Ballard Power -world leader zero-emission PEM fuel cells Message Board

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Technology Stocks : Ballard Power -world leader zero-emission PEM fuel cells

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To: pink789 who wrote (5452)	7/27/2001 10:07:04 AM
From: Stephen O	Read Replies (1) of 5827

Yes I am. Here's a comment from a new newsletter eyeforfuelcells.com Reforming the Auto – PEMs, Cars and Hydrogen (7/25/2001) Lets forget the utopia of the Hydrogen Economy for a moment and concentrate upon where the Hydrogen for a PEM fuel cell in an automotive vehicle is actually going to come from. There are two options at present: our old friend gasoline, and methanol, both of which would require using a reformer to extract hydrogen on board the vehicle. These cars would not be emission free, however they would still be a lot cleaner than today’s gas guzzlers. The methanol backers readily point out that unlike petrol methanol can be produced from a variety of sources including biomass and natural gas. Methanol is already produced on a large scale and there is currently a global surplus. This could be enough to supply early fuel cell cars and kick start the mass-market through achieving economies of scale. The down side is that if a hydrogen infrastructure is put in place by the multi-national Oil and Gas companies then this could lead to stranded assets. This publication won’t hold its breath waiting for the Hydrogen economy and DaimlerChrysler have already successfully tested a Direct Methanol fuel cell, which requires no reformer at all. Critics argue that it will be over a decade until DaimlerChrysler produce a commercial product based on this technology (so far they’ve only produced a 3kw unit to power a go-kart), however with Shell Hydrogen working on targets based around the year 2050 the competition isn’t exactly white hot. Methanol still requires a certain degree of infrastructure change which of course gasoline doesn’t. Gasoline reformers unfortunately don’t work. Gasoline is a far more complex than methanol containing carbon-carbon molecular bonds requiring a reformer to operate at three times the temperature than a methanol reformer. GM and Toyota working with Exxon Mobil claim to have made a breakthrough in the laboratory, this still may not be enough to ensure a timely response from the fuel cell as the complicated workings of a gasoline reformer lead to a very slow response from the fuel cell. The argument between the two fuels could be made obsolete anyway with the auto industry already producing commercially viable and efficient hybrid cars in the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight. These cars combine a conventional ICE with an electric motor and already have the two main selling points of a fuel cell powered vehicle: fuel efficiency and environmental benefits. So much for the reformation, and with the enlightenment of the hydrogen economy still blighting the automotive world with the SSS issue (safety, storage and supply) we are still in search of a viable, economic, solution. On the other hand with a gasoline reformer operating at 800º-900ºC why not go the whole hog, forget the PEM and use an SOFC which requires no reforming at all.

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