
The vehicle pictured above is the $2M+, 2000 hp, 1000 mile range Hyperion XP1 sports car. It has absolutely no relevance to this article or to average Canadians except to offer visual proof that exciting things are starting to happen in the world of hydrogen powered electric vehicles.
Ok, so back to reality for average Canadians. What’s happening with zero emission vehicles?
On December 19th, the Canadian government announced the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard, which establishes the requirement that all vehicles will be zero emissions vehicles by the year 2035. Since the standard allows plug-in hybrid vehicles with a least an 80 km all electric capability, it’s not really all zero emissions vehicles, but it’s a big step towards eliminating almost all internal combustion engines.
I don’t have a major problem with the announcement and its objectives. I believe that the infrastructure problems may prove intractable and we might fail to achieve that lofty target, but the notion isn’t bad. Everyone understands that charging stations will have to be ubiquitous and charging times will have to be decreased for electric vehicles to succeed. But the infrastructure problems go far beyond those concerns.
A little article out of Finland estimates that it takes 0.2 KWH of energy to drive an average electric vehicle one Km. In 2019, there were 23.5M light vehicles on the road (leaving out buses and transport trucks). Let’s assume it’s 25 million by now and assume average driving of 20000 km/year, just to make the math easy. That means we need a national grid with 100 terawatt hrs of generation available just for electric vehicles. The total Canadian grid in 2022 was about 640 terawatt hrs, so we’re looking for a 16% increase in electricity supply in just 11 years. And that only accounts for the increased load owing to electric vehicles. What about all those heat pumps that the government would like us to switch to so that we’re not burning fossil fuels in our furnaces?
The Canadian Climate Institute estimates that Canada’s electricity grid will need to double by 2050. Of course, that gets us to net zero only if we’re producing all that electricity from clean energy sources – solar, wind and nuclear. The CCI blithely states that 60 to 90% of new growth will have to be solar or wind, giving little credit to nuclear. I think they’re wrong there, as I think a substantial investment in nuclear energy is all that can really save us. However, the point is made – enormous investments in clean electricity production are necessary for us to achieve net zero. And if we’re making enormous increases in electricity production, we will need a huge expansion of our transmission and distribution systems. Big bucks.
But I digress. This wasn’t really what I’d planned to talk about.
What I planned to talk about was the hydrogen economy. What the heck ever happened to plans for hydrogen powered vehicles? Well, it turns out that the standard proposed by the government provides for hydrogen powered vehicles. The standard requires zero emission vehicles, and hydrogen powered cars would qualify. And furthermore, the government published, in 2020, The Hydrogen Strategy for Canada, a 117 page report capturing three years of work by study groups looking at the use of hydrogen as an energy source.
I think, though, that the government of Canada is all-in on battery powered vehicles. That huge strategy document on the use of Hydrogen as a fuel looks, to me, like a dust collector on government shelves. Despite the fact that the new standard allows for hydrogen powered vehicles, it is almost impossible to find any reference to them in government news releases. And federal government investments of approximately $10B in the EV plants for Stellantis and Volkswagen have demonstrated where the government hearts and minds are committed. So why? Why are we not apparently hungry for hydrogen powered vehicles?
Both battery powered vehicles and hydrogen fueled EV’s come with a set of pro’s and con’s. It was a revelation to me that the hydrogen powered internal combustion engine(ICE) has almost – not quite but almost – been abandoned in favour of hydrogen fuelled, fuel cell driven, electric engines. It turns out that the H2 powered ICE isn’t as clean and easy as I thought. The combination of hydrogen with oxygen produces only water…except that in the presence of nitrogen, it also produces a number of nitrogen oxide compounds which makes the hydrogen powered ICE a source of pollution. So, we’ll confine our discussion to fuel cell EVs. For simplicity I’ll refer to them as BEVs and HEVs for battery and hydrogen energy sources.
HEVs have longer range, typically, than BEV’s and they also have much shorter refuel times. Further, HEVs are largely unaffected by cold temperatures whereas BEVs lose significant range in colder weather. All of which would seem to predispose us to using HEVs.
Both HEVs and BEVs are expensive to produce, using some hard to obtain materials like rare earth minerals. Batteries require lithium, and graphite. Fuel cells are hungry for some even less commonly available materials such as platinum and palladium. Supply chain issues for the rapidly developing EV market will be problematic for both these competing technologies. Recycling and reuse of these materials is more difficult for electric batteries than it is for fuel cells but in both cases, we’re still currently facing supply chain issues. Let’s call this a tie.
