<title>Hydrogen or Hybrid Electric Vehicle

Updated 7:06 PM 03-Mar-08

The BMW Group is introducing the BMW Hydrogen 7 in Singapore – the first virtually emission-free hydrogen-powered luxury saloon in the world suitable for everyday use.

The CleanEnergy experience will be presented in a specially built BMW Pavilion at the corner of Beach Road and Ophir Road from March 6 until March 23, 2008. Times: 9.00-12.00pm weekdays (Schools); 12.00pm-5.00pm weekdays (Public); 9.00am-9.00pm weekends (Public). Admission free.

Hydrogen is a MUCH more efficiënt carrier of energy than batteries are, and it doesn't wear out like the latter do.Most hybrid cars on the road right now are gasoline-electric hybrids

Hydrogen-powered cars to make its way to S'pore
A hydrogen vehicle is a vehicle that uses hydrogen as its on-board fuel for motive power.The power plants of such vehicles convert the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy (torque)by:
* In combustion, the hydrogen is burned in engines in fundamentally the same method as traditional gasoline cars.
* In fuel-cell conversion, the hydrogen is reacted with oxygen to produce water and electricity, the latter of which is used to power an electric traction motor.

Gaseous and Liquid Hydrogen Storage

Today's state-of-the-art for hydrogen storage includes 5000- and 10,000-psi compressed gas tanks and cryogenic liquid hydrogen tanks for on-board hydrogen storage.
Compressed Hydrogen Gas Tanks

The energy density of gaseous hydrogen can be improved by storing hydrogen at higher pressures. This requires material and design improvements in order to ensure tank integrity. Advances in compression technologies are also required to improve efficiencies and reduce the cost of producing high-pressure hydrogen.

Carbon fiber-reinforced 5000-psi and 10,000-psi compressed hydrogen gas tanks are under development by Quantum Technologies and others. Such tanks are already in use in prototype hydrogen-powered vehicles. The inner liner of the tank is a high molecular weight polymer that serves as a hydrogen gas permeation barrier. A carbon fiber-epoxy resin composite shell is placed over the liner and constitutes the gas pressure load-bearing component of the tank. Finally, an outer shell is placed on the tank for impact and damage resistance. The pressure regulator for the 10,000-psi tank is located in the interior of the tank. There is also an in-tank gas temperature sensor to monitor the tank temperature during the gas filling process when heating of the tank occurs.

The driving range of fuel cell vehicles with compressed hydrogen tanks depends, of course, on vehicle type, design and the amount and pressure of stored hydrogen. By increasing the amount and pressure of hydrogen, a greater driving range can be achieved but at the expense of cost and valuable space within the vehicle. Volumetric capacity, high pressure and cost are thus key challenges for compressed hydrogen tanks. Refueling times, compression energy penalties and heat management requirements during compression also need to be considered as the mass and pressure of on-board hydrogen are increased.

Issues with compressed hydrogen gas tanks revolve around high pressure, weight, volume, conformability and cost. The cost of high-pressure compressed gas tanks is essentially dictated by the cost of the carbon fiber that must be used for light-weight structural reinforcement. Efforts are underway to identify lower-cost carbon fiber that can meet the required high pressure and safety specifications for hydrogen gas tanks. However, lower-cost carbon fibers must still be capable of meeting tank thickness constraints in order to help meet volumetric capacity targets. Thus lowering cost without compromising weight and volume is a key challenge.

Two approaches are being pursued to increase the gravimetric and volumetric storage capacities of compressed gas tanks from their current levels. The first approach involves cryo-compressed tanks. This is based on the fact that, at fixed pressure and volume, gas tank volumetric capacity increases as the tank temperature decreases. Thus, by cooling a tank from room temperature to liquid nitrogen temperature (77°K), its volumetric capacity will increase by a factor of four, although system volumetric capacity will be less than this due to the increased volume required for the cooling system.

The second approach involves the development of conformable tanks. Present liquid gasoline tanks in vehicles are highly conformable in order to take maximum advantage of available vehicle space. Concepts for conformable tank structures are based on the location of structural supporting walls. Internal cellular-type load bearing structures may also be a possibility for greater degrees of conformability.

