From the H to the H2O
Not just smoke and mirrors
A few weeks ago, Louise had the privilege to join the Anthropy conference at the Eden Project. There were talks (in fact 225 of them) on everything from preventative health, to how to fix Britain; and from bringing nature into healthcare, to a certain leader of the opposition’s key note. Air quality was mentioned fairly regularly in the sessions Louise attended, whether as a way to engage sports fans in climate change or as a key element of creating healthier communities.
At the end of the conference, energies were fading but Louise decided to join one last session on the future of automotive. And it was fascinating! The interactions between hydrogen and electric vehicles were the main talking point. Hopefully it was not just politeness, but the panel - some of whom worked for EV companies and others for hydrogen - agreed they were both part of the mix for a more sustainable future.
We haven’t really covered hydrogen before - just briefly here when we spoke about upgrading public transport fleets. Readers will be well aware of the pros and cons of electric (oversimplifying but pros: no tailpipe emissions so no gases; cons: potentially heaver vehicles which can emit more particulate matter, and the environmental costs of production, particularly batteries).
So a quick 101 on hydrogen:
there are different grades, typically referred to as a colour (green/blue/grey). The hydrogen is not literally these colours - these are just indicators of how it’s been produced and the level of ‘purity’ vs harmful by products, with green doing best and grey worst. Unfortunately the purer ones are harder to produce, so less common;
when a car is run on a hydrogen cell, it only produces water vapour and heat as by products. It’s also possible to have a hybrid electric battery / hydrogen fuel cell;
there are currently around 14 hydrogen charging stations in the UK, showing how nascent the technology is and how some economies of scale may be needed before it takes off. Some companies such as Riversimple are offering subscription models to encourage consumers;
hydrogen is thought to be particularly good for Heavy Goods Vehicles where the typical use means the downtime of an EV recharge may not be feasible - which may in turn lead to increased infrastructure needed to power smaller vehicles;
however, the talk Louise attended also had a company working on hydrogen for racing cars (Extreme-H), demonstrating the potential for high performance vehicles too.
Arguably, one of the big benefits of hydrogen vs electric cars, from the perspective of air quality, is to bring down the weight. As we know, weight is a major contributor to pollution, as well as safety concerns for other road users. The car pictured above is particularly slim-line. It certainly feels a better bet than the car-spreaders we’ve been seeing recently.