
Potential impacts and developments
Instead of storing electrical energy in batteries, large-scale electrolysers allow chemical storage of electrical energy, by using the electricity to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Tanks on-board the vehicles can then be filled with energy-rich hydrogen gas, which can be used to generate electricity in ‘fuel cells’. The particular interest of this approach is that vehicles could store large amounts of hydrogen on-board, refuel quickly if necessary, and produce only pure water as an exhaust output. The concept of hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars already attracted much attention following the first oil shock in the 1970s. At that time, the objective was to find a cheaper alternative to oil, and one idea was to use cheap and abundant nuclear energy to produce all the hydrogen we need for our mobility. However, oil prices soon started to stabilise or to fall, and the promise of cheap and abundant electricity from nuclear power plants never became reality. Producing hydrogen with electricity generated by coal or gas-fired power plants is also too expensive, and does not help the climate. In consequence, the idea was relegated to the back burner for many decades.Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.
Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.
If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.
Anticipatory policy-making
Most of the technology for this new era of hydrogen mobility has already been available for many decades. Today, active international cooperation focuses on standardisation and safety aspects. It is already possible to buy anything from bicycles, cars, trucks to trains, ships, and even aeroplanes that are fuelled by hydrogen. While there are still very few production and distribution facilities for green hydrogen in Europe, and prices of hydrogen, vehicles and distribution systems are still relatively high, there is a growing perception that we are about to reach a tipping point, at which greater availability of hydrogen will increase the interest and uptake by consumers, and increasing uptake from consumers will further drive down prices to quickly reach market competitiveness. In such a situation, even relatively modest political measures and financial investment can help these technologies reach the tipping point faster. Local governments are already stepping up their efforts to promote the production of hydrogen to supply early adopters. Public procurement programmes for hydrogen buses or trains can help industry increase production and drive down the costs of these vehicles. Tax incentives for purchasing fuel-cell vehicles and differentiation between tax rates for hydrogen and petrol would encourage more people to become early adopters, which will in turn drive down prices faster. The European Commission has recently identified hydrogen technologies as one of its six newest strategic and future-oriented industrial sectors in which Europe should aim for global leadership. Battery electric vehicles will undoubtedly continue to play an important role in decarbonising the transport sector, especially for small and light-weight vehicles used for shorter distances. For heavier vehicles over longer distances, however, hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicles seem to be a promising answer. And beyond the transport sector, once the price of hydrogen has fallen sufficiently, hydrogen can help decarbonise other parts of the economy, too, for instance in the iron and steel or cement industries, or be used as a raw material for fertiliser production and other chemical processes.Read this ‘at a glance’ on ‘What if hydrogen could help decarbonise transport?‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament. Listen to Science and Technology podcast ‘What if hydrogen could help decarbonise transport?’ on YouTube.
[…] Source Article from https://epthinktank.eu/2019/11/22/what-if-hydrogen-could-help-decarbonise-transport-science-and-tech… […]