अ ह्य्द्रोगें इकोनोमी

The Fuel Cell Bubble:

My thoughts on a hydrogen economy are somewhat mixed. There was a time when I was all for it, believed in it and marketed the first commercial fuel cells (PEM).

In mid 1999 I joined a private company called H Power Corp.—one of the first companies to commercialize the fuel cell. We’d already made several prototypes for various parts of the government and NASA. We even had a fuel cell robot called The Rattler to be used on the moon. Shortly after I joined the company, we went public (IPO).

But what the public at large didn’t know at the time was we were about to plunge head first into the energy markets without the proper supply chain or raw materials costing information.

Even after one year, no one could accurately price the products. We did manage to break the products into two categories. High Power & Low Power. Anything under a kilowatt we considered low power, contrastingly, above was High Power. And I discovered the limitations to scalability weren’t just daunting, but undoable given the expensive nature of raw materials (Platinum, Palladium, Membranes, Custom Power Conditioning, etc.)

We were able to build 10kW pure hydrogen generators, but after that benchmark, fuel costs became prohibitive. PEM fuel cells typically come in two varieties, CO tolerant and not CO tolerant. CO tolerant stacks are preferable in that you don’t need 99.999% pure H2. And that’s not the most expensive part. H Power stacks gobbled H2 like hungry babies. You could empty a standard A tank of 2800 PSI @ 10kW in less than an hour. So, we asked for higher pressure tanks. We got ‘em in 5000 PSI, and later, 10,000 PSI. This caused many to ask after safety. So, we made them put custom anti-blow out valves on the tanks. The minimum cost for one 5000 PSI tank was $10k then. Our cost for 1 full 10kW system was ~ $28k.

If you do the math, that comes to roughly $38k for a 10kW system and pretty bare-boned; no inverter, no power conditioning, and these weren’t real 10kW electric, they were 5kW electric & 5kW thermal, etc. So, here’s where we had even more problems. Home Depot sold a 1kW gas generator for under $700; ours were close to $5000 for 1kW/hr. And when we went to lower power outputs, the price went up. We made a 35W system and sold it for $3500 toward the end. It used a NMH @ ~ 17 bar (250 PSI), but no one would ship them except FedEx because the DOT hadn’t issued a hazmat UN number for them. And even then, we couldn’t get hydrides into Japan. They wouldn’t allow any pressurized hydrides in over 10 bar.

So, now we had even more problems; getting the hydrides to the customer, figuring out the UN number for a fuel cell system that has no UN number and writing the operating procedures. I did that for all the systems and discovered yet another problem. Once you condition and run a PEM cell system, the life-cycle clock starts ticking whether you use them or not. If you let it sit idle the membranes will dry out and crack. If just one membrane cracks you have to destroy the stack to get to it. Now you’re left with a bunch of very expensive metals you can’t use. If you run it every so often, it is no longer new.

We discovered we needed hermitic bags to package them, another cost on the overhead. Meanwhile, company after company came out with different ways to package the hydrogen for us; Millennium Cell, Power Ball, Texaco Ovonics and the standard welder’s tank to name a few. We used the Ovonics hydrides for smaller units, but on the larger units we needed to build a manifold of six or more because the flow rates weren’t high enough. So now we’ve got another ancillary product adding to overall costs. Oh yeah, we had to make a refilling station as well for the hydrides. Then I discovered yet another problem. If you empty the hydride completely, you poison the hydride. And there were no gauges on them so you never knew they were completely empty until the unit shut down causing yet another problem. Running air through the stack without humidity will break the membranes.

Meanwhile, our customer base began to dwindle. We had gone through the standard government buyers and were left with basically no one. This marked the beginning of the pop of the fuel cell bubble of 2002.. We raised $100 million in the IPO. The opening stock price was around $20 and rose to around $50, by the time the company was absorbed by Plug Power it was less than $3. The stock hit the toilet and never recovered

The Hydrogen Bubble:

Suffice to say, the USDOT does not support, advocate or recommend fuel cell cars. The reason is very simple; Hydrogen. There really are not enough H2 stations. This is referred to in the industry as the chicken/egg dilemma. Not enough stations to build cars to use them and not enough cars to warrant building the stations.

Let me address my first statement though. No one has ever built an economical fuel cell car. No one. Anuvu Inc. built one and wanted to sell it for $100k; it didn’t work. In point of fact it ran on batteries even when we showed it. The fuel cell partnership in Sacramento is a front. They will never sell or lease those cars; never. Minimum cost for any given FC car is still 1.5 million dollars.

But, that brings us to what applications work best for H2. In my opinion, small stationary apps are best. And they don’t have to be fuel cell apps. ICE apps modified to burn H2 in tandem with gasoline or diesel will work with zero emissions. A small startup out of OK successfully built an ICE to use H2 with zero emissions. I can’t remember their name off the top of my head, but it doesn’t matter; they’re belly up—along with a large number of H2 related companies. We know H2 is an energy carrier and a sellable commodity, so why is this happening?

The 2009 Lawrence Livermore Chart shows ~ 55 Quads wasted energy production in the USA. This is where much of the energy wasted or rejected can be used to make H2 for energy storage. Since H2 is an energy carrier and can be stored safely, much of that above number can be used to store this energy for use later or transported to remote spots where needed. It would require additional infrastructure, however. Again, we come to the chicken/egg dilemma. After more than 50 years of trying to establish an infrastructure, there simply isn’t one outside a very select few within a very select industry; gasoline and related fuels production. Speaking of gasoline:

Modified ICE engines are cheaper to make and use than fuel cell systems; they’ve been in commercial use much longer and have the distinct advantage of learning curves and evolution. And H2 works well for these engines in remote apps like repeater stations, heating stations and other telecommunications stations.

Moreover, hydrogen isn’t just for fuel cell systems; it is an integral element in the production of chemical processing, metal fabrication, and pharmaceutical production.

So, we are to a limited extent, utilizing H2 in our economy right now; just not as a replacement for crude and related by-products. And I’ve heard people say, well that’s good. H2 is very dangerous; take the Hindenburg for instance.

Nothing could be farther than the truth in that statement. The Hindenburg did not catch fire from the H2. The blimp was coated with a highly flammable doping compound which ignited once struck by lightening. The H2 was only consumed after the shell had burnt to the core.

And many think that strapping a 5000 PSI tank to the rear of their car is insanity, but the exact opposite is true. H2 is ~ 11 times lighter than air. Under great pressure, if the tank is breached, more than likely it will catch fire. But, it will not spread out like gasoline. It will go straight up rather than consume the vehicle.

Again, that doesn’t mean I recommend it for transportation uses. The BOP (Balance of Plant) is extensive and expensive.

I do believe there is a much larger future for H2; I just don’t believe it is in the transportation industries. Small stationary and portable power applications are better suited to its use domestically—space applications are a different story altogether.