Backbone > Sustainability
Cruisin’ for a Change:
What drives the solution to pollution?

BMW takes its hydrogen-fueled 750hL sedan on the road in Milan.

Summer isn’t just the season of the sun—it’s the season of the car. As soon as the warm weather hits, driving becomes more than just a way of getting somewhere; instead, it’s a state of being, and the easiest way to get in touch with nature. All you have to do is open up the sunroof and wind down the windows—or maybe, if you’re lucky enough to own a convertible, put the top down—and you’re out there in the elements. But the luxury of driving through beautiful countryside in summer is short-lived when you consider it in terms of sustainability. Summer isn’t only the season of the car—it’s also the time of year when pollution becomes most noticeable and its effects are most palpable, especially around here, where heat and humidity accentuate the smog. (Would we have noticed, for instance, the smoke from the Montreal fires last month if it had been winter? Not likely.) Ironically, our cars have everything to do with it. It’s time to consider what our need to cruise is doing to our planet—and opt to take the high road toward change.

There’s a reason that oil companies are starting to refer to themselves as “energy companies,” states Jim Ohi, a hydrogen expert at Colorado’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in CNN.com’s article, “Could Hydrogen Be the Fuel of the Future?” The reason is this: “They’re feeling the pressure to study zero-emission fuels,” he writes, “even if it may be decades before they make any money with it.”

And why else should things change with regard to what makes our cars go? Because, as many people are acknowledging in the wake of 9/11, it’s no longer only the environment that’s at stake because of our dependence on oil. Now, points out Duke Armstrong, promoter of emission-reducing and mileage-increasing Super Fuel Stiks(to be included in a future column), the prospect of peace in the world is also at risk. “We’re such an oil-oriented country,” he said, “but all of the sudden, because of what’s happened [with terrorism], we really have to stop and reconsider that. If all of the sudden, all of our cars got 100 miles to the gallon, what would that do to our country? Of course, everybody knows the answer to that. We wouldn’t need to worry about oil so much anymore.”

Auto pollution is on the increase in all the world’s most populated areas, according to Roy McAlister, president of The American Hydrogen Association. In his essay, “Get the Lead Out!,” he cites Mexico City as having daily lead emissions of 32 tons. In Nigeria, roadside lead contamination has reached 6,000 particles per minute (ppm)—and science has determined that children may suffer hearing loss, reduced attention span, hypertension, developmental problems, intelligence loss, and learning disabilities if exposed to just 600 ppm lead levels. Athens and Los Angeles are two other major cities suffering from CO2 and lead emissions.

The worst source of lead emission—causing more than 90 percent of the world’s lead pollution—is the metal organic compound tetraethyl lead (TEL), developed by General Motors (GM) in the 1920s as an additive to prevent cheap, leaded refinery gasoline from causing valve-seat recession and piston knocking. GM rallied with DuPont and Standard Oil against the lower-leaded fuels to build a market for leaded gasoline—the type that now supplies 94 percent of the fuel for cars in the Middle East, 93 percent of fuel in Africa, 35 percent of fuel in South America, and more than 30 percent of Asian fuel needs.

In the early 1970s, following GM’s acquisition of catalytic reactor technology, the company lobbied for phasing-out lead in gasoline, starting in 1975; by 1986, the phase-out was “nearly accomplished,” according to McAlister. Britain’s phase-outs brought human blood-lead levels down by 78 percent by 1990 and a further 66 percent in the past decade—promising signs. But such phase-outs make little difference because the number of cars in the world continues to rise. In India, for instance, auto pollution has increased as a percentage of the country’s environmental degradation from 24 percent in 1971 to 67 percent. India is expected to double its number of cars by 2010.

For the next three months, Life in the Balance takes a look at some of the environmentally-friendly cars and fuels of the future—many of which are available now, or soon to be on the market. The alternative fuel technologies being developed are too complex and the projects too numerous (a hopeful sign!) to delve into too deeply within the space of this column—not even over the span of two issues. However, this overview should give you enough information to get you moving toward leaving only the slightest skid mark on the earth.

