E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Thursday, April 24, 2003
LANL Races to Harness Hydrogen as Fuel
By Adam Rankin
Journal Staff Writer
SANTA FE — Sixty years ago, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists unleashed the power of atomic energy with the development of the first nuclear bomb. Today, LANL scientists are quietly providing some of the key technological breakthroughs for a new kind of energy based on hydrogen fuel cells.
With the technical expertise of the state's national labs and the potential for a renewable energy whose only byproduct is water, Gov. Bill Richardson is looking to position New Mexico at the forefront of a new hydrogen-based economy.
"The governor is real interested in the state getting out in front with this technology," said Pahl Shipley, a spokesman for the state's Economic Development Department. "If we could create an industry cluster based on that technology, it has tremendous possibilities for economic development."
Experts in hydrogen fuel cell research, including LANL scientists, are meeting here this week with representatives from General Motors, Ford and the energy industry to discuss specific steps necessary to make a hydrogen-based economy a reality and how to do it in New Mexico.
Energy freedom
President Bush is looking to hydrogen as a means to achieve energy independence and energy security for the nation. In his last State of the Union address, he proposed a $1.7 billion initiative to fund hydrogen fuel cell research over the next five years.
The president's goal is to eliminate U.S. dependence on foreign oil by 2040. Right now, the country imports about 11 million barrels of oil a day, which is about 60 percent of the nation's daily consumption.
This week's workshop is part of the state's own hydrogen initiative, called HyTeP, for Hydrogen Technology Partnership, which is an alliance of industry, business, research laboratories, universities and government to develop hydrogen fuel cell technologies and to promote its economic development.
A powerful fuel
Hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe and the source of the sun's power, happens to have the highest energy output of any known fuel, and its only waste product is water.
Problematic is the fact that there is no naturally occurring free hydrogen on Earth; it is always chemically bound to other elements in larger molecules, so energy is required to free it before it can be used to generate more energy.
At LANL
Thanks in large part to significant advances by LANL scientists over the last two decades in increasing hydrogen fuel cell efficiency, the initial energy cost to generate hydrogen is becoming less significant, making hydrogen initiatives feasible.
Ken Stroh, a scientist with LANL's hydrogen fuel cell research team, thinks hydrogen energy "could be a really big thing" because it has the potential to be pollution-free and fuel cells are two to three times as efficient as internal combustion engines.
Stroh explained that a fuel cell works like a regular battery in that it converts chemical energy into electrical energy, except that fuel cells can be refueled with more hydrogen, while batteries eventually have to be thrown away.
Appealing
What is so appealing about hydrogen fuel cells is that the technology is modular so it is completely scalable, he said. It is possible to create fuel cells small enough to power cell phones or large enough to power cities.
While fuel cells may be the future for powering automobiles in the next 20 to 40 years, scientists are still working on making the fuel cells small enough and efficient enough to power cars for between 350 and 400 miles per fueling. Stroh said he thinks hydrogen will be powering homes long before then.
"I think you'll be able to buy residential units within the next five years," he said.
About the size of a large dishwasher or small water heater, some hydrogen fuel cell prototypes already produce enough energy to power a house and can run on hydrogen separated from natural gas.
Until a hydrogen fuel infrastructure is built to replace the fossil fuel generating system already in place — which could cost as much as $9 trillion — Stroh said fossil fuels could serve as a bridge.
In the meantime, houses and automobiles would just require the additional step of processing fossil fuels to separate hydrogen.
With the help of the state and its alliance of industry, business and research institutions, Stroh said, there is a good chance fuel cell technology will survive to be a major economic driver and a clean source of renewable energy.
"We haven't found anything that tells us this couldn't be the answer," he said.