DOE presentation - future diesel development

nh mike

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I don't think this has been posted here before - this is an excellent presentation from last fall's Diesel Engine Emissions Reduction (DEER) conference, given by John Fairbanks of the US DOE EERE (Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy) and Vehicle Technologies Program. It starts with some interesting history on diesel, gasoline, and fuel cell development, and proceeds towards the future of diesel development, explaining their projection of 60% thermal efficiency in diesel engines around 2014. On the history side, a little tidbit - people like to say that fuel cells are the future, as they are a very new technology, so we should expect rapid developments. Yet, fuel cells were actually developed 44 years BEFORE the diesel engine.

The presentation:
http://www.orau.gov/deer/presentations/Session1/Fairbanks%20Diesel%20Myth_Final.pdf

And the accompanying paper:
http://www.osti.gov/fcvt/deer2004/FairbanksDieselMythpaper.pdf
 

b0gman

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great papers i believe that a DOE prentation similar was posted a few weeks back though im known to be wrong
 

wxman

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It would seem (to me anyway) that if diesels really can achieve this efficiency level (60%) that the need for fuel cells and a totally new fuel infrastructure system would be obviated. It doesn't appear that fuel cells are capable of much higher efficiencies than this (see http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=730 ).

As far as a fuel cell being "cleaner" is concerned, it is becoming a challenge to measure the emissions from diesels with the latest emission controls (e.g., DPFs, NOx reduction catalysts), and that includes even the large truck engines, i.e., the emission levels are near the detection limits of the instruments used to measure the emissions. Emissions from on-road vehicles will become VANISHINGLY small and will be SWAMPED by other anthropogenic and natural emissions. The emissions from the Mercury Meta concept vehicle (a PZEV diesel-hybrid SUV) approach those of a fuel cell ( http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosinsider/0412/26/B01-41965.htm ).

Guess I'm still not convinced that hydrogen fuel cells are a better approach than diesels running on biomass-based fuels.
 

105Uphill

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Keep forgetting about those early bio-mass methods of transportation. I like to watch the car shows on Spike on Sunday and the trucks guy actually mentioned bio-diesel.
 

nh mike

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It would seem (to me anyway) that if diesels really can achieve this efficiency level (60%) that the need for fuel cells and a totally new fuel infrastructure system would be obviated. It doesn't appear that fuel cells are capable of much higher efficiencies than this (see http://www.evworld.com/view.cfm?section=article&storyid=730 ).
That's a very well done article. Thermodynamic efficiencies are difficult to explain in layman's terms, and that author did an excellent job of making it fairly intelligible to the average reader.

Hopefully more people are starting to listen (I've been saying this for years, and most people just dismiss it out of hand, since they can point to a newspaper article contradicting it) - fuel cell vehicles are NOT more efficient than the latest combustion vehicles. Look at the extremely expensive hydrogen fuel cell vehicles being driven around for test data (and primarily in the best conditions) - they are achieving around 40-50 miles per gasoline-gallon-equivalent on hydrogen, and that's being done with roughly Yugo-sized "econoboxes" (althouth econoboxes costing hundreds of thousands of dollars), with regen braking (and that mileage is in city driving, where the regen braking really helps). You can beat that in a larger non-hybrid diesel, or a larger gasoline hybrid like the Prius, and for a fraction of the cost. Yet, hydrogen proponents continue to claim that hydrogen vehicles are 2-3 times as efficient, and people believe them.

As far as a fuel cell being "cleaner" is concerned, it is becoming a challenge to measure the emissions from diesels with the latest emission controls (e.g., DPFs, NOx reduction catalysts), and that includes even the large truck engines, i.e., the emission levels are near the detection limits of the instruments used to measure the emissions. Emissions from on-road vehicles will become VANISHINGLY small and will be SWAMPED by other anthropogenic and natural emissions. The emissions from the Mercury Meta concept vehicle (a PZEV diesel-hybrid SUV) approach those of a fuel cell ( http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosinsider/0412/26/B01-41965.htm ).
Yup. And the price for going from near-zero (modern combustion engine vehicles with the latest catalysts) to zero (hydrogen fuel cell) is HUGE.
 
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