The debate as to whether money should be invested into hydrogen fuel cell technology continues to rage across the Atlantic, where the United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR) published a whitepaper on the importance of continued research into hydrogen as a low-carbon transportation solution.
In a separate report from the National Research Council in July it was determined that although the Obama administration’s focus on near-term technologies to improve fuel consumption is on the right track, there is still a need for investment in longer term, higher-risk technologies such as hydrogen storage and hydrogen fuel cells.
Now, in its report, USCAR, which was founded in 1992 with the goal of strengthening the technology base of the US auto industry, found that electric vehicles “cannot compete with hydrogen fuelled vehicles” for general usage in terms of range and refill time.
It believes that profitable, high-volume deployment of fuel cell vehicles is dependent on significant progress in multiple technologies both and on and off vehicle, and that the USCAR OEMS have made the deployment of hybrid, plug-in hybrids and electrics their near-term focus. However, there is still firm belief that fuel cell vehicles will be an important powertrain option in a future of sustainable transportation.
The whitepaper goes on to recap some of the recent developments and successes of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. It outlines cost and energy density as key areas for improvement in hydrogen storage and states that steam methane reforming could serve as the first of many future hydrogen production pathways.
It would like to see a network of 12,000 hydrogen stations that would put hydrogen within two miles of 70 per cent of the US population and connect the major metro areas with a refuelling station every 25 miles.
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