Is hydrogen power more than hot air?
Real-world vehicles fuelled by hydrogen are finally arriving from Honda and BMW. But some experts insist they'll create more problems than they cure
Special to the Star
Dec 01, 2007
Blues skies. Green trees. Birds chirping. That's the hydrogen fuel-cell car marketer's dream. But what's the reality?
For more than a decade, automakers have pushed the praises of hydrogen as the next big thing.
Car maker efforts have ranged from dabbling in hydrogen, Mazda with its 2004 RX-8 Hydrogen Rotary Engine concept, to Toyota parading its hydrogen-powered Highlander along the Alaska Highway, to more extensive test fleets: 100 Chevrolet Equinox fuel-cell vehicles are scheduled to be delivered in the new year to families across the U.S. for a three-month review.
Beyond the test market, hydrogen-powered cars, vehicles that once appeared to be nothing more than an exercise in research and development, are finally arriving to the public. But the do-good cars, emitting only water and not emissions, could be riddled with more limits than advantages.
The headline-grabbing story at last month's Los Angeles auto show was the announcement of the Honda FCX Clarity, the world's first production fuel-cell car.
Starting next summer, a limited number of Californians will be able to lease a hydrogen car for 36 months as their daily driver. The cost? A respectable $600 per month.
The news one-upped BMW, which, until the announcement of the FCX, was leading the way in hydrogen development.
BMW's Hydrogen 7, based on the long-wheelbase 7 Series with a V12 internal combustion engine, can be powered by gasoline as well as liquid hydrogen. When it's running on hydrogen only, the result is no carbon dioxide emissions.
The major difference between the Honda and BMW? The 7 Series isn't for sale – yet.
Wilhelm Hall, BMW North America's general manager of environmental engineering, says the Hydrogen 7 is "production-ready," but that only 100 celebrities and politicians have received a loaner car for evaluation and to provide feedback.
Though Hall won't suggest when the car would make it to the public, he does hint at the cost of early hydrogen cars.
"I could see us selling it for around $250,000 in low numbers," Hall estimates. "But once we get to producing tens of thousands, the price goes down dramatically."
Hall says that unlike Honda's technology – the FCX's hydrogen is stored on board and processed into electricity via a fuel-cell stack that powers an electric engine – having a combustion engine in the Hydrogen 7 makes it seem closer to reality than a full-blown hydrogen car. "Fuel cells are simply not cost-effective," Hall says.
Despite the diverging technical paths, both BMW and Honda are professing the same utopian result: clean, clear water evaporating out of their hydrogen car tailpipes.
Dennis DesRosiers, a Canadian automotive industry analyst and president of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, had firsthand experience with Honda's FCX Clarity at a test facility in Japan.
He thinks the hydrogen car's potential is reminiscent of the company's breakthrough CVCC engine in the 1970s. The technology helped Honda meet U.S. emission standards and improved fuel economy – without a catalytic converter.
But there's one catch: if Honda expands the availability of the FCX beyond California and BMW makes its Hydrogen 7 available to non-red-carpet types, DesRosiers says the biggest issue won't be product demand, but where to fuel a hydrogen car. The infrastructure, it seems, isn't up to speed with the progress of the technology.
According to H2stations.org, a website that tracks hydrogen refilling stations, there are only 10 certified filling stations in Canada (and those are used for industrial purposes), 38 in Europe and 49 in the U.S. (with more than half in California).
"The fact is, it's still hard to find diesel at the pumps," DesRosiers says.
Along with the L.A. auto show announcement of the production FCX, Honda tried to address the infrastructure problem with its experimental Home Energy Station, a self-contained unit that converts natural gas into hydrogen to fuel the FCX, and to supply electricity and hot water to a home.
But some experts don't think that's a good idea.
"Burning natural gas to create hydrogen has to be the dumbest way to deal with greenhouse gas effects," says Joseph Romm, author of The Hype about Hydrogen.
Romm is a former official at the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency, and currently a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he oversees the blog ClimateProgress.org. He says that despite the billions spent annually on climate change, automakers just don't "get" global warming.
Energy reformers, such as Honda's experimental home system, only make sense on a large scale, Romm says. The true cost of hydrogen fuel from any home-filling station will be exponentially higher than gas at the pumps.
Honda also admits that the $600 monthly lease rate for the FCX doesn't cover the cost of building the car.
When the bill for hydrogen-car research and development, and the price to power fuel-cell cars outweighs the financial gains, why do automakers continue to invest in the alternative energy?
"Car companies don't want to look like they're against better solutions," Romm says.
Based on his experience, the solution to greenhouse gas emissions won't be solved by throwing money at new technologies.
"As a whole, I wouldn't stake my mortgage on hydrogen cars. The infrastructure solution is the wild card," Romm says.
The issue of filling stations is also part of the problem for BMW with its Hydrogen 7.
"We have the (vehicle) production figured out. We are more ready than the energy providers," says Hall.
"It's difficult in the U.S. In the long term, there's no vision or plan. Whereas in Europe, there's more public and political will for both a liquid and gas hydrogen infrastructure."
In a culture desperately looking for environmentally friendly transportation solutions, it's hard not to get excited about hydrogen-powered cars and their promise of clean, green transportation. But the automotive utopia is hard to pin down, DesRosiers says.
"Right now, I can count over 10 variations of propulsion being worked on – from efficient internal combustion engines to fuel cell."
Regardless of the technology, Romm argues the only immediate answer is to legislate higher fuel economy regulations.
"That means low-emission petroleum cars, either gasoline or diesel, are the only feasible short-term solution."
And as an alternative energy source "it has to be electricity," he says.
