Hydrogen Power

Imagine with me. Nearly silent cars driving through the streets, running on nothing but hydrogen-based electricity. No emissions but water vapor. No smog, no choking fumes, no backfiring at five in the morning. Global warming screeching to a not-a-minute-too-soon halt. We’ve all been told this could happen, we’ve read magazine articles, we’ve seen the news about hydrogen power, we’ve heard the talk. And yet, despite 160 years of research and development (Romm 23), no real changes have been made. Cars continue to putter along as they spew planet-killing gases into the air. We have been promised time after time that real change was coming, that it was time to wean ourselves from the oil nipple, and yet nothing has happened. “Green” fad after fad has popped up only to be found too expensive or too wasteful to work on a large scale (think ethanol), and Americans, just like people all over the world, continue to pour gallon after gallon of gasoline into their car as they go about their day. It seemed as if hydrogen power was slowly, slowly going to go down the same path. Since its inception, hydrogen power has frequently been overstated and has frequently underperformed, but in conjunction with other renewable power sources, and with an incredibly new and astonishingly efficient fuel cell, its heyday may be nearing.

Though hydrogen is the only gas commonly thought of for use in fuel cells, it wasn’t always so. Dr. Peschka, one of several authors of Hydrogen as an Energy Carrier, informs us that people first tried to use the combination of carbon and oxygen gas to produce carbon dioxide and energy, but the temperature required was much too high for practical purposes (Peschka 40). Joseph Romm provides a short history of hydrogen power in his book, The Hype about Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate. Romm says that sometime during the 1830’s, Sir William Grove, a prominent scientist of his day, discovered that hydrogen would work much better in fuel cells (40). He discovered how to reverse electrolysis, a process that consumes electricity (Snook), and combine hydrogen and oxygen gases to form water. After that, Grove “quickly built the first fuel cell, which he called a ‘gaseous voltaic battery,’ or gas battery” (Romm 23). Romm goes on to say that “by 2003, more than 160 years after the first fuel cell was built, and after more than $15 billion in public and private spending, only one fuel cell with significant commercial sales existed, and purchasers of that product received a government subsidy to buy down the cost” (23).That it took a subsidy speaks volumes about what hydrogen has been like. The fact that the government had to step in and help a company means that that company could not manage to produce its product and make enough money to cover its costs. The high costs have plagued hydrogen power from the beginning, and as Dr. Peschka tells us, “the current state of technology does not permit economic use of hydrogen-air fuel batteries so far despite intensive development efforts” (41). Regardless of this view, and though hydrogen power received a fraction of a percent of the U.S. Department of Energy with one to two million a year in 1993 , in 2003 President Bush decided to increase that by over a thousand-fold, “proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles” (Romm11). Still, though, no cheaply-produced, functioning fuel cell has been built by the public sector to this day.

A simplified fuel cell “convert[s] the energy of a chemical reaction between a fuel such as hydrogen and an oxidant such as oxygen directly into electric energy and heat (23).” As previously stated, the most common fuel is hydrogen. The problem lies partly in the design of the fuel cell, which requires precious metals to catalyze the reaction. Using chemistry equations of free energy you can determine that “80% of the reaction enthalpy [or heat] is converted to electrical energy” (Peschka 40). Combining hydrogen and oxygen gases, a reaction that releases energy, captures that energy as electricity which can be used to do work. Just like Ron and Harry, Mister Spock and Captain Kirk, and Sherlock and Dr. Watson, when hydrogen and oxygen come together, big things can happen.

“Fuel cells produce electricity, heat and water by catalyzing the reaction of hydrogen and oxygen” (Romm 24) by using a platinum electrode. This happens as protons (also known as hydrogen ions) pass through a membrane. Electrons are incapable of such movement. To join the protons they must travel through a wire. The passage of electrons through a wire creates a current as they move to join their proton and oxygen to make water (Romm 24). It sounds easy enough when put like that, but several complications arise.

