Stop the madness!

Congress reverses Chu’s decision, flushes $100 million down the toilet pursuing hydrogen cars 39

honda fcx clarity hydrogen fuel cell carHonda’s FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car: yours for only $100,000!There are only three sure things in life—death, taxes, and you’re never going to buy a hydrogen fuel cell car.  Congress should stop wasting your money pursuing Bush’s phony dream.

The fundamental problem with hydrogen as a transport fuel is one that no amount of federal R&D can solve:  The absurdly expensive infrastructure will never be built.

Why would the oil companies build an infrastructure which would, at best, compete with their existing product, or, more likely, cause them to lose their entire investment?  That leaves governments.  But who has the kind of money needed for an infrastructure that—if built around natural gas, which currently produces 95 percent of hydrogen in this country—won’t even save significant greenhouse gases compared to the best hybrids today running on gasoline?

But a renewable-energy-based hydrogen fueling system capable of handling even half the cars and light trucks on the road would cost hundreds of billions of dollars.  And it would have a cost of avoided carbon dioxide of more than $600 a metric ton, which is more than a factor of ten higher than most other strategies being considered today (see “Hydrogen fuel cell cars are a dead end from a technological, practical, and climate perspective”).

Even California—the big U.S. champion of hydrogen cars in the last decade—has all but abandoned efforts to build a major infrastructure (see “California Hydrogen Highway R.I.P.”).  Thus, the absurdly expensive hydrogen cars themselves will never be more than a niche product and thus never achieve the economies of scale needed come close to being affordable.

Energy Secretary Chu wisely slashed the hydrogen budget back in May:

“We asked ourselves, ‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was ‘no,’” Chu said in a briefing today. He cited several barriers, including infrastructure, development of long-lasting portable fuel cells and other problems.

Duh.

But now, as Jim Motavalli reports in the NYT‘s Wheels blog, Congress is putting that money back:

Congress appears close to restoring the $100 million in funding for hydrogen research that Steven Chu, the energy secretary, had cut from his budget in May.

The House of Representatives voted 320-97 last Friday to approve $26.9 billion for the Energy Department, 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 even more bullish on hydrogen, approving $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.

Can anyone stop the madness?

The Bush Administration spent some $2 billion pushing the hydrogen fuel-cell car dream.  Global car makers probably matched that.

Yet, the most advanced vehicle on the road, Honda’s new FCX Clarity, which the company optimistically calls “the world’s first hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicle intended for mass production” costs “several hundred thousand dollars each to produce,” although Honda’s president Takeo Fukui “said that should drop below $100,000 in less than a decade as production volumes increase” (see “The Last Car You Would Ever Buy - Literally”).

But how will production volumes increase if the cars are unaffordable and there’s no place to fuel them?!?

No wonder Dan Neil, the L.A. Times car guy, wrote “Honda’s striking, amazing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle may be the most expensive, advanced and impractical car ever built” (see L.A. Times:  “Hydrogen fuel-cell technology won’t work in cars.”  Duh.).

Hydrogen advocate Greg Blencoe—who constantly disputes my analysis and who will owe me $1000 in a few years (see “The big hydrogen bet - your chance to get in on the action”)—brags on his website that the negative reaction people have to the true statement, “Large-scale hydrogen fueling stations cost $5 million each” becomes “much more positive” once they learn it means “Large-scale hydrogen fueling stations would cost $2500 per hydrogen car.”

Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside—especially when you consider that we have a mere 200 million cars and light trucks on the road.  But in fact, that “low” cost per H2 car requires the people who put up the money for those stations to assume a high level of vehicle penetration when they build it, which would be a staggering risk for them to take.  That’s why most vehicle stations are much smaller (though still wildly underutilized), and much more expensive per vehicle.

 Indeed, UCLA bragged in April that it is spending $2.1 million (42% of $5 million) on a fueling station with 14% (!) of  the hydrogen output (see “One more reason you’ll be driving electric vehicles and plugs in soon - not hydrogen fuel cell cars”)—so it will have a per vehicle cost of $7500.   And it makes hydrogen from natural gas.  Are you much more positive yet?

This whole notion is so absurd that even former independent advocates of the idea now openly mock it.  I’m going to reprint one from a year ago (see“The car of the perpetual future” - The Economist agrees with Climate Progress on hydrogen).

When the world’s uber-centrist magazine of choice runs a headline almost identical to mine (see “The Last Car You Would Ever Buy - Literally”), you know it’s all over. Especially when one of that magazine’s leading energy columnists, Vijay Vaitheeswaran, used to sing that technology’s praises (here).  Here’s the bottom line:

But the promise of hydrogen-powered personal transport seems as elusive as ever. The non-emergence of hydrogen cars over the past decade is particularly notable since hydrogen power has been a darling of governments worldwide, which have spent billions of dollars in subsidies and incentives to make hydrogen cars a reality….

Here’s the fatal flaw in the H2 economy:

...the logistical, technological and economic problems facing hydrogen fuel-cell cars mean that they are very unlikely to make it to market any time soon. One thing holding back hydrogen vehicles is a chicken-and-egg problem: why build cars if there is nowhere to fill them up, or hydrogen filling-stations if there are no cars to use them? Just around the corner, honest.

