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A hydrogen utopia?
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 29 (2004) 125 – 129
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhydene
A hydrogen utopia? Robert S. Cherry∗ National Academy of Engineering, Washington, DC, USA Accepted 16 April 2003
Abstract The use of hydrogen as a fuel for transportation and stationary applications is receiving much favorable attention as a technical and policy issue. However, the widespread introduction of this technology is likely also to have negative consequences that are not being actively discussed in broad public forums. Such possibilities include, among others, delayed development of other energy alternatives, hazards of catalyst or hydride metals, disruptive employment shifts, land usage con2icts, and increased vehicle usage. Even though hydrogen is likely to be bene3cial in its overall societal and environmental e4ects, hydrogen technology advocates must understand the range of problematic issues and prepare to address them. ? 2003 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Hydrogen economy; Policy issues; Social, societal, and environmental problems
A century and a half ago, the United States used whale oil for lighting and as a feedstock for consumer and chemical products. Getting the oil required di;cult multi-year ventures to remote corners of the planet where US interests competed with those of other nations. 1 The resource was dwindling because of heavy exploitation. After Edwin Drake drilled the 3rst oil well in Pennsylvania in 1859, it was little wonder an oil boom followed. Petroleum was an abundant domestic energy source that could be produced economically and, after re3ning, burned cleaner than alternative fuels. It was an attractive answer to a signi3cant problem. We now know that petroleum’s success created problems with global warming, energy security, and environmental impacts. To address these, people around the world are developing a variety of hydrogen technologies as a replacement for fossil fuels. Hydrogen’s advantages are well known and convincing [1,2]. It is versatile, clean, and can be produced from domestic primary energy sources such as
∗ Corresponding author. Current address: Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, P.O. Box 1625, Idaho Falls, ID 83415-2203, USA. Tel.: +1-208-526-4115; fax: +1-208-5260828. E-mail address: [email protected] (R.S. Cherry). 1 Described most famously in Herman Melville’s 3ctional Moby Dick, or The Whale.
biomass, wind, solar, and nuclear, although issues like production costs require more work. Hydrogen is an attractive answer to a signi3cant problem. Noticeably missing, though, is discussion of potential problems that widespread use of hydrogen—like petroleum before it—might bring, despite an early recognition of the need to think broadly about this question [3]. There are a number of such problems, most of which center on how this technology will 3t into society rather than on how to make the technology work. Addressing those problems to ensure societal acceptance requires an early understanding of who bears what costs and receives what bene3ts. Identifying and controlling the potential adverse consequences is an ethical requirement when developers and policy makers introduce any technology, and certainly one with such world-transforming potential. The perspective here is on American policy and society, but related issues exist in other countries. The implicit endpoint of many other analyses is assumed: the eventual replacement of fossil energy vehicle fuels with hydrogen produced from renewable sources, with some penetration of hydrogen into building-scale distributed generation of electricity which would likely be thermally integrated with central heating, air conditioning, and hot water generation. The extent of hydrogen’s penetration into these applications will be determined by technology performance and government incentives. It might well be only a partial penetration for
0360-3199/03/$ 30.00 ? 2003 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0360-3199(03)00121-6
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R.S. Cherry / International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 29 (2004) 125 – 129
many decades, as di4erent applications develop under di4erent market conditions. This lower utilization would reduce the new technology’s consequences, good or bad, intended or not. 1. Unspoken consensus The use of hydrogen as an energy carrier is supported by organizations and individuals with many di4erent visions. One vision says that hydrogen is important because it enables the easier storage, transmission, and use of clean renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and biomass. Nuclear energy advocates support hydrogen for a similar reason, although they are de3nitely a separate group. Another vision for hydrogen focuses on reducing pro2igate energy use, a goal achieved by fuel cells’ much higher e;ciency than internal combustion engines. A third supports hydrogen primarily for reducing America’s dependence on foreign petroleum. For these advocates, centralized plants producing hydrogen from domestic coal and releasing the carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in accord with purchased future emission credits would be fully acceptable. A fourth vision pragmatically sees hydrogen-powered fuel cells as an opportunity to build new research programs or to create businesses around novel products for consumers and industry. Most commentaries about hydrogen support more than one of these visions in varying amounts. Although their long-term objectives are quite di4erent, in the short term all of these visions call for policies to develop fuel cell vehicles, stationary fuel cell applications, and hydrogen production and distribution infrastructure. Accordingly, the literature about hydrogen, and especially that intended for the public, has been surprisingly uniform in its optimistic assessment of the technology. Hydrogen advocates do admit to some di;culties. One is consumers’ potential concern about safety, as colored by images of the Hindenburg disaster and Cold War hydrogen bomb tests. Experts agree that hydrogen’s hazards are not greatly di4erent from other consumer fuels like gasoline, propane, or natural gas [2]. Moreover, sensors are available to detect leaking hydrogen gas (which is unodorized to protect fuel cell catalysts) and the nearly invisible 2ames of burning hydrogen. Such safety devices will continue to be further re3ned for consumer use. A second current issue is storage. Cars must be able to carry enough hydrogen to have a driving range acceptable to consumers, but the fuel’s low density makes this di;cult. Storage is a major area of research with several approaches under development [1,4,5]. A campaign to modify consumer expectation of 500 km between refuelings might also address this problem. The most substantive issue is cost. Estimates are that hydrogen will be perhaps 50 –100% more expensive in constant dollars than current fuels [4–6]. The greater e;ciency of fuel cell vehicles suggests that the cost per mile driven
