Potential keeps hydrogen in U.S. fuel mix

Jay Keller knows that trying to replace gasoline with hydrogen in an attempt to end America's dependence on oil will be expensive initially.

"Is it cheaper than running natural gas in an internal combustion engine? No. But if hydrogen is not one of our alternatives, what's it going to be?" Keller asked an audience of about 150 participants in the inaugural Hydrogen Initiative Symposium on Wednesday at Purdue University.

"The days of cheap energy are over. We need to do the best we can," said Keller, who works for Sandia National Laboratories, a government-owned facility that develops technological solutions to support national security.

But experts, including representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors Corp., admit that cars using hydrogen fuel are still years away from being financially feasible.

Storage and transport provide the greatest challenges to the mass production of vehicles that run on the super-light fuel. Less hydrogen can be carried in the same space as the heavier gasoline, which makes transportation expensive.

The U.S. government has set a timeline of 2015 for researchers to reduce the expense of hydrogen from nearly $2,000 per kilowatt hour to allow vehicles on the road at a cost of less than $35 per kilowatt hour.

But much of that depends on how quickly researchers can solve issues surrounding hydrogen as a fuel, including the current costs of producing hydrogen vehicles, which come with a price tag of nearly $250,000.

Other concerns include how quickly consumers can charge fuel cells and the availability of hydrogen fuel stations, of which there are currently a handful in the United States.

"Basically none of what's out there meets even the 2010 targets, so we've got a ways to go," said John Petrovic, of the Department of Energy.

"But it is my view that these problems are going to be solved."

David Austgen, general manager of technology and operations in health, safety and environment at Shell Hydrogen, said the oil giant is working to create a network of stations that will be able to respond to the upcoming demand for hydrogen.

"Our expectation is that the market will take off around 2015 or 2020," Austgen said.

Scott Jorgensen, a General Motors engineer, said that even though the company does not have the answers it needs from an automotive perspective, it is continuing to research possibilities for both foreign and domestic markets.

"It remains to be seen where hydrogen is going to end up," he said.

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