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Hydrogen-fueled cars not the best way to cut
pollution, greenhouse gases and oil dependency, says
expert
University Of California - Berkeley
By Robert Sanders, Media Relations | 17 July 2003
BERKELEY - As politicians and the public leap aboard
the hydrogen fuel bandwagon, a University of
California, Berkeley, energy expert suggests we all
step back and take a critical look at the technology
and consider simpler, cheaper options.
In a paper appearing in the July 18 issue of Science
magazine, Alex Farrell, assistant professor of energy
and resources at UC Berkeley, and David Keith,
associate professor of engineering and public policy
at Carnegie Mellon University, present various short-
and long-term strategies that they say would achieve
the same results as switching from gasoline-powered
vehicles to hydrogen cars.
"Hydrogen cars are a poor short-term strategy, and
it's not even clear that they are a good idea in the
long term," said Farrell. "Because the prospects for
hydrogen cars are so uncertain, we need to think
carefully before we invest all this money and all this
public effort in one area."
Farrell and Keith compared the costs of developing
fuel cell vehicles to the costs of other strategies
for achieving the same environmental and economic
goals.
"There are three reasons you might think hydrogen
would be a good thing to use as a transportation fuel
- it can reduce air pollution, slow global climate
change and reduce dependence on oil imports - but for
each one there is something else you could do that
would probably work better, work faster and be
cheaper," Farrell said.
President George W. Bush has proposed a federally
funded, five-year, $1.7 billion FreedomCAR and Fuel
Initiative to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cells, a
hydrogen infrastructure and advanced automotive
technologies. Several announced candidates for
president have also proposed major research efforts to
develop hydrogen-fueled vehicles and technologies to
produce, transport and store the hydrogen, while many
scientists have praised the initiative.
For many people, the attraction of hydrogen is that it
produces no pollution or greenhouse gases at the
tailpipe. For others, the attraction is that hydrogen
is a research program, not a regulation, and that some
hydrogen-related research will also help develop
better gasoline-powered cars.
One problem, said Farrell, an expert on energy and
environment issues, is that this glosses over the
issue of where the hydrogen comes from. Current
methods of producing hydrogen from oil and coal
produce substantial carbon dioxide. Unless and until
this carbon can be captured and stored, renewable
(wind or solar) and nuclear power, with their
attendant problems of supply and waste, are the only
means of producing hydrogen without also producing
greenhouse gases.
In addition, Farrell points out that setting up a
completely new infrastructure to distribute hydrogen
would cost at least $5,000 per vehicle. Transporting,
storing and distributing a gaseous fuel as opposed to
a liquid raises many new problems.
More billions of dollars will be needed to develop
hydrogen fuel cells that can match the performance of
today's gasoline engines, he said.
The benefits might be worth the costs of fuel-cell
development and creating a new infrastructure,
however, if air pollution, greenhouse gases and
imported petroleum could not be reduced in other ways.
But they can, said Farrell.
Improvements to current cars and current environmental
rules are more than 100 times cheaper than hydrogen
cars at reducing air pollution. And for several
decades, the most cost-effective method to reduce oil
imports and CO2 emissions from cars will be to
increase fuel efficiency, the two scientists found.
"You could get a significant reduction in petroleum
consumption pretty inexpensively by raising the fuel
economy standard or raising fuel prices, or both,
which is probably the cheapest strategy," Farrell
said. "This would actually have no net cost or
possibly even a negative cost - buying less fuel would
save more money than the price of the high-efficiency
cars. The vehicles would still be large enough for
Americans and they would still be safe."
Technologies are now on the shelf to achieve better
fuel efficiency, he said. All that's lacking are
economic incentives to encourage auto makers to make
and drivers to buy fuel-efficient cars.
"Automobile manufacturers don't need to invest in
anything fancy - a wide number of technologies are
already on the shelf," he said, quoting, among other
studies, a 2002 report by the National Academy of
Sciences. "The cost would be trivial compared to the
changes needed to go to a hydrogen car."
Petroleum substitutes like ethanol that can be used in
today's vehicles also are a possible way to reduce oil
imports, the researchers say, but more research is
needed to reduce the environmental impact and cost of
these options.
If one goal is to reduce greenhouse gases, it would be
cheaper, Farrell and Keith argue, to focus on reducing
carbon dioxide emissions from electric power plants
than to focus solely on hydrogen-powered vehicles. But
if passenger cars are targeted, fuel economy is still
the key.
If it becomes necessary to introduce hydrogen into the
transportation sector, the scientists say, a better
alternative is to develop hydrogen-powered fuel cells
for vehicles such as ships, trains and large trucks
instead of cars. Because these heavy freight vehicles
have higher emissions, this strategy could provide
greater air quality benefits. On-board hydrogen
storage would be less of a problem also, and it would
require a smaller fuel distribution network.
Farrell and Keith provide figures that support their
arguments and conclude that more research needs to be
done before committing ourselves to a hydrogen
economy, which might begin to make sense 25 years down
the road.
"Hydrogen cars are an attractive vision that demands
serious investigation, but it's not a sure thing,"
they wrote.
Farrell speculates that hydrogen has become attractive
to people across the political spectrum in part
because it doesn't challenge drivers to change their
habits. It also doesn't challenge the auto industry to
change its behavior, providing, instead, a subsidy for
research that will lead to better cars whether they
are hydrogen-powered or gasoline-powered.
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