Technology Status of Hydrogen Road Vehicles

e made from coal, and for the middle-term (the years beyond), in which hydrogen is assumed to be made by
water electrolysis using solar power. Both these scenarios assume mass production and advanced technology,
but no major technical breakthroughs. Uncertainty in cost projections is handled by using high and low cost
estimates; the lower bounds represent very optimistic assessments of what is attainable in the future, and the
higher bounds relatively pessimistic assessments. In the near-term scenario, hydrogen is assumed to satisfy
on the order of 10-20% of the demand for highway transportation fuels. Fuel prices are estimated for this level
of demand and are meant to give an idea of the relative costs of the hydrogen in the early stages of a full
national transition. In the middle-term scenario, hydrogen is assumed to command the majority of the
highway fuels market, and prices are assumed to be indicative of relatively stable long-term prices, after a
complete transition.
8.2 The cost of hydrogen production
In the near-term scenario, the cost of producing hydrogen from coal depends on the gasification technology,
the cost of the feedstock, the size of the plant, among other things.
.......
All this considered, it is likely that the market-clearing plant-gate price of hydrogen from large, advanced coalbased
plants in the near-term, would be between $7 and $13 per million Btu (mmBtu).
The cost of solar hydrogen depends on the non-energy costs of electrolysis, the electricity cost at the site of
generation, and the overall efficiency of electrolysis.
.......
(After analysis of considerable input data) the non-energy cost of electrolysis is taken as $7-12 per mmBtu,
and the overall efficiency of electrolysis as 75-90% for large advanced systems. No credit is taken for the sale
of byproduct oxygen nor for the use of electrolysis waste heat........ There is a good deal of uncertainty in
projections of the cost of solar power....The best estimates for advanced post-2000 PV or solar thermal
technology indicate an electricity production cost of not less than $15-20 mmBtu, and not more than $50 per
mmBtu. A range of $18-45 is taken.
8.3 The cost of hydrogen transmission and distribution in pipeline
...the largest components of total hydrogen transmission cost are the capital costs of the compressor stations
and the pipeline and the cost of the fuel (pipeline gas) used by the compressors. Transmission cost is also a
function of pipeline diameter, shipping distance and working pressure. Hydrogen compressors must be about
35% closer together and have 3.8 times more capacity, and 5.5 times more horsepower than CH 4 compressors,
in order to ship the same amount of energy, mainly because H 2 is about one-third as energy dense as CH 4 on
a volume basis. The larger H 2 compressors are more expensive, and the hydrogen energy they use is more
costly per energy unit than CH 4.
.......
Normalized to a hydrogen production cost of about $7-13 per mmBtu for the near term, and $10-45 for the
middle term, a shipping distance of 1600 km, and a flow rate of 10 10 Btu per hour, a national average
transmission cost of $3-6 per mmBtu for delivery of solar H 2 to retail stations, and $2.50-5.00 to industrial
liquefiers, result from various estimates. For fossil H 2 the corresponding figures are assumed to be $2-4 and
$1.50-3.25.
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