Compressed hydrogen tanks [5000 psi (~35 MPa) and 10,000 psi (~70 MPa)] have been certified worldwide according to ISO 11439 (Europe), NGV-2 (U.S.), and Reijikijun Betten (Iceland) standards and approved by TUV (Germany) and The High-Pressure Gas Safety Institute of Japan (KHK). Tanks have been demonstrated in several prototype fuel cell vehicles and are commercially available. Composite, 10,000-psi tanks have demonstrated a 2.35 safety factor (23,500 psi burst pressure) as required by the European Integrated Hydrogen Project specifications.

Liquid Hydrogen Tanks

The energy density of hydrogen can be improved by storing hydrogen in a liquid state. However, the issues with LH2 tanks are hydrogen boil-off, the energy required for hydrogen liquefaction, volume, weight, and tank cost. The energy requirement for hydrogen liquefaction is high; typically 30% of the heating value of hydrogen is required for liquefaction. New approaches that can lower these energy requirements and thus the cost of liquefaction are needed. Hydrogen boil-off must be minimized or eliminated for cost, efficiency and vehicle range considerations, as well as for safety considerations when vehicles are parked in confined spaces. Insulation is required for LH2 tanks and this reduces system gravimetric and volumetric capacity.

Liquid hydrogen (LH2) tanks can store more hydrogen in a given volume than compressed gas tanks. The volumetric capacity of liquid hydrogen is 0.070 kg/L, compared to 0.030 kg/L for 10,000 psi gas tanks.

Liquid tanks are being demonstrated in hydrogen-powered vehicles and a hybrid tank concept combining both high-pressure gaseous and cryogenic storage is being studied. These hybrid (cryo-compressed tanks) insulated pressure vessels are lighter than hydrides and more compact than ambient-temperature, high pressure vessels. Because the temperatures required are not as low as for liquid hydrogen, there is less of an energy penalty for liquefaction and less evaporative losses than for liquid hydrogen tanks.

Learn about DOE's Compressed/Liquid Hydrogen Tanks R&D.

Hydrogen can also be produced from water by electrolysis. If the electricity used for the electrolysis is produced using renewable energy, the production of the hydrogen would (in principle) result in no net carbon dioxide emissions

Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source, so the energy the car uses would ultimately need to be provided by a conventional power plant. A suggested benefit of ^large-scale deployment of hydrogen vehicles is that it could lead to decreased emissions of greenhouse gases and ozone precursors.

Excerpt((Nov 16th 2006 6:51PM by Sebastian Blanco, for AutoblogGreen)
) U.S. DOE Scenario Analyses of a Nascent National Hydrogen Transportation System

Los Angeles and NYC are just the first places where hydrogen will likely be part of the transportation economy. The Department Of Energy (US) best guess at this point is that there will be 40 stations in the LA area by 2015, all in busy areas. The 2015, 40-station scenario for NYC has none in the city proper, but lots in Jersey and Long Island and other surrounding areas. Four years later (between 2016-19), San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, Detroit, and Chicago would tap into the hydrogen scene. More cities would follow every about four years, with the connecting areas fleshed out to create hydrogen corridors.

The three scenarios for America are of hydrogen acceptance in America:
1. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) are introduced widely in 2015, with government support for hundreds or thousands of vehicles a year by 2012 and tens of thousands by 2018. This will result in 2 million HFCVs by 2025.
2. The government supports thousands of HFCVs by 2012, tens of thousands by 2015 and hundreds of thousands by 2018. This gives 5 million HFCVs by 2025.
3. Lastly, the government supports thousands a year by 2012 and millions a year by 2021, giving 10 million by 2025. The HFCVs come from multiple companies and in lots of model choices.

Producing hydrogen for vehicles contemplations:
It would be extremely difficult for electrolysis to cost-effectively compete with coal or natural gas hydrogen production.
Figuring all, it turns out that the cheapest path through the decision tree starts by making hydrogen using coal gasification and sequestering the CO2, then transporting the H2 through pipelines to fueling stations.Taking the information they have now, the HyPro model estimates the profited cost (what a consumer will pay) for a kilogram of hydrogen will range from a low of $2.50 to a high of $6, with the cost of most methods averaging between $3 and $4 starting in 2020 in Los Angeles.

Initially, hydrogen stations would be built in areas close to airports, near roads that get more than 200,000 vehicles a day, within two miles of a retail center, and in a census tract with more than 3,000 vehicle registrations (which is higher than average). While converting existing gasoline stations to hydrogen centers may sound like the most sensible idea it may not be possible, because Steam Methane Reformers take up space, there are storage and compression issues, and local ordinances for things like setbacks may prevent hydrogen installation. The logic of centering hydrogen stations around company or municipal fleets will be put into the data set later this year.