The first complication is how to produce the hydrogen. Currently, the easiest method is to make it from natural gas. The main component of natural gas is methane , or CH₄ (“Producing”). According to Hoffman, author of Tomorrow’s Energy: Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, and the Prospects for a Cleaner Planet, a plasma torch creates H₂ and something called “carbon black” through a complicated process called the Kvaerner Process. He goes on to say that the process is extremely efficient, and the byproduct carbon black is used in the production of many things, such as “rubber, tire[s], plastics, paint, and ink” (67).

The problem with counting on natural gas being there forever is that it simply won’t be. Just like petroleum, our natural gas resources are finite. In the short-run, we can use natural gas as a temporary method of commercializing hydrogen, up until either we run out or manage to convert to renewable forms of hydrogen production. The most logical, in my mind, would be to use water. This is the simplest way and infinitely renewable. Although there is not an unlimited amount of water on the planet, when the hydrogen is used for energy water is created, so it is just a cycle. That is the beauty of fuel cells, but also where many people get confused. Some people think that hydrogen itself is being used as energy, but it is really more an energy storage unit. When it is formed, chemical energy is held in the bonds that hold each hydrogen atom together. When it is combined with water, energy is given off. All we have to do is find some way to split it and we are capable of an almost limitless source of energy.

A method that has been tested many times over is using solar power. One of the first plants used solar panels to create from 280 to 350 kilowatts of electricity (Hoffman 57), which was then used to split water into its two components. This type of hydrogen production is very simple, but can only be used in places with a lot of sun. Hoffman also discusses another plant similar to it that was built in California. It was designed to bring together all of the necessary equipment in one area to produce hydrogen. He continues to tell us about the whole process, which began with solar radiation. Using photovoltaic solar panels, the plant converted solar energy into electricity. The electricity was then used to hydrolyze water. The oxygen gas was undoubtedly released into the atmosphere. The hydrogen was then purified of water vapor before being pressurized for storage. The hydrogen produced on site was then used to fuel two trucks also owned by the same company. The two trucks performed various environmental audits and other work, adding up to about 100 miles a week. They held 2600 scf (standard cubic feet) under 3600 pounds per inch, which is an energy equivalent of 5 gallons of gas (54-5).

A much more efficient way to create hydrogen from water is to do it at high temperatures, using steam. High temperatures alone can split up a molecule, but there is no doubt that the temperature needed to split water is incredibly high. Thus, some plants decide to heat it up to somewhere between normal temperatures at the temperatures high enough to split water. By heating it up to around a scalding “1000°C” (Hoffman 64), the amount of electricity required to split water is “reduced… by about 30-40 recent relative to conventional electrolysis” (65), and has been reported to have “achieved efficiencies of about 93 percent” (65).

A concern that frequently pops up in peoples’ minds when they think about hydrogen is safety. When people think of hydrogen they often think of one thing, the hydrogen bomb. This is what I thought of as well, but hydrogen gas is relatively safe compared to other sources of energy. Hoffman puts the fear of hydrogen bombs to rest in the safety section of his book:

There is no technical connection between the hydrogen bomb and hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen fuel represents chemical energy and combustion/burning processes; the hydrogen bomb works at the atomic level via principles of nuclear physics. But, as Dan Brewer noted in his Ispra paper, the linkage provided by the word is “apparently enough to stir the imagination of the public and excite fear and suspicion of the fuel.”(246)

That certainly puts to rest the fear of small hydrogen bombs forming every time there is a car accident, but there are still other dangers associated with the use of hydrogen.

What can happen are hydrogen fuel fires. As we all know from the Hindenburg disaster, when large amounts of hydrogen gas are allowed out of containment, terrible things can happen. When you think about it, the same thing could happen with gasoline or other hydrocarbons (hydrocarbons being a class of molecules, such as methane propane, and octane, that are made mostly of hydrogen and carbon). In several experiments performed by the military, hydrogen fuel, liquid hydrogen, or LH₂, was spilled and tested for dangers in several ways. The first was a simple side-by-side controlled fuel spill in which liquefied hydrogen gas was spilled along with JP-4 jet fuel. The jet fuel spilled and slowly spread along before being evaporated by wind. The hydrogen on the other hand, boiled instantly on contact with the ground and evaporated extremely quickly. Also, though hydrogen is easy to ignite, it does not explode (Hoffman 236). According to Hoffman, “researchers spilled and ignited as much as 5000 gallons of LH₂ in an open space, but there were no explosions” (236). That hydrogen burns but does not explode is a great comfort, but the good news does not stop there. Hoffman adds that even when shot with bullets and struck by simulated lightning, containers of liquid hydrogen may burn, but the flames are less fierce and more short-lived than those of jet fuel under the same conditions (236-7).

