Hydrogen News

Chancellor

Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is the first prime minister in Europe running a hydrogen car. On 18. August DaimlerChrysler presented him a car of the F-Cell type, based on the Mercedes A class, on a leasing basis for one year. This is part of the Clean Energy Project Berlin in the frame of which a total of ten such cars will be tested by different customers in everyday operation. 60 such cars will be running in different parts of the world by the end of this year. Juergen Hubbert, head of the Mercedes brand, stressed the potential of the technology to harmonize mobility and environmental compatibility. The most important tasks at this time are costs and reliability as well as installing the infrastructure, he said. The chancellor remarked that he came directly from a press conference in which the effects of the oil price played an important role. This background makes the fuel cell an important contribution to making mobility reliably available and at the same time putting it in an economically and ecologically acceptable frame. He said that he was glad to see that DaimlerChrysler made important contributions to this work and acts as pacemaker of this future technology.

World Conference

The 18. World Hydrogen Energy Conference(WHEC) will be held from 16. to 21. May in Essen (Germany). The 16. meeting of the series will be in 2006 in Lyon, and the 17. in 2008 in Brisbane. Giving the 18. conference to Germany was the result of a joint initiative of the State Initiative Future Energies North Rhine-Westfalia together with DWV, Juelich Research Center, European Hydrogen Association (EHA), Hydrogen Initiative Bavaria, ZSW Baden-Wuerttemberg, and Essen Fair. The last time WHEC was held in Germany was in 1996 in Stuttgart.

Norway

Since 1. July the small Norwegian island of Utsira demonstrates to the rest of the world how it can be done. The island now has two wind turbines made by the German company Enercon. The wind conditions on the island off the coast of southwest Norway are marvellous, at least in principle. But you can not command the wind. There are even a few days during the year with no wind at all. In order to smoothe the differences between offer and demand one of the wind turbines is connected to an electrolyser made by the Norwegian company Norsk Hydro Electrolysers, which produces hydrogen. Thorhild Widvey, Norwegian minister for Crude Oil and Energy, started the operation. Also present was the head of the energy and aluminium company Hydro (owner of Norsk Hydro Electrolysers). He praised the support which the project had received from the side of the local administration and the whole population. The minister called the project „one of the most innovative energy projects in the world“.

Ford combusts

On 13. July Ford presented in Stuttgart a Focus C-Max with a hydrogen internal combustion engine. The gaseous fuel is stored in three pressure cylinders with a maximum pressure of 350 bar and a geometrical volume of 119 l. Motor output is leistet 82 kW. This combination provides a range of 200 km. Ford said that until fuel cell cars are technically and economically mature cars with hydrogen combustion engines could generate a demand for hydrogen which helps installing the hydrogen infrastructure which is lacking at this time.

Singapore

In July Singapore got its first hydrogen filling station, and a fleet is also there. The filling station was installed by BP as part of a normal station. Hydrogen Technology was delivered by Air Products. At the same time the National Environment Agency received the first of six fuel cell cars of the F-Cell type by Mercedes. Five more cars will be run by Lufthansa, Michelin, a hotel, BP as well as by DaimlerChrysler in ordinary service.

(The Straits Times, 20. July 2004)

Safety study

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is going to start a safety study about hydrogen cars. It is to provide more knowledge about what exactly happens when hydrogen fuelled vehicles are involved in accidents. The planned duration of the project is four years, and the funding is 5 M$, depending of the funds available.

(Automotive News, 1. August 2004)

Approved

Japanese authorithes have approved to General Motors a hydrogen gas storage system with a maximum operating pressure of 700 bar. The system will be integrated into the next prototypes of GM's partner Suzuki, to be presented before the end of this year. General Motors is so far the only company running such systems in cars. The cylinders are made of compound material and were delivered by the Californian company Quantum Fuel Systems Technology Worldwide.

(GM press release of 5. August )

Fuel Cells

Ballard

DaimlerChrysler, Ford, and Ballard have again reshuffled their mutual shares. Ballard Power Systems AG, which was created in 2001, becomes property of DaimlerChrysler and Ford at equal shares (Ballard press releases of 8. and 28. July 2004). It will now concentrate on the development and commercialization of fuel cell systems for cars.

The parent company Ballard Power Systems Inc. in Vancouver (Canada) will focus on the development and commercialization of fuel cells and electrical car drive trains. There is an understanding about the funding of the next two generations of fuel cell drives. Daimler and Ford invest about 41 M$ in Ballard and provide another 58 M$ in the shape of technical services. Daimler will buy the next generation of Ballard`s fuel cells, and Ford has made contracts reaching as far as 2021.

