"Global Thermoelectric is testing two-kilowatt SOFC units and related propane and CNG fuel processors, and SOFC’s have been chosen by California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District for their pilot program for residential and small commercial fuel cell installations." ... as recorded in
Hydrogen Energy Center
Minutes of Regular Open Board Meeting
[With Some Additional Items We Didn’t Reach (!)]
Tuesday August 13, 2002 6pm- 8pm
Bartol Public Library
Freeport, Maine
h2eco.org ... complete meeting minutes
Genesee Region Clean Communities Web Site
Events
364 Lanning Road, Honeoye Falls, NY 14472-9741, Tel./Fax. 716-624-8182
On Thursday, September 12, 2002, the Genesee Region Clean Communities and U.S. Dept. of Energy Clean Cities program hosted a regional outreach event, “The State of AFV Refueling Infrastructure in the Genesee Region.” The site for the event was the Rochester Engineering Society facility at 1806 Lyell Ave., Rochester, NY.
The event was attended by individuals representing governmental agencies, public transportation, businesses, fuel and refueling equipment suppliers, and private individuals.
The day began at approximately 10:00 am with a continental breakfast to provide the opportunity for arriving individuals to register and meet with other attendees for networking. There were also several alternatively fueled vehicles available for viewing throughout the event. Suburban Propane provided a propane fueled delivery truck. The City of Rochester provided a propane fueled road patch and recycling truck. New York State Dept. of Transportation provided a natural gas fueled Honda Civic. Harbec Plastics provided a Toyota Prius hybrid-electric vehicle. Drivers were also available to answer questions about the vehicles.
The first speaker of the day was Aida Rodrequez. Ms Rodrequez works for General Motors at their fuel cell research and development facility in Honeoye Falls, NY. Ms. Rodrequez started by stating that there are three basic ways to provide hydrogen fuel for fuel cells on a vehicle. The most obvious is to distribute chemically pure hydrogen fuel in the form of compressed gas or liquefied gas. The infrastructure for this form of distribution is not currently available.
Another strategy for the production of hydrogen at a distribution facility is through electrolysis of water at the refueling site. A significant advantage of this approach is that off-peak electric power could be used, reducing the production cost. The cost associated with transporting hydrogen to the refueling site would also be eliminated. This infrastructure is also currently not available in this area.
The third approach is to provide an on-vehicle reformer for the production of hydrogen from liquid fuel. This approach is preferred by General Motors for the near term development of fuel-cell vehicles. The obvious reason is that the fuel distribution system for petroleum feed stock already exists and doesn’t have to be developed. This will be only a temporary “Bridging” design. General Motors projects that a hydrogen distribution infrastructure will be developed in the future making it possible to eliminate the reformer and, thereby, reducing the cost and complexity of a vehicle.
It should also be noted that General Motors is working on stationary fuel-cell applications for local generation of electric power. Projections are that within five years General Motors will be marketing fuel-cells for non-automotive applications. Within ten years General Motors hopes to be marketing more than 100,000 fuel-cell cars per year.
Ms. Rodrequez also provided some details about the functioning of fuel-cells and the performance improvements that have been made over time. For example early technology provided only slightly over 200 watts per liter where current technology for automotive applications provides 2,500 watts per liter. Startup time (required to bring the fuel-cell up to operating temperature) has been reduced from 30 minutes to less than two minutes.
Mark Smith, FuelMaker Corp., spoke next. Actually FuelMaker has more than 9,000 compressed natural gas refueling installations currently in operation. Their “claim to fame” is provision of a relatively inexpensive small installation. The basic refueling station is fully capable of being expanded to add additional slow-fill and fast-fill capability as refueling demand increases. Original equipment does not have to be replaced.
Modular and redundant design features mean that with a FuelMaker a component failure will not bring to an end the system refueling capability while awaiting repair. Mr. Smith also explained that the FuelMaker compressor runs without oil and, therefore, there is no possible oil contamination of the compressed gas.
