H2, Where Are You?

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Elon Musk publicly disdains hydrogen-powered automobiles, but then he has $5 billion riding on his battery megafactories and continued success with his Tesla line of automobiles.  Others with a more disinterested point of view discuss H2’s difficulties – and its promise as a vehicle fuel. America, for instance, has a mere 128 hydrogen fueling stations, and the European Union only 143 as of February 2012.  Even with planned expansion of this infrastructure (California is spending $180 million in private and public funds on a planned 46 stations), the landscape might not be ready for large numbers of fuel cell vehicles for a decade or more. For comparison, there are about 29,000 battery-charging stations in the U. S., with both government and private enterprise offering such services.  The Kohls store and all Walgreens Pharmacies in my area have plug-in stations for EVs, for instance, and the I-5 freeway, from British Columbia to Baja, California, has stations every 25 to 50 miles.  With battery-powered EV and …