Fueling the Future

(Last of Three Parts)

MANCHESTER, England — They’ve never heard of Danny Dingle before. Hence the scientists at the Chesire Innovation Park here gave each other a curious look when told that the self-proclaimed Filipino inventor had claimed that he had created a system that would make a gasoline-powered car run on water as fuel.

The scientists were obviously surprised to hear such a bold claim. "So what happened?" they asked. "Where is his invention now?"

Such questions were also in my mind and the mind of my fellow journalists invited by Shell to visit the Shell Global Solutions facility at Chesire, a sprawling research park in Manchester, England. We’ve been itching to know what
happened to Dingle and his supposedly water-powered car. Many had dismissed it simply as a hoax.

According to the scientists, it is everybody’s dream to use water as fuel, but the laws of science — and economics — are not favoring it.

Dingle’s claim was that he had invented a tiny nuclear reactor – tiny enough to fit under the hood of his Corolla – that could separate hydrogen and oxygen in water. The hydrogen would be used as fuel for the car and the oxygen would be emitted to the atmosphere. His idea is the stuff science fiction stories are made of, with the car becoming an oxygen-producing machine that could help plants and trees make the air fresher.

The resident of Parañaque in Metro Manila even had a demonstration of his invention. He showed the media his Corolla, pumped water into its gas tank and drove it like a regular gasoline-fed car.

Unbelievable? You bet it was. And according to Shell’s scientists, what Dingle wanted to prove was an impossible proposition, albeit a well-meaning one.

Nick Davenport, a PhD holder in Chemistry who is in charge of Shell’s fuel designs, said it is every fuel designer’s dream to come up with a so-called environmental fuel – a fuel that would not pollute the air — that the general public would patronize and use.

"The challenge is to develop and introduce a low-emission or even a zero-emission fuel that will become profitable," he said.

Shell has experimented on various types of possible fuel — from vegetable oil or those so-called biofuel, to natural gas, to different kinds of alcohol. And yes, Mr. Dingle, the company has worked on hydrogen, too.

Davenport even believes that hydrogen is the best fuel that is now being developed and that he sees widespread use of hydrogen as commercial fuel by year 2020.

Alternative fuels

At present, Shell is testing cars from Europe, the United States and Asia on liquified petroleum gas (LPG). It os marketing LPG for motor vehicle use under the brand name Autogas. The fuel is now being tested in many countries, including the Philippines (Cebu to be specific).

Another fuel Shell is developing is compressed natural gas (CNG). Natural gas, according to Shell’s scientists, is the cleanest among fossil fuels and is more widely available. The Malampaya wells off the shores of Mindoro in the Philippines is a good example, although Shell believes it will still take at least a decade before it can develop natural gas for mass transport use.

"CNG is very hard to transport," said Davenport. "It is now being used by powerplants, but I doubt if we could develop it for motor vehicles soon."

Other alternative fuels in Shell’s pipeline are the so-called "pure diesel" which is a lot cleaner than the traditional diesel that we know, the alcohol variant called ethanol which is now being experimented in a number of states in the US, and the fatty acid methyl esters or FAME, a kind of biofuels that can be derived from plants such as sunflowers.

The development of FAME and other biofuels started early last century. In an article that came out in the New York Times in the 1920s, industrialist Henry Ford already stated boldly his intention to introduce vehicles powered by vegetable oil.

"There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented," Ford said. "And there’s enough alcohol in one year’s yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years."

It was surprising, however, why the development of such fuels slowed down over the years. Davenport didn’t have an answer either. Maybe we should have asked OPEC.

Davenport was encouraged when we informed him that a fuel very similar to FAME is being developed and tested in the Philippines. Called coco methyl esters (CME), this fuel is sourced from coconut oil and is being eyed as a substitute for petroleum-based diesel. A number of coconut-producing regions in the Philippines, such as Romblon, are now testing this fuel.

"I hope your tests succeed," he said. "There are various small modifications that should be made on engines before they could run efficiently on alternative fuels. It is best to know them early," he added.

What Davenport is most excited about, though, is the possibility of a widespread hydrogen use. Hydrogen, as we all studied in high school, is a very flammable substance, hence an engine doesn’t need a rich fuel-air mixture to start combustion. A small amount of fuel can translate to a blistering acceleration.

Hydrogen can be used in traditional engines with modifications, or in electric-powered ones that run on fuel cell, a modern-day type of battery. Since hydrogen naturally comes as a form of gas, one needs to install a tank with a very low temperature (as low negative 253 degrees centigrade) to keep hydrogen in liquid form. Shell is now working hand-in-hand with car manufacturers in testing hydrogen for vehicles and Davenport expects hydrogen-fuelled cars to be commercially viable by the next decade.

"With governments insisting on lower and lower emissions, hydrogen fuel cell cars is the way to go," he said.

Dingle may have been right, after all, in thinking of using hydrogen as fuel for his car. Who knows, over time he may be able to prove that he could indeed extract hydrogen from water directly inside his car. But we’re afraid that when such time comes, fresh water may be as scarce and may even be more expensive than petroleum.