Mobile applications

Berlin City Cleaning develops electric utility vehicle

Heliocentris Fuel Cells AG from Berlin and FAUN Umwelttechnik GmbH & Co. KG, European market leader for waste removal vehicles, jointly develop a hybrid wast removal vehicle with greatly reduced and noise and exhauxst emissions for the Berlin City Cleaning utility BSR (Berliner Stadtreinigung), Germany's largest communal waste removal utility.

The prototype of the vehicle will comprise a hydrogen based fuel cell board energy system. So the main drive (Diesel motor) can be switched off during the collecting of waste and ist used only for driving. This system saves up to 3 l Diesel per hour, about 30 %. The emissions of CO₂, NO_X and particulate matter are reduced correspondingly.

The part of Heliocentris is design and installation of the 32 kW fuel cell system and of the hydrogen tanks as intrinsically safe vehicle sub-system. Apart from the development of the prototype the demonstration project will also include extensive tests under real life conditions. In case of success a larger field test with a little fleet of such vehicles could follow.

(Heliocentris press release of 5. August 2010)

Hydrogen cars for all

Since July everybody can lease a hydrogen car from Honda. He only has to go to one of three representations of the company located in the Californian cities Costa Mesa, Santa Monica, and Torrance. There he can get a Honda FCX Clarity for three years at 600 $ per month. A parallel program runs in Japan. Honda says that the car has a consumption of a bit less than 3.2 l gasoline equivalent per 100 km and a range of 450 km.

(Honda Motors, 27. July 2010)

Scandinavian lighthouse project to start

Next year the first EU funded "lighthouse project" about hydrogen and fuel cell cars will start in Norway. 17 vehicles will participate. The Scandinavian project has a volume of almist 30 M€; parts of the amount will come from the industrial partners and others from national programs in Norway and Denmark. The objective is to advance hydrogen based transport in Scandinavia and to connect to the strong projects in Germany.

Ten Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell will take part, two Alfa Romeo MiTo by the Centro Ricerche FIAT and five battery city cars with fuel cell range extenders. From 2011 on they will hit the road in ordinary use in Oslo and other parts of Southern Norway and also elsewhere in Scandinavia.

All hydrogen will be produced on the basis of Norwegian power which comes from wind and hydropower to an extent of more than 90 %.

During the project some of the vehicles will make a demonstration trip organized by Hydrogen Sweden togehter with HyRamp (European Regions’ and Municipalities’ Partnership on Hydrogen and Fuel Cells). During this time the Danish company H2Logic will provide a mobile hydrogen supply which creats almost no CO₂.

Boeing is watching you

The latest prototype by the „Phantom Works” (development division) of the US aviation company Boeing is called Phantom Eye. The unmanned plane will operate with hydrogen fuel and can operate for up to four days in heights of almost 20 km. It is mainly meant for the collection of data of any kind, either military or civilian.

According to program manager Drew Mallow hydrogen was chosen as fuel because it is very efficient, makes a low consumption possible and produces nothing but water. So the Phantom Eye is also a "green plane".

Propulsion is do by propellers driven by combustion engines. For each propeller there are two four cylinder engines with a volume of 2.3 l and an output of 110 kW each. Wing span is 46 m, cruising speed some 270 km/h, and payload 200 kg.

Stationary applications

Using fuel cells for fire protection

There is no fire without oxygen. And a fuel cell generates air depleted of oxygen. Four years ago two people from Hamburg founded the company N2Telligencewiht the objective to combine these facts to make a product. The basis is an air mixture similar to air, but with an oxygen content of only 14.5 % leaving almost no chance to a fire. This oxygen depleted air can be filled into the server rooms of computer centes or other rooms where a fire can be tolerated by no means. All candles and other fires will extinguish in such a room, while the human organism gets along very well.

The basis of the system is a phosphoric acid fuel cell from Japan using natural gas and a reformer with an electrical output of 100 kW. To this N2Telligence adds a treatment of the exhaust air. The idea to use oxygen depleted air for fire prevention is not new, but most systems for this purpost consume a lot of energy. Here, however, the fuel cell even generates power, and the heat can be used for heating or even for the generation of low temperatures using an adsorption machine. The two company founders are already negotiating with many architects and other builting experts in Germany and abroad and think that they have rather good chances for their business. They might even extend it to Japan. The fuel cell suppliers there observe the matter with great interest, and in case of success the system might be used in Japan as well.

Fuel cells for the mobile grid

Mobile phone providers also in the USA look at hydrogen and fuel cells for making their grids safer against disruptions. Most of the network nodes are equipped with Diesel generators to make them operative even in case of a grid failure. Sprint Nextel has 250 of their stations in particularly endangered regions equipped with fuel cells, and this already in 2005. It obviously worked. This fall a second phase will start. 260 stations in California, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut will get a new system of this kind, and 70 more in Texas and Louisiana will be upgraded. The Department of Energy supports the work with 7.3 M$, while 10 M$ are provided by the company.

(Kansas City Business Journal, 18. July 2010)

Infrastructure

Hydrogen filling stations north and south of the Brenner pass

The operators of the Italian part of the Brenner highway will contribute to having a hydrogen filling station every 100 km all the way from Munich to Modena. The Italian part of the track has been divided into five sections with suitable ways to provide fuel each, differing mainly in the basis of renewable energies. At the Brenner pass it will be wind power, at Bolzano hydropower, near Trento a combination of photovoltaics and hydropower, near Verona at the junction with the A4 (Torino - Milan - Venice - Trieste) and further south near the junction with the A1 (Milan - Bologna - Florence) it will be biomass.

