Motoring Alan Judd
HYDROGEN SELLS
All I remember of school physics is failing to get the Bunsen burner going and having to draw diagrams of something called the Leclanché cell.
I didn’t know what it was but I do know that I still don’t really understand what electricity is. Thus, at the start of the electric-car craze, when someone told me they were an interim solution and the future was hydrogen fuel cells, I nodded wisely and fraudulently. That’s because I don’t understand what hydrogen fuel cells are, either. But I think he was right.
In September, the world’s first full-scale, six-seater hydrogen plane took to the air over Bedfordshire. Its operators, Zeroavia, hope to introduce zero-emission commercial flights by 2023. Airbus are aiming at transcontinental hydrogen flights by 2035.
But cars, trucks, ships and trains (a hydrogen train ran to Evesham in September) are already ahead of the game. There are about 53,600 assorted hydrogen-powered vehicles worldwide (many of them forklift trucks), albeit a measly 240 registered in the UK.
You could add to that number tomorrow by ordering the Hyundai Nexo or Toyota Mirai. The Metropolitan Police runs 11 Mirais, ideally suited to those who use vehicles 24 hours a day and don’t have time for recharging electric batteries.
Fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVS) work by storing hydrogen in a tank at enormous pressure (700 bars) and feeding it through a stack of fuel cells to combine with oxygen from the air to generate electricity, its only by-product – or emission – being water. There is a battery but it’s small. The high-pressure tanks have been violently tested, including being shot at, and hydrogen leaks are harmless, unless in a confined space.
Refills take roughly the same time as conventional refuelling. Driving an FCEV is reportedly just like driving an electric car.
Advantages include zero tailpipe emissions and doing away with large batteries containing rare and expensive minerals. Hydrogen production requires electricity but green hydrogen, its fans argue, could be wind-powered or derived from the electrolysis of seawater.
Over the past decade, about £649 million of wind-powered electricity was discarded unused because it couldn’t be stored, whereas hydrogen can be stored indefinitely in depleted oilfields and salt caverns.
Again, unlike with electricity, the energy in hydrogen doesn’t diminish when it moves. Thus, although Toyota and Hyundai are leading the pack in the UK, Mercedes, BMW, Jaguar Land Rover and Honda are now also developing FCEVS.
Hitherto, hydrogen has been held back by lack of filling stations. It’s the usual chicken-and-egg problem – which comes first, the network or the users? But now a company called ITM Motive is building them where there are regional commercial fleets of trucks, taxis and buses, and branching out from there.
They’ve installed seven and have another six under development, with plans for 100. Given the long range of fuel cells, they reckon that should be able to provide national coverage. At present, refuelling costs are about £10 plus VAT per kilo but that should fall to £7 – only slightly more expensive than today’s diesel prices.
Once we have a credible network – and provided we don’t make a hash of it, as we have with electric vehicles by having no standard plug-in – I don’t see any disadvantages.
As for the Leclanché cell, I can hardly blame my ignorance on my schooling, having had more than 60 years since in which to make some effort to acquire at least a simulacrum of scientific literacy. All it took was two minutes on Wikipedia, prompted by my writing this. Next stop, fuel cells: ten more years and I reckon we’ll be using them.