GM builds fuel-cell truck for U.S. Army

[Rose Siding]

HONEOYE FALLS, N.Y. -- General Motors Corp. rolled out the world's first drivable fuel cell truck Friday and handed the keys over to an exacting patron: the U.S. Army.

The olive-green pickup took a demonstration spin around GM's fuel-cell development center in rural upstate New York, carrying former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and Brig. Gen. Roger Nadeau, commander of the Army Research, Development and Engineering Command.

While its electric engine emits a high-pitched whine, a key feature in future fuel-cell models developed in collaboration with the U.S. military will be stealth _ along with better fuel consumption and zero tailpipe emissions.

"Noise on the battlefield is not a good thing when you don't want to be found," Nadeau said.

"The baseline performance of this (will) be as good as our best performing (internal combustion) engine and will get better from there," he said.

Instead of gasoline, the fuel cells run on energy produced when hydrogen and oxygen are mixed, and the only byproduct is water vapor.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--fuelcell-army0401apr01,0,961428.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

[nonconformist]

1. Good.

Now keep it up GM.

[tubbacheez]

2. Neat. Now if there only was a cheap way to isolate pure H and pure O2.

Then we might be talking about something serious.

[Options Remain]

3. simple

drop sodium in water.

[tubbacheez]

7. Tell me more, or send over a link.

Is sodium metal a catalyst that makes it trivially easy for water molecules to unbind into H and O2 gases?

Or does the sodium get consumed in the process? If so, is there a economical way to make an ongoing supply?




I'm skeptical, hopeful, and open to new info all at the same time.

If these H/O2 fuel cells are going to do us any good on a massive scale, they can't require tons of energy to create the input gases.

[Coastie for Truth]

10. Forget the neat-o chemistry

Only two routes to hydrogen gas-->

1. "Reforming" a hydrocarbon feed stock - generally natural gas, oil refining byproducts, coal byproducts, methanol, ethanol.

a. This keeps "Big Oil" in the hydrogen business
b. This does NOT reduce our crude oil consumption.

2. "Electrolysis" of water - passing an electrical current from one electrode through water to another electrode. You get hydrogen at one electrode, oxygen at the other electrode.

a. You can generate hydrogen off peak - but not much.
b. Back to generating electricity by coal plants, natural plants.
c. Photovoltaic would require about 12% of all of the area of the US to generate enough hydrogen for the entire auto and truck fleet.
d. Little bits of niche and boutique generators - geothermal, hydro, wind turbines.
e. Bottom line is NUCLEAR.

How do you transport and store hydrogen.

1. Very high pressure tanks.
2. The same type of Nickel alloys that are used in Nickel-Metal Hydride batteries. The auto companies and some of the oil companies are "playing" with this ("Playing" is engineer talk for lots of "budget" and no real time limit).

We could eliminate a lot of infrastructure and go with straight electric vehicles and hybrids -- using nickel-metal hydride batteries. Avoid the intermediate "reformation" and "hydrogen generation" and go directly to charging batteries.

I've been in this business for 30+ years - other then "neat shit" for fuel cell cars (as in the "first one on the block") - I don't see hydrogen fuel cell cars. But, I see the real advantage of fuel cells as "stationary" "distributed generation" generators for generating electricity locally. Slightly better thermodynamic efficiency then a steam turbine generator or gas turbine generator.

[tubbacheez]

14. Thanks for the straight dope on this. n/t

[Gregorian]

16. Photovoltaic efficiency is closing in on 50%

Zero tailpipe emmission... Someone should be shot for saying that.

I think your post is more evidence that we are starting the discussion that should have been addressed thirty years ago. Finally, we are all talking.

I have only two things to say about where we go next- Photovoltaics may play a more important role than we have expected. I'm not sure. But recent developments show some pretty good results. Berkeley Labs. And second, we can do a lot by lowering our standard of living. That IS an option.

I'm glad to see others on this forum who are aware of the truth behind the hydrogen myth.

[wuushew]

18. link for 50% efficiency?

Even though I am a strong supporter I don't believe commercially available photovoltaics exist with efficiencies above 20%.

http://www.pvresources.com/en/technologies.php

[Gregorian]

21. Here's a file I am still reading

It's a pdf (sorry) file. And I'm still not done reading it. But it points to a very high efficiency.

