Webchat: Larry Burns Discusses Hydrogen Technology
Larry Burns, who led R&D at GM for the last 11 years – the longest tenure since Charles Kettering – leaves GM after 40 years on Oct. 1. He is known for his vision of connected automobiles – cars that don’t crash – and a future that includes hydrogen fuel cells as a major source of renewable energy to drive transportation. Join him for a live webchat today at 3 p.m. EDT where he will share his perspective on several recent hydrogen developments, including Chevrolet’s Project Driveway passing 1 million miles of gas-free driving with no tailpipe pollution and the announcement in Germany of a partnership to build up to 1,000 hydrogen fueling stations by 2015.
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Mr. Burns,
With all due respect, I suppose you have some hard data to support this statement of yours:
“If you have an acre of biomass and you can make hydrogen or electricity or ethanol from this biomass, which will allow you to travel farther? Hydrogen will give you the greatest distance, followed by electricity and then ethanol. My point though is that all three can be made from the biomass, and this is great from an energy diversity and infrastructure investment perspective. Blending H2 with petroleum-based fuels is feasible and remains an interesting opportunity. Today, enormous amounts of hydrogen are used to make gasoline at refineries.”
Biomass as a renewable carbon neutral source of transportation energy is well understood, most of us understand it, and are OK with it.
Biomass to hydrogen more energy efficient than ethanol ?
Ethanol is a liquid fuel similar to gasoline. It’s easy and low cost converting infrastructure for it’s use if there is demand. (I’m Brazilian, and as GM, and you know ALL our service stations have E100 pumps, and ALL the 1/2 million/year GM/Chevrolet cars built here are FlexFuel ).
How on earth can you extract H2 from biomass, compress it, transport it, store it distribute it for less than what’s done with alcohol or the other standard liquid fuels ?
I would be glad if you or somebody else could enlighten us on this (with some hard data, please). I’m quite sure, if proven true, it could spark a lot of interest …
Any progress with on-board fuel reforming to feed the fuel cells GM reported to be evaluating some time ago ?
BTW, why don’t GM and you propose to your government a change from this fetishist E85 blend to the much more energy efficient hydrous ethanol [H]E100 as used in Brazil ?
It’s already proven (with millions of working vehicles, GM vehicles) that there is no problem in blending this same HE100 with gasoline, and it’s far more energy efficient than dehydrating the alcohol to unhydrous for blending an using [kind of drying ice cubes
].
Gasoline blending is needed for cold starts ? This can’t possibly be the problem… pre-heating the fuel in the common rails [as done by Bosch your OEM in some cars] is not such a high-tech.
Thank you, in advance.
Celso Starec,
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
BTW, why don’t GM and you propose to your government a change from this fetishist E85 blend to the much more energy efficient hydrous ethanol [H]E100 as used in Brazil ?
Mr. Burns,
Ceslo does make a rather good point. 20% of the energy our ethanol stills use is getting that last 5% of water out of the alcohol ~ i.e. moving it from the hydrous to the anhydrous phase.
That means engines that can burn hydrous alcohol automatically offer at least a 20% energy savings, just in the process step.
What is GM’s position on using hydrous ethyl alcohol in the U.S?
Ethan,
I am paying twice the price for my daily bread because of this new ethanol alcohol fuel. How much more do you think I am willing to pay for bread before I embark upon a reality scare campaign about carbon based fuel? In Canada, it is a real possibility since we already force cigarette companies to display real black human lungs of cigarette smokers on cigarette packages half the size of the package itself, along with words that smoking causes cancer and other harms. Today, those cigarettes in Canada are out of site and behind closed doors in stores because it is the law. Government health care costs are high because of carbon based fuel and inhalation of carbon monoxide and other toxins, along with an ignorant lack of education.
Making carbon based fuel from farming byproduct cesspools and kindling forest floor wood is an answer to clean up the farm and forests but not fuel the entire nation with high priced farming and carbon toxins, which increase health care costs and lower the quality of living. Lawsuits? The truth is there.
