GM planning home hydrogen station
General Motors, which still believes it will start selling fuel cell cars within five years, plans to complement such vehicles by offering homeowners their own hydrogen fueling station. News of this follows a recent announcement that it will be making 100 hydrogen fuel-cell versions of its Chevrolet Equinox SUV. The company says the home stations give homeowners a stable supply of hydrogen and overcome concerns that a hydrogen refueling infrastructure would not be in place to support larger-scale introduction of fuel cell vehicles.
GM, of course, wouldn’t be the first automaker to head in this direction. Honda has been working on a similar product, and last fall announced a third-generation prototype of its hydrogen station, which would run on natural gas and would be able to provide hydrogen for a vehicle as well as electricity for a home. Ion America, another secretive Kleiner Perkins’ investment, is also developing such a system, and the former Stuart Energy (now part of Hydrogenics) had one in development for years. Hydrogenics calls it the HomeFueler, but there hasn’t been much news about it recently, and one must wonder whether GM — which owns a minority stake in Hydrogenics — plans to base its home fueling station on the HomeFueler design.
In any event, the home station concept makes sense if you can provide fuel for a vehicle, electricity for a home, and capture waste heat from the process to help heat your home. Price will be key, and it’s also important to remember that such a system would rely on natural gas. While it would be a very efficient use of natural gas, you’ve got to wonder whether you’re getting around Peak Oil only to confront Peak Natural Gas…
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
