General

WHEC: Great hydrogen festival in Essen

You may view the World Hydrogen Energy Conference (WHEC) 2010 as you like: it was a great success. „You gave us the best WHEC ever!“, exclaimed IAHE president Nejat Veziroglu, under whose auspices the meeting was held, during the closing session.

He had good reason to do so. In spite of the present difficult economical conditions it was fairly easy to bring participants to Essen, according to conference chairman Prof. Dr. Detlef Stolten (FZ Juelich). The scientific conference had 1200 participants from 50 countries. About half of it was from Germany, the rest fairly evenly from the rest of Europe and other countries. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the research centre Juelich supported. WHEC 2010. The organisation of the conference was done by the EnergieAgentur NRW. DWV was among the co-organizers.

The conference start on Monday hat already given the positive mood when both politicians (federal transport minister Peter Ramsauer, North Rhine-Westphalia's prime minister Jürgen Rüttgers, China's research minister Gang Wan) and the CEOs of important companies (Daimler, Linde, Solvay) together with representatives of research underlined the important role of hydrogen and fuel cells on the basis of renewable energies in bringing about a sustainable and safe energy supply.

Prime minister Rüttgers said that the new structures would be based on renewable energies, and hydrogen and fuel cells would be part of it. Dieter Zetsche said in his speech that the participation of his company and also his own were self-evident. Fuel cell cars with hydrogen are an important part of the Daimler strategy for sustainable mobility, according to his words.

The conference war accompanied by a trade fair which was unique in its extension, at least as satellite to the conference (140 exhibitors from 13 countries on 1800 m²). And in front of the conference centre there were 16 cars from nine manufacturers for test rides.

Mobile applications

Hydrogen rally from Berlin to Hamburg

On occasion of the opening of the new hydrogen filling station in Berlin (Holzmarktstrasse) secretary of state Scheuer and NOW head Bonhoff started a „rally“ of eleven hydrogen vehicles from the station in Berlin to the Hafencity in Hamburg, the place of another filling station. This is a distance of almost 300 km. The objective was simply to arrive, to cover the distance without problems, to make PR for hydrogen fuel and to have a lot of fun.

Journalists had been selected as drivers in order to make sure that the PR effect worked. Every journalist could ride two cars because there was a halfway stop at Stolpe for filling up and changing vehicles (highway filling station about midway between Berlin and Hamburg). Linde had brought the mobile hydrogen filling station to Stolpe and filled up the vehicles who needed it. Not all needed it because the range of the vehicles were rather different.

In Hamburg the rally participants were greeted by Herlind Gundelach, senator for science, and the CEP partners Hamburger Hochbahn and Vattenfall.

The impressions of the participants were very positive. One thing in particular was striking: the really spectacular thing about the ride was how unspectacular it was. The operation of the cars does not differ from a normal automatic car. Even at high speeds the cars make very little noise. In the city the high torque of the electric motors even at zero speed makes it possible to leave even fast cars behind. In any case you will arrive much more relaxed after a ride in such a car than in a normal car.

North Rhine-Westphalia new member of CEP

On June 1 North Rhine-Westphalia has become partner of the CEP (Clean Energy Partnership) as first state of Germany which is more than a city. This was announced on occasion of the World Hydrogen Energy Conference in Essen on 17. Mai. The focus of the projects over several states and with federal funding will be on public transport. State minister for economy Christa Thoben said: „From individual components to complete plants, from the car to public transport this technology is developed and produced in the energy region No. 1 and used worldwide.“

Alsterwasser soon to be afloat again

The Hamburg fuel cell ship FCS Alsterwasser was severely damaged by a fire on April 28, see our last issue. It has not been confirmed that the battery compartment was the starting point of the fire. Neither the hydrogen tanks nor the fuel cell were damaged.

The damage is severe, but the ship will be afloat again soon. The financial loss is covered by an insurance. When all goes well the citizens and visitors of Hamburg will be able even this year to make zero-emission trips over the river Alster and the channels of the city.

Electric mobility in south west Germany

On Juni 18 Daimler and the power supplier EnBW started the common initiative „e-mobility Baden-Württemberg“. Until the end of 2011 the two companies will test electric and fuel cell vehicles together with company fleets, private customers and in public transport.

Daimler will provide 200 vehicles in Baden-Wuerttemberg. Depending on the type the vehicles are fitted with battery electric or fuel cell drive trains. EnBW plans to install more than 700 charging stations and two or three hydrogen filling stations. The test will be made in the regions Stuttgart and Karlsruhe. The charging stations are supplied with 100 % hydropower.

Zetsche and Villis see the great chance to make the fuel cell drive train competitive. „With a production of 100.000 fuel cell vehicles we can bring the costs to the level of a Diesel engine within five or six years“, said the Daimler head. On the base of a range of 400 km for a B class which is today almost ready for serial production Zetsche calculates a net of about 1000 hydrogen filling stations for a comprehensive supply in Germany. „This corresponds to an investment of about 1.7 billion Euro.“

(Press release of 18. June 2010).

Infrastructure

New filling station in Berlin opened

The CEP partners Linde, Statoil and TOTAL extended the supply with hydrogen fuel in Germany by opening the hydrogen filling station Holzmarktstrasse Berlin (near East station).