will be similar, but this depends on the assumed performance of future vehicles and the performance gains that might be achieved with novel gasoline–electric or diesel–electric hybrid vehicles. In addition to the operating costs, hydrogen vehicles will cost more to purchase than conventionally fueled counterparts, especially in the early years before experience, mass production, and competition bring prices down. Government incentives for hydrogen use or disincentives for continued fossil energy use might be needed to o4set these higher operating and purchase costs. While this trio of safety fears, reduced driving range, and high costs all a4ect consumer acceptance, they are not penalties imposed on others—or unwittingly on the users—by adoption of the technology. There has been little open discussion of such possible negative externalities of a hydrogen economy. Even when they are known to exist, like public concern over nuclear-based production processes, they have been sidestepped in most writings. Given the mixed record of many other new technology introductions, the seeming consensus that a hydrogen economy has no side e4ects worth talking about is surprising. Continued expansion of hydrogen activities will eventually lead to competition with other programs in the federal budget, the marketplace, or global society. “Programs” here includes technical work as well as ideological activities promoting other conceptions of the public good such as, for instance, the “deep green” and antiglobalization movements. In defense of their own positions, those technical and social programs will trumpet the di;culties and penalties of switching to hydrogen. Even if those problems on balance are not enough to negate hydrogen’s advantages, the costs to mitigate them must be considered as part of implementing the technology. Hydrogen advocates can prepare for these inevitable debates by proactively exploring and addressing the negative e4ects on the public. The remainder of this paper presents some example problems that require more analysis. Many of them are based on analogous real situations from the last few decades, so they are not purely hypothetical worst cases. Although several of the issues concern the winding-down of fossil energy use rather than the start of hydrogen use, the magnitude of those problems will depend on how aggressively the switch to hydrogen is made. 2. Technical and environmental issues 2.1. Picking a winner The ability of any organization to foretell the future regarding energy has been poor. The 1950s slogan of nuclear electricity “too cheap to meter” has become a classic example of technological hubris. Synthetic fuels research in the late 1970s and early 1980s relied on faulty oil price assumptions to justify large amounts of applied research spending that eventually proved unproductive.
R.S. Cherry / International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 29 (2004) 125 – 129
As with battery-powered cars in the 1990s, tightly focused R&D programs could divert resources and attention from development of a better long-term solution. The current certainty about hydrogen’s overall bene3ts deserves critical examination not because of any fault of the technology but because of our own record of not picking winners well. Several speci3c issues derive from questioning the idea that hydrogen technology is a winner. One is understanding how a foreseeable major technology choice will be made: whether to convert the US vehicle fuel infrastructure to hydrogen or instead to cellulose-derived ethanol (as the primary fuel component, not just the 10% level compatible with existing gasoline infrastructure and vehicles). Although ethanol o4ers many of the same environmental and energy security bene3ts and has substantial technical and political support, converting to both fuels either in parallel or sequentially is unlikely to be a4ordable or desirable for the consumer vehicle 2eet. A second issue is assuring adequate support for other energy options in case fuel cell manufacturing costs, like electric vehicle performance in the previous decade, fail to reach their ambitious targets. A third is conducting a public debate on pursuing coal- or nuclear-based alternatives for making hydrogen if renewables-based technologies might be economically competitive with them. Fourth is protecting America’s energy security plans (and incidentally the nascent hydrogen industry) if oil producers, whether by intent or as a result of individual responses to the world market, drive the price of petroleum below $20 a barrel for perhaps a decade as happened in the 1990s. 2.2. Carbon sequestration Hydrogen is promoted as a clean fuel—“Emits only water!”—with the implication that it minimizes global climate change problems. In the next twenty years, though, hydrogen will likely be made by reforming natural gas. If this is done in large centralized facilities the co-product carbon dioxide can be collected simply. Central facilities are also the expected scenario for using “Clean Coal” technology to make hydrogen over the long term. However, the safety and environmental consequences of the sequestration options for that carbon dioxide, and perhaps more importantly the societal acceptability of those risks, are unknown. The controversies over nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain and hazardous waste incineration anywhere illustrate that negative public outcomes can occur in spite of the designers’ technical con3dence. On the other hand, if natural gas is reformed in distributed facilities such as service stations, collecting the carbon dioxide will be nearly impossible and a signi3cant potential bene3t will not be realized. The links between hydrogen and carbon sequestration—or more broadly, climate change in general—must be spelled out clearly for public debate.
