IT: Hydrogen Powered Scooter?
Posted Tue Mar 6 16:26:36 2001 by steveg |
By Steve Gilliard
According to a story to run in the next editon of Inside Magazine, Ginger, the mysterious scooter, is going to be noted less for being a scooter than how it is powered.
Adam Penneberg, who wrote the exclusive story, examined the public
records Kamen filed, and has linked him to a new company, ACROS, which
will build a line of mobility products which will include the scooter,
his previously developed wheelchair, and others others.
But the really interesting development, if the story holds up, is
the fact that the company will be using hydrogen powered engines, and
later move to the Sterling engine, a nearly perpetual motion engine
used in labs for years.
In simple terms, what Kamen has done is not build a new vehicle,
but build a new way to power them. Which does have implications as
large as Bezos and VC John Doerr had suggested, but not in the way
people think.
In Daniel Yergin's The Prize, the classic history of oil and
politics, he explains in laborious detail how the oil economy works.
One of his key points is that control of oil defined the last century.
Anyone can see that this would be an utter disaster for the OPEC
states, Bush's oil industry buddies and the like. It could also prevent
catastrophic pollution in India and China by lowering emission levels
drastically.
What the earlier coverage concentrated on, not exclusively, but for
the most part, was the actual vehicle. Some did speculate that there
was some connection to the Stirling engine and how it would be powered.
If the story holds up, it is clear that Kamen, once again, has refined
a product to work more efficiently. The difference is that the stakes
would be much, much higher. After all, if one can go to war over oil,
there are people, starting inside the White House, who would love to
keep the status quo in place.
The thing about the speculation on the Internet is not that it was
so wrong, but that it was so close to the mark. All of these ideas had
been tossed around on various sites, while the wilder speculation: a
flying scooter, was quickly knocked down. Marvin Minsky, the Artificial
Intelligence guru at MIT suggested to Insidethat the walking
wheelchair would be far more important than a scooter. Which makes
sense. It seems that Kamen is working a dual track: improved mobility
and developing a new energy source.
It is clear that IT is the calculator of this new industry. Before
people had PC's at home, the electronic calculator was the first
computer-like tool anyone had seen. It paved the way for increasingly
complex computing tools. This new invention clearly has implication way
beyond scooters. Cars powered by Stirling engines, tossing about a
fraction of the pollution around today. The scooter is clearly the
first step in developing the technology. There is no reason that the
same basic technology not be used for other vehicles, like bikes, which
would be far more useful than a scooter.
The question which needs to be asked is does this just mean clean
cars or rethinking public transportation. A clean traffic jam is still
a traffic jam. IT won't mean sober drivers at the speed limit. The
scooter itself is a liability dream for the legal industry. In fact,
this could increase the problems we now have with traffic. Pollution is
only one issue when dealing with transportation.
While Kamen may have an excellent idea, the pitfalls which exist
may be larger than anyone has considered in the momentary euphoria,
even without any kind of conspiracy attached. You don't have to be the
Saud family to see that this may not solve as many problems as people
think and may cause many more. Of course, both the Sauds and our
friend, live target range owner Saddam Hussein, might see a real issue
here:no oil, no money. Needless to say, others, Ariel Sharon for
instance, might not be so unhappy at this turn of events.
The thing which is most interesting is how quickly Kamen's wall of
security was breached by a search of public records. What many people
forget is that few things are secret. The KGB did 90 percent of their
research in public libraries, causing such distraction that the FBI and
CIA wanted to know what Russian "diplomats" were reading. They refused,
of course.
What people don't realize is that most of what you will ever need
to know can be found in public. Kamen uses secrecy as a promotional
tool, because public companies have few secrets. Once the door was
opened, some reporter was going to figure out what he was up to. After
all, if the military isn't involved, the only way to keep secrets is to
lock them up. The problem with that is one cannot get free publicity by
locking something up.
