A few good posts on Yahoo I can post about 94246 grovehousesw post on ECD yahoo board. The follow up from post 94224 Doc. About Hydrogen storage.
Re: Fill 'er up-link
by: grovehousesw
Long-Term Sentiment: Hold 10/13/03 10:26 am
Msg: 94235 of 94250
link to GREAT article in Chicago Trib chicagotribune.com 1.story
Fill 'er up
Battery-maker comes up with an idea to make hydrogen more practical as a fuel
By Gerald Scott
Special to the Tribune
October 13, 2003
AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Everyone from the federal government to automakers see hydrogen as the future of automotive power.
But with no economies of scale, hydrogen-powered cars are expensive. And with no ready fueling and storage options, there are no economies of scale.
Enter ECD Ovonics, an electric-vehicle battery and fuel-cell storage maker in Rochester Hills, Mich.
ECD is pitching the idea of deriving, or "cracking," hydrogen in the car from sources including gasoline, methanol, coal, biomass and natural gas.
"You can take it from the point of hydrogen generation and use whatever method you want [to initially synthesize hydrogen from its fossilized source]. Whether it's a reformer or a renewable method, you take that hydrogen [finished product], and you can move it on a truck, just like you do with gasoline now.
"You can move it on a train, just like we do with other fuel sources; you can move it on a barge. When it's in a filling station, you can put it into a vehicle and use the same storage methodology for all of those."
For ECD's purposes, "solid" hydrogen means molecules of H stored or trapped between porous solid membranes known as hydrides. When heat is applied to hydrides, they break down into a gaseous fuel.
ECD demonstrated this on a 2002 Toyota Prius gasoline/electric car whose internal combustion engine runs on hydrogen with some tweaking (supercharging in, platinum spark plugs out. Conventional nickel/copper or silver alloy plugs are used because the platinum reacts badly to the hydrogen).
"Compact, solid hydrogen storage promises to deliver cars to customers with similar range, performance and refueling experience as vehicles of today," said ECD Chairman Robert Stempel, former chairman and chief executive of General Motors Corp.
The refueling portion of this equation was done through the efforts of Texaco Ovonic Hydrogen Systems (TOHS), a partnership of ECD Ovonics and ChevronTexaco.
"This new technology will allow drivers to refuel their hydrogen-fueled vehicles safely and easily at existing gasoline service stations equipped with TOHS' low-pressure, underground hydrogen fuel tanks that are comparable to those that now hold gasoline," Stempel further explains.
"Similarly, low-pressure fuel tanks on board vehicles make refueling a hydrogen-powered vehicle as easy as a conventional vehicle."
Gene Nemanich, vice president of hydrogen systems and fuels at ChevronTexaco Technology Ventures, says that the '02 Pruis can refuel in about 10 minutes, though they are seeking to cut that to a five-minute "gas stop," comparable to a conventional gas station experience. Research shows consumers won't stay at the pump longer.
"Right now, a typical gas station in the U.S. sells about 150,000 gallons a month, or 5,000 gallons per day and the average fill-up is between 10-15 gallons per car," said Nemanich. "That breaks down to an average of about 400 cars per day entering and filling up at every service station in the country."
According to Ovonics, with that volume of cars entering and leaving a gas station, anything longer than a 5-minute refill would create artificially long backups at the pumps, even with no shortage of fuel.
jeff
Posted as a reply to: Msg 94234 by sruz23
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