Doris Leblond
OGJ Correspondent
PARIS, Dec. 6 -- Hydrogen fuel and fuel cell technologies remain costly ways to mitigate emissions of carbon dioxide and bolster energy security, according to a new report the International Energy Agency.
Current prospects for the substantial cost reductions needed to bring about a significant hydrogen and fuel cell advantage over existing technologies are unlikely without decisive government policies and technology breakthroughs, the report said.
"Hydrogen and fuel cells are not around the corner," cautioned IEA Executive Director Claude Mandil when he presented the report. The report comes a year after IEA said in its Review of Hydrogen and Fuels Cells R&D Programs that there had been greatly intensified efforts of government and industry in this area.
Under the most favorable conditions, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will enter the market around 2025 and by 2050 will represent 30%, or 700 million, of the vehicles worldwide. The oil consumption of the same number of gasoline engine vehicles would be 15 million b/d, equivalent to about 13% of global oil demand.
Including the 40 million tonnes/year of hydrogen currently used in the refining and chemicals industries and produced from gas and coal, the total amount of hydrogen used in 2050 would be about 180 million tonnes/year.
But using hydrogen as an energy carrier requires key technology breakthroughs and substantial cost reductions in production, distribution, storage, and fuel cells.
Use with fuel cells provides the preferred hydrogen technology in terms of energy security, emissions, and efficiency. Fuel cell efficiency is more than twice that of combustion engines.
However, the study points out that it would require the most favorable cost scenario, with a CO2 cost gradually increasing to $50/tonne and with fast-declining costs for hydrogen and fuel cells, to make hydrogen an important transportation fuel beyond 2030.
Costs would have to be lowered by a factor of 3-10 for hydrogen and 10-50 for fuel cells before the fuels would be competitive with alternatives such as biofuels.
Widespread use of hydrogen for transportation would require infrastructure investments of several hundred billion to a few trillion dollars over several decades, the study noted.