Vol 4-12 December 1989 - Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Archives

Peter Ho ffmann, Ed itor and Pub lisher
December 1989 Vol IV/No. 12
EVs, Methanol Cars No Pollution Solution
--The radical reshaping of
Southern California's auto culture and technology
mandated by the introduction of progressively
stringent anti-pollution standards during the
decades ahead may not bring any significant improvement over future cleaner gasoline technology,
par t i c ipants of the 9th Miami International Congre ss o n Energy and Environment Dec. 11-13 were
told.
Invited lecturer Derek E. Lyth, Texaco Inc.'s
general mana ge r for Latin Ameri c~ and West Afri ca,
said the b r o a d list of energy sources covered at
the confere n cE - "from fossil fuels to biomass,
from hydropower and solar to hydrogen energy, from
synfuels to cogeneration and conservation" - is an
"inspiring reminder of the power of the human
mind."
But, getting down to brass tacks, Lyth said efforts in Southern California couldn 1 t meet Congressional air standards set a decade ago, the new
rules would initially require vehicles capable of
using both gasoline and methanol, and if that
didn't do the trick, electrical vehicles.
MIAMI
BEACH,
FL
No Analysis of Added Pollution, Econcai.cs
"No analysis appears to have been made of the
potential pollution throw-off of the increased
power facilities needed to provide the large additional amou.&t of electricity to drive these
automobiles," Lyth said. "Nor have I seen any
analysis of the economic impact of electric cars
that have a range of only 75 miles or so between
recharges.
"In Southern California this may hardly get you
back home from the office," he quipped to laughter
from the roughly 230 attendees, a large percentage
from third world countries.
Similarly, proposals for methanol "seem not to
have considered the fact" that methanol is corrosive, eats a~ay at engines and compounds repair
needs; that it is highly toxic; that it burns with
(continued on p. 4)
INSIDE
SWiss Plant •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• p.2
New Generator •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• p. 3
Instant Steam •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• p.3
Pakistan H Plans ••••••••••••••••••••••••••• p.3
Transitions: Ciaccia, Chuveliov •••••••••••• p.4
A MERRY CHRISTMAS, JOYEUX NOEL, FROBE
WBIBRACBTEN, AND ALL THE BEST FOR THE
1990S. P.H.
Alpine Solar Plant Announced at Conference
BASEL, SllrlZERLAIID - A Swiss consortium consisting of roughly half a dozen electric utilities
and companies plans to award first orders for a
500 kW photovoltaic solar powe r plant near Berne,
oarticipants in a t wo-day solar energy and
hydrogen conference here were told.
Rudolf Minder, head of the Alternative Energy
project group of the Zurich-based Elektrowatt
engineering group, said he expected the 20,000
sq.m. "PHALK 500 Mont Solei!" plant to start . feeding electrical power into the grid some t1me 1n
early 1991. Basic plant costs are estimated at Sw.
Fr. 8.2 million ($5.25 million), Minder said.
Maximum 500 kW output occurs only "on a clear
day around noon," Minder added, producing a "comoarati vely modest" full-power operating total of
~nl y 1, 000-1, 500 hours per year, and an annual
production of about 725,000 kWH.
PIIALlt 500: Pri.JM.rily for R+D
However, since PHALK 500 ( acror.ym for the German "Photovoltaisches Alpines Kraftwerk") is intended primarily as a research, developnent and
demonstration project, "economics and power production costs are not the center" of attention,
Minder told the roughly 350 participants in "Environment and Renewable Energies Solar Energy
and Solar Hydrogen," Nov. 30/Dec. 1 here. Minder
expects costs of Sw. Fr. 0.8/kWh ($0.64), several
times the cost of conventional power plants 1n
Europe, but lower by a factor of 2-3 compared to
older European plants.
Also, the plant will use new, more costeffie ient solutions such as the use of prefabricated large panels instead of expensive installation and linkage of 10,000 individual
cables. Also, the use of frame-less panels, socalled laminates, could save some 10 metric tons
of aluminum, which, Minder pointed out, would require the equivalent of the entire annual electricity output of PHALK 500.
