Fueling the argument

Routemasters might once have dominated the capital's bus lanes but later this year Transport for London will take delivery of three hydrogen fuel-cell powered buses at the cost of £1 million each. Despite current planning setbacks for the refueling station the buses should be in service by the beginning of 2004 as part of the Clean Urban Transport for Europe (CUTE) scheme.

While the potential for fuel cells has long been recognised their high costs have often seemed like an insurmountable barrier. So are we about to see the long awaited commercialisation of fuel cells? Ray Eaton of the DTI believes that there is growing realisation within the industry that the 'holy grail' of fuel cell applications, namely as the replacement of the internal combustion engine, is still many years away due to the severity of the techno-economic targets. Speaking at the Towards Zero Carbon conference organised by the Solar Energy Society and The Energy Institute, Eaton sees the likely early development of fuel cells to be in areas such as stationary power and chp, including applications such as remote power and ups.

"What is clear is that major efforts are underway in North America, Europe and Japan to accelerate the transition to a hydrogen and fuel cell future," says Eaton. "There is recognition that this will not happen overnight and that there are very significant technical, economic and other barriers to be overcome." What's more he adds that there are no guarantees that particular technologies will be successful in the market and fuel cells will continue to face serious challenges from improvements to existing technologies.

Also talking at the conference was Daniel Carter of Conduit Ventures, one of the few venture capital companies specialising in the hydrogen economy and fuel cells market. Carter believes current investment opportunities in the fuel cell sector are strong as the time taken to get products to market now matches the investment time scales sought by venture capital funds. "There's a large growth rate in emerging clean technologies, including energy technologies and sustainable technologies," says Carter. He points to statistics for the North American market where around 9% of total venture capital funding has gone into clean technologies over the last quarter.

"Stationary applications are clearly an area where the technical hurdles are a bit lower in terms of space requirement, weight density, footprint and so forth," he explains. "We think this is quite a promising area." Transportation though is a bigger challenge with less predictable time scales. "The infrastructure issues are going to be very difficult to solve."

Angelo Ammoreli from BP is enthusiastic about automotive applications but agrees that there is now a more pragmatic and realistic view amongst those in the sector of the time-scales involved. "We realise that there are huge technical challenges that will take time to overcome, so we have to be patient and manage expectations." But he believes that this time – unlike the early 1990s when it was predicted that commercial fuel cell powered vehicles would be on the market by 2000-2005 – it is going to happen. "There are a lot more major companies involved and a lot more political will. If everything falls into place we could probably be there in 10-12 years."

Government support
While the transition towards a hydrogen economy will take place at varying speeds in different countries, some believe Europe is in danger of coming a poor third behind the US and Japan in the technology race. Development in North America has primarily been driven by the Californian Zero Emissions Mandate, which is predominantly concerned with air quality rather than reduction in carbon emissions. But security of supply is also now a major factor. In his State of the Union address this year, President Bush announced $1.2 billion of funding for hydrogen and fuel cells research.

However the European Commission has recently appointed a high level group of senior industry figures to advise it. The group's draft interim report sets out a clear vision for a hydrogen economy and recommends a number of measures including the creation of a European hydrogen and fuel cell technology partnership to provide advice to stimulate initiatives and monitor progress. The main mechanisms for realising this vision will be the EC Framework programmes and the national programmes of the member states.

In the UK the publication of the Energy White Paper earlier this year also saw greater commitment to fuel cells and the setting-up of Fuel Cells UK launched in May. This aims to raise the industry's profile both nationally and internationally with initial funding coming from the DTI.

Whatever the motivations behind these initiatives it seems the technical and economic barriers towards a hydrogen economy are beginning to be broken down.