Oops. Can't attach it. But I did a google and found the website. Go to 2003 #6 and you'll see this title-

Diluted II-VI Oxide Semiconductors with Multiple Band Gaps

There, you can download the pdf file. It's ugly reading. For me, at least. I'm a mechanical engineer. Not big on theoretical chemical physics.

[Eloriel]

33. You seem to have forgotten the link n/t

[Gregorian]

37. I hate it when that happens! Doh.

Here's the link-

http://www.mse.berkeley.edu/groups/dubon/publications.html

:)

[jayfish]

27. I Just Got A New Digital Camera...

and was just thinking about NIMH batteries powering transportation. It seems pretty good, but what about weight? At the sizes it would take to power vehicles, it seems as though you would be fighting a losing battle right out of the gate. The bigger the car, the bigger the batteries need to be. The bigger the batteries the bigger the car needs to be. How long before electric motors are efficient yet powerful enough for this? Also what fuel source will we use to charge them? Oil? It would seem that we would need to increase the efficiency of small generators as well. Maybe some sort of super-conducting brushes and magnets for both motivation and generation?

This

[Coastie for Truth]

32. NiMH's are used now in EV's and Hybrids

That's what was used in the GM EV2, and the Toyota RAV4L EV version, as well as the various Toyota and Honda hybrids.

Conventional lead acids were used for "proof of concept" hybrids and EV's; Lithium ions are being used in some prototypes.

[Boo Boo]

20. Yeah. I was surprised actually to see H

in this story. I was expecting to see Natural Gas or Methanol or something like that.

Depending on what the Army actually has here I expect they're not going to find it a feasible solution. Hydrogen is expensive to make and is going to be hard to cope with in the battlefield environment, and the fuel cells are going to cost large sums of money if they're using Platinum cells.

I read somewhere that if every car in the world had a Platinum fuel cell, there would be just enough (estimated) Platinum in the world to replace the cell in each car once.

I'd like to see the price tag on this truck. It has to be nuts. I frankly think it's a stupid idea when you can blow a truck up with a roadside bomb for chump change. Not how I'd like to see my tax dollars wasted.

[tubbacheez]

23. Yeah, at most this is academic "proof of concept" stuff.

I need much more convincing that we're on the brink of a solution that can scale up to anything meaningful.

[femme.democratique]

26. Blacklight Power

http://www.blacklightpower.com/profile.shtml
http://www.blacklightpower.com/development.shtml

[tubbacheez]

28. Sound wonderful. Any demos of that technology? n/t

[NickB79]

29. One thing I noticed on their website

"Dr. Mills believes that he has succeeded with the unification of gravity with atomic physics."

If this were true, wouldn't the man have won a Nobel Prize for this by now?

[femme.democratique]

31. Ever heard of Eugene Mallove?

He was killed in 2004 supposedly over a property dispute, but this guy was well-respected in the scientific community and was considered somewhat of a visionary. Read this:

(you'll have to scroll down a bit)

http://www.allnerdsandgeeks.com/index.EugeneMallove.html

Could Cold Fusion Be For Real?


An Interview with Dr. Eugene Mallove

By Bill Moore

17 March 2000 -- Imagine a battery that weighs just 10 pounds, yet can power an electric vehicle 1000 miles! One US company, Blacklight Power, is allegedly developing just such a battery based on the much debated and maligned theory popularly dubbed "cold fusion."

There have been few recent controversies in modern science as enduring and divisive as the debate over "cold fusion," a little understood process which purportedly creates "anomalous" excess heat from the interaction of heavy water, a catalyst and small amounts of electrical energy.

When the US Patent and Trademark Office recently awarded Blacklight Power a number of patents on its technology, EVWorld.Com decided to take a little closer look at the cold fusion controversy to see if any thing has changed since the 1989 furor that arose from the claims of two Utah researchers, Pons and Fleischman.

We contacted Dr. Eugene Mallove, the Editor In Chief of Infinite Energy magazine to find out what is the current status of cold fusion research. Is it still a fringe science or has it begun to achieve wider acceptability?

Other Hydrogen Chemistry?

Dr. Mallove, who holds two engineering degrees from MIT and a third from Harvard University, began our interview by stating that, indeed, hydrogen is most promising new fuel of the 21st century, but not the hydrogen talked about in discussions on fuel cells.

