Bridge To Hydrogen | Green Energy News

October 6, 2002 – Vol.7 No.28

BRIDGE TO HYDROGEN.

For roughly 100 years motorists have been using a volatile, combustible, ambient temperature liquid to fuel their vehicles.

If the current plan for tomorrow’s vehicles holds true - hydrogen fuel cells and electric motors replace the internal combustion engine and a hydrogen economy is built - motorists may have to learn to adapt to another kind of fueling. Fueling with a compressed gas.

Hydrogen fueling may actually prove safer than gasoline or diesel. Hydrogen dissipates into the air rapidly. The single protons get too far apart too quickly to allow combustion. But since hydrogen would be supplied under pressure, fueling technology will have to be more complicated than the simple nozzle-in-the-filler-pipe used now. Motorists will have to learn something new, or have their vehicles refueled by trained personnel.

It will be years before hydrogen fuel cell cars are built in huge numbers and a hydrogen fueling infrastructure is constructed. But until that time some are suggesting an interim bridge technology could be exploited. That technology would be natural gas vehicles (NGV’s). An expansion of the fleet of NGV’s will get many motorists accustomed to filling-up with a pressurized gaseous fuel.

In one effort to put more bridge technology vehicles on the road the California Natural Gas Vehicle Partnership has set a goal to get 600,000 more in that state in the next ten years. Outreach programs, along with the identification of available NGV’s in the marketplace, identification of installed natural gas fueling infrastructure (as well as gaps in that infrastructure), and identification of available financial incentives, will help the Partnership achieve that goal.

Another way to put more NGV’s on the road is to sell home natural gas fueling equipment. FuelMaker and Honda have done just that by introducing Phill. Phill connects to a natural gas pipe in a home and will pressurize the gas to proper levels for use in cars such as Honda’s own compressed natural gas (CNG) Civic. Honda will also begin extending its marketing efforts for that car beyond fleets to consumers. Hardworking Phill, when he offers independence from the corner gas station, will be part of that effort.

Honda has said previously that hydrogen fuel cell home generators that they may develop for homes would operate on piped-in and reformed natural gas. The reformer could also make enough hydrogen to fuel a vehicle. Visit Honda Media at http://www.hondanews.com/ , FuelMaker at http://www.fuelmaker.com/ , the CNGVP at http://www.cngvp.org .