In a stainless steel tube 6 feet long and 8 inches wide, hydrogen is being made that could power automobiles running on pollution-free fuel cells, rather than internal combustion engines.
 

Instead of pulling up to gasoline pumps, motorists would fill their vehicles with hydrogen produced inside one of these miniature chemical plants.

Modine Manufacturing Co. of Racine is helping develop the technology - called advanced steam methane reforming - where hydrogen is extracted from natural ggas through a process that uses heat, steam and catalysts.

Tuesday, Modine shipped its first advanced steam methane reformer to Houston for laboratory testing. The reformer, or one similar to it, could be installed in a demonstration hydrogen fueling station in 2006.

It could be the precursor to the fueling station of the future, said Mark Baffa, director of Modine's Fuel Cell Products Group.
The next breakthrough

Modine is working with ChevronTexaco Corp. of San Ramon, Calif., to develop better and cheaper ways of converting natural gas into hydrogen, which could power anything from automobiles to trucks and buses.

No longer laboratory curiosities, fuel-cell vehicles are considered by many to represent the next major breakthrough in transportation technology.

In such vehicles, a small chemical reactor converts hydrogen and oxygen into electricity, water and heat. The electricity drives a motor that powers the wheels.

A fuel cell is two to three times more efficient than an internal combustion engine in converting fuel to power. Almost all the major automakers have said they plan to bring fuel-cell cars to market in the next 10 years, although initial sales will probably be limited to business fleets that can install equipment for handling hydrogen.

It's the fueling issue that Modine and Chevron are currently focused on. The reformers they are developing could be used at hydrogen fueling stations, much like gasoline stations.

"That's exactly the end game we are looking at," Baffa said.

Steam methane reformers are a popular way of making hydrogen. But it has been difficult to scale down hydrogen-producing technology to a size where it's suitable for roadside fueling stations.

ChevronTexaco knows how to produce hydrogen in large refineries. Modine has expertise in small heat exchangers, which are essential in making hydrogen in a 6-foot metal tube.

While some demonstration fueling stations have their hydrogen delivered by tanker trucks from production plants, ChevronTexaco is taking a different approach, said John Brady, a vice president in the company's hydrogen infrastructure division.

ChevronTexaco believes that in many cases, it may be more practical and cheaper to produce hydrogen fuel at the stations where it's pumped into vehicles, Brady said.
Critics call it inefficient

Critics of hydrogen fuel complain that it is inefficient to produce because it takes more energy to produce the gas than the gas would generate. There would have to be a significant increase in natural gas production in order to produce enough hydrogen to power the U.S. automobile fleet, the critics say.

But those estimates are wrong, said Jeffrey Jacobs, a ChevronTexaco vice president of business development. Besides, he said, the technology for making hydrogen will advance to the point where natural gas won't be needed.

Hydrogen can be extracted from something as simple as water.

"At some point, we will be producing hydrogen from renewable resources, but for now we are picking the path of least resistance," which is natural gas, Jacobs said.

In February, ChevronTexaco opened a demonstration hydrogen fueling station in Chino, Calif. The station is fueling about five Hyundai sport utility vehicles and is part of a five-year Department of Energy research project.

Widespread use of hydrogen fuel technology will require a long-term effort. It's difficult to say whether roadside fueling stations will become a reality in 10 years or longer, according to Baffa.

"But the technology continues to reach some significant milestones," he said, and it could be easier to develop the fueling stations than fuel-cell vehicles.

Daimler-Chrysler has more than 100 fuel-cell vehicles in its test fleet. Ford has at least 60 such vehicles, and the U.S. Postal Service is testing fuel-cell vehicles to deliver mail.