Introduction to hydrogen as an energy vector
Where does hydrogen come from?
Interest in hydrogen is driven by a number of factors. Hydrogen is able to offer:
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These attributes arise because hydrogen has the potential to be produced from energy sources which are carbon-free, local and renewable. Hydrogen can provide a range of energy services, from electricity to transport, while emitting only water. Given these characteristics, hydrogen fuel, together with fuel cell energy converters may offer a unique opportunity to create a clean and efficient energy system based on sustainable primary energy sources. The investment required to develop these new energy systems means that there is the additional prospect of developing new industries.
Introduction to Hydrogen and Hydrogen Communities
- 1 A Vision of a Hydrogen Energy Economy
- 2 The Road to a Hydrogen Economy
- 3 Hydrogen Communities
- 4 Next steps
- 5 Glossary and list of abbreviations
- 6 References
These attributes arise because hydrogen has the potential to be produced from energy sources which are carbon-free, local and renewable. Hydrogen can provide a range of energy services, from electricity to transport, while emitting only water. Given these characteristics, hydrogen fuel, together with fuel cell energy converters may offer a unique opportunity to create a clean and efficient energy system based on sustainable primary energy sources. The investment required to develop these new energy systems means that there is the additional prospect of developing new industries.
What is hydrogen?
Hydrogen is a chemical element – it is colourless, odourless and a gas at room temperature. It reacts with oxygen, generating both water and energy. Hydrogen can be used as a fuel in combustion engines or to generate electricity in novel fuel cells. In many ways it can be thought of as similar to natural gas, with two important differences; hydrogen cannot simply be mined like methane; and when hydrogen is burned (reacted with oxygen) it does not produce carbon dioxide. Although hydrogen atoms are part of many familiar substances (notably water, but also most organic matter) pure or ‘elemental’ hydrogen – the kind that is useful in energy systems – is very rare on Earth. Nevertheless, hydrogen has been manufactured for a variety of purposes, including:
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and continues to be used as a rocket fuel and as a chemical feedstock in the fertiliser, petroleum, metal, and food production industries.
How is hydrogen used as a fuel?
Like any combustible fuel, hydrogen can be burned in air, producing heat. This could be used to heat a house or cook food. However, hydrogen is more often envisaged as being used in one of the following:
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The most common fuel for fuel cells is hydrogen, but different types of fuel cells exist which can run on other fuels such as natural gas or alcohols. If methanol (wood alcohol) or another hydrocarbon is used as the fuel, carbon dioxide will also be generated alongside electricity and water.
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Where does hydrogen come from?
Elemental hydrogen is very rare on Earth, and has to be manufactured using a source of energy (such as electricity or heat) and a source of hydrogen atoms (such as water or hydrocarbons). The two most common methods are:
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Other methods for hydrogen generation do exist, although they are less well developed. In all cases, the energy used in manufacturing the hydrogen must be more than the energy obtained when using the hydrogen at its point of end-use. Each stage of conversion usually has some energy losses associated with it.
Hydrogen is an ‘energy vector’, not an energy source
Hydrogen is often referred to as an ‘energy vector’ or (‘energy carrier’). The term refers to the fact that hydrogen is not something that can be mined from the ground. Rather, it is used to carry energy from one place to another, or to store it. An example of another energy vector is electricity, which carries energy (through power lines) from a power plant to a house. One of electricity’s weaknesses is that it is difficult to store (as is hydrogen).
What are prospective applications of hydrogen and fuel cells?
Hydrogen and fuel cells (H2&FC) can be used wherever there is a need for heat or power. The following is a list of the commonly imagined uses for H2&FC.
Note that the applications divide quite easily between those with a clear “social good”, such as emissions reduction and energy security, and those which are simply a practical and market driven application of new technology, largely indifferent to wider energy concerns.
The ‘market only’ applications are relevant to this document insofar as there is synergy between them and the “social good” applications. For example, if direct methanol fuel cells become commercially successful, this is likely to help to lower the cost of PEM fuel cells in vehicles. The ‘market only’ applications may be still relevant to communities who wish to develop economic growth in relevant industries.
Socially driven applications are important to this document, for it may be that public and community stakeholders value some of the “social good” benefits and can use this as a basis for early engagement in the development or deployment of the technology.
