An Unbiased Approach to Evaluating Transportation Fuels

For the past thirty years our country has become increasingly more aware of the effects our energy use has on the environment. At the same time, it is clear that our dependence on foreign oil is having significant consequences to our economy and our national security. Yet despite alternative technologies, we still get most of our energy from the fossil fuels. We know we have a problem, but the challenges of moving away from the established technologies and infrastructure are monumental.

Many of us want to know what we can do to make a difference. Yet with so much varying information about energy alternatives, it has become difficult to choose which technologies really make sense and which will be a waste of research dollars. We have become skeptical of anything that the so-called "experts" tell us — and rightly so as many of the experts have their own motives.

The use of ethanol is the best example. The major criticism of ethanol revolves around the excessive energy inputs required to grow, harvest, and convert corn or other crops into fuel. A number of studies are available that show a slight net energy gain and a slight decrease of pollution with ethanol use. (see http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/AF/265.pdf) But if we then find out that those studies were funded by the Department of Agriculture, we have to question the work. Other studies written by those without a special interest show a net energy loss with the use of ethanol and a pollution increase compared to oil. (see http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/Biofuels/MyBiofuelPapersTop.htm)

It has become surprisingly challenging to find truly un-biased studies. Researchers are always fighting for more funding, so they tend to paint their work in the best possible light — seldom is the entire story told. Clean energy options need to be examined from a number of perspectives including environmental impact, economics, the domestic resource base, public acceptability, and reliability.

If ethanol is not a net energy producer, and if there is no pollution difference from oil, then why should we head in that direction? Reducing dependence on foreign oil is an admirable goal, but even converting our entire corn crop to ethanol would only displace about 15% of our oil use. A great deal of money in the form of research dollars and subsidies has been poured into ethanol, but it will not achieve our goals of drastically reducing pollution and eliminating dependence on foreign oil.

Hydrogen has also received significant funding recently, but the hydrogen economy has many flaws that need to be considered. The technology for producing, transporting and using hydrogen in fuel cells is still a few decades off. Efficient production of hydrogen can only occur with very high temperature heat which eliminates all of the renewables except for concentrated solar. But the single biggest problem with the hydrogen economy is that it will be incredibly wasteful of energy resources (and very little attention has addressed this issue). Consider that hydrogen first must be produced in a power plant, and then the hydrogen gets converted to electricity in a fuel cell to power an electric motor. The overall process of producing, compressing, transporting and finally using hydrogen has many efficiency losses. Why not eliminate the middle man and go straight to electric vehicles?

It turns out that when compared side by side, an electric vehicle economy will be more than twice as efficient as a hydrogen economy. In other words, the hydrogen economy would require building twice as many new power plants as compared to converting to electric vehicles. And whereas hydrogen production only makes sense with high temperature nuclear or solar heat, the electric vehicle economy can use any source of clean energy — including all of the renewable technologies.

Electric vehicles are not without their share of difficulties. Battery technology still needs to improve, both in terms of performance and cost. But electric vehicles have a development path already established. The commercial success of hybrids is leading to cost decreases that will soon lead to the plug-in hybrid. With more widespread use of plug-in hybrids and with the emerging technology of rapid charge batteries, it is likely that we will soon see an all-electric vehicle that is desirable to a majority of the population.

Solutions to our energy problems do exist, but it will take a variety of technologies to reach our goals. Of the alternative transportation options, electric vehicles coupled with increased use of renewables and other clean sources of energy will be the most efficient way to reduce pollution and eliminate dependence on foreign oil. We need to look at all of the issues to concentrate funding on the solutions that make sense.

Ben Cipiti received his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Ohio University and PhD in nuclear engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He currently works at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with research interests in energy economics, fusion energy, the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear material safeguards. He is also the author of The Energy Construct.

The information and views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of RenewableEnergyAccess.com or the companies that advertise on its Web site and other publications.

I see some negative assumptions about hydrogen here. I believe hydrogen is the right way to go. I would like to provide some cut-and-paste of some well-known postings of others, on the internet, which counter some of the points against H2:

"Hydrogen beats batteries, biofuel and all other vehicle power solutions:

A. Hydrogen can be made at home and requires NO NEW INFRASTRUCTURE. Anybody who says it can't be made at home or work is either a shill or completely out of touch with reality and technology. You can make it for free, at home, all day long and all night long. The production can be powered by solar, wind, microbes and other free sources. The volume of H2 produced "IS" enough to charge solid state H2 containers. The metrics quoted by the anti-hydrogen crowd are just lies to protect their competing business interests.