Mr. Slavko,
“I am paying twice the price for my daily bread because of this new ethanol alcohol fuel.”
You’re probably wrong about it, and one more victim of this shameful FUD (Fear Uncertainty & Doubt) campaign. How did you get to this conclusion ?
There is no such a thing as an “evil ethanol” promoting hunger, or “doubling bread price”.
].
[Unless OPEC owns the bakery and wants to make a fool out of you
BTW, there is no sugar cane on the Amazon basin either. Same FUD.
(Some psychopathic figures never, ever feel ashamed!)
There is no need to be angry, double check it and you’ll see.
CelsoS,
The night Peter Mansbridge, from Canada’s CBC The National, interviewed Fritz Henderson a few months ago he (Mansbridge) read the news that evening that the price of Canadian bread and wheat went up because of the demand for ethanol fuel, and I assume the price of diesel to transport it (however the price of diesel went way down but the price of bread stayed the same). I’ll see if I still have the video on DVD, I might have erased it though. Using today’s fuel pump price & the price of bread ratio will tell me that the transportation of wheat and its fuel surcharge, by the transportation companies, would have went down. Therefore, as a consumer of bread, I would be compelled to believe the CBC news report that the price of bread went up, and stayed up, because of the high demand for ethanol fuel, which lead farmers favoring one grain over the other for profit, as reported.
This summer I saw wheat and alfalfa being grown in the same field at the same time. Let’s hope that’ll fix the price. You can run over alfalfa with a wheat combine and the alfalfa will continue to grow after the wheat has been harvested. A little bit of farm humor is good for a rainy day.
CelsoS,
I viewed his answer different than you viewed his answer because you are probably fixated on biomass in current use. If the topic is which fuel will make your car travel farther down the road from the available energy in a given one acre of land, or even an acre of cattle-farm-waste-algae-cesspool-pond, then his order of answers (hydrogen, electricity and then ethanol) is probably correct since GM rates alternative fuel vehicles by its efficiencies.
GM makes money from sales. The uneducated consumer is concerned with the greatest amount of travel for the least amount of money. Energy supply and development is another subject, which I think hydrogen continues to be one of the top answers along with hydro-electricity. Maybe Larry Burns factored energy development into his answer as well. How many people have an acre of land in their backyard to make enough biomass in comparison to the few square yards necessary, not including rooftops, to make hydrogen and electricity?
Remember his answer to one of the questions about education and its ambiguity? Perhaps that has something to do with peoples’ perception of his answers.
Slavko,
“…If the topic is which fuel will make your car travel farther down the road from the available energy in a given one acre of land,…”
“…Energy supply and development is another subject, which I think hydrogen continues to be one of the top answers along with hydro-electricity. Maybe Larry Burns factored energy development into his answer as well….”
I do agree with you that Mr. Burns and GM are probably factoring out the energy development problem, as it’s not really GM’s business. Efficiency can mean a lot of things if not well defined.
Many people make some plausible critics about H2 use to convey the energy needed to both an ICE engine or to a Fuel-Cell+electrical motor.
All this business around H2 depends upon huge investments, that will only come if the relative merits of this technology, both attained and expected in the future, are better than the competing ones. It has to be a sound solution.
Where has it been proven ? (Not GM’s fuel cell, but the process to create, store and deliver economically this “fuel”). Some call it a hoax. If demonstrated beyond doubt …
Even though it’s not GM job to develop the energy source, I’m sure they are not guessing but thoroughly assessing the technology and it’s potential. I don’t see hard compelling numbers, though. Is it just a dream ?
Converting/reforming natural (fossil) gas into H2 does not seem to be a real answer, could by time as CNG, GLP, etc. Reforming on-board ? Is it worth the effort ? If so, reforming what ?
“How many people have an acre of land in their backyard to make enough biomass in comparison to the few square yards necessary, not including rooftops, to make hydrogen and electricity?”
Using H2 as a battery (Solar Cells at the roof producing and storing H2) is already proven and used somewhere ? Do you have a link to the study/demonstration ?