This document will make a distinction between transport-based hydrogen, and other applications of hydrogen and fuel cells because of the very different issues involved.
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The following is a list of important examples:
- Storage mechanism for intermittent power. In situations where either electricity supply or demand is intermittent, some energy storage may be useful to soak up excess energy when supply exceeds demand. Hydrogen has been proposed for this energy storage role, though it is a less efficient storage mechanism than, say, batteries or pumped hydroelectric storage. It would be manufactured at times of high electricity supply, and used in a fuel cell to generate electricity at times of high electricity demand.
- Combined heat and power. In homes and other buildings, fuel cells could produce power and use the ‘waste’ heat for space and hot water heating. Energy chain analysis suggests that in almost all cases, natural gas, rather than hydrogen, would be the fuel of choice.
- Centralised Power generation. Fuel cells offer higher efficiency than heat-based generators. Large centralised natural gas fired fuel cells could be a more efficient use of primary energy than the existing technology such as gas turbines.
- Pre-combustion carbon capture and storage. One way of using fossil fuels in large power plants, while avoiding large emissions of CO2 is to reform coal or natural gas into hydrogen and CO2 before combustion. The resulting CO2 can be captured and stored underground, and the hydrogen can be used for power generation.
The relevance of these technologies to the wider ‘hydrogen economy’ is quite variable:
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| Application | Likely conversion device | Likely Fuel | Main Driver |
| Transport | Fuel cell/ICE | Hydrogen | Social |
| Storage mechanism for intermittent energy | Fuel cell | Hydrogen | Social |
| Portable electronics – fuel cells could provide the same function as a battery, while being lighter and faster to refill. | DMFC Fuel cell | Methanol | Market |
| Centralised power generation – Fuelcells running on natural gas could bea more efficient way of generatingelectricity than conventional gas power plants. | High temperature Fuel cell | Natural gas | Social |
| Carbon-capture-and-storage (CCS) power generation. One way of capturing emissions of CO2 from coal is to convert the coal to hydrogen, capturing the consequent CO2. The hydrogen is then used to generate electricity. | Hydrogen gas turbine | Hydrogen | Social |
| Backup power (uninterruptible power supply – ‘UPS’) | PEM Fuel cell | Hydrogen | Market |
| Transport | Fuel cell/ICE | Hydrogen | Social |
| Micro combined heat and power – Fuel cells could generate on-site electricity for a house or district, using the waste heat to warm peoples’ homes and hot water instead of a conventional gas boiler. | High temperature/PEM fuel cell | Natural gas | Social |
| Auxiliary power systems for, e.g., caravans | DMFC/PEM Fuel cell | Methanol | Market |
| Off-grid power generation e.g. unmanned communications towers | DMFC/PEM Fuel cell | Methanol | Market |
How does hydrogen fuel for vehicles compare with other potential oil replacements?
The case for hydrogen in transport needs to consider not just how it compares with the incumbent, but how it compares with other alternatives to fossil fuels in vehicles. It is generally acknowledged that there are two other principal alternatives to fossil fuel in vehicles – biofuels and battery electric technology.
Biofuels are hydrocarbons produced from organic material. As they are not fossil in origin, their use does not result in a net increase in atmospheric CO2. Biofuels are appealing as – once they are produced – they require limited changes in infrastructure. The performance and cost of a vehicle powered by biofuel would not differ substantially from a fossil fuel powered vehicle.
A concern with first generation biofuels is that the arable land area constrains the amount of biofuel which can be produced. Biofuels compete with crop production and may increase food prices. While emerging biofuel (second generation) production technologies may lessen the problem it would not be removed completely.
Battery electric vehicles (BEV) could provide another zerocarbon solution, if renewable electricity is used to charge the batteries. However, the size and weight of existing batteries compared with the amount of energy they store heavily constrains the range of battery-powered cars, limiting their suitability to largely urban operation[2]. Long recharging times, high cost and scarcity of some metals are further constraints on this option.
The main attraction of this option is that the “fuel supply” infrastructure (electricity) already exists. If battery performance was to improve markedly and cost was to reduce, BEVs could represent a complete solution to decarbonising transport. However at this time both are a significant challenge.