To stress the importance for changing the source for energy consumed in this country from imported sources to domestic sources Mr. Smith quoted figures from a Dept. of Energy report. The U.S. currently spends approximately $100 billion on imported petroleum. (We are currently importing approximately 60% of the petroleum that we consume. In the mid 1970’s, when there was an oil embargo, we were importing approximately 40% of the petroleum that we consumed. ph) Huge figures do not have as much impact as the figure derived by dividing $100 billion by the number of minutes in a year. This means that every minute of every hour, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week for each year we are sending approximately $200,000 to overseas oil producing countries. Iraq is one country that we buy petroleum from.
(That is equivalent to one excellent quality new suburban house per minute. It is also equivalent to the annual salary earned by between 5 to 10 American workers each minute. Wouldn’t it be nice to put Americans back to work at a rate of 5 to 10 per minute, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week? ph)
Mr. Smith concluded by explaining FuelMaker’s Clean Connections program that offers financial incentives for the procurement of FuelMaker equipment.
Gary Roesch, NOCO in Tonawanda, New York, spoke next about his company’s ability to provide both bio-diesel and ethanol fuels. Mr. Roesch disclosed that NOCO has received funding to support three projects. One project covers improvements in their ethanol distribution infrastructure. (NOCO is supplying E-85, 85% ethanol – 15% gasoline, to Rochester Gas and Electric.) A second project involves the development of a market for a bio-fuel derived from the production of glycerin from plant feed stock. This product will be used in a feasibility project to replace petroleum based heating oil.
The third project involves the distribution of B-20. B-20 is a blend of 20% bio-diesel and 80% gasoline and this fuel can be burned in most modern diesel engines without modification. NOCO is beginning a project with a Rochester region school district to begin using bio-diesel in their school bus fleet. The project will involve cooperation between NOCO, the school district, Genesee Region Clean Communities, and funding agencies.
Dave Keefe, President of the coalition Board of Directors and Manager of the City of Rochester fleet, provided information about the City’s propane fueled recycling/patch truck that uses propane to heat road patch material and fuel the vehicle. He also described the propane refueling station that the city has installed and the refueling demonstration that would follow later in the day. Mr. Keefe added that the city may be increasing their fleet of two natural gas fueled vehicles by ten more in the next few years.
Paul Heaney, Coordinator, Genesee Region Clean Communities, spoke briefly about the state of electric vehicle programs. A recent Bloomberg Report stated that Ford has cancelled its Th!nk program, the latest in a long line of failed EV programs. For the near future hybrid-electric vehicles appear to be more appealing to domestic consumers. The Toyota Prius and Honda Insight successes appear to prove this point. It was also reported that Honda has discontinued the Insight and replaced it with a hybrid-electric version of the Civic.
After presentations, the group was taken by bus to the City of Rochester facility on Mt. Read Blvd. to see propane refueling and CNG refueling demonstrations.
The pictures below were taken at the event.
cleancities-geneseeregion.com ... original
NGVONTARIO.COM is a joint Web site partnership between Ontario's two largest natural gas utilities, Enbridge Gas Distribution and Union Gas Limited. For over 15 years, we have been leaders in advocacy for the benefits of natural gas as a transportation fuel and have been building and supporting the natural gas vehicle market within our franchise areas in Ontario. NGV Ontario is our joint commitment to providing concise natural gas vehicle information to Ontario customers. For further information on our NGV programs, please click here. ... ngvontario.com
More information about hydrocarbon fuels infrastructures ...
standby.com
algas-sdi.com
algas-sdi.com
algas-sdi.com
Addtional point of interest :
Enbridge ... Vehicle Refuelling Appliance (VRA). Enbridge provides rental of VRA's to both commercial and residential customers. For more information, contact us at 1-888-ngv-sav or visit Fuelmaker's site at www.fuelmaker.com. ...
cgc.enbridge.com ... complete information |