"The normal conception of hydrogen for use in vehicles, which is an admirable pursuit, considers using basically the normally understood chemical energy of hydrogen. Now what if you were to find one or more mechanisms associated with hydrogen, and I do believe there are more than one mechanism associate with this so-called 'cold fusion' phenomenon. What if you were to find something that would extract a thousand to a million times or beyond the normally understood chemical energy. That's what we're talking about in cold fusion energy."

<snip>

You assume that the powers that be and the scientific community would immediately support this new technology. Think about other scientific breakthroughs - were they all immediately accepted? No. Of course there are those that deny that this could be possible, to derive hydrogen from water, but then again didn't the scientific powers-that-be say certain things were unlikely or impossible to Einstein and the Wright Brothers?

Consider the current environment of corporatism, Oil Companies, nulclear power, etc, will try to deny technology that they can't make money off of. They will sic every scientist they can to deny it. With that in mind, why wouldn't they suppress any technology that they can't immediately cash in on? If water can indeed be used in a contained chemical reaction to make hydrogen, then whats in it for them? They'll find a way to make money off of it, though they certainly won't advertise or publically support this technology until they've made every damn dime they can off of oil. I think auto manufacturers and the military are probably already using these technologies under great secrecy, and will keep it under wraps until the government finds a way to make this profitable for Big Oil.

[NickB79]

35. Mill's theory is based on the presumption of hydrinos

A google search for hydrinos seems to show that most physicists and chemists consider hydrino formation a crackpot idea, plus it basically discards everything we know about quantum physics.

[femme.democratique]

36. Exactly my point. Science is about following new data

Not dogma. From my research, it appears that many scientists call it "crackpot" without examining any of the empirical evidence that has been gathered by scientists over the past decade. The fact is that is enough discord in the scientific community about this issue to make me very suspicious....

I understand your point about turning over everything we know about quantum physics, but who on earth really believes we understand everything about science? I don't. If you examine the history of cold fusion, it seems to me that many scientists are guilty of believing they have things "locked down" and there is nothing new to learn. And when viewed in the context of existing energy technologies, industry certainly comes to play in debunking the potential for cold fusion because of the massive investments that have been made.

[IntiRaymi]

9. OK.

So now tell me this:
Where do you plan on getting the Sodium from?

[EVDebs]

4. I hear that Arotech also makes a zinc air fuel cell that isn't hydrogen

which relies upon scarce platinum catalyst. Zinc air fuel cells don't require the military to go to the Middle East for more fossil fuel.

Metal air fuel cells in general would be a better way to go. In the meantime we can expect more adventures in the Persian Gulf/Caspian Sea region.

Although Metallic Power is no longer in business, other companies are...this article spells out the potential of ZAFCs
http://evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=121

[wuushew]

5. A few points

(A) the army has no hydrogen fuel infrastructure

(B) the range of hydrogen vehicles is much less than that of gasoline or diesel powered machines

(C) It takes large amounts of energy to produce the hydrogen, therefore no advantage in the big picture.

[EVDebs]

6. LNGs, since liquid H is the easiest way to transport...nice terror target

huh ? But, again, the platinum catalyst is the limiting factor.

Try zinc air fuel cells with potassium hydroxide catalyst and you have a much cheaper fuel cell.

[democracyindanger]

30. Don't be a wet blanket. This is really good news.

We know for sure the Army is going to spend an obscene amount on developing this, if only because it spends an obscene amount on new toys in general. Whatever infrastructure is needed, the Army will build. Range and making it economically feasible will come along as it's further developed.

Yes, there are parts to be cynical about. But remember how the internet started.

[EVDebs]

39. Relax, I'm just saying there are easier more economical fuel cells

the DoD could play with, that's all. Besides, the more money the DoD doesn't have to spend is more for social programs like healthcare and education...

I can dream, can't I ? BTW, Arotech with it's DoD connections already has a ZAFC powered bus:

"About the Zinc-Air Bus

The bus used in the program is a standard 40-foot (12 meter) transit bus manufactured by NovaBus Corporation. It has a capacity of 40 seated and 37 standing passengers and a gross vehicle weight of 39,500 lbs. (17,955 kg.). The all-electric hybrid system consists of a main energy source -- the Electric Fuel zinc-air battery; and an auxiliary power source -- consisting of a bank of advanced ultracapacitors and an auxiliary battery. The vehicle draws cruising energy from the zinc-air battery and supplementary power for acceleration, merging into traffic and hill climbing from the auxiliary power source. Regenerative retarding is achieved with the auxiliary power source as well, capturing energy when the bus slows down or stops."

http://www.electric-fuel.com/evnews/032509.shtml

Go to the 'home' page and read more about the technology there.

