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hydrogen is the most abundantelement on earth. it really is nature's fuel. we're at a very interestingstage of development of this technology where it'snot quite ready for prime time time but it's gettingtantalizingly close fuel cell technologyis evolving, the technology isimproving constantly. we're competing in a marketthat we have to compete
with batteries and generators,and how do we do this? i think hydrogenhas great potential to becomeone of our primary fuels for the transportation industryin the future. i would much ratherdrive my fuel cell vehicle than my gasoline vehicle. fundingprovided by: the u.s.department of energy national energytechnology laboratory.
the energy &.environmental research center's national centerfor hydrogen technology. and the membersof prairie public. [bass &. drumsplay in bright rhythm] (female narrator)you've probably heardsomething about hydrogen. you may know hydrogencan be used to fuel cars. but did you know that hydrogenis used safely all around you every day? in data centers, warehouses,
golf courses,and even breweries. hydrogen is nature's fuel. it can be made where you want,when you want. imagine living in a worldwithout concerns about energy security or pollution.where you can get all the energy you needfrom domestic sources. imagine the world of fuel cells using safe, clean,abundant hydrogen. this is actually an electriccar, it's got
an electric motor in the frontthat drives the car forward. and it gets mostof its electricity from fuel cell system thatconverts hydrogen and oxygen from the air into electricityand water as a waste product. the concept of the fuel cell has been around for 150 yearsas a chemical principle. starting about the '60s thesedevices were made for space and over about last 15 yearsautomakers have been working very hard to developthe technology for automobiles
as a way of simultaneouslyreducing the use of oil, reducing air pollution and also reducing the releaseof greenhouse gases this type of fuel cell is called a pem fuel cell,proton exchange membrane. the way i like to explain it,it's like a sandwich where in the middle of the sandwich,the meat of the sandwich, if you will, you have a membranematerial, you have hydrogen on one side, and you haveplatinum as catalyst material.
that catalyst allowsthe hydrogen molecule to split apart into protonsand electrons. the protons go through themembrane, the electrons have to go around the membrane,and as those electrons are going around the membrane, theyare powering the electric motor. everything meets on the sidewith the oxygen and forms wateras the waste product. sometimes you'll hear it calleda fuel cell stack. it's a whole stackof these fuel cellsjust like you stack batteries
together in a flashlightto build up more voltage. in a car like this youmight have 400 fuel cells all stacked together togive you a few hundred volts. currently we producein the world over 50 million tons of hydrogen with about a fifth of that being consumedin the united states. that hydrogen is being usedprimarily as a feedstock for making agricultural productssuch as fertilizer
and also a chemical feedstock to take the petroleumin its raw form and make it into e petroleum that we usein either diesel or gasoline. it's also used for medicalapplications, food processing, a variety of smaller type uses. if you look down the roadin the hydrogen economy, some of those usesare for transportation such as forklifts in awarehouse, backup power, or even putting electricityonto the grid.
as always, when you start goinginto new markets it becomes difficultfor commercial companies to invest in somethingthat is years out, so that's why we have programs like the national centerfor hydrogen technology where you havesome government support because that federal supporthelps bridge that gap. with that we work closely withcommercial partners, and we find opportunitiesto provide
developments in terms of beingmore effective, lower cost, better environmental advantages,and these are all things that are helping to buoythe hydrogen economy. as we go down this pathand we get those goals met, we start grabbing moreand more market opportunities. becomes a matterof greatly reducing the cost of producingthe hydrogen as well, the fuel cells,and also the end uses. and we then reachmore and more applications,
and we then see it accelerating,and as that happens you get the benefitof more public buy-in. the more they're familiarwith technology, the more they want it, andthe more they are interested. we see some very significant technological evolutiontaking place which says that hydrogen can beexceptionally competitive, and we firmly believethat the ultimate energy source in this worldis going to be hydrogen.
hydrogen is interesting. it canbe made a lot of different ways there'sa lot of domestic resources that can be used to makehydrogen. any source of electricitycan be used to make hydrogen from water. hydrogen canalso be made througha lot of biomass pathways. right now it's madea lot from natural gas which is not ultimatelysustainable but is sort of a bridgetechnology to potentially
getting to cleaner sourcesof hydrogen in the future. (narrator)to get hydrogen from water, we can use electricity to break the chemical bondsbetween oxygen and hydrogen. this processis called electrolysis. hydrogenics is a global leader in the development of fuel cellsand on-site hydrogen generation. we can providethe hydrogen stationsthat produce the hydrogen. the process starts withthe electrolyzer-- that'swhere we make that hydrogen.