More than 40 cars and buses of BVG are tested in CEP at this time. The new filling station offers hydrogen both liquid and gaseous under 350 and 700 bar. CEP is the first project in Europe which adapts to international standards from the very beginning. Gaseous hydrogen is produced by Statoil on site by electrolysis. The power is certified as green which means that it is made from renewable power. The electrolyser is new and can be switched on and off very quickly. This means that it fits together very well with wind power plants.

The filling system for gaseous hydrogen was developed by Statoil as well on the basis of new insights. Hydrogen is stored underground safely (up to 1000 bar) saving space.

Liquid hydrogen is delivered by Linde from the liquefaction plant at Leuna. Starting in fall 2010 the hydrogen made there will be made sustainably from glycerine, a waste product from the biodiesel production. A particular feature of the plant is a mini power station which converts the boil-off hydrogen gas into power and heat for the filling station.

The plant at Holzmarktstrasse is the first of four new hydrogen filling stations which will be funded by the federal ministry for transport in the framework of the National Innovation program hydrogen and fuel cells (NIP) and will be built during the two years to come in Berlin and Hamburg.

First filling station in the Cologne area starts operation

On May 7 the project Chemergy of the Initiative HyCologne started operation of a hydrogen filling station by Air Products in the chemistry compound of Knapsack near Huerth (10 km SW of Cologne). Air Products delivered the turn-key plant and will also operate it. At first two buses of the Huerth city utility will be serviced with hydrogen. The safety concept makes it possible that the drivers do it themselves and that the plant can also be used by other vehicles in the future.

The plant at Huerth is also a step on the way to a possible serial production of hydrogen filling stations. It was delivered as turn-key systems. All that hat to be done on site was to fit the power supply. The capacity of 100 kg hydrogen per day is enough for four buses. With additional components the station can also provide hydrogen under 700 bar.

Energy and Climate

More heat waves

Global warming does not mean that the temperatures will rise evenly, but there will be more and stronger extremes. The extreme conditions of the summer 2003 will become more frequent. A Swiss research team has now combined six current climate simulations with eight old calculations and makes new predictions: In the further course of the century the summer heat waves in Europe will become more frequent and stronger. In Southern Europe the number of days with temperatures above 40 °C will rise continually: now we have an average of two on the Iberian peninsula and the Mediterranean. In 2021 there will be 13 extremely hot days per summer, and 40 in the years 2071 to 2100. In Central Europe the number of days with extreme temperatures will rise from four to twelve to the end of the century. The heat waves will also be clearly longer than in this decade. In particular in the densely populated areas of Southern Europe the scientists predict grave health effects for the inhabitants.

(E. M. Fischer et al., Nature Geoscience 3 (2010) 398-403)

Politics

Summit on electric mobility

A new top level platform for electric mobility was founded on May 3 in Berlin. It aims to bring together politics, industry, and research to make transport more sustainable and environment friendly. The new partnership is to accelerate the development and to see that Germany remains in front as producer and also as market.

When the federal chancellor and three ministers (economy, transport, research) and even a fourth (environment minister Roettgen hat climate negotiations in Bonn and was represented by his secretary of state) this is not an everyday event and betrays the weight of the matter.

In her speech chancellor Merkel said that 1 million electric vehicles on Germany's roads by 2020 will still be a small part of a total of 45. But those who do not develop the electric mobility intensively today and bring it to the market will lag behind in a few years. What is needed is progress in research, education of the workforce, international cooperation, standardisation, and equal boundary conditions and finally an equal infrastructure. And even then this would be a progress only if the power comes from renewable sources. She closed with the statement: "I think that electric mobility is an extremely exciting field. If I had not become politician I could imagine to work in this field in the framework of my former profession.“

A joint declaration of federal government and German industry says: „There are numerous concepts for road traffic: optimisation of the combustion engine and stepwise hybridisation, alternative fuels and finally battery and fuel cell vehicles. … Aside the National Innovation program hydrogen and fuel cells (NIP) which already runs successfully the national development plan for electric mobility will now enhance the battery technology and the technologies for electrical drive trains. In 40 years the major part of transport will run on alternative fuels and innovative propulsion technologies if the climate objectives of the federal government are to be achieved.“

Transport minister Ramsauer said that the fuel cell can cure the range deficit of the pure battery drive. Research secretary of state Schuette also confirmed to DWV that both systems are treated on equal level in terms of research funding.

What else we have found ...

Simple means

In May 2009 US energy secretary Chu told a meeting of Nobel laureates that the roofs in the USA and maybe even the whole world should be painted white. This would reflect more sunlight than normal roofs. „The energy goes back to space, not into the stone“, Chu explained. There would be less climatisation for the buildings which would save energy. Less heat would be stored near ground.

Meanwhile a few detailed calculations about this proposal have been made. They show that white roofs in cities under optimum conditions could indeed let the average temperature drop by 0.4 °C. But they would have no global effect. Cooling the cities could also be done much better with green instead of white, namely with more trees and green parks.

Remark: These ideas could be extended easily. In the warm regions of the world there could be a law demanding the wearing of white hats. Simply imagine what this would mean when the Indians and Chinese would do this!