Hope for Hydrogen

In “Moving Beyond the Hype on Hydrogen” (Issues, Summer 2024), Valerie J. Karplus and M. Granger Morgan provide an excellent assessment of hydrogen’s advantages and significant barriers to market formation. Toyota has more than 30 years of experience with all phases of the hype cycle for hydrogen—innovation, inflated expectations, disillusionment, and enlightenment.

Toyota began developing its hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles in 1992, one year after Sony commercialized the lithium-ion battery. Sales of the first hydrogen passenger car, the Mirai, launched in 2014, with the second generation in 2021. Over those 30 years, we saw the initial innovations in fuel cells dramatically improve in unexpected ways. During the same period, we also watched lithium-ion batteries grow into the clear leader in the race to decarbonize passenger cars.

Despite the technical success of the Mirai, the vehicle has struggled in the marketplace due to the difficulties of hydrogen supply and fueling infrastructure. The challenges continue, with high prices for hydrogen at the pump and fuel stations closing. Despite headwinds, at Toyota we find ourselves asking the same question as the article: “Is hydrogen’s long-forecast—and long-hyped—future [as a fuel for transportation] finally here?” There are reasons to be hopeful.

Transportation encompasses more than passenger cars, with about 25% of transportation carbon emissions coming from medium- and heavy-duty commercial transport. While hydrogen will compete with battery electrics in commercial vehicles, both have significant infrastructure challenges. Battery electrics don’t have the same advantages in large vehicles with high mileage as they do for passenger cars. The best choice remains unclear.

Not long ago, the technical barriers for fuel cells in large commercial vehicles seemed insurmountable. But the technology is here today. The key barriers remain in the hydrogen ecosystem: achieving low-cost production, sufficient distribution, and matching of supply and demand. The US hydrogen hubs are an exciting idea for creating a useful hydrogen market, tackling production and multisector consumption in a coordinated way. Initiatives such as the hubs are important to advance the portfolio of hydrogen applications beyond transportation.

The success of hydrogen in commercial transport depends on the key question the article asks: “Which users of fossil fuels must bear the costs?” Companies that operate commercial vehicles are sensitive to the total cost of ownership. Diesel is a low-cost, energy-dense fuel with an existing infrastructure. While the low cost makes diesel difficult to displace, we must also account for all societal costs. Diesel trucks are large emitters of particulate matter and pollutants, which have severe impacts on health in many communities.

Karplus and Morgan place a 70:30 bet that hydrogen “will become an important part of the portfolio of technologies” for decarbonization. Portfolio is a key word here, and we need to explore all options for commercial transport including battery-electrics, better fuels, and better fuel economy. I don’t know if the 70:30 odds for hydrogen are a good bet or not. But at Toyota, we’re aggressively developing the technologies to try to tilt those odds toward success as strongly as we can.

Brian Storey

Valerie J. Karplus and M. Granger Morgan clearly describe the potential for hydrogen to decarbonize the US economy and the need for both policy and low-cost ways to safely harness the advantages of hydrogen.

To play its part, the US Department of Energy Hydrogen Program has worked for decades to accelerate technological advances and de-risk industry investments. The program includes the regional clean hydrogen hubs and the Hydrogen Energy Earthshot (aimed at enabling production of 1 kilogram of clean hydrogen for $1 in 1 decade), which are two of the flagship initiatives launched by the Biden-Harris administration. It also includes long-standing efforts across research and development, manufacturing, and financing. Hydrogen is not considered a silver bullet, but is one part of a comprehensive portfolio of solutions to meet the nation’s climate goals. As stated in the US National Clean Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap, clean hydrogen can cut emissions across sectors such as industry (e.g., iron, steel, and fertilizer production) and heavy-duty transportation, and can enable greater adoption of renewables through long-duration energy storage.

While the authors focus on the hubs, the administration’s investments in clean hydrogen also include several other relevant initiatives. Programs across DOE and the Hydrogen Interagency Taskforce, which encompasses 12 federal agencies, are addressing challenges spanning the entire clean-hydrogen value chain—including siting, permitting, and developing sensors to monitor emissions; ensuring safety; fostering a robust supply chain; establishing fueling stations; and lowering cost across production, delivery, storage, dispensing, and end uses of clean hydrogen. New projects are being launched to share best practices for community engagement to help inform clean hydrogen hubs and other deployments.

Although challenges remain, there has been significant progress resulting from DOE’s decades of leadership and investment in hydrogen technologies. At least 4.5 gigawatts of electrolyzer deployments (not including the hubs) are underway in the United States, up from 0.17 GW in 2021. (One GW is roughly the size of two coal-fired power plants and is enough energy to power 750,000 homes.) With funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, adopted in 2021, DOE is enabling 10 GW per year of electrolyzer manufacturing and 14 GW per year of fuel cell manufacturing—an order of magnitude increase over today’s capacity. Thousands of commercial systems in diverse applications such as forklifts, trucks, buses, and stationary power are now operating. DOE funding has led to over 1,080 US patents since 2004 in hydrogen and fuel cell innovations. Over 30 of these DOE-funded technologies have been commercialized and about 65 could be commercial in the next several years.

The Strategy and Roadmap targets 10 million metric tons (MMT) per year of clean hydrogen use by 2030, 20 MMT per year by 2040, and 50 MMT per year by 2050, which will enable up to 10% reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by 2050. To meet these ambitious goals, it is essential to accelerate deployments and scale up. Recent public announcements add up to 14 MMT per year of planned clean hydrogen production, or over 17 MMT per year including the hubs, pending final investment decisions. While designing and implementing a perfect policy framework is challenging, the current programs and policies in place are having impact, and the nation must keep up the momentum to realize the full benefits of clean hydrogen for the climate and the economy.

Sunita Satyapal