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Hydrogen Highway

There are organizations planning to set up a string of hydrogen fueling stations at various locations in California. In addition there will be hydrogen fuel cell autos and busses operating in the state. The organizations are:

California Fuel Cell Partnership (CAFCP)
California Hydrogen Highway Network

CAFCP

Our mission

The California Fuel Cell Partnership is committed to promoting fuel cell vehicle commercialization as a means of moving towards a sustainable energy future, increasing energy efficiency and reducing or eliminating air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

Our organization

The California Fuel Cell Partnership is a unique collaborative of auto manufacturers, energy companies, fuel cell technology companies, and government agencies. Our organization is advancing a new vehicle technology that could move the world toward practical and affordable environmental solutions.

For the first time ever, automobile companies and fuel suppliers have joined together to demonstrate fuel cell vehicles under real day-to-day driving conditions. In addition to testing the fuel cell vehicles, the CaFCP is examining fuel infrastructure issues and beginning to prepare the California market for this new technology.

The CaFCP currently consists of 21 full members and 11 associate members

In April 1999, the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CAFCP)set out to explore and facilitate the path to commercialization and increase awareness of fuel cells for transportation. Since then, the partnership has made significant progress demonstrating fuel cell vehicle technology and fuel alternatives

Through 2007, the organization will work together to move fuel cell technology to the next level by accomplishing following goals:

Facilitate members’ placement of up to 300 fuel cell cars and buses into fleets
Promote fuel stations to support the vehicle fleets
Ensure ‘common-fit’ fueling protocols
Prepare communities and train first responders for vehicles and fueling
Promote practical codes and standards
Enhance public awareness
Exchange information and resources worldwide

Over the next four years the California Fuel Cell Partnership will demonstrate that a diverse group of companies and individuals can succeed with one common goal – to maximize the potential for fuel cell vehicles and fueling technology to help California and the world achieve a cleaner, more sustainable future.

As of May 2006, the publication California Hydrogen Report reported that there will be 10,000 fuel cell-hydrogen fueled vehicles per day on the road by 2009 and over 100,000 by 2012.

My comment: Where the hydrogen comes from was not stated. I suppose that it will be gotten from steam- reforming of natural gas. This is a wasteful process. Why throw away 30% of the natural gas energy just to get hydrogen?

As I suspected, the hydrogen highway is not progressing. A recent announcement:

February 2008

California H2 Station Closures, Failure to Move Ahead On New Ones Worries Supporters

SACRAMENTO, CA – California’s stature as a global leader in clean transportation may be dented in an imbroglio over the decision by a major utility and two other institutions not to build three more planned hydrogen fueling stations in the state.

Here is overall Assessment of hydrogen vehicles in California as reported by the California Energy Commission's (CEC) report California Alternate Fuels Assessment.

Hydrogen vehicles have the potential to provide the majority of all vehicle transportation fuel use with no emissions from the vehicle and the opportunity to capture CO₂ or produce the hydrogen from renewable sources. There is little consensus on the exact timeframe, but many public- and private-sector experts believe that direct-hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will gradually replace internal combustion engine vehicles as the predominant mode of transportation in metropolitan areas throughout California and the United States.

I do not understand what they mean by "...and the opportunity to capture CO2 or produce the hydrogen from renewable sources. "

California Rolls Toward Hydrogen

Below are some are some discussions that show California's Hydrogen Highway is not in the near future if ever. There is no simply no energy source to produce hydrogen. Certainly not Renewables.

California took a symbolic first step toward a statewide "hydrogen highway" with the dedication of a fueling station Tuesday, but the road ahead is far from smooth.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave an executive order creating a public and private partnership to build a hydrogen highway in California by 2010.

Building a hydrogen highway now is very premature, according to Joe Romm, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Energy and Climate Solutions. Romm, who worked for five years for the Department of Energy, said there would not be a viable market for hydrogen-powered cars for at least 20 to 30 years.

"It's discouraging for me as a clean-energy advocate that people are putting claims out that aren't based on reality," Romm said of assertions that a move from petroleum to hydrogen is on the horizon. The cost of producing hydrogen from renewable sources is between $10 to $20 per gallon of gasoline equivalent, said Romm, who wrote the book The Hype About Hydrogen, which was published earlier this year.