Essentially, the plant is designed to validate
site selection criteria such as medium altitude
with optimum insolation (litle shadow, above fog
levels), well-established infrastructure to mini(continued on p. 2)
The Energy Alternative
(Solar H, from p. 3)
mize construction of access roads and power
cables, year-round accessability, and establish
local acceptability. "With relatively small space
requirements, undoubtedly there are many suitable
site s in Switzerland's mountain eous regions, "
Minder said.
Lausanne • s Graetzel Describes Hew PV Cell
The sleeper of the conference may have been a
paper delivered by Michael Graetzel, head of the
chemistry II department of the Institute for
Physical Chemistry, University of Lausanne.
Graetzel described a new, extremely efficient
type of photovoltaic device based on "sensitized
electron injection in large band gap, n-type semiconducting oxides, in particular titanium oxide."
Thin layers of Ti02 distinguished by a "specific
surface texture are prepared via a sol-gel type
procedure," he wrote in the abstract - the only
doclliiientation available at the time of writing.
Sensitization of the semiconductor to visible
light is achieved by a monomolecular layer of
transition metal complex adsorbed at the oxide
surface.
"Unprecedentedly high incident photon to electrical current conversion yields exceeding 80%
have been achieved with such devices," Graetzel
wrote. "The overall efficiency in AM 1. 5 sunlight
is comparable to that of amorphous silicon. At
lower intensity (fractional sun or diffuse light),
the efficiency is higher than that of single crystal silicon."
Graetzel, who regularly performs research at
the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) in
Gqlden, CO, said the high efficiency is due to the
fact that the semiconductor is used as a "majority
carrier device ~hose open cirucit voltage is much
less sens~tive to light intensity than that of
silicon.
"A cheap thin layer version of this cell has
been constructed and will be demonstrated," he
added. "Long term stability of this device has
been tested."
Swiss Quintuple Alternative Energy Outlays
In an overview paper that opened the conference, the director of the Swiss Office for Energy
Economics, Eduard Kiener, told the audience that
during the last 12 years the country has tripled
its total governmental energy research outlays to
Sw. Fr. 1&5 million ($105 million) and has quintupled research for renewables
solar, wind
biomass, geothermal,
hydrogen and hydroelectricity - to Sw. Fr. 35 million ($22.4 million).
"Our room for maneuver for supporting regenerative energies is still narrow," he said. But he
sees evide!'lce that the political will to support
alternative energy exists in the Swiss parliament
and in the Federal Council (Bundesrat), evidenced
in a new energy clause to be presented to Swiss
voters neY.t year that declares the development of
renewable energies as a Federal ta·sk. "This will
be the basis for strengthening support for these
energies," Kiener said.
At the same time Kiener acknowledged that the
government isn't always benevolent and throws ~P
occasjonal road blocks: "I'm thinking of, for ex-
Switzerland to Build First H Pilot Plant
OESGEB, SWI'l'ZERLAHD - One of the country's
largest electrical utilities, ATEL, plans to
build Switzerland's first electrolytic
hydrogen pilot plant near a nuclear power
plant here. The plant will be small, producing
20 standard cu.m./hour at an estimated Swiss
Fr. 10/cu.m. ($6.41).
The hydrogen will be used for plant requirements and also for heating purposes, according
to the announcement. Total cost is Swiss Fr.
2.4 million ($1.54 million). Project management is being handled by two companies of the
Swiss Motor Columbus Group. No decision has
been made about who will supply the electrolyzer.
ATEL president Ernst Truempy says the decision represents a "not insignificant step
towards the utilization of hydrogen technology," but adds large-scale general use of
hydrogen technology is "several decades" away.
ATEL is a partner in the European Communitysupported solar power plant Almeria and in the
Swiss solar energy project Mont Sole i l (See
Basel conference story).