Ballard said the the new structure makes it possible to transfer the experience gathered in fleet tests in a more direct way, and the integration of fuel cell systems into the vehicles could be optimized. The expected effect is a further enhancement of the leading position in this future oriented technology. For the car makers the takeover of the system development is a sign of the committment to pushing forward the market introduction of fuel cell cars.

School contest

On 7. July North Rhine-Westfalia's science minister Hannelore Kraft presented the awards to the winners of the school contest „Fuel Cell Box“. About 500 had participated, 20 teams had made it to the final round, and five were awarded. The contest was made by the State Initiative Future Energies North Rhine-Westfalia together with the company h-tec (Luebeck) and Fuel Cell Europe. Participants had to provide power to a mobile phone by means of a fuel cell building box (the "Fuel Cell Box"). The winners received a fuel cell model car „HyRunner" by h-tec each. And they can keep the phones donated by Vodafone D2.

(Press release of the ministry for science and research of North Rhine-Westfalia of 7. July 2004)

Partners

Buderus Heiztechnik GmbH and RWE Fuel Cells together with the US company IdaTech will develop commercial cogeneration units with 5 kW electrical power. Earlier during this year RWE Fuel Cells had announced a joint program with IdaTech concerning units for more than one house and small commercial users up to 50 kW. During the new partnership IdaTech will make the cells themselves while Buderus and RWE Fuel Cells care for the system as a whole. They will also test the results in the laboratory and in field experiments.

Field tests

Vaillant is now running about 50 fuel cell heating units in field tests with a total output of 400 MWh. At the same time about one million kWh heat were generated by cogeneration. The total operating time of the devices until the middle ot this year was more than 135.000 hours.

Press release of 24. August 2004)

Standards

Energy and Climate

Climate change

No, climate change will not come. It is in full swing. A report of the European Environment Agency says that during the last 100 years the climate in Europe has changed significantly. The losses of insurance companies due to more extreme weather events went up. Rising temperatures and heat waves cause health problems. During the last 100 years the temperature rose by 0.95 °C, which is more than the global average of 0.7 °C. The glaciers of the Alps lost more than half of their ice. During the last decades the sea level rose, the distribution of species in the North Sea has changed, and the vegetation perion extended by 10 to 14 days.

(Press release of the Federal Environment Agency of 18. August 2004; full report available under http://www.eea.eu.int)

Renewables record

The first half of 2004 was the first perion in which more than 10 % of the whole electrical power generated in Germany came from renewable sources. The figure for 2003 was 7.9 %. The Federal Environment Ministry quotes the weather (not so extremely hot and dry as 2003) and the expansion of wind power as reasons. The latter is now the strongest force among the renewable power sources, having left traditional water clearly behind. And the wind power industry exported about 30 % of their production in 2004.

(Press release 243/04 of the Federal Ministry for the Environment of 16. August 2004)

Politics

EU-USA

The European Union and the USA will keep working for the progress of hydrogen technology jointly. This intention was announced during the summit meeting in Shannon early July. The objectives are to add to the safety of energy supply, to make more sources of energy usable, to create employment, and to improve the environmental conditions locally and globally. Since this cooperation was decided about last year there has been a number of political, technical, and scientific activities in this direction. The most important among them was the start of the International Partnership for a Hydrogen Economy (IPHE) in November 2003 in Washington.

Saxony

For the state government of Saxony hydrogen and fuel cells are among the future growth business fields. On 3. August state economy minister Gillo visited the Technology Center ZTS in Glaubitz near Riesa, where a fuel cell manufacture will be installed at the turn of the year. To the 26 companies working there he said that he would help them raising capital and making the transition from development to the market. This would make sense even if it costs money. „We must direct our funding even more to innovations like there here“, he said.

Award

Deutsche Airbus GmbH was awarded with the Constantin Tsiolkovski Award during the 15. World Hydrogen Energy Conference in Yokohama. This price donated by the International Association for Hydrogen Energy is awarded for exceptional achievements connected to the use of hydrogen in aerospace applications. Deutsche Airbus got it for working in this field for many years now in the „Cryoplane“ project and in other activities. A major part of this work was and is being done togehter with the Russian company Tupolev.

What else we have found ...

Gotcha

Early June the parliamentary group of the Green party in the German parliament made a hearing in the course of which Claude Thurmes, green member of the European Parliament, provided important insight about which kind of people do work for hydrogen. He said that under the hydrogen label collects mainly the nuclear and coal lobby in order to provide a positive image for their technology and to redirect funds from the domain of the renewables.

Remark: And this would be even more wonderful if Brussels would provide funds for renewables and hydrogen in an amount which would make raids like this pay. But quite seriously: DWV is not in favour of nuclear power. DWV is not against nuclear power either. Nuclear power is not sustainable. But how fast and with how much administrative support we will have to abandon it is a matter we will not comment about.