Who (almost) killed the Hydrogen Car?

The Hydrogen Initiative

Ex-President G. W. Bush loved photo opportunities that portrayed him as an advocate of hydrogen cars. The photo on the right shows Bush inspecting a scooter powered by solid hydrogen fuel, and Bush attempting to refuel a hydrogen car several years later.

Hydrogen is "the wave of the future," Bush said. "Congress has been talking too long about the energy bill, I'm getting a little tired of waiting," Bush added, in an attempt to persuade Congress to pass an energy bill that supported his $1.2 billion hydrogen initiative, aiming to get people into hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles by 2020.

Dropping The Ball

End 2006, the Department of Energy (DOE) discontinued R&D funding in hydrogen storage, arguing that cost-effective storage required substances that could hold at least 6% of their weight in hydrogen at room temperature. And in May, the DOE cut $100 million for its hydrogen fuel-cell program from its budget.

Steven Chu, secretary of energy, at a MIT lecture: "I always was somewhat skeptical of it because, right now, the way we get hydrogen primarily is from reforming [natural] gas. That's not an ideal source of hydrogen. You're giving away some of the energy content of natural gas, which is a very valuable fuel. So that's one problem. The other problem is, if it's for transportation, we don't have a good storage mechanism yet. Compressed hydrogen is the best mechanism [but it requires] a large volume. We haven't figured out how to store it with high density. What else? The fuel cells aren't there yet, and the distribution infrastructure isn't there yet. So you have four things that have to happen all at once."

A Closer Look at these supposed problems with Hydrogen

1. PRODUCTION PROBLEMS?

According to the DOE, hydrogen can now be produced from natural gas at $3.00/gallon gasoline equivalent — i.e. cost competitive with gasoline. As the California Fuel Cell Partnership writes, well-to-wheels studies show that producing hydrogen from natural gas and using that in fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) would not only be more energy efficient than burning gasoline or natural gas in a conventional vehicle, it would also be cleaner.

In terms of environmental benefits, it's even better to produce hydrogen in the process of making biochar by means of pyrolysis.  Alternatively, surplus energy from wind turbines can be used to produce hydrogen at night by means of electrolysis, which is a method that has been successfully deployed for many decades. Prices of electrolyzers have come down over the years, they can now be made without a need for platinum. While electrolysis requires clean water, there's also interesting research into using electricity to turn seawater into hydrogen. Such clean ways to produce hydrogen are described in Towards a Sustainable Economy, which also describes clean ways to obtain carbon and magnesium for the production of materials to store hydrogen, as further described below.

2. STORAGE PROBLEMS?

The technology to store hydrogen in the form of compressed gas has also been around for many decades. Developments in carbon fiber have led to tanks that allow higher compression rates, making them hold ever more hydrogen. While carrying hydrogen still takes more space than oil, this is only a relatively minor obstacle in cars such as the Electric Ford F-150 Truck, and even less of a problem in ships.

Alternatively, a promising way to store hydrogen is fullerenes. Scientists from Rice University were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on fullerenes such as Buckminsterfullerene (C₆₀) compounds, also known as buckyballs.

Bonds between carbon atoms are among the strongest chemical bonds in nature. This is what makes diamond the hardest known substance. This is also what makes buckyballs capable of holding large volumes of hydrogen.

Last year, Boris Yakobson, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Rice, wrote that buckyballs can hold substantially more hydrogen than the above 6% DOE-target.

Recently, researchers in Australia have developed a way to store hydrogen using magnesium-decorated fullerenes within metal−organic frameworks (Mg−C₆₀@MOF). This method results in a hydrogen adsorption capacity that is close to optimal, allowing hydrogen uptake in large amounts at pressures under 10 atm. The method also allows a take up of methane at the highest reported value for any material. An article describing their work appeared July 7, 2009, in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

3. FUEL CELLS PROBLEMS?

Based on projections of high-volume manufacturing, the cost of automotive fuel cells has fallen from $275/kW in 2002 to $73/kW in 2008, while for 2010 a $45/kW was set by the DOE. This indicates that FCVs are close to being commercially viable.

