By team domination

(Wyatt, Nick, Jared, and Eugene)

What is Hydrogen power?

• Hydrogen is harvested from the process of electrolysis and used either in chemical processes to create electric energy, or burned in hydrogen combustion engines Ex: BMW’s hydrogen powered v12(slide 7)

A detailed explanation of the chemical process of using hydrogen to create electricity can be found at http://www.cleanfuelcellenergy.com/Hp35p42.pdf

A model of an internal combustion engine(almost the same as a hydrogen engine, but with different timing and pressure ratios, and of course more pollution) can be found at http://auto.howstuffworks.com/engine1.htm

Advantages

• Renewable if produced with solar energy

• Easy to use in cars, industry, homes etc

• Lower flammability than gasoline (less hazardous)

• Only emissions are in the form of water vapor (no greenhouse co2)

• Non toxic

Disadvantages

• Non renewable if created with nuclear power or fossil fuels

• Requires large fuel tanks for storage

• Our current infrastructure is not designed to use/ distribute hydrogen

• New engine technology needed for use

• Currently expensive

Issues

• It takes energy/ money to produce hydrogen

• It currently takes more money to create hydrogen fuel than the fuel is worth

• The good news is that scientists are making rapid progress, and will likely be able to make cost effective hydrogen fuel in the near future.

The future of hydrogen

• The first widespread use of hydrogen will probably be to combine it in small quantities with other fuels like gasoline and natural gas to reduce emissions and stretch reserves.

• Next, as hydrogen technology improves, we will likely see the emergence of hydrogen fueling stations, and the adoption of hydrogen as a primary fuel in first the commercial, and then the private sector.

Hydrogen combustion, BMW V12

• An article on BMW’s new hydrogen powered V12 offers an example of hydrogen technology that has already been developed

• The article is about how hydrogen is soon going to become a fuel source, and one of the early leaders is BMW with their Hydrogen 7 with a V12 engine. Hydrogen is currently very difficult to capture, transport and store, however one of the benefits of such engines are their very low emissions fuel source. Emissions are so low that the test beds are not able to detect them. On most test sites the new V12 even cleans the air around it by emitting exhaust that is clearer than the air it takes in. Hopefully such technology will soon be able to help us off of our current dependence on oil.

The article in its full context can be found at :

http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/03/28/bmws-hydrogen-v12-engine-only-a-fraction-of-sulev-emissions-le/

Holland Hydrogen Tractor 

Another encouraging example of hydrogen technology comes from the Dutch, in the practical form of a tractor.

• An article about the new tractor in Holland explains that it is 100% emission free all the time. The NH2 (prototype name for the tractor) is a nice relief from the super fast, super efficient, super expensive cars that are going to be the available in the next decades. The hydrogen engine produces 106 horsepower and can run for 2 hours on a tank. The plans are to have the tractor come out within the next 3 years commercially, and hopefully with slightly improved operating time. The tractor is going to be the starting point for a new fleet of hydrogen fueled work sources that will patrol the Dutch countryside.

 The article in its full context can be found at:

• http://dvice.com/archives/2009/03/prototype_hydro.php

Hawaii Hydrogen Highway Article in its full context at: • http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage9620.html

• The article linked to above talks about the new “Hydrogen Highway” that the army is working on with the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and the Environmental Protection Agency. The “Hydrogen Highway” is a government environmental initiative, which will be a road on the main island dotted with enough hydrogen fueling stations to make travel by hydrogen powered vehicle feasible. So far a hydrogen fueling station has been planned at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and a few others are in the drawing stages for locations on Hawaii’s main islands. The people of Hawaii are looking to turn to hydrogen first as a fuel for government and millitary vehicles, and then for private vehicles also to decrease their use of foreign oil/gas.

Hydrogen Locomotive

• An article about BNSF’s hydrogen locomotive project explains the benefits of introducing Hydrogen as a fuel for their trains.

• This article talks about a hydrogen-powered locomotive which is a testing object that will attempt to reduce the use of diesel fuel in the world and in favor of moving to an alternate source of energy such hydrogen which can be produced from water. The NA train set up uses about 15 trillion gallons of gas and the US is trying to cut down that number and shift the industry to renewable, less polluting fuels. With diesel prices going up (they jumped to 26% of BNST’s operating costs last quarter) the company is eagerly looking to develop new fuel technology, and cut costs.

 • Article in its full context at:http://www.railwaygazette.com/news_view/article/2009/03/9305/

bnsf_explores_the_fuel_cell.html

 

Current Commercial Hydrogen

• A company called HEC markets their current hydrogen engines and generators at http://www.hydrogenenginecenter.com/

Their add talks about the history of hydrogen powered engines and how they came to be. It also talks about what all hydrogen engines can produce and how they work. Their technology uses hydrogen fuel to generate electricity, and they use the zero emissions as a big sell point.

Hydrogen as a viable alternative

• An article about the future of fuel explains that when the oil dries up their will likely be many different fuel options, and that one won’t immediately prevail. The main problems with hydrogen right now seem to be that it is too expensive to compete with fossil fuels, and that our infrastructure isn’t currently set up to support it. This article explains however, that once the price of hydrogen is brought down, it will be a competitive alternative fuel. Due to hydrogen’s high energy concentration, it would only need to come down to eight dollars a gallon to compete with gasoline, because it contains more than twice the energy per kilogram as gas.

• Article in its full context at:• http://www.designnews.com/article/46770-

Feds_Have_Primed_the_Hydrogen_Research_Pump.php

Hydrogen from ethanol

• A recent scientific article offers hope for solving the hydrogen harvesting problem. One of the reasons hydrogen is not yet considered a feasible fuel is that it is usually harvested through electrolysis, which is expensive. Professor of chemical engineering Lanny Schmidt has developed a chemical reaction which can cheaply harvest hydrogen gas from ethanol (alcohol generated from biomass). This is exciting because it may offer an affordable way to produce hydrogen from a renewable source, and Schmidt estimates that three times the energy can be captured from ethanol hydrogen, than just from simply burning ethanol.

• Article in its full context at: • http://www.it.umn.edu/news/inventing/2004_Summer/harvestinghydrogen.html

Hydrogen Boosted Engines

an article about hydrogen boosted gasoline engines talks about how they work and how efficient they are. It discusses how small amounts of hydrogen can be harvested from gasoline by a car, and how cars with such engines can gain an additional twenty to thirty percent of their original fuel economy. In a hydrogen boosted gasoline engine, a small amount of hydrogen is made by an onboard reformer, and that hydrogen is added to the normal intake mixture to increase combustion efficiency.

• The article in its full context can be found at:• http://auto.howstuffworks.com/how-a-hydrogen-boosted-gasoline-engine-works.htm

Learning About Hydrogen

An electrolysis demonstration can be prepared relatively easily. If you mix salt with water (to increase its conductivity) and run wire from the positive and negative electrodes of a 9 volt battery into the water, you will see bubbles. These bubbles are hydrogen and oxygen gas which result from the decomposition of H2O. The wire with more bubbles will be hydrogen as there are two hydrogen atoms for every oxygen.

Key Questions To Consider

• Can Hydrogen be harvested and stored cheaply enough?

• What changes would we have to make to convert our infrastructure to hydrogen?

• Can we get enough hydrogen from renewable sources?

• What is the timeframe for converting to hydrogen?

• Is it worth the R&D to develop Hydrogen?