But wait, here’s another fatal flaw in the H2 economy:

How much more investment is needed to make mass-produced hydrogen cars a reality? According to a recent study by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, sponsored by America’s Department of Energy (DoE), public funding of $10 billion would be required to get 2m hydrogen fuel-cell cars onto America’s roads by 2025, rising to $45 billion for 10m cars. A report issued by America’s National Academy of Sciences in July was less optimistic, estimating that $55 billion of government investment would be needed to put just 2m hydrogen cars on the road by 2023. And both reports assume that the technology will get a lot cheaper: the Oak Ridge study assumes it will be possible to make fuel-cell vehicle systems in quantity at a cost of $45 per kilowatt of output by 2010, and $30 per kilowatt by 2015.

This is ambitious. Although fuel-cell costs have dropped by 65% since 2002, according to the CaFCP, today’s fuel cells cost around $107 per kilowatt. Are sudden cost reductions around the corner? Not according to one of the pioneers of fuel-cell technology, Ballard Power Systems, a Canadian supplier of fuel-cell systems to a range of carmakers. In November 2007 it sold its automotive fuel-cell division to Ford and Daimler after a decade of losses, citing the “realities of the high cost and long timeline for automotive fuel-cell commercialisation” for its exit from the business.

Actually, the CaFCP’s cost claim is laughable. You can’t buy a warranteeable fuel cell for a car for $107 per kw today. Try more than 10 times that, over $1000/kw. The CaFCP number is a projection based on the assumption of mass production, hundreds of thousands of units a year, with no explanation of how you’re ever going to get to those sales levels for cars whose best current generation models cost hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece.

As I wrote in Technology Review, one of the only car companies in the world still seriously pushing hydrogen cars, Honda, hopes that in a decade or so, production volume would drop the car cost to “below $100,000.” As if that price would make it attractive to anybody but the super-rich. But in any case, why would production volumes increase for a car that delivers no real value to the consumer and has no significant societal benefit to motivate government support? Answer: They wouldn’t, so prices may never drop below $100,000. That’s why Ballard left the business.

Hydrogen cars have no future, or, as The Economist‘s headline puts it, hydrogen cars, like fusion energy,  have the same future they always had.

And here’s another bunch of fatal flaws:

Even if the network of hydrogen filling-stations can be built, and the technological advances needed to reduce the cost of fuel-cell vehicles can be made, a huge problem still remains: the production and delivery of hydrogen in large quantities. The Oak Ridge study says the two most promising ways to produce hydrogen cheaply in the near term are to make it from natural gas (through a process called “steam reforming”) at the filling stations themselves, or to make it from gas derived from biomass or coal at large, centralised plants, and then deliver it by lorry or pipeline.

Hydrogen sceptics point out not only the large capital costs associated with the production, transportation and storage of hydrogen, but also the availability of far more viable alternatives. Hydrogen is “just about the worst possible vehicle fuel”, says Robert Zubrin, a rocket scientist and the author of Energy Victory, a book on the post-petroleum future. Even if the requisite gains in fuel-cell technology are achieved, he says, the fuel-cell cars of the future should run instead on methanol, which has a higher energy-density than hydrogen and can be stored and transported much more easily.

Furthermore, steam reformation of natural gas is far from a zero-emissions solution, undermining the whole rationale of hydrogen cars in the first place. According to America’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, producing a kilogram of hydrogen by steam reformation generates emissions equivalent to 11.9kg of CO2. Given that the Chevy Equinox fuel-cell vehicle can travel 39 miles on a kilogram of hydrogen, and the FCX Clarity can travel 68 miles, powering these cars using hydrogen produced by steam reformation would result in emissions of 305 and 175 grams of CO2 per mile respectively. By comparison, today’s petrol-electric Toyota Prius hybrid produces tailpipe emissions of around 167 grams per mile, and many small petrol cars achieve similar results.

Seriously—how many fatal flaws does the technology need? Hydrogen cars were apparently killed in the drawing room by the knife, revolver, lead pipe, rope and candlestick.

The magazine includes as an afterthought yet another major fatal flaw, one that I have written a lot about. Some say “the solution to large-scale hydrogen production lies in using renewable electricity to extract hydrogen from water via electrolysis” or using “nuclear power. But it would surely be easier simply to use this energy to charge the batteries of all-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles.” Easier, hundreds of billions of dollars cheaper, and you don’t throw away 75 percent of the valuable carbon free electricity in the process!

Some people cling to the notion that hydrogen can be reanimated like Frankenstein’s monster (see here).  But the Economist article ends more realistically:

In other words, claims that hydrogen will be the automotive fuel of the future are as true today as they ever have been.

Kudos to Chu and Obama for trying to kill this monster.  Jeers to Congress for flushing taxpayer money down the toilet in a weak imitation of Bush-Cheney technology strategy.

 

Joseph Romm is the editor of Climate Progress and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress.

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  1. patrickS Posted 2:22 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    This page has an impressive collection of information that virtually no one
    who’s developing hydrogen vehicles or fuel cells today would agree with. The Dan
    Neil piece–so many things about that article were dead wrong. Even Secretary Chu
    has made some mistakes in his assertions about the state of the technology. But
    they are correctable. The truth is that hydrogen technologies are some of the best alternative
    technologies that exist today. And we will need them along with a portfolio of
    technologies to meet our energy challenges. Congress has this one right so far.

