HAGERTY. I
Media
May
04, 2023
By
Aaron Robinson
Hydrogen is still in the game, but maybe not for cars
![](images/images_07_24_2023/pic2.jpg)
Hyundai is betting on hydrogen for use in heavy
machinery. A long-haul rig running on hydrogen
can carry more payload than an equivalent battery powered rig. Courtesy
Hyundai
Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. It powers the
sun, fills the oceans and our bodies, and, when burned or forced
through an electricity-generating fuel cell, sends nothing but pure,
drinkable water out the tailpipe. It packs a lot of energy, too;
NASA’s Artemis 1 rocket recently flew laps around the moon powered
mostly by zero-emissions hydrogen. So why aren’t we driving our kids
to school with it?
That’s what hydrogen proponents such as Toyota and Honda want to know
as the wider industry races headlong toward battery-electric vehicles.
Both automakers, as well as Hyundai, have fleets of hydrogen fuel-cell
vehicles in circulation, and they are swimming against the
battery-electric tide by placing even bigger bets on the odorless,
colorless gas. “The whole world will not adapt at the same time [to
EVs], so we need multiple solutions,” Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s chairman
of the board, recently told journalists.
Mighty Toyota is the chief cheerleader for the big H. Last year,
Toyota inked a deal with BMW, its partner on the Supra, to jointly
develop a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle said to be slated for 2025. It
has joined heavy-duty engine-maker Cummins in exploring large engines
that burn hydrogen while also collaborating with motorcycle-maker
Kawasaki on mini hydrogen engines for bikes.
![](images/images_07_24_2023/pic3.jpg)
Toyota
It all sounds promising, except for one thing:
Hydrogen is not an easy fuel to work with. Though it is literally
everywhere, hydrogen naturally couples up with other elements such as
oxygen and carbon, meaning you must force it apart using energy. A
color-coded system has been created to classify hydrogen sources by
their environmental impact: Black and brown are separated from coal
and are the worst; gray, the most common, is taken from methane or
natural gas using energy-intensive steam reforming; blue is the same
but with a carbon-capture system; and green hydrogen is separated from
oxygen using electrolysis, a process that can harness renewable energy
such as solar and is the cleanest of the clean, but it’s difficult to
scale up and represents a tiny fraction of today’s supply.
![](images/images_07_24_2023/pic4.jpg)
Toyota
Additionally, hydrogen is not as energy dense as
gasoline or other fossil fuels, meaning you must carry a lot of it to
drive very far, either packed into highly reinforced tanks at
pressures of 5000 to 10,000 psi or liquefied to negative 423 degrees
F. It and helium are the only gases that heat up when they expand, so
leaks are potentially catastrophic. Hydrogen is the smallest molecule
on the periodic table of elements and is difficult to contain, easily
evaporating away through tank walls and seals. And fuel cells need
much purer hydrogen than that currently produced for its most common
end-use today, which is oil refining. Otherwise, the catalytic plates
in fuel cells that help strip away hydrogen’s electrons to make
electric current get contaminated.
![](images/images_07_24_2023/pic5.jpg)
Toyota
There are just 56 hydrogen refueling stations in
the U.S. compared with more than 50,000 EV charging stations, yet
transportation thinkers say there may yet be a role for it. Heavy
trucks, stationary power plants, agricultural and construction
equipment, ships, and freight trains are all considered potential
candidates for hydrogen conversion. Packaging storage tanks in those
vehicles is less of an issue than in a family car, and the power
output is greater for the weight when compared with batteries. Thus, a
long-haul rig running on hydrogen can carry more payload than the same
rig with the same range running on today’s batteries. And it takes
much less time to refuel than to recharge a large battery pack.
As Tom Stephenson, co-founder of Pajarito Powder, a New Mexico
hydrogen-components startup backed by Hyundai, told the trade
publication Automotive News: “A good rule of thumb is that you’ll see
hydrogen fuel cells where you see diesel today and battery electric
where you see gasoline.”
Green Play Ammonia™, Yielder® NFuel Energy.
Spokane, Washington. 99212
www.exactrix.com
509 995 1879 cell, Pacific.
Nathan1@greenplayammonia.com
exactrix@exactrix.com
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