CelsoS,
When I said “not including rooftops” I was trying to steer towards the wind turbine and machinery below it, but solar panels are a bonus because there will always be some light during the day.
I do not have a link to the study or demonstration you are referring to. If you like you can go ahead and provide one.
CelseS,
Mr Burns didn’t say it would be cheaper, he said it would be more efficient (ie, you’d go further using hydrogen). You are probably right that ethanol is cheaper, but if all we’re worried about is cost, then lets just stay with gasoline. Mr. Burn’s argument is that it’s more efficient.
Tim,
I still don’t understand. How more efficient ? Are we comparing miles covered by fuel weight ?
If so, sure Hydrogen has to be a better choice. Just two of the lightest atoms can’t weight much.
But one have to keep in mind that this higher weight-density has a drawback of the extremely lower volume-density. H2 is a gas at normal temperatures, and has to be highly compressed to have a decent volume-density. That’s why Mr. Burns mentioned the 700bar pressure they came to.
Compressing that much, storing a highly compressed [explosive] gas in a secure way should cost a lot. And most materials are porous to H2. Comparing H2 with diesel, gasoline, ethanol, etc., one has to factor the special tank needed and it’s weight and risk.
How this H2 will be created ? Not by fossil methane I suppose. How much will it cost to generate H2, transport it, compress it ? Is this “well-to-wheel” being factored in this H2 efficiency ?
When we talk about ethanol, methanol, or butanol, they all could be transported in a similar way as is already done with gasoline. Methanol being highly toxic demands more care, but has 50% of the energy volume-density of gasoline, and “only demands” doubling of transport capacity…. Ethanol with 70% needs “only” ~30% more. They all have a similar transport method. How would it be done with H2 ?
Those are goals from 2005, what happened ?
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/news_cost_goal.html
————————
“You are probably right that ethanol is cheaper, but if all we’re worried about is cost, then lets just stay with gasoline.”
I’m not “only worried with costs”, but also with the ecological, economical and geopolitical aspects of the oil dependence. I’m not against oil either, I don’t think this is a question of faith. The Petroleum Age has been great for humanity, but there are problems and they need to be addressed.
Single sourcing energy from a fossil nonrenewable material is not sustainable. “Peak Oil” or not, oil is increasingly costly and the related economical and ecological imbalances increasingly problematic. Only renewable sources can correct ecological imbalances using resources in a nearly closed loop. Nuclear option may be an answer but not directly useful for the general purpose transportation we are used to.
Departing from a secular solution of heat engines based on fossil fuel requires a lot of capital, investment, research, and is not business as usual for any economy, including that of the USA. It won’t happen abruptly in a short time. Action is needed, and the first step is to research alternatives, and make a POC (Proof Of Concept) out of the most promising options. The mapped contenders are alternative and/or renewable fuels, electrification and H2.
(There is a good presentation: “Fuels of the Future for Cars and Trucks”
http://www.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/deer_2002/session1/2002_deer_eberhardt.pdf
)
No one will invest heavily (changing all the economy) without some kind of certainty they are on the right direction. This will be a group movement, and needs public policy.
GM is doing what is expected from them, and as far as I know, they delivered it and deserve the due credit. They have developed all the meaningful options in the research and POC phases.
They have an electrification platforms with serial hybrid: the VOLT, which will be integrated with a ICE for extended range at first. It could later be integrated with a small fuel cell in place of the ICE, and may be some of the batteries, and you have an H2 vehicle. They have parallel hybrid for buses and vans and suvs (”Two Mode Hybrid’). They have the Flex-Fuel technology that could burn any hydrocarbon or alcohol. They are even investing ins Mascoma and Coskata to have a POC on second generation cellulose-based industrial scale renewable ethanol generation.
Even though most of the public dreams of a single bullet miraculous solution, it won’t come this way. This flexible strategy is correct, and if further development changes the relative merits of those pieces of technology they can adapt and bring transportation solutions to the market. There are many research areas that are really far away of an automotive core competence. Battery technology and it’s chemistry, advanced materials, biotechnology are just a few.
