麻豆传媒

EUROPE has just signed up to an energy vision of the future as green as they come. Cars and homes alike will be powered by fuel cells, which combine hydrogen and oxygen to make nothing but electricity and water. And according to the plan outlined in June by European Commission president Romano Prodi, all the energy to make the hydrogen will come from renewable sources by 2050.

The benefits of a hydrogen economy are clear. There aren鈥檛 any useful stores of hydrogen that we can tap so it has to be made from scratch, by splitting water using electricity, or by 鈥渞eforming鈥� fossil fuels such as oil or gas. But once made, it is much easier to store than electricity, so using it as a go-between opens the way to a constant power supply even from intermittent energy sources such as wind turbines and solar cells. Hydrogen fuel cells, even though they are not yet commercially viable, are also our only realistic alternative to the petrol engine. So as well as supplying the grid, hydrogen has the potential to break our reliance on oil for transport.

But you could be forgiven for feeling somewhat jaded about claims that the hydrogen economy is just around the corner. Fuel cells were invented more than 150 years ago, and the devices themselves have been up and running since the space missions of the 1960s. Yet they are still too expensive to compete with other forms of power generation for all but the most exotic applications. So what has changed 鈥� does Europe really stand any chance of harnessing hydrogen?

Worldwide commitment

There hasn鈥檛 been any single dramatic technological advance recently that will accelerate our transition to using hydrogen as an energy carrier. But the past few months have seen the emergence of a worldwide political commitment (see Graphic). Politicians are suddenly queuing up to sing hydrogen鈥檚 praises, and they are putting serious money behind the concept. Prodi鈥檚 recent announcement was backed with 鈧�2 billion funding for hydrogen research over the next 5 years. Meanwhile the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry wants to see 50,000 hydrogen vehicles on the country鈥檚 roads by 2010, and 5 million by 2020. Even President George Bush said in this year鈥檚 State of the Union address that the first set of wheels for today鈥檚 newborns could run on hydrogen, and he has pledged to set aside $1.7 billion to make it happen.FIG-mg24080901.jpg

It will probably be 15 to 20 years before fuel-cell cars gain even a toehold in the market. But more specialised fuel cells could start appearing within a year or two in applications where they offer clear benefits over existing technology. The first are likely to be portable 鈥渕ini fuel cells鈥� for use in laptops and mobile phones, as ever more sophisticated features make these devices hungrier for power (麻豆传媒, 19 October 2002, p 40). Consumers will be prepared to pay more for a laptop that lasts all day, as opposed to a battery-powered one that dies after 3 hours, says Stephen Voller of the British company Voller Energy in Romsey, Hampshire, which makes portable fuel cells.

Following close behind is the 鈥減remium power鈥� market. These are businesses such as banks and silicon chip manufacturers for whom an uninterrupted power supply is crucial. American businesses lose an estimated $29 billion a year from computer failures caused by power outages, so there is a large potential market.

Fuel cells are ideal for premium power because, in engineering terms, they are simple gadgets. With few moving parts to wear out, they are more reliable and cost less to maintain than conventional generators. First National Bank of Omaha, Nebraska, installed a fuel-cell system in 1999. Its credit card operation deals with $6 million in transactions an hour, so reliability is crucial. The system is designed to ensure there is less than 3 seconds of down time a year, compared with 1 hour for conventional back-up generators.

In some cases, fuel cells are already competing with the grid on price. Woking Borough Council near London, for example, has a fuel-cell system powered by natural gas that has been supplying a leisure centre and local housing with electricity for the past 18 months. It is the only commercial stationary fuel cell in the UK. The system operates independently of the grid, so although the electricity is more expensive at source than electricity from a gas-fired power station, the price to the customer is competitive because it does not incur the costs of long-distance distribution. For Allan Jones, the engineer in charge, it is pioneering projects like this that will propel fuel cells into the mainstream. You have to test the technology in real-life situations, he says. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 mess about, we have paying customers on the end of the line.鈥�

