Posted 23 Feb 2019

Claude Johnson, the route finder for the original 1,000-Mile Trial in 1900, had problems with snow. More than a century on, the weather still has surprises in store. The tyres of the Hyundai I am driving through the Peak District are slipping on newly compacted snow as all around cars are pirouetting into ditches. Alongside me, Robin Hayles from Hyundai UK is bracing for a double impact; that of a priceless, pre-production fuel-cell Nexo into a gyrating hatchback, and the lambasting he’s going to get from his boss for the madness of attempting this long-distance drive.

The 1900 challenge of completing 1,000 miles around Britain started at 7am on April 23 when 63 triallists set off from Grosvenor Place in London in a variety of vehicles including Panhard, Peugeot, De Dion, Wolseley, Benz and Daimler, driven by such luminaries as Charles Rolls and John Scott-Montagu, along with one female motorist; Mrs Louise Bazalgette in a Benz.

The reason for this caravan of spluttering, stinking pioneer motorists was to prove the efficacy and efficiency of the motor carriage to a sceptical Parliament, a wary public and dubious police and local officials.

We’re attempting it for much the same reasons. It’s 180 years since the fuel-cell’s basic catalytic reaction was discovered by Sir William Grove and 26 years since one of the first fuel-cell vehicles, Daimler-Benz’s Necar van, spluttered into public life, yet hydrogen’s potential to provide a viable, clean alternative to plug-in hybrid and battery-electric cars seems largely disregarded by – or unknown to – politicians, civil servants and the public.

Despite the weather, the most remarkable thing about the Nexo’s progress was its sheer unremarkableness

As Graham Cooley, chief executive of ITM Power, which makes and installs hydrogen energy systems, says: “The Government is putting 30 times more investment into battery power than it is into hydrogen economy yet it’s supposed to be technology neutral…”

Moreover hydrogen has the potential to profoundly change energy networks, storing, transmitting and decarbonising energy, as well as powering and heating our homes, offices and factories. I have been writing about this subject for almost 30 years, interviewing visionaries, scientists and engineers, yet have seen little, if any, government interest in the potential of hydrogen.

So it seems even more amazing that many hydrogen and fuel-cell specialists, including design and advanced manufacture of fuel cells, refuelling equipment and electrolysers that generate hydrogen from renewable electricity, are based in Britain.

Further, UK universities are conducting research into advanced hydrogen storage and fuel cell design, firms are looking at the equipment and science of refuelling, using hydrogen to decarbonise diesel fuel in heavy haulage and firms such as the AA are researching how to fuel and rescue hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles; all of it in Britain.

Hence this attempt, which roughly follows the route planned by the Automobile Club’s secretary, Claude Johnson, but owes almost as much to William Cobbett’s 18th century Rural Rides, as we stopped at three of the UK’s 12 public-access hydrogen filling stations and talked to the people involved in the world of hydrogen.

English presses on. To drive, a fuel-cell car is identical to a battery-electric one – you simply select Drive and put your foot down

Our transport is Hyundai’s Nexo, which this year joins Toyota’s Mirai as the second fuel-cell car on sale in the UK. Hyundai’s commitment to fuel cells goes back to 1998 when it developed a Santa Fe SUV fuel-cell research concept powered by a 75kW United Technologies Corporation fuel cell.

The Nexo, which goes on sale this spring is a £65,000, five-door, 4,670mm-long family SUV powered by a 161bhp, fuel-cell hybrid drivetrain with the company’s new 127bhp fuel cell and a 1.56kWh lithium-ion buffer battery driving the front wheels. Fuel capacity is 6.33kg of hydrogen gas stored in three tanks pressurised at 700bar. Its claimed range in the WLTP test cycle is 414 miles, with a top speed of 111mph and 0-62mph in 9.2sec; the Nexo is the state of the art in hydrogen-fuelled road transport.

Where Johnson sent letters to cycle shops, chemists and general stores to lay on supplies to meet the 1900 Trial’s daily requirement for 250 gallons of “motor spirit”, we have the estimable services of Fuel Cell Systems, specialist in the design and integration of hydrogen fuel systems and operator of a high-pressure refuelling truck, built with a grant from the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV).

