Hauling by Hydrogen

Toyota is pilot testing a fuel cell cargo truck project in California. How do fuel cells work and are they the future of automobiles?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
On the West coast of the United States. Enormous trucks
with an eighty thousand pound weight capacity are moving cargo
between Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles, enough
times to rack up two hundred miles of travel per day.
The kicker these trucks produce no local emissions. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
and this is tech stuff daily. The trucks are part

(00:28):
of Toyota's fuel cell initiative. Fuel cells rely upon a
chemical reaction between different elements that produces, among other things, electricity.
In this way, it's similar to a chemical battery, but
with fuel cells, you fill up or refuel the cell
with more of the elements to generate more electricity. It's
a system you can open up, rather than a battery

(00:49):
that is supposed to remain a closed system. The ingredients
that give the trucks their own are hydrogen and oxygen.
Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe. Oxygen,
as you may recall, is one of those gases that's
really important to organic critters such as ourselves. Putting the
two together in the right combination creates good old H

(01:11):
two O water in other words, and so here we
have a power system that takes hydrogen and oxygen and
produces electricity, water, and heat. So what's actually going on
inside a fuel cell? You have a permeable membrane that
will allow hydrogen ions to pass through, but not electrons.
And ion is an atom that has either gained or

(01:33):
lost an electron, changing the net charge of the atom.
A special catalyst on the membrane facilitates this process with hydrogen,
stripping it of its electron and preventing it from passing
through this membrane. Since the hydrogen atom consists of only
one proton and one electron, that means we're left with
a proton, the positively charged subatomic particle. This particle can

(01:56):
pass through the membrane. On the other side of the
fuel cells are sygen atoms. Meanwhile, those electrons and the
hydrogen side of the fuel cell want to get away
from each other. This is Coolom's law. Like charges repel
one another and opposite charges attract, opening up a pathway
for the electrons to follow where they can reunite with

(02:16):
their proton buddies. Allows you to create a circuit put
an electrical load on that circuit, such as a motor
capable of providing enough force to move a big cargo truck,
and you can put those electrons to work. When they
reach the other side, you end up with water molecules,
two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen per molecule. Sounds great, right,
You have these big trucks hauling cargo around without generating

(02:39):
carbon dioxide or methane emissions or any other greenhouse gases
with the exception of water vapor. You're using what is
literally the most abundant source of fuel in the universe,
And unlike gasoline, you're not burning anything to produce power.
You're facilitating a chemical reaction. So if fuel cells can
generate all trical energy powering a motor, just like a

(03:02):
battery would, why aren't we all driving around in fuel
cell vehicles right now? What's the hold up? There are
actually several big challenges. Perhaps the biggest challenge is getting
hold of hydrogen. Yes, I said it's the most plentiful
element in the universe, and it's true, but it's also
really a friendly atom. Hydrogen just wants to buddy up

(03:25):
with all sorts of stuff, particularly carbon. You've probably heard
of hydrocarbons. What that means for us is that most
of the hydrogen we can get our hands on is
already locked up molecularly with other stuff. Now we can
free up that hydrogen so we can use it for
something else. But breaking molecular bonds requires energy. You could

(03:46):
easily end up spending more energy trying to create hydrogen
fuel than you'd be able to take advantage of once
you've fueled up your fuel cells. Would be a net
loss from an energy perspective, which means it would make
more sense to pursue some other form or means of
generating power. Another issue is economical. Let's say we found
a really efficient way to get hold of hydrogen, so

(04:08):
that energy issue isn't a problem, we'd still need to
build out an infrastructure that could support fleets of fuel
cell vehicles. We need hydrogen refueling stations, and those wouldn't
come cheap. The most efficient way to store hydrogen in
terms of space is in liquid form. You'd have to
get it down to minus four twenty three degrees fahrenheit

(04:29):
or minus two hundred fifty three degrees celsius for hydrogen
to turn into a liquid. That's just twenty kelvin over
absolute zero. You wouldn't just pour liquid hydrogen into your car, though,
for one thing, as soon as the hydrogen left its pressurized,
temperature controlled storage tank, it would boil and turn back
into gas. You'd fill up your fuel cell with a

(04:50):
special pump that could put the gas form of hydrogen
into the right pressure. A special connector between the fuel
cell vehicle and the pump would monitor the fuel needs precisely.
All of this would cost more money. Ultimately, we're talking
about an investment in the billions of dollars. There are
other considerations to make too. For example, while the cars

(05:11):
themselves would produce no local emissions, the process of harvesting
and transporting hydrogen might be a different story. Some of
the elements of fuel cells, such as the platinum catalysts,
are themselves rare and expensive. It's a big picture problem.
In the meantime, Toyota is testing these vehicles out in California,
and it may turn out that fuel cell vehicles are

(05:32):
the way to go in certain specialized applications such as shipping.
Other companies like Tesla are exploring electric vehicles that run
on battery power. No matter which strategy wins out, in
the end will see fewer local greenhouse gas emissions coming
from vehicles on the road. That's all for today. To
learn more about fuel cells and all other things tech,
subscribe to The Tech Stuff podcast. It's a long form

(05:55):
show that publishes twice a week and looks at all
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