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2.3. Catalyst and hydride metals The chemical processes that make and use hydrogen are accelerated by the use of catalysts, which are usually mixtures of exotic metals. The introduction of hydrogen technologies will lead to the widespread use of catalysts and a continuing search for better ones. In addition, various metal alloys are being evaluated for storing hydrogen as a metal hydride, a method which would use 50 –100 kg of alloy per vehicle. Depending on what metals are eventually used, there may be concern about public exposure in accidents or 3res or during the eventual disposal of the equipment. This is not a new kind of problem: other common materials that have a4ected the public include nickel–cadmium and lead–acid batteries, asbestos insulation, mercury thermometers and electrical switches, and lead-based paint. An additional novel hazard for consumers would be the spontaneous large heat generation (pyrophoricity) of some catalysts used in fuel reformers when they are exposed to air. As a second issue for catalyst or hydride alloy metals, if they are mined in politically problematic countries there could be controversy over labor issues or security of supply. Diamonds from war zones in Africa have su4ered a version of this problem in the last decade. 2.4. Petroleum product slate A shift away from gasoline as the major transport fuel will a4ect the availability and price of the other products that re3neries make from a barrel of petroleum. New process equipment will be required to convert a greater fraction of each barrel into the products still in demand. Building new small re3neries dedicated to waxes, lubricants, and heavier fuels might be more economical than modifying older re3neries primarily intended for gasoline production. The kinds of petroleum preferred as feedstock (heavy vs. light, aromatic vs. aliphatic) might also change, in turn a4ecting which countries are preferred suppliers. Byproducts like asphalt, petroleum coke, and sulfur will no longer be as available, so industries that use them will have to 3nd technically and economically acceptable substitutes. 2.5. Petroleum infrastructure shutdown As hydrogen made from renewables or nuclear energy captures a large fraction of the energy market, fossil energy facilities will shut down permanently. Many sites will be a half-century old or more and will require signi3cant environmental cleanup before they can be put to other use. Oil and gas production wells, re3neries, liquid pipelines, and transport terminals will likely present the greatest problems. The costs and technical problems of these cleanups may be substantial, potentially leading to extended litigation and bankruptcies. The enormous problems of remediating metals contamination at defunct mines throughout the West demonstrate this.
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R.S. Cherry / International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 29 (2004) 125 – 129
3. Social and government policy issues 3.1. Employment shifts Given a concerted e4ort to develop a hydrogen economy, within several decades much of the petroleum production, re3ning, and distribution infrastructure will be replaced with new hydrogen facilities of similar total scale. A large downsizing of the petroleum importing and re3ning industry will have dramatic e4ects on employment along the Gulf coast and in other areas with concentrated re3ning industries. Feedstock di4erences make it unlikely that the hydrogen production industry will arise in the same locations to absorb those petroleum workers. States that produce petroleum might also see job losses with the complication that oil-producing regions are generally rural with few alternatives for employment. Large factors in the size of this problem will be the rate at which the conversion occurs as well as the balance in government policy between promoting hydrogen, discouraging fossil energy use, and encouraging energy e;ciency and conservation. Those policies would also have large e4ects in coal-producing regions. The regions supplying energy sources used to produce hydrogen will gain employment, especially if there are incentives for domestic supplies. Natural gas employment will climb at 3rst, but it and coal employment would drop if renewables signi3cantly penetrate the power generation as well as the hydrogen markets. Wind, solar, and biomass employment will increase over time. The construction of facilities for those new industries will create temporary employment surges in rural areas with consequent “boomtown” problems for housing availability and local school systems. 3.2. Land usage During the 3rst decades of hydrogen usage, when it will likely be made by reforming natural gas, there will be demand for increased domestic gas production. This will increase the already high levels of controversy around drilling on federal land in the West and around production of coal bed methane. Producing coal bed gas can damage streams by the discharge of copious amounts of mineral-containing water and can a4ect drinking water availability by dropping ground water levels. Hydrogen made from renewable energy sources can potentially supply all transportation needs [5]. Energy balances indicate that this is possible, although land areas comparable to a mid-sized state will be required. A recent economic study [7] predicted that up to 41.9 million acres (170; 000 km2 ) of land, some in current production and some in reserve, pasture, or idled, would be devoted to all forms of bioenergy use. Residents near these new systems may be opposed because of concerns about tra;c, noise, safety, environmental disruption, or aesthetics. Such concerns have been amply demonstrated with bans on oil
production o4 Santa Barbara, California and the Gulf Coast of Florida or in the Great Lakes, and on natural gas exploration o4 the mid-Atlantic coast. Renewable energy sources are not immune to this response: landowners in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts have recently opposed o4shore windmills that would be visible from the island. Large-scale conversion to biomass production of land currently in the Conservation Reserve Program will stir opposition from wildlife and waterway protection groups. 3.3. Transportation infrastructure Using renewably generated hydrogen for transportation involves converting di4use, low density energy sources to a low density energy carrier for distribution to vehicles at relatively low density across wide regions. The feasibility of the transportation infrastructure required for this complete system at the national scale has not been well considered, either in terms of costs or environmental impact. Minimizing the transportation distances by using many small collection and conversion systems to supply relatively few vehicles each would address this problem, but with the loss of economies of scale and the guarantee that many people will be at least somewhat impacted. Urban areas would have particular problems creating enough local energy collection systems because of their population density and lack of available space. 3.4. Energy equity It appears that hydrogen-fueled systems will be more expensive to purchase and operate than current fossil fuel vehicles and home heating equipment. Environmentally conscious consumers might voluntarily pay these extra costs, but low-income consumers do not have that option. The range of equipment and vehicle refueling options for consumers who continue using fossil energy might become highly restricted. Potential taxes on fossil energy intended to make hydrogen more competitive will a4ect the poor more than they a4ect the wealthy. Reduced fossil energy availability as hydrogen becomes the energy standard will impose additional inconveniences on the poor still using older vehicles or oil heating systems. A complementary problem occurs in rural locations with low population densities. Although individuals there might be willing and able to pay for hydrogen, the small market size and remoteness will lead to long delays in building hydrogen infrastructure because of inadequate 3nancial returns. A dearth of hydrogen refueling stations could further increase the cultural and economic isolation of those regions. The problem is analogous to that addressed by the Rural Electri3cation Administration in the 1930s and 1940s. Even today natural gas is not available in some rural regions, both illustrating the problem and contributing to it since natural gas is the expected primary feedstock for hydrogen production.
