I Want Nuclear-Generated Hydrogen: GM's R&D Chief Larry Burns Talks Alternative Fuels

[JoeT]

Handling The Fuel Sell

James Stanford
19 August 2008
www.goauto.com.au

General Motors R&D chief discusses the issues with alternative fuels.

General Motors research and development chief Larry Burns has urged stakeholders in alternative energy technologies to stop fighting among themselves.

Visiting Melbourne last week, Mr Burns stated GM’s view that there is no one solution to the looming fuel crisis and that various energy technology backers should recognise this.

“If this issue is as serious as it appears to be, then we can solve it,” Mr Burns said. “But we can’t solve it by being paralysed by all these different parochial views.”

He said the various backers were creating a distorted picture of the viability of various alternative technologies that was detrimental.

“What’s happening is that people who like natural gas over-promote natural gas and overly criticise all the other (alternative fuels),” he said.

“The people who like ethanol overly promote ethanol and overly criticise all the other ones. The next thing you know, you’ve got all these people digging their heels in, thinking there’s a single answer and that’s the only thing you should invest in. In fact, we must invest in all of them.”

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GM vice-president of research & development and strategic planning Larry Burns
shares a joke with GM Holden chairman and managing director Mark Reuss

[tgagneguam]

Visiting Melbourne last week, Mr Burns stated GM’s view that there is no one solution to the looming fuel crisis and that various energy technology backers should recognise this...

...The next thing you know, you’ve got all these people digging their heels in, thinking there’s a single answer and that’s the only thing you should invest in. In fact, we must invest in all of them.”

Mr. Burns is one smart fellow. Many other quotes contained within the article readily demonstrate that. GM is lucky to have him.

[megeebee]

Originally Posted by tgagneguam

Mr. Burns is one smart fellow. Many other quotes contained within the article readily demonstrate that. GM is lucky to have him.

AMEN, BROTHER.


Everytime I read some self-annointed Blog expert spouting about the shortcomings of GM, I think of Larry Burns. The Volt is his brainchild.

[RamJet502]

Give this guy a raise!

[1.21 giggawatts]

the idea is good, needs follow through. gm needs to be atleast 2 or three steps ahead of the game instead of always playing catch up being 5 steps back.

[johnstarnes]

Nuclear power plants produce vast amounts of intensely radioactive waste that will remain so for thousands of years....and a satisfactory means of storing/disposing of it has yet to be devised. So I oppose it until fusion is harnessed. In the meantime, check out today's issue of www.spacedaily.com and see the breakthrough in using sunlight to split water!

[Wolfman01]

Finally some intelligent thought on the Alt. energy movement. Way to go Burns!!!!!

[MonaroSS]

Here is something for people to think about.

I don't mind hydrogen as a fuel, but it will take time to build out infrastructure. But I also like the internal combustion engine; I like their sound and how they perform. So I say use hydrogen in ICE's.

But hydrogen has less bang for the buck, so to have the power of a 3.0 V6 in your car you would need to have a V8 of 5.0. Now before you think that is a bad thing, think again. This large V8 does not have to be heavy; in fact it can be much lighter than the 3.0 gasoline engine. Firstly, you scrap the weight of the catalytic converters.

And hydrogen burns weaker, which means the engine does not have to be as strong, so make the engine walls thinner, and there is less power going through the conrods and crank so they downsize too.

And the less energy released in a larger cylinder means less heat soak, which means you, can go to air-cooling. Remember that Porsche gave up air cooling because of emissions controls because an air cooled engine cylinder expanded and contracted more and let gases escape past the rings more, but a hydrogen engine has no bad emissions to keep track of.

And if some steam gets into the oil, like did in steam engines before, you have a small scrubber to separate the water out in the oil filter. So you dump the weight of the radiator and the water in it and in the engine.

Trouble is nobody is serious about doing these things. Only BMW is doing hydrogen ICE's, and they just use their current converted engines. Nobody has purpose designed a Hydrogen ICE to take advantage of these hydrogen benefits.

