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Example research essay topic: Daimler Benz Fuel Cell - 2,486 words

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... ironically enough, oil refining. But hydrogen, like gasoline, must be manufactured: it bonds so easily with other elements that it doesn't exist naturally on Earth in pure form. The trouble is that while gasoline is sold in 200, 000 filling stations across the US, the hydrogen infrastructure is minuscule. The result is a chicken-and-egg dilemma: What manufacturers will market hydrogen-powered cars if hydrogen isn't available to drivers? What hydrogen producers will build more plants if hydrogen cars aren't on the road?

And without hydrogen fuel, who will buy hydrogen-powered cars? Hydrogen's problems don't end there. Though most experts believe that the element is at least no more dangerous than gasoline, the public perception, based on memories of hydrogen-bomb tests and accounts of the 1937 Hindenburg airship crash, is that it's extremely unsafe. More worrisome, hydrogen can't easily be stored in a car. If it's stored as a compressed gas using current technology, the amount required to provide the range equal to 15 gallons of gasoline takes up four times as much space and weighs twice as much as a filled gas tank. If it's liquefied, it must be kept below - 423 degrees Fahrenheit, just 36 degrees above absolute zero.

Both the safety and storage problems are considered surmountable, but they have discouraged some car manufacturers from embracing pure hydrogen fuel. A transitional solution may lie in fuel cells' flexibility: they can run on any hydrogen-rich fuel, including gasoline. Chrysler, in fact, is developing a "fuel-flexible" fuel cell engine that can run on a variety of fuels, from gasoline to hydrogen. The engine will include a reformer that can convert gasoline and other fuels to hydrogen, neatly bypassing hydrogen's infrastructure and storage problems. The trade-off is in efficiency and environmental benefits. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that a fuel cell car using gasoline would provide at best 1. 5 to 2. 3 times higher fuel economy than the same ICE car burning gasoline, while a fuel cell car running on hydrogen scores 2. 8 times the gasoline-powered car's performance.

Emissions of pollutants by fuel cell cars running on gasoline would drop substantially but would not equal the zero level of hydrogen-powered fuel cell cars. Chrysler's success may hinge on its ability to devise a gasoline reformer small and efficient enough to be placed inside a car. Sandy Thomas calls that job "an extraordinarily difficult technological challenge" comparable to installing a miniature oil refinery in a car to convert crude oil to gasoline. Daimler-Benz has opted for a middle path, choosing methanol as its fuel.

Methanol is usually produced from natural gas, but it can also be derived from feedstocks as diverse as coal and renewable plant material. Like gasoline, methanol requires an onboard reformer, but its fuel economy, 2. 5 times that of an ICE using gasoline, is higher, and its emissions are lower. Methanol's biggest advantage is that it's a liquid at room temperature, which means that it can be transported and handled much more easily than gaseous hydrogen. However, it, too, suffers from a small infrastructure.

Ford's fuel choice is the most daring and potentially most beneficial choice: hydrogen. Ford is banking on the validity of studies by Sandy Thomas and Joan Ogden, a Princeton researcher, suggesting that hydrogen's infrastructure problem could be solved by using excess refinery hydrogen and supplying filling stations with reformers capable of converting natural gas to hydrogen. These reformers probably would be much more cost effective than the ones Chrysler wants to install inside cars: they would not have to meet onboard miniaturization and durability requirements, and they could operate nearly constantly, serving all of the cars that patronize a given filling station. Once demand for hydrogen grows to a substantial level, hydrogen refiners presumably would be prepared to build additional plants. To cope with the hydrogen-storage problem, Ford has designed a car that is similar in performance and safety to a Taurus but with an aluminum body and other lightweight features. Weighing only 2, 000 pounds - compared to a Taurus's 3, 300 - Ford's car can travel farther on less fuel, meaning that less hydrogen needs to be stored onboard.

