How Soon for Hydrogen?
Aug 10 - Issues in Science and Technology
In "The Hype About Hydrogen" (Issues, Spring 2004), Joseph J. Romm devotes considerable energy to highlighting the challenges that must be addressed in realizing a hydrogen-based economy. As his title implies, he concludes that the world's interest in this promising future is more about hype than reality.
GM has demonstrated this design potential with our Hy-wire prototype, the
world's first drivable fuel cell and by-wire vehicle. We also have made great
progress in testing our fuel cell technology in real-world settings. We have
vehicle demonstration programs under way in Washington, D.C. and Tokyo, Japan,
and are partnering with Dow Chemical on the world's largest application of fuel
cell power in a chemical manufacturing facility.
Given the fuel cell's inherent energy efficiency, we estimate that the cost
per mile of hydrogen is already close to that of the cost of gasoline used in
today's vehicles. In fact, our analyses have shown that the first million fuel
cell vehicles could be fueled by hydrogen derived from natural gas, resulting in
an increase in natural gas demand of only two-tenths of one percent. Our
analyses also project that a fueling infrastructure for the first million fuel
cell vehicles could be created in the United States at a cost of $10-15 billion.
(In comparison, the cost to build the Alaskan oil pipeline in the mid-1970s was
$8 billion, which equates to $25 billion in today's dollars.)
Based on our current rate of progress, GM is working hard to develop
commercially viable fuel cell propulsion technology by 2010. This means a fuel
cell that is competitive with today's engines in terms of power, durability, and
cost at automotive volumes. Beyond this, GM plans to be the first manufacturer
to sell one million fuel cell vehicles profitably. Like all advanced technology
vehicles, fuel cell vehicles must sell in large quantities to realize a positive
environmental impact. How quickly we see significant volumes depends on many
factors, including cost-effective and conveniently available hydrogen refueling
for our customers, uniform codes and standards for hydrogen and hydrogen-fueled
vehicles, and supportive government policies to help overcome the initial
vehicle and refueling infrastructure investment hurdles.
For the past 100 years, GM has been on the leading edge of pioneering
automotive development -not just because we have worked the technology but,
equally importantly, because we have been willing to lay out a long-term vision
of the future and use our considerable resources to realize the vision. We are
committed to the future-so it is not a question of whether we will be able to
market exciting, safe, and affordable fuel cell vehicles, but when. all it will
take is the collective will of the auto and energy companies, government,
academia, and other interested stakeholders. Today, we see this collective will
building toward a societal determination to create a hydrogen economy.
This is not hype. It's reality.
LARRY BURNS
Vice President, Research & Development and Planning
General Motors Corporation
Detroit, Michigan
As Joseph J. Romm knows from his tenure with the U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE), the department promotes both environmental and national energy security
goals. The environment and global climate stability are top priorities, and so
is reducing our dependence on foreign oil. Romm focuses exclusively on
greenhouse gases from electricity generation and ignores long-term energy
security.
Currently, the United States imports 55 percent of our oil from foreign
sources. This is projected to be 68 percent by 2025. Transportation drives this
dependence, accounting for two-thirds of the 20 million barrels of oil used
daily. U.S. economic stability will be threatened as growing economies such as
China and India put increased demand on finite petroleum resources.
We agree that the challenges facing the hydrogen economy are difficult, but
they are not insurmountable. We can concede to these challenges and do nothing,
or we can develop a long-term vision and implement a balanced portfolio of near-
and long-term technology options to address energy and environmental issues. We
choose to do the latter.
Romm should be aware that our near-term focus is on high-fuel- economy hybrid
vehicles. The government is spending more than $90 million per year to lower
hybrid component costs. However, in the long term, increased fuel economy is not
sufficient. A substitute is required if we are to become more self-reliant. Romm
does not offer a viable alternative to hydrogen. Hydrogen is an energy carrier
that can be made using diverse domestic resources and that addresses greenhouse
gases because it decouples carbon from energy use.
Romm's article might lead your readers to believe that the Bush
administration is rushing to deploy hydrogen vehicles at the expense of
renewable energy research. This is simply not the case.
First, DOE's plan calls for a 2015 commercialization decision by industry
based on the success of government and private research. There are no arbitrary
sales quotas or scheduled deployment targets. Only after consumer requirements
can be met and a business case can be justified will market introduction begin.
