The Hydrogen Council* was announced in Davos this January – a global initiative to provide a united vision and long-term solution for using hydrogen instead of fossil fuels for transportation and as a renewable energy source generally. (Their proposition is here). Hydrogen fuel cell cars have a formidable future competitor in electric battery cars.
*The member companies are : Air Liquide, Alstom, Anglo American, BMW group, Daimler, Engie, Honda, Hyundai, Kawasaki, Royal Dutch Shell, Linde Group, Total and Toyota.
Hydrogen as a fuel can be generated in a true zero emission fashion, though.
> Plenty of free sunlight + abundant water + electrolysis = hydrogen.
> Use hydrogen as a fuel; water is the by-product.
> NO carbon involved or CO2 produced anywhere. Yay!
.. is the proposition.
So what else is going on? Well – Toyota’s $57,500 hydrogen fuel cell car, the Mirai, is off to a slow start (about 400 sold in California so far), but there are other companies jumping into the fray as well. A start-up company called Nikola (not to be confused with Elon Musk’s Tesla) announced the Nikola One in December, a hydrogen fuel cell truck that will be available in 2020. Nikola is going for 100% vertical integration, which means they will build solar-cell power stations to generate electricity for the electrolysis of water to generate hydrogen for its trucks. You lease the truck and Nikola provides the hydrogen and the hydrogen refueling stations needed for it.