[AndrewGS]

Originally Posted by johnstarnes

Nuclear power plants produce vast amounts of intensely radioactive waste that will remain so for thousands of years....and a satisfactory means of storing/disposing of it has yet to be devised.

Bury it in a place that will be far away from human civilization for hundreds of thousands of years. In the mean time we may come up with an idea to neutralize spent fuel, but we'll definitely find an alternative that's just as efficient or plentiful. We need to use the best technology we have now to ensure we have a future to develop alternatives for. Replace coal, oil and natural gas power with nuclear, wind, geothermal, hydro and solar now until we can do fusion.

I applaud Mr. Buns' intelligence. We need more people like him making decisions in this country.

[cs1992]

I agree, we need more nuclear.

However, we also need more algae-oil! The potential for this bio-fuel is several orders of magnitude beyond corn based ethanol. But, you never hear the candidates talking about it.

[eaton53]

Originally Posted by RamJet502

Give this guy a raise!

Burns works for GM so he must be a retard and a redneck.
He should work for a dollar.

[minnfang]

Originally Posted by johnstarnes

Nuclear power plants produce vast amounts of intensely radioactive waste that will remain so for thousands of years....and a satisfactory means of storing/disposing of it has yet to be devised. So I oppose it until fusion is harnessed. In the meantime, check out today's issue of www.spacedaily.com and see the breakthrough in using sunlight to split water!

Your true colors
True colors
True colors
Shining through

- Cyndi Lauper

[johnstarnes]

Originally Posted by minnfang

Your true colors
True colors
True colors
Shining through

- Cyndi Lauper

I don't get it....guess I am dense at times!

[Wolven]

To MonarroSS,

You really need to do some research on H2 powered ICE... cuz your statements are HORRIBLY WRONG. H2 burns FASTER, HOTTER and MORE POWERFULLY than gasoline. Look up the amount of energy contained in H2 vs. Gas BY WEIGHT. You'll find H2 has far more energy.

Your statements about it being less powerfull comes from the fact that most of the H2 fueled ICE that have been shown so far have PURPOSELY been "powered down". The basic problem is, the fuel system has to run at VERY high pressures (like 25,000 PSI) to force enough H2 into the cylinder to equal an equivalent amount (by weight) of gas or diesel. It's not that it can't be done, it has been, but none of the main manufacturers have shown any of those yet.

[edsuski]

Originally Posted by JoeT

Handling The Fuel Sell

James Stanford
19 August 2008
www.goauto.com.au

General Motors R&D chief discusses the issues with alternative fuels.

He said the various backers were creating a distorted picture of the viability of various alternative technologies that was detrimental.

“What’s happening is that people who like natural gas over-promote natural gas and overly criticise all the other (alternative fuels),” he said.

“The people who like ethanol overly promote ethanol and overly criticise all the other ones. The next thing you know, you’ve got all these people digging their heels in, thinking there’s a single answer and that’s the only thing you should invest in. In fact, we must invest in all of them.”

Click here to continue article

GM vice-president of research & development and strategic planning Larry Burns
shares a joke with GM Holden chairman and managing director Mark Reuss

The problem is that we have to prioritize what we work on. Some ideas make more sense and are more achievable in the short term than others. We should prioritize the solutions that are available near term and back burner those that will take decades to develop infrastructure to realize. I'm not suggesting that we stop any research - but spending billions on solutions that are not marketable for decades does not make sense when we have solutions that could free us of our oil dependency (at least the 22% that we purchase from the most objectionable sources). The gentleman from Google who testified in front of the congressional committee on energy really gets it - he also suggested that we need to prioritize the near term solutions.

What say you Larry Burns? How would you prioritize potential solutions including FlexFuel, BioFuels, Plug-in Electrics, Hydrogen Fuel Cell, Natural Gas etc.?