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Name: Paul Rako
Email: winopaul@yahoo.com
Date: Wed Mar 14 01:18:21 2001
Comment:
Yeah, I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. After Emily's article almost
brought the server down and all those hits from the slashdot crowd I
just was trying to whip up a frenzy of activity to keep those hardcore
linux folks an board. I actually love Linux and have SUSE 6 running my
DSL line firewall and dhcp server. I just got a little silly last week.
Sorry. It won't hapen again.
Still recovering after all these years. (:0)
|
Name: "Inside".....errrr
Email:
Date: Tue Mar 13 10:10:48 2001
Comment:
I know it may come hard for some of you people to understand, but just
because something is published in a two-bit online rag like Inside.com,
it isn't necessarily true. |
Name: eudas
Email:
Date: Tue Mar 13 04:23:16 2001
Comment:
er, paul, correct me if i'm wrong here, but haven't you repeated that
'linux is a hack os that takes 2 hrs to install' comment in nearly
every single thread on this site? |
Name: Paul Rako
Email: winopaul@yahoo.com
Date: Sat Mar 10 00:00:33 2001
Comment:
I've heard rumors that the real secret of Ginger is that it uses Linux
for its onboard real time control systems. Some rumors maintain that
the delay in bringing IT out is because linux is a hack OS that takes 2
hours to install.
Any thoughts people? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone at all?
Still silly after all these years. <]:^)-
|
Name: John Baustian
Email: jbaustian@cmpmail.com
Date: Thu Mar 8 09:06:58 2001
Comment:
I would love to see cars powered by fuel cells, but I'm not holding my
breath. I remember back in grade school (in the 60s) reading something
to the effect that "Fuel cells will be practical in five to ten years."
Unfortunately, they still seem to be five to ten years away.
|
Name: Ray D.
Email:
Date: Thu Mar 8 00:43:59 2001
Comment: To Paul Rako,
Outstanding comments! I definitely have credibility issues with the
likes of Jobs and Bezos as well. However, whether "IT" changes the
world or not, at least it has raised some public awareness to the
possibility of alternative modes of transportation and/or energy. A
revolution has to start somewhere. |
Name: Eric
Email: netslaves@fanwick.com
Date: Wed Mar 7 17:39:13 2001
Comment:
If you are thinking Hydrogen to power the scooter then I would think
that the power source would be a fuel cell. While this is not
revolutionary, fuel cells have been around for a century, no one has
made it economical yet. An economical fuel cell would be revolutionary.
Also, if it is powered by Hydorgen, we would need to quickly develop
the inferstructure for providing vast quantities of Hydrogen. One of
the reasons gasoline is the prefered fuel is because it is the
preferred fuel, the infersturcture to provide the amount required by
the world is already in place. That is a powerful thing to overcome,
even if there is no sceret conspiracy to prevent wide distribution of
hydrogen. |
Name: Paul Rako
Email: winopaul@yahoo.com
Date: Wed Mar 7 17:06:07 2001
Comment:
As an automotive engineer I feel I can speak with some authority on
this issue. IT is pure and simple hype bullshit. Period. If hydrogen is
the fuel and you are willing to petulantly expect the entire world to
install a new energy infrastructure so you can feel smart, it would
make far more sense to use fuel cells instead if internal combustion.
Ballard and others already have great cells that work on hydrogen. All
the auto companies are working on reformers to take gasoline at the
pump and convert it to hydrogen. This is because it is absolutely
impossible to conceive of the insane infrastructure tear-up required to
transport and store hydrogen safely. Remember the Hindenberg? The
American Trial Lawyers Association does. The humanity, oh the humanity.
A death machine scooter with an explosive fuel. Real practical. An
internal combustion (IC) engine running on hydrogen is interesting
because it would have very good emissions performance, but I think a
fuel cell already has greater efficiency getting the BTU's out of the
hydrogen, even with the losses in the electric motor. If we converted
LA to propane fuel their air would be much cleaner, only propane and
hydrogen are both not practical for similar reasons. Even the
California Air Resources board knows better then to expect us to change
fuels overnight. Sterling cycle engines, which I believe are external
combustion, appear in Popular Science every ten years. If they had any
real benefits they would already be in use with gasoline as the fuel. I
believe they have a huge cost and/or weight and/or efficiency penalty.
