Hydrogen+Fuel+Cell+International+Business

=Hydrogen Fuel Cell & International Business=

__posted on 12/28/07__ any last minute questions/concerns? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0830_050830_minifuelcell.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/08/0827_040827_hydrogen_energy.html very interesting articles to use for support; tells how much our world (including our economy and markets) could change if other objects (besides cars) changed incorporated hydrogen fuel cells as energy.

__posted on 12/27/07__ feel free to use our website for any info! http://www.thehydrogenfuture.blogspot.com/

__posted on 12/18/07__ awesome website... check it out! http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0623_050623_hydrogenfuel.html

__posted on 12/15/07__
 * Advantages of the hydrogen economy**
 * The elimination of pollution caused by fossil fuels, greenhouse gases, and economic dependence.
 * Removing economic dependence allows for distributed production - hydrogen can be produced anywhere that you have electricity and water. People can even produce it in their homes with relatively simple technology. Hence the supply of hydrogen will meet the demand.
 * The problems with the fossil fuel economy are so great, and the environmental advantages of the hydrogen economy so significant, that the push toward the hydrogen economy is very strong.
 * Concerns of a Hydrogen Economy**
 * The main concern with the hydrogen economy is, "Where does the hydrogen come from?" After that comes the problem of transporting, distributing and storing hydrogen. Hydrogen tends to be bulky and difficult in its natural gas form. Once the storage problem is solved and standardized, then a network of hydrogen stations and the transportation infrastructure will have to develop around it. The main barrier to this might be the setting up process. Stations will not develop quickly until there is a storage technology; and this kind of standardization is unlikely to happen quickly.
 * Moving to a pure hydrogen economy will be hard. The power-generating plants will have to switch over to renewable sources of energy, and the marketplace will have to adapt to store and transport hydrogen. This will cause the shift to the hydrogen economy to be a long process.

__posted on 12/14/07__ Currently, most of the world is locked into a fossil fuel economy. Our cars, trains and planes are fueled mostly by petroleum products like gasoline and diesel. A huge percentage of our power plants use oil, natural gas and coal for their fuel. If the flow of fossil fuels were ever cut off, the economies would come to a halt. There would be no way to transport the products that factories produce. There would be no way for people to drive to work. We have created an economic dependence on oil. Many countries, cannot produce enough oil to meet demand (especially the States), so they import it from oil-rich countries (middle east, Canada). When major oil producers decide to raise the price of oil, the rest of the world has little choice but to pay the higher price. From the above graph, we can see how little hydro fuel we presently use.
 * Problems with the fossil fuel economy**

__posted on 12/13/07__
 * How Hydrogen Is Produced**

Hydrogen can be made from a variety of different resources, such as water, biomass, coal and natural gas. Because hydrogen exists and is available in many different forms, it may be extracted from a variety of different feedstocks, which is a high advantage in terms of production. Today over 95% of hydrogen is produced from steam reforming natural has. Some options may include renewable or nuclear electricity and electrolysis (you are now able to buy electrolysis machines, which means you can produce hydrogen on-the-spot at any time), gasification of biomass and/or coal, and by using nuclear reactor heat for high temperature electrolysis or thermo chemical methods of production. These are the different ways hydrogen may be produced, meaning that technology is basically the mastermind of the production of hydrogen fuel cells, while people just run the actual machines and ship off or transport the hydrogen in cylinders or tube/liquid trailers depending on the amount needed.

Politics deals with internal and external affairs and the control of the governing administration. Because hydrogen fuel can greatly change the nation, and society’s views of how it may be able to “save us” due to the environmental benefits and other factors being effected by it, it is correct to say that it has an effect on politics or political views. The government is supporting the research and development occurring in terms of hydrogen fuel, and has been developing support fundraisers and different affairs that may help with the new technology being needed to produce hydrogen fuel with more efficiency and make it available to consumers at a lower cost. The president has chosen to take a hydrogen fuel initiative to lower the dependence of the country on foreign oil, but instead try to help develop the technology needed in order to produce their own hydrogen and make the hydrogen fuel cell car the vehicle of the future. This would benefit the country’s independence, along with producing no pollution and greenhouse gases. The American President is currently working on lowering hydrogen cost, creating effective hydrogen storage and creating affordable fuel cells to help ensure America’s energy independence in the long run.
 * Hydrogen & Politics**

