Hydrogen Myths and Misconceptions

In recent years, particularly after the high-tech stock bubble burst, it became fashionable in the popular press to print negative articles about hydrogen. As Amory Lovins said, "A lot of silly things have been written both for and against hydrogen. Some sense of reality is lacking on both sides." General Hydrogen agrees. Here are some of the more popular myths and misconceptions, along with some information that we think gives a better sense of the reality.

Misconception #1: We're not much closer to a commercially viable hydrogen-powered car than we are to cold fusion or a cure for cancer.

Cold fusion and "a cure for cancer" are waiting for fundamental breakthroughs in basic science and nobody can predict when these breakthroughs will happen, if ever. The basic science of fuel cells, on the other hand, is well understood and major companies around the world have already built many fuel cell cars. There is still a lot of engineering to be done to make these cars cheap enough and durable enough to be commercially viable. But every major car company has detailed confidential estimates of how long it will take and how much it will cost to bring these cars to market.

Misconception #2: Hydrogen is not an abundant fuel because there are no vast reservoirs of hydrogen under the ground, like there is oil.

Even though people tend to talk about cars running on oil, they actually run on gasoline which is not found but manufactured. To make gasoline we use oil as a feedstock, which we get out of the ground. Hydrogen is also a manufactured fuel. To make hydrogen - or at least 95% of the hydrogen we use today - we use natural gas as a feedstock, which we also get out of the ground. Not so different.

The difference, though, is that gasoline can only be made from oil, but hydrogen can be made from almost any source of energy. Oil, coal, hydro power, solar power, nuclear power, geothermal power and so on can all be transformed into electricity and then, by electrolysis, into hydrogen. The fact that hydrogen isn't available on its own in vast reservoirs on earth isn't really the issue. The fact that hydrogen can be made with almost any source of energy is the issue, because when we can no longer find oil at a reasonable cost, we can still make hydrogen.

Misconception #3: Hydrogen doesn't make much sense because we won't be able to get more energy out of hydrogen than we put into it.

This completely misses the point: it is a huge advantage to us that hydrogen works this way. As Geoffrey Ballard, Chair of General Hydrogen, has said, "Hydrogen is a currency, not a primary energy source. It's a means of getting energy from where you created it to where you need it." In this way, hydrogen is a lot like electricity: we make it in one place, transmit to another, and then transform into something we need, like heat or light or mechanical power. It doesn't matter that we never get more electricity out of the wire than we put in at the other end. What matters is that we can do things we couldn't otherwise do.

What hydrogen allows us to do is eliminate automobile air pollution in the inner city. It allows us to remove the pollution from the tail pipes of millions of individual automobiles where it can't be scrubbed and concentrate it at a small number of generating plants where emissions can be scrubbed -- a much simpler proposition. It also gives us the choice of making our fuel in ways that don't pollute, in particular the alternate energy sources such as sun and wind to produce hydrogen. What we choose to do will be up to us.

Misconception #4: Hydrogen fuel cells will not end global warming because we will still have to burn fossil fuels to make the hydrogen.

If we continue to drive vehicles running on fossil fuels, we will have no choice but to continue spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at an ever growing rate. But if we drive vehicles running on hydrogen, and if we burn fossil fuels to make that hydrogen, we will have a choice about whether to scrub the emissions or spew them into the atmosphere.

Will we scrub? Scrubbing costs money, and producers of electricity will only spend this money if required by law. Choosing to scrub means new laws and higher costs for hydrogen produced from fossil fuels. If we scrub, or if we choose to produce hydrogen from non-polluting sources of energy, we will decrease the amount of global air pollution we create. What we choose will be up to us, but with hydrogen, we will have a choice.

Misconception #5: Using nuclear energy to make hydrogen doesn't make sense because nuclear power costs more than other sources of power.

When we start using electrical power to generate large amounts of hydrogen, the cost of electricity from every source of energy will change because the fundamental economics will change. Generating plants, particularly nuclear plants, will no longer have to follow "demand" as they do today, producing a little power at night and a lot during the day. Instead they will be able to run at a constant high "base load", by using their excess night time capacity to generate hydrogen. This will allow them to spread their fixed costs over a much larger amount of power generated, lowering the cost of every unit of power.

New legislation will also change the cost of power from different sources. Laws requiring the scrubbing of emissions, for example, could significantly increase the cost of power generated by burning fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas - the dominant fuels used in the United States today. Similarly, legislation requiring new methods for dealing with nuclear waste could significantly increase the cost of nuclear power. These are issues which will be decided by future governments, and as Yogi Berra said, "It's tough to predict about anything, especially the future."