Ford's solution understandably has gained the support of some environmentalists, who fear that if Chrysler or Daimler-Benz succeeds, the incentive to move to fuel cells using hydrogen from renewable sources would disappear. Chris Borroni-Bird, an advanced-technology specialist at Chrysler, disagrees. "If you can commercialize fuel cells in theirs place by using gasoline, there will be an inexorable trend toward cleaning up the fuel, because that will improve vehicle performance. " From an environmental perspective, the best transitional fuel may be the one that leads most quickly to the use of fuel cells using hydrogen from sustainable sources. "No matter which fuel we use in the near term, we need to keep our eyes on the prize: that it's a renewable powered fuel cell vehicle that ultimately deals with transportation challenges, " says Jason Mark, a transportation analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "A gasoline fuel cell is at best a stepping-stone to something better. It's my hope that it becomes only a stepping-stone and not a roadblock. " Of course, a major innovation in the nascent field of fuel cell technology could upset these calculations. One possible example is the claim announced last December by researchers at Northeastern University in Boston. They say they used graphite nano fibers to increase current hydrogen storage capabilities by a factor of 10. If true, the discovery means that a car could travel 5, 000 miles on a single hydrogen cartridge; the empty cartridge could then be recharged or exchanged for a full one.

Since a filled cartridge could potentially be delivered to the driver, there would be no need to establish a hydrogen infrastructure, and the two greatest obstacles to use of hydrogen - lack of infrastructure and onboard storage problems - would be removed. However, many specialists are skeptical of the Northeastern claim, particularly since the researchers have not revealed enough information to allow outsiders to confirm their findings. "If it works, it's going to change everything, " says Robert H. Williams, a senior scientist at Princeton. "We don't know if it's going to pan out, but I think it shows that if we take hydrogen seriously, there are all kinds of surprises in store for us. " Meanwhile, Ballard is providing fuel cells for all three kinds of engines - for Chrysler, Daimler-Benz, and Ford. Accordingly, Ballard is agnostic in the fuel dispute: its chief hope is that one of the strategies works, enabling the company to ride the technology's success to riches. To reinforce its position, Ballard has secured 91 patents, with another 104 pending; together, these patents cover 61 inventions. Ballard still faces competition from major US oil, electronics, and chemical companies - Exxon, ARCO, Allied Signal, Motorola, 3 M, and DuPont all have launched their own fuel cell-related programs.

Many of these companies investigated the technology in the 1960 s and 1970 s and gave up; now, with interest in fuel cells renewed by the Los Alamos discoveries and deepened environmental concerns, they have gotten back in. Last May, Delphi Energy & Engine Management Systems, a General Motors division, announced an alliance with Exxon and ARCO to develop an onboard-vehicle processor to extract hydrogen from fossil fuels such as gasoline and methanol. John Robbins, Exxon's program manager, declines to say whether the oil company foresees shifting from marketing fossil fuels to selling pure hydrogen if a transition to a hydrogen economy occurs, but Patrick Grimes, an energy consultant and former Exxon researcher, says, "The oil companies are in the fuel-providing business, and they " ll provide any fuel that enough people want to buy. " The biggest imponderable in the future of fuel cell vehicle technology may be its ultimate cost. A 1994 study prepared for the US Congress's Office of Technology Assessment estimated that these cars would cost $ 4, 000 to $ 7, 000 more than comparable ICE cars. Sandy Thomas believes that in early production runs, Ford's hydrogen-fueled cars will cost no more than $ 1, 500 to $ 2, 000 above their ICE equivalents. Paul Lancaster maintains that Ballard and Daimler-Benz together know how to design cars that will carry no premium at all.

Given the current unwillingness of car buyers to pay a higher sticker price for greater fuel economy and lower pollution, the projection by Ballard/Daimler-Benz may have to be correct if fuel cell-powered cars are to catch on. Lancaster believes that a combination of technological advances and economies of scale from mass production will make fuel cell engines competitive. For example, even though Ballard has already reduced the amount of platinum in its engines by 90 percent, Lancaster says the company is already testing another tenfold drop in the platinum load. Its researchers have also found significantly cheaper ways to produce the engine's membrane and the graphite plates surrounding the membrane, he says. If Ballard's projections are accurate, the expected financial benefits of owning a fuel cell car - lower maintenance costs because of the absence of moving parts and lack of need for oil changes and smog checks - will be a bonus.

Transforming the utilities market Just as environmental regulations stimulated fuel cell vehicle technology, deregulation is about to do the same thing for fuel cell power generation. Specifically, the impending deregulation in the electric-utility industry will create many opportunities for fuel cell power plants, which will reach market years before fuel cell cars. Recent legislation has ended utilities' monopolies in many respects, enabling consumers to buy electricity from remote providers. As a result, the established practice of building huge central power plants in anticipation of future demand, while reflecting their construction costs in current electric rates, may no longer work.

