The Four Phases of the Hydrogen Economy: Transportation

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Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), which became law in November 2021, earmarks $1.2 trillion for a variety of projects, including $8 billion for the development of at least four regional clean hydrogen hubs. Soon, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which is overseeing the hubs, is expected to release a roadmap for these projects.

Each hub will concentrate on one of the four main proposed uses for hydrogen as a fuel: transportation, power generation, industry and residential/commercial heating. In this series, we will inspect each of those four separately, starting with transportation.

Transportation, in some ways, is no stranger to hydrogen. It has been a significant rocket fuel for NASA since the late 1950s, when it was credited with helping the U.S. win the "Moon race" against the Soviets. It was used in the earliest prototypes of the jet engine in Germany in 1937.

Because of its lack of energy density (it is the first element in the periodic table, the lightest one known to humans) when compared with fossil fuels, hydrogen's development for use in day-to-day transportation historically had lagged--until "carbon footprint" issues began returning it to prominence.

That lack of energy density creates storage issues for transportation, requiring up to four times as much hydrogen to equal the range of fossil fuels in most vehicles. Plus, like liquefied natural gas (LNG), it is often stored cryogenically, meaning it must be kept well below zero to stay liquid, at -423 degrees Fahrenheit--which is close to absolute zero. This requires special handling, accommodation for off-gassing, as well as the time and energy involved in the cryogenic process. And this is much colder than LNG, which is produced at about -266 degrees Fahrenheit.

Because of the storage issues, which would be impractical especially in smaller vehicles like cars and pickups, hydrogen has been mostly floated as an option for overseas shipping. Tankers and cargo ships may be less affected by the need for larger fuel storage space. Several large carriers are investing in either hydrogen fuels or ammonia, which is derived from hydrogen. Figures show that shipping accounts for about 3% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.

Jet engines could be adapted to burn hydrogen with minor modifications, but accommodating storage for long flights would require redesign of the rest of the plane. Currently fuel tanks are located in the wings, but the required hydrogen supplies would be too great to fit under the wings. There are a couple of options for dealing with this.

One is to design the plane as blended-wing, in appearance like a large triangle, much like the B2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber. In addition to allowing more fuel storage it would make planes more fuel efficient.

Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) (Arlington, Virginia) and Airbus SE (Leiden, Netherlands) have both announced plans for hydrogen-powered craft, but experts believe that they are decades away from reality. Airbus expects to have something flying as soon as 2035--still more than a decade off--but some feel this is very optimistic.

The greatest strides on the transportation side have been in maritime shipping. Giant tankers and other ships seem to have more space to store the four-times-as large requirements of hydrogen fuel. Shipping giants like AP Moller-Maersk (Copenhagen, Denmark) have agreed to plunge millions into developing a green hydrogen infrastructure.

The Danish shipping giant earlier this year announced plans to buy 12 methanol-powered container vessels from shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries (Ulsan, South Korea). The plan would be to make the methanol from green hydrogen or "biomass/biogas." This would make AP Moller-Maersk the world's largest consumer of green hydrogen, although that hydrogen would be converted to methanol.

Because the maritime shipping sector emits 3% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, it is a top target for the clean energy transition. Most ships currently use bunker fuel, basically the leftovers of the refining process after gasoline, diesel and all have been removed. As leftovers, the fuel is extremely inexpensive--and highly polluting. The early 2022 backup on ships at the Port of Los Angeles are a prime example of those issues.

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