April 21, 2010 – Vol.15 No.5

FUELING INFRASTRUCTURE KEY TO NEXT-GEN VEHICLE SUCCESS.
by Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News.

When all is said and done and the dust has settled, it may be the fueling infrastructure that determines which alternative fuel powers the cars and trucks of the future.

Globally, the petroleum fueling infrastructure is still expanding after a 100 years. It is not yet complete. As populations push outward from urban areas to the suburbs and now to the exurbs, with each new development there’s a need for refueling the very conveyance that allows people to settle farther and farther out.

And, the fueling infrastructure is not just about keeping vehicles moving: It’s about business opportunity. Where each new gas station is built another is built nearby to compete.

The ever-expanding fueling infrastructure has not left older, inner infrastructure to disintegrate, either. Old facilities are regularly rebuilt and upgraded. Brand new filling stations are still being built in older urban areas.

The network of fueling infrastructure is alive, growing and regenerating itself constantly.

Now there’s a growing need to energize vehicles with something other than petroleum. Will it be possible to build such a network in far less than 100 years, perhaps as little as 10?

It may boil down to one thing: Money. Obviously, whichever fuel requires the most equipment and on site construction will be the most expensive. The cheapest will take the least effort with the least investment in apparatus. So, without any detail as what the costs may be, let’s look generally at the options:

--- New liquid fuels would require new buried-in-the-ground tanks and a new set of pumps to dispense fuel that is trucked in. If space is available, tanks and pumps could be built at existing sites;

--- Hydrogen, unless a hydrogen-on-demand technology is developed, would require specialized storage vessels and dispensing pumps. Hydrogen would be shipped in by truck or be generated on site with conventional or renewable energy, such as solar. Or, hydrogen could be reformed from natural gas. Existing filling stations could be used if space is available;

--- Hydrogen can also be generated at home or at a commercial fleet depot and filled directly into vehicle tanks. The fueling network needn't to be as large as the existing petroleum one. Refilling could be done overnight in the convenience of the family garage;

--- Propane, or liquid petroleum gas (LPG), trucked in, would need to be stored on site in specialized tanks and dispensed with specialized pumps;

--- Natural gas could be piped into commercial filling stations or trucked in. Pressurized tanks would be needed onsite to ensure ample supply at dedicated dispensing pumps;

--- Like home or commercial fleet depot hydrogen filling, natural gas from pipelines could be filled into vehicle tanks. Home filling is already available for natural gas vehicles. Parts of the country without piped-in gas would not be able to take advantage of home filling;

--- Battery swapping for electric cars would require specialized facilities and equipment as well as an ample inventory of fully-charged battery packs to meet customer demand;

--- Commercial and publicly available charging stations for electric vehicles can be as simple as an extension cord plugged into an electrical outlet on a building (for vehicles that have onboard charging technology), to dedicated grid-connected charging machines, to whole drive-in facilities with their own source of distributed power, such as solar. Commercial charging stations might offer high-voltage, fast-charging for an additional fee;

--- Home or commercial fleet depot charging is a major part of the plan to commercialize electric vehicles. Charging apparatus would be needed if not on board the vehicle already.

Of the above reenergizing possibilities electric vehicle charging would likely be the least expensive. Rare is the house or commercial establishment in the United States, and elsewhere in the industrialized world, that isn’t connected to the grid. A vehicle charging network could be little more than an extension of the existing power grid. Even when homes aren’t connected to the grid, power is often generated on site perhaps using solar or wind power.

One caveat to the cost of electric vehicle “fueling” is the capacity of the grid to handle the surge of power. Studies have shown that there is already excess capacity on the grid at off-peak overnight periods to handle as much as 70 million electric vehicles. Already there is charging technology, such as that recently licensed by electric transportation pioneer ZAP, that can automatically recharge a vehicle at times when there is the least demand on the grid. According to ZAP, electric vehicle owners will be able to “set the controller to charge at a specific time of day or night or at a set price point. The controller uses a low-range wireless technology to communicate with the power grid and determine the best and cheapest time to recharge vehicles. “

The charging technology, developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), will also be able to sense “stress” on the power grid that could lead to a brown out and stop the charging process until the stress subsides, usually only a few minutes.

Further, unless there is a sudden breakthrough in electric vehicle technology, don’t expect there to be a surge or bubble in the sales of electric vehicles. Electric vehicles will be added gradually, giving enough time for power companies to add new generating capacity as determined.

So for now the winner in the low cost refueling infrastructure would likely be electric vehicle charging. Despite the high cost of vehicles, which should go down, low cost fueling infrastructure for electric vehicles may give the thumbs up to the alternative vehicle choice of the very near future.

Buck