Nuvera Fuel Cells

Over the long weekend (Happy Birthday America!), I had a chance to spend some quality time at the movie theatre. I saw Pixar’s new flick, Wall-E, which while notable for its great animation and adorable characters, resonated most with me for its earth-friendly message.

The general gist of the film is that planet earth has turned into an unlivable trash dump and for 700 years humans have been forced into space on a Star Trek-esque ship. The key to humans returning to earth arrives in the form of a small green plant, a heavy dose of symbolism not lost on viewers who are most likely familiar with the dogma of “being green.”

What I found remarkable was not the environmentally friendly message (as that is something we are all familiar with), but the fact that the two young girls next to me, both under the age of 6, were quietly absorbing this message. They sat in their seats, enthralled by the cute characters, the simple love story and the animation, and whether they realized it or not, they were also learning the basic tenets of environmentalism.

Now all we need is for Cars 2 to come out and have the plot circle around the “Alternative Energy 500,” featuring the Pninfarina Sintesi!

By William Mitchell, Vice President of Sales and Marketing

During a recent business trip, I had the chance to catch up on a little reading, and was very interested to dive into a special report published in the June 21^st 2008 issue of the Economist on the Future of Energy. Aside from the fact that the title of the article is a registered trademark of Nuvera, Geoffrey Carr gave an almost completely unbiased overview of the clean energy space and its developments around the world. In the article, Mr. Carr talks even handedly about the rise of wind, solar, carbon capture, geothermal energy, biofuels, and nuclear power and I agree with both the tenor of the report and his assertions of the status of each of the technologies. I view petroleum as nothing more than renewable energy that has been concentrated over millions of years, and believe that we will need to use all the available renewable resources at our disposal to replace its use.

Unfortunately, the report on the future transportation technologies missed the opportunity to fairly represent the current and options for the automobile powertrain of the future. In the section titled “The end of the petrolhead”, Mr. Carr represents fuel cell technology as something that is now out of fashion and on the way out compared to advanced battery technology. In the article, he poses a question: “But why bother? Why not cut out the middleman and plug your car directly into the electricity mains instead?” Hopefully, I can shed some light on the status of fuel cell technology and answer this question for Mr. Carr, as I believe he is really missing out on the real Future of Energy, at least in the transportation sector.

My first response to this question is that fuel cell vehicles (at least in the United States), when operating on hydrogen derived from natural gas, offer a greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 33% compared to battery electric vehicles that are charged from electricity from the U.S. electric grid according to an Argonne National Labs report from April 2008. In the report, which compares battery powered forklifts to fuel cell powered forklifts, they conclude that “In many parts of the US, significant benefits could be obtained immediately by replacement of battery-powered forklifts with those powered by fuel cells using hydrogen from steam-reforming of natural gas.” This same savings holds true when comparing battery electric vehicles to fuel cell vehicles. To be clear, a 33% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions means that on a “well to wheels” basis, fuel cell vehicles are 33% more efficient than battery electric vehicles.

My second answer to this question is that fuel cell vehicles are currently the only foreseeable option for zero emission vehicles that meet both the consumer requirements for fast refilling/recharging and autonomy. Mr Carr references the advances in lithium ion technology and of the Tesla vehicle in particular. This vehicle, which is an engineering marvel, features a range of approximately 350 kilometers (220 miles) and a recharge time of 3.5 hours nicely packed into a 2 seat, 1,200 kilogram (2,600 pound) package. If the same system were placed into a sedan or small SUV meant for typical family use, the recharge time would stay the same, but the autonomy would fall into the range of 170 km (110 miles), which although good enough for many people to use for commuting or as a second car, would fall short on their expectations as a primary vehicle. On the contrary, today’s fuel cell vehicles are demonstrating autonomies equivalent to internal combustion engine vehicles. In fact, earlier this year, Toyota unveiled a fuel cell vehicle with a range of over 800 km (500 miles). For this reason, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted to triple the amount of zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs) that staff had proposed for automakers to produce from 2012 through 2014. Staff had proposed to require 2,500 pure zero emission vehicles, which the Board increased to 7,500. Automakers can produce fewer ZEVs, 5,357, if they are long-range fuel cell vehicles or they can opt to satisfy the requirement by manufacturing 12,500 battery electric vehicles with a range of 100 miles. Clearly, CARB sees the potential of fuel cells for transportation, as they carry a much higher zero emission vehicle ZEV credits as compared to the lower range battery electric vehicles.

