Get this
report
"62
Ways To Save Gas Mileage"
FREE
when you sign up for
our Monthly "Car Care Tips" Newsletter.
Get great tips in looking after
your
vehicle, money saving coupons,
as well as news of promotions and new
products.
Click
here for more information.
|
The
Challenge of Supplying Hydrogen to the Fuel-Cell Car
The
Chicken And The Egg
The production of hydrogen is
not seen as the
biggest problem to be overcome. There are several efficient methods of
generating enough hydrogen to meet all future requirements - the
cleanest being electrolysis of water. The major hurdle to be
overcome, however, is logistics. Currently there are only
about
100 small hydrogen refuelling stations within the U.S. compared with
170,000 gasoline stations. Because hydrogen is stored and handled
completely differently to gasoline the existing fuel stations cannot
easily be converted to supply hydrogen. New purpose-build
hydrogen refuelling stations are needed. But this causes a
problem. Until there is sufficient demand for hydrogen vehicles
suppliers will not build supply stations but consumers will not buy
hydrogen vehicles until there are sufficient supply stations.
The
classic problem of "the chicken and the egg."
Research by the National Research Council in the U.S. concludes that
hydrogen will become competitive with gasoline once there is a
distribution system large enough. Until that time the cost of
powering hydrogen vehicles could be much more expensive than
gasoline. GM estimates that it would require about 12,000
hydrogen stations concentrated in cities and along interstates to
provide sufficient national coverage for the first million hydrogen
vehicles in the U.S. Each station would cost about $1
million. To provide sufficient coverage for 100 million
vehicles
would require a full-scale national supply and distribution system
costing around $300 or $400 billion. Although this sounds
like an
excessive amount that is too expensive to realize such a project it
should be held in perspective. The World Energy Council
estimates
that the infrastructure costs of maintaining and expanding gasoline
supply in North America over the next 30 years will come to about $1.3
trillion. Building a hydrogen based fuel system is expensive
but
no more so than continuing with a gasoline based fuel system.
The first hydrogen stations would probably focus on supplying fleet
vehicles such as buses, local delivery vans and taxis which would not
require an extensive refuelling network. This could be
expanded
to existing electric vehicles such as forklifts, scooters and electric
bikes. Locomotives and marine engines could easily be added
to
the system thereby eliminating significant amounts of air
pollution. These niche markets would have the
effect of
brining down the cost of production of fuel-cells and so the cost of a
hydrogen automobile would fall encouraging demand from consumers
leading to suppliers providing the necessary refuelling stations around
the country. Researchers at the University of California have
concluded that it would only require 5-10 percent of urban suppliers
plus a few on connecting routes between cities to offer hydrogen for
there to be about the same level of convenience of supply for hydrogen
as for gasoline.
These first centralized networks of hydrogen
supply could provide clean, safe and abundant amounts of the
fuel
using wind farms and solar arrays to generate electricity which would
power the hydrogen generating plants to produce hydrogen from a raw
material that is locally available and in plentiful supply.............
which is, of course.....
water.
|
