The World in 2030

228 The World in 2030
an overall optimism about hydrogen in the long term, is
nothing but a bitter realist when it comes to acknowledging
the problems that will have to be overcome before hydrogen
can be in widespread use:
The most immediate problem is that hydrogen cannot
be bought in filling stations. The owners of fuelcell
cars need to be sure that they can find hydrogen
wherever they happen to run out. The filling stations
won’t supply it until they have a market, and the
market can’t develop until there are supplies.
This is compounded by the problem of storage,
which is not something the owners of stationary fuel
cells need to worry about unless they produce their
own hydrogen. Cars would need to take it with them.
Though the gas is three times as energy-dense as petrol
in terms of weight, it is only one tenth as dense in
terms of volume – at pressures of 5,000 pounds per
square inch.
This means that a hydrogen powered vehicle would
need a high-pressure fuel tank ten times the size of a
petrol driven car’s in order to travel as far. High-pressure
tanks would take a long time to fill, and could
be dangerous. 438
The final word in this section on hydrogen energy for
transport has been saved for our old friend, the joker in the
pack, accelerating, exponential technology development.
Even as energy analysts and futurologists puzzle over how
cars and petrol stations could be converted to carry and