Posts Tagged ‘hydrogen’
BC Transit offers Hydrogen Buses for sale
I saw this story on the CBC News last night so that’s where I am linking to. It gets picked up by the paywalled press too, of course, but what I think is interesting about this version is the commentary from Eric Denhoff President and CEO of the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association..
While these buses may have saved some greenhouse gas emissions, the admission that the hydrogen had to be trucked from Quebec offsets that a bit. Hydrogen is of course freely available everywhere: extracting it, packing and shipping it is, of course the expensive bit, and itself consumes lots of energy. And the trucks which drove back and forth across the continent were diesel powered. There is also a plant in North Van which vents hydrogen it produces as a byproduct which is not clean enough for the finicky fuel cells.
What annoys me about the web version of this story is that is misses the correct attribution of responsibility. The TV news had quite a bit about the decision by Gordon Campbell to buy these buses and have them run in Whistler during the Olympics. It also mentioned the complete failure of the “hydrogen highway” that he announced with Arnold Schwarzenegger that never materialized.
The Province always has money for these ribbon cutting, PR fluff type projects. Obviously just not enough money for Whistler’s transit system to keep running the things. There is never enough money to run transit in BC but every so often they go all loopy and buy a bunch of white elephants. Several different iterations of CNG buses wished on to Vancouver before they got one that actually worked reliably. Even though the emissions from diesel buses fitted with mandatory control equipment now equal the tailpipe performance of CNG. Not that there is much wrong with air quality in Vancouver.
It is also worth noting that the CBC web version mentions that there is a Plan B if BC Transit can’t find a buyer, which I would think is the most likely outcome.
NOTE This post has been corrected after correspondence from Eric Denhoff (April 28, 2015)
Transit tests out hybrid bus
Can you hear the wailing and the gnashing of teeth? Once again the sub editors have undermined a transit story. The whole point about this bus isn’t that it is a “hybrid” (I am not at all sure it meets any normal usage of that term) but that it runs on hydrogen.
The pictures that accompany the article show that photographer Darren Stone was playing around with a wide angle – maybe even “fish eye” – lens, and it is this quite difficult to determine what the thing really looks like.
BC Transit CEO Manuel Achadinha with a fuel cell hybrid powered bus in Victoria, B.C. March 11, 2010.
Built to be environmentally friendly, its batteries can be recharged at night by plugging it in to the electrical grid and hydrogen fuel tanks — stored in the roof of the bus — can be refilled.
OK so that explains the “hybrid” tag – so then we are back to the usual quibble I have about the claims that are made about “environmentally friendly”. It all depends on where the electricity comes from – and the hydrogen for that matter. In BC we get most of our power from existing hydro, so it is about as clean a power source as you can get. There was a lot of environmental impact when the dams were built and the valleys flooded – but most of that was in the past. Of course, a lot of fish habitat has never been restored or replaced either, but compared to other power stations hydro generation is reasonably benign. But elsewhere in North America a lot of electricity comes from coal – which is about as bad as it can be. And a lot of new power generation in BC is going to be a lot less environmentally friendly than it could be. That’s because in the rush to allow private sector generators to make a lot of money, many corners were cut off – including the critical environmental assessment process.
But I digress.
B.C. Transit spent about $15,000 and the Canadian and U.S. federal governments each chipped in $45,000 to bring the bus to Victoria
Which is not very much for a project like this – the demo of the Bombardier trams here cost a great deal more!
But what does it really tell us? That one of these buses – which currently cost double a conventional bus – will be quieter and a bit cleaner. No mention, you notice, of trolleybuses – which can do all of this as far as the wires reach. I also wonder if the batteries are really the best choice. They tend to be a significant environmental issue themselves: might super-capacitors be a better choice? I don’t know, I am not an engineer – and there is no information in the story about what type of batteries these are. And I read somewhere recently (no, I am not going to look it up) that shortages of rare earth elements may be more significant than peak oil.
But most importantly, as with the hydrogen buses in Whistler, in BC we do not have a suitable source of hydrogen and it is now being trucked in from Quebec. That is not at all environmentally friendly. Indeed, it is not economical nor is it energy efficient. The “hydrogen highway” was just the Potempkin village put up for Olympic PR purposes.