Beth Dawson, the firm’s formidable major projects manager, is accompanying us. She has vast experience in the business of hydrogen storage and fuel cells and her design for a hydrogen mini-refueller made her a finalist in the Innovate UK Women in Industry awards – we’ve got one of them with us, installed in a van driven by George Flinton, AA Patrolman of the year. Yorkshireman and as cool as a freezer, Flinton exudes a muscular calm far beyond his 24 years – he also wears aviator-style sunglasses in the snow.

Hayles swears he’s not paranoid, but fills the Nexo at every opportunity, so after leaving the Dorchester Hotel on Grosvenor Place we silently whisk to the Heathrow refuelling station and then to Johnson Matthey in Swindon, where we refuel for a second time and have a guided tour of this phenomenal facility in the company of Mike Petch, its technology director.

Only 90 miles out of the capital, this relatively small-scale, clean-room factory is capable of making enough proton-exchange membrane (PEM)  fuel cells for between 5,000 and 10,000 cars a year depending on whether it’s a Range Rover or a Mini. It also makes the worst coffee in Britain.

Each PEM fuel cell gets about 0.4g of platinum catalyst per cm2, which means a fuel-cell car typically requires four to five grams (typically about £500 of metal), about twice the amount in a conventional car’s exhaust catalyst, although fuel-cell platinum loadings are being reduced and it is all recyclable, unlike current practice with the cobalt and lithium-ion contained in a primary drive battery.

Filling with hydrogen is as easy – and safe – as conventional petrol or diesel

With a brimmed tank we scamper north. Fuel cells embody stealth, since they drive like a battery car and fuel at the speed of a petrol. Outside of its drivetrain, luxury and comfort, there is nothing remarkable about the Nexo other than its sheer unremarkableness. We stop at Chester, which was a halt on the original Trial; that’s 251 miles at an average of 47.5mph.

Day two is tough. We have to traverse the Peak District to Sheffield and ITM’s turbine-powered electrolyser refuelling station. After that, en route to more fuel in Sunderland we have only the mini-refuellers as back-up; about 30 miles for each of the six 300bar cylinders. As Dawson says: “The mini-refuellers will get you out of trouble, but it’s like painting your car with aerosols.”

Retreating from the snowy, impassable high peaks, we drive the long, low-altitude route to Sheffield, filling the Nexo carefully to ensure a brimmed tank. It’s counter-intuitive, but cold weather means you don’t get quite so much liquefied hydrogen fuel into the tanks. Dawson explained and my head hurt.

On we go… it’s counter-intuitive, but cold weather means that you don’t get quite so much liquefied hydrogen fuel into the tanks

Cooley explains that ITM has three new filling stations in construction, three more with planning permission and others in the planning stages, but they’re all in the south-east. Car makers still complain they can’t test in the UK and as Amanda Lyne, chair of the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association, says: “We need 65 hydrogen stations across the UK; industry is willing to invest, but it’s a risk and we need government to help.”

We leave Graham and gingerly head north. It’s minus 2 degrees C, but we turn down the energy-sapping heater and put on gloves, bound for Sunderland and the FCS filling truck.

It’s painful, easing the Nexo along deserted moon-lit, frosty roads, but at 1am in Morpeth, 30 miles out of Sunderland, we admit we’re not going to make it. AA patrolman Flinton is utterly brilliant, but my head freezes at the thought of a stroppy traffic copper seeing us fiddling around with tanks of hydrogen in the wee small hours.

Caught short: a top-up of hydrogen from the attendant AA van was required at Morpeth, 30 miles short of the scheduled refuelling stop

We’re careful to not park under a street lamp, too. Hydrogen is pretty safe, but when you purge the fuel lines it vents vertically at 45mph; those experienced with the technology at its onset will have heard the “pop” as vented gas ignited against unshielded lamps.

The contrariness of Government regulation becomes clear during the morning of the third day. You paid for the FCS refuelling truck with your taxes, but another Government department won’t allow this truck to drive on the Queen’s highway with hydrogen on board, which means the truck is unable to do its job of mobile refuelling. To get around the problem, Hyundai pays BOC Gases to deliver hydrogen fuel to Haskel, specialist in refuelling rigs and hydrogen (its boosters are used on the truck), at its Sunderland depot. The truck goes there, takes on the fuel and gets ready to refuel the Nexo.

