Fuel Cell Trucks And Buses Are Still Coming, And They Still Need More Green Hydrogen

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Considering the ongoing series of improvements in EV batteries, it’s a wonder that some stakeholders in the zero emission field are still holding a candle for vehicle electrification via hydrogen fuel cells. Well, they are, and as long as they continue their candle-holding, they provide one more reason for green hydrogen to push fossil fuels out of the global hydrogen supply chain.

The Biomass Route To Green Hydrogen

The emerging consensus on green hydrogen is that granular applications — including passenger cars and home heating systems — are a waste of resources. Still, the role of hydrogen in modern industrialized economies transcends the transportation and building sectors. Refining, steelmaking, fertilizer production and chemicals manufacturing are among the industrial scale, not-so-granular use cases where more sustainable sources of hydrogen could — and should — be substituted for conventional hydrogen, which derives from natural gas along with coal to a lesser extent.

Electrolysis has been attracting the bulk of private and public sector funding for so-named green hydrogen, which involves deploying renewable energy to push hydrogen gas from water. Although high costs have inhibited the uptake of water electrolysis, the balance sheet has improved as innovators in the field work to reduce the cost of electrolyzers.

New opportunities to deploy renewable energy at scale are also pushing the envelope on water electrolysis. In addition, startups are zeroing in on niche applications where fuel availability is the primary driver, not fuel prices (see more green hydrogen background here).

Other pathways to green hydrogen have received less attention, namely, biomass-to-hydrogen and plastic waste-to-hydrogen. Still, activity continues to stir in those areas as well.

In the biomass field, for example, last October a research team based at Yale University described the climate benefits of deploying Bio-H2 as a complement to water electrolysis, taking note of freshwater scarcity among the factors limiting dependence on electrolyzers alone.

The Seaweed Solution

Innovators in the biomass-to-hydrogen field have covered agricultural and forest waste along with food waste and municipal wastewater, with animal waste and other animal byproducts also playing a role.

One area left largely untouched is the potential for seaweed to provide an economical source of green hydrogen, as researchers have been challenged by the saltwater content of sea-grown seaweed.

A multinational team from Columbia University in New York and Ewha Womans University in Korea decided to tackle the problem. Their study, published in the journal Nature, focuses on converting brown seaweed in a carbon neutral process, with carbon-negativity as a possibility given the potential for sequestering carbonate byproducts.

Making the case for sea-grown biomass, the team observes that the carbon sequestration rate of seaweed far surpasses other land based biomass, citing a rate of seven times greater. Other advantages include a growth rate that enables harvesting up to six times per year without the need for fertilizer, along with the use of non-land space for cultivation.

The researchers subjected their seaweed to a customized alkaline thermal treatment (ATT), reported here in excruciating detail. “Results show that the biomass ATT can produce more H2 than the combined process of gasification and water-gas shift reactions,” the team concludes for the benefit of lay readers.

“This is a very promising result considering a potential learning curve in the development of the biomass ATT technology, which is still in the early stage of development,” they add.

The Plastic Waste Solution

Plastic waste is another pathway that crops up in the green hydrogen literature now and then, though it is more of a fossil-sourced waste management tool than a renewable resource solution.

One recent contribution comes from a multi-university team in Korea, with participation from the University of California. Their study, published in PNAS (the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) on July 6, makes the case for ATT as an efficient plastic recycling alternative that yields high purity hydrogen.

“Despite the increasing emphasis on recycling, only 9% of plastic waste is currently recycled, whereas 79% accumulates in landfills and 12% undergoes incineration,” the team notes, by way of explaining shortcomings (to put it kindly) in the current state of the global plastic recycling industry.

“Traditional waste management practices not only fail to adequately address the plastic waste crisis but also contribute to secondary environmental pollution, including the release of microplastics, fine particulates, SOx, NOx, dioxins, and CO2,” they add for good measure.

More Green Hydrogen For Fuel Cell Buses

While biomass and plastic waste have yet to emerge in the mass market, the case for water electrolysis is growing stronger every day that US President Donald Trump fails to stop, let alone undo, the damage inflicted upon global fuel markets resulting from his war in Iran. The Ornuba Project in Spain is among those illustrating how industrial use cases — in this instance, green ammonia — support green hydrogen ventures that draw from local resources, shielded from the vagaries of Trumpian geopolitics.

Transportation use cases are also in the running, though stakeholders are far more cautious than in past years. Nowadays the focus is on particular use cases where a combination of public policy and a shortfall — perceived or actual — in comparable battery-powered alternatives provides an opening.

In Spain, for example, Bosch has supplied its fuel cell power modules to trial a bus from the manufacturer Irizar, focusing on longer routes in Madrid. According to Bosch, the bus can travel more than 1,000 kilometers before refueling, which takes about 10-15 minutes. Bosch is also pitching a more powerful system for heavy-duty tour buses and trucks.

Bosch is also in play in Germany, where the firm MAN recently launched a road test of electric trucks that deploy both fuel cells and batteries, aiming for a range of 450-500 kilometers. MAN is among those expressing caution in the fuel cell area. The company expects that battery-electric vehicles will dominate the road freight sector, while still leaving some room for hydrogen fuel cell transport. “Hydrogen technologies…can play an important complementary role in specific applications – for example, on very long transport routes or in regions with insufficient charging infrastructure,” MAN notes.

Ballard is another stakeholder on the move in Germany. Last March, Ballard reported that its technology is powering 410 of the approximately 500 fuel cell buses operating in the country.

Meanwhile, Back In The USA

Here in the US, some fuel cell stakeholders are not waiting around for the paint to dry. Bosch shows up again, through its Bosch RexRoth branch, which is supplying an advanced pumping system for a forthcoming hydrogen fueling station in California. The facility is commissioned by SamTrans, the San Mateo County Transit District. Billed as the largest fueling station of its kind, the facility will have a service capacity of up to 175 fuel cell buses. “The Bosch Rexroth system can dispense up to 1,200 kg/hour of hydrogen to support even larger bus deployments,” Bosch adds.

Over in Orange County, the firm Clean Energy Fuels Corp. earned a $27.5 million contract from OCTA, the Orange County Transportation Authority, to build a hydrogen fuel station at its Garden Grove bus depot. “OCTA currently has 10 hydrogen fuel cell buses in service and expects to add 40 more by the time this fuel station is built,” CEFC notes.

Neither of these facilities will bring much comfort to individual fuel cell vehicle operators in California who have been suffering under a deficit of operable hydrogen fuel stations, but that’s a whole ‘nother can of worms. Keep an eye on the US firm Hyroad Energy, which has just opened a new hydrogen refueling station for commercial truck fleets in Santa Fe Springs.