A Honda FCX Concept and Honda's hydrogen refueling station. Critics say fossil fuels are still used to produce hydrogen, meaning there's still pollution. (Photo courtesy of Honda)
Lots of people in the automotive industry expect hydrogen to be a major
fuel source in the future. Cars that run on hydrogen don’t emit
greenhouse gases from the tailpipe. In fact, they don’t emit anything
except water. It might sound like magic, but there are some costs to
fueling the future on hydrogen. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
Lots of people in the automotive industry expect hydrogen to be a major
fuel source in the future. Cars that run on hydrogen don’t emit
greenhouse gases from the tailpipe. In fact, they don’t emit anything
except water. It might sound like magic, but there are some costs to
fueling the future on hydrogen. Julie Grant reports:
There are a lot of young guys checking out the hybrid cars on display at
this exhibit. Sales associate Chris Beckham is putting on his tie as
he walks over to the sleek, futuristic cars Honda hopes to lease to
consumers as soon as next year:
“It’s a fuel cell-powered vehicle. It runs on hydrogen. The only
emissions it has is water. So, it’s a really great vehicle for the
environment.”
Beckham hopes he gets a chance to lease one:
“What do you think, are you ready to drive one of these?”
“Absolutely. I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these. If you ever get thirsty,
just stand behind the car with a cup.”
Most cars available today, even those that run on alternative fuels,
still emit at least one kind of pollution: carbon dioxide.
David Robillard and his two sons are looking at cars at this exhibit.
He’s worked at Ford Motor Company for 36 years. He thinks hydrogen
will be the long-term energy solution because it doesn’t emit any pollution
from the tailpipe:
“All leaders in market going to try to be first in that segment, and I think
it’s going to be huge. I think 10-15 years from now, it’s going to be a
revolutionary mass transportation system that we have.”
That’s music to Steve Ellis’s ears. He’s Honda’s manager of fuel cell
marketing and says there’s a need to transition from an oil-based
transportation system to hydrogen. Ellis says hydrogen will be a
cleaner alternative:
“Only hydrogen offers the opportunity to have zero carbon emissions from
the vehicle – zero CO2 emisssions AND zero CO2 emissions from the
fuel.”
Ellis sees research and development of hydrogen cars as a noble goal.
But not everyone thinks hydrogen is going to be the climate change savior:
“From one standpoint, I think it’s great. From another standpoint, I
think we also need to check other options as well.”
Paul Erickson is a leader of hydrogen research at the University of
California at Davis. He’s director of the school’s Hydrogen Production
and Utilization lab. Erickson remembers curling up on the couch as a kid, his lungs burning from all
the ozone pollution in southern California, and he wanted to clean up the
air. But he doesn’t think hydrogen is the best solution that’s
currently available:
“There may be other options that are not as say, politically saavy, but
are options that from a technological standpoint make a lot more
sense.”
It takes energy to create the hydrogen used to run a car. With today’s
technology, that energy is almost always natural gas, but it could be
any fossil fuel. Erickson says those cars don’t reduce energy use or
pollution:
“You’re taking, let’s say some fuel – that could be coal, that could be
any type of energy source – and you convert that energy into hydrogen
and you ship that to the user… it gives you a nice warm fuzzy feeling
saying I’m not part of the problem. But you know what? All you’re doing is
shifting that pollution upstream.”
Some engineers say that’s not necessarily a bad thing – that it would
be easier to control pollution coming from a few power plants than
from the millions of cars emitting greenhouse gases today. But Honda’s
Steve Ellis says hydrogen cars don’t create as much pollution as gas-powered vehicles. Even though nearly all of them need fossil fuels to
produce the hydrogen:
“Even with that method of doing it, we have over 50% reduction when you
factor in in wheel-to-well emissions compared with today’s gasoline cars.”
(Grant:) “50% cleaner?”
“50% CO2 reduction.”
Ellis says hydrogen can be made using renewable fuel sources such as
solar, ethanol, and methanol, but so far it’s not cost-effective. In
the meantime, Honda and other companies expect to start producing some
consumer model hydrogen cars that use fossil fuels in the next few
years.
For the Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.