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    1. Grant Millin, EarthSyncHub.com Posted 3:40 pm
      23 Jul 2009

      Joe Romm does not allow comments on his site ClimateProgress.org that counter his beliefs.  I have protested his association with the Center for American Progress Action Fund.  Here's my letter to Romm: Mr. Romm,Your efforts worked, for a while.  All of your notions can be driven through easily.  Here is where we all stand on climate change technologies: All of our energy systems have a fuel stock to propulsion conversion loss rate (well-to-wheels, or coal pit to boiler).  Wind and solar are certainly efficient, but also intermediate power systems and require back up systems for widespread grid system replacement technology purposes.  Joe Romm is not helping these matters with his disinformation on the fuel cell story.  He does not have the capacity to be all-knowing on the fuel cell industry.  He is denying those who adopt his perspective the opportunity to provide feasible solution we can begin to implement near-term even as we work to perfect the long-term response to climate change and peaking of conventional energy systems.  ...Please read more at: http://earthsynchub.com/esmonitor/oped/072309/my_letter_to_joe_romm/

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  2. BRose Posted 3:12 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    Just a couple of observations:
    1.  We are spending more on battery research and manufacturing this year alone ($2.3 billion) than we have spent on transportation related fuel cells and hydrogen since 1990 (about $2 billion spanning Republican and Democratic Administrations).  Given the stakes, the hydrogen investment seems like a bargain.2.  The auto companies (though admittedly not all of them) are increasingly enthusiastic.  Honda and Daimler have established fuel cell vehicle production lines.  Germany plans 1,000 fueling stations by 2020.  Korea just announced a $1.7 billion investment in FCVs.  China is trying to buy FCV technology as part of its bid for Opal.  Toyota is bragging about its progress on cost reduction.  GM is still committed despite management changes and financial hard times.  VW is expressing fresh interest.  Nearly all this has been announced SINCE Secretary Chu proposed the cuts.  Joe has written before that these companies are making a mistake but their commitment is being measured in billions of dollars, and their view deserves some weight.

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  3. JJPRO Posted 3:13 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    This is truly a "political" piece on Romm's part.  There are so many mis-statements in this article, it can only be political.  Even Romm, in the Clinton administration, use to tout hydrogen as the future.  What happened to him?  I am surprised at Grist for entertaining him and giving him such a soapbox. Congress is extremely correct in restoring the funding for hydrogen and fuel cells.  Are Japan, Germany, Iceland, Greenland, Great Britain, Argentina, China, India, etc. etc, all wrong in their support of hydrogen-energy technologies?  Does Romm want to relegate us to an inferior competitive position in the world?  He surely is not a patriot in talking the way he does.  He certainly is no friend of the environment if he is bashing such a promising and potentially pollution-free economy.Robert Zubrin is a chemical engineer that thinks the most important aspect of a fuel is its energy density.  He does not take into consideration so many other aspects of a fuel that makes it "friendly" or not.  Romm here is definitely "cherry picking" to make it seem like he has a cogent argument against hydrogen.  Anyone that is willing to explore the issue will see right through him.Come on Joe, you can do better than this.  What, truly, is your agenda?

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  4. Chris at CaFCP Posted 3:51 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    Quite a bit of the data Mr. Romm uses is out of date. Like all developing technologies, things change fast. Fuel cells are currently $73, not $107 as Mr. Romm attributes CaFCP as saying. Check http://www.cafcp.org/progress/technology/doetargets for the latest information.

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  5. Grant Millin, EarthSyncHub.com Posted 3:57 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    Well said, Chris.  Romm wants to act like an authority on a multi-billion dollar global market sector.  His expertise in the area of fuel cells is based on 90's R&D themes, not what happened this year, or what is projected to happen in the next 5-6 years in the global space.  He doesn't control any of that.

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  6. Tasermons Partner Posted 3:59 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    When did most people start to forget that the cheapest source of hydrogen on a massive scale is from fossil fuels?It's the same thing we have now people!  Just with a different name.

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    1. Grant Millin, EarthSyncHub.com Posted 4:17 pm
      23 Jul 2009

      Hey T-P,No one who knows anything about fuel cells is denying natural gas isn't the main feedstock right now.  However, both Smart Grid stationary fuel cells and those for mobile applications are being power through opportunity fuels and water (preferably reclaimed H20).  There has to be something out there backing up solar and wind.  An onsite 250 Kw Smart Grid fuel cell is VASTLY more efficient than 25 Kw of potential coal electricity sent over the grid that arrives at 30% of its original potential and completely screwed up the environment along the way.  Coal is also running low.NG is a bridge.  Instead of burying our heads in the sand we need to look at the full energy modernization and climate change technology response and not just assume those that can afford solar roofs and high performance homes are the source of the solution; or that wind totally replaces coal and nukes because that's not reality.  The coal and nuke plants stay on all the time to back up solar and wind as Romm would have it.Thankfully enough folks see the replacement technology solution as a complete circuit requiring an array of responses… and realize carbon sequestration, ITER and FutureGen programs are long-range notions untested in real-world grid arrays.  Fuel cells meet the conditions at hand.<!--EndFragment-->

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      1. Tasermons Partner Posted 1:56 pm
        24 Jul 2009

        Funny thing 'bout "bridge" fuels...some bridges have been known to collapse.And in some cases (like Palin's)...bridges end up goin' to nowhere.

