Green Options

At the tail-end of last week’s Tokyo Motor Show Suzuki unveiled an exciting e-scooter concept, the Burgman, powered by a combination of hydrogen fuel cells and a li-ion battery.

Suzuki says that the innovative powertrain would enable the Burgman to reach distances of up to 220 miles at an average speed of 30kph (20mph) - so no wild freeway jaunts just yet then.

However, the company also reckon that performance will be comparable to a standard 125cc scooter (but I’d imagine that riding at higher speeds would most likely significantly reduce range).

Trucking is among the most important, yet polluting parts of our environment. Everything everywhere was delivered by a truck, unless you live on a farm. A necessary evil, if you will. Getting truckers on board with the green movement will play an integral part in the widespread acceptance of alternative fuel vehicles. To do that, you’ve got to hit them in the wallet.

Towards that end, last week Vision Industries, with the help of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, unveiled a short haul, hydrogen-powered truck dubbed the Tyrano.

In an unexpected U-turn, the U.S. Senate has agreed to continue to back research for the next generation of hydrogen cars - funding that the Obama administration had earlier proposed to cut.

The move came last Thursday as Senate members voted to commit $187 million to hydrogen research, almost as much as was promised before the indecision.

UK company AFC Energy claims to have developed fuel cell technology that can “generate and export electricity to a grid as efficiently as traditional electrodes.”

AFC tested its alkaline-based technology in Germany recently and found that its efficiency matched that of traditional platinum-based electrodes that cost more. This high efficiency moves the company one step closer to full-scale production of its fuel cell technology.

A fuel-cell-powered aircraft set a world record by staying aloft for a whopping 23 hours and 17 minutes on just a single load.

In fact, the unmanned aircraft broke the previous record by double. Of course, the plane was built by the Naval Research Laboratory and not by students from the University of Michigan. Still, those students kept their plane in air for over 10 hours–impressive!

Of course their plane was only $2,500. I am guessing the Navy-built one cost us a whole lot more.

In Taiwan, a new charger technology claims to be able to charge phones without even being plugged into an outlet. That’s because it taps into the power of hydrogen as a fuel source, and is expected to help put Taiwan in the list of purveyor of green technologies.

Scientists from Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute recently unveiled a charger powered by hydrogen. According to source, the device can fully charge a phone within a couple of hours, although the amount of hydrogen fuel used for that span of time wasn’t mentioned. Tsau Fanghei of the research team says they “hope the hydrogen-powered device can replace current mobile phone recharge systems in 2012.”

This is one of those topics I’m just not sure what to think of…

When the average person hears the term fuel cell, typically what comes to mind is something that mysteriously makes electricity from hydrogen. In reality the process isn’t all that mysterious—basically the hydrogen is split into its component parts (electrons and protons) and the protons are allowed to flow through the cell, but the electrons are forced to travel another path, which creates the current (and charges the battery or runs the motors or turns on the lights).

Although the hydrogen fuel cell is the most common type of cell, you can make fuel cells that use many different things, including hydrocarbons and sugars. They all work on the same basic principal, but hydrogen fuel cells are considered superior because their only emission is water vapor and they produce lots of energy.

Germany has launched an exciting new plan to establish a national hydrogen fuel network, which could be fully operational as early as 2015.

On behalf of the German government, the transport minister Wolfgang Tiefensee has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with eight industrial partners to set up the H2 mobility scheme. High profile participants include Daimler, EnBW, Linde, OMV, Shell, Total, Vattenfall and the NOW GmbH National Organisation Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology.

Speaking about the groundbreaking plan, the first of its kind anywhere in the world, Tiefensee said, “Our aim is to continue consistent and systematic promotion of electromobility based on batteries and fuel cells. Today we can see that Germany is setting the pace when it comes to hydrogen and fuel cell technology. We are aiming at establishing the nationwide supply with hydrogen in Germany at around 2015 in order to support the serial-production of fuel cell vehicles.”

Mercedes has dipped its toes into the world of hydrogen power (video below) with the launch of its first-ever production fuel-cell vehicle, the B-class F-cell.

The California startup Full Cycle Energy is on a roll, hopscotching over its own platinum nanotube-based fuel cell to develop a new fuel cell that ditches platinum entirely.  The implications for widescale adoption of sustainable fuel cells are huge, because until now platinum has been a major stumbling block.  Platinum is the go-to material to make fuel cell catalysts, but its high cost and finite availability have limited the potential for fuel cells to break into the mass market - until now.  Full Cycle Energy is one among a number of companies experimenting with new alternatives to platinum that could make fuel cells significantly more affordable in the future.

General Motors has revealed that it is still on-track to bring a hydrogen fuel-cell car to market, within the next three years.

Industry insiders had speculated that the imminent retirement of existing boss Larry Burns would lead to the fuel-cell program being mothballed, but according to new R&D chief Alan Taub, GM will continue with its development of the technology.

“Technology leadership is one of the pillars of the company,” said Taub. “That is going to remain, and it will probably be emphasised as part of the brand of GM.”