Technology Status of Hydrogen Road Vehicles

APPENDIX 4
SUMMARIES of PAPERS on HYDROGEN VEHICLES
This appendix includes a summary of the technology concerning hydrogen vehicles at:
! The beginning of the report, as comprehensively dealt with in DeLuchi (1989), “Hydrogen Vehicles: An
Evaluation of Fuel Storage, Performance, Safety, Environmental Impacts, and Cost.”
! The end of the report, as found in the Proceedings of the 11th World Hydrogen Energy Conference, June
1996.
These papers are referenced throughout the report, which is based on all available documents found in standard
retrieval systems for the period 1989-1995. Additionally, relevant comments are included from 11th WHEC.
However, other papers from 1996 were not consulted.
DeLuchi, M.A. (1989), “Hydrogen Vehicles: An Evaluation of Fuel Storage, Performance, Safety,
Environmental Impacts, and Cost,” University of California, USA, Int. J. Hydrogen Energy, vol. 14, No.
2, pp. 81-130.
To do justice, however rough, to this long article, we can only follow its chapters, extracting what seem the
most relevant points for present purposes. The summary is necessarily long, because each chapter of the 49page
article deals with a different aspect of the technology and economics of hydrogen vehicles, the only
exceptions being the absence of GH 2 storage and fuel cells.
DeLuchi’s own summary is far too short to be useful in the present context, but it sets the stage, and is
therefore reproduced as follows:
Abstract - Hydrogen offers the prospect of plentiful supplies of clean transportation energy. This paper is
a comprehensive review and analysis of hydrogen in efficient passenger vehicles. It addresses hydrogen
production and distribution, on-board storage technology, refueling, vehicle performance and safety, the
environmental impacts of hydrogen use, and life-cycle costs. The environmental impact analysis focuses on
NO x emissions from vehicles, the environmental impacts of making hydrogen from coal, and the contribution
to the Greenhouse effect of CO 2 emissions from the use of coal-based hydrogen. The life-cycle cost model
compares hydrogen vehicles to similar baseline gasoline vehicles, and includes estimates of the total retail cost
of liquid and gaseous hydrogen from coal and solar-powered electrolysis, the cost of fuel storage equipment,
the cost of pollution control equipment, maintenance costs, other ownership and operating costs, and the
external costs of hydrogen use. While there is considerable uncertainty about several important parameters,
I conclude that under certain plausible (though not necessarily likely) conditions -low hydrogen fuel and
vehicle costs, high nonmarket costs of gasoline use, and moderately strong efforts to avoid a Greenhouse
warming- hydrogen vehicles could be the preferred highway transportation option.
1. Introduction
Hydrogen is a very attractive transportation fuel in two important ways. It is the least polluting that can be
used in an internal combustion engine, and it is potentially available anywhere there is water and a clean
source of power.
.......
The strongest hydrogen vehicle development efforts are in Japan and West Germany......
This paper is a comprehensive review and analysis of the use of hydrogen in road vehicles.
2. Hydrogen Production
41