It might be a pretty bus – I like the idea of lightweight composite materials: they could be used in any bus. It might be a quiet bus – but then so are trolleybuses. But I really do not see why anyone within Transit should get excited about hydrogen. Frankly, we cannot afford it. Transit is starved of cash, and needs to make the most of every dollar. And I am afraid that experience to date of just about every “alternative fuel” (and hydrogen is not really a fuel either – its just an expensive way to store and move electricity) has been that they have been both expensive and technically inferior to well established technologies.
Why do I talk to the CBC?
Once again, I agreed to be interviewed for CBC TV. They have been up a Whistler looking at the hydrogen buses, and they wanted to talk to me about what might have been a better way to spend the money. Of course, all they really want is a sound bite. This happens every so often. I stay in. They run up, they spend a while talking while tape is rolling. They then take some other footage which can be used – with other sources of sound – in the editting suite. It might take twenty minutes to half an hour, of which a minute or two at most might be seen (or heard on CBC radio). As with nearly every issue in real life, things are rarely simple – and usually interconnected. But the world of TV news does not allow for complexity.
Of course I have covered this issue in this blog – some time ago actually – which is how they got hold of me in the first place. The key question is “was there a better way to spend $40m?” (or whatever the figure was)
Yes, of course, I replied. If you just wanted zero emission buses the same money would buy you 40 trolleybuses. Or if you wanted to increase transit use, 80 conventional buses. Of course, you would need more operating funds to actually use the buses – they would need operators, as well as some maintenance. By the way, the funding for the BC Transit hydrogen buses ends in 2014. No-one knows what happens to them then.
Would that actually increase transit use then?
Well no, not really. It would be a necessary but not a sufficient condition. We really need transit priority on the street – to make the service attractive and reliable – but we also need to have a land use pattern that makes transit use feasible. Outside of Vancouver, there are not many places where that is the case. And as long as there is inadequate transit service, not really much chance that things will change. And as long as we are spending billions on widening one freeway and building another one, not much chance of that pattern emerging either.
Like I said, there really is no simple magic bullet solution. Gordon Campbell – like most politicians – loves being on tv. He enjoys the ribbon cutting moments, and always has a sound bite ready. And he is all about image. Reality, of course, is rather different. He likes to be seen in front of a hydrogen bus, because he likes people to think he is green. Actually his performance to date on the green portfolio has been worse than dismal. The huge expansion of oil, gas and coal exploration has been second only to Alberta. BC was the only province to increase its industrial greenhouse gas emissions in 2008. The carbon tax has had no measurable effect on car use – or indeed anything else. The pipeline from Alberta to the BC coast will be soon be built for the export of bitumen and the import of distillate, which means the prospect of oil tankers in the inside passage will soon be a reality. When that happens, expect the moratorium on off shore drilling for oil and gas to vanish. The increase in car use in the lower mainland will by then be seen as a minor contributor to BC burgeoning ghg production. There has not been a lot of green achievement so far – and the prospects for the near future look to be much worse.
We know what we have to do to reduce ghg emissions. We have to reduce the use of fossil fuels – which first means cutting their production. Then we have to adopt a life style that is less carbon intensive. In urban areas that means we walk and cycle more – and use transit for the longer trips. Over time, motorised trip making must be reduced, which means we have to tackle land use. Transit must be electrified – which means we can use a variety of sources of energy, but we are lucky in BC in having plenty of existing hydro. Of course, we have to stop using that for other purposes like export to California to feed their fridges and air-conditioners, or for our own space heaters. There will of course be a long transition period – it cannot happen overnight – which means hybrid and battery cars will have some role – as will diesel buses, which have a service life of around 18 years. In that time we will have also brought in more bikeways, bus lanes and surface LRT. Transit oriented development will be encouraged at the points where transit service is most frequent – and will be very popular, as other ways of getting around get more difficult and expensive, since oil gets very expensive, very quickly in nearly any scenario. The good news is that we will be both happier and healthier: the more we walk, the lower the incidence of diabetes, heart disease and obesity – the three biggest threats we now face. Public health costs – one of the greatest budgetary concerns at present – could actually start to fall. But there is absolutely no need whatever for hydrogen – in buses or cars. We have all the transport technologies we need – we just need to use them more sensibly. We need a real commitment to change – not a showcase or a Potemkin village. Buying more buses is just step one – and nothing will happen until we take the steps after that – and keep going in that direction.
