hydrogen's low EROI

 1. Hydrogen has very low energy content by volume. That means that it has to be very highly compressed, to 5000 or 10,000 PSI, for use in a FCEV.


2. Compressing hydrogen to that degree requires special expensive high-pressure pumps, along with high-pressure pipes and storage tanks. Dispensing stations also have to have such pumps, pipes, and tanks, which is one of several reasons why building a hydrogen filling station is so extremely expensive; construction costs are about $1 million for each dozen FCEVs serviced per day! And of course maintenance costs for such fueling stations will also be orders of magnitude higher than costs for a regular gasoline filling station, on a per-car basis.

3. H2 (the hydrogen molecule, composed of two hydrogen atoms) is so very tiny that ordinary seals won't stop it from leaking pretty rapidly. Special expensive seals are needed for storage of compressed H2, and even then there is some slow leakage past seals. In fact, the H2 molecule is so tiny that it will (very slowly) leak right through the solid metal walls of a storage tank!

Note this also means the fuel will be constantly, albeit slowly, leaking out of any FCEV which it's stored in.

4. Because compressed H2 has to be compressed to such a high pressure, existing pipe distribution systems for natural gas and petroleum can't be used to move H2. Generally, hydrogen fuel has to be moved using special (and again, expensive) high-pressure tanker trucks, which of course drives up the expense and the energy cost of distributing the fuel.

       In economics there is a principle called "Energy Return On Investment", or EROI. Briefly, it's a ratio between the energy invested in making a product vs the amount of energy present in the end product. Ideally that ratio should be very high. For example, currently in gasoline production, the EROI is usually between 10:1 and 20:1, meaning for every 1 unit of energy invested in extracting and refining petroleum, 10 to 20 units of energy are contained in the refined gasoline. That high EROI is one of several reasons why gasoline is so practical and popular as a fuel.

Hydrogen fuel, on the other hand, requires such a massive investment of energy in several energy-wasting steps in the well-to-wheel supply chain that the EROI is only about 1:4 or 1:5, making it orders of magnitude less economical than gasoline by the time it's dispensed. That is reflected in the pump price, which for non-subsidized H2 is about USD $14-16. (Those promoting the "hydrogen economy" hoax often cite a significantly lower price; either a subsidized price or an outright fictional price.)

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