Ethanol seems convenient. Very low toxicity. It will cost less than butanol (C4H9OH), that can be directly used in a gasoline engine with no adaptation. Can be profitably made from a lot of renewable biomass, from all different places of the world. Can sustain a rural economy and decentralize production and income.
(I’m no expert, but methanol does, indeed, seam to bring a health hazard which may turn out a big problem. It is absorbed from skin, lung, etc. and if drunk “It is toxic: drinking 10 ml will cause blindness, and as little as 100 ml will cause death”. Is kind of scary for general usage. In industry, with assured proper care, it’s ok.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ershdb/EmergencyResponseCard_29750029.html
)
I’m sure there is a need to oversee that ALL economic activities do not harm the environment, or enslave people, etc. and are sustainable and human. Well thought regulations that address matters of public interest and create the environment for healthy competition, with a level playing field and no externalities (as in “The Corporation”) will get the job of changing the economy done.
Ethanol can use the same infrastructure we’re used to and requires small capital investment to coexist with gasoline, while greening the CO2 emissions and competing in cost with Oil producers that will have less incentive to drive prices sky high. Works as an insurance also. Most (or all) cars should be flex-fuel, including AE100 and HE100 in the supported mix, by policy, in a short time. That’s energy security.
That’s why I think, that in the context, ethanol is the right energy carrier for general purpose light duty vehicles. And also, that HE100 would be a far better choice for the commodity standard, it will cost less, be less harmful than E85 (if spilled for instance), with no implicit market reserve for oil (never mind they’ll keep very profitable for a long time). The cost of changing from HE100 to anhydrous should only be incurred when needed, and it’s not needed for use as a fuel or for in tank blending in an automobile. That’s what I said.
3:01 ~ [Comment From Carney ] ~ Have you read Dr. Robert Zubrin’s book “Energy Victory”? It has trenchant criticism of hydrogen as being permanently impractical.
3:03 ~ Larry Burns: Just curious? When was Dr, Zubrin last in a state-of-the-art fuel cell development laboratory? And when did he last drive a fuel cell electric vehicle?
___________________________________________________________
Mr. Burns,
Respectfully, making a car that uses hydrogen is the easy part. The long pole in the tent is the fact that nearly all the hydrogen on earth is already bound to other elements making chemical compounds such as water, methane, alcohols, etc. and it will always take more energy to break those compounds apart than you can get back burning the hydrogen.
~ Instead of using large amounts of energy to separate hydrogen from natural gas (methane) why not just devote your research to a fuel cell than can use methane directly? (As early as the 1950’s Allis-Chalmers was working on a propane fuel cell. Why don;t you run with that?)
~ Instead of using electricity to crack apart water molecules to strip out the hydrogen, why not just get better at using electricity directly? (I do know you are working on this.)
~ Since we have vast reserves of coal that can rather easily be converted into methanol, why not devote research to a methanol fuel cell? (You said you were concerned about the toxicity of methanol. Methanol is toxic, but no more so than the gasoline we’ve been using for more than a hundred years. Drink a liter of gasoline and you’ll be just as dead as if you drank a liter of methanol.)
Hydrogen certainly is a good fuel — that’s why the Saturn rocket that launched Apollo towards the Moon used hydrogen as rocket fuel — but how do you get around the huge energy demands of stripping hydrogen from the other elements it is bound to? (That was hardly a concern for Apollo. When you’re headed for the moon, you don’t care how much energy it takes to separate hydrogen form natural gas or water. But for the daily commutes of millions of people, it is a concern.)
Ethan,
The first electricity power plant created by Nikola Tesla is from free kinetic energy from the Niagara River. The water is going to fall anyways so let’s make use for it. There is other free forms of energy. Yesterday the Canadian Prime Minister announced in New York City that Canada will be a super-power in clean energy.
The first electricity power plant created by Nikola Tesla is from free kinetic energy from the Niagara River.