You paid for the Fuel Cell Systems (FCS) refuelling truck with your taxes, but another Government department won’t allow it on public roads with hydrogen on board…

This regulation-inspired Byzantine craziness is further compounded when there is a minor issue refuelling the Nexo, which means we only get a partial refill and have to revisit ITM in Sheffield to get a full fill.

Disconnected thinking appears to epitomise the Government’s approach to hydrogen. Dawson says: “The Government insists it is technology agnostic yet last year it invested £23 million in hydrogen and fuel cells via OLEV compared with £246 million it directed specifically into battery technology.”

So Claire Perry, the energy minister, who visited Johnson Matthey last year, might see the potential of this fuel to provide efficient and clean energy, joined-up storage solutions and decarbonised transportation, but that vision cuts across the responsibilities of transport minister Chris Grayling, that of the environment minister Michael Gove and that of business and industrial strategy minister Greg Clark – and they’re all far too busy arguing about Brexit to see how absolutely important this is.

English pilots the Nexo back into London after a trek around Britain, clocking up 1,000 miles in the process at an average of 30.7mph

In the end we make it: 1,072 miles in three days at an average of 30.7mph and an average consumption of 66.9 miles per kg of hydrogen. We trundle gently back into London to take photos and creep home; in 1900 the 46 finishers had a party.

Along with the Emancipation Run from London to Brighton, that original Trial changed everything for UK motoring. It persuaded Parliament to raise the overall speed limit from 12mph which encouraged new manufacturers into the market, which in turn encouraged fuel suppliers, service agents, breakdown services; the complete infrastructure of modern motoring. Could this 1,000-mile run do the same for hydrogen?

It’s unlikely, but whatever you think of the race between hydrogen and battery technology, they should both be given an even break. As Michaela Kendall, founder and chair of the Midlands Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Network, says: “We need to value the fuel-cell sector in the UK; there are clear signals the world needs it and, yes, it is on the move right now.”

Almost there… the Nexo on The Mall approaching Buckingham Palace, only half a mile from The Telegraph’s offices, where the 1,027-mile challenge ended – in success

At about £1 million each, 65 hydrogen filling stations on top of those already built or planned would cost less than £65 million and at least half of that would be covered by industry. People talk about chicken and egg in the fuel-cell world, but this run surely proves the chickens (cars) are ready; our Nexo didn’t miss a beat.

All we need now is the eggs (fuel). Surely we’re not going to miss out on the nascent hydrogen economy for want of a few filling stations, are we?

Credit: Andrew English

View Telegraph Article

Posted 10 Aug 2018

As everyone knows, there is no smoke without fire. You do not need to be a scientist to recognise that smoke has become THE environmental problem to be tackled, as it causes urban air pollution, damages your lungs and exacerbates global climate change.

That is why renewable energy has surged in the last decade, providing substantial clean power.  Now Germany and other countries have an excess of renewable electricity to the point that wind and solar farms are paid to stop generating power. The intermittent nature of these renewables results in feast and famine electricity profiles, difficult to manage without effective storage options, so the UK system needs to be managed differently than before.

Generating hydrogen using cheap, green renewable power, especially in remote locations, is emerging as a clear solution in terms of both cost and environmental performance.  The hydrogen is then used in fuel cells to generate power, and some fuel cells can use hydrogen enriched natural gas so that existing gas networks can be gradually decarbonised. The EU Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking is the largest fuel cell and hydrogen investment programme in the world. The EU has the most hydrogen stations in the world right now because it has predicted that this technology will flourish globally – by 2020 China plan to have 400 stations, to ease local air pollution, and meet increasing energy demand.

A significant step towards developing the hydrogen economy in the Midlands was taken last month at the 13^th Conference on Fuel Cells and Hydrogen, held at the NEC.  The conference saw the founding of the Midlands Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Network, a commercially-led, inclusive interest group which aims to consolidate the strengths of the hydrogen and fuel cell sector in the region.

