#PowerToX Part III: ENERGY SUPPLY — Mobility could be run on non-fossil fuels
In the previous part 2 of our blog series, you have learned that pretty much all of the industries we are running within our modern industrialized world on the planet emit CO2, but some are clearly frontrunners.
To go from a general level towards concrete applications, in this part 3 we will investigate whether it is possible to take a significantly CO2-contributing sector off-fossil and run it via renewable energy sources.
Exemplary, we will use the mobility sector for this, which is the third largest emittent emitter of CO2 globally. “Mobility” generally includes any kind of “traffic” spanning from transport to individual mobility over air, sea and land transportation.
For our example here, we will select personal mobility to start with as this somehow affects all of us and is — in the form of privately owned passenger cars — such a delicate and emotional topic to the Germans in particular .
It should by now be no surprise to anyone anymore that there are proven alternatives to the widely applied combustion engines for individual transportation.
Indeed, I know about the Teslas and AUDI eTrons and so forth. So, problem solved! Why continue to bother and read another complex blog chapter after I suffered through your previous two already?
Because the problem is far from being globally solved and the technology you mentioned — Battery-powered electronic vehicles (BEVs) — might not even be the ultimate solution.
What? You mean the hipsters who invested more than 100k EUR into a brand-new BEV did so and did not become finally CO2-neutral once and for all?
I am afraid so. The mode of operation of a BEV put simply is that energy is produced externally, stored in the BEV in usually in a Lithium-Ion battery and then consumed while driving — powering an electrical engine that converts electrical energy potential into energy and ultimately movement.
However, the BEV is only carbon-neutral (taken its production process and maintenance out of the equation) if the energy that it is using had been generated in a renewable fashion.
So, if you would take your BEV to a charging station in Germany today for example, you will still be running on about 54% of conventional fuels (including atomic energy, which is CO2-neutral but of course still faces the unsolved question of storing its highly dangerous waste):
But that issue would of course be solved if I managed to charge my BEV always with renewable energy, for example at my purely wind & solar-powered home?
Yes, indeed but given that you probably want to use your BEV outside of your home range, you will most probably have to rely on energy companies for a certain while. And technically, even if you purchase the ecological tariff of your energy provider — you’re still consuming the same energy mix as everybody else n Germany.
Additionally, BEVs face significant challenges:
a) Additional weight: As their mode of operation includes storing the needed electrical energy onboard, they rely on powerful batteries. As of today, Lithium-Ion is the technology of choice. These batteries are unfortunately very heavy, meaning that additional energy is needed to move the battery component along with the car.
b) Scarce resources: As the name already implies, these batteries require the raw material Lithium (among others) to function. Lithium is scarce, toxic, hard to recycle and currently being and as of today harvested in remote areas of the world under questionable conditions to the concerned workers (to say the least).
c) Limited range and charging duration: Due to the fact that the energy necessary to drive the car is stored onboard, its driving range is naturally limited. And in the case of BEVs, a range extension would pretty much always mean larger batteries and that would result in additional weight. Thus, BEVs are rather useful in metropolitan areas.
Source: US Department of Energy
Additionally, fueling takes time. Unlike fueling a gasoline-based vehicle which what can be done in less than 5 minutes, charging an empty Tesla Model 3 can take between 1 and 24 hours.
d) Limited availability of charging stations: Although the situation for BEV-users in the US and Western Europe has already increased significantly, an area-wide coverage of -unified and easy-to-use- charging infrastructure is yet not available. And the necessary efforts to roll that infrastructure out will be massive.
Conclusio: Put together, BEVs filled with renewable energy is a genius thing for certain use cases. However, there are plenty of use cases where the technology simply does not provide a feasible solution, such as long-distance travel, heave transport lorries, planes or cargo ships.
Aha. And are there any really clean and potentially more useful alternatives?
Currently, the most promising alternative technology from Sharkbite’s point of view are fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs).
These use pure hydrogen as fuel as it is commonly existing in the planet’s atmosphere. By running a reaction of the stored hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell, FCEVs produce their own energy for movement and out of the exhaust pipe comes: just water.
The principle of using liquid fuel (as combustion engines do) is combined with an electric engine as also used by BEVs.