The stations rely on liquid hydrogen delivered by tanker truck and then gasified on site so that it can be put into vehicles' pressurized gas tanks. The long-term goal is to produce hydrogen there from renewable sources, developing wind, biomass or solar energy sources. But for now, natural gas is by far the easiest and cheapest method for creating hydrogen. My comment: As natural gas becomes more expensive and in short supply, this will no longer be true. We cannot operate our vehicular fleet on natural gas,

Romm is concerned that companies and government agencies that are touting hydrogen as an energy panacea may be pulling a bait and switch on the public -- priming consumers to support funding for "green" hydrogen while it will more likely be produced using fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal.

Because fuel-cell technology is currently cost-prohibitive, Romm projects that hydrogen will first be used in internal-combustion engines, which will do little to improve air quality. "It's a big mistake to rush cars out with inadequate technology," said Romm, who would prefer that money be directed to research and development instead of building hydrogen fuel stations.

Romm is wrong about the I C engines doing little about air quality. He has not read the reports from Sandia National Lab, Livermore about IC engines operating on hydrogen.

Further information about the price of hydrogen

The National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) quotes the price of hydrogen in the range of $10 to $14 per kg ( gallon of gasoline equivalent) for a wind power capacity factor range of 30% to 55%. I would like to point out that there are no capacity factor wind machines with capacity factors over 25% today in California.

Moreover, using renewable energy sources to generate hydrogen is particularly disadvantageous because the high price of electrolysis devices are only used at the same capacity factor interval as the wind machines.

It is fairly obvious to see that hydrogen refueling stations in California will never by economical using renewable energy sources.

I have done some calculations about California's desire to use distributed renewable power to supply hydrogen for their fuel cell cars. If I am right, all of the current wind power machines in California could support 379,000 fuel cell cars per year. What do you think of renewable power to support the hydrogen highway program? It is ridiculous is it not? Can you imagine a distributed wind machine system at each refueling station? Or acres of solar panels?

The California Hydrogen Highway Project is underway.

The process is now underway with an announcement of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signing Senate Bill (SB) 76. SB 76 is a budget trailer bill that provides $6.5 million in funding for state-sponsored hydrogen demonstration program project until January 1, 2007. The funds may be used for co-funding the establishment of up to three hydrogen fueling stations demonstration projects and State lease and purchase of a variety of hydrogen vehicles.

Environmental Criteria

Each SB 76 hydrogen station shall meet or exceed the environmental goals of the California Hydrogen Blueprint Plan, and shall use renewable energy to produce and dispense hydrogen.

• Each station shall use at least 20% new renewable energy to produce and dispense hydrogen with a goal of 33% by 2010.

• The operation of each station will result in a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to comparable emissions from current year gasoline vehicles/stations.

Siting Criteria

1. For light duty vehicles, on-site dispensed storage capacity should be no less than 30 kilograms (kg) of hydrogen with enough reserve for emergencies.

2. Stations should be capable of dispensing at least 10kg/day of hydrogen.

3. The station should be capable of dispensing fuel at 5000 pounds per square inch (psi), with the capability of upgrading to 10,000 psi.

There are more criteria that I did not include here. The above are the specifics that allow me to calculate the needs and technical data for each fueling site.

Submit Feedback

The project has requested that all interested parties submit feedback. There is a 30-day comment period for draft Siting and Location criteria for the three hydrogen demonstration stations.

"Based on feedback from the workshops and the November 15,2005 CEJAC meeting, staff prepared the attached "Draft siting and location criteria" for the three hydrogen demonstration fueling stations. These draft criteria are now available for a 30-day comment period. Any comments received during this time will be taken into consideration for the development and release of requests for proposals (RFP) for building three hydrogen demonstration fueling stations and procuring hydrogen vehicles."

"or information on the CA H2 Net, please visit www.HvdrogenHighway.ca.gov . This website will be updated regularly with information applicable to SB 76. If you wish to receive email notification of updates on the CA H2 Net please join the list serve at: http://www.hvdrogenhighwav.ca.gov/sub2hwy.html."

"Please submit your comments on the attached "Draft siting and location criteria" to Mr. Michael Kashuba, Staff Air Pollution Specialist, at mkashuba@arb.ca.gov, or by phone at (916) 323-5123 by January 5, 2006. Also, feel free to contact Mr. Kashuba if you have any questions about the criteria or the SB 76 process."

