More Details on Honda's 2006 FCX Fuel Cell Car
by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 10.20.05
[Such things happen: Yesterday, two of our trained typing-monkeys wrote posts in parallel about the same thing. What are the odds? Next we'll get Shakespeare plays... Since the two posts differ sufficiently, we print the second one here. The first can be found here. -Ed] A couple of weeks ago, little was known about the 2006 Honda FCX fuel cell concept. Now we know a bit more about it: The very low floor (and increased cabin space) is possible thanks to Honda's "3V" system. Vertical gas flow, Vertebral layout, and Volume-efficient packaging. "In the 3V schema, oxygen and hydrogen flow from the top to the bottom of the fuel cell stack (vertical gas flow) and the fuel cells are arranged vertically in the center tunnel (vertebral layout) for new, high-efficiency fuel cell packaging (volume efficiency)."
Compact enough to fit neatly into the center tunnel but robust enough to deliver 100kW of power [2005 FCX was 86kW], the V Flow fuel cell stack offers both space efficiency and high energy output. The key to fuel cell performance is water management. With vertical gas flow, an innovative process in which oxygen and hydrogen flow downward through the stack, Honda’s new fuel cell stack takes full advantage of gravity to efficiently discharge water formed during electricity generation.
Both 25kW rear motors are housed in the car's wheels, as you can see in the picture above. This frees the space between the wheels for the hydrogen storage tanks.
The new fuel cell also has a cold-start capacity that is similar to that of a gasoline engine, basically removing a big problem that older fuel cell concepts had.
The FCX-V Concept drive train features three energy-efficient motors: one in the front and two in the rear. The efficient delivery of this power through all four wheels and the low-center-of-gravity platform combine to deliver torquey performance and agile handling. The space-efficient layout also contributes to the interior efficiency of the low-floor design, eliminating the need to use floor space for motors.
The car's range is 560 kilometers (350 miles) on a 5 kg (11 lbs) tank of hydrogen at 350 atmospheres (5,150 psi). The current FCX has a range of 190 miles.
Honda also unveiled its current model of the Home Energy Station (HES), a home cogeneration and fueling system that uses natural gas to supply electricity and heat in addition to hydrogen fuel for vehicles.The system is equipped with fuel cells that generate electricity (5 kW) for the home, and is configured to recover the heat produced during power generation for domestic water heating.
The HES can produce 3 Nm3/hr of hydrogen. In addition to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by some 40%, according to Honda’s calculations, the HES system is expected to lower by 50% the total running cost of household electricity, gas and vehicle fuel.
Of course natural gas (NG) is not ideal for environmental reasons, even if it is one of the cleaner-burning fossil fuels. Availability would also be a problem, especially in North-America where NG production is peaking and where the liquefied natural gas (LNG) capacity is almost non-existent. But at least this system seems to make the most out of it and integrates well with a house - it could have been worse. Eventually hydrogen would have to be produced with clean energy (along with waste H2?) if fuel cell cars are to be used on a large scale.
Honda is listening:
One day Honda hopes to find a way to power cars with no emissions."Ultimately, what we should aim for is to circulate zero-pollution energy through solar panels," Honda president Takeo Fukui told reporters.
"There are many methods (to achieve the goal). En route to that, we will use natural gas, which is conventional infrastructure, and gradually add use of solar-panel energy," he said.
There is one problem with that: If we can make enough clean electricity (via solar or something else) to produce hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles, why not use that electricity directly in electric vehicles or plug-in hybrids with extremely long battery range, and an internal combustion engine that runs on biofuel for extended trips? The only way that I see for "clean" hydrogen to be viable is if we produce it using bacteria or other biological processes that don't need anything else than biomass and solar input.
Otherwise, there is no reason not to spend at least as much time and money on battery technology and electric vehicles as we do on fuel cells. We must not put all our eggs in the same basket.
For more information about fuel cells you can read this older post.
Big thanks to ::Green Car Congress, ::Honda FCX powers your home
I just don't understand why we aren't pushing diesel. The world's industry has a hundred years of expertise in internal combustion engines, we might as well take advantage of that. The internal combustion engine CAN be clean, just depending on what fuel we use.
If there is a gradual shift to diesel engines using alternative fuels like clean-burning ultra low sulfur diesel, propane, CNG/LNG, ethanol, biodiesel (B100, that is), then we only have to change very little of our current fuel delivery infrastructure, which is another thing that the worlds industry has incredible expertise in.
Everyone is looking for an overnight technological breakthrough, when we already have the answers. It's a matter of shifting change gradually.
Hell, california, for being so "green" doesn't even allow new diesel automotives in the state, and the diesel VW golf gets 45MPG!!! (that's better than a prius on long trips)
I'd like to address the issue of H2 fuel cells versus batteries.
H2 fuel cells are great devices, very efficient, and environmentally friendly. However, their use in vehicles has a few hurdles:
1: Electrodes. To catalyze the reaction of H2 + 0.5 O2 --> H2O you need to use platinum electrodes. To be able to generate power on the order needed you power a car, anywhere from 20 to 100kW, you need a LOT of electrode surface area. Platinum is one of the most expensive metals there is. Thus, fuel cells are very expensive, and unless we find a different way to catalyze the reaction, their price will not drop; if anything, it will increase.