we take city water,and we purify it, and put thatinside our electrolyzer. from then,the water's electrolyzed. we produce hydrogen and oxygen. oxygen is vented and hydrogenis captured. it is then purifiedthrough our dryer and purifier. the purifier removesany trace oxygen inside the hydrogen stream. and the dryerremoves any moisture
that was left over fromthe electrolysis process. the gas comes outat about 150 psi. from then on it's compressedto 6000 psi where it is storedinto storage tanks. from the storage tanks, the gasis diverted into the dispenser. (narrator)most of the hydrogenwe have today comes from natural gas through a process calledsteam methane reforming. i would say about 90%of the world's hydrogen
comes from fossil fuels,from reforming natural gas. for that you need the capitalcost of millions of dollars to create your plant. and you produce thousands ofkilograms in one day. (narrator) we can get hydrogen from coal through gasification. (tom erickson)we've been using coal in thiscountry for many many years, and primarilyit's been combusted. we burn the coal d weessentially
convert it entirely to heat. in a gasification system,we convert coal into somethingvery similar to natural gas. then that natural gas has anextremely high hydrogen content, and we can then take that and either manipulate itto pure hydrogen or we can even produceliquid fuels from it. gasification has the promise ofbeing one of the few sources that we can use to produce
very, very large quantitiesof hydrogen. so as we transition to ahydrogen economy, coal is one of those domestic resourcesthat can really step in. we believe very strongly that coal must remain a part of ourenergy future. in order to do that we must findthe technologies to utilize it more efficientlyand effectively. we're convinced that because ofthe experience and knowledge that we've gained from ourdakota gasification project
that we have a way in whichto find the solution to this very challenging issue for our continued abilityto utilize coal. hydrogen today is somethingwe look to for the future. if you want to talkabout renewables, you've got to find a wayin which to store the energy. becauseelectrical energy has to be usedat the time it's produced. and with renewables you don'thave that opportunity, because when the wind is blowingyou may not have the load.
and so if you're producing it,how do we store it? the hydrogen concept isone of those opportunities. hydrogen generation can happen through a number of differentroutes. the easiest route would have usmaking electricity and then using that electricityto run an electrolyzer which would split waterelectrochemically. we can also drive chemicalprocesses which could then be used toproduce fuels
such as hydrogen or evenliquid hydrocarbon fuels. solar typically only workswhen the sun is up. wind only works whenthe wind is blowing. sun goes down then you haveto make up all that solar powerwith other sources. or if the wind is blowing and suddenly it stops,it causes instabilities. i need that power wheneverthere is a demand the ability to store power iskey to large-scale deployment
because it removes thatinstability. (narrator)in the same way hydrogen stores the energyfrom the sun and wind, we can use hydrogen to storethe energy in moving water. (michael mcgowan)although hydrogen is the most abundant elementin the universe, it's not readily availablein a usable form. as a result it has to bemanufactured. the good news about hydrogen is,it can be manufactured
in a variety of ways and inlarge array of feedstocks. liquid hydrogen in general firstcame to the united states as part of the space program, and it was large governmentsupport for that program helped subsidizethe first plants. linde is one of the world'slargest industrial gascompanies. most of linde's hydrogen comes from this plant herein magog, quebec. this plant utilizesa hydrogen waste stream that
comes from a sodium chlorateplant across the street. that plant takes brine,electrolyzes it, makes sodium chlorate anda 97% hydrogen waste stream, linde capturesthat hydrogen stream and uses hydroelectric power to purify it and liquefy it fordelivery across the country. (michael gagne)essentially, the plant here uses electricity as the driving force to compressand liquefy the hydrogen.
our electricity, fortunately inquebec is, essentially 97% comes fromhydroelectricity which is a renewable resource. for green hydrogen i say it ishydrogen produced with zero or minimalgreenhouse gas or other pollutants asby-products. other renewable ways of makinghydrogen is to capture solar, wind, wave,geothermal power and electrolyze waterto produce hydrogen.
we produce hydrogen in a veryenvironmental friendly way because of the fact that we havehydroelectric power. however, we have to transportthat hydrogen and the transportationdoes have an impact in terms ofthe carbon footprint. (michael mcgowan)the reason we liquefy hydrogenis that it is perhaps the most efficient wayto distribute hydrogen over long distances and you candeliver the most hydrogen with the lowest carbon footprintas a liquid.
currently the 3 traditional waysof storing hydrogen have largely dependedon the volume of hydrogen you want to store and how faryou want to transport it. so if you need a couplekilograms of hydrogen, typically steel cylinders iswhat you would use. when we get to a few hundredkilograms of hydrogen we look to employstainless steel tube trailers. when you get to larger,maybe several hundred to several thousand kilogramsof hydrogen consumption,
that's where liquid hydrogenbecomes highly economical. beyond that is when you have to seriously start thinking aboutan on-site production. we know hydrogencan be delivered, compressed, and dispensedinto vehicles very safely, as safely if not more safelythan traditional fuels. just as electricity is an energycarrier, so is hydrogen. hydrogen is an excellent way to transport energyin a usable form,
that can be fed to a fuel celland generate electricity where you need it,when you need it. so whether you'removing your vehicles or you're lighting your houseor heating your homes one of the beauties of hydrogen,it will be able to provide a common energy currencythroughout the world. in a hydrogen economy, everyarea of the world will be able to generate this currency withthe resources available to it. hydrogen is produced todayin large scales
at economies that would makesense for hydrogen fueling we're confident that industrycan respond. and that is largely with theinfrastructure. fueling stations that arefueling tens or hundreds of cars instead of thousands of cars. obviously the infrastructureis very similar. what you need to fuel one car,is pretty much the same equipment you need tofuel 100 cars or 1000 cars. when it comes to hydrogenrefueling,
there is quite a big difference. i'd rather fill at a hydrogenfueling station than a gasoline station. due to the fact that gasolinestations have been developed from the 1940s and '50s, manyof the standards and many of the safety guidelineshave been grandfathered in. when we look at development ofstandards, we are looking at what is safe to fuel with theknowledge that we know today, not from what we knew earlier.
with this knowledge we are ableto ensure that we design fully safe hydrogen stations. kraus global is primarily an alternate fuel dispensermanufacturer. so that would encase propane,natural gas, hydrogen, and very soonliquefied natural gas. we got quite a good head start in targeting from south america, middle east, europe, asia.
