I promised a post on energy issues a while back, and while I have had most of text effectively written since then, it was cobbled together in some email exchanges, and I just hadn't put it together in a readable form yet.This post came about following a dialogue about whether hydrogen is the "answer" to the question of what is the best auto fuel for the future, from an environmental and self-sufficiency perspective. And I'm not sure that I ever convinved the other party of anything, because they were ideologically committed to the idea that hydrogen was the fuel of the future.
But the great hopes for hydrogen are construced on a myth, that it is the fuel of the future, a clean, efficient, smart solution that relies on American ingenuity without dependence on foreign sources, that leaves water vapor as its only footprint. And it's hard to counteract the hyperbole around hydrogen, because most people are looking only at the end user - a pump puts compressed hydrogen into a tank, the car drives along, and water - only water - comes out as the exhaust. But for the reasons I will discuss, we need to stop pretending that hydrogen fuel cells are an answer based on current proposals - as currently envisioned, it just disguises the problem.
Hydrogen may be part of a solution, but it is not a solution in and of itself. In large part, that is because hydrogen is not a true fuel source, it is just a carrier, similar to a battery. You still need the actual fuel source, whether that is oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas, solar, wind, hydroelectric, whatever. Moreover, the current most promising way to get the hydrogen itself is from natural gas, yet another fossil fuel. So, in today's world, using hydrogen as your "solution" means you need to get natural gas and separate the hydrogen for use in fuel cells, and separating the hydrogen requires yet another energy source, which in today's world means, for the most part, dirty, environmentally destructive coal.
Under the most efficient vision of hydrogen power under this framework, it takes about the same amount of energy to create the hydrogen as the hydrogen fuel yields (take water or natural gas, use an energy source to separate the hydrogen, etc., so that when you use the hydrogen to "create" energy, you are restoring the hydrogen to its pre-split state) - and then the hydrogen fuel has to be transported to the distribution network. At the end of the day, the hydrogen fuel has actually provided less energy than was required for its creation and distribution. As I said, that's not an energy source, but rather a carrier.
Where does the energy come from to create the hydrogen? As alluded to above, the alternatives are (1) fossil fuels such as coal, which is environmentally worse than oil, (2) nuclear, which is the McCain/Republican favorite because they're slaves to the nuclear energy lobby, believe that their God will protect them from the risks, and don't care about the waste, or (3) renewable sources such as solar and wind. But at this point there is no network of wind and solar that can do the job.
So how can hydrogen be part of a solution? Admittedly, its promise is, in some ways, better than a battery because it can be rapidly refueled and give you a much greater range compared to today's batteries. But it only really works if you can get to where you are sourcing the hydrogen (preferably locally) from the electrolysis of water using a clean, renewable energy source.Hydrogen fuel cells may make it to market, and people may be able to pretend that they are achieving something, because the actual cost and environmental impact is hidden away from them -- all they see is the water vapor.
But at this point hydrogen is really just the coal and natural gas industry's fantasy. Hydrogen fuel cells are full of problems. For instance, a fuel cell "tank" would need to be larger (some say up to four times larger) than a gasoline tank, in order to carry an equivalent amount of energy as a gasoline tank. This may or may not account for the supposed greater efficiency of a hydrogen fuel cell engine -- some say it is up to three times more efficient, so you would need to fill up with less "energy" to travel the same distance; however, others maintain that the idea that hydrogen is three times more efficient is just wrong, and that hydrogen is only marginally more efficient. But even conceding, for point of argument, that hydrogen is dramatically more efficient than a gasoline engine, hydrogen is not better. Others have done a good job highlighting the scientific and environmental problems with the hydrogen economy.
So, hydrogen fuel cells may present an an energy alternative that helps eliminate dependence on foreign oil. It may also be somewhat of a cost solution, because it relies on cheap coal, combined with the potential (discussed above) for greater efficiency than gasoline engines (but, of course, that neglects looking at the entire process of creating the hygrogen itself, which reduces that true efficiency of hydrogen, since there are numerous inefficiencies in the process of rendering the hydrogen).
Hydrogen fits in with the interests of various contingencies, too. T. Boone Pickens would be happy to have hydrogen as a long-term solution, as it supports his natural gas play, since under current scenarios natural gas is the source for the hydrogen. Scientists and engineers love the project, because there is a challenge to it and it is pumping cash to them.
But the reality of hydrogen fuel cells is that it is more fantasy than reality, and not the ultimate source of the energy itself, and so it requires blinders as to all of the details.
The real "answer" is renewable energy -- preferably solar where it works. That renewable energy can be used to charge up more efficient batteries in plug-in hybrid cars. Some back-up energy is required where the electricity is unavailable or drained from the battey, and it is there that hydrogen makes some sense. The drive to create the Chevy Volt is at the forefront of this technology.
If a fraction of the dollars being put into hydrogen fuel cells goes toward increasing solar cell efficiency, the payoff would be huge.
So the best solution today for autos remains a hybrid solution. If all homes included solar power, plug-in hybrids are even better. And if solar power can be used to efficiently split hydrogen from water for use in a hydrogen fuel cell engine, we will have closed the set on a true "answer."
But to look at hydrogen in a vacuum doesn't do anything to address the environmental and energy needs going into the future.