__posted on 12/12/07__ Hydrogen fuel is currently much more expensive to produce than actual gasoline. The President’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative (concerning politics and the government) is looking to lower that cost enough to make it competitive with other fuels and/or available technologies, along with advancing the different ways used to produce hydrogen from renewable sources, nuclear energy, etc. Programs such as the DOE have been working to achieve different goals. This hydrogen program along has reduced the cost of producing hydrogen from natural gas from $5.00/gge in 2003 to $3.00/gge in 2007. They have also reduced the high volume cost of fuel cells from $275/kW in 2002 to $107/kW in 2007. Today’s estimated costs for producing/delivering hydrogen to the fueling station using today’s technology may vary from about $2.10/gallon of gasoline equivalent (gge) to $9.10/gge. In comparison to a hybrid electric vehicle, the driver of a fuel cell vehicle would pay the same amount to travel 100 miles on hydrogen as a driver of a gasoline-powered hybrid electric car would pay for gas if the price was between the provided range above ($2.10 - $9.10) to travel the same distance.
 * Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cost**

Hydrogen fuel is available today and can be bought in either small or large quantities depending on the desires of the consumer(s) and what he or she chooses to use it for. When bought in smaller quantities, hydrogen is usually sold in cylinders, being able to be easily transported as a compressed gas between where it is produced and used. These cylinders are usually made of steel and come in many different sizes, holding different amounts of hydrogen pressure. Two common sizes are the “K” (or “200”) and the “T” (or the “300”) cylinders. When bought in larger quantities, a tube trailer of compressed hydrogen or liquid tanker truck of liquid hydrogen is used for delivery. A common size is 70 000 scf (standard cubic foot) for a tube trailer, while a liquid truck capacity may range from about 1 million to 1.8 million scf
 * Hydrogen Availability**

__posted on 11/28/07__

Fuel cells are an important enabling technology for the hydrogen economy and have the potential to revolutionize the way we govern our nation, by offering cleaner and more efficient strategies to the combustion of gasoline along with other fossil fuels. Fuel cells have the potential to replace an internal combustion engine within a vehicle, providing power in stationary and/or portable power applications because they are fuel flexible and energy efficient. Hydrogen is the fuel cell used in this developing technology.

Hydrogen fuel cells basically act as a storage battery for energy coming from other sources. In a fuel cell, hydrogen and oxygen are fed to the anode and cathode of each cell, where electrons are then stripped from the hydrogen producing a current of electricity. This process is beneficial to our environment in many ways, as hydrogen does not have negative effects. The more productivity of the hydrogen fuel cell will result in a decrease of oil imports (as they will be replaced by hydrogen), the reduction of urban air pollution, and finally a reduction of trade deficit, or an increase of many possible job openings. · If approximately 10% of automobiles nationwide were powered by fuel cells, regulated air pollutants would be cut by one million tons per year along with eliminating 60 million tons of the greenhouse gas carbon. · The same number of fuel cell cars would cut oil imports by 800,000 barrels a day, which is about 13 percent of total imports. The development of a hydrogen economy requires major investments in fuel cell technology research and nuclear or solar power plant construction; along with there being a cost of converting all existing technology to hydrogen fuel cells. Because the hydrogen fuel cell process is so expensive, it is harder for hydrogen fuel cell plants to be sold in markets. One company offers fuel cell power plants for about $3,000 per kilowatt. At this price, the units are competitive in high value, "niche" markets, or in areas where electricity prices are high and natural gas prices are low. If there had been a drop to about $1,500 per kilowatt, it is expected that the hydrogen fuel cell would achieve market penetration worldwide. More research is still required in order to bring down the prices of hydrogen fuel, enabling it to be successful in markets and trades, along with the hydrogen infrastructure needing to be recognized globally. · Canada, Japan, Germany and the US are the main countries promoting fuel cell development with tax credits, low-interest loans and grants to support early purchases and drive down costs in the future. Toyota is one of the early blooming companies who have been investing heavily in fuel cell vehicle research. · Today, we see more and more companies, such as General Motors and Honda promoting their hydrogen fuel cell vehicles globally through the market, increasing competition towards other companies to producing the same sort. The hydrogen fuel cell will not only benefit the environment and stopping more useless air pollution from occurring, but it will open more job opportunities to people in need, placing more trade in the hands of importing and exporting companies, as the hydrogen fuel cell becomes more and more successful, along with more in demand. Marketing strategies will be taken into effect by companies in order to provide consumers with the satisfaction they need in order to open and/or manage hydrogen fuel cell plants or to use in order to build more beneficial products. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will help revolutionize society, becoming the alternate transportation system or vehicle of the future, if markets are able to successfully build a hydrogen infrastructure, promoting this fuel globally.

Sources: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/fuelcells/ http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/tech/hydrogen http://www.bullnet.co.uk/shops/test/hydrogen.htm http://www.culturechange.org/hydrogen.htm http://www.hydrogenassociation.org/general/faqs.asp http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/presidents_initiative.html