Green group questions economic sense of hydrogen buses
It was a while ago now that I questioned the hydrogen bus plan for Whistler, in fact May 1, 2007. That post attracted a comment from someone using the pen name “Astrolounge” who is obviously an insider, since (s)he revealed that the “plan” was even worse than I imagined. Over two years later and long after most of the money has been spent, Ian Bruce of the David Suzuki Foundation has caught up – and is now being quoted by the Province yesterday.
Bruce says he is concerned about the priority of spending on the hydrogen buses as part of the 12-year $14-billion provincial transit plan announced in January of 2008.
“The new money was roughly $11 billion and of that just under $5 billion was committed from the province,” said Bruce. “Yet in the last budget we had roughly $150 million (toward public transit) so it is not even putting us close to being on track.”
The so called “transit plan” was bogus. I said that at the time as well. There was never any money – other than the funds committed to the Canada Line and this daft Olympic showcase as part of the “hydrogen highway”. The plan relied on money from the feds, and from the municipal level as well. Neither was consulted – and no commitments by either were ever made. The “plan” was simply a hasty rehashing of earlier proposals, designed to look like a plan. And there was never any thought given to how these projects might get enough operational funding.
The Gordon Campbell government was, as that time, looking forward to the election, and trying to appear green. Somehow they managed to work this trick with a totally inadequate carbon tax. Carol James seized on this as her (failed) strategy, when it would have been much easier to discredit the BC Liberals due to their much greater commitment to greenhouse gas increases through the Gateway – a major freeway expansion – the expansion of oil, gas and coal extraction and the yet to be realised plans to build more pipelines to export tar sands output, as well as the very real threat to open up drilling for oil around Haida Gwai.
Added to the question of costs is the fact that the hydrogen has to be bused in from Quebec, as it cannot be produced in B.C. in great enough quantities.
Actually that’s nonsense too. If you are going to spend these sorts of sums, a new electrolysis plant running off our own abundant hydro resources should not have been too difficult. After all, how can you have a hydrogen highway without the hydrogen? Of course, the fact that apart form these buses there are no hydrogen vehicles that need the fuel now or in the foreseeable future is just one of those nitpicking details that can be readily dismissed.
But, said BC Transit spokeswoman Joanna Morton, investing in future technologies is a must.
Actually, it isn’t. There are all sorts of well proven technologies that would increase transit use, reduce car dependency and start building a greener future. The problem is that would require a government that understands how transportation and land use needs to be changed to a more sustainable model. That would, for a start, mean abandoning freeway widening – something that Gordon Campbell has made clear he has no intention of doing even though studies the government themselves sponsored show will increase ghg emissions. It would also mean that some new funding source would have to be found to ensure that the proposed capital projects would actually be able to be operated. This is the most pressing problem in Greater Vancouver – not for BC Transit, since none of the other cities in the province will ever see modern transit investment in anything other than buses. Translink (SoCoBriTCA) cannot afford any system expansion – and has simply raised fares and taxes to keep operating the same system it has now for the forseeable future.
The real question that needs to be answered is why this government can find millions for hydrogen buses which cannot operate effectively in Whistler and meets no identifiable needs at all, when all sorts of worthwhile projects that would increase transit use and enable a more efficient land use pattern are neglected. The Evergreen Line is the one that springs to mind, but let’s assume that BC Transit has to be involved and needs to spend in other places – so perhaps Rail for the Valley and on the E&N on the Island come to mind. Or perhaps streetcars for Victoria. None of these looks Olympic of course. None offer photo ops with the Governator. But they would actually work to increase transit use and encourage transit oriented development, and thus actually do something effective about ghg emissions. Something that can not be claimed for hydrogen buses in Whistler.
Honda rolls out Hydrogen Car
Well you can find it there and many other places. It is actually an agency story from Tokyo.
It is said to be the first production fuel cell car – but the volumes are going to be very low.
Honda expects to lease out a “few dozen” units this year and about 200 units within a year. In California, a three-year lease will run $600 (U.S.) a month, which includes maintenance and collision coverage.
Among the first customers are actress Jamie Lee Curtis and filmmaker husband Christopher Guest, actress Laura Harris, film producer Ron Yerxa, as well as businessmen Jon Spallino and Jim Salomon.