Second, money is not being shifted away from efficiency and renewable
programs to pay for hydrogen research. The administration's fiscal year (FY)
2005 budget requests for research in wind, hydropower, and geothermal are all up
as compared to FY 2004 appropriations. After unplanned congressional earmarks
are accounted for, solar and biomass requests are also up.
Romm treats efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and hydrogen as mutually
exclusive. This is simply not the case. Tn fact, the renewable community is
embracing hydrogen because it addresses one of the most significant
shortcomings-intermittency-of abundant solar and wind resources. Romm also
acknowledges that by 2030, coal generation of energy may double. This is all the
more reason to pursue carbon management technologies in projects such as
FutureGen. As announced by President Bush, FutureGen will be the world's first
zero-emissions coal-based power plant. Carbon will be captured and sequestered
while producing electricity and hydrogen. Nuclear energy is another carbon-free
source of hydrogen.
As you can see, there are tremendous synergies in the longterm vision of
producing carbonfree electricity while also producing hydrogen for cars, all
while addressing climate change and energy security.
DAVID K. CARMAN
Assistant secretary
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
U.S. Department of Energy
Washington, D.C.
Joseph J. Romm's article was a huge relief to me. As a career expert in many
aspects of energy policy and technology I have been dismayed that the most basic
science of hydrogen production, transportation, storage, etc. has not been
addressed or at least publicized. I have listened to many presentations about
hydrogen fueling and have always asked whether the thermodynamics of the entire
hydrogen production and use cycle have been calculated. The answer has always
been either "no" or a blank stare. Romm's article, in effect, does
this.
I would like to read or hear about the issues surrounding the sequestration
of carbon from carbon dioxide. It is a companion technological question and one
that must be understood scientifically and economically when trying to craft any
policy or research agenda addressing future energy supply and all its
ramifications.
JOE F. MOORE
Joe F. Moore is retired CEO of Bonner & Moore Associates and a member of
the Presidents' Circle of the National Academies.
Given the amount we don't know about hydrogen as an energy carrier, it is
remarkable how much we have to say about it.
I accept Joseph J. Romm's major point that hydrogen offers no near-term fix
for global climate change. But that's not what drives the interest in hydrogen.
Many current advocates seek reductions in the regional air pollutants that
throttle our metropolitan areas, but without giving up our famously
auto-dependent lifestyle, whereas others simply want to reduce petroleum
imports.
One driver-preserving the automobile's viability-explains the support for
hydrogen among automakers, Sunbelt politicians facing excess levels of ozone,
and prosprawl advocates. They say that if we can just give our cars and trucks
cleaner fuel, we won't have to acknowledge roles for public transit and land use
regulation. Thus, we see an antiregulation U.S. president from Texas and
automobile manufacturers worldwide promoting a billion-dollar hydrogen R&D
roadmap, and a Hummer-driving California governor promoting an actual hydrogen
highway.
Energy carriers such as electricity and hydrogen create value by transforming
a wide variety of primary sources into clean, convenient, commodity energy.
These energy carriers allow us to diversify our primary energy supplies \and
shift the mix toward indigenous resources. Electricity reversed the decline in
the U.S. coal industry by preventing oil and gas from competitively displacing
that dirty high-carbon fuel, and we now burn far more coal than we did at the
peak of the industrial revolution. Hydrogen could become the preferred
transportation energy carrier, letting coal, natural gas, nuclear fission, and
other sources displace imported petroleum in automotive uses. Our ubiquitous
electricity networks demonstrate that we are willing to sacrifice much
thermodynamic efficiency in exchange for cleanliness and convenience at the
point of use. The same may someday be true of hydrogen: This is the compelling
logic of economic efficiency, not engineering efficiency.
Energy security persists as a driver of great rhetorical importance in
promoting hydrogen as an energy carrier. Although the world is not yet short of
petroleum, its concentration in a few politically unstable areas does have
profound effects. The United States has recently demonstrated its willingness to
spend a full year's worth of world oil industry revenues on regime change in
Iraq. Nothing prevents us from spending similar amounts-perhaps just as
wastefully but with less loss of human life-on the development of alternative
domestic energy sources and new energy carriers like hydrogen. The security
argument adds geopolitical efficacy to the calculus of economic efficiency,
further removing engineering efficiency from the limelight.
