HYDROGEN REJECTED BY LUCERNE CONFERENCE

The inefficiencies of hydrogen as a fuel and as a fuel cell were highlighted at a recent important technical conference in Lucerne, Switzerland:

From a Reuters interview with conference spokesman Ulf Bossel published by PlanetArk:
Fuel Scientists See Drawbacks to Clean Hydrogen
July 10, 2006
AMSTERDAM

-Hydrogen, the ultimate clean fuel, may not be very suitable as a conduit of renewable energy because it is wasteful and there are better alternatives...The drawback is that hydrogen must first be produced, requiring a primary energy source...

-"With hydrogen energy you only have 25 percent efficiency to turn wind power to (car) wheel power," he said. It's much more efficient to transport that electricity directly into a car battery, via the grid, and use 90 percent of its power," he told Reuters...

Excerpts from the Energy Bulletin transcript of the conference statement:
Published on 13 Jul 2006
by Lucerne Fuel Cell Conference via ER. Archived on 13 Jul 2006.
An Early Retirement For The Hydrogen Fuel Cell
by Ulf Bossel

-Fuel cells are energy converters, not energy sources. They will be part of a sustainable energy solution only if they can compete with other conversion technologies. This includes system parameters, fuels and applications. Time has come for a critical assessment.

-It is highly uncertain that synthetic hydrogen can ever be established as a universal energy carries. Electricity from renewable sources will be the source energy in a sustainably organized future. The direct distribution of electricity to the consumer is three to four times more efficient than its conversion to hydrogen by electrolysis of water, packaging and transport of synthetic energy carrier to the consumer and its conversion back to electricity with efficient fuel cells. By laws of physics, hydrogen economy can never compete with an "electron economy".

-But the laws of physics cannot be changed with further research, investments or political decisions. A sustainable future energy harvested from renewable sources (nuclear energy is not sustainable!) must be distributed and used with the highest efficiency. A wasteful hydrogen economy does not meet the criteria of sustainability...

The hydrogen dream recedes further...