In Part I, we’ll examine hydrogen-fueled cars as well as fuel cell technology. Information on an affordable, time-tested, emission-reducing alternative product—the PSP Super Fuel Stik—is also on offer. Part II will explore the electric car—hybrids of which are already out on the market, as well as the (ever-so-sloooooow) development of the solar-powered car. We’ll also look at the radical Veggie Van, which runs on biodiesel made from vegetable oil and, as a low-cost sustainable alternative, the Fabulous MaxImizer Magnetizer, an easy-to-install, magnetic gasoline-conserving and emissions-reducing device.

Hydrogen Power
Hydrogen doesn’t always get a very good rap as an alternative energy source, and for four good reasons: the H-Bomb, the Hindenburg, the Challenger Space Shuttle, and the Exxon-Valdez environmental disaster. However, advocacy of hydrogen as automobile fuel, as well as a source of electricity and water filtration, is gaining momentum. “Hydrogen power is Jules Vernes’ old dream come true—using water as a fuel,” according to Berit Pegg-Karlsson, the director of the British-Scandinavian Association for Wind and Hydrogen Power, backed by British self-sufficiency advocate and author John Seymour’s Pure Energy Trust. “The technology is already available. It is largely a question of people and politicians making brave decisions.”

Perhaps first in the process of making those “brave decisions” is dismantling what the Rocky Mountain Institute a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering sustainability, calls the “myths” of hydrogen’s associated risk. The Hindenburg, reads the Web site, caught fire because an unexpected electrical discharge ignited the airship’s canvas, which had been treated with two components of rocket fuel. The airship’s hydrogen flames actually swirled above the passengers’ compartment—and 35 of the 37 casualties died, not from hydrogen burns, but because they jumped. In fact, everyone who rode the Hindenburg to the ground survived except for two people who received diesel burns. Similarly, experts agree that the 1986 Challenger Space Shuttle explosion was not due to hydrogen. And an H-Bomb utilizes tritium, a form of hydrogen used to replicate the process by which the sun generates energy—something which occurs at astronomical temperatures and pressures, causing nuclear rather than chemical reactions.

Pegg-Karlsson, a resident of Cornwall, England, began advocating using hydrogen for car fuel in the 1990s after observing a successful hydrogen power experiment financed in her native Sweden by the local steel industry, Saab, and other corporations. That project, known as the “Welgas Experiment,” has inspired people like Pegg-Karlsson to believe that hydrogen eventually will overtake all other alternative fuel sources, and solve the problem of atmospheric pollution, simultaneously replacing nuclear power.

Hydrogen actually has a lot to recommend it as a fuel source. Its energy content is three to four times greater than oil’s and can be produced from a variety of energy sources—most often natural gas or water, which is readily available as an industrial by-product. Pegg-Karlsson is using the results of the Welgas Experiment in Britain to advocate for hydrogen as the sustainable resource of the future. So far, her campaign is working.

The story of the Welgas Experiment goes thus: In the town of Harnosand, engineer Olaf Tegstrom designed a house powered entirely by a small computer-controlled Danish windmill installed in the garden. The electricity produced was used to electrolyze filtered water into its constituents, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen gas was then used for cooking, heating, and to run his car, a Saab. Tegstrom lived in the house with no problems.

Thanks to this successful experiment, many hydrogen-power projects are taking place throughout the world. The Swedish city of Uppsala is forming links with Britain’s Bristol to carry out joint hydrogen projects, and the Pure Energy Trust is developing plans for Bristol to run a minibus to run on hydrogen derived from a 20-kilowatt wind turbine and electrolysis unit. In 2003, nine major cities—London, Stuttgart, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Hamburg, Porto, Luxembourg, and Reykjavik—will begin a two-year trial of zero-emission, hydrogen-powered buses. Three 70-seater buses—which cost three times more than gasoline-fueled buses, have an operating range of 150 miles, and will be refueled with hydrogen fuel courtesy of British Petroleum—will be supplied to each city by EvoBus, a division of Daimler-Chrysler. London Transport hopes to enlarge its fleet following the trial’s completion, but needs to develop a wider hydrogen fuel infrastructure first.

