Solar Hydrogen: Fuel of the Future

[kristopher]

3. Not really. H2 is more hype than hope.

It is, at best, a small part of the solution to energy storage demands.

Here are the alternatives, followed by their defining operational characteristics.





(from http://cleantechnica.com/2014/04/27/taking-deep-dive-hydrogen/ )
Note well the bar with efficiency numbers in the lower right. That means for any given use hydrogen requires proportionally more renewable energy generating infrastructure than the alternatives.


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See also: "Time To Come Clean About Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles"

This is a comprehensive and detailed refutation of the "clean energy" claims made by proponents of hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells (such as the author of the OP, who routinely shares with DU information on the wonders of H technology). It is from Clean Technica, a publication that allows reprinting with attribution. However since the piece is so long and includes a number of detailed large graphics, I've included only enough to cover the essential message.
(About the graph below - you'll want to start your review with the yellow box in the bottom right.)
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http://cleantechnica.com/2014/06/04/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-about-not-clean/

Time To Come Clean About Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles

This letter deals with the three fundamental flaws in the promotion of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Vehicles that seeks to exploit public concern for the environment and to trigger a profoundly counterproductive use of public funds in paving the way for carbon-intensive fossil fuels to enter the market for renewable energy:

That there may be some environmental benefit in Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles (tackling green house gas emissions) regardless of the use of natural gas.
That the short term use of natural gas to produce hydrogen may be a bridge to the emergence of economically viable renewable hydrogen production to displace natural gas long term.
That hydrogen for fuel cells in transportation is a relatively benign and economically constructive use of US natural gas that serves the interests of US energy independence from foreign oil.

Real World Comparison of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicle Environmental Performance



A crash course in self-defense for the environmentally conscious.

If you have not yet been exposed to authoritative-looking green marketing for hydrogen and fuel cell vehicles, you will be.
Here is a heads-up on some representative samples:

California Fuel Cell Partnership.
“The well-to-wheels reports show that hydrogen made from natural gas and used in a fuel cell vehicle reduces greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 55%-65% compared to gasoline used in a conventional vehicle, and by about 40% compared to gasoline in a hybrid engine.”

California Air Resources Board
“As zero emission vehicles (ZEVs), hydrogen fuel cells play a significant role in reducing California’s greenhouse gas and smog emissions. The California Air Resources Board’s most recent Advanced Clean Cars Program builds upon the ZEV Regulation in place since 1990, and rapidly increases numbers of ZEV technologies, such as hydrogen fuel cell and battery electric vehicles. By mid-century, 87% of cars on the road will need to be full ZEVs. This will place California on a path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, a goal adopted by many nations and believed necessary to stabilize climate temperature.”

US Environmental Protection Agency
“Producing the hydrogen to power FCVs can generate GHGs, depending on the production method, but much less than that emitted by conventional gasoline and diesel vehicles.”

Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A, Inc.
“Be a part of the next revolution in sustainable mobility: The Toyota Fuel Cell Vehicle (FCV). A driving experience that’s on par with a gasoline engine, but without any CO2 emissions.”

Hyundai Motor America, marketers of the Tucson Fuel Cell
“Well-to-wheel emissions for hydrogen vehicles sourced from natural gas are lower than battery electric vehicles, and less than half of equivalent gasoline vehicle emissions.”

Mercedes Benz, marketers of the B-Class F-Cell
“Mercedes-Benz is working hard to harness the power of the most abundant element in the known universe. In other words, zero-emission hydrogen power.” “0.0 emissions that means it is invisible to the environment.”

American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
“And make no mistake—the FCX Clarity FCEV is an electric car. The fuel cell combines hydrogen with oxygen to make electricity. The electricity then powers the electric motor, which in turn propels the vehicle. Water is the only byproduct the FCX Clarity FCEV leaves behind.”

Any problem with these statements?

Yes. They are categorically and unequivocally false.