I know what you’re thinking by this point. This is all very nice I’m sure, but really, who cares? Starting now, you do, because of something incredibly exciting for anyone that gives one whit about the environment. The Bloom Box was almost an accident, never originally intended to be, just like so many other important inventions that we count on to work every day (think of a key flying in a lightning storm and what that led to). As Jennifer Schenker informs us in her BusinessWeek online special report article, K.R. Sridhar, the inventor of the Bloom Box, had originally been assigned to make “a device that would use solar power and Martian water to drive a reactor cell that generated oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to power vehicles.” She goes on to explain how Sridhar simply reversed his first project, which used hydrolysis, to the Bloom Box which uses up oxygen and hydrogen to make steam, heat, and electricity (Schenker).

A less simplified and more realistic version of how the fuel cell, known as a “Solid Oxide Fuel Cell” or SOFC, works is provided by Sridhar’s company’s website, bloomenergy.com, and his interview in BusinessWeek. The cell is made of a common sand-like powder instead of expensive metals, such as platinum (which is what we used in my chemistry class to electrolyze water). “The ceramic core acts as an electrode. At high temperatures, a hydrocarbon fuel—ethanol, biodiesel, methane, or natural gas—on one side of the cell attracts oxygen ions from the other. As the ions are pulled through the solid core, the resulting electrochemical reaction creates electricity (Schenker).” This is very similar to all other fuel cells that came before it, but the twist is that it is cheap enough to make on a large scale, and thus is tantalizing for commercialization.

Since they are so much cheaper to produce than older fuel cells, combining a lot of them in one box, to about the size of a loaf of bread (Bloomenergy), is not going to cost an arm and a leg. The intriguing part is that one bread-loaf sized stack of the ceramic electrodes can generate enough electricity to power an average American home (Bloomenergy).

Currently, the boxes run mostly on natural gas. Sridhar cedes that though his invention uses hydrocarbons and thus does produce carbon dioxide, a powerful contributor to global warming, it is much, much more efficient that coal plants (Schenker). Schenker says that since the Bloom box doesn’t use combustion processes or burn the fuel, less energy is lost as heat and more can be used to produce electricity. In a trial at the University of Tennessee, a “Bloom box capable of powering a 5,000-square-foot home proved twice as efficient as a traditional gas-burning system and produced 60% fewer emissions (Schenker).” Despite that, when I first heard that they currently run on natural gas, I was slightly let down. I did a little bit of comforting research on it, and my worries are slightly assuaged. Natural gas is composed “approximately 90 percent” (“Producing”) of methane (CH­₄), but it also contains small amounts of other gases such as propane (C₃H₈) and butane (C₄H₁₀) (“Producing”). Unlike many other energy sources, methane is a renewable resource. According to the website, it is found not only along with oil in oil fields, it is produced when waste breaks down. It is even produced by animals and given off when they, well, experience flatulence. Landfills are also a major source of this. By law they are already required to capture and contain this gas. Most of them end up burning it just to get rid of it, but according to Julie Schmit in her USA Today article, a landfill in Oklahoma is about to start supplying the Energy Servers at EBAY headquarters (Schmit). I doubt that landfills alone will be able to provide us with enough methane to power all of the millions of cars in the United States, but in conjunction with traditional natural gas and hydrogen production via solar or wind, hopefully we will be able to one day have oil be only a greasy splatter on the pages of history.

