June 17, 2008 – Vol.13 No.13
LITHIUM TODAY, TOMORROW HYDROGEN.
Despite promises of more oil output from Saudi Arabia, the price of petrol at the pump continues to rise. Major automakers are far behind in developing and bringing to market hyper fuel economy or alternative fuel vehicles. They’re needed right now, not at some future date.
Honda has announced production startup and the first five sales of its Clarity FCX fuel cell car, and words are trickling out of Toyota about the next generation Prius hybrid.
Honda will lease about 200 hydrogen fuel cell cars in California and Japan over the next three years. A few dozen cars built each year isn’t exactly what one thinks of when the word “production” is said.
The next-gen Prius will be a plug-in hybrid as promised, but the first batch of cars will be sold to fleets only. A disappointment there too. Toyota is selling every one the current model hybrids it can build and it could sell more, but it can’t get enough of the Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH)batteries that the cars employ. Likely, with gas prices set to get higher, the company would sell every one of the next generation cars too when they are available in 2010. Toyota may be skittish about putting an entirely new technology on the road: Plugging in cars will be something new to most. Selling to fleets insures volume sales.
The new car will have lithium-ion batteries – the battery chemistry du jour.
The foot-dragging by car manufacturers is mostly due to the constant quest to maximize profits: They’re hesitant to develop cars that they’re unsure they can sell. And, the technology to build the cars simply hasn’t been available until recent years.
Considering only fuel cells or plug-in hybrids which could win as the vehicle technology of the future? The answer may be in the elements that will store the energy within them, hydrogen or lithium. Which will win, the lightest element in the universe or the lightest solid element?
Hydrogen is everywhere on the planet. Lithium isn’t.
Hydrogen has to be extracted from something else. Lithium has to be extracted from fairly scarce, but apparently adequate resources.
Hydrogen is an energy carrier that can be sold at the pump as a fuel. Lithium also holds energy but can be “refueled” from any source of electricity including grid or some home-grown power source.
Hydrogen needs an infrastructure to be built for refueling. The infrastructure for refueling plug-in hybrids is already in place: Conventional filling stations provide liquid fuels, even biofuels. In the industrialized world the power grid is already in place; only a small link needs to be made to connect vehicle with grid.
Hydrogen would be sold by existing fuel companies. Electricity to charge lithium batteries would be sold by power companies and liquid fuels by existing fuel companies.
Hydrogen could be extracted from local sources (water for instance) anywhere in the world – thus a domestic fuel. Yet the source energy needed to extract hydrogen might be imported. Lithium sources are scattered worldwide.
Hydrogen can offer zero emission provided the source of energy to extract it is also emission free. Lithium batteries could be recharged from a zero emission source, or not. The plug-in hybrid’s petrol engine will emit noxious fumes and greenhouse gases.
Right now, it appears from a commercialization standpoint that plug-in hybrids, as well as some all-electric vehicles, hold an edge over hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Investments being made to manufacture lithium batteries for them shows confidence from battery makers that there’s a future in plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle technology.
Yet even if in the medium term (a decade or two) plug-in hybrids with lithium batteries are the winning combination, hydrogen fuel cells could and should be continued to be developed. After all, every hybrid built today will eventually be sent to the scrap heap – hopefully its batteries recycled. By the time the next generation cars – cars that have yet to roll-off the mass production line – meet their planned obsolescence, hydrogen could be ready and waiting to go.
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