Ultimate prize

Innovation by these early adopters should in turn accelerate research into fuel-cell cars, the largest potential market and the ultimate prize as far as governments looking for alternatives to oil are concerned. Worldwide, auto manufacturers have already ploughed $2 billion of research funds into hydrogen. But although fuel-cell buses are running as demonstration projects in a handful of locations, the manufacturers won鈥檛 be rushed. 鈥淔orcing revolutionary technology onto the market can be counterproductive,鈥� says Neville Jackson, technology director with Ricardo Consulting Engineers in Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex, UK, which designs components for car companies. He points to past failures such as General Motors鈥� electric car, the EV1 鈥� it cost $350 million to build, but only 600 were ever leased to customers. 鈥淔uel cell vehicles must offer some kind of benefit to the customer or they will fail.鈥� Klaus Bonhoff at car maker DaimlerChrysler in Stuttgart, Germany, agrees. 鈥淲e need to find features in fuel-cell cars that cannot be offered by conventional cars.鈥�

As well as catching up with a century of research and development on the internal combustion engine, auto makers need to solve a host of problems that are specific to hydrogen. High on the list is finding a practical way to store and carry the fuel. High-pressure fuel tanks are an option, but making them small enough to fit inside the car while still carrying enough fuel for a decent run between refills will be tricky.

Another important issue concerns distribution. People are not going to buy hydrogen cars if they can鈥檛 refuel them. Yet fuel companies are unlikely to invest in the infrastructure needed to deliver hydrogen to significant numbers of filling stations until there are hydrogen cars on the road. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the typical chicken-and-egg problem of a new development,鈥� says Wolfgang D枚nitz, director of alternative energy at DaimlerChrysler.

But there may be ways to smooth the transition. One suggestion comes from Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute in Snowmass, Colorado, a think tank that encourages sustainable use of resources. His scenario starts with the widespread adoption of stationary fuel cells powering businesses and running initially on hydrogen produced from reformed natural gas. The first mobile fuel cells will come in fleets of delivery vehicles and buses, which return to a central depot each night for refuelling. This is already happening. Vancouver, Chicago and Thousand Palms in California have all staged bus pilot projects. Next in line in Lovins鈥� scenario are people who work in or near buildings with on-site reformers. While in the office, they hook their car up to the hydrogen and keep the car鈥檚 fuel cell running, generating electricity that they sell back to the grid. This helps pay for the cost of the car. Once these arrangements become widespread, the economics of installing reformers at filling stations start to make sense. When the hydrogen infrastructure is in place, switching to renewable energy sources can happen at whatever pace suits.

Whether this scheme works or not, everyone seems to agree that we will have to make the shift to hydrogen one way or another if we are ever going to wean ourselves off oil, particularly as far as cars are concerned. Many advocates see the hydrogen economy as an egalitarian, environmentally-friendly vision, with minimal greenhouse gas emissions and airborne pollution (see 鈥淧ower to the people?鈥�).

But getting rid of oil does not necessarily usher in a sustainable future; the ultimate source of the energy to drive a hydrogen economy depends on your political priorities. So while the European ideal sees the hydrogen coming from renewable energy sources, the Bush administration has quite a different plan.

It wants to cut research into renewables and energy efficiency by $86 million, while putting in place $2 billion for clean coal technologies, plus a 60 per cent increase to $62 million for research on ways to sequester carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels so that it cannot enter the atmosphere. There is also a 19 per cent increase in funding for nuclear research, as well as vast subsidies for a new generation of nuclear reactors, including a demonstration plant that will produce hydrogen, as 麻豆传媒 discussed last week in the second part of this energy series.

In the short term, the differences between the two visions will not be very noticeable. In Europe, renewable energy鈥檚 market share is just 6 per cent, about the same as in the US. While capacity is rising sharply, thanks mainly to new wind turbines, total energy demand is rising at 2 per cent each year, so supply will always be struggling to keep up. Meanwhile, Bush鈥檚 nuclear plans will also likely take many years to come to fruition. So there will be no dramatic shift away from fossil fuels on either side of the Atlantic 鈥� for now, the hydrogen to power fuel cells will come mostly from natural gas.

But with concerns over global warming, rising geopolitical tensions and the coming oil production peak, the incentive to break away from fossil fuels has never been greater. A few decades from now, the split between a nuclear-powered future and a wind-turbine wonderland might have become a reality.