FuelCellEurope - The European Association representing the fuel cell sector - About Fuel cells

Critical questions

Key Questions and Facts about Fuel Cells and Hydrogen

⇒ Is Hydrogen dangerous?

Hydrogen, like any flammable fuel such as gasoline, requires safety precautions. A report from the Bellona Foundation, an international environmental NGO concluded: in 2002 that “there are no technical or safety barriers that prevent the use of hydrogen for fuel in the transportation sector or as a medium for the storage and transportation of energy. It is possible to manufacture and utilize hydrogen just as safely as with today’s gasoline systems.”

⇒ Where will the hydrogen come from?

Steam reforming and electrolysis for the production of hydrogen are commercially available today and can play a vital role in satisfying hydrogen energy demand in the short and medium term. The cumulative long-term technical potential of hydropower, biomass, and wind could provide enough energy to supply all transport in Europe, particularly if the energy saving options of future drive systems is taken into account.

⇒ how much energy does it take to produce hydrogen?

Extracting any fuel takes energy – even getting gasoline from well to pump costs the equivalent of up to 20% of the energy of the gasoline. It takes more energy to produce hydrogen than gasoline, but since a fuel cell is much more efficient than conventional energy conversion devices, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles offer attractive overall well-to-wheel efficiencies. See the report "Fuel consumption and GHG emissions for different vehicles by 2020"

⇒ But we use water to produce the hydrogen, will there be enough?

Putting aside the fact that a by-product of fuel cells is water, there is more than enough water to sustain a hydrogen economy.

The Delft Institute for Sustainable Energy calculates:

Global energy demand: 4x10^20 J/year
H2 from water: 1 GJ per 90 liters H2O
Water needed: 3.6x10^13 liters
Oceans: 1.45x10^21 liters
Annual rain fall: 3.63x10^17 liters

⇒ What would be the cost of establishing a hydrogen fuelling infrastructure?

Chief executive of Germany's Linde Group, Wolfgang Reitzle, said that it would be necessary to spend around 3.5 billion euros to build a H2 infrastructure of 2,800 filling stations for the European car market, but high oil prices would eventually offset the cost. While this is an individual company assumption and much depends on technical assumptions which are not yet set at this stage, the International Energy Agency stated that compared to global investment in energy supply Investments to rollout a complete hydrogen infrastructure were large but workable (Ref. 4).

⇒ Can we store enough hydrogen in a vehicle?

Hydrogen storage is a current challenge that is being addressed by research and technology development. The early research vehicles reported ranges of around 300km using conventional compressed hydrogen storage. However, the latest demonstration vehicles are showing significant improvements:

In September 2006, Honda Motor demonstrated the next-generation FCX Concept fuel cell vehicle. They claim that the vehicle can achieve an energy efficiency of around 60%—approximately three times that of a gasoline engine vehicle, twice that of a hybrid vehicle, and 10% better than their previous fuel cell vehicle; the vehicle has a range of 570km. (See: article).
In January 2005, General Motor unveiled their newest fuel cell vehicle, the GM Sequel. The company claimed a range of up to 300-miles / 480km. Previous generations had a range of between 170 and 250 miles. (See: article)

⇒ How would a fuel cell car compare to one powered by a battery?

Sceptics about hydrogen and fuel cells challenge the fact that it would be more efficient to use electricity directly in electric battery cars, instead of using the electricity to produce hydrogen used to power a fuel cell car. While this may seem true on a first level, detailed comparison shows that:

Battery powered electric vehicles demonstrate again the importance of looking at the entire well-to-wheel energy chain. Toyota has shown that its pure electric vehicle has a vehicle efficiency of 80%, nearly twice that of a fuel cell vehicle (50%-60%). However, considering the energy loss associated with producing and distributing the electricity to the car and charging the battery, the overall (well-to-wheel) efficiency becomes 21% - better than today's gasoline vehicles, but not as efficient as a fuel cell vehicle.
Moreover, there are no battery technologies able to perform equally well in terms of range, life time and charging time. Batteries are not able to match customers’ expectations on these three fundamental requirements simultaneously.
Fuel cell vehicles are an attractive advance from battery-powered cars as they can be refuelled quickly and offer greater ranges.
They are also more efficient than "grid-powered” battery vehicles and fuel cell cars would produce fewer "system-wide" releases of greenhouse gases taking into account all emissions associated with resource recovery, fuel processing and use.

Last update: 02-10-2009 at 11:51