World's First Hydrogen Vehicle Fuel Tank Standard

[kenvlach]

"11/28/2005
CSA Introduces World's First Hydrogen Vehicle Fuel Tank Standard
Toronto – November 28, 2005 – Canadian Standards Association (CSA), a leading developer of standards and codes, officially introduces the world’s first hydrogen vehicle fuel tank standard. The new standard will have a significant impact on the hydrogen industry in Canada by helping to facilitate regulatory approvals of major projects.

The standard is expected to help streamline regulatory approvals by authorities of projects such as the Hydrogen Highway in B.C. and the Hydrogen Village in Ontario that until now had to be done by variances. The standard will also help simplify the introduction of 700 bar fill stations, a key component of the hydrogen projects, by allowing for vehicle fuel tank designs of composite construction to be used as stationary storage.

The BC Hydrogen Highway is a coordinated, large-scale deployment and demonstration program intended to accelerate the commercialization of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. The Hydrogen Village in Ontario, also a demonstration project, consists of numerous hydrogen and fuel cell infrastructure hubs throughout the Greater Toronto Area. A number of other hydrogen projects are planned for Alberta, Quebec and Prince Edward Island.

The standard is included as part of the Canadian CSA B51-03 Boiler, Pressure Vessel, and Pressure Piping Code that originally covered the requirements for natural gas vehicle fuel cylinders and stationary storage cylinders at filling stations. The code has since been expanded to include hydrogen applications and is harmonized with the draft European Integrated Hydrogen Project (EIHP), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) DIS 15869 series, and draft American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standards for hydrogen tanks.

CSA is a leader in climate change related activities and is actively involved in developing standards that support green power technologies to help Canada meet its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Onboard storage of alternative fuels for vehicles is one key area of CSA’s climate change focus.

The requirements for hydrogen vehicle fuel tanks will be published as supplement to CSA B51-03 Boiler, Pressure Vessel, and Pressure Piping Code and will be available December 14, 2005."

http://www.csa.ca/news/announcements/default.asp?articleID=8611&language=english

I'm sure that a lot of engineering & safety testing was involved in setting this standard, but 700 bar fill stations??? I presume this means that motor vehicle tanks will have up to 700 bar (691 atm or 10,153 psi) of hydrogen. Maybe we won't see fireballs (hydrogen burns with a colorless flame), but eventually a mishap will occur. Think what this will do for consumer buying of hydrogen fueled vehicles. Comments?

 

[moltenmetal]

Think not only of the potential mishaps with hydrogen storage pressures this high, but also with the electrical energy wasted in compressing the gas this much for storage! You get none of this energy back in operating the fuelcell, and the compressor's rejected heat won't be of much use to the fueling station.

Until we have all our stationary energy needs met with renewables (and nuclear perhaps), using hydrogen as a transportation fuel is energetic nonsense and hence not a "green" strategy- forget about the economics, which also will never be there. If the source of the hydrogen is fossil fuels anyway, it makes far more sense to use the fossil fuel directly in the vehicle than to make hydrogen as an energy storage medium.

If what we're really after is using less energy to move people where they need to go, hydrogen is only a distraction from the real solutions: better public transit, lighter, smaller hybrid vehicles etc.

 

[eth]

right on, moltenmetal

Apparently the laws of thermodynamics are not fashionable...

Public transit must become the default mode of travel for most people for most trips if we intend to operate in a sustainable manner. Even with current internal combustion (including diesel) engines, merely switching to large numbers of buses could easily yield 80%90% savings in pollution and cost, with NO FARE and 1-3 minute bus wait times.

The use of nuclear power is incredibly irresponsible and needs to be stopped, like, yesterday. Then we're going to need something akin to a nuclear priesthood to watch over the waste for a few millenia.

 

[moltenmetal]

We have a difference of opinion about nuclear power. When the alternative is coal-fired electrical generation, I'll take my chances with mining the uranium and storing the nuclear waste. At least the nuclear waste is centralized rather than being broadcast into the atmosphere, crossing national borders etc.

I think we'd agree that the best and first expenditure on improving the electrical supply/demand situation is conservation- it's the only means of addressing this issue where all the money spent actually reduces environmental harm rather than merely harming it less than the alternative.