Needed is more diversified research funding on hydrogen production, storage,
and use. Also needed are small localized experiments that give us engineering
experience and investigate hydrogen's actual economic and geopolitical value.
The hydrogen economy, if it ignites, will be highly local for its first decades,
just as electricity and natural gas were. The chicken-and-egg problem will take
care of itself if enough experiments are conducted and if some prove successful.
Only at that point will arguments over dirty (carbon-emitting) versus clean
hydrogen sources become salient.
CLINTON J. ANDREWS
Director and Associate Professor
Program in Urban Planning and Policy Development
E.J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey
Joseph J. Romm presents a well documented argument regarding the
impracticality, from both economic and environmental perspectives, of shifting
in the foreseeable future to a transportation fleet fueled by hydrogen. His
analysis appears accurate and sensible, but he glaringly failed to mention the
800-pound gorilla: nuclear power. Until the United States generates most of its
electricity from nuclear power plants, reserves its natural gas supplies mainly
to meet home and industrial heating needs, increases the overall efficiency of
its liquid-hydrocarbon-fueled transportation fleet, and meets the chemical
industry's needs mainly with coal and biomass feedstocks, it will not have a
credible energy policy.
Such a shift in domestic energy utilization would require no massive
breakthroughs in science, technology, or infrastructure, and would drastically
reduce per capita CO2 emissions (along with sulfur, nitrogen, and other
emissions) while greatly reducing our dependence on imported hydrocarbons. More
important, such a shift could be easily and gradually implemented through
selective legislation, taxes, and tax credits, without posing a serious threat
to the overall economy and allowing the free enterprise system to maximize the
overall benefit/cost ratio. It appears to be the U.S. destiny to lead the world
economically and technologically into the 21st century, and it is the nation's
responsibility to do so sensibly and aggressively. It must demonstrate that a
democratic and technologically advanced society can enjoy the fruits of freedom
without fouling its own nest and everyone else's at the same time.
I am quite certain that an accurate and comprehensive analysis of overall
environmental, safety, and health effects would overwhelmingly favor nuclear
power for domestic electricity needs, and equally certain that the most sensible
route to drastically reduced CO2 emissions lies in conservation. I be lieve it
is the responsibility of the federal government to educate the public
effectively and honestly regarding the benefits, costs, and consequences of
current and proposed energy sources. Federal R&D funds should be used to
bolster this case, demonstrating improvements in safety, efficiency, and the
environment across the entire range of fuel production and utilization.
DAVID J. WESOLOWSKI
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, Tennessee
I have enormous respect for the analytical ability of Daniel Sperling and
Joan Ogden, who have set forth a strong rationale for their long-term "Hope
for Hydrogen" (Issues, Spring 2004). My problem is that their conclusion is
even more apt for the short term. The public interests of America in reducing
our dependence on oil from nations that hate us and abating global warming can't
afford to wait for a fuel-cell car, which has been 15 years away for the past 15
years.
The assumption that hydrogen is or must be decades away is the false premise
of both the academic proponents of hydrogen and the self-appointed protectors of
the environment, who assume that this nation is incapable of mounting a
"Moon-shot"-type initiative for renewable hydrogen. They both fall for
the automobile/oil industry's "educational" effort that has made
hydrogen and the fuel cell linked at the hip. They are not!
The internal combustion engine, with relatively minor adjustments, can run
quite well on hydrogen. In fact, an internal combustion engine, when converted
to hydrogen, is 20 to 25 percent per more efficient. A hydrogen hybrid vehicle
is not a distant dream (as is the fuel cell) but a present reality if the public
and political leaders were really educated on this subject. For example, the
Ford Motor Company unveiled their Model U, a hydrogen-hybrid SUV with a range of
some 300 miles per fill-up, more than a year ago.
A key question is where the hydrogen originates. If it's from domestic fossil
fuels, as Sperling and Ogden as well as the critics of hydrogen assume, it's not
useful for carbon reduction but does reduce oil imports. But if the hydrogen
originates in water, it is super-plentiful; and if solar, wind, geothermal, or
biomass is used to generate the electricity to split the water, a carbon-free
sustainable energy source exists.
