Hydrogen News

Italy

The constituting general meeting of the new Italian hydrogen and fuel cell association H2IT was held on 30. October in Milan. The first public activity of the new body was a two-day conference in Milan held on 26. and 27. November in conjunction with the energy fair. One day was devoted to the generation of hydrogen from renewable energies, the other to safety. The public response was beyond the expectations. More than 200 participants left little space in the meeting room.

Washington

A ministerial meeting for the creation of the International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy (IPHE) proposed by the USA was held from 18. to 21. November in the US capital. 15 countries (Australia, Brasil, China, Germany, France, Great Britain, India, Iceland, Italiy, Japan, Canada, Norway, Russia, South Korea, USA) and the European Commission signed the „Terms of Reference“ which will run for 10 years at first.

IPHE will provide a mechanism to help organize and implement effective, efficient, and focused joint research, and to support activities that advance hydrogen and fuel cell technology progress. The coordination provided by IPHE will help to use distributed resources as effective as possible to solve problems. Apart from research, development, and demonstration IPHE will also support common codes and standards for hydrogen fuel utilization and safety. This will be done in close cooperation with the International Energy Agency (IEA).

President Bush sent a greeting address in which he called hydrogen fuel cells one of the most encourating, innovative technologies of our era. Host Spencer Abraham underlined the serious will of the USA to achieve progress and pressed for doing this speedily: „It is not enough for us to be successful 100 years from now. Not even 50 years from now. We need to achieve tangible results in the next two decades. This partnership is the right vehicle to make that happen.“ The global transformation envisioned is breathtaking in its scope, he said.

The European Commission, represented by Vice president and energy commissioner Loyola de Palacio, also promised to contribute. Europe has a lot to offer and proposes to use all of these European assets as building blocks. She also mentioned the EU's own research platform provided by the Commission. „We are not leaning back waiting for this to happen“, she said.

State Secretary Adamowitsch (Ministry for Economy and Employment) said on behalf of the German Federal Government that due to long-term research programs and great industrial engagement Germany is among the leading nations concerning hydrogen and fuel cell technologies and therefore wants to contribute significantly to IPHE. He too made reference to the technology platform of the European Commission being created at the same time and called all relevant companies to cooperate closely and to participate actively, because the Federal Government can not represent all their interests alone and has no intention to do so.

Two committees were installed in Washington: a politically oriented steering committee and an implementation committee doing more technical work. The latter committee will be co-chaired by Germany and Iceland for the first two years.

Filling Station Berlin

On 25. November the building work for the filling station of the Clean Energy Partnership (CEP) in Berlin were started by Iris Gleicke, State Secretary for the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Housing. The industrial side of the group consists of Aral, BMW Group, Berlin Transport (BVG), DaimlerChrysler, Ford, GM/Opel, Hydro/GHW, Linde, and Vattenfall Europe. Federal Government and companies invest at total of 33 M€. The car makers will maintain a test fleet of initially 16 cars using hydrogen. The cars will be given to customers. Gaseous hydrogen is generated on site at the filling station by water electrolysis and compressed. Cryogenic hydrogen is delivered by truck.

Hongkong

Ford, the Canadian electrolyser maker Stuart, and the Hongkong based Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings plan a fleet of hydrogen buses with internal combustion engines Hongkong. The fleet will comprise 30 vehicles when complete and is seen as a test run for the Olympic Games 2008. There between 10 and 100 hydrogen buses will provide clean transport.

Stuart and Cheung Kong also plan to market small electrolyser stations for the emergency supply of buildings; they could replace the Diesel generators which are very common for this purpose in Hongkong. These devices could also be used as filling stations. Cheung Kong thinks that cars visible in the streets will enhance public interest in the new technology.