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    2. Chris at CaFCP Posted 4:26 pm
      23 Jul 2009

      Fossil fuels--coal and natural gas--are the main source of electricity, too. It's necessary to transition all our energy systems to renewables, which will take decades. In the meantime, the automakers are developing efficient fuel cell electric vehicles and battery electric vehicles. We need to bring all viable technologies to market so customers can make a choice.

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  7. Calisteve Posted 3:59 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    Joe, you got the math wrong. You compared the well-to-wheels emissions for the Clarity with the tank-to-wheels of the Prius. A hybrid is actually 245 grams of CO2 a mile, not 167.Reaching our environmental and energy goals will take all kinds of power from many diverse sources. We'd be fools to jump from the pocket of the oil monopoly to the pocket of the utility monopoly. You say hydrogen can't be done. I say, get out of the way of the people who are doing it. 

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  8. Tom S Posted 4:04 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    "Interesting" article.  ·          Clinton essentially kick started the US DOE hydrogen programs, not Bush (but then it's more titillating to set this up as Bush bashing).·          100% renewable hydrogen will cost plenty… as will renewable electricity for plug-in hybrids (that will also need to update every home with smart meters and garage with higher voltage… you do have a garage to charge your plug-in, right?).·          Chu stated he doubted hydrogen economy would overtake status quo in 10, 15 or 20 years. Are any other options able to that either? Will the grid by 100% renewable by then?  Will we have completed cellulosic biofuels?  Will Americans finally be ready to pay for anything beyond "cheap and easy"?·          Hydrogen stations cost several million dollars each.  Ever try building a gasoline station? They also cost seven digits.·          Ballard split into two companies; one focusing on on-road vehicles and the other on off-road and other applications. Both still have strong supporters and (I wont speak for them, as the authoer apparently can) I bet they might offer a different opinion of events than is asserted here. Ballard and AFCC (the new company) are still in the business, just different formation.·          The Clarity and Prius assumptions are flat-out wrong. Instead of equal comparisons one measures well to tank and the other tank to wheels. But a fair comparison might result in a different outcome than the author wishes.It seems very apparent that the author wishes to cherry pick info, discredit the technology on political terms instead of using equal and science based methodology, and cares even less about the integrity of this publication or its readers.  I'm more disappointed in grist than the author.

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  9. Doc Watts Posted 4:33 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    Everybody has been showing the errors in Mr. Romm's article, but they missed the error in the very first sentence.  I'll prove the very first sentence wrong right now, just to finish him off.http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/uptospeed/2008/08/fuel-cells-get.html

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    1. veritone Posted 6:16 pm
      23 Jul 2009

      I certainly see how the fact that Jamie Lee Curtis bought a hydrogen fuel-cell car disproves much of anything that Joe Romm wrote in his article.

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  10. Mike_G Posted 4:43 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    I have more problems with the $10 billion proposed for the "Carbon Storage Research Corporation" with it's $500 million of "clean coal" administrative expenses.  I think hydrogen research has a better chance of making a difference than for carbon capture to ever be feasible.
      

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  11. veritone Posted 5:22 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    I agree with all the reasons you and the Economist stated above. But I have another. If by some amazing feat we were to deploy a signifant fleet of hydrogen powered vehicles it would stand to reason that we would be leaking an enormous amount of hydrogen into the atmosphere. I suspect that hydrogen molecules would readily find oxygen molecules and form water vapor. Water vapor is a greenhouse gas and indeed excessive creation of this gas is one of the vicious cycles climate scientists worry about when considering runaway climate warming effects. Wouldn't the introduction of large amounts of hydrogen raise this risk much higher?Prof. Romm you are a physicist and more skilled than I in science in general, so perhaps you could verify or dispose of this concern. I used to be an HVAC technician and recall mentioning to customers eager to save on their heating bills that they should add a humidifier to their system as moist air holds heat more effectively. If my suspicions are correct, adding a lot more moisture to our climate right now would be an experiment far too risky to consider.
    Perhaps this is yet another nail in Hydrogen's coffin.

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    1. patrickS Posted 5:51 pm
      23 Jul 2009

      It's a valid question, but hydrogen leakage should not be an environmental or safety concern preventing or slowing the development of hydrogen technologies.Regarding hydrogen leakage, that topic has already been presented and debated in the scientific journal Science.  The original piece "Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere" was published 13 June 2003.  It was full of the same questions, but strange and unrealistic assumptions which were rebutted in the 10 October issue, in three separate, published letters by professors Kammen and Lipman at UCal-Berkeley, Amory Lovins and Dr. Lehman at the Schatz Energy Research Center who showed both that the leakage assumptions in the original piece were unrealistic and that hydrogen leakage even at VERY LARGE volumes of hydrogen use would not contribute negatively to the environment.In fact, Lovins argued, since we are releasing so many hydrogen compounds into the atmosphere already in the form of fossil fuels, "Thus, a H2 economy, rather than increasing anthropogenic H2 emissions by ~4 to 8 times, as Tromp et al. fear, would probably reduce them by one or perhaps two orders of magnitude, to a level well below natural releases."Bottom line: hydrogen leakage, which would be minimal in almost every practical case to begin with, should not be a concern environmentally even if hydrogen was used in HUGE volumes around the world.

