Kian Northcotefreelance writer |
Gasworld |
Hydrogen - Fuel of the future? by Kian Northcote With worldwide stocks of fossil fuels shrinking, and the need to reduce carbon emissions growing, the race is on to develop a cleaner long-term replacement for petrol and diesel. Is hydrogen a serious contender?
Ignoring these, you pull up next to something new. It’s about the
same size as the other pumps - possibly blue - and its design is dominated
by one word - Hydrogen. You get out, remove the petrol cap from your car,
select which class of hydrogen you would like – standard or super
- insert the nozzle and stand by as the tank’s liquid contents are
pumped into your vehicle. Sounds simple, but could this vision of the
future ever become reality for most car users?
Meanwhile, in Europe, gas and oil giants such as BOC, BP and Shell, along with car manufacturers Daimler Chrysler and Ford; have been working together on the design and manufacture of fuel cell vehicles for more than two decades. Their work is being displayed on a regular basis in demonstration projects at purpose-built sites in London, Berlin, Barcelona and Porto. As well as providing car manufacturers with the opportunity to showcase new fuel cell vehicles, these projects also allow companies such as BP and BOC to explore different ways of generating hydrogen for mass-market consumption, and at possible design schematics for widespread refuelling facilities in Europe. At present, most of these projects involve public transport vehicles such as buses and lorries rather than passenger cars, for they travel a predictable route where you can refuel at a certain point. John Carolin, global director of sustainable energy at BOC, believes that research into hydrogen-fuelled technology is still very much in its infancy. ‘We’re not going to see a revolutionary change that in fifteen or twenty years is going to totally change what everybody’s doing. It’s going to be much slower than that’ says Carolin. ‘I think that in 2030 hydrocarbons – petrol and diesel – will still account for the majority of energy used in transportation, but I’d expect that hydrogen will be a significant portion of what’s used.’ However, Dean Miller, programme director for renewable energy at Exeter University, is not so optimistic. ‘I would say fifty years at least,’ says Millar. ‘Too far in the future for hydrogen to have a substantial effect on reducing carbon emissions when they need to be reduced.’ David Nicholas, spokesperson for BP, is even more cautious in specifying a date for mass-market production. ‘It’s an option I think at the moment, he says. ‘But whether it ends up becoming a mainstream replacement for transport, who knows.’ Instead, Nicholas is quick to defend the continued role of fossil fuels by highlighting the general drop in both sulphur and benzine emissions. ‘You’ve got to remember what’s happened already to the transport fuels we use already. The levels of pollution in terms of air quality from the petrol and diesel we use on a daily basis has drastically fallen over the past fifteen to twenty years.’ He adds: ‘engines have got more efficient; technology has developed and fuels have got cleaner and cleaner.’ But he agrees that fossil fuels can never hope to match the positive impact hydrogen could have on our environment. ‘It’s clear that hydrogen is a possibility and clearly it has environmental benefits,’ he says. ‘When you put hydrogen through a fuel cell all you have as a bi-product is water.’ It doesn’t release harmful emissions.
For your average car user, a more pressing concern is whether or not hydrogen is actually safe to use? ‘Any fuel has safety issues associated with it; almost by definition because it’s a source of energy,’ says Carolin. ‘In a way, hydrogen is no different from gasoline or diesel in that you just have to use it in a safe way. I don’t think that inherently it’s any less safe than the products we’re already using today. It’s just got to be done right.’ However, Millar disagrees. ‘Safety-wise there are some big issues in terms of the widespread roll-out of hydrogen as a fuel,’ he says. ‘It’s probably the most explosive gas you can have. Can you imagine going along to a gas station and filling up with something that if there’s any spark will detonate?’ For Millar the development of hydrogen-fuelled technology is simply not feasible as a commercial product - in the kind of timescale that’s been discussed. ‘It’s a fantasy in my view to imagine that hydrogen will have - or make – any significant inroads into reducing carbon emissions on the road; they won’t even get to 1% in twenty years, I would say.’ Millar’s own solution to the problem posed by carbon emissions is fairly straightforward. ‘Travel less,’ he laughs. ‘Buses are the more efficient way to travel in energy terms, but we need more people on them. ‘When there are more people on the buses there will be more buses and more routes and it will be easier to use a bus. Eventually things will get bad enough and everybody will realise, oh god, we should have done this years ago,’ sighs Millar. ‘Possibly by then it will be too late.’ Daimler Chrysler Daimler Chrysler is the parent company that owns Mercedes-Benz. Since
1994 its engineers have been sounding out the opportunities presented
by a hydrogen-based fuel cell with the development of several concept
vehicles. The first of thesewas the NECAR 1 van – the first in a
series of five from the NECAR family. The fuel cell weighed 800 kilograms,
leaving only enough room for the driver and a front-seat passenger. It
was described at the time as being little more than a ‘laboratory
on wheels.’ In 2002 this Mercedes Benz A-class vehicle smashed the endurance record for fuel cell vehicles. It covered the 3,260 miles from San Francisco to Washington, crossing both the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains en route – conquering altitudes of up to 8,860 ft. Daimler Chrysler has since unveiled several new fuel cell vehicles, such as the Mercedes-Benz A-class F-cell in 2002, and the Mercedes-Benz Citaro the following year. The F-cell was the world’s first small car to use fuel- cell-drive, while the Citaro is a bus that’s powerful enough to accommodate seventy people - with an operating range of 125 miles. At last year’s Geneva Motor Show, Daimler Chrysler unveiled the Mercedes-Benz B-class F-Cell, thus extending its range of fuel cell vehicles to incude sports tourers. As well as designing and operating more than 100 test vehicles around
the world - the group is also co-operating with both BMW and General Motors
to develop hybrid-drive systems. The goal is to design petrol cars that
are as efficient as diesels - and diesel cars that are as clean as petrol
cars. The plan to combine petrol and diesel engines could lead to a substantial
drop in harmful emissions without sacrificing high-level comfort. BOC Serving over two million customers in fifty countries, BOC owns almost a hundred hydrogen plants around the world. By distributing vast quantities of hydrogen to customers – such as Daimler Chrysler - gas companies such as BOC are vital to hydrogen’s chances of succeeding on a mass scale. However, with research into commercially viable hydrogen-fuelled cars still in an early development stageBOCis currently concentrating on other markets away from cars. ‘I think there are other segments of the market which will adopt hydrogen much sooner than cars - such as forklift trucks,’ says Carolin. ‘Our goal is to make sure that we’re positioned for those earlier markets in the short to medium term while at the same time positioning ourselves for participating in the markets which will evolve in that longer timescale.’ As well as operating large fleets of liquid tankers and tube trailers for hydrogen distribution, BOC is also involved in developing manifolded cylinders for moving much smaller quantities of hydrogen; these are built specifically for fuel cell applications.
Like BOC, BP already produces a huge amount of hydrogen at its refineries
around the world. Its efforts are geared toward the production, distribution
and retailing of hydrogen for the global market. BP is also involved in
building demonstration refuelling stations in cities such Both Daimler Chrysler and BOC are assisting BP in its research, with the latter providing much of the technology. And with the recent announcement that the scheme will continue in seven of the nine cities for a further twelve months – including London, David Nicholas is quick to point out the benefits. ‘It gives us the chance to try out different technologies, potentially
for generating hydrogen and possibly options on what a refuelling facility
might look like,’ he says. ‘It’s learning by doing,
but on a clearly defined scale.’ |
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