Hydrogen Fuel: Filling Up Your Hydrogen Tank

Hydrogen Fuel: Filling Up Your Hydrogen Tank

We (Ford Motor Company) believe in the potential of hydrogen to power vehicles. However, we also understand that development of a hydrogen refueling infrastructure is necessary before hydrogen fuel cell vehicles will become commercially viable.

Working under a U.S. Department of Energy contract, our researchers found that a factory-built hydrogen refueling station capable of supporting 100 vehicles could produce hydrogen at a price competitive with gasoline. These hydrogen-refueling stations would produce hydrogen by using steam to reform natural gas or through electrolysis of water, either of which would use existing natural gas and electric power infrastructures.

Cost estimates for natural gas steam reformer stations are near $1.5 million per station, but costs could drop to less than $250,000 per station if they were mass-produced. Sufficient infrastructure for mass-production would require between $3 billion and $15 billion in capital investment.

We predict that the conversion of 10 to 15 percent of conventional filling stations in the United States would be sufficient to support mass production of direct-hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

So far, we've helped build hydrogen filling stations in Hiroshima, Detroit and Berlin.

Source: Ford