A new study by the National Research Council estimates that up to 2 million hydrogen-fueled vehicles could be on American roads by 2020, with that number potentially rising to 25 million a decade later. However, getting there requires getting past a number of hurdles first. The cost of fuel cells must drop and fueling infrastructure must be put in place. That will take substantial subsidies on the part of both government and manufacturers. The study authors estimate that about $200 billion would be required over the next 15 years to make this happen with $55 billion of that coming from governments and the rest from private industry. That total includes costs for vehicle development and deployment, research and development and infrastructure deployment. In contrast, US ethanol subsidies will reach about $15 billion annually by 2020. Beyond 2023, the costs are expected to drop to the point where the lifetime cost of fuel cell vehicles the fuel to propel them would be competitive with conventional vehicles, making subsidies unnecessary.


[Source: National Research Council, via Green Fuels Forecast]

Nanotechnology company QuantumSphere Inc. (QSI) has used their knowledge of the tiny particles to produce electrodes that could allow hydrogen generation at lower cost than natural gas or gasoline. The best part is that unlike steam reformation, electrolysis produces no emissions (assuming the electricity comes from renewable sources). The key is that QSI has developed nanoparticle nickel-iron catalysts that improve the efficiency of the electrolysis process to 85 percent and triple the output of hydrogen.

The key to the improvement is the nano sized catalyst particles. A catalyst is only effective where it is in physical contact with the reaction. By depositing billions of tiny particles on the electrode the effective surface area is increased by a factor of 1,000. This provides a far greater area for water to contact the catalyst and split into hydrogen and oxygen. The same process applies to the lithium ion battery technologies from A123 systems and Altairnano. QSI claims to be able to apply the technology to the electrodes in fuel cells as well, improving their efficiency. Such nanoparticle coated electrodes could supplant the platinum catalysts used today to greatly reduce the cost of fuel cell stacks. QSI eventually hopes to offer home hydrogen generation systems.

[Source: Automotive Design Line]

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Nissan is showing off its latest hydrogen fuel cell prototype in London this week. The Japanese company has brought the X-Trail FCV to London's Imperial College. The X-Trail uses a 90 kW fuel cell stack with hydrogen compressed to 10,000 psi to achieve a range of over 300 miles. Nissan has developed its own fuel cell stack in house and mounted it under the front seats. The hydrogen storage tank sits below the second row seat while a lithium ion battery sits below the rear cargo floor. As in hybrid vehicles the battery is used to recapture kinetic energy during braking then feed it back for bursts of acceleration. Nissan expects to have fuel cell vehicles available for sale around 2015 although that depends on reducing the cost dramatically.


[Source: The Evening Standard]

We've written about ITM Power and their plans to build a home hydrogen generating station several times before. The British company now has a prototype unit running in a Sheffield along with a Ford Focus that has been converted to run on hydrogen. The hydrogen generator includes an electrolyzer to produce H2 from water, and the hydrogen in the demonstration house is being used as a vehicle fuel, as well as for heating, cooling and other functions. Powering the generator is possible through the use renewable sources such as wind and solar energy. Honda is developing something along the same lines that it calls the Home Energy station. The HES however, reforms natural gas to produce hydrogen and then uses the hydrogen both to fuel a vehicle as well as a fuel cell that provides electricity and heat to the home. ITM, for some reason, has chosen to use a hydrogen fueled internal combustion engine to drive a generator to provide electricity to the home. The losses going from renewable electricty to hydrogen and back would greatly outweigh any benefits. At least the Honda system skips the electricity-hydrogen-electricity loop. On the plus side, ITM believes it can sell its hydrogen generator for about $4,000 and hopes to produce it by the end of this year. You can check out the video report at the BBC site.

[Source: BBC]

Click above on the Ego concept for more images of VW's 2028 concepts

Apparently, Volkswagen thinks its time for another weird and wacky look into the future. This time, the German automaker is gazing just twenty years ahead. The results of its future look are three virtual concept cars. Yes, all three are capable of driving themselves, as you would likely imagine. As would be expected of any self-respecting gaze into the future, petroleum is not part of the picture. In its place are biofuels for those who simply must have liquid fuels and, of course, electricity. We feel pretty confident that these projections are possible, but that's right about where any semblance to reality ends.

After taking a leisurely stroll through the über clean park, a father and his son are reminded that it is time to leave by a hologram. What car to have delivered? The VW One wouldn't do, as it only seats a single occupant. The VW Room is overkill, as it is intended for an entire family. So, the son chooses to summon an Ego, a two-seater sportscar concept complete with user-defined green flames.