Hydrogen technology is the third alternative for decarbonising transport. It too has significant challenges. Hydrogen is difficult to store in useful quantities and like batteries, this has limited the range of some vehicles. Technological immaturity and lack of mass-production means hydrogen vehicles are very expensive. Also, hydrogen will require a new fuel supply infrastructure to be developed. However, if these challenges are overcome, hydrogen vehicles could perform as well as fossil fuel vehicles, but without CO2 emissions.
| Cost | Infrastructure/RTD needed | Performance | Energy source | |
| Biofuel fuelled vehicles | Almost cost-neutral today | Little further infrastructure or RTD required | Equivalent performance to current vehicles | Resource is limited. Socio-economic and environmental implications. |
| Battery electric vehicles | Remains expensive | Further RTD needed | May have insurmountable problems with range and recharging time. | Can use any primary source |
| Hydrogen vehicles | Remains very expensive | Much more infrastructure and RTD needed | Close to being performance-competitive. Potentially better performance than existing vehicles | Can use any primary source. though with lower efficiency than BEVs |
Hydrogen Energy Chains
An ‘energy chain’ is a way of thinking about how energy flows from a source to its final use (see diagram above). Typically, at each stage in a chain, energy is converted from one form to another. Generally, complex energy chains will involve energy losses and expensive equipment at each conversion stage. For this reason it is important to carefully consider the production, transport, storage and end-use of hydrogen.
Production
Hydrogen can be produced using a variety of methods. The energy that is eventually produced by the hydrogen cannot be greater than the amount of primary energy originally used to produce it – and may be significantly less.
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Transmission and storage of hydrogen
Hydrogen is a gas at normal temperatures and pressures, so storing it in useful quantities is a technical challenge. It is usually stored as either a compressed gas in cylinders, or as an ultracold liquid in cryogenic tanks and transported on trucks. There is also research into storing hydrogen within other solids. Pipelines offer a means of both storage and transport.
The important challenge of hydrogen storage is to achieve high energy density without high cost. In other words, it is important that for a given quantity of hydrogen, the storage system is neither too bulky nor too heavy, nor too costly. Currently, hydrogen storage systems are much larger and heavier than their petrol equivalents.
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End-use
There are two major ways hydrogen can be used for energy – in fuel cells or in combustion engines.
Fuel cells combine hydrogen with oxygen to produce electricity, water and some waste heat. The hydrogen is separated from the oxygen by an electrolytic membrane, which only allows ions to pass through. In order for the hydrogen and oxygen to combine to produce water, an electric current must pass from one electrode to the other to balance the charges.
There are many types of fuel cells, with different characteristics – including operating temperature, fuel, and efficiency. Some of the most common fuel cells are:
These can generally be characterised as either low or high temperature.
The low temperature fuels cells (PEM, AFC and PAFC) have the following properties.
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The above are likely to be suitable for mobile/transport applications and small (<50kW) stationary applications.
The high temperature fuels cells (SOFC and MCFC) have the following properties.
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Due to their weight and complexity, these are likely to be suited to large scale stationary power generation (100kW to 10MW).
Combustion
Hydrogen burns in oxygen similarly to other combustible substances. A standard internal combustion engine requires limited modification in order to be suitable to run on hydrogen. This makes hydrogen internal combustion (H2ICE) powered cars much cheaper than their fuel cell counterparts.
Compared with fuel cells, a downside of internal combustion engines is their relative inefficiency. At an average efficiency of around 20-30%[4] they require more primary energy than equivalent fuel cell vehicles. They also require more onboard hydrogen storage in order to travel the same distance, which has its own technical difficulties.
H2ICE vehicles are seen as providing a ‘stepping stone’ in the path to a hydrogen economy.
It should be noted that H2ICE vehicles do produce some emissions. Some oxides of nitrogen (NOx) are produced, and tiny amounts of CO2 are produced due to the combustion of the engine’s lubrication oil.
To conclude, there are various potential energy chains which could offer the potential to establish more sustainable energy systems in Europe. There are technical difficulties with many components of these chains.
The Current State of Hydrogen and Fuel Cells
Hydrogen as an energy carrier is at the pre-commercialisation stage. It exists in demonstration projects and laboratories. The cost of hydrogen technologies is still prohibitively high for typical commercial consumers.
