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Michael Kanellos Contributor


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Why Hydrogen Cars Could Still Be The Future

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  • Rick Jolly Rick Jolly 1 year ago

    Internal combustion engines are 15% efficient and fuel cells are 50% efficient. Now, how efficient is the process of reforming methane to hydrogen? How about the compression of hydrogen into the tanks? What about the loss of hydrogen through the tanks, since nothing can fully contain the smallest atom? Less efficient than an engine yet?

    How about range? The Honda FCX Clarity can’t match the range of the Tesla Model S. Hydrogen tanks take up more space than batteries!

  • Michael Kanellos Michael Kanellos, Contributor 1 year ago

    methane reforming. yes. An absolutely terrible process. 9 kilograms of co2 for every kilogram of hydrogen. It’s like brushing your teeth with coal dust. That’s one of the major problems that has to be worked out. But, again, that’s the draw: to solve the massive challenge. It beats just telling young engineers to come up with a new engine for serving banner ads.

  • I agree with you, but we see some rapid development of CCS. That might be the key to clean methane reforming.

    @Rick: Gasoline production is an extremely inefficient process as well. So the over all efficiency of driving an internal combustion engine car is going to be much lower than 15%.

  • Richard Richard 1 year ago

    Rick Jolly’
    Hydrogen is not an atom but a molecule. For instance, H20 (water), you have 2 molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of oxygen. The hydrogen molecule is very samll but it is a molecule. There have been hydrogen cars on the road for 10 years and I have not heard of hydrogen leakage being a problem. The Honda Clarity has twice the range of a Telsa Model S.

  • Richard Richard 1 year ago

    Michael Kanellos,

    You might want to read this article, I thought it was at the very least interesting.



    Michael – Love your stuff here, and on GTM. I conceptualize hydrogen as another form of storage. if that concept is valid, the question then has to do with the end-of-the-line conversion efficiencies of hydrogen vs CNG vs electric. Do you have any insight into that, in terms of Btu in at beginning of process vs Btu at tailpipe?

  • Michael Kanellos Michael Kanellos, Contributor 1 year ago

    Thank you. There are a few studies on CNG versus electric. Basically, in terms of joules per mile electric always wins. Even if you burn natural gas at a distant power plant and take into account the line losses. But you could see small efficient generators some day.
    Hydrogen would probably really stink if you are cracking methane to get it. Dan Nocera at MIT says he has a catalyst for cracking water for hydrogen with solar. If it works, hydrogen leaps to the top. Again, that’s why people I think are so drawn to it. If you can solve one of these problems, start handing out the Nobel prizes.

  • psumba80 psumba80 1 year ago

    This is all a pipe dream until the supply chain issues get resolved. We have effective supply chains in place for CNG & electric and adequate supply chains for gasoline. I have yet to hear any “visionary” credibly address the issue of hydrogen supply chains to fuel vehicles across the USA.

  • Michael Kanellos Michael Kanellos, Contributor 1 year ago

    But here is a bigger problem. How do you make CNG cars that people want to drive? The reviews are absolutely awful. Honda only sold 1500 of them last year. Everyone talks CNG but they will never be a consumer hit. The disadvantages of EVs without any benefits.

  • I agree with you, but like every energy transition that humanity has ever faced, it takes time. Spatially speaking, the transition will have to start small, and the government will have to offer more support to companies willing to participate in building fueling station networks. California will probably be one of the first to have a working network. There are programs out there already dealing with the fueling infrastructure issue. Others are working on delivery and storage. It’s a process, and the technologies will only improve.

  • What is the difference between Hydrogen and an electron? One proton. What is the price of separating that proton from the electron? Significantly more than the we pay for the zillions of electrons we use every day. So why do certain ‘technologists’ push Hydrogen vehicles? Why do they want to install very complex equipment that is predicted to cost more than $15,000 to do the separation, and very questionable hydrogen storage tanks, etc. when all they really need is a better capacitor or battery. Keeping it simple is always superior.

  • jabailo jabailo 1 year ago

    2009 in FCT (Fuel Cell Time) is like two centuries ago!

    Massive increases in performance and materials science.

    This is happening now in Europe…Hyundai is shipping production FCVs.

    It’s no longer if…or when…but NOW.

  • chris chris 1 year ago

    fueling stations? its called rain. catch it in a bucket. dump it in the tank. the converter can be installed on the car. that separates the hydrogen. get with the program forbes. damn, i thought this was supposed to be a cutting edge outlet

  • And pigs may yet fly.