The Network was established by Professor Michaela Kendall (Chair) of Birmingham City University, and co-founder of local fuel cell company Adelan, with Tony McNally of Climate Change Solutions leading the Secretariat. Four presenters were invited from public and private sector organisations with a remit to support clean energy technology development and deployment: Councilor Lisa Trickett, Birmingham City Council Cabinet Member for Clean Streets, Recycling and Environment; Matthew Rhodes, Managing Director of Encraft and Chair of Energy Capital; Mike Waters, Head of Policy and Strategy at Transport for West Midlands; and John Jostins, Professor of Sustainable Transport and Design at the University of Coventry.  This Network will support fuel cell and hydrogen active businesses and groups in the region to commercialise the technology.

The benefits of transition to a low carbon economy based on fuel cells and hydrogen are clear for the Midlands: generating power locally promotes energy security and local prosperity, building manufacturing businesses for the car industry creates jobs, fuel cells decarbonise public transport by replacing diesel, and improve urban air quality for us all. As the “toxin tax” on air pollution in Birmingham looms, and the Paris Climate Agreement clauses are exerted, electrification of UK vehicles continues to ramp up.  But hydrogen will be needed to meet the practical challenges of vehicle range anxiety and recharging times, and for decarbonising heat and electricity generation in our homes.  If China adopts the Western car model based on combustion – or even goes electric – policies in the West will not be able to stop the momentum of global climate change.  In mature  economies combustion-based technologies will be replaced slowly, but huge renewable infrastructure investments are being made now in countries where reliable electricity infrastructure is a relatively new thing. Technology leapfrog allows rapidly developing countries to improve air quality quickly, reducing public health impacts, so that the same air pollution mistakes are not simply repeated. Even at the relatively low levels of air pollution found in Britain today, we have known for decades that there are big, measurable health effects. These very real effects were hidden by the “pea-souper” smogs our parents grew up with, only becoming visible once the catastrophic pollution levels were removed. Having discovered this in the early 1990s, we are only acting now, and the race is on.

The West Midlands is the natural centre for UK hydrogen and fuel cell technology development and manufacture, with a latent scientific and manufacturing base, and an emergent economic zest. Cultivating this world-leading sector is expected to bring significant benefits in the shape of business investment, increased research and development, product innovation and new jobs. Ultimately, it aims to deliver affordable energy and clean growth, keeping costs down for businesses whilst still driving growth across the country. As the logistics and manufacturing hub of the UK, the Midlands is perfectly placed to integrate fuel cells into the grid (by National Grid and British Gas), into rail through the rail franchises and Network Rail, and into vehicles through the Midlands passenger and autonomous vehicle industries. By supporting fuel cell and hydrogen businesses grow, through access to finance and growth management skills, these innovative businesses can collaborate with more established businesses to find new growth markets. By investing in fuel cells and hydrogen innovations emerging from scientific research conducted in Britain, the UK gets a head start in developing a more innovative economy and commercialising world leading science spinning out of universities. By ensuring everyone has the basic skills needed by building technical education to benefit the young people who do not go to university, skill levels can be raised.  This fits with the UK Industrial Strategy and the aligned Midlands Engine investment programme, suggesting that fuel cells and hydrogen have a significant role to play in the development of the Midlands region and the UK as a whole.  This new Midlands movement is literally changing the atmosphere in cities around the world.

The 13^th Annual Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Conference keynote speakers growing the fuel cell and hydrogen economy in the Midlands: PHOTO Front Row, L-R: Bart Biebuyck Executive Director of FCH JU, the largest (€1.4 billion) fuel cell funding agency in the world, Bill Kurtz Chief Commercial Officer of the largest SOFC company in the world, Bloom Energy, Prof Michaela Kendall Birmingham City University and Co-Founder of Birmingham based fuel cell company Adelan, Yane Laperche Riteau Business Development Director of Ballard Power Systems, the largest PEM fuel cell company in the world;  Back Row, L-R:  Jamie O’Brien Senior Mechanical Engineer Johnson Matthey; Ben Madden, Director Element Energy, Graham Cooley CEO at ITM Power, the UK’s leading hydrogen provider.

