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Power On Tap: The US Hydrogen Road Tour Stops In Massachusetts
2008.10
This summer, a fleet of nine hydrogen-fueled vehicles traveled across the country as part of the US Hydrogen Road Tour that began in Portland, Maine on August 11th and finished in Los Angeles, California on August 23rd at Exposition Park. This coast-tocoast landmark journey, sponsored by twenty-two organizations, made 31 stops in 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, and demonstrated to a nation reeling from the shock of $4.00 a gallon gasoline that hydrogen vehicle and fueling technologies are approaching commercial availability.

US Hydrogen Road Tour collaborators included the National Hydrogen Association (NHA), Massachusetts Hydrogen Coalition, Maine Clean Communities, Southern Fuel Cell Coalition, and more. Sponsors included nine auto manufacturers, the US Department of Energy (DOE), California Fuel Cell Partnership, US Department of Transportation (DOT), and the NHA. BMW, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai- Kia, Nissan, Toyota, and Volkswagen provided the vehicles for the tour.

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. and Linde provided mobile refueling stations and hydrogen fuel. Air Products provided its HF-150 station and Linde provided the Liquid Refueling Station for BMW. The hydrogen fuel supplied by Linde was produced at their plant in Magog, Quebec, using hydroelectric power — a renewable form of energy.

Nuvera Fuel Cells
An important stop on the Road Tour was Nuvera Fuel Cells in Billerica, MA, and CryoGas International was there. According to the Company’s website, Nuvera was formed in April 2000 through the merger of Epyx Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Arthur D. Little, Inc., of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and De Nora Fuel Cells, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gruppo De Nora of Milan, Italy. The merger brought together 10 years of fuel processor technology from Epyx and 10 years of fuel cell stack technology from De Nora, as well as a wealth of knowledge, know-how, and expertise in chemical reactor design, electrochemistry, and system integration.

Today, Nuvera Fuel Cells is a global leader in the development and advancement of multi-fuel processing and fuel cell technology. With offices located in Italy and the USA, Nuvera is committed to advancing the commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell power modules for industrial vehicles and equipment and stationary applications. Neuvera also develops natural gas fuel cell power systems for cogeneration applications, and onboard gasoline fuel processors and fuel cell stacks for automotive applications.

As the hydrogen caravan approached our newest “local fueling station,” the excitement and anticipation in the air was not dampened by the soggy weather. Nuvera is recognized as the first hydrogen refueling station in the Commonwealth. The possibility of hydrogen emerging as a commercially viable and environmentally friendly form of transportation fuel is revolutionary, and drivers are eager to know when and how this technology will become available to the masses.

At the opening event, Nuvera unveiled its new PowerTap™ on-site hydrogen generation and dispensing system. Roberto Cordaro, CEO of Nuvera Fuel Cells, was joined by Research and Innovative Technology Deputy Administrator (RITA) Cheryl McQueary; June Black, Lawrence Regional Coordinator for Representative Niki Tsongas; and Catherine Dunwoody of the California Fuel Cell Partnership. for the ceremonial ribbon cutting.

The fully integrated Nuvera PowerTap^TM system, which includes a fuel processor assembly, a reformate compressor, a pressure swing adsorption system, an electric-driven hydrogen compressor, a scalable cascade storage system and a dispensing system, is an impressive piece of infrastructure to behold. The system is designed to support material handling applications as PowerTapTM provides customers with the ability to generate hydrogen on-site, using steam reformation of natural gas (NG). Using NG helps to make this system cost-effective by eliminating transportation costs.

Hydrogen as a Transportation Fuel
Hydrogen as a transportation fuel has come a long way in recent years. What may have seemed like a lofty goal in 2003, when the President’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative was implemented to help ensure infrastructure for the US hydrogen economy, is becoming a reality before our eyes.

The transition from a transportation economy dependent on nonrenewable fossil fuels to one focused on renewable and environmentally friendly fuel is not going to be easy, but we are able to see the possibilities of the future today. As Paul Brubaker, Administrator of DOT’s Research and Innovative Technology Administration, says, “The technology necessary to put these cars on the road, and keep them moving, exists today. The question is not if hydrogen powered vehicles will be available commercially, but when.”

Hydrogen can be used as a fuel for both fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) or in modified internal combustion engines, like the BMW Hydrogen Series 7. Fuel cell vehicles are electric vehicles that create electricity by combining oxygen from the air and hydrogen fuel stored on board the vehicle to power the electric motor. Essentially the fuel cell acts as a battery for the vehicle. According to Nuvera, FCVs are 2 –3 times more efficient than a gasoline vehicle, and more efficient than a hybrid vehicle.

Hydrogen is an energy carrier and can be produced using a variety of different production methods and feedstocks. Although water vapor is the only tailpipe emission from a hydrogen-powered vehicle, a well-to-wheels emission analysis for a hydrogen-powered vehicle will yield different results depending on the process and feedstock used. According to the Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA) (www.electricdrive.org), FCVs have the potential of near-zero well-to-wheels emissions when using renewable fuels to produce hydrogen. FCVs also have regenerative braking captures that reuse braking energy and have the potential to connect to the power grid to provide energy “on call.”

Toyota claims hydrogen FCVs, like its FCHV-4, are 60 percent efficient, meaning that they are three times more efficient than the typical gasoline internal combustion engine (ICE), which is 18-20 percent efficient. According to the NHA, the energy in one gallon of gasoline is roughly equivalent to 1kg of hydrogen.

Finding Fueling Solutions
Hydrogen is abundant, efficient, clean and safe, making it an ideal fuel for transportation. In addition, there already exists a wide range of methods, processes and feedstocks used to produce hydrogen. Due to this flexibility in production, hydrogen can be made almost anywhere in the world. At the moment, lack of infrastructure is making H₂ less than ideal for transportation fuel. Infrastructure includes everything from new fueling stations to newly designed tanks to hold the H₂ fuel in cars safely. To enable a major transportation fuel transition from gasoline to hydrogen, research and development is still necessary.

Safety, as for any flammable fuel, is a concern for hydrogen, and R&D is required here. While H₂ is no more dangerous than other flammable fuels, its properties are different, and therefore so are its safety concerns. Hydrogen is lighter than air and diffuses rapidly. This is considered carefully when designing structures that produce hydrogen. If there is to be a leak, then hydrogen will dilute quickly due to its rapid diffusivity and light weight. Companies like Nuvera are working on these issues as well. Tom Holmes of Nuvera explains that in case of a leak at the Nuvera plant, there are carefully designed vents in the plant that allow hydrogen gas to escape safely into the air.

Nuvera’s fueling solution is a distributed production infrastructure, where hydrogen is produced on-site, at the point of use. Other proposals use a centralized production infrastructure, where hydrogen is produced at large scale industrial production sites. Centralized systems have the economic benefits of mass production but create other distribution issues.

Infrastructure and technology have become our industry’s very own “chicken and egg” syndrome — which will come first — the infrastructure to support hydrogen transportation or the automotive technology to do the transporting. In order for customers to invest in hydrogen vehicles, they need to be sure that they can obtain fuel for their car when they need it. As the Hydrogen Road Tour and companies like Nuvera demonstrate, much of the technology and infrastructure for hydrogen-fueled transportation is ready, and people are working to increase its cost-effectiveness and raise public interest. Consumer demand is the primary force that will increase the number of fueling stations, thereby increasing the cost-effectiveness and availability of hydrogen as a transportation fuel for drivers.

Catherine M. Baker is an Assistant Editor for CryoGas International. She can be reached at editors@cryogas.com.

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