Hydrogen production
Hydrogen is produced in large volumes for industrial processes. The following chart shows the quantities of hydrogen used by the major industries in Western Europe. The total is 19 million tonnes of oil equivalent per year. In energy terms, this is approximately equivalent to 0.5% of the world’s annual oil consumption.
Some hydrogen is produced as a by-product in certain industries but is vented to the atmosphere. This surplus hydrogen is estimated to be between 1.3 and 3.6 Mtoe, theoretically enough to supply 3 – 6 million vehicles, or 3% of Europe’s car fleet, although much of this hydrogen would need to be purified before use[5].
The potential long-term methods for producing renewable or carbon neutral hydrogen, as discussed above, are at various stages of development, and only electrolysis from renewable electricity has been used to date.
Hydrogen and fuel cell technology – status and notable achievements
Most H2&FC end use technologies today are bespoke rather than mass produced, and are operated in the context of demonstration projects rather than on a commercial basis.
Many of the large automobile manufacturers have hydrogen research programs. The companies each have their own research focus, producing one-off vehicles for demonstration projects. Since road-testing a prototype is advantageous for the company as well as the consumer, vehicles may be sold at prices below their production costs. The following is a map of hydrogen and fuel cell demonstration projects in Europe.
Some notable recent achievements of the hydrogen/fuel cell industry are:
Transport – demonstration
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Stationary
Portable
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Summary: A vision for a Hydrogen Energy Economy
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The Road to a Hydrogen Economy
The previous section illustrated possible visions for a hydrogen economy. In this section, we consider some of the barriers to this vision and how these might be overcome.
Barriers to use of hydrogen:
Cost of technology
Costs of hydrogen technologies today are much higher than their fossil-fuel counterparts. This is the biggest barrier to the uptake of hydrogen technology.
The reasons for high cost have to do with technological maturity. The biggest factor, however, is the lack of economies of scale. Mass-commercialisation is needed for hydrogen to be competitive with conventional technologies:
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This ‘chicken-and-egg’ relationship between production and consumption is one of the most fundamental challenges of commercialising a technology that competes with a massproduced incumbent.
Supply chain/infrastructure
The lack of refilling stations, or other easy access to hydrogen presents another ‘chicken-and-egg’ problem. Refuelling stations will only provide hydrogen if there is enough demand.
Early petrol infrastructure developed much more easily, since petrol can be stored and transported easily. Also it did not have to compete with and attempt to displace an existing energy infrastructure. As a model for developing infrastructure, the success of compressed natural gas vehicles in some countries (Argentina and Bangladesh) may be more appropriate.
Regulation/standards
It was shown above that hydrogen is in common use as a feedstock in a range of industries. Its use here is tightly regulated, and safety is paramount. However its use in energy systems is still very novel, and appropriate regulations and standards have not yet been developed. Significant efforts are underway to develop regulations and harmonise these across countries. The lack of internationally recognised codes, regulations and standards slows down the development of new hydrogen and fuel cell products and projects.
Public acceptance
There is a concern that people will be reluctant to adopt hydrogen technologies, even once they meet cost and performance-competitiveness, due to unfamiliarity and fears about safety. How serious this concern really is remains unclear. But it is clear that the public will need to be trained and educated as hydrogen technologies require different operational procedures – refuelling a hydrogen car is different to filling a petrol car.
Hydrogen production and distribution
The uptake of hydrogen technology is limited by the availability and price of the hydrogen itself. Currently, hydrogen is significantly more expensive than petrol.
There is also the issue of obtaining hydrogen from low-carbon sources. It shouldn’t be forgotten that this is the principal reason for using hydrogen in the first place. Carbon-free energy sources need to be harnessed to supply increasing need for hydrogen.
Finally, if centralised production is desired, distribution routes to take hydrogen from a production plant to a filling station’s forecourt need to be established.
Possible pathway to a hydrogen economy
The barriers outlined in the previous section might be overcome in a number of ways. This section illustrates today’s thinking on how to reach the hydrogen economy. The analysis pertains mostly to hydrogen in transport, rather than to other uses for hydrogen and fuel cells.