There is a big difference between some whizzy science fair project and
something that can be mass produced cheaply and that works reliably.
Hydrogen is a horrible fuel, its only benefit is that it burns cleanly
and doesn?t produce carbon dioxide. It is hard to store, low in energy
density and dangerous. There is no love between the auto business and
the oil business. Trust me, I worked at GM and Ford for 10 years in
Detroit. They (and more significantly, Honda) are spending _billions_
of dollars on new fuel and propulsion research. To think that this guy
who patents reusable plastic tampons will make a fundamental discovery
in engine research is ludicrous. His hubris matches that of Bezos and
Jobs, his best-known marks.
The hubris of changing the entire fuel infrastructure is matched or
exceeded by the hubris of thinking the entire nation will change its
mode of transportation. If everyone would drive a motorcycle to work
like me, the entire energy crisis would be solved in a day. But people
won't. I'm not so fucking arrogant to demand or expect that they try.
There are many good reasons to not drive a motorcycle, safety being a
paramount one. Other reasons are kids, dogs, cargo and the desire to
listen to music or talk on the phone. To expect people to go from cars
to scooters goes beyond hubris. Beyond arrogance. Beyond
self-absorption. Beyond inflated self-worth. Like communism and
vegetarianism it asks us to deny the very essence of our human nature.
I think scooters are neat but there has been a guy making the Motoboard
out here in California for 10 years. A tiny little two stroke motor
gets fabulous gas mileage and propels the thing at 35 miles an hour.
I've only seen one on the road in my entire life. Ginger can expect the
same market penetration. This is a perfect analogy to the dot-com
fiasco. Geeks thinking the whole world will buy everything online
because they are socially inept and afraid to go to a store and meet
real people. IT/Ginger is geeks thinking the entire world will make
changes to their most fundamental habits so some ivy league pricks can
feel smarter then everyone else. Kamen, Bezos, Jobs. Idiots. Arrogant
idiots. May they crash and burn in a sweet replication of the dot com
disasters. This time the world will not be so quick to transfer so much
wealth to these hucksters, making them billionaires while the workers
and VC all get fucked. Kamen, Bezos, Jobs. As Zappa used to say: "If
there is a hell, it waits for them."
For the aeronautic version of this hobbyist claptrap, check out the
Moeller guy who made 25 million bucks with the Supertrapp muffler and
proceeded to blow it all on a pipe dream called the Skycar. He swears
we will be able to hop in his death machine and fly anywhere as easily
as driving a car. Vertical take off and landing (VTOL). My aeronautical
engineer friend ran through the numbers. With the weight and speed
Moeller publishes, the Skycar will get 2 to 4 mile per gallon and, more
horridly, have 100 to 120 decibels of ducted-fan noise. I?m no fan of
big corporations and NIH (not invented here) is a real phenomenon, but
lets give Honda and Cessena some credit for not being a bunch of total
fucking idiots. Everybody is an Idea Man and I would love to be proved
wrong but implementation, not ideas, are the hard part. If some science
nerd can overcome the fundamental laws of physics and the
just-as-fundamental laws of human nature I will be as delighted as you.
Just don?t hold your breath.
|
Name: xdroop
Email:
Date: Wed Mar 7 08:27:45 2001
Comment: Interesting.
It occurs to me that hydrogen production, even if it is more
energy-intensive than producing gasoline, might still be both an
environmental and economic win. Conisder: since extraction of hydrogen
from water is energy intensive, but not necessarilly time dependant,
one could use slow, 'free' energy sources -- such as solar, or maybe
even wind -- to power the extraction process. Transportation of the
hydrogen would eventually be in vehicles which were powered by the very
fuel they carry (like today's gas- and diesel[pardon spelling] powered
monster trucks delivering gas to the local stations). Heck, with enough
scale, it might be feasable to produce an extraction station small
enough for the home user -- stick it in the back yard, hook the water
hose up to it, and presto -- a supply of hydrogen which costs you the
city water charges to produce, plus a 'waste product' of pure oxygen,
which would make up a tiny bit for the loss of the greenspace in
cities. (Not that city water is cheap.)
