Hydrogen economy -- so near and yet so far

Michael Richardson The Straits Times Asia News Network Singapore

When some of the world's leading oil companies and car makers take a bet on a new type of fuel, something promising is happening on the global energy front.

Last week, BP opened a hydrogen refueling station in Singapore. The facility at Upper East Coast Road is the first in the world to be located in an existing petrol station. BP plans to set up a second station here by early next year to sell the pollution-free fuel.

Meanwhile, auto giant DaimlerChrysler is loaning five Mercedes-Benz A-class "F-cell" cars to companies and the Singapore Government's National Environment Agency for two years of road testing. The aim is to see how the vehicles perform in a tropical environment.

BP has nine other experimental hydrogen refueling stations in the United States, Europe and Australia. It plans to open more elsewhere, including China. The Bush administration is holding out the prospect of a future hydrogen-powered economy, one that would end U.S. dependence on imported oil, gas and other fossil fuels while cutting air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions that are blamed by many scientists for warming the earth's atmosphere and creating potentially catastrophic climate change.

Last year, President George W. Bush launched a US$1.2 billion (S$2 billion) energy security initiative to develop hydrogen- powered fuel cells to run cars and trucks as well as homes and businesses. Such vehicles would be designed to emit water as their only by-product. Major car makers and oil companies are involved in the research.

China, too, has put hydrogen into its energy development strategy in the hope of cutting pollution and reducing dependence on imported oil. Its Ministry of Science and Technology has committed nearly $50 million over five years for research on hydrogen-powered vehicles.

Shanghai has been told to develop cars using the fuel while Beijing has been assigned to do the same with buses. The Chinese government says that vehicles running on hydrogen will be in service during the Summer Olympics in Beijing in 2008.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. Scientists say that the gas is a more efficient type of fuel than conventional sources.

However, hydrogen is rarely found in its pure form because it readily combines with other elements. Extracting it is expensive and uses fossil fuels. The most common way of making industrial hydrogen today is by separating it from natural gas through a process that requires very high temperatures, large furnaces and a lot of energy.

Before hydrogen can become an affordable and readily available power source, cheaper ways of producing it will have to be found.

Hydrogen fuel from the Upper East Coast Road station, for example, costs more than four times the most expensive grade of petrol. New and probably lighter vehicles using hydrogen fuel cells that act like a battery to generate power will have to be developed, along with hydrogen distribution and dispensing networks.

In April, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger set a 2010 deadline for completion of up to 200 hydrogen refueling stations -- enough to put one within easy reach of every motorist in the state. He added that he also expected to see 500,000 fuel-cell vehicles on the road within six years. There are currently about 100,000 conventional petrol stations in California and 28 million registered vehicles.

Existing experimental fuel-cell cars have a range of only around 190km. And car makers have cautioned that the industry is still years away from developing the smaller, cheaper, more efficient and longer-lasting fuel cells that are needed before consumers will buy many hydrogen-run vehicles.

Indeed, a report released in February by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences said that Americans should not expect a new generation of snazzy hydrogen cars to arrive in showrooms any time soon.

"In the best-case scenario, the transition of a hydrogen economy would take many decades, and any reductions in oil imports and carbon dioxide emissions are likely to be minor during the next 25 years," said the academy, an independent group that makes scientific recommendations to the U.S. Congress.

The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore and a member of its energy unit. This is a personal comment.