R.S. Cherry / International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 29 (2004) 125 – 129
3.5. Increased vehicle use and energy consumption Promotion of the bene3ts of hydrogen-fueled cars might lead to greater overall vehicle usage and therefore more congestion, urban sprawl, and even total energy use. This behavior is known in the insurance industry as moral hazard, where having insurance against a problem (in this case, a transportation fuel with pollution and availability problems) can lead to greater risk taking (vehicle energy consumption). Claims of “no environmental e4ects—emits only water”, true in a local sense but possibly not in a life cycle analysis, might hinder e4orts to further reduce energy consumption in consumer products. Increasing restrictions on fossil fuel availability might lead to greater use of public transit if hydrogen vehicles cost signi3cantly more than conventional cars. Providing the necessary buses or trains and upgrading rail lines or bus terminals could be a signi3cant expense for chronically underfunded metropolitan transit agencies, especially if the new vehicles themselves must run on hydrogen. 3.6. International consequences One goal of a large reduction in US dependence on foreign oil is reduced exposure to problems elsewhere, exposure that has led to a US commitment to stability in the Middle East. Other nations have also bene3ted from that stability. With a reduced US dependence, countries such as Japan, China, and India that will likely remain tied to that oil would see a changed geopolitical environment that would a4ect their foreign policies. In addition, oil-producing countries outside the Middle East, for instance Russia, Mexico, and Venezuela, will see changes in their petroleum earnings resulting from lower sales or lower oil prices. The ways they respond to this loss of income will undoubtedly alter their relations with America. 4. Technological responsibility A switch to hydrogen from fossil fuels o4ers many advantages to global society and overall is likely to be strongly bene3cial. At the early stages of developing this technology, it is easy to dismiss a list of di;cult problems as an attempt to derail the e4ort. The intent here is just the opposite, however. Addressing these concerns will help hydrogen succeed. Whether acknowledged now or not, these issues and others will be raised by various interest groups as the hydrogen economy grows increasingly likely. Solid reasons will exist for dismissing some of these concerns. Those reasons should be discussed publicly and any necessary mitigation actions should be funded and implemented at the proper time. Other concerns will not easily be allayed. In that case, technologists, corporate managers, and government o;cials have a responsibility to better understand and address these problems. Because of the scale of a future hydrogen econ-
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omy, this will likely require the development of new forms of stakeholder involvement during early stage technology design, system planning, and policy development. It will not be su;cient for any group to unilaterally declare “That’s not my problem” while going ahead. Aside from the questionable ethics of doing this, there are many examples where that approach did not work in the long run: poor working conditions in the overseas factories of American clothing 3rms, negligent industrial waste dumping in the 1960s and 1970s, and unresolved spent nuclear fuel disposition, among others. Hydrogen fuel will not o4er immediate returns to consumers to compensate for the higher purchase and operating costs. Except for the novelty value of having the 3rst fuel cell car in the neighborhood, the bene3ts will go to society as a whole over the long term. Hydrogen’s use will therefore have to be sold both to the public as a policy and to individuals each time they make an energy-related purchase. Their legitimate concerns will have to be addressed because a widespread hydrogen economy will inescapably touch every citizen. Hydrogen technology developers, in concert with social analysts and policy-makers, can act on this societal duty by identifying the problems at the start, quantifying their costs, and devising alternatives or ameliorations. To do otherwise is to disregard a looming responsibility to the public. Acknowledgements This work was done while the author was a Fellow at the National Academy of Engineering in Washington DC. The opinions expressed are those of the author. Support for that Fellowship from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and the NAE is gratefully noted. INEEL is managed for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC07-99ID13727. References [1] Dunn S. Hydrogen futures: toward a sustainable energy system. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2002;27:235–64. [2] Ogden JM. Hydrogen—The fuel of the future?. Phys Today 2002;55(4):69 –75. [3] Hydrogen R&D evaluation. In: Committee on Advanced Energy Systems, Energy Engineering Board. Hydrogen as a fuel. Washington, DC: National Research Council, 1979. 78p [Chapter IX]. [4] PadrVo CEG, Putsche V. Survey of the economics of hydrogen technologies. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Report NREL/TP-570-27079, September 1999. 53p. [5] Odgen JM. Prospects for building a hydrogen energy infrastructure. Annu Rev Energy Environ 1999;24:227–79. [6] Momirlan M, Veziroglu TN. Current status of hydrogen energy. Renewable Sustainable Energy Rev 2002;6:141–79. [7] de la Torre Ugarte DG, Walsh ME, Shapouri H, Slinsky SP. The economic impacts of bioenergy crop production on US agriculture. Knoxville, TN: Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, University of Tennessee, July 2000. 40p.