Slavko,
That’s all well and good if you live in upstate New York or Ontario. Certainly, take advantage of hydropower where the opportunity presents. But that doesn’t work so well if you live in Nebraska, or Kansas, or Florida.
Ethan,
Well said. It’s western New York to be exact, since they are proud to be the first in clean and safe electricity.
There are many area’s in Canada’s crown land (aboriginal land) that have potential for hydro-electricity, but is way to far to transport it via power lines (energy loss due to distance). Thus, using that electricity on the spot to make hydrogen would be viable since hydrogen can be stored and transported. Perhaps even a hydrogen pipe line would be best. No doubt something of this magnitude would require it to be a government company (crown corporation).
Just for the record, the Saturn V first stage used kerosene (RP-1) for fuel. RP-1 has significantly more power than liquid hydrogen by volume.
Thanks Don. Good catch. Only the second and third stages used liquid hydrogen.
Godspeed my friend
Methanol has some attractive features but we are concerned about safety due to its toxicity.
Mr. Burns,
It’s toxic, but so are many things. I just went into my garage and looked at the bottle of windshield washer/deicer fluid sitting on a shelf. Guess what the primary ingredient is? Methanol
I can already go into any big box store and buy gallon bottles of the stuff and store it in my garage. People handle it all the time and we don’t read about a plague of methanol poisonings.
I’m guessing that most of the new cars you sell already contain some methanol in the windshield washer reservoir under the hood. So can you be a bit more specific about your objection to methanol?
It seems to me a methanol fuel cell would be a very attractive option when compared to all the well-documented drawbacks of a building a hydrogen infrastructure. Are you doing any research on methanol fuel cells?
One of the best ways of storing and transporting hydrogen atoms is to attach them to hydrogen and carbon atoms to make methanol. Methanol is much easier to transport and store than hydrogen in any of its phases, and is capable of carrying more energy per unit of volume.
Langdon,
When you burn carbon based fuel, such as your methanol, you will create carbon monoxide gas. You can put a catalytic converter in the exhaust pipe to bring the levels down but not completely, and that only works once the engine and catalytic is heated up to its “operating” temperature. When I deice the vehicle in the winter I am inhaling carbon monoxide which my body chokes me instantly because I was poisoned from diesel fume exhaust and blow-by fumes as a truck driver.
Zero emissions is the answer. Hydrogen and electricity is the answer.
Do you know why the human nose classifies different smells as good or bad?
When you burn carbon based fuel, such as your methanol…
Slavko,
I’m advocating a methanol fuel cell. Fuel cells don’t “burn” their fuel — whether powered by hydrogen or methanol, they directly convert chemical energy into electrical energy.
The simple truth is that methanol offers a better course to using fuel cell technology. Methanol doesn’t require the expensive and daunting infrastructure that hydrogen would require, and is an excellent carrier of energy.
Langdon,
I agree methanol fuel cells is a better alternative to combusting methanol for energy. Farmers could make their own methanol and use it to power their barns, stables and home.
Regarding your hydrogen comment:
Press the “Ctrl” key and “F” key on your keyboard and then type “September 21, 2009 at 10:40 am”, you will see the comment I made to Ethan about hydrogen production. Massive hydrogen production is plausible in many parts of our continent.
I made this comment with the assumption that farmers in Nebraska have forests on their land like the farmers in Ontario.
the assumption that farmers in Nebraska have forests on their land like the farmers in Ontario.
Not a good assumption Slavko. Very little forest land in Nebraska. The eastern one-third is mostly miles and miles of corn fields and soy, and as one goes further west, it gets drier and drier with rising elevation and the western two-thirds tends towards open prairie. The state also has a large area of sandhills in the north central part of the state.
Nebraska is more like the Saskatchewan prairie than the eastern forests of Ontario.
Langdon,
Not everyone is so negative (or timid) about methanol as is Larry Burns. Methanol fuel cell startup eyes hybrid market
A fast-growing Silicon Valley start-up firm is aiming to put its methanol-based fuel cells in electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid cars. Oorja Protonics, which sells its fuel cells to Nissan Motor Co, is working to have a product that can be used as a range-extender in pure electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles, Chief Executive Sanjiv Malhotra said in an interview on Friday.