Consumer uptake
The common theme to the barriers described above is the ‘chicken-and-egg’ dilemma. Ordinary consumers, who comprise the largest section of the market, won’t buy, for example, hydrogen cars until they are cost and performance-competitive with conventional cars, and there is sufficient refilling infrastructure. But this won’t happen until there are enough cars being produced and on the roads.
The solution generally envisaged is for H2&FC technologies to gradually enter the market in ‘niche’ areas, where high costs and lack of infrastructure are less of a barrier than they are in the conventional market. Pioneering consumers and users will take the risk – and be rewarded by status and first mover advantages. Their purchases will facilitate continued investment and development in fuel cell and hydrogen technology. In turn, this will improve performance and reduce costs, making the technology attractive to a larger number of consumers. This virtuous circle can ultimately lead to mass market applications.
Early markets will be ones where hydrogen’s current weaknesses are less of a barrier, and where its strengths are more relevant. Some examples of characteristics which satisfy these criteria are:
manufactured on a small scale, hydrogen’s competitive disadvantage is lessened.
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In the “niche” model, hydrogen refuelling infrastructure will need to be installed to match demand. Oversizing of supply infrastructure would allow other end users to start using hydrogen. Hybrid cars able to run on either hydrogen (ICE) or petrol could provide an important ‘stepping stone’. Once a reasonable demand for hydrogen is established, it will be sensible for companies to complete their networks of refilling services.
As the market expands, prices will fall, and infrastructure will be more accessible. Hydrogen vehicles will become attractive to an increasingly wide range of consumers.
Development of technology and industry
More research is needed to improve costs and performance for hydrogen technologies. Some areas where improvement is envisaged:
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Although we are some distance from achieving these goals, recent developments suggest we can be optimistic regarding fuel cell developments. On the other hand, improvement of hydrogen storage techniques is progressing less quickly[16].
As well as the research-based activities described above, the hydrogen industry itself will need to expand. Infrastructure, manufacturing capacity, and supporting services will all need to develop rapidly. This can be driven by demand as consumer uptake increases. Maintaining the required level of demand, while the technology develops towards a level acceptable to the mass market, is quite a challenge.
Existing Efforts
Most industrialised countries have hydrogen energy programs. Activity is particularly focused in the US,Western Europe and Japan.
For the funding year 2007, the US’s ‘Hydrogen Fuel Initiative’ requested $290m from the US Government budget, broken down as follows[17]:
Public funding in Europe is estimated at ¤320m – ¤350m per year. These budgets are dwarfed by the global spending on H2&FC R&D by automobile companies, an estimated ¤5 billion per year[15].
The EU’s ‘Hydrogen Implementation plan’, written by the ‘Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform’ (HFP) gives the following plan for the timescales of hydrogen deployment.
Summary: The road to the hydrogen economy.
The most significant barriers to the commercialisation of hydrogen and fuel cells are:
The pathway to a hydrogen economy involves the following:
Achieving widespread uptake of hydrogen energy will not be cheap, and will require the sustained efforts of a range of public and private stakeholders.
The efforts to move to commercialisation of H2FC are currently being undertaken by governments, particularly in the US, Europe and Japan, major car companies, and SMEs developing innovative technology.
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Hydrogen Communities
What is a Hydrogen Community?
The Roads2HyCom project is centred around the notion of a ‘Hydrogen Community’. The project defines a hydrogen community as follows:
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A Hydrogen Community refers to an early adopter of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell technologies, having the potential to lead to a coordinated, larger-scale adoption of such technologies within a coherent end-user grouping
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In practice such communities could be regions, cities, remote locations (such as islands), self-contained entities (airports, seaports, industrial complexes, etc), or distributed entities (hydrogen highways, etc). In a Hydrogen Community, Hydrogen plays a significant role in the community as an energy vector.
A Hydrogen Community may evolve out of, or in parallel to, large demonstration projects. Possible cluster activities within the Community can include fundamental or applied research and demonstration projects that feed new technology into the Community.
Communities have the opportunity to help address the main challenges discussed above.
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Here are some indicative examples of how this might work.
positively branding the city, and providing a real-world situation to test and advertise hydrogen buses. Eventually it might convert its entire bus fleet to hydrogen, which would allow suppliers to ramp up manufacturing capacity (in alliance with other cities perhaps, to get the advantage of bulk purchasing).
