Hydrogen on the horizon in Montana?

Professor’s plan could place Montana at the center of a developing energy market, reaping the state billions of dollars each year.

By MARTIN J. KIDSTON, IR Staff Writer

Hydrogen is poised to revolutionize life on earth, fueling automobiles, lighting cell phones and generating enough clean energy to propel civilization into the distant future.
With that in mind, Paul Williamson, dean of the University of Montana’s College of Technology at Missoula, has hatched a plan that could place Montana at the center of the fledgling hydrogen market, reaping the state billions of dollars each year.

Referring to Montana as the Saudi Arabia of the hydrogen market, Williamson is driving hard to have his Hydrogen Futures Project in place by next year. As one of the most abundant and basic elements in the universe, hydrogen has unleashed a technological revolution, and Williamson wants the state to get onboard.

“Every month we wait to move forward we fall behind,” Williamson said.

The concept

Williamson’s Hydrogen Futures Project is designed to develop the necessary infrastructure to produce, market and distribute hydrogen power, which is formed from a variety of sources including water, sunlight and coal. The result is a non-polluting source of energy that can increase the production of fossil fuels by several times.

“When you compare hydrogen to gasoline in the use of the internal combustion engine, it’s two and a-half times more efficient,” Williamson said. “When making electricity in a hydrogen-fired plant compared to a coal-fired plant, it’s 16 times more efficient.”

Calling it the best of all worlds, Williamson said energy makers are able to convert coal to hydrogen through a process known as gasification. Rather than burning coal directly, gasification treats coal with steam and oxygen under high temperatures and intense pressure. The heat and pressure break down the chemical bonds in coal, unleashing a reaction that forms a gaseous mixture, typically in the form of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The result is a clean-burning hydrogen fuel.
“It’s a chemical process, not a burning process,” Williamson said. “So you don’t release the pollutants.”

Williamson said the hydrogen revolution has begun and Montana faces a rare opportunity to stake its claim in the up-and-coming market. He has the support of several legislators and is seeking businesses and investors to carry out his plan.
“What I’m hoping we do is move forward with a hydrogen energy plan,” Williamson said. “No state has done that yet. If we can build the best-trained hydrogen work force in the nation, we’ll attract new businesses and industries.”

Williamson has already established an energy-products network by uniting Montana’s two-year colleges. Together, the schools will attempt to secure funds and grants aimed at building a workforce skilled in hydrogen technology.

Williamson said a project model would first be established in Missoula before spreading across the state, where different schools would then pursue their vocational strengths. Helena could train technicians to install, operate and maintain alternative energy vehicles while Billings moves ahead in making hydrogen from petroleum-based products. Miles City could establish a training program to teach the process of coal gasification for use in developing non-polluting hydrogen power.

While it may sound like a farfetched plan to some, Williamson believes it’s possible, as major auto-makers are now developing new hydrogen technologies. Daimler-Chrysler plans to have 30 hydrogen-powered buses working in 10 European cities next year, and Ford has developed a fuel cell Focus it hopes to lease in 2004. General Motors recently demonstrated a Chevy S-10 pickup that converts gasoline to hydrogen.

“I have not found anyone against the idea,” Williamson said.

“There are some that are leery, and I don’t blame them. There’s no such thing as a magic bullet. But of all the things I have seen, there is nothing else that offers the potential of hydrogen.

“We need to have everyone working together in the same direction,” he added. “We can get proactive and attract innovation dollars for technological development in the hydrogen market. The potential is phenomenal. We’re talking billions of dollars.”

Economics

States prepared to embrace the evolution to hydrogen power could be rewarded with an economic boon rooted in high-paying jobs and new businesses.
As an example, backers of the Futures Project cited Canada’s burgeoning hydrogen industry, which has created $97 million in revenue and more than 1,700 new jobs spread across 28 hydrogen-based businesses. During the next year, Canada expects that growth to continue, with revenues reaching $165 million, and the emergence of more than 2,600 hydrogen-based jobs.
Williamson said Montana is uniquely positioned to produce, market, distribute and use hydrogen to bolster its economy and provide technical jobs. Rich in oil, gas, coal, wind, biomass, water, solar, carbon and platinum, Montana could drive a “hydrogen energy revolution” by generating power through fuel cell technologies.

“We’re trying to move Montana foreword and establish it as a hydrogen economy state,” Williamson said. “It’s the only state in the nation that has the natural resources necessary to do that.”

According to Brookhaven Labs, Montana’s annual hydrogen production potential stands in access of 1.72 trillion cubic feet each year, which translates to more than $7.4 billion. The state’s budget for fiscal year 2001 was roughly $3.1 billion in comparison. The Brookhaven figures don’t include associated industries and products.

