Hydrogen Hype: Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Are No Panacea

I’m going to make a prediction today: you will never drive a hydrogen fueled car.

Although hydrogen does indeed have some benefits in certain applications, it’s my task today to separate the reality of useful fuel cells from the hydrogen hype.


That may seem like a bold statement to you now, but by the end of this article, you’ll understand why.

Much has been made of the concept of a “hydrogen economy,” because it offers the possibility of a portable fuel that can be generated from any number of sources and consumed without greenhouse gas emissions.

That’s a major win-win against the twin devils of peak oil and global warming, and as such it has attracted the support of an unlikely alliance including environmentalists, technologists, politicians and automakers.

It’s important to realize that hydrogen is not a fuel source; it’s an energy carrier. Hydrogen does not exist freely in the universe; it’s always bound to something else. So it takes an investment of energy to free hydrogen from its existing arrangement and make it available as a stored fuel.

Energy and Capital