BTW, the world's supplies of zinc are potentially able to provide a petroleum-free transportation system, at least for countries in the Pacific Rim (US, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Peru and most importantly, China) who have the world's largest zinc reserves.

[Coastie for Truth]

8. This gives GM favorable patent royalties on every other

government contractor's fuel cell patents -- without giving up any of their own rights for injunctive relief.

This is as much as a "sweet heart" deal for GM as their 1993 law suit against Toyota on GM's hybrid EV patents -- Toyota had to give GM the right to "clone" Toyota hybrids -- in return Toyota was allowed to import Toyota hybrid EVs (Prius). Have you seen any Priuses with a "Chevy bow tie" (like their Matrix/Vibe?) Neither have I.

[Rose Siding]

12. They put Hillary in a promo shot -photo

In this photo provided by General Motors, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks about hydrogen fuel cell technology at an event marking General Motors' delivery of the U.S. Army's first hydrogen fuel cell-powered pickup at the General Motors research facility outside of Rochester, NY, Friday, April 1, 2005. Clinton was instrumental in securing funds in the 2005 Department of Defense appropriations on behalf of GM's experimental truck whose fuel cell modules are produced at the facility. The U.S. Army will perform rigorous testing in different climates and locations around the U.S. to assess performance and give the military first-hand experience with hydrogen and fuel cells. (AP Photo/General Motors, Max Schulte)

[truthisfreedom]

11. whatever happened to those metal hydride hydrogen storage systems

that popular science used to tout on their covers back in the 70's?

[htuttle]

15. Those were designed to be used in the flying cars...

...that Popular Science used to feature on the same covers.

[Coastie for Truth]

17. That's the basis of the Ni Metal Hydride Battery

Texaco-Chevron, Shell, GM, and Ford are "playing" with this. I think it is a better alternative then "pressure vessels" --- and the Battery Industry has had a long time to study and "optimize" the hydrogen storage alloys.

[xxqqqzme]

13. so GM is 'saved'

by US government contracts? Hmmmm how con-veeen-ee-ant!

As a gov cobtractor they can throw out all those bothersome labor restrictions as well.

[Coastie for Truth]

19. It's the old GM game-- "Too Big To Fail"

a GM collapse would have too many ripple effects across the country.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

22. isn't that socialism

why do capitalists hate capitalism?:evilgrin:

[durablend]

24. That pesky "corporate welfare" again...

How can these companies look themselves in the mirror knowing they're getting paid for sitting on their asses eating bonbons?

[chlamor]

25. Hydrogen-Powered Truck Unveiled At Honeoye Falls

Hydrogen-Powered Truck Unveiled At Honeoye Falls 

(Honeoye Falls, NY) 04/01/05 -- A quantum leap in technology was unveiled in Honeoye Falls on Friday where the US Army took delivery of the world's first-hydrogen powered truck.

This is considered a major step forward in fuel cell technology and most of the research for this breakthrough was done by engineers at the GM facility in Honeoye Falls.

From the outside, it doesn't look much different from a conventional truck. However, under the hood, there's no engine; instead, the truck contains fuel cells that convert hydrogen into electricity. The only by-product is water vapor.

General Roger Nadeau of the US Army attended the event. He said fuel cell technology could eliminate the army's dependence on petroleum. Fuel cells are also quieter, meaning better stealth on the battlefield. Nadeau also said the power goes much farther and it could power tactical operations centers, maintenance centers,  even mobile hospitals.

<snip>

GM expects to start selling the cars to the general public in about five years.

http://iknowrochester.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=E4FC41F0-FF00-46A3-A704-D25177C95B55

[Frederik]

34. This almost makes me

reconsider my peak oil scepticism. If the US Army are planning for a post-carbon world... maybe there's something to it.

Good news though, if they are going to make a civilian version.

[Dissenting_Prole]

40. Ha ha ha ha

We can starve in the dark for all they care.

When push comes to shove, who do you think will get the technology and the last of the energy to run it, the military or the people?

[Frederik]

41. We, the people...

:+ Though the article said they were going to make a civilian version of the truck in what was it, 5 years time? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

[Massachusetts]

38. We are on the road..C/O this site for micro fuel cells

http://www.mtimicrofuelcells.com/technology/advantage.asp