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      1. got2bgreen Posted 10:30 am
        24 Jul 2009

         Another DOE study states that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles emit the same amount of water vapor as internal combustion engines.  I don't see anyone saying that water vapor, not CO2, is the source anthropogenic climate change.   

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  12. veritone Posted 6:27 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    Ulf Bossel, a European Fuel Cell expert strongly agrees with the conclusions that Joe Romm arrived at. He has a large body of work that substantiates his claims and considerable expertise in the field. Here's but one of a number of articles about Bossel who has any number of publications available on the Internet:
    http://ergobalance.blogspot.com/2007/10/ulf-bossel-platinum-and-hydrogen.html

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    1. patrickS Posted 6:48 pm
      23 Jul 2009

      Ahhh....the Bossel argument.  Another mediocre, antiquated and slanted take on hydrogen and fuel cell technology.  Yes, we're familiar with this one too.

      Like Romm, many of Dr. Bossel's assumptions are unleastic or apples and oranges comparisons. Bossel writes from an extremely one-sided point of view. Look at some of the assumptions he makes: Fuel cell efficiency 40%, all hydrogen liquified, then delivered.

      Fuel cell vehicles are over 60% efficient tank to wheels (Honda, GM, Daimler, all show these higher efficiency numbers in real practice). This is documented by EPA, DOE, NREL, and others around the world. Don't let Dr. Bossel fool you.

      As for hydrogen transport, the vast majority of hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles is today transported in gaseous form, not liquid.  Another lopsided and unrealistic assessment.  Yes, some automakers have been using liquid H2, but not with the older technology Bossel describes.Also, if you do Bossel's calculation of CO2/mile, using real numbers, with hydrogen made from natural gas, fuel cell vehicles are on par with electric vehicles over the entire US. Better in some states, worse in a few, but as a whole on par. Hydrogen from renewables is better, of course, just like with electricity.We can go on.  The bottom line is that Bossel is not showing a true or realistic representation of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, just like our author of this Grist post.  Trust the volumes of scientists, engineers and others who far outnumber a few armchair critics and know that hydrogen and fuel cells work because they're developing the technology first-hand.

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    2. Calisteve Posted 6:48 pm
      23 Jul 2009

      Joe, Ulf and other critics look at a huge picture through very narrow lenses. Are we looking at a future where all energy comes from hydrogen? No way. It won't work. Are we looking at a future where hydrogen is one of several types of energy? Absolutely.Electricity and hydrogen are both made from something else. Using solar energy to charge a battery and put it in a car is great. Having enough solar to charge millions of cars is a different story. Solar is land and water intensive, and the electricity has to be moved through new transmission lines which people don't want in their backyards. Most peple will charge with grid electricity made by burning natural gas or coal. The California Public Utility Comission estimates that putting an outlet to charge a car in your garage (it needs a smart meter) will be about $1,500. Up to $5,000 if you need new wiring. Up to $35,000 if you're going to do it with solar.Using hydrogen to create electricity in a fuel cell is also great. The H2 can come from renewables, biomass or natural gas. It can be made at the station. The "beta test" vehicles on the road today have range up to 450 miles on a tank of fuel. They take minutes to fill, but need stations. Stations cost several million dollars (just like a gas station) and there are no standards for permitting officials to reference. But one station can serve hundreds of cars, just as gas stations do today. And home refueling is in the future.Neither option is perfect or easy or cheap, and neither will be able to fill the needs of everyone. It's why we--as a country--need fuel cells and batteries, and biodiesel and cellulosic ethanol. The right thing to do it bring promising technologies to market and let the consumer decide.

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  13. Grant Millin, EarthSyncHub.com Posted 6:45 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    The fuel cell community knows about Ulf Bossel as well. So that's two primary sources for cancelling a multi-billion dollar cimate change technology sector: 1) Joe Romm 2) Ulf Bossel.  Should we take a shot and go with their opinions?

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    1. veritone Posted 9:30 pm
      23 Jul 2009

      It seems Upton Sinclair was right at least when it comes to you, Grant Millon. From your website: "EarthSync was jump started while providing project management services for the U.S. Department of Transportation Hydrogen Road Tour."So it would seem you have some skin in the game, right? It appears you are a paid cheerleader for Hydrogen. Dr. Chu, Joe Romm, Ulf Bossell, George Monbiot and myself are not. I think you have a credibility problem and now I definitely wonder about quite a few other members of the "fuel cell community" who have posted comments on this site.I hope I'm not alone among those viewing this stream of comments to take your remarks with a grain of salt.

