A smooth transition to hydrogen transportation fuel

The goal of this work is to examine viable near-term infrastructure options for a transition to hydrogen fueled vehicles and to suggest profitable directions for technology development. The authors have focused in particular on the contrasting options of decentralized production using the existing energy distribution network, and centralized production of hydrogen with a large-scale infrastructure. Delivered costs have been estimated using best available industry cost and deliberately conservative economic assumptions. The sensitivities of these costs have then been examined for three small-scale scenarios: (1) electrolysis at the home for one car, and production at the small station scale (300 cars/day), (2) conventional alkaline electrolysis and (3) steam reforming of natural gas. All scenarios assume fueling a 300 mile range vehicle with 3.75 kg. They conclude that a transition appears plausible, using existing energy distribution systems, with home electrolysis providing fuel costing 7.5 to 10.5{cents}/mile, station electrolysis 4.7 to 7.1{cents}/mile, and steam reforming 3.7 to 4.7{cents}/mile. The average car today costs about 6{cents}/mile to fuel. Furthermore, analysis of liquid hydrogen delivered locally by truck from central processing plants can also be competitive at costs as low as 4{cents}/mile. These delivered costs are equal to $30 to $70 per GJ, LHV. Preliminary analysis indicates that electricity transmission costs favor this method of distributing energy, until very large (10 GW) hydrogen pipelines are installed. This indicates that significant hydrogen pipeline distribution will be established only when significant markets have developed