Automotive Fuel Cell Evaluation

Be warned, the next sentence may cause your eyes to glaze over ... but the rest of the post will be better, I promise.

Yesterday was the first day of a week-long meeting entitled; "2009 DOE HYDROGEN PROGRAM and VEHICLE TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAM ANNUAL MERIT REVIEW and PEER EVALUATION MEETING" Odd as this may sound, the meeting name is actually a longer than the URL, believe it or not.

Ok, you're probably asking the same thing I did ... what does it mean? If the reader will indulge me for a moment, perhaps I can shed some light. The DOE, NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab) and the auto industry are validating automotive fuel cell technology including its infrastructure.

The most understandable information I could find on this was on the NREL's website where one may fine road-maps and milestones for the hydrogen economy, along with how the 7-year long project is performing to date.

As I'm sure most of us are aware that battery range on commuter cars is rather short when compared with even the smallest gasoline vehicle. Yet what the fuel cell vehicle has already accomplished is attained a practical 200 mile range ... not yet to the project's goal of over 300 miles, but showing a lot of promise!

So what are the goals of the Fuel Cell Learning Demonstration in which the DOE, Ford, Chrystler, GM, Hyundai-Kia and BP, Shell, and Chevron have all thrown a fair amount of money into? By 2015 they want to achieve:

1. Fuel Cell (FC) Stack Durability of 5,000 hours
2. Vehicle Range of 300 miles or more
3. Hydrogen Cost at Station of $2-3$ gge (Gallon of Gasoline Equivalent).
4. Consistent refueling times of 3 minutes (~5 kg H2 per tank).

This year, 2009, as it turns out, is a major milestone for this project, but first I must beg your indulgence of a quick digression just in case there are readers with little to no exposure to what a fuel cell vehicle is.

Think of an electricly propelled vehicle with a unique battery (sort of) that uses Hydrogen to generate electricity, and emits water as a byproduct and that would be the general idea.

So what is our major milepost here in 2009 and just how close are we to it?

Milepost criterion:

1. FC stack durability of 2000 hours.
2. 250+ miles of range.
3. $3 H2 cost at station.
4. 5 minute fill.
   

Accomplishments:

1. FC stack durability of 2000 hours theoretical and (nearly a reality as some of the early vehicles are approaching this mark without repair).
2. 250+ mile range met on dynomometer and sticker, but actual driving practices and fear of running out of fuel have reduced the practical range to 80% of dyno range. Practical range, therefore, is between 150 and 215 miles.
   
3. $3 H2 cost? I couldn't seem to find this. I guess the old addage ... 'if you have to ask you can't afford it' applies here. What I could discover is that H2 Fueling stations are rare even in the test areas, and efficiencies of natural gas steam reforming and electrolysis methods are still lower than benchmarks, but both are climbing. Efficiency translates to cost, therefore I can only assume that it's still more costly than the equivalent in gasoline.
4. Fill times have come down, but currently only 25% of fills are meeting goal of 1 kg per minute.

Final analysis ... even before this meeting concludes, the US Government has weighed in on the issue. While it still shows promise, results on the near-term are somewhat disappointing. The program hasn't been killed, but Stimulus funding has been re-focused as of May 7th. Secretary Chu announced that two forms of energy assistance will be cut while many forms of subsidies toward energy are being boosted; Deep Water Drilling, and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles.

To quote my favorite muppet from Star Wars: "Disappoint this is, and unfortunate." Yet as fiscally liberal as the Federal Government has shown itself to be, I suppose it has to show constraint somewhere. From an immediate-gains standpoint, it does make sense. I just hope it isn't the death-knell to another future US industry; allowing Europe to take the edge in yet another alternative energy market.