There are still a lot of unanswered questions as regards How, but there's plenty of thought being given to the possibilities of tomorrow, and a lot of money being invested in this rising tide of interest in alternative technologies.
At the beginning of the week Cummins hosted a virtual live-streamed Hydrogen Day event. Having recently purchased Hydrogenics, a fuel cell developer, Cummins wanted to show the world that there is real power in hydrogen fuel cell powertrains. A Fox Business story by Gary Gastelu featured highlights from Monday's event.
The article, titled Cummins Is Starting to Ditch Diesel for Hydrogen, states that Cummins has a high degree of confidence that if they build it, people will come.
CEO Tom Linebarger told Fox Business that he's personally been thinking about hydrogen power since 1999 when he first began working on fuel cell technologies.
One of the big hurdles is creating the infrastructure to become "electric." It will be possible, Cummins executives indicated, for OverThe-Road fleets to be all electric one day, but only if the power grid gets upgraded. To do so we need a 50% increase above today's levels in electricity output. In other words, government will have to invest in producing more power to power an electric-powered future on our highways.
During one of the presentations it was noted that people driving Teslas today are powered by electricity that comes from coal. Most people do not think about that.
Cummins' goal is carbon neutrality by 2050, which seems a long ways off. Then again, I suspect that for those of us here to see it, it might come faster than we think.
Another hurdle will be the production of lighter weight batteries. If you are hauling heavy loads, you don't want to also be loaded down with a ton of batteries.
I remember about 5 years ago at SEMA when I saw a new battery concept which was one-fifth the weight and half the size of our current car batteries. People smarter than you or I have been working on these problems for a long time. This is what keeps them awake at night, and it's a good thing.
You can read the full story here:
https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/cummins-to-start-ditiching-diesel-for-hydrogen
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The Future of Diesel
Hydrogen is a clean fuel that, when consumed in a fuel cell, produces only water. Hydrogen can be produced from a variety of domestic resources, such as natural gas, nuclear power, biomass, and renewable power like solar and wind. These qualities make it an attractive fuel option for transportation and electricity generation applications. It can be used in cars, in houses, for portable power, and in many more applications.
ReplyDeleteHydrogen is an energy carrier that can be used to store, move, and deliver energy produced from other sources.
Today, hydrogen fuel can be produced through several methods. The most common methods today are natural gas reforming (a thermal process), and electrolysis. Other methods include solar-driven and biological processes.
It’s the most abundant element on earth. It was powering engines in 1807, and, with the right extraction methods it’s as clean as fuels come. Yet hydrogen still hasn’t taken off in the automotive or truck sector. Most manufacturers are experimenting with the technology and some have started producing small numbers of vehicles, but we’re still years from a mass roll-out.
ReplyDeleteThe skeptics say it will never happen. One reason for the lack of hydrogen powered vehicles on our streets is the growing uptake of electric vehicles as the green alternative – with sales of pure EVs rising by 37 per cent year-on-year, it’s easy for manufacturers to prioritize EVs over lesser-known tech. Another reason is infrastructure. The clichéd analogy is there is nowhere to refuel a car, so why own one.
But hydrogen is far from finished. The skeptics’ first argument against hydrogen vehicles is that they’re less efficient than EVs are. Because hydrogen doesn’t occur naturally, it has to be extracted, then compressed in fuel tanks. It then has to mix with oxygen in a fuel cell stack to create electricity to power the car’s motors.
Cynics point to the efficiency loss in this process when compared with an electric car in which the electricity comes straight from a battery pack.
That’s true to an extent, but hydrogen-powered cars are not expected to replace EVs. Instead, hydrogen will complement electric power, and there’s a good reason for this: it is, and will be, the cleanest fuel possible.
Every single major manufacturer is either looking at or working on hydrogen as well as electric.
A lot of good info here. I remember years ago at NY Auto Show when every auto Manufacturer was touting their Green efforts, only ONE manufacturer had no action yet. (It may have been Mercedes or another European company) and I asked why. They said that they didn't want to go one direction and see the industry go a different direction. It reminded me of VHS and Beta with regard to video stores. Cummins is staking a claim here though. Interesting.
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