International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 29 (2004) 125 – 129
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhydene
A hydrogen utopia? Robert S. Cherry∗ National Academy of Engineering, Washington, DC, USA Accepted 16 April 2003
Abstract The use of hydrogen as a fuel for transportation and stationary applications is receiving much favorable attention as a technical and policy issue. However, the widespread introduction of this technology is likely also to have negative consequences that are not being actively discussed in broad public forums. Such possibilities include, among others, delayed development of other energy alternatives, hazards of catalyst or hydride metals, disruptive employment shifts, land usage con2icts, and increased vehicle usage. Even though hydrogen is likely to be bene3cial in its overall societal and environmental e4ects, hydrogen technology advocates must understand the range of problematic issues and prepare to address them. ? 2003 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Hydrogen economy; Policy issues; Social, societal, and environmental problems
A century and a half ago, the United States used whale oil for lighting and as a feedstock for consumer and chemical products. Getting the oil required di;cult multi-year ventures to remote corners of the planet where US interests competed with those of other nations. 1 The resource was dwindling because of heavy exploitation. After Edwin Drake drilled the 3rst oil well in Pennsylvania in 1859, it was little wonder an oil boom followed. Petroleum was an abundant domestic energy source that could be produced economically and, after re3ning, burned cleaner than alternative fuels. It was an attractive answer to a signi3cant problem. We now know that petroleum’s success created problems with global warming, energy security, and environmental impacts. To address these, people around the world are developing a variety of hydrogen technologies as a replacement for fossil fuels. Hydrogen’s advantages are well known and convincing [1,2]. It is versatile, clean, and can be produced from domestic primary energy sources such as
∗ Corresponding author. Current address: Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, P.O. Box 1625, Idaho Falls, ID 83415-2203, USA. Tel.: +1-208-526-4115; fax: +1-208-5260828. E-mail address: [email protected] (R.S. Cherry). 1 Described most famously in Herman Melville’s 3ctional Moby Dick, or The Whale.
biomass, wind, solar, and nuclear, although issues like production costs require more work. Hydrogen is an attractive answer to a signi3cant problem. Noticeably missing, though, is discussion of potential problems that widespread use of hydrogen—like petroleum before it—might bring, despite an early recognition of the need to think broadly about this question [3]. There are a number of such problems, most of which center on how this technology will 3t into society rather than on how to make the technology work. Addressing those problems to ensure societal acceptance requires an early understanding of who bears what costs and receives what bene3ts. Identifying and controlling the potential adverse consequences is an ethical requirement when developers and policy makers introduce any technology, and certainly one with such world-transforming potential. The perspective here is on American policy and society, but related issues exist in other countries. The implicit endpoint of many other analyses is assumed: the eventual replacement of fossil energy vehicle fuels with hydrogen produced from renewable sources, with some penetration of hydrogen into building-scale distributed generation of electricity which would likely be thermally integrated with central heating, air conditioning, and hot water generation. The extent of hydrogen’s penetration into these applications will be determined by technology performance and government incentives. It might well be only a partial penetration for
0360-3199/03/$ 30.00 ? 2003 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0360-3199(03)00121-6
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many decades, as di4erent applications develop under di4erent market conditions. This lower utilization would reduce the new technology’s consequences, good or bad, intended or not. 1. Unspoken consensus The use of hydrogen as an energy carrier is supported by organizations and individuals with many di4erent visions. One vision says that hydrogen is important because it enables the easier storage, transmission, and use of clean renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and biomass. Nuclear energy advocates support hydrogen for a similar reason, although they are de3nitely a separate group. Another vision for hydrogen focuses on reducing pro2igate energy use, a goal achieved by fuel cells’ much higher e;ciency than internal combustion engines. A third supports hydrogen primarily for reducing America’s dependence on foreign petroleum. For these advocates, centralized plants producing hydrogen from domestic coal and releasing the carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in accord with purchased future emission credits would be fully acceptable. A fourth vision pragmatically sees hydrogen-powered fuel cells as an opportunity to build new research programs or to create businesses around novel products for consumers and industry. Most commentaries about hydrogen support more than one of these visions in varying amounts. Although their long-term objectives are quite di4erent, in the short term all of these visions call for policies to develop fuel cell vehicles, stationary fuel cell applications, and hydrogen production and distribution infrastructure. Accordingly, the literature about hydrogen, and especially that intended for the public, has been surprisingly uniform in its optimistic assessment of the technology. Hydrogen advocates do admit to some di;culties. One is consumers’ potential concern about safety, as colored by images of the Hindenburg disaster and Cold War hydrogen bomb tests. Experts agree that hydrogen’s hazards are not greatly di4erent from other consumer fuels like gasoline, propane, or natural gas [2]. Moreover, sensors are available to detect leaking hydrogen gas (which is unodorized to protect fuel cell catalysts) and the nearly invisible 2ames of burning hydrogen. Such safety devices will continue to be further re3ned for consumer use. A second current issue is storage. Cars must be able to carry enough hydrogen to have a driving range acceptable to consumers, but the fuel’s low density makes this di;cult. Storage is a major area of research with several approaches under development [1,4,5]. A campaign to modify consumer expectation of 500 km between refuelings might also address this problem. The most substantive issue is cost. Estimates are that hydrogen will be perhaps 50 –100% more expensive in constant dollars than current fuels [4–6]. The greater e;ciency of fuel cell vehicles suggests that the cost per mile driven
