Tesla Trumps Toyota: Why Hydrogen Cars Can’t Compete With Pure Electric Cars [View all]

[caraher]

Joe Romm updated his critique of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in a recent multi-part blog post. The problem with pushing for FCEVs now is that it is a gross misallocation of resources that extends, rather then curtails, use of fossil fuels in transportation. Yes, a few solar-powered hydrogen filling stations exist to serve a tiny number of vehicles - I don't think anyone really needs a proof-of-principle to know this is technically possible on a small scale if money is no object.

But realistically, if FCEVs are to exist on a large scale anytime soon, they will run, for many years, primarily on hydrogen extracted from natural gas - and that is a losing proposition. Note that only one FCV offers even a modest improvement over a Prius when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions - most are demonstrably worse:



As Romm notes,

The graph shows high-polluting cars on the left, and low-polluting cars on the right. And it’s plain to see that hydrogen FCV vehicles group to the left, while EVs group to the right. It’s actually worse than that because Cox does not appear to have included the impact of the recent measurements and calculations of methane leakage from methane production, which are so severe they undermine the case for replacing coal-fired power plants with natural gas fired power plants.

Even if we look at what kind of transportation we want in 20 years, hydrogen still looks like a bad bet, because it is wasteful. Romm quotes some numbers; even that assessment of the efficiency of the energy conversions involved for hydrogen are a factor of 2 too low, using zero-emissions electricity to power FCEVs is throwing clean energy away:

The entire process of electrolysis, transportation, pumping and fuel-cell conversion would leave only about 20 to 25 percent of the original zero-carbon electricity to drive the motor. In a plug-in hybrid, the process of electricity transmission, charging an onboard battery and discharging the battery would leave 75 to 80 percent of the original electricity to drive the motor. Thus, a plug-in should be able to travel three to four times farther on a kilowatt-hour of renewable electricity than a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle could.

Or shown graphically...



As I've said before, I do think fuel cell vehicles may have some niche uses, and should be developed. But for most transportation purposes, they're at best a distraction and at worst prolong the era of fossil-fuel dominance. If we get to the point where we have so much zero-emission electricity that we hardly know what to do with it, the energy efficiency disadvantages won't matter so much. We are at best decades from this being the case, and more likely we will never find ourselves in that kind of energy world.