Old empires could be the key to a new car future
Hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the universe, and a crucial element in the creation of our most precious resource: water. Initiatives outlined by carmakers last week are breathing new life into plans to use the gas as fuel. They’re also a reminder that making the world run on hydrogen will need considerable support from diversified businesses such as North Asia’s storied conglomerates.
The most promising path to exploiting hydrogen is to store the gas in a tank, as you would gasoline, then feed it into a fuel cell where it combines with oxygen to create an electric current, with water as a byproduct. Put this in a car and you have a fuel-cell electric vehicle. Recently, industry has turned to green hydrogen, created by running an electric current through water with an electrolyte. The machines that do this are called electrolyzers, and like battery EVs, they are only truly green if the original electricity source comes from renewables.
Parking an electrolyzer near a wind farm, solar array or hydroelectric dam would be ideal because you can use renewable energy to deliver clean electricity directly to the hydrogen-production facility. But the gas would still need to be transported to refueling stations, possibly through natural gas pipelines.
The ultimate solution, the one that industry ought to strive for, is on-site extraction, storage and refueling. Such facilities could be tacked onto existing gas stations, but needn’t be. Since electrolysis equipment only requires water and electricity, there’s
