Industry Opinion

« back to blog listings

Fuel cell focus

It seems that all has gone very quiet on the fuel cell front of late. Just a few years ago, fuel cells were being heralded by many as the industry’s saving grace, a technology that would eliminate emissions output and signal the end of gas-guzzling vehicles.

Sustainable transportation was just around the corner, we were told, with OEM marketing departments keen to wax lyrical about extensive test fleets that would be followed by ambitious sales targets of 10,000 units per annum.

It’s amazing how quickly things change in a short space of time. In pursuit of developing technologies that drastically reduce emissions, OEMs and suppliers have now turned their attentions to battery-powered electric vehicles that have a range of at least 100 miles. As a result, suppliers specializing in battery development are springing up everywhere, not to mention the JVs taking place among the big Tier 1s.

International motor shows, such as Paris 2008 and recently in Detroit, serve only to add to the state of confusion the industry finds itself in. It seems that the auto makers don’t have a clear strategy when it comes to clean technologies. It is either that, or they are not yet really convinced of the pressing need to radically change their existing business model.

For me, it is clear that there are two competing technologies that will help the automotive industry to realize sustainable transportation: battery storage of electrical energy, and hydrogen-powered fuel cell applications. However, at the present time, the supply of hydrogen is not sustainable as it is a product of chemical processes and is produced out of hydrocarbons.

Despite manufacturers and suppliers concentrating efforts on new battery systems, the problem is that there are still many difficult engineering hurdles to overcome in this area, such as safety issues, temperature-related behavior, short lifecycles, weight problems, and keeping costs down. Suppliers of electrical energy are also in a dilemma: production of electrical energy is fairly constant over time, but the requirements are not, and so companies are eager to get further opportunities for energy storage or energy supply management.

The great advantage to battery-powered cars is that the need to adapt infrastructure goals has to be evolutionary, not revolutionary. For example, a need to transfer energy into another system can be avoided through battery technology – and this helps to keep efficiency losses to a minimum. However, the market will need to see increased demand for battery powered vehicles, and commercial opportunities must happen because energy density in battery technology is not a patch on that of stored liquid hydrocarbons.

So, it would seem that the battlefield is shaping up nicely, but there is another solution that could present itself: producing hydrogen out of electrical energy that will then be used for fuel cells to produce electricity that will in turn power the vehicle. The efficiency of fuel cells are around 50%, and the energy will be stored in a lithium battery and transferred to an electrical motor. At present, there is no existing infrastructure for hydrogen, and so it has to be transported in a liquid form, which of course saps energy. Unfortunately, hydrogen storage in vehicles is still very difficult, and the energy storage density levels are much worse for hydrocarbons.

The more logical way to proceed is to take the route of direct electrical storage in advanced battery systems. The population of electrical vehicles will undoubtedly grow in the future with so much investment being made. As for hydrogen, well, I predict it will find its way into applications in which the electrical infrastructure is not available, such as airplanes.
 

There are currently no comments.