(Marie-Therese Larcher, Uitikon, Switzerland)
ample, obstacles to solar energy (imposed) by uncertain or immovable construction permit•· agencies," he said, "or the unpleasant surprise experienced by various home owners who installed solar
energy devi::::es or added insulation aP.d who are
suddenly confronted with demands for higher waste
water fees be~ause of the home's increased value."
Keynote speaker Ludwig Boelkow, addressing
global economic aspects of the market introduction
of renewable energies, said energy saving and C02
reduction requirements presented at the Toronto
conference are "not achievable without introduction of renewable energy sources." To keep indebted third-world countries from adopting cheap
fossil fuels, renewable energy technologies must
be extremely inexpensive and "may have to be given
away" to meet pressing global climate threats.
other speakers included DLR management board
member carl-Jochen Winter who reviewed perspectives of a future solar hydrogen economy, and
Joachim Gretz, in charge of renewable energies at
the European Community Joint Research Center in
Ispra, Italy, who presented a summary of the EuroQuebec Hydro-Hydrogen Pilot Project.
The conference was accompanied by a technical
exhibition of hardware and literature of hydrogenrelated technologies such as catalytic burners,
electrolyzers, a pressurized hydrogen storage tank
potentially for automotive use, a hydrogen-powered
BMW passenger car, fuel celJ.s, and the West German
"Saenger" two-stage aerospace plane project - so
far a paper study only.
"The talks were of high quality," summed up T.
Nejat Veziroglu, director of the Clean Energy Research Institute of the University of Miami and
head of the International Association for Hydrogen
Energy, who gave a presentation, "Cost of energy
for the consumer today and tomorrow." Added
Veziroglu, "it was clear to ll'.e that Europe is
paying much more attention (to hydrogen) than the
United States."
Firm Develops H-Thermoelectric Generator
SALT LAD C:ITY, OTAB - A new type of pow~r­
generating electrochemical heat engine device that
employs hydrogen as the working fluid is currently
under review by NASA.
The inventors of the so-called Hydrogen
Thermoelectric Generator say the device offers the
potential for much higher power output in space
applications than current photovoltaic systems.
Dr. Ashok V. Joshi, the lead scientist in this
project at the Cerion Division of Ceramatec, Inc.,
of Salt Lake City, Utah, says the company has
shown proof of concept in Phase I.
"The results are encouraging," he told THL.
"We're now waiting for NASA (to decide) on funding
for Phase II." Ceramatec, which specializes in
high-technology ceramics is seeking $500,000 under
a NASA small business program, but the situation
has been made more complicated because Ceramatec
was recently acquired by a large company.
Works
Like a Heat Engine
As described in a Ceramatec memo, the thermoelectric generator is a device that produces electric power by expanding hydrogen gas through a
ceramic hydrcgen ion conductor at high temperature
and compressing hydrogen through the same material
at a lower temperature. The device is essentially
a heat engine, directly producing electrical power
from heat without moving parts.
Hydrogen is not consumed as a fuel but is used
as the working fluid for heat engine operation.
The theoretical thermal efficiency has been
calculated to be on the order of 75% but in practice the company expects an actual efficiency of
between 25 and 30%.
The heat source for the device can be any
available source, such as concentrated solar energy in space, or waste heat from fossil fuel or
nuclear sources.
Employs Proton-condUcting Solid Electrolytes
The device employs proton-conducting solid
electrolytes as parts of an experimental dualchamber device, linked by tubing. In another abstract describing the \oJork, Ceramatec says 1n1tially the power generated was "substantially
lower than expected" on the basis of earlier
theoretical analysis - less than o.l mW/square em.
F~rther analysis indicated tha;: power "exhibits
a maxim-..un as a function of the ratio of the partial pressures of hydrogen in the two chambers."
Subsequently, the concept was modified in the
sense thac the low-pressure chamber now contains a
mixture of water and oxygen which insures low
hydrogen pressure which in turn "gives high Nernst
potential," according to the paper. Also, transport of hydrogen in the low pressure chamber occurs by the conversion and/or ciffusion of water,
"thereby essentially eliminating mass transport
limitations."
