Hydrogen pushed as new fuel for cars

source: Neela Banerjee & Danny Hakim New York Times 2002.01.09

The Bush administration is walking away from a $1.5 billion, eight-year project to develop high-mileage gasoline-fueled vehicles. Instead, it is throwing its
support behind a plan crafted by the Energy Department and the auto industry to develop hydrogen-based fuel cells to power the cars of the future,
administration and industry officials said Tuesday.

The new effort, to be announced in Detroit today by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, is intended to hasten the replacement of the internal combustion
engine. Fuel cells use stored hydrogen and oxygen from the air to create electricity, and the only emission from engines they power is water vapor.

Environmentalists and energy experts favor the research. But critics said the new program, like its predecessor, would let Washington and Detroit focus on
vague, long-term aims while avoiding the more difficult task of improving the mileage of cars and sport-utility vehicles in the short term. Experts say that
commercial production of cars with fuel-cell engines is 10 to 20 years away.

With hearings scheduled in the Senate next month on a Democratic alternative to President Bush's energy program, it has been unclear how either party would
address fuel-economy standards, which are equally unpopular with carmakers and organized labor.

Tuesday, an administration official speaking on the condition of anonymity said the Transportation Department will offer a proposal later this year on tightening
those standards. But he said because any changes would be years in the making, the fuel-cell project could make them ``a non-issue.''

Gore supported program

The original program, begun in 1993, aimed to develop affordable cars that got 80 miles to a gallon of gasoline. Former Vice President Al Gore, its most vocal
backer in the Clinton administration, likened the project, known as the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, to the Apollo space program in its
urgency and technological complexity.

In addition to about $1.5 billion in government subsidies, the Big Three automakers -- General Motors, Ford Motor and DaimlerChrysler -- together spent
about $1 billion a year on related technologies.

The carmakers all developed prototype vehicles that got at least 70 miles a gallon, and the project nurtured advances in aerodynamics and lighter composite
materials used in auto manufacturing.

But none of the Big Three came close to commercial production of an 80-mile-a-gallon car. Meanwhile, the average fuel economy of cars and trucks for sale in
the United States has steadily dropped, so that this year's fleet -- with its growing proportion of sport utility vehicles -- gets the worst gas mileage in 21 years,
according to the government.

The new program, called Freedom Car, will not require the automakers to produce a fuel-cell powered vehicle, according to the Energy Department. Energy
experts expressed concern Tuesday that without such clear targets, it too would do little to alleviate the country's growing dependence on oil.

``I think fuel cells are a useful long-term goal,'' said Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, a research and
advocacy group in Washington. ``But the big problem I have is that the Bush administration proposal doesn't seem to address anything for the next 10 years.
There's a lot of technology that can go into cars in 2006 or 2007.''

Appetite for fuel

The new initiative was disclosed on Tuesday in the Detroit News. The administration said it would not discuss its proposed spending on the project until Bush's
2003 budget proposal is released in February, but the program it replaces is to receive $127 million in federal funds this year.

Although gasoline prices are now low, the conflict in Afghanistan has thrown a spotlight once more on America's enormous appetite for fuel and has renewed
calls for reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil. The United States, with only 5 percent of the world's population, consumes 25 percent of its oil, mostly in the
form of gasoline.

Abraham, in remarks prepared for delivery at the Detroit auto show, said the new project is ``rooted in President Bush's call, issued last May in our National
Energy Plan, to reduce American reliance on foreign oil.'' He added, ``The eventual goal of this research are technologies that aim to solve many of the
problems associated with our nation's reliance on petroleum to power our cars and trucks.''

While the Clinton administration program focused on developing high-mileage family sedans -- vehicles that fell out of favor with consumers as the research
progressed -- Abraham said the new project would give automakers the flexibility to use the fuel-cell engines in a range of vehicles.

``We should be developing energy-efficient components that can be adapted for use in several models throughout our fleet,'' he said.

The stocks of several companies that are developing fuel cells surged on news of the administration initiative. Shares in Ballard Power Systems, probably the
best known of these companies, jumped 15 percent to $34.96. FuelCell Energy rose 22 percent to $21.85; Plug Power was up 39 percent to close at $12.04.

Automakers and major oil companies have struck alliances with or invested in the emerging fuel-cell and hydrogen-power industries. General Motors and
Suzuki Motor announced in October that they would collaborate in the development of fuel-cell vehicles, and Ford also has been developing a small fuel-cell
car.

Hybrid vehicles

The Big Three automakers are expected to introduce so-called hybrid vehicles, using diesel-electric engines, by 2004. Toyota and Honda -- which did not
share in the Clinton-era program's subsidies -- already have hybrids getting at least 40 miles a gallon -- and their vehicles use gasoline, which many
environmentalists consider a cleaner fuel than diesel.

The auto industry has steadily resisted government-mandated increases in fuel economy, with some car makers arguing that such requirements would divert
investment from the Partnership project.

Government standards, unchanged for more than a decade, require each automaker's cars to average 27.5 miles a gallon and light trucks -- including pickups,
minivans and sport-utility vehicles -- to average 20.7 miles a gallon.

Kara Saul Rinaldi, the deputy policy director for the Alliance to Save Energy, a bipartisan research group in Washington, said: ``I welcome this investment. But
we're looking at long-term technology when we haven't made the first step. Raising fuel-economy standards is the first step.''

*** (source: EREN online news)

"FreedomCAR" Program to Advance Fuel-Cell Vehicles

DOE announced last week a new government-industry program for the advancement of high-efficiency cars: "freedomCAR". The new program will focus on fuel cells and hydrogen production from renewable energy sources. DOE will carry out the freedomCAR program in partnership with the U.S. Council of Automotive Research -- a cooperative research organization formed by Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corporation, and DaimlerChrysler Corporation. In fact, the "CAR" in "freedomCAR" stands for "Cooperative Automotive Research."

FreedomCAR replaces the Clinton-era "Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles" (PNGV), which aimed to produce an affordable sedan that achieves 80 miles per gallon by 2004. In contrast, the long-term goal for freedomCAR is to develop technologies for hydrogen- powered fuel cell vehicles that will require no foreign oil and emit no harmful pollutants or greenhouse gases. An interesting aspect of freedomCAR is its emphasis on developing a hydrogen supply infrastructure: many automotive companies are currently developing cars that would be fueled with low-sulfur gasoline, methanol, or natural gas fuels, which would be converted to hydrogen using onboard fuel processors. FreedomCAR looks farther ahead to an energy economy that is built around hydrogen as the energy carrier.

See the DOE press release, with a link to a fact sheet, at: <http://www.energy.gov/HQPress/releases02/janpr/pr02001.htm>.

So how do you produce hydrogen? Today, most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels. It can also be produced by passing a current through two electrodes immersed in water, but that technique tends to be expensive. Researchers are now examining ways to make hydrogen from organic materials, to generate it from organic processes, or to produce it directly from sunlight and water. Some catalysts help sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but researchers are also using modified solar cells immersed in water, called photoelectrodes. For more information, see the Hydrogen Information Network on EREN at:
<http://www.eren.doe.gov/hydrogen/>.

For those more technically inclined, the proceedings of the 2001 DOE Hydrogen Program Review are posted on the Hydrogen Information Network at:
<http://www.eren.doe.gov/hydrogen/docs/30535toc.html>.