(Dow Jones Newswires, 23. October 2003)

DaimlerChrysler

Seven fuel cell cars based on the Mercedes A class will start a test run of two years in April in Singapore. Similar programs will start in Germany, the USA, and Japan. What is interesting about Singapore is the climate and the city traffic which is almost the only mode of transport in the small country. The vehicles will be leased to private customers and government offices. This should also help to influence the public opinion favourably towards hydrogen. (Singapore News, 27. Oktober 2003)

By the end of 2004 DaimlerChrysler intends to have more than 100 fuel cell vehicles running worldwide. Andreas Truckenbrodt, Andreas Truckenbrodt, head of fuel cell and advanced powertrain development, said during a conference in California that the feasibility of the fuel cell concept has now been demonstrated, and that it is seen as the solution for the future. 'Fit for daily use' is the next step. The first commercial vehicles will be available around the turn of the century. Their fuel will be compressed hydrogen gas, he said. Reformers generating hydrogen from hydrocarbons are to expensive and complicated. The question for him is no longer ‘if’ but rather ‘when’ we will have these vehicles. (Press release of 14. November 2003)

Transport

Road or rail transport of metal hydride containers loaded with hydrogen is not impossible or very complicated because this good is not contained in the lists of the relevant regulations. Early October the Joint Meeting of ADR (responsible for the transport of dangerous goods on roads) and RID (same for railway) decided about a revision of the lists. „Hydrogen in a metal hydride storage system“ is now a dangerous good in class 2 and has the UN number 3468. All member states, including the EU countries, now have to transfer this in national legislation. The new rules will become effective on 1. January 2005.

Strategy

In 2010 hydrogen cars are to be ready for commercial production, and by 2020 one million fuel cell cars should be on the road. This objective was repeated by Christine Sloan, head of the Advanced Technology Strategy department of General Motors, during a meeting in Australia in late October. She called the large amounts of money which the industry spends for this the best guarantee for the realization of this objective. Hydrogen storage and infrastructure are the biggest technical hurdles. The benefits of the cars, however, are worth the effort. What she sees as important is full cooperation of vehicle manufacturers, energy producers and governments around the world. General Motors, for its part, invests 100 M$ per year and remained totally committed, she said.

(Asia Pulse, 28. October 2003)

Fuel Cells

Education

One day fuel cell heating devices will enter the market, and then the craftsmen must be prepared for them. EAZ (Elektro-Ausbildungszentrum Aalen), a center for professional education, is creating an educational concept for experts working with such appliances. It will be ready in three years. It is aimed at experts and owners of small and medium enterprises from the fields car, sanitary, heating, and climate as well as electro craftsmen and plant operators. The ministry of economy of Baden-Wuerttemberg supports the project financially. EAZ cooperates with the Fuel Cell Education Center at Ulm (see No. 4/03 „Ground Breaking“).

Ulm

The ground breaking ceremony for the new building of the Fuel Cell Education Center Ulm was on 24. July (see No. 4/03 „Ground Breaking“), and on 19. December the walls were standing. The center's objective is the timely and practical education of professionals involved in fuel cells. This means primarily decision makers from industry and craft, educators, and developers.

Hospital

Four hospitals in Germany are now running molten carbonate fuel cells from MTU based on the „Hot- Module“ principle. The fourth, since 15. December, is the Central Hospital at Bad Berka, Thuringia. The device was built in cooperation with Thueringer Energie AG (TEAG) and supported by funds of the Federal Ministry for Economy and the state of Thuringia. It is the first plant of this size in Thuringia, a state with very few projects from the field so far.

The fuel cell belongs to an integrated energy system. It generates electrical power, heat, and cooling power and provides an uninterrupted power supply. A special technical progress is the multi effect absorption cooling device which utilizes a great part of the heat energy of the waste air and so enhances the efficiency considerably.

Spa Cell

The operation of a PEM cell by Alstom Ballard delivering 250 kW at the thermal spa of Mingolsheim has been terminated as planned. During 13 months it generated almost 1100 MWh of electrical power and more than 900 MWh of heat for the supply of the spa. EnBW, the utility running the plant, called the results of the project „exceeding“, according to director Hartkopf.