An interesting side effect of the widespread use of “energy servers” (Bloomenergy) is that hydrogen powered fuel cell cars might actually become obsolete. If each house produces its own electricity using Bloom boxes, families can simply use that electricity to run a purely electric car. There would be no need for mass change in the auto industry, just a greater emphasis on cars that run solely on electricity. The car that jumps to mind is the Tesla. If everyone bought a Tesla and charged it at home, we wouldn’t even need to change the auto industry at all. That probably isn’t feasible seeing as I heard a Tesla will set you back about $100,000. I’m sure the big car manufacturers would be able to think of something to stay in business though. Sridhar figures that it will be three to five years before Bloom boxes come to your neighborhood at a competitive price (qtd. in Schenker), but after the 160 years we’ve waited, time will surely seem to fly. $3000 is seen as a competitive price for the Bloom box small enough to power a house (Schmit). That may seem expensive at first, but the amount of money you could save with a Bloom box would make the investment worth it, especially when you imagine using it to run your car as well, and all the gas money you would save. Think of how good it would feel to never have to go to the gas pump again. It would definitely be an “in your face” moment for all of the people that detest the major gasoline companies and all they stand for.

Surely one of the most important facts about Bloom Boxes is that they are able to be cheaply produced (seeing as the only two ingredients in the fuel cells are sand and ink), and the company can still profit. Though company profits seem like a bad thing, as long as nobody is getting hurt they can be extremely beneficial. Companies that make profits by doing good things, such as selling fuel cells to help stop global warming, tend to spend profits on things that further their original goals. Also, unlike FuelCell energy, one of the original fuel cell companies that has accumulated losses that add up to at least “$600 million” since its first fuel cell was sold (Schmit), Bloom Energy looks as if it will eventually not need subsidies or other help to keep its head above water. I say eventually because currently the state of California is giving a 20% subsidy and the Federal government is giving a 30% tax credit to companies that purchase and use the Bloom Boxes.

Bloom Energy’s biggest breakthrough, the one that allowed them to come up with the Bloom Box, was figuring out how to allow both the fuel cells and the metal plates between them to heat up at the same rate. This prevents the fuel cells, which are each only as thick as a business card, from breaking while expanding as the temperature goes from room temperature to “1472°F” (Schmit). By reducing the number of breakages, Sridhar has made it much more cost effective to purchase a Bloom Box, because it will not have to be fixed or replaced as often as otherwise may have been the case.

Due to the fact that for 160 years hydrogen power has either failed or been way too expensive, Sridhar and his company have been in “stealth mode for eight years” (Schmit). Sridhar wanted to be sure his Bloom Boxes had “solid field experience with real customers to tell its full story” (Schenker). Now that several companies have purchased and installed Energy Servers, we have been allowed to hear more of the story. On Bloom Energy’s website, plenty of information about the purchase of Bloom Boxes by major companies has been provided, and the proof that Bloom Boxes work is overwhelming.

One of the lucky companies that was allowed to buy them was Google. According to a Google executive, they “continually implement innovative and responsible practices across our company, [and] are proud to be one of the early customers of Bloom Energy” (qtd. in Bloomenergy). Google purchased enough Bloom Boxes to provide them with “400 kW” of electricity, enough to power about 400 homes. Since its original purchase about a year and a half ago, the servers have provided Google with “3.8 million kWh of electricity” at “98% availability” (Bloomenergy).

A second, even larger, use of the Energy Servers is up and running at the Coca Cola Odwalla Production Facility. The servers there are capable of cranking out “500 kW” of electricity, and they even run on “renewable biogas” (Bloomenergy). By using a renewable energy source, the company will be able to save money while “reducing over 5 million pounds of CO₂ annually”. The company was looking for, and found, a “flexible solution that could provide constant, reliable power to around-the-clock bottling and manufacturing operations” (Bloomenergy). You might just say they’ve found it.

To answer the question posed in the title, yes. It most certainly is time. We have waited for 160 years, never completely giving up hope, but never given a good reason not to. After the failure of FuelCell, hydrogen might have completely lost impetus and just maybe would have died. Then came the Bloom Boxes, almost too good to be true. And unlike the other fuel cell makers, who bragged about how good they would be before they crashed and burned, Sridhar shows that he is prepared to build his industry from the ground up. He has the proof to back up his word. He has promised us that within the next ten years, we will see affordable Energy Servers come to us, and I believe him. His company has both the brains and the brawn to lift the hydrogen industry out of the gutter, get it on its feet, and make it run. I don’t know about you, but I personally wait, a little bit impatiently, for the day when I can drive away from the gas station, and never look back.