But Williamson said if the state is to take the lead in the hydrogen market and reap the economic rewards, the it needs to act now. He said corporations are spending billions in developing hydrogen technology and Montana is already five years behind the hydrogen curve.

Canada aside, Hawaii, North Dakota, Florida and California, among others, have already taken steps toward a hydrogen market by establishing coal gasification plants and/or hydrogen pipelines.

Michigan has emerged as the ultimate leader in the hydrogen race with its “Next
Energy” plan. The plan outlines actions and incentives intended to position the state as the world’s leading center for alternative energy technology, research, development, education and manufacturing.

Building the workforce

Rick Gray, the associate dean at the University of Montana, Helena College of Technology, said jobs in the hydrogen field require at least two years of post-secondary training.
In Canada, more than 70 percent of those working in the hydrogen industry have a post-secondary education, compared to the present 24 percent of Montanans who posses a similar education.

Training the state’s workforce is a big part of the Futures Project and the state’s technical schools are eager to play a part in doing so.

Gray said HCT would offer an associate’s degree for hydrogen technicians. The school’s current courses on instrumentation, which look at “automated systems” and how they function, could be modified to focus on fuel cell technology.
The new curriculum would have to evolve with the expansion of the Futures Project, which Gray said would be large enough that schools across the state would be called upon to educate a workforce skilled in developing the new technology.

But to accommodate the new students and future technologies, HCT must expand its campus. Currently, Gray said, the school is too small and its lab space inadequate to fully embrace its goals.

Though talk of expansion is in the wind, how to fund something as expensive as a new building has yet to be resolved. If a new building were funded, Gray said, it would be designed in a way that allows for changes over time to accommodate new and growing technologies.

“We’re running out of room,” Gray said simply. “We’re looking to increase our classroom and lab space, and that would be part of a building project” that could be applied, in part, to a new hydrogen curriculum.
Politics
“There are some things that have to be lined up with the state Legislature,” Gray said, citing the need for a better business climate with new laws that encourage hydrogen-based economic development.

Leading the effort are Republican Reps. Dick Haines of Missoula and Doug Mood of Seeley Lake, and Sen. Fred Thomas of Stevensville. The trio is prepared to take the Futures Project to this year’s Legislature and put Missoula at the project’s center.
“Our plan is to work with the dean (Williams) of the Missoula vo-tech and try to implement his plan, which is to develop a campus in Missoula centered around the development of hydrogen energy,” Thomas said. “It’s possible we’ll need money from the state to get the ball rolling, coupled with federal dollars, which are definitely out there.”

Thomas acknowledged that the state’s budget is tight and receiving funding may be a challenge.
“But at the same time, you have to look at solid projects like this and invest in the future,” Thomas said. “It’s a pretty big project and one we’re very interested in. It has the potential to impact our state’s economy in a positive way.”

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To learn more

To read more about the hydrogen future, log on to http://www.hydrogenus.com. To read about the Hydrogen Futures Project, log on to http://www.cte.umt.edu.

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Hydrogen-based businesses ops

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Engineering

Production equipment

Testing

Fuel cell technology

Power generators

Hydrogen storage

Transportation

Distribution

Pressure devices/regulators

Evaluation and certification

Electrical components

Purification systems

Engines

Safety products

Nitrous oxide reduction

Fuel reformation

Gas sensors

Carbon sequestration

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Reporter Martin Kidston can be reached at 447-4086, or by e-mail at [email protected]

http://www.helenair.com/montana/1c1.html

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Toyota, Honda deliver first zero-emission hydrogen cars

IRVINE, Calif. — Toyota and Honda on Monday delivered their first market ready zero-emission hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles.

The University of California got the first two Toyota hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, which have a range of 180 miles (289 kilometers) and a top speed of 96 mph (154 kph).

In Los Angeles, Honda Motor Co. delivered its first street-certified hydrogen-powered fuel cell car to Mayor James K. Hahn. The City of Los Angeles is leasing five Honda fuel cell test vehicles for “real world” driving by city staff.
The vehicles delivered Monday were the first of six Toyota fuel-cell cars leased to the university as part of the program to bring refinements and improvements.

The vehicles are based on the Toyota Highlander five-passenger mid-size sport utility vehicle. Its hydrogen fuel-cell system features four 5,000-psi hydrogen fuel tanks.

Hydrogen gas feeds into the fuel-cell stack where it is combined with oxygen, and the chemical reaction of combining hydrogen and oxygen to form water generates a peak of 90 kilowatts of electricity. The electricity powers a 109 horsepower electric motor to charge the vehicle’s nickel-metal hydride batteries.

http://www.helenair.com/montana/1c12.html