Hydrogen Sources - Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: Advances in Transportation and Power - page 124

nozzle is inserted into the refueling port and locked in place. Filling the
car's tank takes about five or six minutes. The unit produces enough hy-
drogen to refill a single fuel cell vehicle a day. In Torrance, California,
Honda has built a service station that splits water into hydrogen and oxy-
gen using solar power.
The problems facing the development of a hydrogen infrastructure
include the lack of demand for cars and trucks with limited fueling op-
tions and any incentive to invest in a fueling infrastructure unless there
are enough vehicles on the road.
The global cost of a complete hydrogen transition over the next 30
years is estimated to cost from $1 to $5 trillion. A study by GM estimated
that $10 billion to $15 billion would be needed to build 11,700 new fueling
stations. This would allow a driver to be within two miles of a hydrogen
station in most urban areas and there would be a station every 25 miles
along major highways. The urban hydrogen stations could support about
one million fuel cell vehicles. Twelve billion may seem like a lot of dollars,
but in today's world, cable companies are paying $85 billion for cable sys-
tem installations.
Hydrogen filling stations are now scattered in Europe, the U.S. and
Japan. These are the first prototypes of an infrastructure with about 70 hy-
drogen refueling stations operating worldwide. The California Hydrogen
Highway program has a goal of 200 stations along major highways in the
state. The building of a hydrogen infrastructure in the 21st century can be
compared to the investment in railroads in the 19th century or to the cre-
ation of the interstate highway system in the 20th century.
The 50 to 60 million tons of hydrogen produced in the U.S. a year
may not be pure enough for fuel cells. Many of the problems in fuel cell
development have occurred from impurities in the industrial hydrogen
purchased for fuel.
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
From the perspective of greenhouse gases, electrolysis is unsettled
for the foreseeable future since both electrolysis and central-station power
generation are relatively inefficient processes and most U.S. electricity is
generated by the burning of fossil fuels. Nuclear and renewables make up
only about 1/3 of total generation.
Burning a gallon of gasoline releases about 20 pounds of CO 2 . Pro-