will be similar, but this depends on the assumed performance of future vehicles and the performance gains that might be achieved with novel gasoline–electric or diesel–electric hybrid vehicles. In addition to the operating costs, hydrogen vehicles will cost more to purchase than conventionally fueled counterparts, especially in the early years before experience, mass production, and competition bring prices down. Government incentives for hydrogen use or disincentives for continued fossil energy use might be needed to o4set these higher operating and purchase costs. While this trio of safety fears, reduced driving range, and high costs all a4ect consumer acceptance, they are not penalties imposed on others—or unwittingly on the users—by adoption of the technology. There has been little open discussion of such possible negative externalities of a hydrogen economy. Even when they are known to exist, like public concern over nuclear-based production processes, they have been sidestepped in most writings. Given the mixed record of many other new technology introductions, the seeming consensus that a hydrogen economy has no side e4ects worth talking about is surprising. Continued expansion of hydrogen activities will eventually lead to competition with other programs in the federal budget, the marketplace, or global society. “Programs” here includes technical work as well as ideological activities promoting other conceptions of the public good such as, for instance, the “deep green” and antiglobalization movements. In defense of their own positions, those technical and social programs will trumpet the di;culties and penalties of switching to hydrogen. Even if those problems on balance are not enough to negate hydrogen’s advantages, the costs to mitigate them must be considered as part of implementing the technology. Hydrogen advocates can prepare for these inevitable debates by proactively exploring and addressing the negative e4ects on the public. The remainder of this paper presents some example problems that require more analysis. Many of them are based on analogous real situations from the last few decades, so they are not purely hypothetical worst cases. Although several of the issues concern the winding-down of fossil energy use rather than the start of hydrogen use, the magnitude of those problems will depend on how aggressively the switch to hydrogen is made. 2. Technical and environmental issues 2.1. Picking a winner The ability of any organization to foretell the future regarding energy has been poor. The 1950s slogan of nuclear electricity “too cheap to meter” has become a classic example of technological hubris. Synthetic fuels research in the late 1970s and early 1980s relied on faulty oil price assumptions to justify large amounts of applied research spending that eventually proved unproductive.
R.S. Cherry / International Journal of Hydrogen Energy 29 (2004) 125 – 129
As with battery-powered cars in the 1990s, tightly focused R&D programs could divert resources and attention from development of a better long-term solution. The current certainty about hydrogen’s overall bene3ts deserves critical examination not because of any fault of the technology but because of our own record of not picking winners well. Several speci3c issues derive from questioning the idea that hydrogen technology is a winner. One is understanding how a foreseeable major technology choice will be made: whether to convert the US vehicle fuel infrastructure to hydrogen or instead to cellulose-derived ethanol (as the primary fuel component, not just the 10% level compatible with existing gasoline infrastructure and vehicles). Although ethanol o4ers many of the same environmental and energy security bene3ts and has substantial technical and political support, converting to both fuels either in parallel or sequentially is unlikely to be a4ordable or desirable for the consumer vehicle 2eet. A second issue is assuring adequate support for other energy options in case fuel cell manufacturing costs, like electric vehicle performance in the previous decade, fail to reach their ambitious targets. A third is conducting a public debate on pursuing coal- or nuclear-based alternatives for making hydrogen if renewables-based technologies might be economically competitive with them. Fourth is protecting America’s energy security plans (and incidentally the nascent hydrogen industry) if oil producers, whether by intent or as a result of individual responses to the world market, drive the price of petroleum below $20 a barrel for perhaps a decade as happened in the 1990s. 2.2. Carbon sequestration Hydrogen is promoted as a clean fuel—“Emits only water!”—with the implication that it minimizes global climate change problems. In the next twenty years, though, hydrogen will likely be made by reforming natural gas. If this is done in large centralized facilities the co-product carbon dioxide can be collected simply. Central facilities are also the expected scenario for using “Clean Coal” technology to make hydrogen over the long term. However, the safety and environmental consequences of the sequestration options for that carbon dioxide, and perhaps more importantly the societal acceptability of those risks, are unknown. The controversies over nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain and hazardous waste incineration anywhere illustrate that negative public outcomes can occur in spite of the designers’ technical con3dence. On the other hand, if natural gas is reformed in distributed facilities such as service stations, collecting the carbon dioxide will be nearly impossible and a signi3cant potential bene3t will not be realized. The links between hydrogen and carbon sequestration—or more broadly, climate change in general—must be spelled out clearly for public debate.