Both are very different technical approaches but do have one thing in common: They require clean inputs.
In the case of the FCEV, its fuel -hydrogen- needs to be generated and stored. This process requires a significant amount of energy. So same as described above for BEVs applies here as well: As long as the hydrogen is not produced with 100% renewable energy, it’s not clean.
But as hydrogen can be stored by far better than transient electric energy, it is possible to produce hydrogen right next to for example solar or wind parks and store and deploy the pressurized or liquid hydrogen to where it is needed.
The commonly discussed downside of FCEV is its low efficiency factor. That means, that the process of producing hydrogen and the leverage of the energy stored in hydrogen both produce respective other outputs so that the energy stored is not solely used for kinetic energy, thus moving the car.
FCEVs are attributed a total efficiency factor of only 29–32% (Source: Prof. Dr. Christian Mohrdieck, Mercedes Fuel Cell GmbH).
So roughly two thirds of the energy are ultimately not used for moving the car but wasted.
This — besides being a marketing guru for his company Tesla which fully bets on BEVs — is the main reason why Elon Musk calls them “Fool Cells”.
At Sharkbite, we believe that Elon Musk is wrong.
Although roughly two thirds of energy are wasted during the end-to-end process from hydrogen production to the car movement, the waste does not matter — FCEVs are a zero emission device and — as long as renewable energy is used for hydrogen production — it simply does not matter because the wasted energy and water is simply put back to the circular process.
Additionally, many sources (i.e. Deloitte and Ballard, https://info.ballard.com/deloitte-vol-1-fueling-the-future-of-mobility) believe that in near future, also pure business acumen will favor FCEVs as “within 10 years it will become cheaper to run a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) than a battery electric vehicle (BEV) or an internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) for commercial vehicle applications”.
That is not only for individual traffic, but commercial vehicles. That’s buses and trucks.
Wait. So, this technical solution can be fully clean, will be cheaper and can potentially even be used for large commercial vehicles?
Yes indeed. Its application can also be extended to other mobility types like ships and aircrafts.
Aircrafts? Are you kidding me?
Nope. In 2016, the HY4, a working prototype for only 4 passengers started for its first flight.
Given a decent progress in research and development, the DLR (German Aerospace Center) estimates that in 9 years from now at least regional jets could fly 800 km with 80 passengers fully emission free.
Alright. If this is working so great and already available, why are not using it more broadly?
Basically, due to two reasons:
1, For cars and trucks, the technology is already applicable. Here, the classic chicken and egg problem applies: A limited availability of hydrogen fuel stations hinders the majority of potential buyers to put their hardly earned money into a FEV which in turn hinders companies to build and run hydrogen fuel stations .
But here, a state-driven program could help to make investments less risky and focus the mobility development.
This discussion is now highly current again, as it needs to be decided which industries and technologies will be subsidized after the current COVID19-crisis is over to re-start the economy.
I see. And what would be cleverer than to support a technology that has significant potential to counter the actually overshadowed upcoming climate crisis, right?
I would definitely agree but remember that for example in Germany there is no noteworthy offering of FEV producers. AUDI and Mercedes-Benz do have some pilot models, but if you wanted to order on FEV just now, you would have to turn to Toyota or Hyundai.
So, it appears rather unlikely that German subsidies are offered because German automotive industry would not benefit from them.
2, For other mobility types like ships and airplanes, technology is arguably not ready yet and more time for research and development will have to be spent.
Complex situation again. So, what can I do?
If you are living in a metropolitan area, fight the chicken and egg problem and let your next car be an FEV. Fuel is available and so are the cars.
For more ideas, stay tuned for our upcoming 4th edition of our blog series.
This blog is a part of a six part series highlighting a possible solution for fighting climate change and still meeting our energy demand.
The series is based on known scientific facts and is broken down as follows:
- Why climate change is real, and why it matters
- How greenhouse gases get into the atmosphere and who is responsible
- An exemplary sector use case: Mobility could be run on non-fossil fuels
- The disadvantages of hydrogen mobility and how we solve those
- What are the consequences if we could transfer global energy supply to Power-to-X
- What is likely to happen and what can we each contribute personally
