8.4 Prospects for Hydrogen

To summarize this chapter, clear differentiation must be made between:

• hydrogen as a chemical and hydrogen as a fuel

• hydrogen combusted in internal-combustion engines (see Section 2.5, Chapter 2) and hydrogen utilized in fuel cells

• hydrogen derived from fossil sources and from renewable energy sources

• hydrogen for stationary applications and for portable or mobile applications.

There is no doubt that hydrogen will continue to be required as a chemical and that it will be derived from fossil sources, notably natural gas, by means of established reforming procedures. Hydrogen as a fuel and energy vector is more problematic, but if fuel cells are to be successful they will require hydrogen. For the foreseeable future, this hydrogen will be derived principally from fossil sources. It seems quite probable that in the next 20 years or so, commercially viable fuel cells will come into widespread use for stationary applications such as CHP units for dispersed electricity generation. Small portable fuel cells for specialist military applications or micro fuel cells for cellular phones and laptop computers may well prove successful. At the other extreme, very large fuel cells for use in submarines -a specialized mobile application - may also come to fruition. The prospects for fuel cells to power EVs are much more questionable, not least because of the technical problems and costs of storing and conveying hydrogen or, alternatively, of integrating reformers (for methanol or petrol) with fuel cells. We do not, however, share the optimism of many of...