Misconception #6: Renewable sources can provide only a small fraction of the energy that will be required for a full-fledged hydrogen economy.

This is true in the near term, obviously, because we only produce a small amount of energy from renewables. But it can't be true in the long term. If we run out of economical non-renewables such as oil, coal, natural gas and nuclear, and if we don't find new ones to replace them - which at this point isn't looking likely -- only renewables will be left. If we can't make renewables work for us at that point there simply won't be enough energy to run any kind of economy at the level of per capita energy consumption we enjoy today. Whether or not we have moved to a hydrogen economy by that time won't really matter.

On the positive side, however, the production of renewable power is growing many times faster than other forms of power, and the forces driving this growth are increasingly economic ones. This suggests that renewable technologies are becoming more efficient and less expensive, which is good for all of us.

Misconception #7: Hydrogen leaks could lead to more water in the atmosphere, which could accelerate global warming.

Whatever your point of view on global warming, one thing is clear: if we go on burning fossil fuels at a faster and faster rate we will accelerate global warming, and create more air pollution. If instead we move to hydrogen we have a choice about global warming. If we choose, for example, to use liquid hydrogen in our cars, we can expect to vent a significant amount of hydrogen into the atmosphere due to the problem of "boil off" caused by our inability to perfectly insulate liquid hydrogen containers. But if we choose to use compressed hydrogen gas instead, we can expect only a miniscule amount of hydrogen to leak into the atmosphere because our compressed hydrogen storage technologies leak much less. Again, hydrogen gives us a choice; what we choose will be up to us.

Misconception #8: It would be better to use hydrogen to generate power for buildings than to run our cars, because buildings produce much more pollution.

The argument is that the power plants that power our buildings create twice as much carbon dioxide as cars do, so emissions would be more effectively reduced if we use fuel cells to run buildings than if we use them to run cars. That only makes sense if we make the hydrogen from energy sources that produce no emissions. If we don't, emissions will actually get worse. Why? Because it's much less efficient to produce electricity, then make hydrogen, then transport it to a building, then use it to run a fuel cell to produce electricity, than it is to generate electricity and send it directly to the building. This inefficiency means that we actually have to burn more fossil fuels to make the same amount of electricity for the building, and more fossil fuels means more emissions.

So why are fuel cells being used in buildings if they don't reduce global warming? Because fuel cells do other useful things, like keeping essential hospital functions running when the grid goes down or powering building at times of peak demand in order to reduce utility rate penalties.

Misconception #9: The hydrogen economy will be slow to develop because the US government isn't really committed to funding either fuel cell research or hydrogen infrastructure.

The conventional wisdom is that government funding is necessary to solve the "Catch 22" problem: no one will make hydrogen until cars are on the road to pay for it, and without hydrogen fuel, no one will make cars. It sounds obvious but it is actually not true. As Shell Oil, for example, has recently pointed out, hydrogen is already produced all over America for industrial purposes. Many companies have commercial plans in place to distribute and sell this hydrogen as soon as cars are there to use it - with or without government subsidy. General Hydrogen is one of those companies. General Hydrogen, in fact, expects that long before fuel cell cars arrive, industrial fuel cell vehicles such as lift trucks and airport ground support equipment will be widespread across America, complete with a fueling infrastructure ready to expand to serve trucks and cars when they arrive - again without government subsidy.

It also appears that the lack of government funding is not preventing fuel cell vehicles from being developed. Every car company in the world is developing fuel cell prototypes, with or without funding. Toyota, for example, gets no US funding yet Toyota is considered a leader in the fuel cell field and has already delivered leased vehicles to corporate and government clients in both Japan and California. Honda, which already leases vehicles to government clients in California, has recently announced that it will lease fuel cell vehicles to private individuals by the end of 2005.

Misconception #10: Fuel cell cars won't be able to drive hundreds of miles on a single tank of hydrogen because the hydrogen tanks would be too large.

General Motors unveiled a new fuel cell vehicle prototype at the Detroit Auto Show in January of 2005 with a stated range of 300 miles on a single tank - roughly the range required to meet consumer expectations. To those in the industry, this wasn't a big surprise. The storage system in the GM prototype is a version of the long-expected "700 bar" high pressure hydrogen tank that almost every car company in the world has been working on - most of them together. It's bigger than an equivalent gas tank, but automakers expect it to be small enough to go in a car, and that's all that really matters.