All right then, who will buy hydrogen vehicles? Marga Melendez (senior project Leader at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory) thinks she knows. She said the most likely candidates are people or families who: have a higher than average income, a higher education level, at least two cars in the family, and live in an area where there are poor air quality, state incentives for HFCVs, or mandates for zero emission vehicles. Guess where a lot of people like this live? In Los Angeles and New York City.

Ok, so we've figured out where the stations will be, and who will buy the cars, but doesn't that leave out one major component? It certainly does, and Paul Leiby ( senior scientist-environmental sciences division at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory) has been looking a some of the largest roadblocks in the way of the hydrogen economy: vehicle availability and hydrogen model diversity (there needs to be trucks and small cars and minivans so everyone can drive the type of vehicle that suits their needs). One of Leiby's slides read, "A sustainable transition to hydrogen powered light duty vehicles is possible by 2050 (or so) at reasonable cost." But, he said, this will require a major government and business transition policy through at least 2025 to overcome market barriers. Two factors will influence fuel cell success by 2050: first, meeting the DOE's 2010 goals for HFCVs, with "average progress for other technologies" also occurring. Second, a price of oil that sits at about $90 a barrel in 2030. If these two things happen, Leiby said, there may not be any need for government policies (like a motor fuel tax exemptions or $1,000 per vehicle subsidy for hydrogen vehicles) much after 2025.

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Source: http://www.hydrogen.co.uk/

Hydrogen-powered car invention to reduce carbon 1
Hydrogen-powered car invention to reduce carbon 2

Hydrogen-powered car research

Read More at Wikipedia Hydrogen vehicle

Alternatives

PHEVs

A 2006 article, "Hybrid Vehicles Gain Traction", in Scientific American (April 2006), co-authored by Joseph J. Romm and Prof. Andrew A. Frank, argues that ICE-based hybrid cars that can be plugged into the electric grid (Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles), rather than hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, will soon become standard in the automobile industry.

Plug-in Hybrid vehicles are quickly becoming the next generation cars??

Toyota Plug In Hybrid

Most hybrid cars on the road right now are gasoline-electric hybrids, although French car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen has two diesel-electric hybrid cars in the works. Gasoline hybrids are the kind you'll find at your local car dealership.

A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a vehicle that uses two or more distinct power sources to propel the vehicle.Common power sources include:

* On-board rechargeable energy storage system (RESS) and a fueled power source (internal combustion engine or fuel cell)
* Air and internal combustion engines

Some plug-in hybrids on the horizon would require motorists to charge their cars in a wall outlet overnight and promise only 50 miles of gasoline-free commute. And the popular hybrids on the road today still depend heavily on fossil fuels.Batteries rely on chemical reactions to store energy but can take hours to charge and release energy. The simplest capacitors found in computers and radios hold less energy but can charge or discharge instantly. Ultracapacitors take the best of both, stacking capacitors to increase capacity while maintaining the speed of simple capacitors.Vehicles require bursts of energy to accelerate, a task better suited for capacitors than batteries.
An Austin-based startup called EEStor promised "technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries,'' meaning a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline. The result is an ultracapacitor, a battery-like device that stores and releases energy quickly.
Battery-like Device Could Power Cars

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Most hybrid cars,retain a connection between the engine and the wheels, and use the electric motor to supplement the gasoline engine.How about a propulsion system pioneered in submarines about a hundred years ago? (In short travelling on bustling power by rechargeable battery alone on a longer distance)

Batteries included

The keel of the Volt (built on a four-door Chevy Cobalt chassis) contains 16 kilowatt-hours' worth of lithium-ion batteries, which power a 120-kilowatt motor, enough to accelerate the car from zero to 60 in 8.5 seconds, according to GM's specs.

Leaving a 50 percent reserve, eight kilowatt-hours should get you 40 miles of road travel, which is enough for many commutes.

Plugging into a 110-volt outlet will recharge it in about six hours, assuming you need a full recharge of 8 kilowatt-hours.

Nationally, the average price for electricity is 10.94 cents per kilowatt hour, so "refueling" would cost 87.5 cents.

If you need to go more than 40 miles, the Volt has a small (1.3-liter, 3-cylinder) engine that cuts in, powering a generator that recharges the battery while you are driving.

With a charged battery and a full tank with 12 gallons of gas, you are supposed to be able to go 640 miles. That's 53 miles per gallon.

