Hydrogen Economics Spawns New Technologies and Vehicles

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas) The relationship between hydrogen fuelled fuel cell systems and the auto manufacturing industry continues to evolve at pace with new technical developments and rationalizations of approach forced by price considerations coming to the market in a steady stream of announcements.

Millennium Cell's (NADAQ:MCEL) (Eatontown, New Jersey) recently announced 'Hydrogen on demand' technology safely generates pure hydrogen from environmentally friendly raw materials. In the process, the energy potential of hydrogen is carried in the chemical bonds of sodium borohydride, which in the presence of a catalyst releases hydrogen. The primary input components of the reaction are water and sodium borohydride, a derivative of borax. Substantial natural reserves of borax are available globally. Hydrogen from this system can be used to power fuel cells or fed directly to internal combustion engines. Millennium Cell has also patented a design for boron-based longer life batteries.

At the Hydrogen and Fuel Cells 2003 conference and trade show in Vancouver in June, a presentation by Dr. Ying Wu, program director of Synthesis, described the new process as being less energy intensive and less costly than the current 60-year-old process. Initial results of reaction feasibility and yields were encouraging, suggesting that further improvements can be achieved.

Icelandic New Energy (Reykjavik, Iceland) will evaluate the potential use of the new technology to export energy from Iceland. The funding for this project will come from the Icelandic Research Council. Iceland, which has status as an international project to develop a national clean energy environment, has vast resources of natural geothermal; and hydropower to produce hydrogen. Dr. Stephen S. Tang, president and CEO of Millennium Cell said, "Our technology, which safely stores, transports and delivers hydrogen, is well suited for Iceland's vision to export renewable energy. The purpose of this project is to characterize the feasibility and economics of that vision."

The hydrogen produced by the technology is of a high purity and can be used to power a fuel cell or a hydrogen-burning engine. The product is stored at ambient conditions in a non-flammable liquid 'fuel'.

SolarAccess reports that the process supplies pure hydrogen for energy applications without the need (and associated energy penalties) for compression or liquefaction. Hydrogen produced by this system can be used for numerous applications, addressing a wider range of power requirements form mobile phones to transportation.

In October, Japan's fifth ranked automaker, Mazda Motor Corporation (Tokyo, Japan), will unveil a rotary engine car powered by hydrogen at the Tokyo Motor Show. Rotary engines are less fuel-efficient than internal combustion engines when running on gasoline, but expectations are that they will be more efficient than standard engines when powered by hydrogen. The car, based on the RX-8 sports car, with a 150 horsepower engine would be able to run about 200 kilometers on a single fuel tank reports the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.

As the hydrogen-powered, rotary-engined car can utilize parts made for gasoline-powered cars it would cost less per unit ($25,200 to $33,600) to develop and build than a newly developed fuel cell car model at $1.6 million to $2.5 million.

At the Design and Technology Fusion at General Motors (NYSE:GM) (Detroit, Michigan) one of the research avenues being pursued is that of a fuel cell that extracts or 'reforms' its hydrogen from petrol. This could beat the problem of creating a hydrogen supply infrastructure in the short term. Petrol reformers could be supplied to petrol stations, enabling stations to extract their own hydrogen, until a dedicated infrastructure is created.

GM is looking at ways to meet the current problem of storing enough hydrogen fuel in a car to drive 480 kilometers (the U.S. norm) per tank fill-up. One approach is to enable car owners to produce their own hydrogen at home. Giner Electrochemical Systems (Newton, Massachusetts) is developing an electrolyser that would create hydrogen fuel from tapwater.

GM's AUTOnomy skateboard shaped chassis would contain a hydrogen fuel cell and all the car's controls and accommodate various bolt-on body shells. Launching in August is a system for the Hy-Wire AUTOnomy prototype that employs 25kW electric motors that sit on the rear hubs and deliver power directly to the wheels. Fitted to a conventional road car these motors would increase torque by about 60%. For Hy-wire (drive-by-wire) they will give the performance sometimes seen to be lacking in a green car.

Industry researchers say that GM might need to spend $2 billion to $5 billion to make AUTOmony viable and acceptable to motorists. The design leader Chris Borroni-Bird reckons that with their ground up design they have the opportunity to make fuel cell vehicles attractive in their own right without having to depend on people's altruism.