From Fuel Cells to a Hydrogen-based Economy

1 For example, a 1992 A.D. Little study estimated that a from-scratch bulk hydrogen supply infrastructure sufficient for 25 million cars would require about $95 billion of investment, or $3,800 per car. This antiquated result is still being quoted, e.g. in the Epyx article in the December 1998 (Derby 1998).

2 e.g., Lomax et al. 1997.

3 Widely quoted efficiency figures around 30-odd percent to 50 percent assume the fuel cell is fed not pure hydrogen, but the more dilute and impure reformate gas converted from a hydrocarbon fuel, and often include the conversion losses in the fuel processor.

4 Obviously, liquid fuels would become potentially interesting reformer feedstocks only if natural gas were not locally available, so that (for example) LPG or biofuels had to be substituted.