Now I am the first to admit that many companies in the fuel cell world have made a lot of promises in the past – promises that were not kept, which has caused a “fuel cell hangover” in the minds of investors and the public alike, but the technology is now ready to go, and all major automotive companies in the world are actively engaged in bringing this technology to the market. Mr. Carr indicates in his report that “only Honda and Mercedes seem to be sticking enthusiastically to fuel cells”. This is simply not true. In a recent report from the National Hydrogen Association meeting that I attended in California in March of this year, GM, Honda, and Toyota gave talks to reaffirm their commitment to commercializing fuel cell vehicles starting with the California ZEV requirements in 2012-2014, and Catherine Dunwoody of the California Fuel cell partnership reported on the status of the other OEM’s developing fuel cell vehicles, including Ford, Nissan, Mercedes, Hyundai, and Volkswagen. According to Larry Burns, the V.P. of R&D at GM, the potential societal and consumer benefits of fuel cell technology are clear and compelling, and that no other technology offers this exciting potential. In fact, he stated that GM has not uncovered a single issue yet to suggest that mass volume of fuel cell vehicles cannot ultimately be attained.

In the end, it is not a matter of fuel cells versus batteries for the future automotive powertrain. The two will work together to make hybrid fuel cell vehicles. Mr. Carr should not view these technologies as competitors for the market. The real competition is the status quo and internal combustion engines. We all need to work together to achieve The Future of Energy and get us moving away from our dependence on petroleum.

I recently posted several additional items to Nuvera’s Technical Papers page. The items all relate to the advancements Nuvera has made over the past three years in regards to onboard fuel processing for automotive applications.

The in-flight magazine of German airline Lufthansa features the Pininfarina Sintesi prominently on its May cover, as the lead-in for it’s featured article aptly titled: “Bella Macchina,” or roughly translated from Italian to mean “Attractive Car.” The Sintesi is a revolutionary concept car that features Nuvera’s Quadrivium fuel cell drive. The article showcases the cutting edge automotive designers coming out of Italy today, one of which is, and has been for over 70 years, Pininfarina. Check out the magazine scans below to see the section on the Sintesi.

To check out a video of the Sintesi, click here.

By Danielle Andre and contributing editors
Scott Blanchet, Platform Leader, Fuel Cell Development and
Amedeo Conti, Lead Engineer, Stack Design

As I was sitting in the monthly review of our Fuel Cell Stack Development team, a topic caught my ear. While the majority of information parlayed in this particular meeting falls under the category of intellectual property and therefore cannot be posted here (as you can imagine), there is some interesting work being done in regards to coolant that is fit to share.

Fuel cells create electricity through an electrochemical reaction between hydrogen on the anode side and oxygen on the cathode side. During the reaction heat is produced and a liquid coolant is required to control temperature. Managing the electrical conductivity of the fluids within the cell is extremely important in order to avoid current leakage and short circuiting. Deionized water typically has low electrical conductivity, making it an effective coolant for fuel cell stacks; the obvious downside to using water is that it freezes at typical winter temperatures. This is a sizable hurdle for fuel cells that are aimed at the automotive market.

Traditional (internal combustion engine) automotive systems are cooled with ethylene or propylene glycol, for just this reason. Glycol has a significantly lower freeze point than water, which is what allows our cars to start on those cold New England mornings. The issue with glycol is that it can have a high electrical conductivity rating, resulting in excessive corrosion within the fuel cell stack.

Nuvera has taken a serious look at the tradeoffs in the water vs. glycol debate: water is a low cost and effective solution, but is tricky when dealing with cold start applications. Glycol is only effective when used in conjunction with a deionizing filter which adds cost, but may help enable achievement of the holy grail in fuel cells – a timely cold start.
The glycol debate is nothing new inside Nuvera – our automotive stack, Andromeda™, is designed to be compatible with glycol, utilizing standard automotive parts. What we are determining now is the best glycol/water solution to produce the results we want, how to optimize our systems to run on glycol, and verifying the robustness of our systems when run on this glycol based coolant. If our findings resolutely show that glycol is the preferred coolant, you may see it in not only in our automotive products, but also in our PowerFlow™ system, maximizing performance in the forklift cold storage market.