Green Hydrogen’s Role in Enabling Zero-Emissions Transportation – Part ONE

The Hydrogen Economy—Vision for the Future … or Hallucination From the Past?

In his 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush said “Tonight I’m proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.” The White House issued their Hydrogen Economy Fact Sheet. There was considerable excitement about moving to a hydrogen economy—in which the economy and most vehicles and vessels are powered by hydrogen fuel. Fast forward 20 years and it sure looks like battery power has won and hydrogen fuel cells have lost the battle for a zero-emissions power source for vehicles. In the U.S., about 660,000 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) were sold in 2021, vs. slightly over 3,300 hydrogen-powered vehicles¹ (aka Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles or FCEV). That means that hydrogen-powered cars represent a mere 0.5% of ‘zero emission’ vehicles being sold (and an almost invisible 0.02% of all light vehicles sold).²

Battery power, rather than hydrogen, seems to be the power source of choice for zero-emission delivery vans as well. Amazon ordered 100,000 battery electric delivery vans from Rivian Automotive in 2019. Even for big class 8 trucks, most manufacturers³ are coming out with BEV (battery) powered rather than FCEV (hydrogen fuel cell) powered trucks. We have also seen battery-powered electric cargo ships and ferries such as the Yara Birkeland, MS Medstraum, and MS Wellingdorf. There are some battery-powered trains, like Wabtec’s FLXdrive locomotives, Alstom, Hitachi Rail, and Parallel Systems autonomous trains. There are even a few battery-powered airplanes in the works, such as the Heart Aerospace ES-30 and Eviation’s Alice.

High Cost of Hydrogen Fuel and an Almost Complete Lack of Hydrogen Fueling Stations

Why did batteries seemingly win over hydrogen? First is the high cost per mile for hydrogen fuel. As of November 2022, in California, a typical hydrogen FCEV (Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle) costs about $0.30/mile for fuel, over four-times higher than the $0.07/mile cost of operating an equivalent BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle).⁵ Even more of a factor is the dearth of hydrogen fueling stations. In the U.S., as of April 19, 2023, there are 61 public hydrogen fueling stations in the U.S., of which 60 are in California. There are almost 1,000 times as many BEV charging stations in the U.S.—52,810 stations, with 136,371 charging ports, of which 30,194 are DC Fast charging. This does not include privately owned residential charging stations, which provide BEV owners with even more convenience of charging their vehicles without even leaving the house. It is no wonder that hydrogen vehicles have been so slow to take off, while battery-electric vehicles are on a tear.

The Score: Batteries 100, Hydrogen 0 … but It’s Not Over Yet

One might conclude that the battle is over; that battery power has triumphed over hydrogen power for zero-emission transportation. However, hydrogen fuel (in the form of ammonia) is still very likely to play a dominant role in ocean shipping. Hydrogen fuel cells may play an important (if not dominant) role in rail and long-haul trucking as well. The logistics behind these sectors are completely different than for passenger vehicles. The energy density and refueling time advantages of hydrogen become critical factors for these sectors. Furthermore, the magnitude of the per-mile price difference between hydrogen fuel vs. battery charging is expected to drop dramatically, as we will discuss in part two of this series.

Hydrogen has two major advantages over battery power:

• Energy Density—Hydrogen is much more energy dense than even the most advanced Lithium Ion (Li-ion) batteries.
  • The specific energy (energy per unit of mass) of hydrogen is almost 150 times that of the best Lithium Ion (Li-ion) batteries (39,600 Wh/Kg vs. 270 Wh/Kg). Once you factor in the weight of a fuel cell, the advantage drops dramatically, but is still considerable.
    A hydrogen fuel cell typically has 2 to 10 times the specific energy of Li-ion Batteries.⁶

    

    Compressed hydrogen has 3.5 to 9 times the volumetric energy density (MJ/L)⁷ of Li batteries. Ammonia, which can be derived from hydrogen, is even more energy dense, with 5 to 15 times more energy per unit of volume (MJ/L) compared to Li batteries.⁸

• Refueling/Recharging Time—Hydrogen or ammonia refueling times are 5 to 50+ times shorter than recharging comparable energy capacity Li batteries.
  • Refilling a typical hydrogen-powered car takes about 3-5 minutes, similar to refilling a gas tank.
  • Recharging a battery-electric car, using the fastest chargers available (DCFC chargers), takes 20 minutes to an hour.
    Level 1 and 2 chargers take much longer.⁹

These advantages make hydrogen fuel more attractive than battery power for ocean shipping and potentially attractive for rail, and long-haul trucking. More precisely, ocean shipping will use green ammonia derived from green hydrogen (more on that in part two of this series). For large ocean-going ships, traveling many thousands of miles across the seas with no opportunities to refuel, green ammonia appears to be the only viable option for very-low/zero-emissions today. Battery-powered ships may end up playing an important role for shorter distances .

This does not mean that we are anywhere near a quick or immediate transition of ocean shipping to green ammonia. First, at today’s prices, green ammonia is about four times as expensive as the typical bunker fuels used in shipping today.¹⁰ More critically, there are virtually no ships capable of running on ammonia and only a very small number of plants producing green ammonia. Decades of investment are required.

In part two of this series, we look at the legal framework driving ocean shipping to adopt low- and no-emissions power, why green ammonia (derived from green-hydrogen) is likely to be the fuel of choice, the massive infrastructure investments that will be required, and some initial projects already underway.