First posted on April 6, 2017 by University of Birmingham

Posted 14 Jul 2018

In fact, the health implications of air pollution from burning fossil fuels have been well understood for many decades. Air pollution complaints in London go back centuries for example – it is not for nothing we call London The Smoke. Following the Clean Air Acts of the 1950s and 60s smoky fires for heating homes were gradually relegated to power stations away from cities, mostly decoupling urbanite populations from smoke – but vehicles quietly brought people and combustion emissions back together again. As UK vehicle numbers have inexorably risen they have gradually contributed more and more to urban air pollution, becoming the biggest polluter of UK city air.

Normalising Human Exposures to Air Pollution

We have all been exposed to vehicle pollution in cities during our lives, and the highest concentrations are often inside the vehicles themselves. Indeed the difficulty for scientists in early studies was identifying a control group: Very few people on the planet are not directly exposed to vehicle exhaust, or smoke of some kind, so we still do not really know what happens to people when they are not exposed to a lifetime of combustion generated pollution. Linking environmental pollutant exposures to disease is actually notoriously difficult to do, but small airborne particles and other pollutants from vehicle exhaust have been linked for decades to premature death, precisely because they are everywhere. A seminal US air pollution study by Harvard published in 1993 and thousands of copy-cat studies across the globe show surprisingly consistent results. A real shock has been that once you remove the bulk of air pollution from open fires as we have done in the UK and US, the health effects of much lower smoke levels are still measurable, and extremely costly. That is why once the VW fraud was discovered (again, by USA scientists), it was quickly prosecuted in the USA. The long-term bill for trying to cheat air quality regulation will be huge and may bankrupt companies. The effects and costs of this air pollution are well established for decades, and legally absolutely robust.

The evidence has been crystal clear. The solution; not so much. It turns out that for many people the idea of living without cars – as was once imagined in the 1990s – is virtually impossible and car ownership continues to grow worldwide. So where are the low-carbon, low emission transport solutions? One emerging technology comes from batteries. But people are so used to their vehicles and the range and performance of internal combustion engines that only vehicles with a comparable range and refuel rate to their current car model are going to be an acceptable replacement. This is a technical challenge that is currently out of reach for battery systems, despite clear urban air advantages of battery vehicles.

Fuel Cell Solutions

Another option for zero emission cars and buses is hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles. Despite the emergence of new, clean hydrogen technologies decades ago, there is still reluctance in the UK to develop and deploy fuel cell technology. Commercial models are now on the market. Fuel cell vehicles can be refuelled within three minutes for a range of hundreds of miles per tank, comparable to current conventional vehicles. Such advantages suggest fuel cell technologies running on hydrogen could be adopted by the transport sector, despite a lack of refuelling infrastructure in 2017. So what hope for hydrogen-powered vehicles solving air pollution in Birmingham? And what can Britain do to support fuel cell technology to clean urban air?

Three fuel cell companies spun out from UK universities way back in the 1990s to great excitement around the world – Intelligent Energy, Ceres Power and Adelan flew the flag for UK innovation in fuel cell technology, and several other UK companies have emerged since, such as Arcola and AFC, and ITM in hydrogen generation. Intelligent Energy, Ceres Power and Adelan have been resilient over 20 years, building global profiles and partnering with international agencies and companies, proving their global impact. They have realised value in very different ways, offering unique technologies, in a wide range of different products. These companies all develop fuel cells for use on-board vehicles, but their fuel cells can also displace other combustion emissions that would otherwise occur in city centres, such as from gas boilers in homes for example. Fuel cells developed in the UK and beyond can be deployed to improve air quality today. It is possible, and with effort impacts could be faster and wider. Fuel cell technologies are being deployed or developed in Birmingham today to address urban air pollution, but more needs to be done to support commercialisation of these UK technologies before they disappear overseas. China in particular is hungry for disruptive clean energy technologies, and so the likelihood is that fuel cells will be nurtured there. Opportunities exist for the UK to lead the world in fuel cell technology and with it an end to urban air pollution and its devastating impacts on human health. Brexit may provide an opportunity for the UK to do just that.

by Dr Michaela Kendall

First posted on Jun 16, 2017 by University of Birmingham