A few comments are needed to begin to clarify the advantages of RFTS and liquid fuels compared to hydrogen fuel cells:

(1) For the past decade, the hydrogen advocates have been saying robust fuel cells would soon be able to be mass produced for $100/kW. Today, the cheapest PEM FC power available is a 5 kW PEM system for $3000/kW – a price that has been remarkably stable for about five years [1]. Advanced internal combustion engines, on the other hand, cost $50/kW.

(2) The costs associated with hydrogen storage and distribution are 20 to 50 times greater than those for liquid fuels. Distribution and sales of liquid fuels cost about $0.10/kg, but these costs for hydrogen in areas where there are multiple hydrogen fueling stations are currently about $10/kg and unlikely to drop below $3/kg, even if hydrogen is fully implemented at very large scale.

(3) The energy losses seen in converting H₂ and CO₂ to liquid fuels are similar to those seen in the liquefaction and distribution of hydrogen.

(4) The end-use efficiencies and pollution for carbon-neutral liquid fuels in advanced engines are similar to those for hydrogen in fuel cells.

(5) The energy penalty (compressor power) associated with piping hydrogen at a large scale is seven times that that for natural gas, and a more expensive grade of steel is required to avoid pipe cracking from hydrogen embrittlement.

(6) The global warming challenge can only be solved by market forces. There is no global market for hydrogen and there never will be – because of its distribution challenges. Industry will never invest in substantial renewable hydrogen production (apart from liquid fuels production) because wherever a major facility would be built, the local hydrogen price would collapse.

At the heart of much of the support for hydrogen fuel cells has been the belief that they are much more efficient than internal combustion (IC) engines. Several well executed studies (especially one by Toyota) have shown that advanced internal combustion engines have had higher well-to-wheel efficiencies than hydrogen fuel cells in vehicles [2]. Other studies (see the reference by RJ Pearson et al) show even more promise for future IC engines burning mixtures of gasoline, ethanol, and methanol.

In 2000 hydrogen advocates were saying there would be 50,000 fuel cell vehicles on the road in the US by 2006. In 2002 we (at Doty) distributed one of the first technical analyses showing that hydrogen would never compete in cars (and 3 years later we were finally able to get it published as a letter to the editor in C&EN). A recent report suggests about 50 new hydrogen cars (costing about $1M each) might be delivered in the US this year – at tax-payer expense to cities and individuals wanting to make a statement.

A detailed study in 2006 found that the operation of fuel-cell buses by the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority cost over $20/mile, compared to $1.61/mile for a standard diesel bus [3]. Most of the cost was associated with maintenance.

Several automotive manufacturers (including Toyota, as recently as 6/2010) continue to say they will be releasing hydrogen fuel-cell cars in 2015 that will be within the price range of many more consumers – about $50K for a small car. Still, that will not begin to change the picture with respect to significant market penetration of hydrogen vehicles.

Osaka has recently begun offering 1 kW fuel cells with methane reformers for generating the hydrogen for $36,000 at 35% efficiency. That’s several hundred times the cost of a conventional small generator. ClearEdge sells a similar 5 kW methane-to-electricity system for $56K.

Bloom made a big splash recently with their highly hyped “Bloom Box” for doing the same – though at undisclosed efficiency. I’ve posted some more detailed comments on methane-to-AC here:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/video-the-bloom-box-lands-and-the-unanswered-questions-are/,
and more cost analysis may be found under the section on fuel cell costs in our recent paper on energy storage. The bottom line is that there is as of yet no reason to believe that a 100 kW methane-to-AC system will be able to be produced for under $600K or at efficiency above 40%, assuming there is no use for the low-grade waste heat.

It is useful to note that Ballard Power Systems (BLDP), the largest name in automotive Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells eight years ago, is currently trading at under ~2% of their 2001 high. The stories on Plug Power (PLUG, home PEM fuel cells), Hydrogenics (HYGS, electrolyzers and PEMs), Mechanical Technology (MKTY, direct methanol fuel cells), Distributed Energy Systems Corp (DESC, PEMs), and many others are even worse. Fuel Cell Energy (FCEL) did not suffer quite so badly because they made only carbonate fuel cells, which are suitable only for slow-response, stationary applications. Quantum Fuel Systems Tech (QTWW), originally primarily focused on H₂ tanks and infrastructure, are also not doing quite so badly because they have been able to move into NG and propane tanks and hybrids.