(Press release of EnBW of 9. October 2003; see No. 5/02 „Mingolsheim“)

Energy and Climate

Climate effect

Sure, hydrogen itself is a clean energy carrier. But what about the climate effect of the whole technology necessary for its use, including gas escaping from leaks? Some news items released during the past months (see No. 3/03 „Bad for the environment?“ and our press release 4/03 of 16. June 2003) had not really clarified the situation. The Max Planck Institute for Meteorology at Hamburg and L-B-Systemtechnik now reported new research results about this topic (M. G. Schultz et al., Science 302 (2003) 624-7).

The researchers at Hamburg developed a three-dimensional global air chemistry model which takes also the different feedback mechanisms concerning the OH concentration in troposphere into account. They find that the emissions of CO and NOx can be reduces by almost one half if the whole ground transport is shifted to hydrogen fuel and if the latter is generated entirely from renewable sources which are neutral in terms of emissions. This would also lead to a significant decrease of the global temperature rise because the CO2 emissions would drop by about 20 %. But the extent to which this potential can be used depends very much on how the hydrogen is generated.

No predictable effect on climate or air pollution was found from the rise of the hydrogen concentration in the atmosphere which could be expected in a global hydrogen economy.

Efficient?

What was the efficiency when the fossil fuels were „made“? An estimate made recently found that only about 1/10.000 of the original carbon is found in our tanks. In other words: for every liter of gasoline today about 23 t of prehistoric biomass were used. In still other words: every year we consume about 400 times the biomass which grows on the entire earth. Modern Biomass is comparatively efficient: „only“ 22 % of all land plants could provide the energy demand of one year.

(Press release of the University of Utah, 27. October 2003; J. Dukes, Climatic Change, November 2003)

Politics

More money

The European Commission plans investments of 2,8 G€ for hydrogen research projects in the period from 2005 to 2015. This is the result of the final report of the European Growth Initiative. The funds will be used for two programs:

• Hycom will support test plants producing hydrogen and electricity in large scale. 1,5 G€ are earmarked for this.
• Hypogem (1,3 G€) aims at the creation of a limited number of “hydrogen communities” in the EU using hydrogen for heat generation and as fuel.

China

The Joint Declaration by Germany and China on co-operation on the use of alternative and renewable sources of energy in transport has been signed. Federal Transport Minister Stolpe did this during the China trip of Federal Chancellor Schroeder early December. A press release stated that between January and August 2003 280.000 new cars have been licesed only in Beijing; this shows that it is urgent to do something for the climate and air quality.

(See No. 5/03 „China Project“)

Climate objective abandoned?

The German Federal Government has apparently abandoned the self-imposed obligation to reduce the CO2 emissions by 25 % from 1990 to 2005. The ministry of environment stated in the answer to a parliamentary query by parliament member Paziorek (Christian Democrats): „The CO2 reduction objective formulated by the former Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl is not in agreement with the international and European climate protection policy, neither in terms of the time frame nor of the greenhouse gas reference.“ The current objective is to reduce the emissions by 21 % between 2008 and 2012 using 1990 as reference year. This is in line with the Kyoto protocol and the agreements within the EU. Experts had said for a while that the ambitious objective declared in 1995 would not be tenable.

What else we have found ...

Side effect

Global warming could bring us at least better wine. During a meeting of the Geological Society of America it was said that the quality of the products of the 27 top wine regions of the world has increased steadily during the last 50 years, which is at least partially a result of general warming. For the next 50 years the same regions have to expect a further warming of 2 °C in average. Regions already warm anyway, like Chianti, would have more trouble in terms of overripe fruit, added water stress, and increases in diseases and pests. The Rhine Valley region in Germany could benefit with greater ripening potential, but might eventually have to produce different wines in the changing climate.

Remark: As strange as it may appear, but there is a vineyard in Berlin. It belongs to the senate. The product is not for sale, but considering the highly problematic state of the city budget this might be some relief in the long term.