New Automotive Powertrains and Fuels
Gordon Taylor
2003-10-20
I
was a co-author of a paper 'The Future of the Hydrogen Economy: Bright
or Bleak ?', of which the final version was
published on the web on 15 April 2003. This prompted me to make an
extensive study of new automotive powertrains and fuels - to meet the
increasing concerns of climate change and resource depletion -
particularly Peak Oil. I found a surprising amount of data published on
the web, and subjected it to careful analysis. One significant finding
is that - of the various Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle prototypes - the
Toyota FCHV5 has the best overall 'Well-to-Wheel' efficiency. The
second is that even this is inferior to the 2004 model Toyota Prius
engine-electric hybrid car that is already in high-volume production.
This
supports the finding of our hydrogen paper,
that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have nothing to offer and are a
pointless distraction. Instead we should be concentrating on producing
sustainable liquid fuels. These could be bioethanol as discussed in
this study, produced either from sugar cane, as in the Brazilian
example, or as a 'Second Generation' biofuel, probably based on 'ligno-cellulosic' - 'woody' - feedstocks . Another possibility is a liquid fuel
synthesised from Carbon Dioxide captured from flue gases and hydrogen
produced by electrolysis, using renewable electricity. This is outlined
in our hydrogen paper. Such fuels would
have the advantage of overcoming the land area - and water and nutrient
- constraints on biofuel production, while being carbon neutral. Their
production should be integrated with that of Combined Heat and Power -
with the carbon dioxide captured from the flue gases - and the use of
'surplus' electricity from wind farms. This is because energy can be
'cascaded' through all three processes, and heat and liquids can easily
be stored, even if the wind electricity is variable, so that almost
none need be wasted. This is already standard practice in modern
chemical plants. Indeed,
one plant could produce both from
biomass feedstock - as in a Biorefinery - and by synthesis. As liquids such fuels can readily be handled by the
existing infrastructure and used by the existing worldwide vehicle
fleet of some 800 million. New vehicles can also continue to increase
in fuel efficiency, probably with an increasing proportion of
engine-electric hybrids.
Here is the study as a pdf New Automotive Powertrains and Fuels.