    The conclusion is 100% wrong. From the energy sources that matter for eco friendliness which are all electric, a fuel cell car is 3 times less efficient than a battery car. That difference alone is decisive. HFC cars will never be. And HFC has 3 or 4 similarly crippling problems. The need for a massive refueling network because you can’t refuel at home unlike BEVs. That alone is decisive.
    HFC is complex not least because it requires many stages of handling 3-700bar pressure hydrogen. Never mind the legal liabilities due to dangers of such flammable pressures. That’s why not one HFC car model has ever been available for sale. That alone is decisive.

    And if you think the recharge time matters you are wrong there too. Old battery tech from 2005 like A123 can recharge in 5-15minutes. The few existing hydrogen refueling stations can take as much as 20 minutes to refuel, the lying scumbag proponents just forget to mention that little inconvenient truth.

    Nissan, Ford and Mercedes are incompetent morons. At best.
    Hyundai too. 2015 will come and go with no HFC cars for sale. 2017 too.

    I know as a money whore you have a hard on for these companies but make a note of my comment, pin it on the wall and remember my name when in 5 years you realize I was right.

    These shitheads fought against seatbelts, against collapsible steering columns, against mileage and they still to this day fight against mileage and EVs.

    Electric drive will take over everything. At first it will be battery, later something more exotic. NOT HFC.

  • leejjones84 leejjones84 1 year ago


    You mention the problems with sourcing hydrogen from cracking methane, which yes goes against everything fuel cell cars are trying to do. BUT you failed to look at on-site electrolysis. (as a caveat i work for a company that specializes in just that)

    Essentially electrolysis is just a fuel cell in reverse, using air and electricity (which can be sourced from renewables, there are working examples like the SunHydro station in CT) to split water and create hydrogen.

    The military has electrolysis refuelers, as does numerous transit authorities and stations in Germany. The technology is here, it just needs to develop to become economically viable on a large scale.

  • The SunHydro station in CT has a 75kW solar panel array which can produce enough hydrogen in an hour to drive about 75 miles (2.6kg of hydrogen which is equal to about 2.2 gallons of gas in a typical 35mpg car). A Tesla Model S with a 75kW-hour battery pack drives about 300 miles. That’s not even in the same ballpark. Hydrogen fuel is a marketing gimmick, not a realistic alternative to Li-ion batteries.

  • One of the advantages of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles have over EVs is that hydrogen can be stored indefinitely. So, if wind or solar power are used to produce hydrogen, off-peak electricity could be used to produce hydrogen. Another advantage is in the GHG emissions rate from well-to-wheal and tank-to-wheel. Reichmuth, et. al gathered relevant data and showed that HFCVs have a GHG emission rate of 0.20 kg CO2eq/mile if it is assumed that 100% of the hydrogen is steam reformed from natural gas. Meanwhile, current internal combustion engine vehicles have a GHG emission rate of 0.55 kg CO2eq/mile. This study can be found in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, and it demonstrates that HFCVs, even with polluting sources of hydrogen, can help reduce CO2 emissions. Even if you’re not on the GHG bandwagon, at least we can admit that mainstreaming HFCVs will have a huge positive impact on public health.

  • This may be the technology that changes everything…


    The U.S. Department of Energy says that hydrogen fuel has the potential to dramatically reduce reliance on fossil fuels and automobile manufacturers are aggressively trying to develop vehicles that run on hydrogen fuel cells. Unlike gas-powered engines that spew out pollutants, the only byproduct of hydrogen fuel is water. Zhang’s discovery opens the door to an inexpensive, renewable source of hydrogen.




  • Redox Power Systems, in conjunction with the University of Maryland Energy Research Center, have made a breathrough in lowering the operating temperatures of SO Fuel Cells (from 950 C to ~ 500 C.) This allows the use of conventional stainless steel parts instead of more expensive alloys. Their cell and reformer technology can use any HYDROcarbon such as natural gas, gasoline, etc. Further, their fuel cell technology produces 2W/cm2 (versus Bloom Energy’s 0.2W/cm2).

    Redox Power Systems estimates that their technology will have “one-tenth the cost and one-tenth the size of current commercial fuel cell systems” – See more at: http://mtech.umd.edu/news/press_releases/redox_wachsman_fuel_cells.html#sthash.zYHkFpWQ.dpuf

    If Redox Power Systems can create an automative application of their technology, it would solve for the moment, the pure “hydrogen” issue because it can use an already widely available hydrocarbon – gasoline.

    I do not work for Redox Power Systems – just an avid follower and investor of Fuel Cells.