Hydrogen researchers step on the gas

The production puzzle
There’s also a major debate over just where all this hydrogen is going to come from. Like gasoline, hydrogen is what’s known as a “secondary” energy source: You have to make it from natural gas or water. Hydrogen manufacturing is already well established for industrial uses like gasoline refining and fertilizer production; about 50 million metric tons are made each year worldwide. (That’s enough to power “all the family cars in the U.S. if they were fuel cell vehicles,” according to Shell Hydrogen.)

But almost all of the hydrogen produced today is made from natural gas, a fossil fuel that is already in short supply and growing ever more costly. The process also leaves behind large quantities of carbon dioxide, which defeats one of the basic appeals of hydrogen power — eliminating pollution. Though researchers are working on a process called “carbon sequestion” — essentially pumping CO2 back into the ground where the natural gas came from — the process is not widely used. It’s also not clear how much impact the added cost of widespread disposal of CO2 would have on the economics of producing hydrogen.

A potentially cleaner way to make hydrogen involves a process called electrolysis, which is essentially reverses the fuel cell’s chemistry: This time, you run electricity through water, splitting H2O back into hydrogen and oxygen. But if that electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, the pollution eliminated from a hydrogen car's tailpipe would simply be shifted to the power plant. So the promise of a clean hydrogen economy requires the use of renewable power sources like solar or wind power. Even the most optimistic projections say it will take decades before renewable power can produce more than a fraction of the hydrogen need to replace gasoline. 

Major energy producers like BP and Shell say they’re trying to solve that problem by boosting production of renewable power. They’re also at work on another major challenge: How to distribute hydrogen to retail customers — if and when car makers eventually figure out how to produce an affordable fuel-cell vehicle. The Shell filling station President Bush visited in May was designed to show the public — and decision makers in Washington — the company’s idea of what a hydrogen station might look like.

The idea was “to demonstrate to people that a hydrogen pump would look like a regular gasoline pump,” said Phil Baxley, Shell Hydrogen’s vice president for business development. “It sits alongside the bays for diesel and gasoline, and we stored hydrogen underground like we store gasoline now.”

Baxley says the safety issues associated with transporting, storing and dispensing hydrogen to retail customers are not all that different than handling other gas fuels like propane. But it remains to be seen whether safety measures developed for industrial settings for workers trained in handling gas fuels can be adapted for a retail pumping station. The cost — and consumer acceptance — of these safety measures could pose another hurdle for hydrogen.

Despite its compelling advantages of as a clean, abundant replacement for fossil fuels, in the long run, the successful development of a “hydrogen economy” will be driven by economics. And so far, one of hydrogen’s most compelling advantages — the virtual elimination of pollution and carbon-based greenhouse gases — doesn’t by itself provide any direct economic benefits to energy producers or consumers. For that to happen, the U.S. and other large energy consumers like China and India would have to impose economic penalties for carbon emissions — or adopt a so-called “cap and trade” system of letting companies that exceed carbon caps buy permission to do so from companies that produce less than their share of emissions.

Hydrogen is also competing with other energy gasoline alternatives that could pay off sooner. So if oil and gas prices prices continue to rise, hydrogen could find itself pre-empted by other, cheaper forms of more readily available renewable fuels, including biodiesel or ethanol made from crops. Converting coal to liquid motor fuels could also become economically competitive. If battery technology improves more quickly than fuel cell breakthroughs, “pluggable hybrid” gas-electric vehicles could eventually evolve into all-electric cars that could store enough power to match the range of conventional gasoline-powered cars.

All of which has put added pressure on hydrogen proponents and backers to demonstrate that they can cross the finish line first.

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