80% of our business would beoutside of north america. at kraus we are primarilyan assembler and tester. mainly the components comeinto our factory, assembled into subassemblies,and move down the line to where they finally getput into the dispenser. you do somefinal wiring, tubing. moves on to the test bay. every unit is tested fully. and once it's approved, out thedoor off to the end customer.
when the public sees hydrogenat a station, they see the dispenser. they don't often see the storageor the compression or any of the other equipmentthat's very vital but is hidden. from the public's point of view,hydrogen is about the vehiclethat they are driving and the dispenserthat they are filling it at. (scott bailey) to comparea hydrogen dispenser to a gasoline dispenser,
you can't pump a gas,you have to move it on the basis of pressuredifferential. so instead of a pumpthat draws fluid out, you have valvingthat opens and closes to control the flow of gasto the vehicle. instead of a turbine meter in agasoline dispenser that spins, to give you a reading on volume,you have a mass flow meter which senses the molecules ofhydrogen flowing through it and gives you that samemass reading on the display.
one of the challenges with anynew energy is distribution. in particular, the gasolinestations already exist. you are trying to competewith something that has been built upover 100 years. initially, there will behydrogen projects, where buses return to a depotto fuel at night or where you have forklifts operating under one roofat a warehouse. the biggest barrier right now isprobably the lack of vehicles.
now if you talk to an oemvehicle manufacture they'll say the biggest barrier is the lackof stations. i'd say we're both right--it'sa chicken-and-egg challenge. do you bring the vehicles outfirst, or do you bring the stations out first?well, you need both. you'll see reports thatsuggested that it's going to cost up to a trillion dollars to develop a new fuelinginfrastructure if we're going to deployhydrogen in this country.
the truth of the matter is,that is totally wrong. the eerc has developeda technology called hydrogen on demandand what it is, we can use a wide varietyof feedstocks which are readily available. to produce hydrogenas you're filling your vehicle. no more than you needto fill it, produces it on the spot in real time whileyou're filling the vehicle. it eliminates the cost ofpressurizing the hydrogen--
major cost out of the picture. secondly, we eliminate the needfor storage-- another big costout of the picture. third key thing,we can use just about every existing gas station in thiscountry for this technology. you can drive up to that stationyou can buy gasoline, you can buy an ethanol blend,you can buy diesel, you can buy hydrogen. our mission basically is
to develop power systems thatgenerate electricity, because we firmly believethat electricity will be moving people around in the next wave of mobilityfor humankind. in product development,like all companies in the clean energy space,we are trying to deliver on the 3 promiseswhich are energy security, environmental quality,and economic opportunity. nuvera got started by combining2 emerging technologies.
on one side, the hydrogengeneration technology through reforming, and thefuel cell stack technology, the electrochemical devicethat converts hydrogen and oxygeninto electricity. power tap is our on-sitehydrogen generation product, which supplies on-site hydrogento customers, forklifts, and fuel cell vehicles. the power tap on-site hydrogengenerator is designed to operate off of natural gas.
we do this because it isa readily available fuel. there's over 2 million milesof pipeline within the united states goingto 69 million customers today. we're using the same natural gasthat you are in your home running your boiler, runningyour hot water heater. nothing is different. this box, we like to call itactually a hydrogen generation appliance. we've takenlarge-scale industrial processand intensified it.
we have natural gasand city water come in on the utility side,it get's conditioned, then is sent toa steam methane reformer. it combines the steamas city water, it combines the natural gas, and it breaks the bondsinto a hydrogen rich stream, which in the industrywe call syngas. after that fuel processing itgoes to a purification step where we gethigh purity hydrogen
which is requiredfor our fuel cell stacks. inside this canister is oursteam methane reformer. it is taking the fueland city water, it's converting them bothinto the syngas. we do sell these both warehousesthat are using forklift trucks, and also we are looking atopportunities to do merchant hydrogen,which is generating hydrogen for outright sale of the gas. the hydrogen refueling systemthat we have developed is based
on the reformation of naturalgas reacting with water. there's a lot of criticsof this approach because we are usinga carbon-based fuel. while it's not totally carbonfree, it's an obvious choice as a part of the roadmapto a carbon reduction. the stack on top that you see isa commercially available stack that goes into ourpower edge systems. these are systemsthat are provided to the material handling market sbattery replacements.
it's intended for industrial, kind of heavy-dutyindustrial applications. the real advantage of fuel cellsover other power plant type technologies is that theyare inherently scalable. so of i need a stack of justone kilowatt, there it is. if i need this stackto be 90 kilowatts i simply add cells to it. in terms ofthe prime power plant, the prime energy converter.it's real, it's today.
we're doing it, they're ready,they're reliable. we're deploying themin fork trucks. the fork truck market isan ideal proving ground because it's a vehiclethat's already electrified. it already uses batteries, andwe're proving that the fuel cell has value in displacingbatteries in that application. this system is designedso that the user can push outthe lead acid battery put in our system and the truckdoesn't know the difference.
it's a hybrid system which has instead ofthe gasoline powered engine, we have a fuel cell engine,which actually is one of the nice points aboutfuel cells is, with the growth of hybrid technologyin over-the-road vehicles you can very easilysee how you could take the internal combustion engineout and put a fuel cell in. in the traditional, power supplysystem for electric forklifts, you have big racks and racksof lead acid batteries.