2: Generating H2. As we saw from this article, the current method is stripping the hydrogen from a hydrocarbon. This is a relatively cheap process, but the point of a fuel cell car is to be zero-emission. Another suggested method was through bacteria. I don't know too much about this, so I can't comment on the feasability of it, but it seems it would difficult on a large scale. Perhaps in a distributed H2 generation economy, however, this method could prove invaluble. Now, the easiest way to produce H2 is through the electrolysis of water. You can even make a closed-system fuel cell/electrolyzer, where you plug in the system (car) when not in use and electrolyze the water you produced back into H2 and O2. The problem with this is energy loss. When H2 and O2 is put through a fuel cell, the electrochemical reaction gives electrical energy at about 1.25 volts. However, to reverse the process and electrolyze water, you need to provide an over-potential -- that is, you need to supply a voltage of about 1.5 volts to initiate and sustain the reaction. The additional potential is then lost to an I-R drop (resistance) and heat is generated. Thus, you lose almost 20% of the energy you put into the system. Which leads me to batteries..
Battery technology has come a long way in the past decade or so. I'm sure you all remember the EV-1, made by GE about four years ago. It ran off NiMH, and had a range of somewhere around 60 miles, if I recall correctly. Now, you will never hear me badmouth NiMH technology, as it is a wonderfully elegant system (good energy density, great discharge characteristics, unharmed by overcharging, can be charged/discharge very quickly, etc), but for automotive applications, lithium-based batteries take the cake. The lithium technology on the market now, such as in your laptops and cell phones, is primarliy LiCoO (Lithium-Cobalt-Oxide). It is a proved system, with the high voltage and akward discharge curve that is characteristic of a lithium battery. It effectively triples the energy density of that found in NiMH. However, we can still to better. Lithium-metal based batteries, more specifically with amorphous V2O5 (vanadium-pentoxide) cathodes give energy density almost twice as good as LiCoO cells. The problem with Li-metal is reactivity -- there is fear that exposed lithium can be very harmful to humans (true.. but not really). One company, Toronto-based Electrovaya, has created a proprietary Li-ion polymer-electrolyte cell with very high capacity, and scaled it well enough to power their Maya-100, the electric SUV seen here. With batteries, there is very little energy lost through a charge-discharge cycle, as the internal resistance of a lithium cell is generally very small. The only major problem remaining is finding a cell that will have the capacity of, for example the Li/V2O5 while being able to cycle at rates as high as C/2 (that is, a full discharge or charge in two hours).
All that having been said, I'm sure you noticed that I don't really think fuel cell cars are the way to go. They have the potential for longer ranges and better power than a battey powered car, but will continue to remain very expensive. There is certainly a niche market for them, however, and I wouldn't count out the possibility of the technology improving such that the price of the cells will drop. There's really no way to predict where the technology will go, either with batteries or fuel cells, but I do believe that somewhere in there we can find a replacement for the oil infrastructure in place today.
Cheers,
~nepharis
Thanks for writing, Sean. Interesting stuff.
Chs,
I think that more diesel will start appearing in north-america when low sulfur diesel fuel is widely available.
Carmakers will also have to work on the fairly negative perception of diesel that a good part of the people who lived through the previous generation of diesel vehicles have.
This kind of reminds me of the HD TV standards issues. Or the new generation of DVDs. Or anytime when standards are changing and things are being improved. We may wind up with multiple competing standards, but look what happened with VHS and Beta.
VHS was better for home users, BetaMax died.
Interestingly enough - Beta lives today in the pro video world, just as a different variation (BetaSP, DigiBeta, the list goes on). VHS is going ellipses going ellipses
Some people may find that they live off the grid and can use this hydrogen setup to power their homes and their car.
Some people may think thats just crazy, and would never give up their biodiesel, which thank you very much, they make in their barn with their surplus crops. They even press the oil themselves.
Some people may live near cheap electricity, or have their own source, and have an EV or plug-in hybrid.
All these people will chip away at the market for inefficient gas engines and gasoline itself. They will all stay expensive for those of us who don't have a good source of power besides gasoline. Then one technolgy will prove itself better, more useful, more durable, more cost effective, or just more fun, and dominate like gasoline does today.
Fuel Cell technology is the future of automobiles
With regards to hydrogen generation, you may have heard of the Hydrogen Solar - Tandem Cell; it has been featured in several publications over the past year.
The Tandem Cell is a solar panel that produces hydrogen directly from sunlight and water. This would make hydrogen a primary energy source, and if panels were installed on domestic roofs there would be a lesser need for large distribution networks.
Biggest greanhouse gas by far is water vapour. Transforming liquid water to water vapour and spewing water vapour out into the atmosphere via hundreds of millions of fuelcell cars and fuel cell industies, would definitely increase the atmospheric temperature on earth.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4419880.stm
Any reason why honda isn't selling EVs now?
Great posts all. My only comment is that hydrogen my be the last hope for cooperate business to have a safety line out of the oil crisis. As long as there is a process that requires more than power lines and a plug, there is money to be made in new industry. Hydrogen processing plants, retrofitting gas stations... the money will come off the upper-middle class and people who are desperate to stop global warming. However, like the Bali talks are going, a lot of green initiatives are putting profit before the environment.
I'd like to hear some comments on using "algea" as a bio-fuel. I under stand that it can produce as much as 10,000 gal./acer. As apposed to "seed crops" which produce about 47 gal./acer/year..!
This car is good but they could have added on little bits of a solar panel so the car would be able to get more more electricity from the sun and then use it around the house.
Jacob Daniels