Green Options

The City of Copenhagen has announced the establishment of its first hydrogen fueling station, alongside a mini-fleet of fuel cell vehicles, and hopes that the move will help it towards the ambitious goal of becoming the first carbon-neutral capital city in the world by 2025.

Following the recent news of a growing hydrogen fueling system in Germany, the new facility also opens up the intriguing proposition of a cross-border European hydrogen infrastructure.

According to grandly titled Technology and Environment Mayor Klaus Bondam, “Today we are putting Copenhagen on the map as a champion of clean transport. Together with [fuel cell vehicle integrator] H2 Logic, Copenhagen is setting in motion the development of hydrogen transport in Denmark and in northern Europe, because the hydrogen filling station in Copenhagen will help provide future hydrogen-powered vehicles from Scandinavia and Germany with hydrogen.”

OK, I know this isn’t strictly the type of car that you’re used to hearing about on Gas 2.0. For starters, you can’t even drive it. But, with Christmas looming just around the corner, I couldn’t resist writing about this funky little hydrogen fuel cell-powered remote-control car.

Called the H2Go, this is a toy car aimed at teaching kids about alternative energy in a fun and exciting way. Forget falling for the classic disappointment of (duh) forgetting the batteries and having to wait till the shops open, this little number runs on a combination of solar and zero-emission hydrogen.

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.