[Source: Volkswagen 2028]

A quick Google search is all that is required to find hundreds of stories of people who claim to have increased their fuel mileage by installing a hydrogen generator which extracts hydrogen and oxygen from water and funnels the gas into the engine. Some of the claims are pretty wild, and the Japanese company Genepax has again lit a fire under the topic of running a car on water. While the Genepax car uses a conventional fuel cell, most of the "kits" available on the Internet introduce a bit of gas into the engine which is then combusted along with the liquid gasoline.

It is, of course, natural to feel a desire to buy into the hype promised by these systems. The truth, though, is that large fuel economy gains are highly unlikely. Popular Mechanics has decided to build themselves one of these systems for testing. The mag intends to install the finished product in an automobile and report back. We're keenly interested in their findings, though we're pretty sure we already know what will happen. Stay tuned.

[Source Popular Mechanics]

Run by Fuel Cells 2000 (itself a project of the Breakthrough Technologies Institute), a new pro-fuel cell blog called the Fuel Cell Insider is now up and running. As Liz Morgan writes in to AutoblogGreen, FCI will "supplement your hunger for fuel cell knowledge with opinion/editorial pieces and analyses, speeches and presentations, plus guest posts from experts in the field. The purpose is not only to inform, but to engage, and ultimately contribute to the global debate on energy policy for this century and the next." Inform, sure, but let's not miss the stated goal of Fuel Cells 2000: "to promote the commercialization of fuel cells and hydrogen." Just so we know what side of the fence FCI sits on.

There's not much on the new blog as of yet, but that's understandable. If you are indeed hungry for hydrogen news, then perhaps the site is worth adding to your regular reading list. Don't forget, of course, that you can filter AutoblogGreen's news to see just the posts about hydrogen by using this link.

[Source: Fuel Cell Insider]

The U.S. Department of Energy today took the wraps off of an online Alternative Fuel Station Locator that should make it a bit easier to find the right fuel if you need something other than gasoline or diesel. Just put in your address, the fuel you're looking for, how wide a radius you'd like the database to include and presto. Instant results. As I still drive a gasoline-powered car (an efficient one, mind you), I can't personally judge the accuracy of the information for local pumps, but if you're knowledgeable about these sorts of things, give the online station locator a test and see how it does.

The DOE's map includes pumps/stations that offer:

• Biodiesel (B20 and above)
• Compressed Natural Gas
• Electric
• Ethanol (E85)
• Hydrogen
• Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)
• Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Propane)

The database should be fairy accurate, as the DOE gathers it's information "from trade media, Clean Cities coordinators, and the submittal form on the AFDC Web site." Then, each station is contacted twice a year to make sure the fuel listed is still available at the site. Happy hunting.

[Source: DOE]

Currently, hydrogen is the most common element in the universe. But if Ford gets its way, we'll have to rethink our science texts in the coming decades. At least, according to The Onion we might.

In yesterday's Onion Radio News piece, anchor Doyle Redland talked about the new Foresight, a hydrogen-powered SUV from Ford. As Bill Ford says in the piece, "The 11-ton Foresight will be unaffected by the price gouging whims of OPEC as it uses water electrolysis to gather fuel from the oceans and the fresh mountain air." The one problem is that this one model is expected to use up all of the world's hydrogen supplies by 2070. Of course, by then, we might be in the stars and can collect hydrogen from space.

Remember, it's all a joke, and an old one at that. This article was first published a few years ago and talks about a Fall 2004 rollout of the Ford Foresight. Still funny, though.

[Source: The Onion]

As difficult as it may be to believe, interest in alternative fuel vehicles actually pre-dates the launch of AutoblogGreen a little more than two years ago. Another fact that may be tough to swallow is that the BBC's Top Gear was not always the hour of silliness we see today with Clarkson, Hammond and May. In fact Top Gear's current format only began in 2002. Going back in time it had a more staid magazine style format with hosts such as William Woollard. Way back in 1990, Woollard did a pair of segments on alternative fuels and the threat of Global Warming from increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Watching these 18 year old segments, it seems not a lot has changed. Woollard looked at hydrogen with an early prototype of the BMW Hydrogen 7, methanol, CNG, solar powered EVs and even hybrids. The GM Impact, the precursor to the EV1, even makes a brief appearance while discussing battery electric vehicles. In that pre-lithium ion era, sodium sulfur batteries seemed to be one possible solution to range and weight problem of storing electrons. Although such batteries were tested by automakers, the high operating temperatures (up to 350 °C) limited their usefulness. Nonetheless, the similar Zebra batteries are still being evaluated today and used in some applications. Check out the videos after the jump. Thanks to Joseph for the tip!