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2.3. Catalyst and hydride metals The chemical processes that make and use hydrogen are accelerated by the use of catalysts, which are usually mixtures of exotic metals. The introduction of hydrogen technologies will lead to the widespread use of catalysts and a continuing search for better ones. In addition, various metal alloys are being evaluated for storing hydrogen as a metal hydride, a method which would use 50 –100 kg of alloy per vehicle. Depending on what metals are eventually used, there may be concern about public exposure in accidents or 3res or during the eventual disposal of the equipment. This is not a new kind of problem: other common materials that have a4ected the public include nickel–cadmium and lead–acid batteries, asbestos insulation, mercury thermometers and electrical switches, and lead-based paint. An additional novel hazard for consumers would be the spontaneous large heat generation (pyrophoricity) of some catalysts used in fuel reformers when they are exposed to air. As a second issue for catalyst or hydride alloy metals, if they are mined in politically problematic countries there could be controversy over labor issues or security of supply. Diamonds from war zones in Africa have su4ered a version of this problem in the last decade. 2.4. Petroleum product slate A shift away from gasoline as the major transport fuel will a4ect the availability and price of the other products that re3neries make from a barrel of petroleum. New process equipment will be required to convert a greater fraction of each barrel into the products still in demand. Building new small re3neries dedicated to waxes, lubricants, and heavier fuels might be more economical than modifying older re3neries primarily intended for gasoline production. The kinds of petroleum preferred as feedstock (heavy vs. light, aromatic vs. aliphatic) might also change, in turn a4ecting which countries are preferred suppliers. Byproducts like asphalt, petroleum coke, and sulfur will no longer be as available, so industries that use them will have to 3nd technically and economically acceptable substitutes. 2.5. Petroleum infrastructure shutdown As hydrogen made from renewables or nuclear energy captures a large fraction of the energy market, fossil energy facilities will shut down permanently. Many sites will be a half-century old or more and will require signi3cant environmental cleanup before they can be put to other use. Oil and gas production wells, re3neries, liquid pipelines, and transport terminals will likely present the greatest problems. The costs and technical problems of these cleanups may be substantial, potentially leading to extended litigation and bankruptcies. The enormous problems of remediating metals contamination at defunct mines throughout the West demonstrate this.
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3. Social and government policy issues 3.1. Employment shifts Given a concerted e4ort to develop a hydrogen economy, within several decades much of the petroleum production, re3ning, and distribution infrastructure will be replaced with new hydrogen facilities of similar total scale. A large downsizing of the petroleum importing and re3ning industry will have dramatic e4ects on employment along the Gulf coast and in other areas with concentrated re3ning industries. Feedstock di4erences make it unlikely that the hydrogen production industry will arise in the same locations to absorb those petroleum workers. States that produce petroleum might also see job losses with the complication that oil-producing regions are generally rural with few alternatives for employment. Large factors in the size of this problem will be the rate at which the conversion occurs as well as the balance in government policy between promoting hydrogen, discouraging fossil energy use, and encouraging energy e;ciency and conservation. Those policies would also have large e4ects in coal-producing regions. The regions supplying energy sources used to produce hydrogen will gain employment, especially if there are incentives for domestic supplies. Natural gas employment will climb at 3rst, but it and coal employment would drop if renewables signi3cantly penetrate the power generation as well as the hydrogen markets. Wind, solar, and biomass employment will increase over time. The construction of facilities for those new industries will create temporary employment surges in rural areas with consequent “boomtown” problems for housing availability and local school systems. 3.2. Land usage During the 3rst decades of hydrogen usage, when it will likely be made by reforming natural gas, there will be demand for increased domestic gas production. This will increase the already high levels of controversy around drilling on federal land in the West and around production of coal bed methane. Producing coal bed gas can damage streams by the discharge of copious amounts of mineral-containing water and can a4ect drinking water availability by dropping ground water levels. Hydrogen made from renewable energy sources can potentially supply all transportation needs [5]. Energy balances indicate that this is possible, although land areas comparable to a mid-sized state will be required. A recent economic study [7] predicted that up to 41.9 million acres (170; 000 km2 ) of land, some in current production and some in reserve, pasture, or idled, would be devoted to all forms of bioenergy use. Residents near these new systems may be opposed because of concerns about tra;c, noise, safety, environmental disruption, or aesthetics. Such concerns have been amply demonstrated with bans on oil
production o4 Santa Barbara, California and the Gulf Coast of Florida or in the Great Lakes, and on natural gas exploration o4 the mid-Atlantic coast. Renewable energy sources are not immune to this response: landowners in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts have recently opposed o4shore windmills that would be visible from the island. Large-scale conversion to biomass production of land currently in the Conservation Reserve Program will stir opposition from wildlife and waterway protection groups. 3.3. Transportation infrastructure Using renewably generated hydrogen for transportation involves converting di4use, low density energy sources to a low density energy carrier for distribution to vehicles at relatively low density across wide regions. The feasibility of the transportation infrastructure required for this complete system at the national scale has not been well considered, either in terms of costs or environmental impact. Minimizing the transportation distances by using many small collection and conversion systems to supply relatively few vehicles each would address this problem, but with the loss of economies of scale and the guarantee that many people will be at least somewhat impacted. Urban areas would have particular problems creating enough local energy collection systems because of their population density and lack of available space. 3.4. Energy equity It appears that hydrogen-fueled systems will be more expensive to purchase and operate than current fossil fuel vehicles and home heating equipment. Environmentally conscious consumers might voluntarily pay these extra costs, but low-income consumers do not have that option. The range of equipment and vehicle refueling options for consumers who continue using fossil energy might become highly restricted. Potential taxes on fossil energy intended to make hydrogen more competitive will a4ect the poor more than they a4ect the wealthy. Reduced fossil energy availability as hydrogen becomes the energy standard will impose additional inconveniences on the poor still using older vehicles or oil heating systems. A complementary problem occurs in rural locations with low population densities. Although individuals there might be willing and able to pay for hydrogen, the small market size and remoteness will lead to long delays in building hydrogen infrastructure because of inadequate 3nancial returns. A dearth of hydrogen refueling stations could further increase the cultural and economic isolation of those regions. The problem is analogous to that addressed by the Rural Electri3cation Administration in the 1930s and 1940s. Even today natural gas is not available in some rural regions, both illustrating the problem and contributing to it since natural gas is the expected primary feedstock for hydrogen production.