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Why are hydrogen communities important?
Section 2.1 identified some of the main barriers to the hydrogen economy. Community-level action can provide a major part of the solution to these barriers. In particular:
Communities can be early adopters
For the commercialisation of hydrogen and fuel cells, it is essential that the immature technologies are able to be demonstrated in real world conditions. This is also crucial from the point of view of the technologies gaining public acceptance. Purchasing demonstration vehicles for example, could be undertaken on a number of scales – it could be national or on a private individual basis. The concept of a ‘community as an end user is very promising.
Communities offer a good end user:
localised to a region or city, it makes sense for this to be the political unit responsible for infrastructure issues.
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Communities can support hydrogen and fuel cell industries
Hydrogen and fuel cells are novel, developing technologies and many regions are interested in claiming some value in some area of the technology supply chain – from research to manufacturing and distribution
Communities are trying to develop ‘clusters’ where a number of hydrogen technology-related organisations are geographically localised, and are able to benefit from being close to one another. This is seen as a way to promote regional innovation, and contributes to the development of hydrogen technologies.
Communities can part finance projects
There are a number of motives, including public good and regional economic development, which form the basis for communities contributing to some of the costs of hydrogen and fuel cell development, and demonstration projects. A broad range of instruments are used to provide community part financing. These will be analysed in the subsequent volumes of this handbook. The objective of this analysis will be to identify:
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Communities can help to establish a hydrogen supply
Remote communities who are energy rich (windy islands for example) may have difficulty exporting their energy as electricity. Hydrogen offers another way to export the energy – providing local benefit and leading to establishment of hydrogen supply chains. Regions with a traditional energy supply (such as gas power stations) can also become hydrogen producers. Low cost gasification processes are seen as one of the promising ways of producing hydrogen in the near term.
What are the benefits for the community?
Depending on its specific circumstances, there are a number of reasons why communities could be stakeholders in hydrogen projects. The most often-cited ones are:
Innovation and growth benefits – Expertise in cutting-edge technologies like H2&FCs might improve the competitiveness of local firms, or generate new high value organisations. New clusters combining competences on energy, transportation and services may emerge. Aside from business and economic growth the community as a whole would benefit via learning processes and strengthened cooperation between different actors in the field of high-technology (universities, research institutes, public actors etc.). The community would acquire eco-innovative credentials which later on could attract new investments and funding.
New business opportunities – Some towns, cities or regions have a strong economic dependency on industries that are now in clear decline. Engaging with a growth industry like hydrogen can offer a chance to re-invigorate a local economy. This could mean manufacturing hydrogen technologies, producing hydrogen from a local energy source, or expanding research facilities.
Apart from providing platforms for new industries in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies, these technologies could affect existing industries. In the first place they could replace older technologies such as batteries and small combustion engines.
Services are also likely to be needed to facilitate the introduction of a hydrogen economy. These include specialised financial services, insurance, logistics, shipping, truck transportation, retail, surveillance and overhaul and maintenance. Furthermore, hydrogen and fuel cell technologies can be the technological platform for developing totally new services such as energy storage. Some regions might prefer to promote such service industries instead of traditional industrial manufacturing.
Publicity, prestige and ‘branding’ – With a growing international awareness of climate change, cities are eager to improve their profile by establishing their green credentials. For example, London’s bid for the 2012 Olympic Games included displaying its fuel cell buses.
Clean local air – An indisputable benefit of hydrogen vehicles is their lack of toxic pollutants. In congested, polluted cities this can be a strong driver.
Concern for the global environment – People are beginning to accept the concept that individuals, governments and businesses have a responsibility to look after interests other than just their own, as is evidenced, for example, in the rise of ‘corporate responsibility’. Communities may have a genuine desire to promote the long-term humanitarian and environmental good.
Usefulness of H2&FC technology – a community’s particular circumstances may make it one of the ‘niche consumers’ described above, where it becomes economically sensible to make use of what H2&FC has to offer.
Examples of communities
Although communities may choose to become interested in hydrogen for any reason, the three major categories of hydrogen communities to date are cities, regions, and islands/remote regions.
Cities
Large cities like London, Berlin and Los Angeles have heavily promoted hydrogen-powered urban transport. The reasons have generally been concern for the global environment, local environment and prestige.
