Your column “Revisiting hydrogen” is based on a Cato Institute paper by Professor Donald Anthrop that paints a very negative picture of a hydrogen transportation system by assuming worst-case scenarios that no one would propose, while ignoring other more promising approaches (OGJ, Jan. 17, 2005, p. 15).
You conclude from his paper that a hydrogen-based economy would worsen rather than improve environmental quality. Yet making hydrogen from natural gas initially for a fuel cell vehicle will immediately eliminate all local air pollution and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 45-50%, as estimated by the National Academy of Sciences and many other reputable organizations. Over the longer-term, hydrogen would be produced from renewable sources such as biomass, municipal solid waste, ethanol, wind, and eventually photovoltaics when and where these renewable hydrogen sources become cost effective. In this manner greenhouse gas emissions would eventually be reduced close to zero.
Much of the negative aspects of a hydrogen economy that you describe derive from illogical assumptions that no one would propose. Everyone recognizes that making hydrogen by electrolysis based on coal-powered generators will increase greenhouse gases, so that approach should not be attempted. Electrolysis should only be used on a massive scale when the electrical grid is primarily powered by some combination of renewables and nuclear power many decades from now.
Professor Anthrop dismisses steam reforming of natural gas by quoting an efficiency of 30%, whereas our steam reformers operate at 72% efficiency. Using his extraordinarily low efficiency, he grossly overestimates the amount of natural gas that would be required for fuel cell vehicles. He further assumes that all US cars run on hydrogen from natural gas, which ignores the likely transition that will take many decades and will include a gradual transition to renewable hydrogen from nonfossil fuel sources. We have estimated that natural gas resources would only be reduced by 6-8% with realistic multidecade transitions to an affordable transportation system based on renewable hydrogen.
In summary, hydrogen can play a major role as a transportation fuel over the 21st century by gradually phasing in hydrogen production techniques and hydrogen-powered cars (both ICE hybrids and fuel cell vehicles) where and when they make economic and environmental sense.
C. E. Thomas
President,
H2Gen Innovations Inc.
Alexandria, Va.