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3.5. Increased vehicle use and energy consumption Promotion of the bene3ts of hydrogen-fueled cars might lead to greater overall vehicle usage and therefore more congestion, urban sprawl, and even total energy use. This behavior is known in the insurance industry as moral hazard, where having insurance against a problem (in this case, a transportation fuel with pollution and availability problems) can lead to greater risk taking (vehicle energy consumption). Claims of “no environmental e4ects—emits only water”, true in a local sense but possibly not in a life cycle analysis, might hinder e4orts to further reduce energy consumption in consumer products. Increasing restrictions on fossil fuel availability might lead to greater use of public transit if hydrogen vehicles cost signi3cantly more than conventional cars. Providing the necessary buses or trains and upgrading rail lines or bus terminals could be a signi3cant expense for chronically underfunded metropolitan transit agencies, especially if the new vehicles themselves must run on hydrogen. 3.6. International consequences One goal of a large reduction in US dependence on foreign oil is reduced exposure to problems elsewhere, exposure that has led to a US commitment to stability in the Middle East. Other nations have also bene3ted from that stability. With a reduced US dependence, countries such as Japan, China, and India that will likely remain tied to that oil would see a changed geopolitical environment that would a4ect their foreign policies. In addition, oil-producing countries outside the Middle East, for instance Russia, Mexico, and Venezuela, will see changes in their petroleum earnings resulting from lower sales or lower oil prices. The ways they respond to this loss of income will undoubtedly alter their relations with America. 4. Technological responsibility A switch to hydrogen from fossil fuels o4ers many advantages to global society and overall is likely to be strongly bene3cial. At the early stages of developing this technology, it is easy to dismiss a list of di;cult problems as an attempt to derail the e4ort. The intent here is just the opposite, however. Addressing these concerns will help hydrogen succeed. Whether acknowledged now or not, these issues and others will be raised by various interest groups as the hydrogen economy grows increasingly likely. Solid reasons will exist for dismissing some of these concerns. Those reasons should be discussed publicly and any necessary mitigation actions should be funded and implemented at the proper time. Other concerns will not easily be allayed. In that case, technologists, corporate managers, and government o;cials have a responsibility to better understand and address these problems. Because of the scale of a future hydrogen econ-
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omy, this will likely require the development of new forms of stakeholder involvement during early stage technology design, system planning, and policy development. It will not be su;cient for any group to unilaterally declare “That’s not my problem” while going ahead. Aside from the questionable ethics of doing this, there are many examples where that approach did not work in the long run: poor working conditions in the overseas factories of American clothing 3rms, negligent industrial waste dumping in the 1960s and 1970s, and unresolved spent nuclear fuel disposition, among others. Hydrogen fuel will not o4er immediate returns to consumers to compensate for the higher purchase and operating costs. Except for the novelty value of having the 3rst fuel cell car in the neighborhood, the bene3ts will go to society as a whole over the long term. Hydrogen’s use will therefore have to be sold both to the public as a policy and to individuals each time they make an energy-related purchase. Their legitimate concerns will have to be addressed because a widespread hydrogen economy will inescapably touch every citizen. Hydrogen technology developers, in concert with social analysts and policy-makers, can act on this societal duty by identifying the problems at the start, quantifying their costs, and devising alternatives or ameliorations. To do otherwise is to disregard a looming responsibility to the public. Acknowledgements This work was done while the author was a Fellow at the National Academy of Engineering in Washington DC. The opinions expressed are those of the author. Support for that Fellowship from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and the NAE is gratefully noted. INEEL is managed for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC07-99ID13727. References [1] Dunn S. Hydrogen futures: toward a sustainable energy system. Int J Hydrogen Energy 2002;27:235–64. [2] Ogden JM. Hydrogen—The fuel of the future?. Phys Today 2002;55(4):69 –75. [3] Hydrogen R&D evaluation. In: Committee on Advanced Energy Systems, Energy Engineering Board. Hydrogen as a fuel. Washington, DC: National Research Council, 1979. 78p [Chapter IX]. [4] PadrVo CEG, Putsche V. Survey of the economics of hydrogen technologies. National Renewable Energy Laboratory Report NREL/TP-570-27079, September 1999. 53p. [5] Odgen JM. Prospects for building a hydrogen energy infrastructure. Annu Rev Energy Environ 1999;24:227–79. [6] Momirlan M, Veziroglu TN. Current status of hydrogen energy. Renewable Sustainable Energy Rev 2002;6:141–79. [7] de la Torre Ugarte DG, Walsh ME, Shapouri H, Slinsky SP. The economic impacts of bioenergy crop production on US agriculture. Knoxville, TN: Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, University of Tennessee, July 2000. 40p.