A new concept car from General Motors could get 53 mpg on a propulsion system pioneered in submarines about a hundred years ago.

GM Hybrid Car Uses Submarine Power System

Fuel Cells Video
A battery that runs on water may be in our cars and homes in the very near future.

A fuel cell is a device that uses a source of fuel, such as hydrogen, and an oxidant to create electricity from an electrochemical process.There are different types of fuel cells, based mainly on what kind of electrolyte they use.Most fuel cells in use today, however, use hydrogen and oxygen as the chemicals.Unlike a typical battery, which eventually goes dead, a fuel cell continues to produce energy as long as fuel and oxidant are supplied. Laptop computers, cellular phones, video recorders, and hearing aids could be powered by portable fuel cells.Fuel cells have strong benefits over conventional combustion-based technologies currently used in many power plants and cars. They produce much smaller quantities of greenhouse gases and none of the air pollutants that create smog and cause health problems. If pure hydrogen is used as a fuel, fuel cells emit only heat and water as a byproduct. Hydrogen-powered fuel cells are also far more energy efficient than traditional combustion technologies.

The biggest hurdle for fuel cells today is cost. Fuel cells cannot yet compete economically with more traditional energy technologies, though rapid technical advances are being made. Although hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it is difficult to store and distribute. Canisters of pure hydrogen are readily available from hydrogen producers, but as of now, you can't just fill up with hydrogen at a local gas station.

The hybrid vehicle typically achieves greater fuel economy and lower emissions than conventional internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), resulting in fewer emissions being generated. These savings are primarily achieved by four elements of a typical hybrid design:
1) recapturing energy normally wasted during braking etc.;

2) having significant battery storage capacity to store and reuse recaptured energy;

3) shutting down the gasoline or diesel engine during traffic stops or while coasting or other idle periods;

4) relying on both the gasoline (or diesel engine) and the electric motors for peak power needs resulting in a smaller gasoline or diesel engine sized more for average usage rather than peak power usage.

The hybrid is a compromise. It attempts to significantly increase the mileage and reduce the emissions of a gas-powered car while overcoming the shortcomings of an electric car.

To be useful to you or me, a car must meet certain minimum requirements. The car should be able to:

* Drive at least 300 miles (482 km) before re-fueling
* Be refueled quickly and easily
* Keep up with the other traffic on the road

A gasoline car meets these requirements but produces a relatively large amount of pollution and generally gets poor gas mileage. An electric car, however, produces almost no pollution, but it can only go 50 to 100 miles (80 to 161 km) between charges. And the problem has been that the electric car is very slow and inconvenient to recharge.

A gasoline-electric car combines these two setups into one system that leverages both gas power and electric power.You can combine the two power sources found in a hybrid car in different ways. One way, known as a parallel hybrid, has a fuel tank that supplies gasoline to the engine and a set of batteries that supplies power to the electric motor. Both the engine and the electric motor can turn the transmission at the same time, and the transmission then turns the wheels.By contrast, in a series hybrid, the gasoline engine turns a generator, and the generator can either charge the batteries or power an electric motor that drives the transmission. Thus, the gasoline engine never directly powers the vehicle.

The key to a hybrid car is that the gasoline engine can be much smaller than the one in a conventional car and therefore more efficient. Let's compare a car like the Chevy Camaro, with its big V-8 engine, to our hybrid car with its small gas engine and electric motor. The engine in the Camaro has more than enough power to handle any driving situation. The engine in the hybrid car is powerful enough to move the car along on the freeway, but when it needs to get the car moving in a hurry, or go up a steep hill, it needs help. That "help" comes from the electric motor and battery -- this system steps in to provide the necessary extra power.

The gas engine on a conventional car is sized for the peak power requirement (those few times when you floor the accelerator pedal). In fact, most drivers use the peak power of their engines less than one percent of the time. The hybrid car uses a much smaller engine, one that is sized closer to the average power requirement than to the peak power.

A hybrid car can improve Fuel Economy by:
*Recover energy and store it in the battery
*Sometimes shut off the engine (uses a unique power split device )
*Use advanced aerodynamics to reduce drag
*Use low-rolling resistance tires
*Use lightweight materials
*Engine only runs at an efficient speed and load

The Power Split Device

The power split device is the heart of the Toyota Prius. This is a clever gearbox that hooks the gasoline engine, generator and electric motor together. It allows the car to operate like a parallel hybrid -- the electric motor can power the car by itself, the gas engine can power the car by itself or they can power the car together. The power split device also allows the car to operate like a series hybrid -- the gasoline engine can operate independently of the vehicle speed, charging the batteries or providing power to the wheels as needed. It also acts as a continuously variable transmission (CVT), eliminating the need for a manual or automatic transmission. Finally, because the power split device allows the generator to start the engine, the car does not need a starter.