Apparently Nissan is already using methanol fuel cells in place of batteries to power the forklifts and tugs in their Smyrna, TN assembly plant.
It seems to me that GM’s R&D people shoudl already be looking at a version of the Volt powered with a methanol fuel cell instead of a Li-ion battery.
…
” I’m no expert, but methanol does, indeed, seam to bring a health hazard which may turn out a big problem. It is absorbed from skin, lung, etc. and if drunk “It is toxic: drinking 10 ml will cause blindness, and as little as 100 ml will cause death”. Is kind of scary for general usage. In industry, with assured proper care, it’s ok.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/ershdb/EmergencyResponseCard_29750029.html
“
Is kind of scary for general usage.
CelsoS,
It’s already in general use. Went to an auto supply store this weekend, and in every brand of windshield washer fluid I saw for sale, methyl alcohol (methanol) is the main ingredient.
As I said above, I have a big plastic bottle of windshield washer fluid in my garage, and it’s made of methanol. As far back as I can remember I’ve kept a bottle of washer fluid (methanol) in my garage and no one has been poisoned yet.
Celso,
If one were to read the chemical description of gasoline and learn of it’s toxicity and flammability without knowing it was already in widespread-use, most reasonable, safety-minded people would be equally appalled at the idea of ordinary people using billions of gallons each year.
In fact, gasoline is so potentially dangerous, that had there been an EPA 120 years ago, they probably wouldn’t have allowed us to use it as a transportation fuel.
Mr. Burns,
A company already making a commercial methanol fuel cell: Oorja designs and manufactures the most powerful and advanced direct methanol fuel cells that provide battery charging for forklifts, pallet loaders, automated guided vehicles and other material handling equipment.
If they are making methanol fuel cells that can power a heavy forklift, can cars using methanol fuel cells be far behind?
In regards to the toxicity of methanol. He’s not talking about humans. He’s talking about it’s corrosive effects on softer metals. It eats the oxide coating of most soft metals.
He’s talking about it’s corrosive effects on softer metals. It eats the oxide coating of most soft metals.
No more so than ethanol. Making a flexfuel car that can burn methanol is no more difficult than making an FF car that can burn ethanol.
In fact, California had a methanol program before they had an ethanol program. Technically, it was successful, but for the fact that in the 1990’s, gasoline was always less expensive, so there was litle incentive for drivers to switch. Methanol Tramsportation Fuels ~ A Look Back and a Look Forward
Actually Ethanol (straight grain alcohol) is not corrosive to softer metals. The only metal it affects is iron.
Methanol could make sense in theory, but as Dr. Burns says, it is toxic. While technically this should not be a problem, from a practical standpoint, it might be. It is also about twice as bulky compared with gasoline and is somewhat harder to burn cleanly.
Hydrogen, on the other hand, makes little sense compared with Methane, even renewable methane. Any free H2 (if available) can be readily combined with CO2 to produce methane, via the Sabatier reaction. Methane is 3X denser energetically than hydrogen with respect to storage. It has an existing national infrastructure already in place (our Natural Gas pipelines; NG is over 90% methane). It can be readily burned in existing ICE technology, including diesel engines and turbines.
The one alleged benefit of hydrogen is the higher efficiency that could be achieved with fuel cells (in theory). But I think there are practical limits on this. All fuel cells (being surface reactive technology) lose efficiency at higher currents. So fuel cells are only highly efficient during low draws, where battery technology could do just as well, and allow for regenerative braking as well.
I think GM lost its way w.r.t. fuel cells because it was a complete answer in that no CO2 at all came out of the vehicle tail pipe. But the problem is that that costs and practicality of achieving this is too high to make sense economically. Renewable methane (with CO2 coming from biomass source) achieves the same thing (no net CO2 emissions) but at MUCH lower cost and with existing technology.
In the future Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) can achieve the same efficiencies as H2 fuel cells with methane and other hydrocarbons.