Instead of building large plants whose capacity will not be fully tapped for years, suppliers will probably find it cheaper to augment central electricity supplies with power from modular fuel cell units located near the point of consumption. These fuel cell generators, which emit no noise and only trace pollution, can be placed close to consumers without violating local noise and pollution ordinances. Deregulation will also prompt electrical "product ization": instead of having to rely on electricity from the grid, consumers will be offered varied qualities of electricity. In particular, users who now deal with grid outages will have access to the more reliable electricity supply of fuel cell generators. Though the cost per kilowatt of these generators is likely at first to be much higher than that of conventional power plants, their superior reliability and quality should attract many buyers, including an array of high tech manufacturers for whom dependable power is critical. International Fuel Cells's success in selling its generators seems to confirm this assumption: although the units's ubsidized price - $ 2, 000 per kilowatt - is substantially above the $ 500 -to-$ 1, 500 -per-kilowatt range of conventional power plants, IFC has sold 140 units and has received orders for 185 more.

Fuel cell manufacturers are counting on continued technological innovations and economies of scale to bring about huge price reductions in generators, just as in fuel cell cars. These next-generation generators may be particularly popular in developing nations, where capital for large conventional power plants is in short supply and debilitating air pollution is widespread. Joseph J. Room, the DOE's acting assistant energy secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, says, "Just as some countries are bypassing a nationwide system of telephone lines and leapfrogging to cellular, we " ll see countries bypass a nationwide system of big central-station power plants and extensive power lines and leapfrog directly to distributed power" provided by fuel cells. That, in turn, could alter political relationships, strengthening remote areas and weakening central authorities. "The market for stationary fuel cell applications is potentially bigger than the car market, " says Lancaster. Indeed, H Power, a Belleville, New Jersey, fuel cell manufacturer, estimates that sales of on-site fuel cell power generators will reach at least $ 2 billion by 2005.

To feed that market, Ballard is developing a 250 -kilowatt generator, big enough to power a small hotel or strip mall, that is slated for commercial sales around 2002. Energy Research Corporation of Danbury, Connecticut, plans to put a 2. 85 -megawatt fuel cell plant, which can power 1, 500 homes, on the market within a year or two after that. "Power plants are going to be just like furnaces, " says Joe Maceda of Power Technologies. "They " re going to be appliances. " One day you may be able to drive your fuel cell car during the day, then connect the car's engine to your house to provide heat and electricity at night. Alternatively, electricity generated by the engine could be fed to the grid in return for credit. Thanks to the fuel cell engine's efficiency and reliability, an asset that usually sits idle for all but an hour or two a day could become a steady income earner.

Even if this scenario doesn't become reality for several decades, the links between automotive and stationary fuel cells suggest a strong synergy. "The car industry and the stationary power industry are both so huge that if one of them adopts fuel cells, it will pull the other one into the market, " says Toyota's Bill Reinert. "It is probably too early to say that fuel cells will be a climax technology, but it sure seems like they will. " Building the Hydrogen Economy In April 1997, Daimler-Benz announced a US$ 295 million investment in fuel cell technologies. Toyota is spending an estimated $ 700 million a year to develop alternative-fuel cars. Last May, ARCO and Exxon announced a multimillion-dollar fuel cell-related research alliance with Delphi Energy & Engine Management Systems, a division of General Motors. These are just a few of the big players migrating toward the hydrogen economy. You may recognize some of the others... ExxonFordChryslerWestinghouseDuPontGeneral Motors Sandia NationalLaboratoriesToyotaTexacoDaimler-BenzLawren ce Livermore National Laboratory Rocky MountainInstituteRenault 3 MHondaSiemensNissanVolksw agen Jet PropulsionLaboratoryFluor Daniel Los Alamos NationalLaboratoryBMWPSA Peugeot Citron Schatz Energy Research CenterAlliedSignalMazdaMotorola VolvoARCOFire vs.

Water; Cool vs. Hot The traditional internal-combustion engine (ICE) runs on high-temperature explosions - fuel is burned, producing heat, which is then converted into energy. In contrast, most fuel cells rely on relatively cool electrochemical reactions: hydrogen feeds into the cell through channels on the flow field plates, and a platinum catalyst ionizes the gas, splitting each molecule into electrons and protons (hydrogen ions). The protons pass through a membrane to combine with oxygen on the other side, producing water.

The electrons, which cannot pass through the membrane, are channeled along an external route and harnessed to power an electric motor. The fuel cell process is two to three times more efficient than that of an ICE, and its only by-products are electricity, water, and a moderate amount Bibliography:


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Research essay sample on Daimler Benz Fuel Cell

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