Peter Nowak: Despite what Elon Musk says, don’t count hydrogen fuel cells out just yet

If developers of hydrogen fuel cells can cut their costs, and if electric cars cause electricity prices to spike, the tide could turn.

Japan is pouring money into subsidies and investment in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles such as the Toyota Mirai. Tomohiro Ohsumi / Bloomberg

Remember fuel cells? It wasn’t so long ago that everyone expected the devices, which convert hydrogen into energy, to power everything from cars to homes.

But fuel cells lost their charge in recent years to electric batteries. Like Betamax VCRs and HD-DVDs, they seem resigned to the dustbin of failed technologies, while rechargeable batteries are the presumed new way forward to sustainable energy.

But hold on a second. It might be a good idea to avoid writing fuel cells off completely, if what Elon Musk – ironically, the world’s most vocal opponent of the technology – says is true.

Speaking on stage at the World Government Summit in Dubai last week, Mr Musk mused about the effect that electric batteries, such as those produced for cars and homes by his company Tesla, will have on energy demand.

Total global energy usage is div­ided evenly between electricity, transport and home heating, he said, but that’s about to change dramatically now that battery-driven vehicles are about to break out.

“Over time, that will transition to predominantly electricity. The demand for electricity will probably triple,” Mr Musk told the audience.

With demand going up, so too will prices. As a result, absent big breakthroughs in new production methods for electricity, fuel cells may not be as bad an idea as Mr Musk and others have made them out to be.

The initial promise of fuel cells was a good one. By converting hydrogen – the most abundant element in the universe – into energy and producing nothing but water vapour as waste, they were seen as the key to solving the world’s growing energy demands.

Fuel cell producers were viewed as favourably at the turn of the millennium as Tesla is today and their shares soared to similarly dizzying heights.

In 2000, Connecticut-based FuelCell Energy, for one, traded in the US$600 range while Canada’s Ballard Power Systems flirted with C$200 (Dh504 in March 2000).

But then doubts about the technology’s cost effectiveness started to arise.

A 2006 article in Scientific American, for example, found that the process of electrolysis and conversion left only about 20 to 25 per cent of a fuel cell's original electricity to drive the motor. Electric vehicle batteries, on the other hand, left a comparative 75 to 80 per cent of their original inputs, making them about two-thirds more efficient than fuel cells.

In more practical terms, the article concluded that electric cars “should be able to travel three to four times farther on a kilowatt-hour of renewable electricity than a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle could”.

Mr Musk has repeatedly cited such findings in his criticisms of fuel cells. He has variously called the technology “mind-bogglingly stupid” and “incredibly dumb”.

Market results have supported his position. The mass production of fuel-cell-powered vehicles predicted at the start of the millennium never materialised and producing companies have fallen by the wayside.

FuelCell stock now hovers at about US$1.60, while Ballard is mired around C$2.70. Tesla shares, in contrast, have skyrocketed from their initial public offering price of $17 in 2010 to more than $277 today. Everyone has clearly moved on from fuel cells to batteries.

Everyone except Japan, that is. Despite the global shunning, Japan’s government has nevertheless announced ¥45.2 billion (Dh1.46bn) in subsidies for hydrogen fuel cells going to the likes of Toyota, Panasonic and Toshiba by the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Officials expect more than 100 fuel-cell buses in the city by then.

The investment can be seen as hubris, as Japan is going against the global grain, but it could also be a prudent hedge against batteries. Japan may be one of the few countries in the world anticipating the crunch Mr Musk is predicting, and proactively gearing up for it.

Hydrogen fuel cells may be less efficient and more expensive than electric batteries right now, but this could change. Everyone involved in making fuel cells is working to make them cheaper.

If they succeed, and if electricity costs do spike up, they may ultimately provide a reasonable alternative to battery-orientated energy, even if they can’t achieve efficiency parity.

The Tokyo-based research company Fuji Keizai expects something like that to happen, which is why it’s predicting the hydrogen industry to balloon from a value of ¥106bn in 2016 to ¥4.9 trillion over the next 15 years, according to Bloomberg.

Mr Musk has derisively said that hydrogen is considered the fuel of the future – and it always will be.

He’s been right so far about the first part, but if his prediction about electricity demand comes true he could turn out to be wrong about the second part.

Winner of the Week: Yahoo. The online portal announced its acquisition by US telecoms company Verizon is still going ahead, albeit for US$350 million less at $4.4bn. Given the rash of massive security breaches disclosed by Yahoo of late, the company and its shareholders are lucky the deal is going through.

Loser of the Week: Uber. The ride-sharing company is in damage control mode after a former engineer publishing a damning account of systemic sexism.

Peter Nowak is a veteran technology writer and author of Humans 3.0: The Upgrading of the Species

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