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  14. Delay And Deny's avatar

    Delay And Deny Posted 7:34 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    KIA (I just bought a 2007 Spectra...fantastic standard gas car!) announced a commitment to Hydrogen.Not only that, but their officiers claimed they could build the car for $50,000 if only the could sell 50,000 a year.50,000 a year?   The minute a hydrogen car comes on the market, the public will demand 5 million a year and more!!!http://hydrogendiscoveries.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/hyundaikia-hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-would-only-cost-50000-if-mass-produced-today/Hyundai/Kia: Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would only cost $50,000 if mass produced todayHow many times have you heard hydrogen critics say that hydrogen
    fuel cell vehicles cost $1 million each?  Obviously, this is only true
    if you are talking about producing a very small number of vehicles.
     And this would be true for any vehicle with a new technology that is
    produced in small numbers.     I was very happy that a Hyundai/Kia representative said that
    hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would only cost $50,000 each if 50,000 were
    produced today.  Kia will obviously get the cost a lot lower by 2015.

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  15. veritone Posted 9:16 pm
    23 Jul 2009

    One of Ulf Bossel's points is that compressed as a liquid it would require about 22 equivalent fuel transports to charge a hydrogen filling station as it does to do so today with a gasoline filling station. And you,Patrick S, mention this:"As for hydrogen transport, the vast majority of hydrogen for fuel cell
    vehicles is today transported in gaseous form, not liquid."So if it was 22 trucks when hydrogen was compressed to a liquid form, doesn't it follow it would be quite a few more when transported in a gaseous state? If you are considering this a plus, I'd suggest you reconsider.Mindful of Upton Sinclair's observation that it is hard to get a person to understand something if his job depends on not understanding it, I wonder how many of you leaping on this page to criticize Joe Romm are part of the Hydrogen industry? Since one commentator mentioned how the "fuel cell community is well aware of. . ." it seems like Sinclair's observation is relevant and begs the question.I'm not, nor am I part of any competing industry. Nor is Joe for that matter and the major points he's made, most particularly his first one in the second paragraph have not, as near as I can tell, been effectively refuted by any of the figures and data thrown with such abandon on this page. I'm also aware of how a fuel cell bigot who chaired the California Air Quality board (or whatever it was called) helped kill the Electric Car -- see the excellent documentary, "Who Killed the Electric Car" -- and never mentioned his conflict of interest holding a position in the fuel cell industry.George Monbiot, in his excellent book, "Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning," also came to have a low opinion of hydrogen's prospects. Reacting to the British governments strong interest in hydrogen he concluded: "Given that the alternatives are so much easier to develop, our government's obsession with hydrogen cars seems incomprehensible." (p.165) For all these reasons I remain unconvinced by any arguments I've heard presented thus far.Then there's the matter of Dr. Chu being a Nobel Prize winner which makes his views certainly noteworthy. As a scientist facts speak most loudly to him and he had a good look at them and made what appears to me to be a sound decision. I think he's looking out for my interests while Congress rather notoriously caters to various industries in exchange for the legal graft received.I realize the economy is tough and if some of you were counting on that $100 million to keep your jobs I can see why you might be alarmed. I, however, am a taxpayer and can think of many better uses for that money. I plan on finding out how my congress member voted and intend to vociferously complain if she voted with the majority.

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    1. JJPRO Posted 11:53 pm
      23 Jul 2009

      The all-battery-electric car killed the electric car.  People didn't want to buy them.  It is that plain and simple. Dr. Alan Lloyd, as Chairman of the California Air Resources Board, did not have any vested interest in the fuel cell and hydrogen industries.  He was looking out for the well-being of the California public.  He is not a "bigot" as you suggest.  He is one of the finest men I know.  Veritone, get your facts straight.  "Who Killed the Electric Car" was just a sensationalistic docudrama without too much documented truth.Also, their are Nobel Laureates and scientific societies who disagree with Chu.  Chu is a physicist and clearly doesn't understand hydrogen-energy technologies.  Bright people can disagree on facts or on political reasons.  Chu doesn't have his facts right, so it only can be a political position he is taking.  Why are fuel cells good for stationary sources of power but not for mobile uses, as Chu suggests?  This does not make any sense; as the autos are disproving that view every day.All I see is hype over battery technologies.  "Battery" people have over-promised batteries' capabilities for years now, and the public isn't buying it, literally and figuratively.  My prediction is that BEVs will not penetrate the mainstream buyer market, nor will plug-ins, in any large quantities for decades.  If batteries are ready for the market, then why do they need billions of taxpayer money??Maybe Romm should explain why he had problems at the DOE???  Now, that would be an interesting article.

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      1. veritone Posted 7:40 am
        24 Jul 2009

        PatrickS: I am as unimpressed with your facts as you appear to be with mine. JJPro: Reports that people didn't like their electric cars certainly wasn't evident in the documentary you are so quick to dismiss as sensational. Two women even got arrested because they didn't want to part with their vehicles. Indeed the notion of people not liking electric cars appeared to be largely corporate propaganda coming from Detroit and elsewhere. Of course Motor City's vehicle paradigm was SUVs and Hummers, not a particularly successful strategy in its own right, but no need to go there.If being "professional" in your view includes ignoring people's vested financial interests that might readily cloud or otherwise confound their judgment, color me unprofessional. There's too much at stake to maintain cocktail party manners when discussing vital issues. I continue to believe that in an era of increasingly scarce resources, squandering funds on Hydrogen technology is unwarranted. We live in a country replete with climate denying, industry funded sycophants and lying corporate shills are as thick as fleas on a dog's back. Being deeply suspicious seems a prudent posture and I remain deeply suspicious of all the claims posted here. If you are earning a paycheck from this industry, which I suspect many are who've posted here, then I have excellent reasons to question every utterance.Having said all that, I will check out many of the links posted here. The first one I pursued, however, made it clear that the poster had a financial interest which renders his pronouncements questionable, at best and casts suspicion on many others as well. How about telling us, PatrickS and JJPro about your relationship to this industry. Or would that be "unprofessional"? I have no skin in this game at all, either way. How about you?

