Converting to the Hydrogen Economy Using Fuel Cells

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Designing & Building
Fuel Cells
by Colleen Spiegel
(Founder of Clean Fuel
Cell Energy)

Converting to the Hydrogen Economy (Colleen Spiegel)

Yes, we can convert to a hydrogen economy. Don't roll your eyes
at me. It's true. A total conversion to a hydrogen economy is
possible in the near future. How is that (you may ask)? Well, we
need an interim solution. I'm sure most of you already know how
fuel cells work, but for those who don't, let me explain very
quickly…

There are many types of fuel cells, but the most common one is
called a proton exchange membrane or PEM fuel cell. This type of
fuel cell usually uses hydrogen, but other fuel types can also be
used (such as methanol, ethanol etc). When methanol or ethanol
is used, the name of the fuel cell changes to “direct methanol fuel
cell” or “direct ethanol fuel cell”. Now, hydrogen is fed into the fuel
cell, and a platinum/carbon catalyst breaks the hydrogen into
protons and electrons. Since protons and electrons are charged
species, they cannot exist for very long in nature because they are
unstable. Everything in nature moves toward neutralization or a
balance of energies. For example, if something is very hot in
nature, the heat is distributed to its surroundings, and eventually
the temperature of the very hot object equals the temperature of
the environment. In the case of ions, positively and negatively
charged molecules cannot survive for very long without combining
with another molecule to make it more stable. Now let's get back
to the discussion at hand -- so in the fuel cell, the hydrogen is
broken into protons and electrons. Normally protons and electrons
would not be able to stay in the ionic form very long, but because
the platinum/carbon catalyst layer is connected to the persulfonic
acid membrane layer, the hydrogen protons are able to travel
through the membrane to the cathode side of the fuel cell. In the
meantime, the electrons are attracted to the hydrogen flow field
plate, which is also pressed against the fuel cell layer and is highly
conductive. The electrons are then drawn from the fuel cell
catalyst layer to power the load. The protons that traveled over to
the cathode through the membrane then combine with oxygen
coming into the fuel cell and create water. Interesting stuff, huh?

Okay Colleen, how a fuel cell works is interesting, but how are we
going to convert over to the hydrogen economy? Well, first I had
to explain how the hydrogen is actually used -- and now I will get
into how our current economy can be converted into a hydrogen
one. So, do you know where hydrogen currently comes from?
There is a lot of information out there on how fuel cells work, the
benefits of fuel cells, and how we would be much better off using
them. But, rarely do these articles get into the sticky situation of
discussing where the hydrogen comes from. Well, as many of you
probably know, hydrogen is not available on this planet in a purely
gaseous form. It's found everywhere in nature, but it is combined
with other elements to form other types of molecules. Therefore,
the hydrogen has to be manufactured. Many of you will not like to
hear this (and I even cringe at saying it), but most of the hydrogen
gas currently produced is created from petroleum-based fuels.
Aha (you say)! I knew there was a catch to this! Okay, okay, okay
I admit -- it does seem to be a sticky situation. But, at least we
currently have a way that hydrogen is manufactured. At first
glance it seems like this may not be any better than our current
solution -- but it is. The reason why this is a better solution is
because hydrogen can be manufactured using many different
methods. The interim solution for converting to a hydrogen
economy would be to use petroleum-based fuels and coal. Now
you're probably thinking -- this person must be totally out of
whack! Well, speaking from an engineer's perspective, coal is not
that bad of an interim solution. There are many reasons why I say
this:

1.        Experts estimate that there is only 30 years of petroleum-
based fuels left on this planet.
2.        In the United States alone, it is estimated that we have 300
years of fuel from coal that can be utilized.
3.        Countries that tap into their coal resources can be more
independent, stronger and richer than countries that rely on
petroleum-based fuels.
4.        The Clean Coal Technologies program in the United States
(instituted in 1986), has commercialized numerous technologies
for preventing pollution caused by coal processing. Coal is no
longer the “dirty fuel” that it used to be.
5.        There are already numerous coal processing plants across
the United States and many parts of the world. In the United
States, half of the electricity is generated by coal. Therefore, new
plants may not need to be constructed. We can have plants that
generate electricity and hydrogen. A current project that's utilizing
this concept is the FutureGen project, which is funded by the
United States government and private industry.

Okay, you say “that's nice.” Why would we go through all this
trouble to generate hydrogen from petroleum-based fuels and
coal? Well, it's a good question. Our petroleum and coal
resources are limited. A much better solution for future
generations would be using pure hydrogen. So, you may ask,
what are the other manufacturing methods for producing
hydrogen? Well, there are many different fuels and methods that
can be used to produce hydrogen. Some of these include:

1.        Nuclear energy
2.        Biomass
3.        Biofuels
4.        Water electrolysis

Preliminary studies have shown that it is more expensive to use
hydrogen from petroleum-based fuels, coal, biomass and biofuels
because of the cost of producing hydrogen. The cost can be
decreased. Current estimates are based upon small quantities of
hydrogen produced. And there have not been many studies
conducted with biomass, biofuels or water electrolysis. The best
solution for hydrogen production is water electrolysis. You will not
hear about this much, because large corporations are a factor in
determining the outcome of the fuel cell industry. If they had their
way, we would only use fuel cells that are gasoline-fed or all of the
hydrogen would be generated from petroleum-based fuels. But
there are better solutions.

Now let's get back to creating the hydrogen economy. Okay, so
you say that there are many ways to produce hydrogen? Yes.
Okay, so how does this translate into a hydrogen economy? I've
heard that the cost to change the current infrastructure to
hydrogen would be so tremendous that it wouldn't even be worth
doing. I'm not going to lie to you -- it will be costly to change the
infrastructure. But, we'll have to do it at some point. There are
many countries that are racing to get to this point sooner rather
than later. For example, Japan has the tightest timeline to convert
to a hydrogen economy. Their goal is to have a hydrogen
economy in place by the year 2020. This is definitely within all of
our lifetimes. So, additional factors to think about are hydrogen
storage and transport. There are many types of hydrogen storage
that are already used, and can be cheaply manufactured if mass-
produced. The transport may be more of a challenge. One
solution is to have many plants (as mentioned earlier) that
produce electricity and hydrogen all over the country, therefore,
making the transport costs low. Perhaps the best option, (or the
one this author favors the most), is using solar panels to break
water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then directly feeding the
hydrogen into the fuel cell. There are a few hydrogen gas stations
in California that utilize this concept. The solar panels are actually
built onto the gas station roof to supply hydrogen to the pumps.
Imagine using this concept by having solar panels on everyone's
house or car to generate all of electricity required! There are
numerous ways that hydrogen can be generated, and there are
countless configurations for hydrogen storage and use.

Yes, the transition from a petroleum-based to a hydrogen-based
economy will be expensive, but what's more costly in the long run?
Isn't it more costly to use petroleum-based fuels whose resources
are limited, to be a slave to the rising gas prices, to be dependent
on other countries for fuel, and spend billions of dollars for wars
that are most likely due (on some level) to our dependence on
petroleum? What is actually more costly?

Colleen Spiegel is the founder of Clean Fuel Cell Energy LLC, and
the author of “Designing and Building Fuel Cells” (McGraw-Hill).
Visit Clean Fuel Cell Energy frequently for more updates and
current fuel cell products.