for every truck,you have up to 3 batteries. and when the battery dies,you have to take it to a specialized machine thatpulls the battery out, puts it up on the rack to be chargedand puts a new battery in. all of this isvery time intensive. a battery takes 8 hoursto charge and 8 hours to cool. this system takesabout 2 minutes to refuel. this is a fuel cell stack. this is what i call the dry endof the system
because there is no water. this is the wet end. there is a condenser herefor managing heat and water, so as the fuel cell runs,it creates water. this manages the waterto keep it for getting too high or too lowand also rejects the heat. also in here we havethe fuel handling components that take the very high pressurefrom the tank and step it down. there's an on-board computer,which allows
the fuel cell system to provideyou with intelligent power. a lead acid battery isjust a dumb battery. it can't tell you anythingabout how healthy it is or how productivethe operator is. it will just slowly drain downin performance over the course of the shift justlike a flashlight going dim. what you'll find with these is,you will have consistent power. when you talk about family carsor suvs, batteries will be too heavy and too bulky to bedeployed and too expensive.
to put a batteryin a minivan today you would have to addabout 450 pounds. and that's carrying a gorillainside your car. it's an invisible gorilla,but nobody wants a gorilla in addition to the car you have. that's wherethe fuel cell will come in and will have the rightsubstitute in that case. (mickey oros) this isthe world's first automated fuel cellassembly line
we can do 1000 cells a day. some of out stacks requireabout 50 cells. the reason for doing the lineis again, we are competing in a market with batteries and generators.and how do we do this? one of the things we found in order to competein a world market is, we can't have exotic materials. we figured out how we coulddesign this in such a way
that we can build it withrobotics that are the same as the auto industry, that are thesame in the computer industry. not exotics,not the super titaniums, not the stuff that is just very,very costly, high expenses, but we found low cost materialsthat we could go ahead and put these together with everythingthat is readily available wherever we need toto become a global competitor. what we're building today we'reactually finding those markets we can go into--
the telcom industry, the datacenters those backup supports that we need that would replacethe battery or the generator. so right awaywe're going to go ahead anddrive to those newer markets. this happens to bea 1000-watt system that we've created, this isa 5000-watt system. we have communications-- we canactually from a remote distance if the fuel gets to a certainlevel we can go ahead and have this unit call the fuel providerand have them go ahead and say hey, fuel's low, comeand take care of it before
the incident happens beforeyou start running this unit and all of a sudden you find outyou are out of fuel. and this is just conventionalbatteries that you see quite often in data centers,in telecom systems. just like any common generatorit takes in some generators it may take 2, 3 minutesto come on. we can come on in withinabout 5 seconds, 3 to 5 seconds. so we're instant. but in order not to losethat power we bridge it
with a small batteryfor a short period of time i can demonstrate this--we turn on these really super bright lightshere, and right now the fuel cell is armed,and it's watching the grid. and it's intelligent enough tosee if the grid starts to drop. the fuel cell knows that it'stime to come on. as soon we shut off the power the grid is there,the fuel cell is armed the fuel cell immediatelyknew to come on
because it lost the power--it no longer has any power, but you didn't see any blinks inthe light whatsoever-- not one. there's all kinds ofopportunities that are open to whatthe fuel cell has to offer. it's open for the imagination. this isa 1000-watt system right here. it's a unitthat we can use outdoors. this is the one that actuallygov. schwarzenegger used to light his christmas treeevery year,
normally a 60-foot christmastree that had at one time 5000 5-watt light bulbs on it andconsumed 25000 watts of power. we were able to come backthrough, talk to them about that, change their wayof looking at it, put led lights on this unit-- ended updropping the consumption from 25,000 wattsdown to 450 watts. we were able to use itwith a small, little 1000-watt fuel cell systemthat we have here. so every year he delightsin the fact that
he is running a christmas treecost effectively and showing that there'sother alternatives to power. this is green, that's the greatand wonderful thing about this is, it's zero pollutionlow noise, plus a tremendous amountof energy in a small package these are real,these are pieces of equipment we're gonna see being usedon a daily basis. henry ford in his true withe had many years ago, he was confronted withstockholders and news reporters,
and someone in the crowd saidmr. ford, i know you are going tomass-produce these things but what are you going to doabout the fuel, where are you going to get thefuel for all these things? he stopped for a second,he thought, he said you know, i'm not goingto worry about that. we know that, in fact,hydrogen is everywhere. as long as we buildcost-effective pieces of equipmentthat generate electricity
then we are going to lookto those other companies that create and develop hydrogento be able to supply us. sysco is an acronym, stands forsystem and services company. we deal primarily withrestaurants, schools, hospitals-- anybody that's inthe food service business. we use triple pallet jacksto move the groceries from our warehouse to the docks. they're powered traditionallyby lead core batteries. the fuel cell we use herein grand rapids is
provided for us by plugpower, and they are usedin place of batteries. the fuel cell itself providesa consistent level of power during its entire useof its fuel which is different fromour traditional batteries which havea declining performance. as soon as you start usingthat battery, the power starts to decline, andtherefore the performance of the piece of equipment declineswith the decreasing power.
