Friday, June 27, 2008
Why There's No Future In Hydrogen Fuel Cells...
Hydrogen Fuel Cells have one massive problem... They use Platinum and/or Palladium. The latter expensive, the former, outrageously too expensive for either to be scaled-up to Global, or even National use. We'll need to invade South Africa and Zimbabwe (that's looking at least on the horizon these days), and push to corner both markets just to get all of of cars, trucks and semis on the Fuel Cell gig. Seems like a log-shot. Ships? Boats? The idea of having a fishing boat with a five or ten gallon tank will be over. Not to mention Commercial Fishing, or Pleasure Yachts/Cruises.
Here's all this:
Research and numbers via UK Department For Transport...
My writing at Barcop Forum...
Currently, it requires ~a 1/2oz. of Platinum and/or similar amounts of Palladium to catalyze the Hydrogen.. OK. We can use the Platinum from Catalytic Converters that will no longer be needed. That will last us nearly until the first Fuel Cells start failing, and need to be recycled. It will take, by this reports' analysis, at least three cycles of recycling before the process gets fully efficient, and ready to roll. 2025, earliest. That's IF the whole idea stops just laying there, and gets moving, but it won't because Platinum is over $2,000 per oz, and the cells don't last more than 7-10 years so far.
Platinum is selling at $2051.00 per ounce. Over 221-Million cars and trucks in the US that would need to be switched to Hydrogen. Not including the Semi-Truck fleet. 221 x .5 = 111-Million ounces of Platinum. Divided 16 ounces to the pound = ~ 7-Million pounds of Platinum required. Divided by 2,000 pounds = 3,500 tons. Total World Supply is 181 tons*. (see link above) We'll be dealing with some extremely nasty governments to buy that Platinum-- nominally worse than the OPEC nations. Zimbabwe is a major supplier.
Palladium is selling at $471 per ounce, and rising. As demand rises, so, too will the price. Both elements are finite.
Hmmm. Seems to me that we have a no-go situation here. This is pretty basic math. America can't even convert it's private fleet-- let alone the entire world. Quantities of these two elements simply do not exist at the required scale on the Planet. Approximately 10 tons of raw ore must be mined to produce just one pure ounce of platinum. Tell me how this conversion is going save the planet?
How many Americans will shell out over $1,000 or more to refill their Platinum catalyzer? 10 years from now, that would be much more expensive-- if there is Platinum even left on the Planet by then. People trash their cars when faced with a similarly expensive transmission replacement, today.
Mass-Transit/Car-Pooling, Light Rail, Bikes, Tele-Commuting, Walking. Those are the available options right now. By the time all this fabulous technology actually comes to market and scales up, we'll all already be used to these real alternatives.
"*" = Proven and Extractable Platinum.
Also, please note the many caveats in the linked report, which make the Platinum situation much less optimistic. Mainly in the Projected Demand vis Supply and Recycling of Platinum sections. Since the writing of the report (in 2000, Platinum has risen from $900 per ounce to $2,051. South Africa is not going to be able to expand its production by even 3% at any via price (where the report states that a 5% increase is required to meet the report's findings), as the cost is fuel prohibitive to mine down 2-4kilometers. South Africa is in such dire energy straits that they are closing all their mines for up to 3-days at a time. They can't even keep their coal mines running 7-days a week-- they are only running them five days out of the week. Let's not even discuss the Zimbabwe problems right now, with their 1-Billion percent inflation. Car Demand is already increasing above projections in Asia.)
Here's what we have:
Mass-Transit/Car-Pooling, Light Rail, Bikes, Tele-Commuting, Walking. Ford ain't gonna roll out it's Hemp Car any time until well after 2020...
Where are we supposed to go, how are we supposed to deal, get where we need to be, if the Auto Makers won't LEAD where we know they need to go?
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Labels: Alternative Energy, Alternative Fuels, The Car Is Dead