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    2. patrickS Posted 6:46 am
      24 Jul 2009

      Veritone, so now that your technology arguments have been rebutted and there is obviously a sea of people who don't agree with you or your mentors Romm and Bossel, you're turning personal?  I don't think that's very professional or mature.  Let's stick to the technology and the facts.  There is real technology to back up my points.

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    3. patrickS Posted 7:01 am
      24 Jul 2009

      DELIVERY:One of the great benefits of hydrogen delivery is that it doesn't have to be trucked around.  In some cases it will be, like gasoline is today, but in some others, like the West LA hydrogen station, hydrogen can be made on-site using renewable electricity.  Therefore you need no delivery--0 truck trips.  OR, when you have large volumes of hydrogen, you might choose to transport it by pipeline--also = 0 truck trips.  There's already a hydrogen pipeline running near I-5 in southern California, there are pipelines in northern California, in the Gulf region and elsewhere.  In fact, in the U.S. according to the EIA, there are 1,212 miles of hydrogen pipeline in use today.  These are all viable options.So the point is that with hydrogen, you have options for how you produce, store, deliver and use it--choices we don't have today with gasoline.  Bossel's assumptions overly simplify this situation by choosing just one option in many cases, often an unpopular option, which make his resulting conclusions unrealistic and wrong.  This is one of the many reasons why Bossel's arguments are fundamentally flawed. 

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  16. Global Changes Posted 3:05 am
    24 Jul 2009

    Unfortunatly these are not the true next generation of cars. It doesnt tick all the boxes, sure its clean, but its not cheap and its not easy. It will have to be adaptable so it can work on cars and vans alike. This is not it. The production of the cars themselves would council out any benefit on climate change

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  17. got2bgreen Posted 6:39 am
    24 Jul 2009

         First of all, I don't think anyone here is saying that hydrogen cars are the ONLY solution to weening us off of foreign oil and greening our transportation fleet.  The option should merely be explored, the hydrogen funding amount in the House DOE bill is only 0.5% of its total budget.  I'm not saying that fuel cell cars will be a quick, but the small investment now may pay serious dividends in the future. I have yet to see an electric car that is mass produced and reasonably priced that can get 300 miles per charge and recharge in 5 minutes.  (Please don't point to Better Place's technology, because no auto company will ever go for it due to the perceived constraints it puts on design) .  I have also yet to see a mass produced plug in hybrid that utilizes carbon neutral fuels (both liquid and electric).  I'm not against these technologies (I would love to get a Chevy Volt), but don't say that they are eons ahead of fuel cell technology.    Also, I understand that natural gas is a source of GHG emissions when it produces hydrogen, but what if you could just dissociate the methane molecule (CH4), which constitutes the largest fraction of natural gas, into carbon atoms and hydrogen, thus skipping the CO2 all together?  It's really not that difficult, just run the methane over a catalyst at elevated temperatures and pressures, and boom you have it.  Obviously it's going to need a little research (hence the hydrogen funding), but this technology has the potential to revolutionize hydrogen production. Also, methane has the highest hydrogen content by weight, with about 25% being hydrogen.  Methane  better than any other chemical hydrogen carrier.  We have natural gas pipelines all over the country, which could be used as a distribution network for a methane based hydrogen economy.  This is just one example of disruptive technologies that may revolutize energy use.  Maybe it will, maybe it won't, but I think that at least it needs serious consideration.    The point is, people, especially those who influence energy policy (such as Mr. Romm), should not be picking winners and losers.  The fact of the matter is, a single person does not have all the answers concerning clean energy policy.  Leave it up to scientists, engineers,entrepreneurs, and consumers to determine what works best.      

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  18. JJPRO Posted 8:51 am
    24 Jul 2009

    Veritone,I am a hydrogen advocate only because I see the merits of a clean-energy economy that hydrogen, specifically renewable hydrogen, can afford society.  I work for a California non-profit, public benefit corporation that works on air quality issues and that has, as you say, "no skin in the game".  Our only concerns are public health and the environment, period.

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    1. veritone Posted 2:42 pm
      24 Jul 2009

      Well that's good to know JJPRO. I'll take a closer look at your points, but I remain quite skeptical of hydrogen for quite a few reasons. I certainly do not see it as a major solution to our energy and climate predicament. Best of luck with your work.