That’s payback for Arnie’s “hydrogen highway” but really delivers very little apart from column inches. And of course have a real Hollywood star name associated with the new car is good press too. But no-one is expected to go to a showroom and order one. In fact the chances of any ordinary Joe switching away from an SUV to one of these is slim to none.
As the piece points out, how you get the hydrogen determines whether this is a good policy move or not. And in terms of energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in California these may be worse than a hybrid. The lease rates are artificially low too. Honda is charging these to its R&D budget, not making money on them for a long time.
For most people now the big issue is gas prices – not air pollution or greenhouse gas emissions – but their response is actually doing more to reduce both both than any alternative fuel. They are taking transit.
How much is clean air worth?
Our Premier was ever so proud of signing his “hydrogen highway” pact with Governor Schwarzenegger.
But at least one transit operator in California is having second thoughts about hydrogen buses
According to the Silicon Valley Mercury News, the Valley Transportation Authority is now reporting that the operating cost of the each hydrogen bus is $51.66 per mile compared to $1.61 for a comparable diesel bus.
They break down much more frequently, and replacement parts are next to impossible to order, according to the report.
Which sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Translink had to park its entire fleet of CNG buses for very similar reasons. In that case most of the problems could be traced to an unsuccessful attempt to convert the new style of diesel engine to use CNG fuel. While sold as an “original equipment manufacturer” engine, its conversion turned out to have been contracted out to a specialist company.
Public transit is no place to test out new technology. There simply is not enough money in transit budgets to cover R&D for unproven systems. Not only that but the big problems we face – greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution – come from car use. There simply are not enough enough buses to make much difference. But what does make a difference is reducing the number of cars on the road. And the only way we can start to tackle that issue is by increasing the amount of transit service. Wasting Spending money on leading edge demonstration projects may well come from someone’s R&D budget, but that money would be much better spent on buying conventional buses. For we know that per passenger kilometre travelled, transit performs much better than single occupant vehicles – for both ghg and common air contaminants.
Here the hydrogen buses will be operated by BC Transit in Whistler.
If a zero emission bus is thought worthwhile, we already know how to do that. It’s called an electric trolleybus and it only costs twice as much as a diesel bus to buy.
Hydrogen highway hits dead end
Ballard’s talks with potential buyers is admission that dream of hydrogen fuel car is dead
Ballard has raised – and spent – huge amounts of money, but it now looks ready to admit that the dream of a car that runs on a fuel cell may not be realised.
“The problem was always, can you make hydrogen fuel at a price point that makes any sense to anybody. And the answer to that to date has been no”
Which when you think that in the time Ballard has been trying to crack this nut, the price of oil has risen from around $20 to nudging $100 is really quite remarkable. A lot of technologies – including extracting motor fuel from oil sands – looked very dubious when oil was cheap but are now very popular investments. Ballard seemed to me to be too good to be true when I first heard of it, and the technology people kept comparing the way fuel cell prices would drop to the way that computers have got cheaper. But Research Capital analyst Jon Hykawy draws attention to the “fuel” itself. Since I am not a scientist, nor an engineer, I must admit that I felt a bit out of my depth, but I never really understood why hydrogen was such a draw. It seemed to be to be ridiculously difficult to store and move the stuff, and I just did not see how you could overcome some of the basic physics. Not only that but here in Vancouver hydrogen was being vented as a waste product – a side effect from some other chemical process – and no-one seemed in the slightest bit interested in why it could not be captured economically.
In the end it always comes down to basic economics – and hydrogen is not actually a source of energy, merely a rather inefficient way of moving it about. Yes it seemed to make sense to NASA to use it as rocket fuel, but then they developed a ball point pen to work in space when the Russians just used pencils. Just because you can persuade a bunch of congressmen to give you a huge budget doesn’t mean it is necessarily a very good idea. Or, in the case of Ballard, a lot of people who have bought shares in an enterprise that does not seem likely now to be the next Big Thing.
The FP’s headline of course does not refer to Arnie and Gordon’s ridiculous PR exercise. I expect that will stagger along for a bit longer until someone quietly puts it out of its misery, and it will join methanol and propane as transportation fuels that promised much but delivered little. And mostly at the taxpayers’ expense.
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