The World in 2030

The World in 2030 227
is difficult to distribute, difficult to store and difficult to
carry on board motor vehicles. Re-equipping petrol stations
to become hydrogen stations will be expensive and will take
a very long time, so much so that many experts doubt that
such a switch-over will have been wholly achieved by 2030.
Jeremy Rifkin lists the difficulties that have to be overcome
before hydrogen can become a widely used fuel for vehicle
transportation in the USA:
The key question facing the automobile industry
during the transition to hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered
vehicles is how to produce, distribute, and store hydrogen
cheaply enough to be competitive with gasoline
at the pump. Some studies estimate that it would
cost more than $100 billion to create a national infrastructure
for producing and distributing hydrogen
in bulk. The ‘hydrogen question’ is the classic chicken-and-egg
problem. The automobile companies are
reluctant to manufacture direct-hydrogen fuel-cell
cars for fear that the energy companies won’t invest
sufficient funds to create thousands of hydrogen refuelling
stations. That is why the car companies are
hedging their bets by developing fuel cell cars with
on-board reformers that can convert gasoline and
natural gas to hydrogen. The energy companies, in
turn, are nervous about committing billions of dollars
to create a national infrastructure to support hydrogen
refuelling stations if not enough direct-hydrogen
fuel-cell vehicles are manufactured and sold. 437
The penultimate word on the future for hydrogen as a fuel for
transportation should go to George Monbiot who, despite