the traditional battery lastsanywhere from 6 to 8 hours depending on how new thatbattery is as compared to the fuel cell which may lastup to 14 hours per shift. a huge savings for us becausewe're not changing batteries we're not recharging batteriesso we have utility savings as well, but alsoour selectors stay busy selecting groceries instead ofswapping batteries out they are a very smooth operatingsource of power. we've had good resultsfrom a handling standpoint.
the units themselves weigh 600 pounds less thanour previous batteries. if you take the 600 pounds off,replace it with a new power cell the handle which the selectoroperates becomes much easier to move around, andthat's been an added benefit. the employees that operatethe triple pallet jacks have been positivein their feedback about how they operate,how smooth they operate, and so far we have had no negativefeedback
from them which is probably the most important voteof confidence. the people that actually usethis day-in, day-out as part of their tools to do their jobare enjoying the experience. the operators of thesetriple pallet jacks are responsible to fueltheir unit when necessary. it operates much like a car doesin terms of a fuel gauge. when it does indicate it needsto be refueled the selector comes to fuelstation and goes through
a very quick process,usually less than a minute, to refuel his or herparticular triple pallet jack. there are warehousesusing this technology to various degrees already. we're on the front endof this change. i'd like to think in the futurethis entire facility will be poweredby an alternative fuel source. and if hydrogen is the answer we're certainly one step forwardin the right direction.
[no engine noise] our customers are askingfor better solutions. they want to be quieter, they want to be lighter, theywant to be smarter machines. many of our products are usedfor golf environments are in a situation where they areused very early in the morning. a lot of golf courses are builtaround houses and they want quiet equipment. [no motor noise]
fuel cells are a solutionfor this. we don't want to have tosacrifice performance in order to get the benefitsof electric power. so first of all, one of ourguiding principles is that the machines will be ableto do the same tasks you are used to, and feel andoperate in much the same way. given that assumption there aresome differences. the components are differentsize and different weights so you have to repackage themin new areas.
they haveto be weather protectedand environmental protected, they're basicallyoff-road equipment. the fuel cells that we are usingare called a pem fuel cell. pem stands forproton exchange membrane. it's one of several types offuel cells particularly suitable for mobile applications becausethey're compact, lightweight, they start up fast, and theyfollow loads very quickly. we've chosento use compressed hydrogen as a fuel storage on board.
in order to get enough volumeof hydrogen we are operatingat 5000 psi tanks. to keep the tanks lightweight, instead of thick,heavy-walled steel tank. we've got a composite tankor bladder, either aluminumor some kind of plastic wrapped with threads to makethe tank strong enough we're able to getlightweight power and we can refuel quicklywith the hydrogen
where the batteries are heavy and take a lot of timeto recharge. hydrogen in a fuel cell isclean, it is completely green, and you give off water. there's a lot fewer moving partsthan in an engine, a lot less friction. as the industry evolves there isno reason it shouldn't be able to get long life as oneof its better attributes. in my opinion hydrogen is safewhen used properly.
the systems have to be designedso they are safe. people have to be trained,then it's just like handling any of thesehigh energy contents. one of the key advantagesthat our industry has is that we area fleet operation. turf equipment on a golf courseor a park system or something comes home to roost inthe same building every night, then is deployed during the dayand comes back. the ability to put in onecentral refueling site to
take care of a bunch of productis inherent to our business. it lets us become,i think, the niche market that can start to use fuel cellsquicker than many other places. (man) we got started in 1980,brewed our first batch of beer at a smaller facility i was a home brewerwho turned commercial brewer. we've got 450 employees. 7th or 8th largest breweryin the country. we have distributionin every state.
i wanted to be more energyindependent, so we started to look at ways to both conserve energy and bemore energy efficient. actually going backto when we first started i put in things like ice banksto store energy at night, so we've been embracing some ofthose concepts for a long time. we've done a lot of optimizationand put in current technology. some of those projectshave 2 or 3 year paybacks. so it's not all done strictlyfor environmental benefit,
but it's nice to get both. some of the projects don't havegreat returns, so you really couldn't justify them strictlyon a return on investment basis. we doa lot of what we do becausewe think it's the right thing. as a manufacturerbeing in an industry that does utilizea lot of resources we see it as one of ourobligations to do our business in a sound manner and lookfor ways to minimize inputs and to minimize waste streams.
as a manufacturer our powerneeds are 24/7 because we have refrigeration and pumpsand things that are operating. it was both from energyefficiency and air emissions that i guess i wanted to givethe fuel cell a try. we've got four 250-kilowattunits that are considered a direct fuel cell,so they don't need a separate source of hydrogen,they have an internal process that reforms the hydrogenout of the feed gas. so we feed it either biogasor natural gas,
and the process is partof the fuel cell stack. so as the gas goes inthe hydrogen gets separated, and that's fedinto the fuel cell. we also have heat recoveryboilers, we capture about a million-and-a-quarterbtus of energy back as steam, and that goes backinto our brewing process. the fuel cell is, i think,at the top as far as overall conversion of that input energyto output electricity. having the distributedpower generation
you're not losing powerthrough transmission line loss. if you can cogenerate and usethe heat and the electricity you have picked up even more, so i think our overallefficiency is approaching 70% for our input energywith the heat recovery which would be close to double,i think, what the average fossil fuelplant would be putting out. as far as nitrogen oxidesand sulfur dioxide and other things that are normalcombustion by-products,
none of those areemitted from the fuel cell. all of our fermentersare tied into pipes where we can collectthe carbon dioxide that is naturally producedfrom fermentation. that's compressed,cleaned up, stored, and allows us to haveour own source of co2 here. normally breweries wouldpurchase that if they don't recover it,and now that we recover ours we have our own sourceof naturally produced co2
that's been capturedrather than emitted. naturally produced carbondioxide is used in the bottling process and movingbeer around and dispensing beer. we just completeda pretty big solar array. i think we'll have oneof the largest in the country, so that's pretty exciting. and we're usingnew inverter technology that's very efficient,and so we're doing a good job of converting the sun's energyto electricity.