Sincerely,

Robert H. Cross, Chief Mobile Source Control Division

I am preparing comments below to submit. If any of you have comments, I urge you to submit them also.

My Feed Back

My Comment: There are 16 hydrogen fueling stations now in operation in California and 15 more being planned. Of these stations only two use a small sample of renewable energy to supply the hydrogen energy. A study conducted by the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CAFCP) states the following goal for the energy fueling stations:

"The "energy station" concept for integration of vehicle fueling, stationary power and heat, and renewable resource use should be developed quickly."

Moreover, the California Energy Commission's final report recommends that renewable energy systems are to be the future energy supply system for California.

I do not believe that renewable systems will be anywhere adequate for our future energy supply, but the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) States the following:

"The renewable electrolysis analysis work at NREL focused on three different aspects of the electrolysis system: solar and wind resource availability, cost analysis, and annual energy requirements. Each analysis has helped to define the challenges and opportunities for hydrogen produced from renewable electricity to participate in the future hydrogen economy. Ample solar and wind resources exist to meet the transportation fuel needs of the United States, but renewable energy systems face challenges to reduce the cost of electricity and to independently meet the energy requirements of distributed fueling stations."

Based on these facts why not build the three hydrogen stations with 100 % renewable fuel supply systems. Let's get on with the real solution. Creeping up with 20% now and 33% renewables in 5 years is a waste of time and money in my view.

The Siting criteria for each station calls for a daily production of 10 kg of hydrogen per day. This is not lot of hydrogen, but it would be a good start if all of it were produced by renewable energy systems. Nonrenewable hydrogen is produced by commercial companies using steam-natural gas reformers. They have been doing this for many years and it does not add to the technical or economic solution for demonstrating renewable hydrogen systems of the future.

Here are the particulars of a renewable system.

Use the current electrolyzers that can be bought today from industry.

The performance of an electrolyzer system is: 66 kWh of electric energy input will produce 1 kg of hydrogen. This is an efficiency of 50% converting electric energy into hydrogen energy. Maybe the systems can do better than this and it would be good experience to prove it.

To calculate the annual hydrogen energy :

10 kg per day x 365 days per year = 3,650 kg of hydrogen per year.

66 kWh/kg H2 x 3,650 kg of H2 = 240,900 kWh per year.

Average capacity of a solar PV system is 15%.

Capacity of solar system x 8700 hours per year x 0.15 capacity factor = 240,900 kg of H2

The capacity of the solar system would thus need to be 183 kWe.

At $10,000 per kWe cost of solar PV systems the cost of each solar PV energy supply system would be about 1.8 million dollars.

Wind power is also an option. If the stations should be close to windy areas, 140 KWe of wind energy machines could be employed, Wind machines are vary large and just two machines of 70 kWe each would suffice for each station. Wind energy is considerably less expensive than solar PV's. At $1,500 per installed kWe, wind machines would cost only $210,000 per station.

In addition, I recommend that hydrogen be stored at 10,000 psi in place of 5,000 psi. General Motors and others have fuel cell autos fitted with tanks capable of 10,000 psi. It is not difficult to compress hydrogen to 10,000 psi.

Since fuel cell autos have been considered to be renewable systems with advantages to clean the atmosphere, it will be an tremendous achievement to prove that renewables can produce hydrogen. Natural gas is now being used to produce hydrogen. It is in short supply and also has carbon dioxide as a waste product when it is used to produce hydrogen.

Sincerely

Donald E. Lutz Registered Professional Engineer in California. e- mail donlutz29@comcast.net. If there are question you might have I will be glad to answer them and/or supply other information as needed.

My further comment:

I proposed the above comment several months age. Evidently the commentary process is a one way street. Perhaps they did not agreed with the my comment because I did not receive any discussion about it. Further it appears that they intend to use renewable energy to produce hydrogen, but do not intend to start early to achieve that goal. The goal of producing hydrogen will be lost. It is not feasible to continue to get hydrogen by steam reforming of natural gas. The latter is too expensive and in short supply to be a serious contender for the hydrogen highway program to succeed.

I notice that they measure their success of the program by how many persons show up to ride in the fuel cell autos. In my view this has very little to do with the success of the program. It is not a show time feature that will promote the supply of renewably produced hydrogen.

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