Let me explain why I believe that the real-world facts of life (and death)
make a compelling case for starting the hydrogen revolution at once. The issues
that could be alleviated by substituting renewable hydrogen for oil in the
transportation sector are the following:
Reducing our dependence on imported oil. No one really doubts that we are at
war in significant part because of oil. Petrodollars have funded the terrorists.
America must look the other way at Saudi Arabia because of our dependence on
their ability to raise or lower the price of oil with their spare capacity. The
national security threat of oil dependence is a clear and present danger. More
efficient cars are necessary but insufficient. Until we start building cars
without oil, the increasing populations here (and in China and India) will
control our destiny.
Global warming. The issue is a well-known serious threat to all humankind. A
renewable hydrogen economy would be carbon-free. But "Hope for
Hydrogen" says that hydrogen is not competitive and would deliver fewer
benefits than "advanced gasoline and diesel vehicles." This statement
ignores the benefits of zero-oil vehicles to reduce oil imports, and it assumes
that hydrogen must come from fossil fuels. The answer-renewable hydrogen-is
assumed to be decades away. And it will be unless we recognize that the
renewable resources and the technology to harness them are much closer to
commercial reality than the fuel cell. What is lacking is a sense of necessity
and the leadership to mount a "can-do" initiative.
Local air pollution. Gasoline and diesel continue to be serious sources of
local air pollution. Burning hydrogen creates water vapor and nitrogen oxide
that can be controlled to near zero levels. There are no particles. It's a clear
benefit.
The hope for hydrogen is not a distant dream. It could be a reality in this
decade. We need to take the discussion out of the hands of people who see only
the problems-and they are real-but don't see the vital need and opportunity to
overcome them in 5 to 10 years, not decades. There is a legitimate fear that we
may drift into fossil/hydrogen energy. The best way to avoid it is to promote
renewable hydrogen. A solar/hydrogen initiative of Moon-shot intensity is the
answer. No one can say for sure it can't be done, starting now, unless we try.
S. DAVID FREEMAN
Chairman
Hydrogen Car Company
Los Angeles, California
S. David Freeman is former chief executive of the Tennessee Valley Authority
and the New York Power Authority.
The debate over whether hydrogen is hype or hope has reached new levels of
hype itself. There are important technical, economic, environmental, and policy
questions at hand. Their honest answers may be vital to our transportation
future.
Opponents correctly point to the major technical and economic hurdles that
hydrogen and fuel-cell vehicles must overcome to be a market success. They also
remind us that a hydrogen future is not guaranteed to be a clean future. But the
critics' warnings that clean hydrogen production will divert valuable natural
gas fuel and renewable electricity from the power sector in the near term seem
at odds with their assertion that the hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle market is
decades away.
Hydrogen is clearly being used in policy circles to deflect the pressure to
take meaningful action today to curb global warming emissions from tr\ansportation;
this is standard political operating procedure, however unfortunate. But there
are much larger political obstacles in the way of sensible policies to promote
readily available efficiency technologies than the prospect of hydrogen.
Proponents of hydrogen correctly point to the long-term environmental gains
achievable from fuel-cell vehicles if the hydrogen is produced with clean
low-carbon sources such as renewable electricity or biomass. Efficiency is a
vital first step, but it alone is not enough to address the threats of climate
change and oil dependence. Proponents also emphasize that automakers have rarely
exhibited so much enthusiasm for an alternative to business as usual. Large
automaker research (and public relations) budgets alone are not a justification
for hydrogen fuel cells, but they are a necessary component of the transition.
Focusing exclusively on hydrogen as the only long-term solution, however, is
too risky given the importance of addressing the energy and environmental
impacts of transportation. And suggesting that hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles can
meaningfully address our transportation problems nationally within the next two
decades is both unrealistic and dangerous.
Renewable hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicles offer one of the most promising
strategies for the future, and we cannot afford to pass it up. But we must also
move forward with the technologies at hand today if we want to reduce pollution
and oil dependence. The choice is not either efficiency or hydrogen. The right
choice is both.
JASON MARK
Director, Clean Vehicles Program
Union of Concerned Scientists
Washington, D.C.
Copyright Issues in Science and Technology Summer 2004