There are no such environmental benefits attributable to hydrogen either now or in any foreseeable future economic reality. On the contrary, hydrogen is a gross threat to efforts to tackle emissions as a result of public policies based on a false environmental premise and by grossly misleading advertising combined with incentives targeting consumers most at risk of deception by messaging citing the alleviation of environmental concerns as a value proposition.

It would be wrong to proceed without acknowledging the following exceptions to the rule:

The Ford Motor Company Inc.
“Currently, the most state-of-the-art procedure is a distributed [on-site] natural gas steam reforming process. However, when FCVs are run on hydrogen reformed from natural gas using this process, they do not provide significant environmental benefits on a well-to-wheels basis (due to GHG emissions from the natural gas reformation process).”

Tesla Motors Inc, Elon Musk
Transcript from minute 29:20: “Fuel Cell is so bullshit, it’s a load of rubbish. The only reason they do fuel cell is because…, they don’t really believe it, it’s something that they can…, it is like a marketing thing – but the reality is that if you took a fuel cell vehicle and you take the best case for a fuel cell vehicle in terms of the mass and volume required to go a particular range as well as the cost of the fuel cell system, and then you know, if you took the best case of that, it does not even equal the current state of the art of lithium ion batteries and so there is no way for it to become a workable technology.”

Technically and despite the unguarded language, Musk is correct. FCVs cannot be expected to offer compelling cost or performance benefits to consumers. Nevertheless Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles are without equal when it comes to misdirection and as a tool for extracting public funds from officials only too ready to be blind-sided by pseudo-science and the lobbying of vested interests in a nation struggling to triage the cost of foreign oil and consumer environmental concerns while newly awash with abundant cheap Natural Gas from hydraulic fracturing of shales. It is just that the false promise of hydrogen is such a dangerous deception in environmental terms that it cannot be allowed to go undetected at the eleventh hour for the environment and on the eve of genuine progress with simultaneous break throughs in solar energy costs and Electric Vehicles capable of addressing the mid market.


<<<Large Snip>>>

To conclude and to summarise

It is important for any person concerned with environmental protection or simply wishing to avoid being mislead as a consumer, an investor, an editor or a public servant, to be mindful of well funded and extremely widespread misuse of publicly available data regarding Hydrogen production and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles. Misrepresentation exists across vested interests and government agencies to paint a picture of this technology as an asset to global efforts to reduce green house gas emissions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hydrogen is locked by the force of economics to natural gas and natural gas is increasingly locked by the same force to the practice of on-shore hydraulic fracturing of shales. Hydrogen is the Hydro in fossil HydroCarbons and hence hydrogen cannot be extracted from the ground without simultaneously extracting and disposing of carbon as CO2. Re-Capturing the carbon (sequestering CO2) costs about the same as the resulting hydrogen fuel and hence it is simply released to the atmosphere.

Hydrogen represents the limit of fossil fuel refining which results in the maximum hidden well to tank emissions of any fossil fuel and the maximum overall GHG emissions per unit of useful energy. The process is significantly more carbon intensive per unit of energy than coal. Mistaking fossil hydrogen from the hydraulic fracturing of shales for an environmentally sustainable energy pathway threatens to encourage energy policies that will dilute and potentially derail global efforts to head-off climate change due to the risk of diverting investment and focus from vehicle technologies that are economically compatible with renewable energy. Toyota for example, currently the world’s largest auto maker is the most active supporter of lobby groups in the US and world-wide in pushing for hydrogen while it has tragically sidelined its own efforts to produce EVs.

In California, the CARB ZEV mandate permits fossil fuel vehicles (if the fossil fuel is hydrogen) to qualify instead of EVs while the copious green house gas emissions to produce hydrogen for them are released in California just down the road at Air Products Inc., or at the gas station instead of on the street. It is therefore urgent from an environmental perspective that confusion on this topic is brought rapidly to a full stop. There is no reason to imagine that a future 306hp FCV will not pollute far more than the current 306hp gasoline V6 Lexus when the average FCV tested by NREL already produces 73.5% of the emissions with less than half of the power.