Where things get difficult for HEVs is the cost and availability of hydrogen. There are two ways to produce hydrogen for EV consumption. The first is to electrolyze it using a clean electricity energy source – think new nuclear power here. However, when you look at that entire process you find that you have a sequence of processes, each with some degree of inefficiency. The first is the production of electricity. The second is the electrolysis process. The third is the storage and transport of hydrogen and the fourth is the actual fuel cell process. It has been estimated that the overall energy efficiency of the process is something like 30%, and that might be optimistic.
The second way to produce hydrogen is by the cracking of hydrocarbons from petroleum. That process is currently cheaper than electrolysis, but in a net zero emissions future, it would need to be tied to carbon capture technology which would increase the cost. The bottom line is that hydrogen is attractive as a fuel if it was readily available and cheap. Right now, it isn’t either.
One of the significant issues that plagues the HEV is the issue of storage and transport. There are three ways to do that. The first is to have high pressure storage tanks. These are not, as many people fear, terribly unsafe. But they do have to be fairly big, so they’re easier to adapt to large vehicles than small ones. Also, they require refuelling stations equipped to handle high pressure hydrogen gas.
The second process is to liquify the hydrogen which vastly reduces the volume for storage. However, hydrogen has a very, very, low boiling point, and it’s an energy consuming process to get it to liquify. Liquification is used for bulk delivery (international shipping) of hydrogen, but is unlikely to become a major part of local delivery processes.
The third storage process is to adsorb the hydrogen (at relatively low pressures) onto the surface of some catalyst material and then release it for consumption when required. The problem with catalytic adsorbents is that they come in two types – too weak and too strong. If the adsorbent is weak, the storage system won’t hold as much. If it’s too strong, as with many metal hydrides, then the adsorbent must be heated to drive the hydrogen off when it’s needed.
So HEVs promise better range and refuelling flexibility than BEVs, but they are not yet competitive because of the economics of the production, storage and transport of hydrogen.
There is a line of thought out there that hydrogen would be well suited to large transport vehicles like trucks and buses which can handle large hydrogen pressure tanks, whereas BEVs might be better for small commuter vehicles. Such a diversity of supply could work very well and would allow HEVs to achieve their natural share of the market based on the whole gamut of issues – fuel cost, range, flexibility and convenience.
But here’s a sad thought. Such diversity of supply might work very well in Europe, or even in the United States. But Canada is a physically huge country with a relatively low population density. The cost of providing infrastructure for BEVs is going to be very challenging for Canada. Provincial and Federal governments are likely to be on the hook for some (most?) of the cost of greatly expanding the electricity grid. Will they provide similar support for hydrogen distribution so that it’s a level playing field? The cost of providing infrastructure for two different EV systems may be too much for us to take on. And so, there may be a need for Canada to go all-in on one system or the other.
The problem with that is that there isn’t yet a clear winner, and we’re placing our bets pretty early in the game.
There’s a ton of research underway on how to improve hydrogen storage systems especially around the use of different catalyst surfaces to promote relatively low-pressure storage. So, that’s a problem that might be solved.
There is research work underway to eliminate some of the most rare and expensive materials from both BEV batteries and HEV fuel cells. Battery researchers are looking at cobalt, manganese, nickel as replacement for lithium. An article on horizoneducational.com says for example that very expensive platinum and palladium based fuel cells might be replaceable with cells based on compounds of cobalt, nickel or lanthanum, which would all be cheaper than platinum and palladium. Thus, fuel cell material supply is another problem that might be solved.
Finally, there is a potential answer out there for the high cost of producing hydrogen for use in HEVs. A December 2023 article in the Economist informs us that there is growing interest in mining for hydrogen – getting it out of the ground as “geologic” H2 with no need for expensive electrolysis or petroleum cracking processes. In 1987, in Mali, a well was drilled to provide a water supply. It came up dry, but some spark ignited the gas coming out of the well, alerting the owner that something significant was happening. Gas testing showed that it was 98% hydrogen. The owner drilled some other wells and developed that resource. Now, some 46 years later, the Economist reports that “Now those villagers have reliable light and power day and night—a rarity in rural Mali.” There are several as yet unproven theories about where the hydrogen is coming from. One of the more promising and more likely theories is that iron-rich rock below the Earth’s surface reacts with very hot water to produce iron oxide and hydrogen gas, and it then makes its way to the surface along cracks or seams. Geologic hydrogen has been found in France, America, Brazil, Australia, Colombia South Africa and Australia. And yes, in Canada. There are start-up companies looking for hydrogen in at least nine sites in the US, six in Australia plus several other scattered about the world. And yes, one in Canada. It’s not a sure thing, but we might get to a place where hydrogen is readily available from the ground like natural gas.