Because of these and other considerations, the
Ceramatec authors believeco "power densities as high
as 150 mWatts/sq. em. can be realized."
They caution, tho~gh, that the analysis assumes
no electrode losses, and "electrode development
·has to be a major task in the development of a
commez-cially viable thermoelectric generator."
Construction Starts on Instant Steam Generator
~~
W.GBRMAIIY --An eight-member consortium headed by Fichtner Consulting Engineers
here is about to start construction of a nearcommercial scale hydrogen-oxygen instantavailability steam generator.
The concept was developed by the German
aerospace agency DLR (THL Feb. 1988).
After tests at the GKM utility in Mannheim, the
70 MW genera tor wi 11 be deployed under what
Fichtner says are "near-operational conditions" at
the Frimmersdorf power station in Grevenbroich,
. roughly equidistant from Cologne and Duesseldorf
near the Belgian border. The station is operated
by RWE, one of West Germany's biggest utilities.
Costs of roughly DM15 million ( $8.7 million)
will be shared equally between West Germany's research and technology ministry and the joint venture, the announcement by Fichtner said.
The plant consists in effect of a much modified
rocket combustion chamber which produces steam at
efficiencies of greater than 99% over wide ranges
of power, temperature and pressure and with extremely short startup times, reaching maximum output in less than one second.
Marketing of the generator is expected to get
underway after completion of the trial and
demonstration phase at the end of 1992, Fichtner
·saici.
Pakistan to Consider Solar H Project
MIAMI BEACH/ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - As outgrowth
of ongoing joint research _ with a Pakistan institute, the University of Miami 1 s Clean Energy
Research Institute (CERI) is proposing a pv solarhydrogen demonstration program for a barren desert
region in the Baluchistan region.
The concept for the $13 million, 5-year project, to be conducted jointly with Pak~stan's National Institute of Silicon Technology in Islamabad, was presented recently by CERI director
T. Nejat Vezirolu to high officials in Pakistan's
science and technology ministry who had requested
the presentation.
The region has high insolation
about 7
GJ/sq.m./year - but there is also a large wind
potential.
140 KW PV Demo Plant is Key
Essentially, the detailed plan proposes to
build a 140 Kw demonstration project, employing
Pakistan-designed photovoltaic cell systems using
mainly amorphous silicon cells but also other
types7 an electrolyzer to produce direct current
plus hydrogen as well as a storage and distribution system for the hdyrogen.
The site near Sonmiani, some 50 miles northwest
of Karachi on the Arabian Sea coast, would also
include 35 KW in fuel cell capacity, a highpressure gasometer capable of storing about 40 GJ
of hydrogen and a 26,000 cu m/year reverse-osmosis
desalination plant.
Average daily hydrogen production is estimated
at 9.5 GJ, and the system's overall efficiency
will be around 9. 5%, according to the proposal
(continued on p. 4)
(Miami, from p. 1)
an invisible flame 1 that it produces 3-5 times
more formaldehyde, a declared carcinogen, than
gasoline, and that it is comparatively expensive
as motor fuel.
"Current auto engine and exhaust systems
eliminate almost 97% of the polluting elements in
the exhaust," he claimed. "New automobile models
will trap, contain and eliminate major portions of
volatile pollutants."
A Hydrogen Version of •Plowshare• Project?
One of the most radical proposals for hydrogen
production came from Dan L. Curtis, a former
scientist with the Hughes Corp., of Manhattan
Beach, CA. Curtis essentially wants to revive the
Plowshare Geothermal Power idea of the late 60s
and early 70s in which more than a dozen onemegaton nuclear devices would explode at depths of
8-10,000 feet to fracture geothermal rock and
turning injec~ed water into steam that would drive
a 200 MW plant. Here, the product would be
hy~ogen, inexpensive to transport over very large
distances.
