The Energy Evolution - Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: Advances in Transportation and Power - page 27

At almost 90 times the size of Iceland, the U.S. could start with
about 1,500 fueling stations. This assumes that the stations are placed
to properly cover the entire U.S. with no overlap. The Department of
Energy's hydrogen-production research group expects that a fourth to
a third of all filling stations in the U.S. would be needed to offer hydro-
gen before fuel cells become viable as vehicle power. California has its
Hydrogen Highway Project with 150 to 200 stations at a cost of about
$500,000 each. These would be situated along the state's major highways
by 2010. There are over 100,000 filling stations in the U.S. The Center
for Energy, Environmental and Economic Systems Analysis at Argonne
National Laboratory near Chicago estimates that building a hydrogen
economy would take more than $500 billion.
Oil companies are not willing to invest in production and distribu-
tion facilities for hydrogen fueling until there are enough hydrogen cars
on the road. Automakers will not produce large numbers of hydrogen
cars until drivers have somewhere to fill them up.
President George W. Bush pledged to spend $1.2 billion on hydro-
gen yet the Department of Energy spends more on nuclear and fossil fuel
research than on hydrogen. The government's FreedomCAR program,
funds hydrogen R&D in conjunction with American car manufacturers.
The program requires that the companies demonstrate a hydrogen-pow-
ered car by 2008 and many have done so.
Efforts continue to improve fuel cell technology and utilization
which should reduce costs. The General Motors fuel cell program aims
at having a commercial fuel cell vehicle by 2010. Volume production of
fuel cell cars should reduce costs, but one Department of Energy projec-
tion with a production of 500,000 vehicles a year still has the cost too
high.
A potential problem with the proton exchange membrane (PEM)
fuel cell, which is the type being developed for automobiles is life span.
Internal combustion engines have an average life span of 15 years, or
about 170,000 miles. Membrane deterioration can cause PEM fuel cells
to fail after 2,000 hours or less than 100,000 miles.
Ballard's original PEM design has been the prototype for most au-
tomobile development. This has been the basic design that has been used
to demonstrate fuel cell power in automobiles. But, it may not be the best
architecture and geometry for commercial automobiles. The present ge-
ometry may be keeping the price up. Commercial applications require a
design that will allow economies of scale to push the price down.