Energy Department Cuts Funding for Fuel Cell Cars

[JonLP24]

Source: hybridCARS

After pouring billions of dollars of federal money into fuel cell car research over decades, the US Department of Energy is cutting back on future spending. In the 2010 budget that the administration is submitting to Congress, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu proposed slashing more than $100 million from the Energy Department's hydrogen program. That's a cut of almost 60 percent and one that will almost entirely come from transportation.

Dr. Chu said yesterday that he holds little hope for fuel cell cars in the coming decades. In a press briefing, he said, “We asked ourselves, 'Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?' The answer, we felt, was 'no.'”

The National Hydrogen Association and the US Fuel Cell Coalition quickly issued a joint statement criticizing the program cuts, but the federal government and the auto industry have already switched direction toward hybrid gas-electric cars, plug-in hybrids, and other battery-powered vehicles. "We think it is too early to be picking winning and losing technologies," said Patrick Serfass, the National Hydrogen Association's vice president for technology, in an interview with Edmunds.com.

Dr. Chu pointed to significant stumbling blocks to widespread adoption of hydrogen fuel cell cars, including the lack of a nationwide fueling infrastructure. Plug-in cars—such as plug-in hybrids and pure battery-electric cars—also face significant obstacles in reaching a mass market, including lack of an electric recharging infrastructure and high costs for next-generation lithium ion car batteries. However, the obstacles for introducing those cars— which can be powered via the electric grid—are viewed as solvable, even though it could take five to ten years before plug-in cars reach 1 percent of the new car market.

Read more: http://www.hybridcars.com/fuels/energy-department-cuts-funding-fuel-cell-cars-25790.html

[Old Coot]

1. Is this a good idea?

Will the infrastructure support millions of electric cars?

[The Hope Mobile]

2. I think we have a lot more options, many of which aren't addressed in this

I believe within the next 2-3 years we're going to see some great breakthroughs in the auto industry that will make today's hybrids look like nothing

[Fumesucker]

3. Do you have specific reasons for your optimism?

I think we are more like 5-10 years away and even then the cars will quite possibly not be affordable.

IMO, battery technology is the limiting factor with electric vehicles for the near term, the electronics and the motors are already pretty highly developed but batteries are lagging behind.

Silicon nanowire lithium batteries certainly show promise but they aren't very near to market yet.

http://www.physorg.com/news151667477.html

[The Hope Mobile]

5. My husband is very actively looking at alternative fuels, etc.,

and it seems as though there are many options that are on the verge of fairly significant breakthroughs. Your timeframe may be closer but my point was really that electric is not our only option besides hydrogen.

[Fumesucker]

10. Not to be pedantic but hydrogen is electric..

A fuel cell is a sort of battery which produces electricity, rather than recharging the battery by running electricity in reverse through it you recharge by replacing the consumables in the "battery", hydrogen and oxygen.

There are a great many obstacles to overcome to reach the point of any alternative fuel vehicle being used on US roads in any truly significant numbers.

[The Hope Mobile]

12. I was responding to the stricter framework set up in the OP

fuel cells vs plug ins. My first response was to the question of whether or not we as a country could support a nation of plug in cars. My point was that there are other options coming down the line and that we basically don't have to be able to support ANY one kind of energy source for our cars for a while yet. Make sense?

[Fumesucker]

14. I see your point..

The problem is that multiple energy sources requires multiple layers of expensive infrastructure.

There are a great many filling stations in America, duplicating (or even coming anywhere near close to) that level of infrastructure would be a massive undertaking.

[The Hope Mobile]

15. Which is my point. We don't have to decide between only those

two options right now. Sooner or later we will have a clearer direction and hopefully it will be something that doesn't require a revamp of the fuel grid. Apparently I'm not explaining this very well because I feel like I'm reiterating the same thing over and over.

[Fumesucker]

16. I wasn't implying that we had to make a choice right now..

But the sooner we do make a choice the sooner we can start on the long term job of building the necessary infrastructure.

I'm really not sure how much longer we can wait, we may well be past peak oil already and the current economic slowdown is just masking the effects of being past the peak.

[The Hope Mobile]

21. Agreed on all points. nt

[FarCenter]

18. The infrastructure will support millions of plug-in electrics

At an average of 350 watt-hours per mile the electric grid has capacity to charge 10s of millions of vehicles off-peak hours without adding network or generation capacity. More fuel would be consumed, but this might be offset by LED outdoor nighttime lighting.

