CA: Hydrogen-fueled cars won't hit highways soon, panel says

San Francisco Chronicle | February 9, 2004 | Carl T. Hall

[calcowgirl]

Despite all the promise of pollution-free vehicles, a transportation system based on hydrogen fuel cells is anything but a sure bet, members of a National Academy of Sciences panel concluded last week.

Even if the most optimistic predictions prove true, and the first hydrogen fuel cell vehicles reach commercial showrooms by 2015, it would take at least another quarter-century before they have a major impact on the market, the panel concluded.

"This is a tremendously important, transforming opportunity we are talking about, but it's not going to happen with current technology and current knowledge," said Dan Sperling, a panel member and director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis.

The report was designed mainly to guide research programs and set priorities for hydrogen development at the U.S. Department of Energy. Backed by a year of study, the report is perhaps the most comprehensive nonpartisan attempt yet to analyze hydrogen's potential, along with its drawbacks.

Both President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have pinned their energy policies on a quest to develop hydrogen, touted as the "fuel of the future," capable of ending our dependency on foreign oil imports while greatly reducing tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases.

In his recent budget message to Congress, Bush called for a $228 million hydrogen program in fiscal 2005, a 43 percent increase from 2004, aimed at developing hydrogen fuel cell cars and the roadside infrastructure needed to keep them running.

Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger wants the state to turn its freeways into "hydrogen highways," tempting motorists to make the switch with a network of 200 fuel-cell replenishment stations. Details are expected to be announced next month along with an executive order from the governor's office.

"It will be an order for the state to march aggressively forward, using all available state resources and interaction with all public agencies and public-private partnerships," said Alan Lloyd, chairman of the California Air Resources Board.

Against the background of hydrogen's true believers, the National Academy of Sciences report seemed calculated to stay reasonably optimistic despite a host of reasons to be skeptical.

Experts said those reasons involve basic performance and cost issues that will take research breakthroughs to solve:

-- For starters, fuel cells, which convert chemical energy into electricity, have a short lifespan and cost at least 10 times too much to present a cost-effective alternative in the consumer market.

-- A fuel-cell vehicle's driving range is only about half that of conventional cars.

-- Hydrogen must be manufactured, stored and transported using other energy sources, whether natural gas or coal or renewable generation strategies such as wind or biomass, which is made up of organic materials such as rice straw, switchgrass, orchard prunings, agricultural waste and even dedicated crops.

-- There is no supply and manufacturing system capable of serving a mass market, and it's unclear how to bring such a system into existence.

Hydrogen, usually stored as an odorless gas under high pressure, needs specialized tanks and pipelines. Handling it raises some difficult safety issues, including the scary prospect of leaky tanks and exploding garages in the suburbs. The National Academy of Sciences panel, which included representatives from oil companies, car markers, environmental groups and academia, agreed with the politicians and manufacturers on one point: The most ubiquitous element in the universe, if harnessed here on Earth, has tremendous potential.

Hydrogen "could fundamentally transform the U.S. energy system," the panel concluded. It's only a matter of time. Lots of time.

As the scientific panel noted, "there will likely be a lengthy transition period during which fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen are not competitive with internal combustion engine vehicles, including conventional gasoline and diesel fuel vehicles, and hybrid gasoline electric vehicles."

The scientists worked out what they considered to be an optimistic "upper bound" scenario for this transition to occur, using projections based on how quickly motorists are embracing the gas-electric hybrids now on the market, a much easier transition than the switch to hydrogen.

Optimistically, assuming hydrogen fuel cell cars hit the U.S. market around 2015, as Bush suggests is possible, the panel concluded that hydrogen cars still would claim only a 25 percent share by 2027 or so.

Production of hydrogen for transportation would amount to 9 million tons a year by then, or just 8 percent of the 110 million tons needed to fuel a complete changeover from gasoline to hydrogen on the nation's roadways.

After the first hydrogen car is ready for showrooms, "it will take at least 25 years before it will have any big impact," said Michael Ramage, chair of the academy panel and a former executive vice president for technology programs at ExxonMobil.

"Even if the cars are introduced in 2015, which is the president's vision, to get those cars into the market, and the infrastructure built, is a long process."

By 2040, perhaps, hydrogen cars may have taken over new-car showrooms. Yet that might be too late to inoculate the United States against the vagaries of Middle East oil producers and reduce noxious fossil-fuel emissions in time to arrest devastating global climate changes.

"The bottom line is that it's going to be at least two or three decades before there's any significant number of fuel cell vehicles out there being bought by the public, and that's the optimistic scenario, if all goes well and the research challenges are met," said Antonia Herzog, a staff scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C., who served as a member of the academy panel.

Given the risks of the hydrogen bubble bursting, the academy panel urged the Bush administration to adopt a "balanced portfolio" of energy research projects as a fallback. Also, the entire hydrogen program should be re- evaluated by outside experts every two years, and the program stopped and resources diverted elsewhere, if the many "challenges" turn out to be impassable barriers.

Because of the high cost of generating hydrogen from "green" renewable energy sources, some environmentalists accuse the Bush administration of overselling hydrogen as a fix to problems that would be addressed better with here-and-now answers, such as better fuel efficiency or reductions in carbon emissions.

During an interview last week in San Francisco, Joseph Romm, a former Energy Department official during the Clinton administration and author of an upcoming book called "The Hype About Hydrogen," referred to hydrogen cars as "everybody's favorite techno-miracle."

Romm drives a hybrid, which he said is the best practical alternative now. Hydrogen is "a post-2030 technology," he said. "If your concern is global warming, hydrogen cars are not what you'll be doing for the next 30 years."