For a start phase a mix of hydrogen with methane (natural gas) will be offered. This will reduce the emissions of natural gas cars significantly. And methane can also be generated from non-fossil sources. A hydrogen initiative in Milan is already operating vehicles like this. This „Hydromethane“ is considered as intermediate step to the hydrogen car.

(HyRamp press release of 7. July 2010)

Accident at Rochester

An accident happened on August 26 at the hydrogen filling station near the international airport of Rochester (New York, USA). On the basis of the information available at this time it can be said that during the exchange of a tank by the operating company Praxwir there was a spark and an explosion. The employee who had done the work was brought to the hospital with burns; his state was described as „satisfactory“. An employee of a nearby restaurant was also treated for ear pains. Nobody else was hurt. Airport operation was interrupted for 50 minutes.

The station is mainly used by the nearby development centre of General Motors which plays a key role in the work of the company related to hydrogen cars.

(YNN, 26. August 2010)

Energy and Climate

Do we have enough Lithium?

The Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Wuerttemberg (ZSW) recently published a meta study on whether we have enough lithium in the world to support an extensive electromobility. The result is positive. There are enough identified lithium sources existing, and new production capacities are planned, according to Benjamin Schott, one of the authors. „Between 135 and 160 Mt Lithium carbonate equivalent are known globally. This would do for ten billion electric vehicles. Purely mathematically the whole worldwide annual production of 50 million vehicles could be equipped with lithium batteries for 200 years.“ And there is also enough lithium for other applications.

ZSW sees risks for the supply mainly by the long time it takes to create new production sites. And the major part of the lithium resources is in politically less stable areas like Bolivia or Chile. More research activities in this field are said to be necessary to decrease the dependency from the raw material and to break the link between higher lithium prices and the battery prices.

The key point for the researchers is to build up a recycling system and the long term research into new, even more efficient battery technologies which also could provide more safety in terms of raw material supply. They say that the German economy has here a chance to create values and to occupy a top position in this sector.

The study is available under www.zsw-bw.de, Infoportal.

(ZSW press release of 29. July 2010)

IEA announces end of the cheap oil era

Since 2008 the International Energy Agency (IEA) warns that the era of cheap oil may be over soon. This alert was repeated in connection with the oil pest in the Gulf of Mexico. IEA head Nobuo Tanaka said that on the one hand the production would become more expensive, for example by new requirements and demands by the insurances. And the exploration of new fields might slow down. Even now his organisation expects that the worldwide reserve capacities would drop from six now to four million barrel a day by 2015.

Experts have warned for years about global shortages because the global oil deposits decrease while the consumption increases dramatically. Today already 30 % of the crude oil production come from deep drillings, according to Tanaka. „And the percentage of deep drillings will certainly rise in the future.“ But exactly these wells are the taget of international criticism since the BP disaster.

IEA chief economic adviser Fatih Birol mentioned in this context that the oil spill has quite suddenly revealed the risks of the technology. New laws and stricter safety controls would drive up the price of production off the coasts of America and Africa. „The effect of the accident is that many projects must be recalculated. Quite a number of them will no longer be profitable. In many cases the production off the coasts of USA, Brazil, and a few African countries will no longer pay off.“

(Sueddeutsche Zeitung, 8. July 2010)

German chemical industry association demands more electrochemistry

Electro mobility will be a focal point of research and innovation for the German chemical industry in the years to come. This was the result of a sounding by the Association of the Chemical Industry (VCI) presented by Dr. Andreas Kreimeyer, chairman of the committee for research, science, and education to the press in Frankfurt.

But in order to master the challenges associated with the development of more efficient and long-living batteries Kreimeier demanded a strong alliance of science and industry. He said that now is the time to set new accents in fundamental research. Countries like Japan, Korea, and China, he said, are at least five years ahead with the experience in battery research. „Nevertheless I am convinced that with the activities started recently, like the National Platform Electromobility, plus the necessary courage and public funding we have a chance to close up to the Asian competitors“, Kreimeyer continued.

(VCI press release of 26. August)

What else we have found ...

Brittle stuff

There are still surprised in hydrogen. In early August the incredulous public learned from a press release from the Fraunhofer Institute for Materials Mechanics at Freiburg that hydrogen can enhance the embrittlement of some metallic materials. Some press services declared already that hydrogen cars are „self destructive“. But not only systems in which hydrogen is handled deliberately (like cars) are jeopardized, also constructions of any kind because hydrogen can, for example, enter a welding seam and decrease its strength.

But there is no reason to be desperate. By an extremely lucky coincidence the said Fraunhofer institute has just opened a special laboratory which has been equipped with a lot of investment by the new head of the division. Now it is offering to the public to help clarifying processes like this.

This appears to be an attempt to sell us an effect which has been known for ages as a new discovery. For decades engineers have known how much they can expect from which material under which conditions. There is a lot of literature about this, and if there are still open problems then there are research institutes like BAM (Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing) in Berlin or MPA in Stuttgart to solve them.

Let us just remark that hundreds of hydrogen cars and buses are operating all over the world and most of them do not disintegrate into metallic waste during the ride.

Remark: Next time somebody will discover that hydrogen is flammable!