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A Realistic Path to Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
By Robert Rose
The auto industry is coming to the view that the motor vehicle,
as currently configured, has a limited upside. Hiroyuki Watanabe,
senior managing director of Toyota Motor Corp., has said his company
hopes there will be 3.4 billion vehicles on the roads by 2050, a
four- or five-fold increase, though the human population is expected
to grow only by 50 percent. Restraining this market growth are smog,
global warming, and fuel supply concerns. Toyota’s analysis
is that hybrids and improved conventional engines will buy time,
but only fuel cells will power the low-impact products that enable
this market expansion.
Fuel cells will be up to the task. The industry is making impressive
technical progress – better stack and system life, new confidence
on cost reduction, and terrific performance for fuel cell vehicles
in field tests. Technical progress in fuel cells and vehicles has
been matched by an increasing focus on the challenges of hydrogen
fuel, including the cost of the fuel and infrastructure, safety,
and consumer acceptance.
We will need a comprehensive hydrogen infrastructure, although not
all of it at once. When we do need it people will find a way to
make money providing it, to do so safely, and in a manner consistent
with best environmental practice. It is fair to say that the challenges
ahead are substantial, whether in the laboratory, the test station,
the field, or the marketplace. Because of this, many have called
for government help in the form of a new Manhattan Project or a
“man on the moon” style commitment. The U.S. Interstate
Highway System serves as another good model.
In 2002, more than 40 organizations endorsed Fuel Cells and
Hydrogen: the Path Forward (www.fuelcellpath.org),
which outlined a comprehensive $5.5 billion program for the United
States. There were two reactions: you’ll never get it; and,
it’s not enough. The critics were half right. The U.S. has
come pretty close to our recommended budget so far, but it’s
not enough. If we are going break our energy addiction, we will
need 10 times that amount – $50 to $60 billion in the U.S.
and three to four times that worldwide – over the next 15
years.
It is a lot, but to put it in perspective, consider that the U.S.
tobacco companies have agreed to pay $208 billion over 25 years
to cover the health costs of addiction to that product. Annual highway
spending is more than $60 billion every year in the U.S. alone.
Tax subsidies that feed our oil addiction – subsidies for
the extraction and sale of petroleum – cost the U.S. treasury
$9.1 billion to $17.8 billion annually. Funding for research, export
financing, and pollution cleanup adds another $2.5 billion.
The International Energy Agency added up estimates of the global
cost of a hydrogen transition over the next 30 years and came up
with $1 to $5 trillion. While this also sounds like a lot, it is
only about one third of one percent of global national product.
This is very modest compared to the cost of comparable transitions
from canals to rail and rail to motor car, which IEA estimates cost
five to 10 percent of global product.
We are talking about nothing less than overhauling the engine of
the world’s economy. An end to smog. Breaking the curse of
carbon emissions. Ending the pain of energy addiction.
A 15 year program will begin the job. And begin we must, now while
we can develop and implement a staged transition, or later when
an oil supply, energy price, or environmental catastrophe stimulates
public rage and a panic response from government.
Robert Rose is founding executive director of the Breakthrough
Technologies Institute, the parent organization of Fuel Cells 2000
(www.fuelcells.org).
BTI is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting
advanced environmental and energy technologies from the perspective
of the public interest.
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