middle part of the day we'redrawing more power, so when our solar panels areputting out their maximum is when our power consumptionis at maximum as well. then at nighttime when the solaris not working we have our fuel cells giving usour base load, so it's a good combinationfor us. we actually have our own herdof cattle. we feed our spent grain tothe cattle, and the manure from that is compostedand put back on our hops field.
so we have a fairly closed loopon our hops here on site. we do treat all of our ownwastewater, so we take all of our waste streams, our liquidwaste from the brewing process, spilled beer, yeast,bits of hops and malt and that's fed intoa digester which produces between 35 to 70 cubic feetper minute of methane. then that methane is fedto the fuel cells. we use a mixof biogas and natural gas. since this is more efficient
it'll be cheaperto produce power this way. we are up to close to 80% of our own electrical powerneeds generated here on site. our goal will be to get to 100%power generation through both conservation efforts and someadditional power generation i think we can get there. i think it works for a lotof other industries. we get a lot of visitors here,i know there's quite a few hotels in one groupthat's put in fuel cells,
one of the local casinos haveput them in, so if you have need for both heat and electricityon a continuous basis you can justifythis kind of technology. (catherine dunwoody) thecalifornia fuel cell partnership is a collaboration amongstindustry and government we have members from theautomotive industry, energy companies, fuel celltechnology companies as well as government from the state,local, and federal levels. we're working together topromote the commercialization
of hydrogen poweredfuel cell vehicles. many years ago when we weredealing with tying to reduce smog in the faceof our continued population and vehicle growthhere in california, we looked and said we reallyneed to zero emission vehicles or somethingthat's very, very close. there were 2 technologiesavailable, one was batteryelectric vehicles. the other technologywas fuel cell vehicles.
this particular vehicleactually has a hydrogen fuel cell systemin it, the system is, we have high pressure hydrogenstored in the vehicle. the fuel cell itself actuallyconverts this electrochemically to electricitywhich drives the vehicle. i tend to get comments aboutthe sound or the lack of it. in this particular vehicle, thisplatform we have a compressor that makesa little noise but overall it'sabout as quiet as it can be. when we first startedthis program we had
a lot of vehicle issues andstuff like that. i have to say we've definitelyturned that around to where these vehicles arevery reliable. we have them out in a fleetover the whole country. we're very impressed with theway they perform and handle and theirreliability. oftentimes i get comments abouthow stable it feels, how it doesn't feel like aprototype. it feels very much like a carthey go out and buy
obviously the next question iget is, why can't i get it now? the most common comment i see isthat the vehicle is really cool. when you get in the vehicleand drive around, in general there is not much ofa difference between the vehicle and aconventional vehicle. it drives about the same, better pickup in the city,better acceleration, a little quieter,but when they know that it's boarding hydrogen and hasa fuel cell, it has this
cool green feel to it, andthat's what people respond to. we have real-world customers, sowe have real-world feedback. the customer can copewith infrastructure, with the vehicle durability,with range issues, the customercompares the vehicle to a normal standard car. that's why we have customeroperations because it's not only important to havetechnology advancements but also to listen closelyto what the customer says,
because at the end of the dayif the customer does not buy your nice pieceof technical equipment the whole technology isa failure. with a battery electric vehicleyou have to make the electricity somehow torecharge the batteries. with this vehicle you have tomake the hydrogen somehow. the hydrogen tanks areright under the rear seats. the fuel cell system is locatedunder the front seats, the driverand passenger seats.
the electric motor is up front. then in the back under the cargocompartment there is a battery, and the battery workswith the fuel cell to provide electricityto the electric motor. the battery does the same thingit does in a hybrid car which is calledregenerative braking, and when we'reslowing down the energy that otherwise would have beenwasted through the brakes is actually capturedin the battery.
then when you need power toaccelerate or go up a hill both the batteryand the fuel cell can put electric powerto the electric motor. this vehicle is equippedwith leak detectors that will immediately tell you if there isa leak so you know to pull over and get the vehicle towedto a place it can get repaired. hydrogen is very, very light,so if there is a leak, it tendsto disburse very rapidly. the hydrogen storage tanks inthese vehicles are incredibly well designed, very strongfiber wrapped cylinders.
they have done extensive testingwith them to ensure they are as safe as possible.it has a neat safety feature where there arelittle side pillarsin the rear of the vehicle. there's tubes running upfrom the hydrogen tanks through those side pillarsup to a pressure release valve which is a little bump you seeon the roof of the car. so if there'san accident, the system willdetect the loss in pressure and the hydrogen will beimmediately vented through the pressurerelease valve on the roof.