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Examples of regions
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Examples of islands/remote areas
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Summary: Hydrogen communities
The term ‘Hydrogen Community’ refers to early adopters of H2&FC technology, who have the potential to become large scale adopters. Cities, regions, islands, and industrial zones are examples of potential hydrogen communities.
Communities are important for the commercialisation of H2&FC technologies:
Communities may be interested in adopting H2&FC technology, as it can offer:
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Next steps
The purpose of this document has been to set out briefly, and in simple terms, what the vision for a hydrogen based energy economy might be, what the main challenges to this vision are, and what role communities – amongst a range of stakeholders – will have in attaining this vision. Achieving this vision will require significant and sustained effort, and not every community will be in a position to commit to this.
However, community stakeholder involvement is vital if the vision is to be realised. The purpose of the two remaining volumes in this series, is to add detail to the outlines provided above, helping the reader develop a sensible, informed strategy for engagement in hydrogen energy, and to implement successful projects that benefit all stakeholders.
Glossary and list of abbreviations
BEV Battery electric vehicle
Biofuel Hydrocarbons produced from biological sources in the active carbon cycle
Carbon-free energy source an energy source which doesn’t involve emitting CO2 into the atmosphere
CCS Carbon capture and storage, a (yet unproven) process to capture CO2 from a concentrated source and store it (in, e.g. depleted fossil fuel reservoirs) to prevent it contributing to global warming
CCTV Closed circuit television camera
CHP ‘Combined heat and power’. Using a fuel to generate electricity while putting the inevitable waste heat to use
CO2 Carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas)
CUTE ‘Clean urban transport for Europe’ a hydrogen bus project involving nine European cities from 2001 to 2006
DMFC Direct methanol fuel cell
FC Fuel cell
H2 Hydrogen
H2&FC Hydrogen and fuel cells
H2ICE Hydrogen internal combustion engine
HFP “Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform”, a EU technology platform aiming to accelerate the development and deployment of hydrogen and fuel cell technology in Europe
Hydrogen fuel initiative A heavily funded US government initiative intended to “develop hydrogen, fuel cell, and infrastructure technologies needed to make it practical and cost-effective for large numbers of Americans to choose to use fuel cell vehicles by 2020”
ICE internal combustion engine
PEM fuel cell Proton Exchange fuel cell
RTD research and technical development
SME Small or medium enterprise
UPS Uninterruptible power supply (e.g. grid electricity combined with a backup generator)
US DOE United States Department of Energy
References
- ↑ IEA World Energy Statistics 2004
- ↑ “Status and Prospects for Zero Emissions Vehicles Technology”, State of California Air Resources Board Sacramento, California 2007
- ↑ “European Hydrogen Infrastructure Atlas” Roads2HyCom deliverable 2.1
- ↑ “Well-to-Wheels analysis of future automotive fuels and powertrains in the European context TANK-to-WHEELS Report”; Version 2c, March 2007. Concawe, EUCAR, EC Directorate-General Joint Research Centre. http://ies.jrc.ec.europa.eu/WTW
- ↑ “Industrial excess hydrogen analysis” Roads2HyCom deliverable 2.1a
- ↑ http://www.gm.com
- ↑ http://www.bmwgroup.com
- ↑ http://world.honda.com/
- ↑ www.hfpeurope.org
- ↑ http://www.plugpower.com
- ↑ http://www.cellexpower.com
- ↑ http://www.investor-sfc.com/
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 http://www.fuelcellmarkets.com
- ↑ http://www.cmrfuelcells.com
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 “Implementation plan - status 2006” European Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform.
- ↑ “Implementation plan - status 2006” European Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform.
- ↑ Hydrogen Posture Plan” US DOE, December 2006.
- ↑ http://www.cep-berlin.de
- ↑ http://www.hydrogenhighway.ca.gov
- ↑ http://www.lhp.org.uk
- ↑ http://www.innovation.nrw.de
- ↑ http://www.renewteesvalley.co.uk
- ↑ http://www.hydro.com
- ↑ http://www.cne-siar.gov.uk
| Handbook for Hydrogen Communities |
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Introduction to Hydrogen and Hydrogen Communities | Deciding to form a Hydrogen Community
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