The Path from Coal to Hydrogen

We hear about the Hydrogen Economy from time to time but we do not hear anyone articulate the elements of a plan to get from here to there. The first thing we must accept is that the path from coal to hydrogen is fraught with fossil fuels. There is no other alternative and it will take much time and resolve.

The first two things we must do is change the internal combustion engine and wean ourselves off of gasoline as a primary motor fuel. There is a bill in committee, HR 1476, introduced in March 2009 and referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce where it currently awaits action. The bill requires (in all of only a refreshing 9 pages) that by 2015 80% of the vehicles manufactured or sold in the U.S. be capable of burning fuel that is 85% Ethanol, 85% Methanol or Biodiesel, in addition to 100% gasoline. This bill should be enacted as a first very good step toward the hydrogen economy.

The federal government can require auto manufacturers the world over to comply with this law, if they want to remain in the U.S. market. However, it is quite another matter to bring about the manufacture and use of other fuels that substitute for ubiquitous gasoline. The focus should be on methanol because in the first instance it can be made from coal and natural gas, which are abundant, and unlike ethanol, they do not compete for a foodstuff (corn) as a feedstock. Moreover, once established, the driving public will now have two liquid, competing motor fuels to choose from when they pull up to the pump. And those two motor fuels will be made from three feed stocks: Crude oil, coal and natural gas. The federal government, in order to induce a continuous manufacture of methanol, should provide considerable tax breaks to jump start this industry. I will go out on a limb and propose a ten year federal corporate tax moratorium, accelerated depreciation and investment tax credit for any commercial scale U.S. methanol plant that achieves a commercial operation date within a set period of time. This will attract needed capital, create many jobs to build the infrastructure and generate additional tax revenues from the equipment manufacturers and workers.

Let us prognosticate what things look like ten years down the road, after HR 1476 goals are realized. It is 2025, every car in the U.S. can and does burn gasoline and/or a methanol blend and the competition has kept fuel prices in check. Our coal industry is focused on competing with natural gas to offer methanol and the natural gas industry is no longer a seasonal player during the heating season, but a year round business providing fuels for heating, cooking and motoring. Furthermore, we have weaned ourselves from foreign crude oil and all of our gasoline needs are met with crude from U.S. wells. What should the federal government do next in order to help us transition to the hydrogen economy.

In 2025, a law should be enacted requiring that no automobile in the U.S. may be sold that contains an internal combustion engine by 2032. Furthermore, in 2040 no automobile in the U.S. may be operated with an internal combustion engine. The law should be crafted in such a way that the hydrocarbon based fuel cell will substitute for the internal combustion engine in all motor vehicles. Why is this possible and why should we do it.

Currently, there is research being done (significant amounts by the DOE) to make the fuel cell a reality and, more importantly, fuel cells that operate on methanol. The added benefit of fuel cell propulsion is that it is about twice as efficient as an internal combustion engine and less polluting. Very importantly, all of this can be achieved without changing the liquids based delivery system for motor fuels. We all still pull up to the pump and insert the same nozzle into the “gas tank.”

There is a parallel path that must be taken as well. We must reduce and ultimately eliminate coal as a power plant fuel. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission must facilitate a huge push back into nuclear power. More boldly, it must rekindle the breeder reactor program we abandoned in the 1980s in order to ensure we have enough power plant fuel to last into the future as far as we can see it.

Let’s look further down the road. It’s 2110 and we can see the end to the life of our fossil fuels. We have used them all and the date by which they will be gone can be estimated with a reasonable certainty. But we are prepared. We have the fuel cell. Not only is it propelling our motor vehicles efficiently but it had become a staple and a bulwark of the power plant industry, achieving twice the efficiencies of the power plants of a century earlier. And we have our nuclear infrastructure, both traditional light water and breeder reactors.

When the last drop of fossil fuel is gone, we will satisfy our need for electricity completely with nuclear power. And we will satisfy our needs for motor fuel with nuclear power as well. Every gasoline/methanol filling station of the 21st century will become a hydrogen generating station of the 22nd century. Electrolyzers will crack the hydrogen from water and compress it up for use in our hydrogen fuel cell based vehicles. And the only byproduct of hydrogen in a fuel cell is the production of water. Then we will have an endless, pollution free cycle to power us all. That is one alternative. The other potential is to use the abundant hydrogen we can make to chemically react with atmospheric carbon dioxide to make yet more methanol, but not from fossil fuels.

No matter what the future holds, we need an adaptable plan that ultimately puts our country on an energy cycle that is sustainable without fossil fuels. That, however, can only be achieved if our government institutes planning horizons that befit a country and not the time between its election cycles.