Shell Pops the Hydrogen Bubble
What are the Implications for Hydrogen Motorcycles ?
This last week, MIT released a report (September 11, 2023) suggesting that electric vehicles have essentially won the battle between Hydrogen ICE vehicles and EVs.
https://globalchange.mit.edu/publication/17750
Their argument is as simple as the economics of both. According to Sergey Paltsev, a senior research scientist at MIT Energy Initiative and Deputy Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, “Today, EVs are way ahead: the big companies are rapidly electrifying their lineups, while only a few hydrogen care are available.
He cites key factors in this determination related to cultural taste. He states, “The rise of Tesla in the 2010s propelled the popularity of EVs around the world. But, the big factor, is cost. The two mainstream cars for sale in the U.S. today, the Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Nexo start at between $50K and $60K. EVs are now substantively less, thanks to the fall of lithium-ion batteries and new technologies with much greater energy density that do little or no harm to the environment. Additionally, government incentives help cover any additional costs found between EVs and ICE vehicles.
MIT’s research suggests that while the lifetime ownership costs of hydrogen have come down in recent years, hydrogen will still be 40% higher than a comparable gasoline vehicle, and 10% more than an EV.
https://globalchange.mit.edu/publication/17750
According to MIT’s research, EVs have a crucial advantage: a vast nationwide electrical system already exists. While electrification seemed a herculean task, clean electrical energy production is being ramped up as demand comes online, subsidized publically by the government. According to Paltsev, “You don’t need to create another infrastructure for electric cars.”
While hydrogen has theoretical advantages in refueling in less time and offering longer driving ranges at present, it would require an enormous amount of hydrogen and then the ability to move it, via pipelines or trucks, to refueling stations all over the country. One other formidable problem is that existing pipelines cannot be used to transport hydrogen.
Would hydrogen have made more sense than EVs? One outstanding issue relates to decarbonizing the electric grid. ”Even if it’s a fully decarbonized grid, electric cars are still not zero-emission vehicles,” says Paltsev. “There is still battery production, minerals, and transport” required. That number is not trivial, but according to Paltsev, “it’s much smaller than for internal combustion, but it’s not zero.”
But hydrogen has its issues. Almost all must be extracted from natural gas, a process that creates CO2 as a byproduct. While carbon capture can be utilized, it only increases already expensive hydrogen.
This isn’t to say that hydrogen is dead. Hydrogen may well work for long-haul trucking. At the present time, hydrogen use is principally limited to California (more about that later). Much depends on the advent of new battery technologies now in production. If energy density increases dramatically, it may well negate further investment n hydrogen.
Shell Shuts Down Its US Hydrogen Filling Stations
According to Cleantechnica,
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/02/10/shell-shuts-down-its-us-hydrogen-filling-stations/
The Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership, states about hydrogen stations, “estimated $2 million to build, a sum that might be difficult to recoup, given that only 17, 284 fuel cell cars have ever been sold or leased.”
True Zero, a company that operates 37 of the 53 hydrogen filling stations in California, recently hiked the price of hydrogen at all its pumps to $36 per kg, up from $30 per kg. That now means that a Tesla is 14 times cheaper to run than a Toyota hydrogen car. For an average motorcycle that would mean costs of $74 U.S. for every 120 miles driven!
Hydrogen technology has failed to catch on, and publicly funded research is heavily weighted towards EVs. “Though hydrogen car manufacturers usually include a large amount of fuel in the purchase of a vehicle, once that runs out consumers are left to buy very expensive hydrogen from stations that are often broken, out of fuel, or swarmed with long lines. It’s why used hydrogen cars are so cheap, and why they still aren’t a good deal.”
Inside EVs states.
https://insideevs.com/news/708156/shell-closes-california-hydrogen-stations/
“If even a fossil giant like Shell can’t justify investing in the future of light duty hydrogen infrastructure, we’re not sure who can.”
According to Forbes,
“Shell’s latest decision, while not fatal for the market, still represents a hammer blow for hydrogen fuel cell passenger technology which is struggling to take off in California, as well as the wider country….If Shell has deemed that betting on the hydrogen passenger car market in California, and the state’s wider hydrogen economy, was not worth it, then it does not auger well for the industry’s future stateside.”
If hydrogen fails to make inroads in the U.S. for passenger and light vehicles, any further development and expansion by the government will preclude advances in hydrogen motorcycles in North America. Combined with a potential major shift in government, hydrogen may well be a bubble that has burst.
The final nail in the coffin of hydrogen, at least for the immediate future, is the relative cost per mile driven of a hydrogen versus gas powered, versus electric vehicle.
In Canada, where the Federal Government has committed $500 million CDN to electric fuel recharging station infrastructure, new Federal legislation will fix recharging costs to approximately 2.46 cents per charge. Based on new battery technologies, that means that the cost per minute for charging will (once instituted) be approximately .21 cents per minute of charge. Considering that new battery rapid charging is already a reality, hydrogen becomes a lot more unlikely in the short to medium term. When combined with the reality that power generation in Canada is primarily hydro-based or nuclear, increased electrification costs have already been factored into infrastructure development.
Ciao…
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