[Source: YouTube]

Honda has taken the wraps off of the Japanese version of the hydrogen-powered FCX Clarity and announced that the sleek burgundy sedan will be available for lease in Honda's home country come November.

The Japanese FCX Clarity's specifications (available after the jump) are mostly the same as the American version, with two noticeable differences. First, and high on the list of items everyone is talking about, the Japanese model has climate-controlled seats up front and in back. That's huge. The other item is that Honda is now claiming a range of 620km (385 miles). That's a lot more than the 270 miles that the American version is rated at, but the numbers for the Japanese model were done in 10-15 mode using Honda calculations and the American numbers were calculated with "Honda in-house data calculated using previously approved EPA methodology." Since the American FCX holds its 4.1 kg of hydrogen at 5000psi while the Japanese version stores 171 liters at 35MPa (these are two different ways to say the same thing), I think the difference comes in the testing and calculating rather than any updated technology. The 10-15 cycle is a predominantly urban cycle which benefits from the regen capability provided by the lithium ion battery. The lower U.S. range is based on combined urban/highway cycles with 2008 test procedure.


[Source: Honda]

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The new Subaru Stella plug-in isn't the only Japanese green car making its debut next month at the G8 conference in Hokkaido. Suzuki's in the game as well with a new hydrogen fuel cell version of its SX4 crossover, the SX4-FCV. Fitted with a fuel cell supplied by GM, and a 70 MPa (10,000 psi) storage tank for the H₂, the SX4-FCV has a maximum operating range of 250 kilometers and a top speed of 120 km/h (around 75 mph). Power output from the fuel cell is rated at 80 kW, while the motor delivers 68 kW. Road testing has been approved by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and transport, and will commence soon.

[Source: Suzuki]

Finally, we've discovered the BMW Hydrogen 7's perfect refueling station. A new Shell station that sells both hydrogen and standard gasoline opened yesterday in West Los Angeles (oh so close to Hollywood, which is providing most of the the drivers for the dual-fuel luxury vehicle). The station is located on Santa Monica Boulevard and Federal Avenue, near I-405. If I'm not mistaken - and I might very well be, so feel free to say so in the comments - this is right near the recently-opened Tesla Motors store, which is kind of ironic.

New FCX Clarity drivers and participants in GM's Project Driveway should be able to refuel their cars at the station and feel pretty good about the provenance of their purchase. Shell will be selling hydrogen made using electrolysis right there at the station. To further cast a green haze over the whole thing, Shell is buying "green electricity" from the utilities to crack the water.

[Source: Shell Hydrogen LLC]

Mazda has declared that by the middle of the decade they will have replaced their entire powertrain lineup and cut fuel consumption by 30 percent. On the powertrain side, engines will be upgraded across the board including a new direct injected wankel rotary. In 2009, a new Smart Idle Stop system will debut that restarts the engine using the direct injection system instead of the starter. Fuel will be sprayed directly into the cylinder and ignited to get the pistons moving. New gas engines will get direct injection and Mazda will add new clean diesels to the lineup worldwide as well as continuing to develop hydrogen-fueled engines.

Ford's Japanese affiliate intends to continue down the path begun with last years new Mazda2 and the new 6 this year by reducing the weight of new models. The trend of recent decades to higher powered engines has led to a cascading effect of increased mass to support the power. Mazda intends to reverse the process. From 2011, Mazda wants to cut at least 220lbs from new models.

[Source: Mazda]

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We already had spoken about the fuel cell technology (borrowed from Nissan) installed in a plain Renault Scénic, one of Europe's most popular compact minivans. The interesting part of the concept, at least from the aesthetic point of view, is that the car's interior room remained untouched, thanks to sandwhiching most of the components in the floor of the vehicle.

Like other fuel cell vehicles, the fuel-cell Scénic ZEV H2 features a hybrid powertrain. The system includes lithium-ion batteries that, together with the high-pressure tanks, allow the car to have a 220-mile range. The 350-bar hydrogen tank (3.7kg of H₂) will be substituted by a 700 bar tank at a later date, which would allow a range of more than 300 miles.

Find the full press release after the jump.

[Source: Renault]