-- Design News, August 21, 2008
I read with interest your editorial about the hydrogen ‘chicken or egg' quandary (ref. Design News,06.23.08). As a company that has a vested interest in alternative fuel vehicle
technology, this is a problem that wields a noticeable influence on the potential for future sales.
In fact, this problem is not unlike the dilemma the natural gas vehicle industry has dealt with for the past twenty years. All across the United States, buses, trucks, and cars are operating on clean burning natural gas. But to drive a natural gas-fuelled vehicle (NGV) cross country would be very difficult as fueling stations are few and far between. Without a sufficient fueling infrastructure, the market demand for NGV's is muted considerably. And thus begins the NGV ‘chicken or egg' endless volley: no one wants to invest in a fueling station when there are no cars and trucks to use it, and no one wants to build OEM NGV's when there is no market for them (because there is nowhere to fuel them).
The key to eliminating this market barrier is to reduce the investment required to implement fueling stations. For such a solution, we can look to Southeast Asia, where Thailand is currently building a thriving NGV industry. (There are numerous parallels between natural gas and hydrogen as vehicular fuels: both can be used in vehicular applications as either compressed gas or liquid; both can be transmitted by pipeline; and both currently lack critical infrastructure elements to make it successful on a larger scale. For these reasons, it is easy to apply NGV lessons to the hydrogen vehicle industry.)
In Bangkok, Thailand, they employ a fueling system known as "mother-daughter stations". In this scenario, a "mother station" has large compressors and is supplied fuel via pipeline access. The "mother station" compresses the pipeline feed stock and fills mobile tube trailers designed to carry large amounts of gas. These mobile trailers are then taken to "daughter stations" where they serve as the reservoir for the fuel dispensers. The significant capital investment in the mother station compressors is able to support multiple daughter stations throughout the city.”
Article reference Design News