Green Hydrogen

 Green hydrogen, as a carrier of energy, contributes to an increased independence from fossil fuels. Regions are strong partners in building a green hydrogen society and thus a sustainable environment,” said Riccardo Illy, President of the Assembly of European Regions (AER) and President of the Autonomous Italian Region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, on the occasion of the European Parliament workshop on hydrogen. 

Green hydrogen is a major trump for Europe’s regions, President Illy stressed in his speech. Renewable energies from water, wind, sun, biomass and geothermic sources are local sources of energy, creating employment and protecting the environment.

“In the context of the new Common Agricultural Policy which limits financial support to our farmers, green hydrogen can be an important source of new income for our farmers,“ Riccardo Illy said. “There is great potential for the economies of our Regions in the development of renewable energies.”

President Illy stated, however, that an integrated energy approach would be needed. Three factors must be addressed: enhancing energy efficiency, development of renewable energy sources and, last but not least, intelligent energy supply systems using hydrogen, called “smart grids”. Since 2003 the AER has developed an energy strategy in which green hydrogen has been a main pillar. Best practices, online partnership fairs, knowledge exchange through seminars, for example on funding opportunities, are spread via the interregional network of the AER, which consists of 255 regions, in order to promote an integrated energy approach.

On the same day, the European Commission decided on its strategy on energy and climate change, allowing for more competition in the energy market. “We fully support the approach of the Commission for more competition. If the EU gives in to the big monopolies in the energy sector we will not succeed in developing the potential of renewable energies to provide safe and affordable energy in the future”, explained President Illy.

“The more renewable energies we use, the less we will depend on fossil energies. In fact, the more renewable energies are available, the better chance there is of slowing down the increase in prices for oil. Regions are the best promoters of a green hydrogen society, as they are the major beneficiaries, but we need to promote this idea among the regions”, President Illy concluded. 

The European Parliament Workshop on green hydrogen was initiated by MEP Vittorio Prodi and Jeremy Rifkin, President of the Foundation of Economic Trends in Washington D.C and author of the book “The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the World Wide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth”. Speakers included, amongst others, MEPs Jo Leinen, Claude Turmes, Philippe Busquin and Umberto Guidoni.

The Assembly of European Regions/AER is the political organisation of the Regions in Europe and their spokesperson at European and international level. Its vocation is to defend the Regions' interests in the political process and develop interregional cooperation. The AER brings together 255 Regions from 30 European Countries and 14 interregional organisations.

HOW HYBRİD CARS WORK

Improving Fuel Economy

Besides a smaller, more efficient engine, today's hybrids use many other tricks to increase fuel efficiency. Some of those tricks will help any type of car get better mileage, and some only apply to a hybrid. To squeeze every last mile out of a gallon of gasoline, a hybrid car can:

·   Recover energy and store it in the battery - Whenever you step on the br ake pedal in your car, you are removing energy from the car. The faster a car is going, the more kinetic energy it has. The brakes of a car remove this energy and dissipate it in the form of heat. A hybrid car can capture some of this energy and store it in the battery to use later. It does this by using "regenerative braking." That is, instead of just using the brakes to stop the car, the electric motor that drives the hybrid can also slow the car. In this mode, the electric motor acts as a generator and charges the batteries while the car is slowing down.

·   Sometimes shut off the engine - A hybrid car does not need to rely on the gasoline engine all of the time because it has an alternate power source -- the electric motor and batteries. So the hybrid car can sometimes turn off the gasoline engine, for example when the vehicle is stopped at a red light.

·   Use advanced aerodynamics to reduce drag - When you are driving on the freeway, most of the work your engine does goes into pushing the car through the air. This force is known as Aerodynamic Drag. This drag force can be reduced in a variety of ways. One sure way is to reduce the frontal area of the car. Think of how a big SUV has to push a much greater area through the air than a tiny sports car.

Reducing disturbances around objects that stick out from the car or eliminating them altogether can also help to improve the aerodynamics. For example, covers over the wheel housings smooth the airflow and reduce drag. And sometimes, mirrors are replaced with small cameras.

·   Use low-rolling resistance tires - The tires on most cars are optimized to give a smooth ride, minimize noise, and provide good traction in a variety of weather conditions. But they are rarely optimized for efficiency. In fact, the tires cause a surprising amount of drag while you are driving. Hybrid cars use special tires that are both stiffer and inflated to a higher pressure than conventional tires. The result is that they cause about half the drag of regular tires.

·   Use lightweight materials - Reducing the overall weight of a car is one easy way to increase the mileage. A lighter vehicle uses less energy each time you accelerate or drive up a hill. Composite materials like carbon fiber or lightweight metals like aluminum and magnesium can be used to reduce weight.

All of the hybrid cars on the market utilize some or all of these efficiency tricks. We will be looking closely at the technology of the Honda Insight and the Toyota Prius.