B. It now costs less to make hydrogen from water than any known way to make gasoline and it continues to get cheaper every month: The GE Noryl system, The R4 processor and over a hundred different systems can do this NOW; with many more expected next year. The "battery shill" spin has worn thin and has been supplanted by facts. Hydrogen is made from WATER via solar energy, wind energy, microbes, radio waves, sunlight and salt, and other FREE sources of energy. Hydrogen can also be made from any organic garbage, waste, plants or ANYTHING organic via lasers, plasma beams or dozens of other powered exotics which can be run off of EITHER the grid or the free hydrogen made from solar energy, wind energy, microbes, radio waves, sunlight and salt, and other FREE sources of energy OR the grid. There is no oil that needs to be involved anywhere in the production of hydrogen. These systems trickle charge hydrogen into storage containers, either tanks or solid state cassettes, 24/7.C. Tens of millions of dollars are being spent by battery companies like A123, Cobasys, AltairNano, etc. in order to discredit hydrogen because hydrogen works better than batteries. A large number of "pundits" who act as "writers", "bloggers", "authors" and "non-profit evangelist group founders" are actually supported by financial gain from battery companies who are terrified of hydrogen displacing their revenue streams. They include:

Ulf Bossel of the European Fuel Cell Forum,

Alec Brooks

James Woolsey

EV World

Sam Thurber

Cal Cars

Felix Kramer

Lie # 1:
"But critics say the process of producing hydrogen requires three to four times more energy than the hydrogen later generates in the fuel cell."
RESPONSE: This is data from the 60's. It is now more efficient to make hydrogen than it is to make gasoline, build or use batteries or process bio-fuel. The technology has beat everything else.

Lie # 2:
"the cars are too expensive."
RESPONSE: The production of hydrogen cars is at an early stage while battery cars have been around for almost a hundred years and the battery cars are still expensive for what you get. The Moore's law on hydrogen cars shows a clear price decline to low cost in market volume. A Fuel Cell car that goes 500 miles without a charge costs half as much TODAY as a battery car that goes 500 miles without a charge.

Lie #3:
" hydrogen molecules can't be contained easily without energy-consuming compressors or maintaining them in liquid form at extremely low temperatures , and it's extremely difficult to store,"
RESPONSE: This data is also from the 60's. Hydrogen is stored in chemical powders and muds that easily contain vast amounts of hydrogen. Pressure and liquid tanks to store hydrogen are old school archaic technologies. Hydrogen can be easily stored in over 2800 different solid state compounds.

Lie #4:
"The infrastructure isn't there"
RESPONSE: Solid state hydrogen can be shipped by UPS, Common Carrier and uses all existing infrastructure. DOPT has already licensed and approved such solid state delivery via common EXISTING INFRASTRUCTURE. This method can reavch every person on earth TODAY! This requires almost NO NEW INFRASTRUCTURE. NO INFRASTRUCTURE IS NEEDED!!! This is the biggest lie of all. A large number of start-ups have solid state hydrogen solutions that entirely use existing infrastructure.

Lie #5:
"the hydrogen is too expensive"
RESPONSE: Hydrogen can be made at home or office in numerous ways powered by solar or wind or microbes or any number of free power sources. It is always being made by such devices and constantly trickle charged into solid state storage systems all day and night FOR FREE without grid power. Hydrogen processors now make hydrogen with 91% efficiency.

Lie #6:
"Hydrogen is too dangerous"
RESPONSE: If the gasoline in your car blows up it will do a VAST AMOUNT more death and damage than H2 ever will. You are driving a MOLOTOV COCKTAIL. H2 on fire rapidly dissipates up an into the air. Gasoline flows all over people, cars and streets and covers all of the above with flaming death you can't easily extinguish. In 2030 oil is GONE and there is NO OTHER OPTION that can be delivered world-wide in time but H2! Biofuel only solves 2% of the problem. Batteries have failed. Nuclear is too dangerous.

Lie #7:
"We have enough gasoline to last forever"
RESPONSE: Gasoline/petroleum/petrochemicals have now been shown to be the number one cause of cancer, and maybe the primary cause of cancer, in the world. Besides causing global warming, lung disease and all of the other bad things that it does; the oil industry itself knows that affordable oil is gone around the year 2030. Even if it wasn't, do you really want the ROOT CAUSE OF CANCER around one day longer than it needs to be? (See the EPA report "EPA/600/S-6-87/001 Sept. 1987" as one of over 16,000 studies validating this.)