Hydrogen Smokescreen

Call me a cynic but I’m calling media spin on this one.

There’s no future in hydrogen* and the backpedalling by GM and Toyota in this article is merely an attempt not to upset the hydrogen political apple cart. In other words, the companies know it’s a dead horse but they have to ride it anyway and hedge their bets.

* - Unless there are a series of miraculous breakthroughs the magnitude of which the world has never witnessed before.

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As previously suggested, hydrogen is a dead end that will not likely be overcome from the simple fact that if you can make hydrogen you can probably generate electricity for a whole lot less. I'm glad to see at least a few companies publicly expressing doubts on something they've researched.

Sure they have their agendas but we're just waiting on better batteries with electricity, not a whole series of miracles to happen like an efficiency breakthrough in hydrogen generation, a standard and widespread fueling infrastructure, breakthroughs in fuel cells to convert hydrogen to electricity in a cost effective way. And then many fuel cell concept cars still have batteries to store electricity. So where's the benefit in hydrogen?

Hydrogen Falling Out of Favor

Policy needs to be set now for a long time to come. Yet if you look at all the rhetoric and proposals on the Federal and state levels, we’ve got a hodgepodge of all sorts of special interests clamoring for their piece of the action. With all these contenders jostling for position, someone’s going to fall off the wagon. And while I wouldn’t count it out, hydrogen looks like it’s been teetering a bit lately.

A headline this week from Automotive News (subscription required): “Hydrogen slips as a solution for the greening of autos”

The article contains a chart from the GAO (Government Accountability Office) which shows the current fuel production cost of hydrogen from renewable liquids as $4.40 per kilowatt-hour versus the US Department of Energy’s goal of less than $3 per kWh by the year 2017.

Does anyone see a problem with this? If it’s going to cost $3/kWh to make how much is it going to sell for? More right? And hydrogen is going to be used to do what in fuel cells? Make electricity. And for every 1 unit of hydrogen you put into a fuel cell, the theoretical maximum output you’ll get is 1 unit of electricity, but the reality will be somewhat less.

So how does this make sense when electricity is already less than $3 per kWh, the infrastructure to charge vehicles is further along than hydrogen refueling stations, and battery development will surely increase range to at least as good as hydrogen can get? Plus how is the infrastructure for hydrogen refueling going to come about?

All I’m saying is the sooner we start focusing efforts on programs that have the best chance of success because they are fundamentally sound and leverage existing technology and resources, the sooner we will come to a viable solution.

Hydrogen Emits More Than Water Vapor

I’ve just read another article (Automotive Engineering, February 2008, p. 30) that mentions that the only emissions from hydrogen fueled vehicles is water. Not true. This is just like saying electric vehicles powered by batteries emit nothing. Why is the media constantly hyping this? Sure, running a vehicle on hydrogen is clean but most ways of making hydrogen aren’t. Just like most ways of making electricity.

The whole truth is not well known by the public, but the second half of it is very sound-bite friendly. While I’m not an expert on hydrogen, the sheer level of hype surrounding its use as a fuel makes me cynical. It is not a panacea.

Hydrogen fueled vehicles can be divided into two basic groups: Internal combustion engines running on hydrogen fuel, and electric vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

In either case, you have to get hydrogen and compress it to store enough of it to power the vehicle an appreciable amount.

In either case you have to make, storage, and transport hydrogen. It takes a lot of energy to make hydrogen. And energy usually results in emissions. Then you use the hydrogen to make electricity. So let me ask you this. Why not just use the energy to make hydrogen to make electricity instead? Is that not a more direct and efficient process that will yield fewer emissions? Two words: Rube Goldberg.

It’s debatable which is more feasible: Developing an electric battery that can be recharged quickly, provide enough vehicle range to be useful, and be durable enough to last 100,000 miles, or developing a hydrogen fuel cell that can do the same. But batteries already exist for all sorts of applications. Do you have a fuel cell powered-anything?

Here’s a quote from “The Car and Fuel of the Future: A Technology and Policy Overview” prepared by the National Commission on Energy Policy by The Center for Energy and Climate Solutions (June 2004) on hydrogen funding:

..currently getting funding and policy attention that is vastly disproportionate to both its probability of success and likely environmental benefits.

Hydrogen compared to battery electric or other energy storage method is like VHS versus Beta max, Apple versus PC, and Xbox versus PlayStation all over again. All it really comes down to is finding practical storage media for energy and establishing a dominant standard. Hydrogen as a storage medium seems redundant, like copying a VHS tape into Beta or running PC apps on an Apple.

My guess is that most (all?) hydrogen fuel cell research programs by major companies serve as advanced research for hedging bets in case a breakthrough happens and for PR purposes. No one who is going to build a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle that you and I can buy for any reasonable amount of money any time soon and turn a profit. Not only because they’re very expensive, but also because where are we going to refuel? File this under not-going-to-happen-anytime-soon-unless-there’s-a-lot-of-major-breakthroughs.

Sorry for the rant. I’m just calling out what I see as misleading reporting.