Translated material
A power station for itself: is there a chance of car cars?
At the summer of summer, the Japanese automotive company Toyota announced the start date of sales of its first serial FCV serial Sedan on hydrogen fuel elements: it will enter the market in April 2015. The declared possibilities of a new hydrogen electric car are impressive: charging in 3-5 minutes, a mileage of 700 km from one refueling, steady launch and work at minus 30º.
This became possible due to the fact that the machine itself produces electricity from hydrogen and oxygen in special elements called fuel energy cells. In them there is a reaction of the connection of hydrogen and oxygen with the formation of a single product-water. In addition, heat is released, which is so necessary for passengers in the autumn-winter period. The received electricity partially enters the electric motors directly, partially - stocks in batteries. Here is such a power station on wheels.
So, FCV is different in that it itself produces electricity, and from the usual hybrid with an internal combustion engine - the absence of this engine, the inevitable exhausts of CO2 and other unpleasant gases. But hydrogen gas stations, in fact, are an option of already tested refueling compressed natural gas, the ability to easily switch to a new product.
This is where the main intrigue is: hydrogen is not the initial product, like natural methane extracted from the earth's subsoil or obtained during biological processes. This gas is chemically active and present around us in the form of a variety of compounds, that is, in fact, an intermediate carrier of energy. If hydrogen machines become popular, who else can earn on this trend, except for their manufacturers?
Star engines
Hydrogen is the easiest atom in nature. What is easier - one proton in the center and one electron in orbit around it. This is the most common element in our universe, it accounts for about 89% of all matter. It is he who "burns" in the stars, turning into helium.
On our planet, we meet it in the form of various compounds, for example, in the form of water, H2O: two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen. Another very common substance, natural gas methane, contains one carbon atom and four - hydrogen. Here you have two main ways to produce hydrogen on an industrial scale: to break the water atom or tear carbon from the methane molecule.
The easiest technically technician is the decomposition of water by electric shock, known as electrolysis . Direct current flows through water, and hydrogen is released on one electrode, oxygen on the other. The product is highly clean. A by -product, oxygen, is also an important raw material not only for technology, but also for the ecology - in the processes of cleaning waterwater. There is one more - the so -called “heavy water”, which is needed for atomic energy, and in the future - for thermonuclear.
The second path is the so -called steam conversion of methane (PKM). The process is two -stage: at first at a temperature of 750–850 ° City on a catalytic basis, methane decomposition in the presence of water vapor, and then carbon dioxide CO2 and hydrogen is created. Gases are separated, and hydrogen is supplied to consumers, but the greenhouse CO2 is discarded into the atmosphere. There is another nuance - the process must be heated by the same natural gas. Nevertheless, it is PKM that is the most common process of producing industrial hydrogen in the world.
There are other industrial methods. For example, you can use a hot coke (a variety of coal), on which overheated water vapor is produced. Or you can simply heat the water to more than 2500º, and then the water molecules will begin to decay into atoms (though, in this case, it is quite difficult to prevent their subsequent recombination). That is, we can get hydrogen to receive hydrogen. The question is the price of the process and the availability of starting materials.
Energy democracy in action
It can be said absolutely definitely: if it were not for the concern of developed countries about global ecology, in particular, the desire to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and above all CO2, there would be no need for hydrogen fuel for machines. At short distances, electric cars are quite effective and practical on existing batteries, quite effective ICEs have already been created for more traditional machines. The transfer of vehicles to natural gas is even more cleaned by the exhaust.
But there is another reason in the development of new automotive technologies. It is associated with the desire to use the grandiose world park of cars as the main consumer of "green" electricity. Solar energy, hydro- and wind energy, in the future- obtaining electricity from geothermal sources and due to waves and marine currents objectively reduces the dependence of the local consumer on the dictatorship of large fuel and energy corporations, such as Gazprom, E.on, Exxon, etc. The local electricity manufacturer, he is also a consumer, becomes a participant in the free energy market, and the democratization of its production occurs.
However, such suppliers have one drawback - their capacities are unstable. And in the case of cloudy calm weather, enhanced work of traditional power plants, coal, gas, and atomic ones is required. Another problem appears in the windy noon - an excess of energy that I would like to stock up on the evening. Armades of machines that need electricity are a global battery for "green" energy.
Who needs a hydrogen plant
Of course, with an excess of electricity, the production of hydrogen is justified by electrolysis. And now there are countries and regions where it is economically profitable to develop electrochemical complexes: this is North Africa, Mediterranean, India, Canada, Norway, USA. Each country has its own advantages: Norway has many hydraulic resources, Spain has the sun, Dania has winds. And by and large, the point is that almost wherever there is a bright, strong sun or stable wind, it will be possible to install local electrolyzers. That is, the creation of such mini-producing compressed hydrogen will become a good business in itself.
But also hydrogen manufacturers from natural gas, especially if they produce it themselves, can also have time to sit on a “hydrogen skate”. So far, no one prevents them from throwing CO2 into the atmosphere, but in the future they can download a cut -down carbon dioxide into underground storage facilities. This technology has already been worked out, and gas workers can throw green -type hydrogen into the market. The same can do hydrogen manufacturers with a coke method. Otherwise, there will be no sense in hydrogen fuel.
Already, skeptics say that hydrogen as fuel causes a lot of problems and dangers - this gas easily creates an explosive mixture with air, it has amazing permeability, much higher than, for example, methane, and even more so propane and butane. All hydrogen technology will be quite expensive, because it is impossible to "pile on the knee." These machines can only be produced at maternal enterprises, only by the hands of highly qualified workers. Machines will require branded maintenance and repair, which means, most likely, strict licensing of a car service will come into force. Hydrogen refueling systems should also be very high quality. That is, this is the production of technologically highly developed countries rich in renewed resources, within themselves and for themselves, fraught with non -market protection from producers from the outside. In contrast, for example, ordinary electric vehicles, which, like the infrastructure for them, can produce almost anyone.
On the other hand, the automobile world of the future is not alone with hydrogen fuel cells: fuel elements operating on methane are on the way, that is, on ordinary natural gas . It is worth changing one box to another, and now FCV is working on a gas that can be produced on livestock and other farms, produced by gas workers in Siberia, Qatar or Alaska. It will be possible to refuel at already existing gas gas stations of high -pressure methane. Today they are refueling cars with ICE.
And finally, there is an option to use fuel elements working on methanol - a product obtained from the same natural gas. Methanol can be poured into a car of the car at any gas station. So the FCV project, in principle, can provide a smooth transition to cars in an electric protrusion, while the gas industry may even win.
However, this process is very long. Africa, a fair part of Asia and South America, where the main growth of the fleet is now observed now, as they drove, they will drive on vehicle cars using liquid fuel - gasoline, diesel fuel, ethyl alcohol. So there will be new segregation lines that split the global energy and automobile market.