Curtis is fully aware that anything nuclear
would face almost universal opposition in the
United States. He says, however,
there are
thermal-plume hot spots in remote parts of the
world such as in Africa suitable for thermal development. Curtis says countries agreeing to host
such "world power generation stations" could
receive virtually free energy, plus hundreds of
billions of revenue for their industrial development by charging energy fees to industrial consumer nations.
"With sufficient energy and funds,
even a
desert can be transformed into an oasis or an impoverished country made to prosper," Curtis said.
Severe Pollution in USSR, Eastern Europe
In a paper on air pollution and environmental
issues in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,
A.V. Chuveliov, currently at the University of
Miami's Clean Energy Research Institute, reported
that there are Soviet estimates that the total
damage of acid rain t:J East European nations is
greater than the countries' national income.
Citing estimates announced this year at an
ecology conference in Sweden, Chuveliov says the
most polluting countries per capita are the U.S.
and East Germany ( 4. 9 tons carbon/year) , Canada
( 4. 4) , Czechoslovakia ( ( 4 .l) and the USSR ( 3. 3) •
USA and Canada combined produce about 27%, the
USSR and Eastern Europe about 26%, and China 10%.
OVerall, 16% of Soviet territory "is a zone of
ecological disaster," according to Chuveliov
about 3.6 million square km, equivalent to about
40% of u.s. territory. Some 50 million Soviet
citizens, or 19% of the population, live in areas
where air pollution exceeds public health standards ten times - and such standards are as a rule
less strict than in Western Europe, Japan or the
United States (There will be additional coverage
of conference reports in the next issue).
(Pakistan, from p. 3)
s~mitted to the institute.
The site would also include a fish freezing and
packing plant, with fish supplied by local
fishers, to boost the local economy - a main concern of the government which wants to develop the
Baluchistan region. The cooling system would be
powered by solar electricity and hydrogen absorption technology.
The site would also be used for farming: under
the proposal, the 6,400 sq.m. of pv cells, evenly
spaced over a somewhat larger area, would be
mounted on concrete structures 5-6 meters high,
providing enough shade to permit cultivation of
cotton, wheat or barley, according to Veziroglu.
Hydrogen would also power half a dozen farm tractors, a couple of pickup trucks and two office
cars.
Major cost items are the pv cells, ot~er
hydrogen-related equipment, civil works and construction. Veziroglu says he expects the minister
of science and technology to recommend that u.s.
aid funds of roughly $600 million a year for
Pakistan - shared for military aid and economic
development - be tapped for the hard-currency outlays. Pakistani rupees could pay for construction
and other local expenditures, he added.
Grew Out Of NSF Solar Mapping Effort
The proposal grew out of a solar mapping project using remote sensing that was started three
years ago by the University of Miami, with funding
from the National Science Foundation, Veziroglu
said.
"We identified regions in Pakistan, especially in Baluchistan, where solar insolation is
very high, with barren land of not much use for
anything else," he added. "The government wants to
develop that region."
The project would serve as a test bed for
photovoltaic technology developed by the National
Institute of Silicon Technology, he added.
Transitions
In a cabinet reshuffle in the Quebec government
fcllowing elections in September, Lise Bacon has
replaced Jobn Ciaccia as deputy prime minister and
minister of energy and resources. Ciaccia who now
handles the internat"ional affairs portfolio, had
been an outspoken advocate of hydrogen, the EuroQuebec Hydro-Hydrogen Pilot Project was launched
when he held the energy post.
The secretary of last year's International
Hydrogen Conference in Moscow, A. V. Chuveliov,
has been working at the University of Hi ami 1 s
Clean Energy Research Institute since last October. And starting in January, he will spend
several months also the University of Hawaii's
Natural Energy Research Institute before returning
to his home institute, the I. V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in Moscow, next spring.
The Hydrogen Letter. Editor and Publ isher: Peter Hoffmann; Prod uction Manager, Sarah Briggs Hoffmann.
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Copyright 1989 Peter Hoffmann, all rights reserved . Reproduction of any material only with written permission of the publisher.