Professor Ulrich Wagner of Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University, a renewable energy specialist who sees hydrogen-fueled energy as a “common path,” also disagrees with the perception of hydrogen as dangerous. “We need better storage systems, more efficient storage systems, and we need a certain infrastructure in order to get started,” he said. However, consumers shouldn’t be afraid to drive hydrogen-fueled cars. “Of course there is some risk, but it is comparable to the risk we have with conventional automotive fuels,” he said. So far, the tests bear Wagner out. BMW has conducted many crash tests on its prototype hydrogen-fueled sedan in order to determine what would happen if the car’s hydrogen tank was punctured or damaged. In all the tests, the liquid hydrogen dissipated harmlessly rather than exploded.
The Rocky Mountain Institute also backs Wagner’s viewpoint. Posing the question “But what if the hydrogen does somehow ignite in a car?” The Web site presents the results of tests conducted by Miami University’s College of Engineering, in which hydrogen was leaked from a car’s fuel tank at the rate of 3,000 cubic feet per minute and ignited. While the hydrogen burned, temperature sensors placed inside the car measured maximum increases of only 1 or 2 degrees centigrade. In fact, the Web site reports, “the temperature of the surface of the outside of the vehicle did not climb above that of a vehicle sitting in the sunshine!”

In Germany, BMW already has 15 models of its hydrogen-fueled 750hL sedan, which looks very much like the conventional BMW, on the road. This 12-cylinder V-engine model, with its140-liter hydrogen tank, can switch over to gasoline when the car runs out of range of a hydrogen supply. By flicking a switch next to the gear lever, the fuel injection is changed from gas to hydrogen, which is stored in a parallel tank—or vice versa. The car’s range is not great at only 217.5 miles, and it can’t compete with its gas-powered equivalent as far as performance goes, but with a top speed of 140 mph and 150 horsepower, it’s not too far behind.

In 2001, BMW took its fleet of hydrogen-powered cars around the world, calling it “The Clean Energy World Tour.” Combined, the cars traveled more than 63,000 miles. The verdict from the auto industry and general public: “It feels like a normal car.” In fact, the only real problem anyone could see with it is that there’s only one hydrogen station so far—rather inconveniently located at Munich Airport. But BMW plans to install at least one hydrogen filling station in every European capital by 2005.
Los Angeles was BMW’s fifth and final Clean Energy stop, where a gala was hosted by Jay Leno. Writer Vince Bodiford of the auto industry magazine The Weekend Drive gave the cars a rave review, stating: “Zero-emission cars are the mandate of California’s Air Resource Board and the California Environmental Protection Agency. In reality, zero emissions are not possible; since some emissions are created by tire wear, oil wear, and the like. However, zero tailpipe emissions are a great place to start, which is where the Clean Energy BMW cars shine.”
In the US, the Palm Desert Project in California is working on showcasing the complete zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) concept. A fleet of five personal cars (10 mph; range 15 miles) and three neighborhood vehicles (30 mph; range 70 miles) are being fueled by a central filling station that supplies fully renewable hydrogen produced from solar cells and wind turbines. Each vehicle can refuel in less than two minutes and provides an equivalent of 130 mpg.

As great as it sounds, hydrogen power’s cost is still prohibitive. But Bodiford believes it could “become the world’s cheapest and cleanest fuel—if the fuel is synthesized from seawater using electrolysis” instead of natural gas. The American Hydrogen Association (AHA) agrees. The AHA promotes hydrogen and fuel cell technologies; keeps track of the latest developments in the field; sells books, tools, and fuel cell technology through its Hydrogen Depot; and provides on line instructions and a hydrogen calculator chart for converting your car to hydrogen fuel.

According to the AHA Web site, hydrogen-power conversion specialists charge anywhere from $1,500 to $40,000 to do the job, depending on car type and operating requirements. However, the AHA’s semi-annual short course promises to teach people everything necessary to understand hydrogen technology and its safety factors. “The reality is that hydrogen conversion is much like a CNG [natural gas] conversion,” the Web site states, and advocates consulting with hydrogen and/or CNG conversion companies first. Good resources are progressive municipalities and utility companies that include CNG-powered vehicles in their fleets; in California, several transit agencies and school districts have already pursued conversion.