The Diesel is King

The stars of the automotive firmament make Frankfurt shine this week. Actually, "shimmer" would be a better term, as in Shimmer, from Saturday Night Live: It's a dessert topping and a floor wax. The double roles this year are our responsibility to the environment … and the responsibility to sell cars. Having seen the hybrids, automakers will note, have you seen our 400-hp compact sports sedan that does 0-to-60 in 5 seconds?

Frankfurt is the every-odd-year auto show that is second to none. Japan builds more cars, the U.S. has more colorful auto guys (GM's Bob Lutz is funnier than the entire German auto industry) and low cost of production (have you seen the dollar against the euro and yen lately?), but Germany is the most influential country for high-end car technology (which eventually trickles down)—and Frankfurt is the show. The "responsibility" theme this year includes diesel engines, hybrid engines, electric cars, lower emissions, crash safety, and environmental awareness. (Just don't forget those those rip-snorting cars we all want to own, so long as enough of our neighbors buy hybrids or take the streetcar.)

The technology that makes lower-emissions, lower-fuel-consumption technologies possible is the microprocessor, which precisely meters fuel based on dozens of factors (such as temperature, humidity, engine load, and engine temperature), not just on how hard you press on the gas pedal. Manufacturing technologies count, too: the ability to fabricate parts that take more heat and higher compression ratios, and to fabricate lighter parts that still resist impacts better than the far heavier thick steel components of a generation ago.

In Europe, the diesel engine is king because it's so efficient, especially on the highway or idling. In Frankfurt, Mercedes-Benz showed an engine technology called the DiesOtto that lives in both worlds. (Rudolph Diesel invented the diesel engine, and Nikolaus August Otto developed what became the gasoline internal combustion engine. Both Germans; Henry Ford came later.)

The DiesOtto engine runs on gasoline but only occasionally needs a spark plug to light off the compressed fuel-air mixture. The rest of the time, the DiesOtto works like a diesel, which compresses the air so much and makes the air so hot that when you squirt in the fuel, it self-combusts and burns more efficiently. Mercedes figured out a way to inject the more volatile gasoline quickly, without detonation (engine knock). One way to get fuel in quickly, used on some diesels, is a piezoelectric crystal, a heavy-duty cousin of the device that sprays ultra-fine ink out the nozzle of Epson printers. Diesel's emissions downside is nitrous oxides, or NOX, which bother American regulators more than European regulators, and DiesOtto nicely resolves that problem.

Hybrids Too

Frankfurt was the coming-out party for many automakers who hadn't previously dipped their toes in the hybrid market. In particular, BMW and Mercedes-Benz showed off dual-mode gasoline-electric hybrids that were part of a joint research project along with General Motors, done in Troy, Michigan. Dual-mode means "Prius-like"—the vehicle can run only on electric motors, only on gasoline (or diesel) engines, or on both working together. Weak hybrids run with both powerplants either on or off together; they are less complex, but so far the public isn't buying in, whether in reasonable cars such as the last-generation Honda Accord (great car) or the last-generation Saturn Vue Green Line (affordable transportation is the best you can say).

Mercedes-Benz says the hybrid version of its ML SUV will get more than 30 mpg in combined city-highway driving when it arrives in 2009. BMW announced that its first ActiveHybrid powerplant will go in the X6 sports activity vehicle, a stylish high-end all-wheel-drive car that should have a warning sticker on its sharply raked roofline: "You must be this big—and no more—to ride." Six-footers need not apply.

The first hybrids were save-the-earth vehicles such as Prius, and they've done a commendable job. But we're also finding that when you combine a powerful electric motor with a reasonably good, if downsized, gas or diesel engine, you've got a car that accelerates nicely, too. The Lexus GS450 hybrid sedan hits 60 mph in less than 6 seconds.

Diesels By the Carload

Hybrids are impressive, but what America needs, I believe, is more familiarity with diesel engine cars, especially for people who do a lot of highway driving. When I drive diesel cars in Europe, I cannot tell from the inside whether it's gasoline or diesel. From the outside, there's the faintest perfumed diesel scent—really faint—and on a cold morning, below 40 degrees, say, the diesel clatters for a moment of two. It's nothing worse than the sound of a metal garbage can falling down a flight of stairs a block away.

And Americans will get them starting in 2008, as automakers come up with pollution controls that tame the NOX problem. It's all good, and there'll be even more choice by 2010: gasoline or diesel standalone, or with hybrid powerplants, tuned for economy or performance, or both.

Best of all for people who treat cars as a means to get from A to B comfortably, as opposed to objects of worship: Even the automakers who stress traditional engineering have gotten the religion about entertaining people along the way. Line-in jacks are universal, and automakers who lack iPod adapters admit they're missing the boat rather than claim a line-in jack is just as good; and in-car audio systems sound better all the time. That technology won't save the environment, but it will enhance the appeals of the cars that do the least harm to Planet Earth.