If these ongoing research and development activities into the production, transport and storage of hydrogen are successful, we may reach a point where hydrogen fuelled vehicles are preferred because of their range and easy refuelling capability, and they’re no longer ruled out by cost issues. And if we reach that point, we might find that Canada has been left behind.
America is pumping money into hydrogen fuel development. Japan is targeting to have 800,000 HEVs on the road. An article in Top Speed magazine declares “the future of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles seems bright, as numerous established automakers such as BMW, Toyota, Hyundai, Honda, and others are investing heavily in the development of this cutting-edge technology.” The article then goes on to highlight 15 prototype or concept HEVs that are expected to come to the market soon (including of course, the Hyperion XP1).
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Canada isn’t fully committed to BEVs at the expense of HEV development. But I don’t see much sign of real commitment to hydrogen here. And I think we might be backing the wrong horse.
8 responses to “The Future for Hydrogen Powered EVs”
Dennis, a fascinating discussion of a vitally important question. Thanks for laying it out so logically. The other week I was listening to Quirks and Quarks do a story on geological hydrogen. Many challenges remain, and perhaps other technologies will come to light first, but hydrogen appears to be the future, still, if we look into the middle distance.
Thanks Ed. I hope we can keep development interest alive in Canada. I think hydrogen will prove to be a better answer for our wide open spaces, and especially for the north.
As you state, “(o)n December 19th, the Canadian government announced the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard, which establishes the requirement that all vehicles will be zero emissions vehicles by the year 2035.” Anybody but me think this is wildly unachievable for a whole number of reasons?
Hi Peter. Thanks for the comment. I don’t think the government goal is unachievable, although I’d give it a probability of 50% at best. What really is at question is the cost of achieving the goal. And that cost will be subsidies for vehicle manufacturers, subsidies for electrical grid expansion, and subsidies for charging stations in public places and even in“filling stations“. There will be a real significant public cost to achieve the goal. I’ve become a climate change believer. Although I think the goal is overreaching, I don’t object to the concept.
I tell you what I think will happen though… In the year 2050, there are going to be a whole bunch of people driving 15-year-old cars because they refuse to give up the convenience of gasoline driven ICE vehicle.
Now you see why only best and brightest get into politics and then become Prime Minister. The issue is certainly complex. It really doesn’t matter to me though – I will still by driving my gasoline ICE when I drive into the MAID drive-through! 🙂
I think that you are probably spot on when you say that Canada probably cannot afford to pursue both BEV and HEV solutions. I’m not prepared to place my bet on which one should be favoured, but one important issue for BEVs is the electrical power generation and distribution problem. There is a nice article in the Jan 6th issue of the Economist which addresses all of the political, economic, and schedule pitfalls of expanding the grid in the UK. And the UK is tiny compared to Canada so our cost of creating and expanding the national grid could be astronomic. Would a hydrogen distribution network be less expensive?
One should also reconsider the trade-off that we are making in our rush to be “net zero.” All of the money being spent on BEVs and an expanded clean grid is money that will not be available for clean water on Native reserves, dental care programs, Pharmacare, housing, new infrastructure like bridges and public transit, and a host of other Government programs (like maybe helping Ukraine defeat Russia!).
Terry, thanks for the comment. The issue of the electrical grid is partially addressed in my article. The estimate is that the grid will need to double by about 2050. What I do not have is any estimate of the cost of that doubling. But you’re right, it’s going to be ginormous.
The expansion of the hydrogen grid is interesting. There is already some interest in blending hydrogen with natural gas to reduce the greenhouse gas effect of home heating. And that might lead to hydrogen eventually supplanting, natural gas in the already existing Natural gas distribution net…. just eventually phase out the natural gas. That doesn’t automatically lead to an HEV set up, but it might provide a strategy for getting there.
Thank you for an uncomplicated discussion of a very complicated topic. I have learned a lot, but I wouldn’t want to face an exam anytime soon.
Thanks for the comment Isabelle. In this course you get a pass mark if you manage thread all the way to the end.