Moreover, it makes sense to start using fuel cells in merchant ships. Alternatively, hydrogen can also power ships without fuel cells -- slightly modifying internal combustion engines allows them to burn hydrogen stored on ships, e.g. in the form of compressed gas. No new technology is needed to make this work.

4. DISTRIBUTION PROBLEMS?

While there isn't much infrastructure yet to distribute hydrogen in quantities to fuel stations, to in turn supply it to cars, hydrogen can be supplied to ships in bulk, making the cost more comparable to the supply of oil.

The National Research Council worked out that an investment of $8 billion over 16 years can build stations to supply hydrogen for 1.8 million vehicles through 2020 and 10 million vehicles through 2025. By comparison, the existing gasoline infrastructure costs $160 billion annually, while the government subsidy for ethanol fuel could grow to $15 billion per year by 2020.

In conclusion, no new technologies are needed to make a start with using hydrogen to power long distance transport, in particular heavy transport such as by merchant ships. Fees on oil that fund rebates on hydrogen can quickly make this commercially attractive. As economies of scale and innovation bring prices down further, hydrogen can also become more attractive in other forms of transport. Market mechanisms can sort out which alternatives work best where, such as biofuel, batteries or hydrogen, either stored in the form of compressed gas or in buckyballs, etc.

Where's the support for Renewables?

Is this lack of support for the hydrogen economy based on a scientific approach? Or is it symptomatic for an overall lack of support for renewables, which still constitute only a tiny part of the energy consumed in the U.S., while the government appears to make few efforts to change this, as discussed in What will power your new car?

In the above-mentioned MIT lecture, Steven Chu also said: "solar power, for one, is still far too expensive to compete with conventional power plants (except on hot summer days in some places, and with subsidies). Making solar cheap will require 'transformative technologies', equivalent to the discovery of the transistor", Steven added.

Meanwhile, in China, the Ministry of Finance announced the government will subsidize 50% of investment for solar power projects, as well as relevant power transmission and distribution systems that connect to grid networks, as Reuters report. For independent photovoltaic power generating systems in remote regions that have no power supply, the subsidy will rise to 70%, the ministry said in an announcement on its website. To qualify for the subsidy, in addition to other requirements, each project must have a generating capacity of at least 300 kilowatt peak, while construction will have to be completed in one year and operations will have to last for at least 20 years.

Where's the Money?

In recent news, Congress appears close to restoring the $100 million in funding for hydrogen research. Last Friday, the House of Representatives approved the $26.9 billion DOE budget, including $153 million for hydrogen and fuel cells in the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy program, plus $40.45 million for hydrogen from coal.

The Senate Appropriations Committee was sufficiently bullish on hydrogen to approve $190 million for the program. Reconciliation of the two budget figures (assuming the full Senate leaves the $190 million intact) could result in a final amount greater than the $168 million for fuel cells in the 2009 Energy Department budget.

Where's the Plan?

The hydrogen-from-coal program seems a useless handout to the coal industry. Given the urgency to act on global warming and given Obama's own targets to reduce emissions, one would instead expect a huge support for renewables from the new administration, rather than for fossil fuel.

Energy efficiency and renewable energy comprise less than one tenth of the DOE budget. Most money goes to nuclear (nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, non-proliferation, etc), while the budget focuses more on energy savings through greater efficiency than on support for renewables.

Even more important than support for renewables in terms of R&D is support for renewables in terms of planning. The appointment of scientist Steven Chu as secretary of energy doesn't appear to have brought much change to Washington, if plans still appear to be shaped by deals with the nuclear and fossil fuel industry.

If this administration is sincere about cutting emissions, then how does it propose to cut the huge amount of emissions caused by shipping? Ships use the most polluting type of oil. What alternative has Steven Chu in mind to power ships? Coal? A nuclear power plant in each ship?

magnesium-decorated buckyballs within metal−organic frameworks