you can measure in termsof volume. you can talk about gallons or liters of hydrogen,but because the volume changesat different pressures we tend to think of itin terms of weight. a certain amount of hydrogen isgonna weigh the same no matter what pressure it's at.one kilogram of hydrogen stores as much energyas one gallon of gasoline. this vehicle storesabout 2 kilograms of hydrogen because it's under high pressurethat pump when i clamp the nozzle onto the gas tank.it has to form a very tight seal
and unless the pump knowsthere is a tight seal, the pump won't even turn on, so it's gota lot of safety build into it. right now we're ata very interesting stage of developmentof this technology. in some ways fuel cellsare an easier fit for busesthan they are for cars. (man)you don't get much cleanerthan a fuel cell bus, that's for sure,it's a zero emission vehicle. we're the first to actuallybuild a fleet of fuel cell buses for an actual heavy-dutytransit application.
new flyer industries isthe largest manufacturer in north america of heavy-dutytransit vehicles. currently have about17,000 buses on the road at almost 250 differenttransit agencies. because of the fact that we hadthe vancouver winter olympics, there was a drive to showcase and demonstrate greentechnology. when the contract wasoriginally tendered to do the fuel cell busesfor the olympics,
we proceeded to developan initial prototype which would eventually serve asthe mold for our production. one of the big challenges withdeveloping the fuel cell bus is to make surethat it can operate in the cold temperatureenvironment. once we were satisfied withthat, then we proceeded with production to build the 20 busesfor the vancouver 2010 olympics. in most waysthe vehicle went through our standardproduction line, ourstandard production stations.
the only difference was thatthere were a few extra steps at certain points of the linewhere we had to install the fuel tanks and some ofthe other hybrid components. but we were ableto incorporate that all within our existingprocesses and equipment. because we are low floor design, which all our buses are nowadaysfor wheelchair accessibility, and ease of getting on and offfor passengers. one of the challenges with thatis the buses are
very low to the ground, so thereis no room under the bus to really install muchequipment. with the large number ofcomponents that are required for the fuel cell busin terms of the hydrogen tanks, the batteries,the cooling systems, all that takes upa lot of space. we ended up putting quite a fewof the components on the roof of the vehicle as well as inthe rear engine compartment. from an aesthetic standpoint,you would have a lot of trouble
from just a quick glancetelling a fuel cell busapart from a regular bus. if you were to walk on and sitin the seat, you wouldn't notice much out of the ordinary,the stuff that you don't see, which is what makesthe technology interesting. the big challenge is operating a hydrogen fuel cell coachin cold weather. the primary by-product ofthe chemical reaction is water, of course, we ran into the issue of what happens when you dropbelow zero degrees celsius.
if you don't design for that, you can certainly run the riskof freezing that water, which can definitely damageportions of your fuel cell. one of the initial thingswe had to work on was a way to plug inthe vehicles overnight to ensure thatthe fuel cell didn't freeze. the other big challenge washow do you ensure that on those cold day's you haveenough heat available so you canproperly start the bus?
then once the bus is running,how do you ensure that you haveenough heat available so that everybody is comfortablewithin the vehicle? one of the aspects aboutthe fuel cell bus design is that it uses electric motorsto drive the wheels. the fuel cell itself does notactually directly drive the vehicle. all it does is convert hydrogento electricity. so that electricity is usedto drive motors
and other systemson the vehicle. one of the advantages ofan electric motor is that at very low speedsthey generate a high amount of torque--the acceleration is very good. the other big advantageis the breaking. because we havean electric system on the bus with very powerful storagebatteries and generators, we are able to regain energyfrom the braking system when the vehicle stops.
not only does that increasethe life of the brake pads and allow you to chargeyour electrical system, but it also gives youa lot of stopping power. hydrogen buses are designed to work very similar to the way the diesel bus as far as dutycycle, and they are able to perform all the same functionsas a standard diesel bus. our buses have a rangeof about 300 to 325 miles.
diesel buses, and again,this fuel cell bus, so depending on theroute service they can be out for a trip or runwhich is just a few hours up to 16, 17, even 18 hourswithout any trouble. these buses because of extrainfrastructure on the roof for gas, storage,for all the additional components,they're over 8000 pounds heavierthan the comparable diesel bus but in spite of thatwe're seeing
as much as 100% or double thefuel economy over a diesel bus. the main thing everybody notices is how quiet and smooth the vehicle is in comparison toa standard diesel bus there is no transmission on it so it is very smooth,powers away very quietly. we have had some commentsfrom riders that the bus is actually too quiet-- it canactually sneak up on them-- they have been surprisedwhen it pulls up to the curb
and they didn't even realizeit was there. (jamie levin) with the fuel celltechnology this bus doesn't care wherethe hydrogen comes from. and the value of hydrogen in transportation applications is that we can make hydrogenfrom solar, wind, and biomass. here we're using natural gas,and while it's not completely zero emission it hassome co2 emissions. well to wheelit is still better than
our regular diesel internalcombustion engine vehicles. (douglas byrne) they'rebasically a large golf cart. there's not a lot of maintenanceon a golf cart. one of the largest maintenance items for any bus is the brakes. with these vehicles having regenerative braking we'rehoping to realize better brake life and then a cost savingassociated with that.
we're learning from these buses,we're learning from other examples throughoutthe world. all the supercomputers of theworld, all the brilliant minds that delivered the technologyin the first place can't think of every variable. and what we do here is,we capture almost all the variablesthat they can't think of. and we're all learning fromthis, not just us as users but the technology providersare seeing things
that they couldn't replicatein the labs. we're very much committed tolooking at alternative fuels to improveour environmental footprint-- zero emissionfrom the tailpipe. virtually no noisefrom the engine and the potential of addressing global warming,climate change issues, sustainable energy suppliesto fuel our vehicles to help us reachenergy independence.
