Hydrogen and fuel cells: fake promises?[fr][de] 

Together with biofuels, hydrogen has been identified by the Commission as one of the main candidates to replace oil in transport uses and reduce Europe's oil dependency. 

However, after the early enthusiasm, sceptics were quick to point to the "illusions" of the hydrogen economy:

• Like electricity, hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source. In other words, the hydrogen economy will only be as clean as the original energy source it is made from (coal, nuclear, natural gas, or renewables);
• a hydrogen-based transport system requires a network of fuelling stations that will cost vast sums of money to set up. In a study  published in December last year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said trillions of dollars will be needed to develop infrastructure before the widespread use of hydrogen  (EurActiv 2/12/05);
• fuel-cell batteries that convert hydrogen into electricity through a chemical reaction have limited efficiency and storage capacity with power losses being made in the hydrogen-electricity conversion process, and;
• fuel-cell batteries are still highly expensive (around €10,000 for a medium-sized vehicle), due to the materials used in their manufacture. These include platinum and Nafion, an acid membrane used in the electrolyte of fuel cells.

Public and private R&D efforts have therefore focused on reducing the cost of fuel cells, increasing their storage capacity and on finding ways to build up new infrastructure at the cheapest cost.

At European level, a Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform (HFP) was launched in 2004 to accelerate research and deployment of hydrogen technologies. Led by industry, the platform brings together public and private researchers as well as public authorities and the financial community.

In March 2005, the platform presented a Strategic Research Agenda to direct research and to encourage public and private investment in targeted R&D programmes (EurActiv 17/03/05). The programme targets commercialisation of vehicles in 2015 but many think that they will not become competitive before 2020 at the earliest.

Several EU-funded pilot projects have also been launched to show the viability of hydrogen fuel cells in public transport. Called "Clean Urban Transport for Europe" (CUTE), the EU programme helped power 27 hydrogen-fuel cell public buses in nine European cities, from Amsterdam to Barcelona. The project, the results of which were presented in May this year (EurActiv 11/05/05), showed that improvements still needed to be made in areas such as:

• Design, construction and operation of safe hydrogen supply chains and refuelling stations;
• efficient production and use of tonnes of hydrogen, and;
• infrastructure optimisation.

"The question is no longer whether this technology works, but when it will be competitive," Energy Commissioner Andris Pielbags said as he unveiled the result of the CUTE project.

About a year ago, a group of MEPs presented a Green Hydrogen Charter urging the EU to mobilise all forces to shift to a hydrogen economy by 2025 (EurActiv 13/09/05). MEPs clearly expressed themselves in favour of a hydrogen economy based on renewables.

In the US, the Bush administration has earmarked $1.8 billion over five years for a Hydrogen Fuel Initiative and a complementary FreedomCAR project. The EU, the US and other partners are working together in an "International partnership for the hydrogen economy ".

However, hydrogen still faces a number of criticism, not least from the scientific community.

Ulf Bossel of the European Fuel Cell Forum, an organisation that supports technical and scientific advances on fuel cells, challenges what he calls 'the hydrogen illusion'.

"Hydrogen is clean only if it is made from renewable electricity," says Bossel. But he adds that if a hydrogen-based economy becomes a reality, it will be characterised by a massive increase in demand for electric power, which he says is unlikely to be met by renewables alone.

According to Bossel, a substantial part of the increased demand for power will therefore need to come from coal-fired or nuclear power plants with all the known consequences for the environment and for safety.

In addition, he says a substantial amount of energy is lost when the electricity is converted to hydrogen for storage in a fuel cell and subsequently converted back into electricity.

"About three quarters of the original energy is lost for electrolysis, compression or liquefaction, transportation, storage, transfer and re-conversion back to electricity with fuel cells," the Fuel Cell Forum said in a statement.

According to Bossel, this is because "a synthetic energy carrier cannot be more efficient than the energy from which it is made. Renewable electricity is better distributed by electrons than by hydrogen."

However, hydrogen promoters say that fuel-cell vehicles are just as efficient, if not more efficient, than conventional engines. "Internal-combustion engines in today's automobiles convert less than 30% of the energy in gasoline into power that moves the vehicle," according to Shell Hydrogen.

"Vehicles using electric motors powered by hydrogen fuel cells are much more energy efficient, utilising 40-60% of the fuel's energy," it points out.

According to Shell Hydrogen, the biggest challenge is financial, not technical. "From a vehicle perspective, funding the transition from expensive prototypes to affordable mass production will be the key issue".

Shell estimates that Fuel Cell Vehicles can become competitive when annual production reaches one million globally. "Through the combination of the technical and manufacturing advances anticipated over the next five years, with the build-up of a reasonable global production over the following five to ten years, we believe attractive and affordable FCVs can become a commercial reality," Shell says.

Other criticisms relate to the environmental impacts of using hydrogen in the transport sector. In a recent review of scientific studies, British researchers found that contrary to most expectations, hydrogen is an indirect greenhouse gas with a potential global warming effect.

The researchers, led by Richard Derwent from the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, said this occurs because emissions of hydrogen lead to increased burdens of methane and ozone and hence to an increase in global warming. However, they said that the climate effects would still be considerably less than in a fossil fuel economy.