This is basically how they think the Bloombox fuel cells shown on 60 minutes last year works. Bloom is how start-up in Silicon Valley with prototypes powering several buildings there. Except the Science article says their technology is five times more space-efficient. A 5' by 5" plate could generate 50W to 100W for a portable computer. 10 of these plates could run a military backpack or appliance. 100 could power a car or house. 500 an office building.
Giving up its gasoline addiction by designing electric cars that need - gasoline.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
anything that can make use of the high energy density of hydrocarbons without actually emitting CO2 would be good.
something ~2x as efficient as current engines is also a good thing.
something that can double the life of oil/coal/gas reserves will be a good thing.
stuff like this might just buy us enough time to figure out just where we're going to get our energy from when the free stuff runs out.
the article is entirely missing the point. range extension doesn't help if the vehicle into which the range extension is placed is massively inefficient. that means that you need to fix the problems associated with standard vehicle designs (box and wedge shapes) in order to get the aerodynamics losses cut by at least 50%, and you need to cut the weight by over 70% (1.5 to 2.0 tonnes down to 350kg) in order to be able to take advantage of hard compound "ECO" tyres, which would otherwise rapidly wear out on a "standard" car. once the aerodynamics are efficient and the weight is low, "range extension" actually provides enough power to run the vehicle pretty much directly. see http://lkcl.net/ev for details.
Last I checked, gasoline-powered vehicles don't have an "unlimited" range either. It may be an order of magnitude farther before you have to fill up a gas car than you have to recharge an electric, or somesuch, but that's still far from "unlimited."
Liberty in your lifetime
TFA mentions the fuel cells work off natural gas as well, not just oil. I wouldn't be surprised if they also worked with alcohols. As a bonus, natual gas is produced more in parts of the world where there is little war going on (USA, Canada, Russia) and is easier to produce from organic waste than the more complex hydrocarbons
"While electric-car advocates may avoid the issue, some buyers simply won't choose a plug-in car that can't travel unlimited distances."
There's a car that can travel unlimited distances? My internal combustion engine can can't do that either. Neglecting the stops I need to make to eat, sleep, pee, get fuel, change the oil, buy new tires, get other maintenance, etc. my car might go 150,000 to 250,000 miles before it becomes too costly and unreliable to drive. That's hardly an unlimited distance. Perhaps the writer was thinking of the word "long" rather than "unlimited". That's an understandable mistake; nice sound to it though, let's try it out: "I have an unlimited row to hoe", "It's been an unlimited time coming", "So unlimited, see you later", "my penis is unlimited than average" (isn't everyone's?).
.. then why bother with the weight and complexity of an ICE at all?
I get about 390-410WH/mi in my Volt, which (assuming 33KW/gallon) is about 80MPG. That's actually a bit lower "mileage" than I could get, but I have a bit of a heavy foot. Assuming an 80% efficiency in the fuel cell, that'd be 64MPG, roughly double the mileage of a comparably-sized and -equipped car.
(and yes, I'm an early adopter, it beats smoking crack.. Barely..)
If they could also shrink the cost by a factor of 10 we would have a winner.
It's called "economy of scale".
When they're being built in hundred-thousand lots by automated factories several model years into vehicle production, the design and tooling costs have been largely paid off, and some competitive product is bidding for customers which creates price pressure, they will cost a lot less than the parts in the concept-car prototype or the first model year.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Oxygen concentration cells work off anything that eats oxygen when it burns (and doesn't poison the fuel cell - which very few things do) and which is physically compatible with the fuel feed infrastructure.
For a cell designed for liquid fuels that's liquid hydrocarbons (gasoline, diesel fuel, salad oil, liquid fat, ...), alcohols, and just about any other liquid fuel. If it also handles gas you can also use propane, hydrogen (if your plumbing is up to it), etc. Use a good enough feed system and you can run it on solid fuels, too.
I want one that eats stove pellets. B-) You can make those out of any plant waste: sawdust, lawn clippings, stalks of food plants, weeds, ... Or shred and pelletize your junk mail.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If the electricity for these cars is not coming largely from renewables, then this is all bullshit. It doesn't matter how far they travel on one charge. We need to stop wanking about in cars. We're just wasting energy using them and trying to develop even more sophisticated ones. Oh, and renewables is bullshit as well.
If you generate hydrogen on site, you don't need a distribution infrastructure. My understanding is that there is a lot research going on looking into generating on site (i.e. at the 'gas' station or at home)
It's electric. You can get 4x the efficiency, so you'd need 5.5MW.
But you don't need to waste energy stopping and starting. Reduce again by about half: 3MW.
But I doubt that you need to fill for a full minute either.
I live North West of Boston. The closest charge station to where I live is the next town over. There are none listed in Maine, none listed near where I work in Framingham, and none listed in the Nashua, NH area. Plus, there are none in Atlantic Canada (where I am originally from), maybe due to the cold winters.
For a clickable map, see here: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/electricity_locations.html
Until electric vehicles can be recharged quickly, either through a fuel cell or a large capacitor, they will not be an option for my next purchase. I do enough long range driving for them to be impractical.
Unless you're delivering a car, the mass of the car is discounted. Therefore it still uses 100x the energy to get YOU to your destination.
Watching Germany is a concern. Yes, the Greens have won crucial victories by getting rid of nuclear power, but now their national security is dependent on a potentially hostile nation. Russia turns of the gas, German citizens will die.
Is the price of being green worth a country's sovereignty? That is a very steep price.
In japan nissan has robotics to swap Leaf batteries faster than you can refill a gas car. The car is designed for a bottom swap already. Nissan is working for standards so this can be done in Japan with other electrics.
This is the only realistic solution; you pay rental+electric fee. Fuel cells are possible since chemical storage is higher density but the tech is a ways off-- eventually I don't see why it can't beat out mechanical energy extraction from chemical fuels. Electronic losses are almost nil compared to the heavy losses of combustion engines. If they could kill transmissions that would be a big benefit as well.
With removable battery packs STANDARD you make fuel cells and newer tech possible more cheaply. "refill" with a battery or a fuel cell or a higher range more expensive battery-- so now instead of regular or premium or diesel you choose short range, long range, or fuel cell...
Going on a long trip? swap battery packs and get credit for X amount of power left on the old one and pay for the more expensive long range one...
MOST people MOST the time do not need to travel far--- but all one needs to do for the rare situations is provide a work around solution involving rental. ME, I'm upset with every Nissan person I talk with-- they have no interest in designing for range extenders. If they merely put a charge port that is active while the car is driving I would be sold! I was looking at hooking up a mini trailer and putting a propane generator on it as a range extender. Would store almost forever until I needed it and then I'd hook it on and start the generator. (propane because its better for inactive engines, plus they run longer, last longer etc.) Unless somebody would finally sell a small propane turbine engine coupled to a generator...that isn't crazy expensive data center grade...
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