It is also interesting to observe that the country hardest hit by the recent global financial turmoil is the country that had made the strongest commitment to hydrogen – Iceland. Now that they are virtually bankrupt, they’re deciding that plug-in hybrids will be better than hydrogen vehicles. (Of course, their national bankruptcy has less to do with hydrogen than with other bad decisions, but hydrogen hasn’t helped.) It is also interesting to note that one of the states in the U.S. hardest hit by the financial crisis is California – the state that made the biggest commitment to hydrogen. Again, their investments in hydrogen may not have been a major factor, but they are indicative of flawed thinking.

One of the large factors in the cost of fuels cells has been the cost of the platinum catalysts required on the electrodes (especially on the cathode, where a lot is required for oxygen reduction). A recent paper (in Science, 22 Apr., 2011) finally shows real promise for eventually being able to produce suitable catalysts without nobel metals. This could reduce the cost of fuel cells by 20-40%. Unfortunately, more than a 90% reduction in fuel cell cost is needed, and it is not yet clear if the new catalysts will translate into any reduction is cost, as the process for synthesizing, heat treating, and applying these catalysts is quite complex.

Some researchers believe there is enormous promise in making renewable hydrogen biologically, especially from algae. However, a recent study shows the mean of estimates of the cost of hydrogen from algae (at very large scale deployment) to be about $50/kg. See Microalgae.

Mitsui has made tall claims about breakthroughs in solar production of H₂ from water by photo-catalytic photolysis using new catalysts but the best in this category is still probably Pt-TiO₂, which usually gets under 0.3% efficiency and requires methanol or ethanol in the water. . A review article published in the International Journal of Global Warming in Feb 2011 concludes that natural photosynthesis processes are seven orders of magnitude more favorable (by certain measures) than photo-catalytic conversion.

The simple appeal of the notion of a “hydrogen economy” continues to fuel many scams, some of which we comment on our FAQ page, question #39. Some otherwise excellent scientists (that get published in Science, EES, etc.) employ blatant distortion in their presentation of the economics of their photolysis projects.

Hydrogen will continue be very cheap in large quantities at large steam methane reforming (SMR) facilities wherever natural gas is cheap, but that is not nearly sufficient to usher in a “hydrogen economy”.

References:

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/tm_toyota-s-ultimate-eco-car-to-be-priced-at-5-million-yen-991388.html

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/video-the-bloom-box-lands-and-the-unanswered-questions-are/

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/hydrogen-the-fuel-for-losers/

1. 5kW PEM FC systems currently cost $15K each
http://www.fuelcellstore.com/en/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=53

2. See a comparative study of high efficiency vehicles by Toyota,
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/tech/environment/ths2/SpecialReports_12.pdf , 2004.

3. NREL study on H2 Fuel-cell bus evaluations, 2006
http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/pdfs/40615.pdf

at a mass-production rate of 50,000/yr, very small FCVs (~20 kW) would cost $50,000 each:
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/07/23/kia-mass-produced-fuel-cell-cars-would-cost-50-000-today/

David Doty, “A Realistic Look at Hydrogen Price Projections, 2004.
http://www.dotynmr.com/PDF/Doty_H2Price.pdf

J Weinert and Joan Ogden, “A Near-term Economic Analysis of Hydrogen Fueling Stations”, 2005
http://pubs.its.ucdavis.edu/download_pdf.php?id=46

The Hydrogen Economy, NRC and NAE, 2004
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309091632

Joe Romm, “The Hype About Hydrogen”, Island Press, 2004.
see also, http://climateprogress.org/about

RJ Pearson, JWG Turner, and AJ Peck, “Gasoline-ethanol-methanol tri-fuel vehicle development and its role in expediting sustainable organic fuels for transport”, to be published, Low Carbon Vehicles Conference, Institution Mechanical Engineers Conference, London UK, May 20-21, 2009.

Recent hydrogen hype:

Mitsui’s solar methanol:
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2008/08/29/a-new-leading-process-for-co2-to-methanol/

Below says natural photosynthesis is 7 orders of magnitude more efficient than artificial, such as TiO2 catalyzed.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ind/ijgw/2011/00000003/F0020001/art00011?crawler=true

http://globalhydrogeninc.com/Supporting_Documents.html