On Monday, Hybrid Cars told us that Honda was ready to embrace the hydrogen economy. I don’t believe that there currently is anywhere near enough hydrogen refueling stations in North America to make this a viable project. Nevertheless, I am impressed that Honda is ready to move on this years before anyone predicted it would happen. I still believe that hybrids and plug-in hybrids offer the most attractive opportunities in the near and medium terms, and I doubt that this will usher in a renaissance for fuel cell stocks. On Monday, Jim Fraser at The Energy Blog discussed a new start-up that will seek build the infrastructure necessary for the electric car market to grow. This does indeed seem very ambitious but the shear amount of money thrown at this project commands a high degree of respect. To be continued. On Tuesday, Clean Technology Investor informed us that Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) was shopping around for solar generation assets. As I’ve discussed before, a wave of consolidation is currently underway in the North American alternative energy sector. Independent entities with existing renewable generation capacity or even the rights to develop projects in certain areas will command increasingly higher premiums, thus presenting interesting opportunities for investors. The main problem for public market investors is that many of these assets and/or project pipelines in the US are held by private concerns. Nevertheless, this is a trend worth keeping an eye on. On Wednesday, GreenBiz.com informed us that Citi had just released a new report on the impact of CAFE standards on automakers. This in an interesting take on this debate, and certainly seems to run counter to what is typically argued by automakers with regards to tighter fuel efficiency standards. One thing is certain: auto investors can no longer afford to ignore the environment. It has become too salient a consideration for policy-makers and cars are an easy target. You can access the report directly here (PDF document). On Wednesday, Justin Moresco at Red Herring profiled the latest smart grid financing deal for us. I continue to believe that the energy efficiency and smart grid spaces are going to offer very attractive opportunities in the years ahead. The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don’t hesitate to let us know!
Once you have the car that can run on hydrogen – then you will see a creative push to provide the hydrogen in all kinds of ways. Let’s be wide open to new and unexpected methods for providing the Hydrogen. One way is the suppressed technology of “Hydrogen on Demand”. There are several different branches developing, and the main two are: (1) Water Fuel Cell: Ultra-Efficient Pulsed Ultrasonic Tap Water Splitting has been verified by rogue scientists and researchers, who have risked their lives and their reputations to prove that it works. 7 to 1 returns and higher have been reported. So this is seen as a highly disruptive technology that the government and the elite have known about for over 20 years. In fact Oil Companies are already using it to run offshore oil rigs. (2) Catalyst activated electrolysis such as aluminum or other, splits water instantly, but requires recycling the oxidized aluminum or other metal alloy. The main threat to the establishment is that “Hydrogen on Demand” can be accomplished onboard a moving vehicle, so no hydrogen infrastructure is needed. Hence no more fuel monopolies for Big Oil. Once you buy your built-in electrolyser, you are set for life and energy independent. Search: Water Fuel Cell Peswiki
J.B.:
I can’t speak to your comment with regards the the viability of the two technologies you describe. I am not an engineer and I no longer follow the fuel cell/hydrogen space closely, although I do believe certain companies in niche applications such as forklifts will do well.
From a public market investment perspective, I continue to view this as a long shot, and don’t think that hydrogen and/or fuel cell cars will make big in-roads in the foreseeable future. As you rightly point out, there is too much stacked against them at the moment relative to other alternatives to conventional powertrain technologies.