Domestic Fuel

Attendees at the Designing Sustainable Mobility Summit in Southern California drove some of Volkswagen’s vehicles sporting the latest in alternative energy engines including biodiesel and hydrogen. This story on the Italian website, DueMotori.com, says those participating got the chance to try out these alternative fuels in a real-world driving environment… on local public roads:

“It’s important to demonstrate that raising the bar in such important areas as fuel efficiency and emissions reduction isn’t just accomplished with exotic or future-oriented technologies,” says Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of the Green Car Journal, which is hosting the Summit’s ride-and-drive. “Volkswagen’s demonstration of its clean diesel and twin charger engines provides real-world examples of environmentally positive technologies that are operating on highways today.”

VW brought out a Touareg V-10 TDI that runs on B5 biodiesel, a Jetta with a highly efficient TSI engine… popular in Europe and possibly coming to America… and Volkswagen’s Touran HyMotion hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.

This event was similar to what VW did at the National Biodiesel Conference earlier this month (see Chuck’s previous post).

A deal between two companies could make the mass production of hydrogen-fueled vehicles more feasible. In a press release on their web site, Dynetek officials say they will make seven million Canadian dollars (nearly US $ 6 mil) worth of compressed hydrogen storage systems for Magna Steyr connected to DaimlerChrysler’s fuel cell program. Dynetek officials say the deal will ultimately lead to storage systems that allow the compressed hydrogen to be at a pressure of 700bar… and that allows for extended driving ranges… one of the knocks on hydrogen-powered cars:

“This contract is a significant step forward in direction of mass production and it underlines Dynetek’s technical leadership in storage of compressed hydrogen”, says Chris Rasche, President and CEO.

Dynetek will deliver the storage systems for testing later this year.

The Energy & Environmental Research Center at the University of North Dakota is leading a project to demonstrate the production of hydrogen at existing and future ethanol facilities in a unique, economical way, providing a near-term path toward a hydrogen economy.

According to a center press release, the hydrogen produced could be used on-site in fuel cells to provide additional power for the plant or as fuel for hydrogen vehicles.

“Hydrogen production integrated with an ethanol facility will provide an important source of renewable energy for both stationary and transportation fuel cell applications in a hydrogen-based economy,” said Chad Wocken, EERC Research Manager. “This technology will help facilitate regional and national growth in hydrogen utilization.”

The EERC will highlight this research project as well as many other efforts in renewable fuels and energy during the North Dakota Department of Commerce Renewable Energy Day, this Friday January 19 at the State Capitol Building in Bismarck, North Dakota.

The head of General Motors’ research and development says ethanol could be paving the way for the use of hydrogen in cars in the future. GM’s Lawrence Burns told Reuters Wednesday that encouraging farmers to grow corn or other grains that can be converted into clean-burning, renewable fuel creates a system that can he readily applied to generating hydrogen as well.
“Even some of the initial steps in the processing of the biomass — whether to make it hydrogen or ethanol — will be one and the same, so it is an important step toward an alternative pathway for energy,” he said.
“And it allows us to use our existing internal combustion engines as we transition to hydrogen in the future.”

A friend of mine sent me this news video about running cars on water.

Water Fuel (WMV file)
It’s pretty amazing. This would be the ultimate domestic fuel. The company is Hydrogen Technology Applications and they call it the Hybrid Hydrogen Oxygen System (HHOS). Interesting.

The potential to develop the ethanol-to-hydrogen energy pathway is now being explored through the Upper Midwest Hydrogen Initiative, a public-private partnership run under the auspices of the Great Plains Institute in Minneapolis, according to an article on the Minnesota Corn Growers Association website. UMHI was formed to bring fuel cell technology into use in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Manitoba, Canada — and it is pursuing about $2 million to fund a hydrogen-fuel-cell bus demonstration project in Minnesota.

Wayne State University in Detroit is the proud owner of the world’s first fuel cell-powered police car introduced this week by DaimlerChrysler. According to their release, the Wayne State University Police Department will operate the Mercedes F-Cell as a supervisor’s vehicle on and in the immediate vicinity of the campus, located in Detroit’s Cultural Center. Outfitted with a third-generation police radio, decals, lights and sirens, the Wayne State University Police Department F-Cell is a look into the future use of fuel cell vehicles. The demanding operation of a police car will produce valuable data to help develop fuel cell technology.