When you accelerate, initially the electric motor and batteries provide all of the power. Once you reach about 40 mph (64 kph), the gasoline engine will turn on. The generator suddenly changes speed, causing the planet carrier to turn and start the engine. If you are really accelerating hard, the motor will draw extra power from the batteries. Once you are up to freeway speed, the car will move under a combination of gas and electric power, with all of the electricity coming from the generator.

The motors and batteries in hybrids cars typically don't require any maintenance over the life of the vehicle (however, if you do have to replace the batteries after the warranty expires, it will likely cost you several thousand dollars).The onboard generator automatically maintains the proper level of charge in the batteries which never needs to be recharged. The engine doesn't require any more maintenance than the one in any other car, and because hybrids have regenerative braking, the brake pads may even last a little longer than those in most cars.

The reason to Hybrid Car is twofold: to reduce tailpipe emissions and to improve mileage.

Avoid abrupt stops - When you stop your car, the electric motor in the hybrid acts like a generator and takes some of the energy out of the car while slowing it down. If you give the electric motor more time to slow the vehicle, it can recover more of the energy. If you stop quickly, the brakes on the car will do most of the work of slowing the car down, and that energy will be wasted. The same reasoning applies to gasoline-powered cars: Abrupt stops waste a lot of energy.

Automakers Showing New Hybrid Vehicles
By KEN THOMAS,Associated Press Writer AP - Tuesday, January 22, 2008

WASHINGTON - Ford's 2009 Escape gas-electric hybrid will show improvements in fuel economy and provide more power, the automaker said Tuesday.

Ford Motor Co. was unveiling the 2009 Escape hybrid and the 2009 Mercury Mariner hybrid at the Washington Auto Show, which opens to the public on Wednesday and lasts through Sunday.

The sport utility vehicle was one of several hybrid developments at the show. Both Ford and Toyota Motor Corp. were displaying prototype plug-in hybrids while General Motors Corp. was announcing that new orders from three metropolitan transit agencies would more than double its hybrid bus fleet.

Automakers typically show off their fuel-efficient technologies at the Washington show, which is heavily attended by government and political leaders. A new energy law signed by President Bush will require the companies to meet an overall fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

Ford said the 2009 Escape and Mariner's overall fuel efficiency would increase by 1 mpg compared with the 2008 versions, which gets between 28 to 32 mpg overall depending on the engine configuration.

The hybrid will have a new 2.5-liter engine which will boost power 11 percent to 170 horsepower. It will also offer an optional 230-hp, 3.0-liter V6 engine with similar gains in fuel economy. The 2009 version will go on sale this summer.

General Motors said its fleet of nearly 1,000 GM-Allison hybrid-powered buses would more than double thanks to large orders by transit agencies in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Beth Lowery, GM's vice president for energy and environmental policy, said it underscored the company's strategy to "save as many gallons of fuel as possible by applying hybrid technology first to high-volume and high fuel consuming vehicles like mass transit buses."

Beyond conventional hybrids, several car makers are testing plug-in hybrids that could allow owners to plug the vehicle's battery into a standard wall outlet to recharge it. The vehicles typically feature batteries that power an electric motor with an internal combustion engine that is used when the batteries run low.

General Motors has said production could begin as early as 2010 on a plug-in hybrid electric version of the Saturn Vue Green Line and is hoping to bring the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in electric car, to market by the same timeframe.

Toyota said recently that it plans to test hundreds of plug-in hybrids with fleet and commercial customers by 2010. It will show journalists on Tuesday one of the plug-in Prius prototypes, which switches from pure electric to gas engine to a blended gas electric mode.

Chrysler LLC showed three plug-in concept cars at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, while Ford has a partnership with Southern California Edison to develop a small fleet of plug-ins.

Whether the vehicles make it to showrooms depends on the industry's ability to mass produce the batteries and how well they are received by fleet and commercial customers.

"This isn't a moon-shot," said Greg Frenette, chief engineer of Ford's plug-in program. "Within the next five years, we ought to know whether we can produce these batteries cost-effectively."

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