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  19. JJPRO Posted 9:20 am
    24 Jul 2009

    Fatal Flaws of All-Battery Drive Trains:Prohibitively expensive on a per kilowatt basisExtremely heavyLow energy density by weight and volumeExtremely short rangeExtremely long "recharging/refueling" timesNo current infrastructureHigh costs of rechargersRecharging inconvenienceRequires large amounts of onboard space, limiting passenger/cargo capacityHigh cost of component replacement at end of lifeFire hazard Extra Care needed to be taken by owner to prevent short life span of battery packImparts a limited-use strategy (Long trips are out of the question/recharging locations)Requires large amounts of taxpayer money to make competitiveServiceability issuesSafety issues ( I wouldn't want my wife to drive one for fear of getting "stuck" somewhere)MarketabilityPublic acceptance of new paradigmLimited options imposed on non homeowners (infrastructure issues)Dependent on "dirty" grid powerLow well to wheel efficiencies (Less than 40% according to DOE studies)Increased pressure on an already "taxed" electricity gridetcetc

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  20. Calisteve Posted 9:22 am
    24 Jul 2009

    Things that would "never work" http://www.null-hypothesis.co.uk/science/strange-but-true/item/invention_failure_never_work_disasterAirplanes
    Television
    Telephone
    Rail travel
    Killing "germs"
    Home computersSure, some things fail. I do new product development in the IT industry, I've seen lots of things fail, mostly because R&D rarely accounts for human nature. Promising technologies have to come to market so that users can make the choice...users, not early adopters. You cannot base a product's success on the early adopter market.Fuel cell and battery cars need to come to market in the numbers of thousands so that normal people can choose.

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  21. RossBleakney Posted 9:48 am
    24 Jul 2009

    [Quote] The fundamental problem with hydrogen as a transport fuel is one that no amount of federal R&D can solve:  The absurdly expensive infrastructure will never be built. [/Quote]There are lots of problems with hydrogen as a means to transport vehicles, but infrastucture is not one of them. This is one of the biggest problems with your argument and the way that you make it. By focusing on infrastructure, you imply that this is the only thing holding us back. It isn't (as you describe in other parts of your essay). You seem to know quite a bit about science, especially as it pertains to fuel cells, but you seem to know very little about government and politics.To put it simply, if you tell politicians that the only thing standing in the way of a better future is infrastructure, they will build it. This country has a long, biparitison history of building such infrastucture. It is what we do well. Most infrastructure projects can be accomplished by a combination of tax subsidies (which Republicans like) and government programs (which Democrats like). Mention to them that it will help rural areas and the politicians get really excited. How do you think we ended up with ethanal subsidies? Someone said it was in infrastucture problem (not enough places to make it because there aren't enough places to buy it, if only we can jump start the thing, etc.). Not enough time was spent discussing whether it actually made sense (should we be growing corn, only to turn it into fuel?).  

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  22. GRLCowan's avatar

    GRLCowan Posted 8:48 pm
    24 Jul 2009

    It's not as if the past eight years had seen no progress in hydrogen cars, though. Just look at these numbers:

    The Honda Clarity goes 310 km to 320 km on a tankful.This is fully 10-20 km more than what the BMW 520h was doing, 30 years ago, on hydrogen internal combustion!--- G.R.L. Cowan, hydrogen energy fan until ~1996
    (How fire can be domesticated)

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  23. meminton Posted 8:40 pm
    26 Jul 2009

    I am confused about the abandonment of hydrogen as a fuel souce.  Norway through electolsys has been producing hrodrogen from water from the late 1920's.  We are complaining about how to store the electricity produced in the day time from windpower.  As my kids say,  duh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Water, a small electrolosys station along the highway and ??????????????.  Not that expensive.  Did it in high school.  We don't need to create batteries to store the electricy  made in the daytime.  Convert it to hrdrogen.  More hype from special interests with monty invested elesewhere, Mr. Chu  

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  24. jimbeyer Posted 1:28 pm
    27 Jul 2009

    Wow,The Pro-Hydrogen types have sure responded to THIS with a full-court press.  Can I assume PatrickS is Patrick Serfass of the National Hydrogen Association?
    I dunno what more there is to say about Hydrogen.  Maybe you had your chance?   How's that?Say what you want about Alan Lloyd, but the decision to cancel the zero emission vehicles the way CARB did is at least in hindsight a huge bonehead decision.  We had "good enough" technology with NiMH cells, which are now tied up in patents (held by Chevron) until 2012 or so.  CARB (and Lloyd) made their electric vehicle killing decision in 2003 and it was in that same year he became Chairman of the California Fuel Cell Partnership.  Even under the best of circumstances, that represents a horrible conflict of interest.But that's all ancient history.When it comes to vehicle fuels, methane (or natural gas, NG) is a better fuel than hydrogen.  Like hydrogen it can be created from renewable sources (from biomass or synthetically via electrolyis of water and the Sabatier reaction).  Like hydrogen it can be beneficially used in fuel cells, if and when they are commercially viable (especially solid-oxide fuel cells).  It is about 3 times denser energetically, so it is easier to store than hydrogen.  It produces fewer NOx emissions than hydrogen when burned in an IC engine.  Unlike hydrogen, methane (NG) has an extant infrastructure already in place.  methane from renewable sources produces no NET CO2 emissions.  Renewable methane is the fuel that hydrogen was supposed to be.
    Combined with battery improvements sufficient to support Plug-In Hybrids (PHEVs) we have a way of replacing oil without undue added cost to the consumer. 

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