Hydrogen economy -- so near and yet so far

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.