our end-state goal iscommercialization, so that all of the transit busesin the united states we would like to see as zero emission fuel cell buses. hydrogen has beenused safely throughout our economy, we use most of the hydrogen today tomake cleaner gasoline. but it's also usedin food manufacturingand consumer products. if you look at hydrogencompared to gasoline,
certainly both fuels havea lot of energy content. you must pay attention to safety considerationswhen using the fuel. hydrogen is no less safe thangasoline, it's just different. if there is a hydrogen leak it'svery light, so it will go up and rise immediately anddissipate into the atmosphere. it's totally nontoxic,it won't cause health problems or environmental problems if itis released into the atmosphere. all vehicle fuels can bedangerous.
if they weren't, they wouldn'tbe useful as fuel. the trick for any fuel is toengineer it so that it is as safe as currently availabletechnologies. today, that's gasolinein conventional vehicles. and most people i know workingwith hydrogen, believe that hydrogen is either as safe orsafer than gasoline is today. it is safer than gasoline. most people were to say todaythat if you were to have a gasoline engine today and youwere trying to bring it on the
market for the very first time, there would be no waythat you would be able to put that gasoline engine ontothe marketplace. it just wouldn't happen. i quite sincerely believe and i have seen test evidencethat supports my conclusions that the gas tank in thesuburban that i drive is more dangerous thana hydrogen fuel tank. we have conducted 120,000fuelings worldwide already.
we know that hydrogen can bedelivered, compressed, and dispensed into vehiclesvery safely, we've done extensive safetytraining with our maintenance and servicepersonnel. we've worked with some very goodpartners that have designed that have designedsome very good systems. our fueling stations,our facility upgrades all incorporate hydrogensensors, and fire sensors, and very robust systemsto track that.
safety was a big part of it. i wanted to make sure thetesting they had done was adequate for ouremployees' benefit, as well as for the community. i have the good fortune to drive a fuel cell car on a regularbasis and i use it to takemy kids to school, go to baseball practice, gogrocery shopping, come to work. when they fuel the car, there'sno fumes or drips of gasoline.
i would much rather drivemy fuel cell vehicle icelandic new energy wasfounded in 1999. it's a joint venture company. it's owned 51% by icelandicshareholders which groups together the energycompanies, the government, the academialike the university, the innovation center, investment firms,and private investors. so all the key players iniceland who have anything
to do with hydrogenare joined into one company. then we have daimler,shell hydrogen, and stockholm hydro from norwaywhich are the other 3 investors. the goal of the company is to bekind of an enabler to evaluate the possibility of creating the first hydrogen societyin the world here in iceland. they foresaw icelandas the perfect test ground because they knew that allthe energy sources to produce the hydrogenwould be renewable
coming from hydro or geothermal. this ship is mainly a touristicboat, whale watching. on this ship we have 150 people traveling for 3 or4 hours at a consecutive time. we put a fuel cell engineon a commercial boat. this is actuallythe fuel cell unit. the hydrogen storageis actually back in theengine room. so you have hydrogen pipelinescoming in
connected to the fuel cell unit. then we actually havea hybrid system so we also have a little bitof battery packs to have enough power for allthe auxiliaries in the boat. there have been sometechnical hiccups on the way, but that's one of the reasonswhy you do projects like this-- to learn how and which problemswe're faced with taking hydrogen out to sea. there is now a project ingermany to build a ship
powered solelyby hydrogen they designed the shiparound the hydrogen. what we did here is,we basically put hydrogen on boardan existing ship, and there are somecomplications with that the main issue ishow to get certification, and how to fulfillall the strict regulations on having hydrogen on a ship. i think those have been themost important learning steps
and teaches us a lotabout how to do next steps regarding using hydrogenas part of a marine fuel. usually when they go outfor whale watching when you see whales, they actuallywant to shut down the engines to get rid of the noise, get riof the vibration of the ship. before they had to run at leastthe auxiliary engine on diesel so you still have some noiseand some vibration so what they do nowwhen they find whales they actually canshut down the whole system.
the only operationis the fuel cell, and that means no vibration,no noise, and no emissions. that's actually pretty cool when you are sittingin the middle of the atlantic, absolutely no movementwhatsoever and you can seethe whales peacefully. i think people are very positive towards using the domesticenergy sources to power everythingwe actually can.
we are quite confident aboutthe hydrogen infrastructure. we don't think that will bea hindrance or a barrierto a hydrogen society. people are very keenon what can we do, and they are realizing thatthe things we can actually do will also be clean, so that'sa very big added benefit. you also have to think about how much co2 savingsare in using hydrogen. it's all about the environment.
and if we can also powerthe ship partly by hydrogen which is in at least in icelanda totally clean energy chain, that's, of course,a beautiful picture. (narrator)from power plantsto wind turbines, city buses to lawn equipment, breweries to warehouses,hydrogen and fuel cells are quietly improvingour ability to deliver clean, economical energy in our homesor cars, and where we work. as the world's thirst for energycontinues to grow
and environmental costs mount, hydrogen provides uswith a choice to create our ownclean energy future. the energy &. environmentalresearch center's
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