[truthisfreedom]

4. I have a solution for the hydrogen infrastructure problem, and it's very simple.

The thing is, it kills the oil industry by obviation, and that's too scary for big oil to handle.

It's so simple a child could think of it.

Communities put in hydrogen lines going to central storage tanks. Everyone who wishes to participate sets up a wind turbine on their property to generate electricity for on-site electrolysis. It doesn't matter how inefficient it is... it's produced day and night all over the community. The hydrogen is collected and the amount generated is logged on a meter, and it's pumped into the hydrogen pipeline for storage. The hydrogen can be purchased at an extraordinary discount by those who participate in producing it, while it is sold to outsiders at market rates for fueling their vehicles. In farm communities, it could become the primary source of fuel, with local tanks storing it on farms from their on-site generators, for use in farm machinery and trucks. The whole community eventually goes off the grid, able to produce electricity from stored hydrogen when the wind dies down. With enough turbines, many communities, even ones that are not in high-wind areas, could produce enough electricity and hydrogen to become energy independent and zero-carbon at the same time.

[Chemical Bill]

8. Two problems...

1) Producing it alone uses about twice the energy that you get back from it. Then hydrogen has to be under great pressure, which takes even more energy on top of producing it. Let's talk energy efficiency.

2) Hydrogen will be lost to leaks, and when it does we will wish for the good old days when chlorofluorocarbons were the worst thing for the ozone layer. Hydrogen would destroy the ozone layer in a heartbeat. Skin cancer, anyone? Oops, I mean everyone.

A solution: use the electricity to power plug-in (hybrid) electric cars, which are coming to a dealer near you very soon. Not in 20, 50, or 100 years.

Bill

[truthisfreedom]

13. Well, that too. 8^)

But in order to efficiently store lots of electricity, you need a huge bank of something... batteries, flywheel storage... something.

[TheCoxwain]

6. Good .. the whole fuel cell was a smoke screen thrown up by the automotive industry to

kill the electric car in California.

[excess_3]

7. very Welcome news

the future ...

the electric (battery) car

[DRoseDARs]

9. 'Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?'

Well, no, not if you slash 60% of the research budget in that economy's infancy. "Gee, officer, how was I supposed to know stabbing a pregnant woman in the womb would seriously cripple her unborn child? What am I, psychic?" :eyes:

For someone as extremely well-educated and intelligent as Dr. Chu, this strikes me as gobsmackingly dumb.

[caraher]

17. Joe Romm has been painting hydrogen as a scam for years

Steve Chu is not alone, and this was not an ignorant decision. One can certainly take issue with it, but lots of very smart people consider hydrogen fuel cells a poor choice for transportation.

[Vidar]

11. Just another way of helping the oil companies--who, with the fucking banks, rule the world.

[robbibaba]

19. This is very good news.

Not only will money stop being wasted on the bogus hydrogen "solution", it signals that real opposition to switching to electric is over or fading. Anyone who has seen the film "Who Killed The Electric Car" knows that we already had the technology years ago, and it's only gotten better since. All electric cars are about to hit the market from $25K on up. Even if we discovered new oil reserves in Nevada the size of Saudi Arabia's, if we keep burning fossil fuels we're going to off ourselves.
We need to start thinking of fossil fuels as sequestered carbon dioxide!

[FarCenter]

20. The hydrogen solution was favored by the oil companies and the Department of Defense

Probably for different reasons.

I think the DOD had visions of hydrogen fueled vehicles -- they have been researching fuel cells for a long time because running wires to charge up tanks and planes is a pain.

[caraher]

22. I don't think we'll see aircraft powered by either technology

First, the military cannot go "pure electric" with combat planes because jet propulsion requires a propellant.

Even if you talk helicopters and prop planes, batteries are way too heavy. And hydrogen cannot be stored at reasonable densities for aviation.

Fuel cell or plug-in electric aircraft are of approximately the same level of feasibility as nuclear powered aircraft (which were explored decades ago and thankfully not pursued!).

The closest to "carbon neutral" I think we'll get with aircraft in the foreseeable future would be some kind of aviation biofuel.

[sarcasmo]

23. IDIOTS!