Jim,
Gasoline is also toxic, and that hasn’t stopped us from using that. If Dr. Burns had been alive 120 years ago, his concern about toxicity would have no doubt kept us from using gasoline. Gasoline is both toxic and dangerous, and we long ago overcame any reservations about using it.
As I said above, every car coming out of a GM assembly plant already has a reservoir of windshield washer fluid in which the prime component is methyl alcohol (methanol). Larry Burns’ concerns about methanol toxicity hasn’t stopped that.
In my opinion, developing fuel cells for cars that use methanol instead of hydrogen would be a much more prudent course of action. It’s technically possible (they already exist for other applications) and the infrastructure needed to move methanol around the country would be much less daunting and less expensive that what will be required for hydrogen.
Ethan,
You didn’t mention that gasoline also contains several known human carcinogens ~ among them benzene, butadiene, tolulene, xylene, hexane, and napthalene; Methanol is toxic, as is gasoline and other liquid fuels, but methanol is not a carcinogen.
Considering the flammability and explosive potential of gasoline, coupled with the known carcinogens it contains, methanol seems mild in comparison.
Someone above mentioned that had there been an EPA 120 years ago, they would have never sanctioned the use of gasoline. I think that is probably correct.
Not sure why Larry Burns assumes the toxicity of methanol is such a roadblock to progress. Methanol presents a much lower hazard than gasoline.
Good question. Does methanol become airborne quicker than gasoline when exposed to air while fueling a tank?
The aspect of the current Ethanol blend of 10% causing excessive alcohol based corrosion in non-flex fuel systems seems to be overlooked. And talk of upping the ratio could be disastrous for consumers.
Carburetor jets become blocked within months, as opposed to years with straight gasoline. I’m not sure of the statistics on fuel injectors, but I have a feeling the numbers are significant.
I end up selling more disiel injectors then gas injectors. At almost 10 to 1 ratio.
Carburetor jets become blocked within months, as opposed to years with straight gasoline.
Alex,
What cars still use carburetors?
Classic cars, trucks built into the 90s, motorcycles, watercraft, construction and maintenance equipment, etc. Not everybody drives a new car.
Alex,
The aspect of the current Ethanol blend of 10% causing excessive alcohol based corrosion in non-flex fuel systems seems to be overlooked.
We had some experience back in the 80’s when E100 was adopted and the level of ethanol on our gas was raised. (Now, by law, gas has from 22 to 25% of anhydrous ethanol in Brazil). I don’t know if it’s on some manufacturer FAQ, so I’ll report it here.
It turned out that most of the irritating problems were not caused by metal corrosion, but by rubber decomposition. Old car engines had paper filters before the mechanical pump, and rubber hoses. Both the pump element will decompose and liberate small grains of rubber that end up in the idling metering holes (”gigleurs”).
Hoses and pumps after the filter should be alcohol compatible. Low tech, easy and cheap, once known. Every vehicle (and it’s parts) made to support gasohol (E10) as in the las 20-30 years should be able to handle this.
And talk of upping the ratio could be disastrous for consumers.
Disastrous ? Don’t you think it’s just a bit out of proportion ? Engines need some regular maintenance. 30 years is a lot of time.
Carburetor jets become blocked within months, as opposed to years with straight gasoline. I’m not sure of the statistics on fuel injectors, but I have a feeling the numbers are significant.
Main jets are too big to get blocked. Idling jet get blocked with this small nearly invisible rubber dirt from bad quality (no alcohol compatible hoses and pump elements). At your regular maintenance, just have a E85/E100 filter after the pump, as well as new and E85/E100 compatible hose after the filter. Or as it’s so cheap change all the fuel hoses to good new ones.
Don’t worry too much, once the ethanol cleans your system it will be ok, as with gas.
Just keep in mind Carburetors wont adapt to changing fuel types automatically. 87-92 grade, E10, E20… will use a slightly different idle tuning.
Those are really minor problems compared to whole new technologies now under evaluation.
Action is needed, and ethanol is one of the most straightforward, simple and cheap solutions available.