This is all blue-sky thinking, but 100 years ago so was the current empire of the gas-powered automobile.
|
Name: ralf
Email: ooxelith@hotmail.com
Date: Wed Mar 7 06:33:34 2001
Comment:
The hydrogen genie is out of the bottle and neither Opec nor "Bush?s
oil industry buddies and the like" will make it disappear. We already
pay US4 for a gallon of gas which will obviously make the introduction
of hydrogen fuel at the pumps an acceptable option for the customers.
This is what I found on the Web:
From a balance-sheet perspective, BMW's got the goods to weather
the uncertain short term in strong shape--sub-3-Series or not. BMW can
use its considerable cash hoard--3 billion as of March--to pursue its
expertise in class-leading technologies and engine design. "Those
advantages allow BMW to charge a premium price," says Melich. "And
there's plenty of cash flow to continue to invest in them in the
foreseeable future."
One of the key innovations that BMW is investing heavily in at the
moment is hydrogen fuel technology. Most experts agree that within the
next handful of years, consumers will see fuel-cell vehicles--100%
clean engines that run on hydrogen and produce only water as a
byproduct--hit the roads. To speed up progress and share some RD costs,
BMW has formed an alliance with Delphi and Renault to pursue fuel-cell
designs. (DaimlerChrysler and Ford have also teamed up on similar
work.) BMW showed a 7-Series sedan last fall with a climate-control
system powered by a brick-sized fuel cell in the trunk. Technicians
proudly served the water produced to thirsty passersby at the Frankfurt
auto show.
Zafira Hydrogen 1
This is the car that would make Griff Rhys Jones' boffin in the
Vauxhall ads really scratch his head. Although it does not look that
special from the outside, it is the company's vision of the future.
Called HydroGen1, it's a ?750,000 prototype based on the firm's
Zafira mini-MPV. Externally, very little has changed, but under the
bonnet is the latest fuel cell technology. Designers at Vauxhall's
parent firm, General Motors, say it's the most advanced
alternative-powered vehicle ever built - and Auto Express was among the
first to drive it.
Adapting fuel cells as a power source dates back 160 years, but
it's only recently that they have been hailed as the way forward. The
chemistry that goes on under the bonnet is extremely complex, but how
it all works is relatively straightforward. HydroGen1 has a fuel tank
like a regular car's, but instead of petrol or diesel, it holds liquid
hydrogen. This is pumped forward to the 'stack' - basically 200 power
cells wired together - where electricity is produced to drive the front
wheels. Surprisingly, the only waste by-product is water, most of which
is emitted as vapour.
The cabin is virtually unchanged from that of the production
Zafira, but the rear two seats have been sacrificed to make room for
the hardware, while the middle row is slightly higher. The car drives
like an automatic model, but there's no gear selector between the seats
- just buttons with arrows pointing forwards and backwards you push
one, then hit the pedal. On the open road, it feels very similar to the
Zafira Elegance on which it's based - not surprising as the chassis,
suspension and steering are identical.
Electric cars are not renowned for sparkling performance, and the
HydroGen1 is no rocket. But thanks to a continuous power output of 80kw
(107bhp), and a peak of 120kw or 160bhp, it's no slouch, either. Top
speed is just under 90mph, with a 0-60 time of around 16 seconds. The
operating range is 250 miles.
Hamburg: Hydrogen fleet presented
DWV, 00-03-30: The hydrogen van fleet in Hamburg is now in full
operation (HyWeb, 99-01-19). Six Mercedes-Benz vans of well-known
Hamburg companies are running in normal duty almost without emissions.
Thus what the major car makers present only as concept cars can be seen
in operation in Hamburg's everyday traffic.
A part of the fleet was presented during an event hosted by the
Hamburg Hydrogen Society and the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce on 27.