This document contains minimal interpretation (the data is derived wherever available directly from official EPA and NREL records). It is intended to provide a clear and directly accessible view of that data to serve a public right to know it (and to understand it) unmasked from false comparisons and pseudo-science and from political or marketing spin intent on forcing natural gas into the green energy economy.

The data demonstrates that unless a consumer wishes to purchase a low performance vehicle to replace a very old, a very large or very a high performance vehicle, Hydrogen FCVs offer no net Green House Gas reductions versus any other low performance vehicle. In fact the worst environmental performance of any low performance vehicle under 200 hp discussed here was and is the average official Fuel Cell Vehicle NREL test subject at 356g CO2e/mile. Replacing an EV, PHEV, HEV (or even a small-engined diesel or gasoline vehicle) with this FCV will represent an environmental set-back. This is a fact that cannot have escaped either Mercedes (Daimler) and Hyundai-Kia who were both NREL test subjects alongside Ford and GM, BP, Shell and Chevron. Of this group, only Ford, to their credit, has publicly stated that there is no significant environmental benefit to Fuel Cell Vehicle Technology – all be it at the bottom of a web page discussing the merits of tackling climate change.

The economically inescapable reason why hydrogen is of no benefit in tackling GHG emissions is that Hydrogen produced by the most efficient commercial route emits a minimum of 14.34Kg CO2e versus 11.13Kg CO2e for a US gallon of Gasoline (of which 13.2Kg is actual CO2 gas in the case of Hydrogen). This best case is not even the typical case owing to difficulties in transporting hydrogen in bulk. Hence the on-site (distributed) production from natural gas at fueling stations that suffers lowered efficiencies of scale. The real-world data attests to the fact that when installed in a hybrid electric vehicle the real-world energy conversion efficiency is insufficient to overcome the added GHG emission intensity of hydrogen production.

Unlike the optimal economic synergy of plug-in EVs and Renewables, the economics of hydrogen strongly prevents renewables from competing to power an FCV fleet either now or in the future. Natural gas is no bridge to a better future. In the case of FCVs it is an economic barrier to renewables.

Hydrogen from Natural Gas is currently posing a considerable threat in terms of diverting State and Federal budgets ostensibly intended for environmental improvement to fossil fuel based hydrogen infrastructure where at best very large amounts of public funds are at risk of going to waste assuming consumers do reject low-performance FCVs. At worst public funds will embolden the Natural Gas industry and Auto Industry to press for far-reaching delays in EV developments and even lobby for effectively the society-wide derailment of progress towards renewable energy in transportation. 90% of the Californian Energy Commission hydrogen infrastructure budget has been earmarked for non-sequestered fossil fuel production of Hydrogen in return for lip service of future environmental benefits that can never be forthcoming. Meanwhile marketers of FCVs actively and openly target Electric Vehicles (not gasoline or diesel vehicles) with claims of convenient access to lowered green house gas emissions similar to a pure Electric Vehicle. Claims that are simply not true.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles and their infrastructure are a case in which the cost to the many should perhaps be considered to outweigh the benefit to the few. With some considerable urgency.

Naturally there is unlikely to be a market for Fuel Cell Vehicles outside the demographic of environmentally conscious consumers targeted and duped by false advertising. In that regard I trust this document comes to the defence of the widest possible audience as it contains vital consumer education.

Of course the most decisive action environmentally concerned consumers can and must take in order to prevent the displacement of solar and wind energy in transportation by fracked natural gas is simply to refuse to lease or to buy a Fuel Cell Vehicle regardless of incentives or public funds wasted on hydrogen infrastructure. Naturally it would be preferable for CARB to anticipate such a response and to resume the role of forcing the focus of auto makers in the direction of more constructive instead of destructive approaches to the environment.



Julian Cox.

<<<Another Large Snip of Supporting Material>>>

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/06/04/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-about-not-clean/