Hope it helps you.
Through long-term experience with off-road motorcycles, associates and I are now experiencing alcohol induced metallic corrosion (not rubber breakdown), enough to clog main jets within 6 months.
Where as the same carburetor could have gone years without a problem.
The E10 blend also eats away at the internal coating of steel fuel tanks. This may not be as large an issue with late model cars. But the problem certainly does exist.
I don’t see how increasing ethanol content in retail fuel will not have an effect (metallic and rubber) on non-flex fuel vehicles in the future. Again, not everybody drives a new car.
Thank you, Dr. Burns, for your leadership over the years. Your advice that we need to be thinking in terms of “and” not “or” makes the most sense to me. Why waste our time trying to eliminate possible solutions?
Hydrogen has its strengths, as does biomass and we are seeing a lot about methanol on this thread. Some people talk about ammonia too (Google “Ammonia Fuel Network) and it does have some interesting qualities, including containing more hydrogen per volume than liquid hydrogen.
Though a bit expensive at first, costs for hydrogen energy and supporting technology will go down over time, following a similar pattern to personal computers. In fact, the time we are experiencing now in the alternative energy world is similar, in many ways, to the time just before IBM came out with their PC and galvanized, for better or worse, the personal computer world into a clear direction in about 1980. Perhaps some investment in a new directions, with some new infrastructure, would bring us a return of jobs at home, a cleaner world, and an adaptable energy mix we’ll need to power keep our economy humming. We’re probably going to have to pay a bit more for energy as we have been enjoying relatively cheap energy for quite a while.
Having just given some extra measure of potential, in my thinking, to hydrogen, let’s keep exploring all our options and not give in to a patty cake game of which one is the only one we should be thinking about. Eventually, it will become clear what one thing or combination of things we need to focus on. But, in this early time, as we seek alternatives to end our dependence on fossil fuels and we realize we need to stop emitting carbon, let’s carefully explore every potentially viable option before we start choosing one. In any case, one thing is for sure, we know that “the stone age didn’t end because they ran out of stones…”
Dr. Burns, I appreciate your comments and others in relation to an overall scheme for transportation. Myself and my colleagues are engaged specifically in the hydrolysis of Dirty water, aka, sources such as Sewage treatment facilities, oil field brine water, and Desalination plant waste water. (Please note – methane is also a possible source of hydrogen in the sewage treatment facilities.)
In this process, hydrogen and chlorine are generated plus dangerous salts are reduced to inert materials. Wind or Solar power is typically used and dependency on a smart grid for transmission purposes is not an absolute necessity. Additional stages such as using the hydrogen for on demand electrical power (or using the power directly from the solar or wind field) provides additional economic return and also produces clean water during the regeneration process along with waste heat which can be used in all three of the dirty water areas listed above.
I would like to know more about establishing hydrogen fueling stations in combination with the dirty water sites, actual specifications that need to be met and who to contact about realistically obtaining the hydrogen vehicles being offered. In many cases, the lease programs for GM and others do not cover the areas that these facilities are being established in.
Best regards,
John
Hydrogen may be the future but flex fuel, hybrid and electric are the present.
IS GM going to LEAD ???? Follow……… or get out of the way…..
From the article below it sounds like GM is a day late and a dollar short………
Here is an article about Nissan.
Electric Transportation Engineering Corp. this week finalized a deal with the U.S. Department of Energy to begin developing and installing a charging network for electric vehicles across five states, including Oregon.
The Phoenix company, a subsidiary of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based ECOtality Inc., is rolling out more than 11,000 charging stations in five states — Oregon, Arizona, Tennessee, Washington and California — using $99.8 million in federal funds.
The project is in partnership with Nissan North America, which will deploy 4,700 of its all-electric Leaf vehicles which are scheduled for release in fall 2010.
As part of the project, Oregon expects to receive just under 1,000 of the Nissan vehicles and around 2,000 charging stations, centered around Portland, Eugene, Salem and Corvallis.
Pacific Business News
How many worldwide stores does gm have???????