Check the oil, wipe the windshield, a dollar hydrogen
ChevronTexaco Technology Ventures (CTTV) unveiled a blue-and-white "pump" at a test station in California today. It will provide hydrogen refueling for vehicles in a test fleet of cars and buses. California already has 15 hydrogen fueling stations as part of its Fuel Cell Partnership, launched in 1999 by then-governor Gray Davis.

California unveiled a blue-and-white hydrogen fuel "pump" at a test station in Chino. (PRNewsFoto) 2/18/05.

One more for the hydrogen highway
Californians won't be able to fill up here, even if the public had production cars powered by hydrogen, but this is another step in the right direction. Transportation applications are one path that could make hydrogen fuel cells practical sources of electricity, a topic you'll be reading more about in Energy Priorities.

Millions of cars are bought each year. If a small percentage of them were hydrogen fuel cell powered cars, the economy of scale could overcome some obstacles for stationary hydrogen fuel cells, primarily the manufacturing cost. Transportation poses its own obstacles, such as hydrogen distribution, storage and safety, that are compounded with Americans' predilection for big, powerful cars with a long range per tank of gas.

Car makers have been pushing toward a milestone in government-funded research and development initiatives for hydrogen as a transportation fuel. The first generation of FC electric vehicles were prototyped for programs such as the FreedomCAR initiative and California's Fuel Cell Partnership. The latter included hydrogen's hesitant transport trio -- Ballard Power Systems, DaimlerChrysler and Ford Motor Company -- plus three oil conglomerates and two state agencies.

Running on empty
In demonstration drives, the first-generation cars were followed by fuel trucks. The second generation of vehicles strive to achieve a driving range of about 200 miles between fill-ups. They are part of a recently proposed federal Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. Pending energy legislation would require the production of 100,000 hydrogen-fueled cars by 2010.

Under the initiative, Congress has, for the near term, partially funded the Department of Energy's Controlled Hydrogen Fleet and Infrastructure Demonstration and Validation Project. The long name befits the broad goal of the program. It's a learning demonstration to help DOE refocus its research and development efforts, provide insight into vehicle and infrastructure interface issues, assess the status of the industry and help address codes, standards and safety issues. Shell and GM opened a similar station under this project, in Washington DC, in November, 2004.

Divergent paths for H2 fuels
There are two main directions for research and development of hydrogen-powered cars. The two are commonly confused. One direction is to build an electric car that is powered by hydrogen fuel cells. This approach builds on past R&D in acid battery-powered vehicles, of which there are tens of thousands -- if you count forklifts and golf carts -- and where hybrid buses have proven electric power combined with diesel.

The alternative direction is to create an internal combustion engine that uses hydrogen, or some combination of petrol and hydrogen. There is no fuel cell or electric motor involved; instead, hydrogen is burned. Many believe this direction will be worthwhile because it could reduce carbon emissions, use less imported oil, and encourage a distribution infrastructure for hydrogen that would be helpful for fuel cell applications. Others feel that hydrogen combustion and hybrid hydrogen engines will distract funding from the ultimate goal, to eliminate emissions and imports altogether from the American transportation industry by achieving practical, fuel-cell electric vehicles.

What's she got under the hood?
Hyundai's two vehicles (and upcoming models from Daimler and Ford) are of the second generation of electric hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. There are no horses under their hoods -- just 80 kW of clean, quiet power. The only exhaust emission is warm water. They are more powerful than the first generation vehicles, and designed to operate in freezing temperatures -- something with which their predecessors had some trouble.

Fill 'er up
The necessity of fill-ups were the focus of today's event, as Andretti pulled up to show how the hydrogen fueling station of the future might work. Hydrogen is a gas at atmospheric temperatures, but is stored under high pressure (3,600 to 6,200 pounds per square inch) and at very low temperatures of -423° degrees F (-253° C).

This fueling station is one of the first to produce hydrogen on site from natural gas. Of the few fueling stations in existence, most require their hydrogen to be delivered and stored. Unlike for natural gas, there are as yet no distribution pipelines for hydrogen.

Ironically, the station gets its electric power from the grid, but ChevronTexaco hopes to change that in the near future. While not yet economical, powering its hydrogen stations using fuel cells would at least provide a better response to the obvious and repetitive question from journalists.