The problem with hydrogen.
When the talk turns to low-emission road transport, there’s always someone who favours hydrogen as a potential solution.
When the talk turns to low-emission road transport, there’s always someone in the room with a penchant for hydrogen.
FCEV vs BEV.
Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles (FCEVs) do, in theory, present a long-range, zero-emission alternative to the internal combustion engine.
However, there are fundamental problems (especially versus the ease of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) with hydrogen as a fuel:
- Difficult to transport, difficult to handle, and is not available at home.
- Poor conversion efficiency (see below chart) within the vehicle leading to energy losses and high fuel costs.
- Higher lifetime costs of FCEVs, almost exclusively due to the higher fuel cost.
- 96% of global hydrogen production is still from non-renewable sources.
As a result, no major automaker is investing at scale in FCEVs, whether passenger or commercial vehicles, and there is no real re-fuelling infrastructure in the UK or investment into creating this. Contrast this to the over $1tn spent to date globally on battery electric vehicles.
Indeed, in its 2022 report, the International Transport Forum (ITF) reported that in 90% of the scenarios explored, FCEVs don’t carve out a market share of more than 10% by 2050.
The ITF report does note that there may be niche applications in heavy-duty 70-tonne trucking. These would otherwise require huge, heavy batteries with long re-charging times. These trucks are used in mining, construction and at quarries, where dedicated hydrogen service areas would be easier to supply and control.
But it represents a tiny proportion of the truck market.
It seems probable that hydrogen’s role as a road transport fuel across all but the most niche of markets will be limited.