March. Project participants reported about their experiences and
further objectives. The symposium was chaired by Joachim Gretz,
chairman of the Hamburg Hydrogen Society and honorary member of the
recently founded European Hydrogen Association (EHA). Related projects
were presented as well, among them those at Munich Airport and at BMW,
the fuel cell heating station at Bahrenfeld and ideas of DASA about
hydrogen in commercial aviation. Representatives of BMW and
DaimlerChrysler engaged in a vivid discussion about the relative
advantages of fuel cell and combustion engine.
Off the official event the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce and the
Hamburg Hydrogen Society negotiated with representatives of the city of
Milan and the Italian environment agency ENEA. ENEA is an important
member of the Italian Hydrogen Forum, an organization comparable to the
German Hydrogen Association. There were discussions about the
possibility to convert commercial utility vehicles in Milan to
hydrogen, making use of the experiences gained in Hamburg.
Chicago bus project finished successfully
DWV, 00-03-30: The bus demonstration project in Chicago has been
finished successfully after two years. The project partners Ballard
Power Systems, XCELLSIS Fuel Cell Engines Inc. and Chicago Transit
Authority (CTA) announced this during a press conference on 23. March
(HyWeb, 97-10-10). The vehicles were said to have performed well in the
daily grind of revenue service, both in the heat of summer and the
chill of winter. After 50.000 km with more than 100.000 passengers on
board nothing was left behind but water vapor.
Driver and passenger reaction to the program and the buses was
positive. Drivers reported a smooth, quiet ride, absence of fumes and
good acceleration. They also said passengers included visitors to
Chicago who had made a point of riding a fuel cell powered bus during
their stay.
The benefit for the companies was to gather experience which made
it possible to create a next generation of fuel cell drives that is
simpler in design, easier to maintain, and half the weight of the
engines used in the Chicago buses. The parallel project at Vancouver
will be finished as well during this year. Between 2000 and 2003 25 to
30 buses will be tested in the framework of the California Fuel Cell
Partnership. There are also ideas about a major demonstration project
in various European cities, as it could be heard during the Hannover
Fair. The first buses will probably be commercially available in 2002
for a bit less than 850 kEuro. This is more than for a Diesel bus, and
Ballard chief financial officer Paul Lancaster expects that a gap will
remain. He rather presumes that the competitors will leave the scene
due to increasing environmental restrictions.
|
Name: Carl Guderian
Email: carlg@vermilion-sands.com
Date: Tue Mar 6 19:15:08 2001
Comment:
These guys should approach British Petroleum. BP are actively
interested in developing new energy sources. At least they could
install hydrogen pumps at their (franchised?) stations. Exxon-Mobil, on
the other hand, would probably hire Le Professionnel to erase the
invention once and for all. Halliburton promises to agitate for war,
vis some Astroturf organization, just as soon as Cheney gets better
(they promise!). But I digress.
Since it will take awhile to build a hydrogen infrastructure
(pumps, tanks, etc.) even on a pilot basis, there's plenty of time for
even the most backward coal-burning company to figure out how to profit
from it. Just don't expect this administration to spend any money on
it. No conspiracy is necessary. |
Name: John Baustian
Email: jbaustian@cmpmail.com
Date: Tue Mar 6 18:57:36 2001
Comment:
More and more, IT sounds like a prescription for relieving that bloated
feeling in one's wallet. Not that IT is a scam, it just seems to be
aimed at those who have excess cash and haven't taken physics.
Hydrogen is not a fuel, in the sense that gasoline is. Gasoline
contains a great deal of energy, and it is refined from crude oil at a
relatively modest cost. Hydrogen, on the other hand, is not so easily
obtained. There are no great stores of hydrogen buried underground,
just waiting to be tapped.
"But water has two hydrogen atoms in every molecule. What about that, Mr. Smarty Pants?"
Right you are. The tricky part is separating the hydrogen from the
oxygen. This takes energy, as much as you will get from burning it
later on, plus the energy that is inevitably lost in the conversion
process. Thus, there is a net energy loss. Hydrogen is best thought of
as an energy transport medium. (For more on this, see
http://www.tinaja.com/h2gas01.html)
I don't think OPEC is concerned about hydrogen.
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