The National Academy of Sciences panel stopped short of writing off hydrogen, however. The birth of the hydrogen economy "won't be quick," said panel member James Sweeney, an economist at Stanford University. But he called it "a grand challenge" well worth taking up.

The experts insisted that hydrogen fuel cells are the only futuristic energy carrier with a real chance of supplanting the internal combustion engine.

"Hydrogen is not going to happen in a major way tomorrow," Sperling said. "But if you look long term, at least for the transportation sector, there is no other good option."

[RunningJoke]

What about the flying cars of the 1964 Worlds Fair?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Finally some common sense:

[Down South P.E.]

I've been saying you won't see any near term future mass production or use of fuel cells in cars for over 10 years now. It will be 30 to 40 years down the road; maybe. If you want to make an impact you've got to go to hybrids. The conventional technology is there to make them cost effective and they will give the same or better performance than the car you're driving now.

[kezekiel]

Finally some common sense

Well, it's common sense that hydrogen is years off. It's not common sense, however, to keep doing just what we're doing. Pouring money into the pockets of Middle Eastern fanatics, fighting wars to ensure a stable oil market, polluting our atmosphere and our waterways... we have to find a better way. And it should begin with requiring better fuel economy from our vehicles.

I'm hardly a Gore Democrat, but we are charging on in our SUVs as if there are no consequences beyond the price of a gallon of gas. This is foolishness, and there will be a price to pay for our profligacy.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

We could drop the speed limits, that would save fuel!

[HangThemHigh]

I agree on fuel cells not being used anytime soon. I don't think they will be cost effective until fuel gets to at least $3-$4/gallon (10 years may be about right). Performance of a fuel cell car will be stately.

I also agree hybrids are a better choice, but they will probably always cost more than conventional and the tendency will be for the designers to sacrifice performance to enhance economy.

[Carry_Okie]

If you want to make an impact you've got to go to hybrids.

Absolutely correct. What do you think of an LNG/gas turbine hybrid as a second generation?

[Joe_October]

I remember reading a post on FreeRepublic that hybrids didn't get the fuel economy promised. Whoops another liberal lie.

When the liberal starts to worry about the price of things, you know his argument is shot. So what if it takes 20 - 30 years to get a working fuel cell? The fuel cell will transform the world and the rats are crying it will take too long.

[goldstategop]

The internal combustion engine, like the bicycle chain, will be around because it works. The structure of cars and bicycles can be both made lighter and stronger with alloys and plastics but there is no suitable replacement for their drivetrains as good as what is currently available. As it is, the old rule of thumb still holds: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Down South P.E.]

Absolutely correct. What do you think of an LNG/gas turbine hybrid as a second generation?

I haven't looked at the lastest storage problems associated with LNG. I've seen and created designs using CNG; though mine did not incorporate a turbine. I think natural gas with turbine engines are a good idea. The way natural gas prices are here lately though would make one wonder. Natural gas does a lot for efficiency and emissions controls.

[Down South P.E.]

I also agree hybrids are a better choice, but they will probably always cost more than conventional and the tendency will be for the designers to sacrifice performance to enhance economy.

I'd agree with that.

[N. Theknow]

Hydrogen cars?

Der Hindenbeemers?

[Down South P.E.]

I don't think anyone is shooting down fuel cells in the long term. From an engineering standpoint the question is what is the best solution for the short term.

[Carry_Okie]

Gas turbines are highly efficient in constant RPM applications but historically had problems with mechanical power transmission when applied to cars (remember Parnelli Jones at Indy?). The hybrid drive deals nicely with that problem and, thanks to Toyota, should be quite reliable.

Generator applications of gas turbines are very well developed. So is storage and delivery of LNG. All that remains is to develop distribution and fueling technologies. That doesn't seem at all insurmountable to me when compared to hydrogen.

The best feature of the system is the small weight and size of such a turbine. In mass production they might even be cheap, perhaps even with air bearings. :-)

[snopercod]

You know, I'm really getting sick of people who know absolutely nothing about physics or engineering telling us "We should.....blahblahblah". Hydrogen cars, fuel cells, mars missions on the cheap, photo-voltaic electricity...

There, I feel better now.

[Carry_Okie]

What do you think of multi-fuel gas turbine hybrids? I think it's a great application as a bridge technology and reasonably doable.

[snopercod]

What do you think of multi-fuel gas turbine hybrids?

But I don't think of them.

[Joe_October]

Short Term: Do nothing.

Oil is cheap, abundant and clean enough. Scientists and Engineers should speak the truth.

If there is not correct, it is a simple fact to demonstrate through reserve projections, cost, and analysis. That has not been done and until then, we need to do nothing.

20 years is nothing in the big picture.

[Down South P.E.]

Short Term: Do nothing.

Technology is generally advanced gradually. Analyzing, looking at and improving various types of technology is a good thing and what engineers do; paricuarly when there is clear demonstration that there is a technology that is currently technologically and economically feasible.

Oil is cheap, abundant and clean enough. Scientists and Engineers should speak the truth.,/i>

I'm an engineer and I'm not in any way involved with the automotive or oil industry - not even in power generation. I did work on advanced vehicle technology when I got my masters though...and so it is sort of a side interest. If your suggesting that I'm not telling the truth about something I'd like to know what it is. I thought I was only providing an opinion as an engineer.

If there is not correct, it is a simple fact to demonstrate through reserve projections, cost, and analysis. That has not been done and until then, we need to do nothing.

I don't think I follow what you're saying here.

20 years is nothing in the big picture.

Again, technology is advanced gradually, in general. We start working on problems now; start trying to increase the efficiency of the technology that we have currently. That is a good thing; otherwise you'd still be driving a model T Ford and without air-conditioning, power steering :) And look at the improvements in gas mileage.