Preface. This post originally appeared in Skeptic Magazine in 2008 as “The Hydrogen Economy. Savior of Humanity or an Economic Black Hole?” I’ve updated it quite a bit since then.

Hydrogen is the dumbest, most ridiculous energy alternative. It is insanely far from being renewable because it has no energy at all, energy has to be forced into it like a battery, and you lose even more energy when converting it back to electricity.  It has the highest negative energy return of any alternative, because far more energy is used than you ever get back. Think about it — first you have to split hydrogen from natural gas or use many times more energy than that to electrolyze it from water, compress or liquefy H, construct incredibly expensive and short-lived steel containers and pipelines because hydrogen degrades and embrittles them. Then finally deliver hydrogen to non-existent hydrogen vehicles.  Fuel cell technology is far from commercial.

It’s also highly explosive. Hydrogen requires 12 times less energy to ignite than gasoline vapor, so heat sources or the smallest of sparks can turn hydrogen into a bomb.  

Nor can hydrogen replace fossil fuels in manufacturing (see Chapter 9 Manufacturing Uses Over Half of All Fossil Energy in “Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy“). There are no commercial ways to use hydrogen — or electricity — to replace fossil fuels in manufacturing, so with peak oil likely having happened in 2018 there’s not much time left to invent them, and many years to scale them up to becoming commercial — and trillions of dollars if it can be done.  But it probably can’t, because the carbon in coal or charcoal is essential.  So although hydrogen direct reduction can take pre-heated iron ore and convert it into direct reduced iron (H2 DRI), also known as sponge iron, it still needs carbon from coal or charcoal to create steel, even if done in an electric arc furnace plant. If just half of China’s steel was produced this way, the electricity required just to produce the H2 would be over 200 TWh, requiring over 150 GW of solar capacity dedicated to only this process, a capacity that is nearly equal to the total installed capacity of solar in Europe today.

Even more reasons why H is dumb (the cost, EROI and more): Lesser JA (2024) Green Hydrogen: A Multibillion-Dollar Energy Boondoggle. Manhattan Institute.

The heavily subsidized eight hydrogen production centers funded by the Inflation Reduction act and other government funds are having a hard time finding customers for the hydrogen they plan to make.  The only customers that might exist are the ones already using hydrogen for refining petroleum, chemicals, and fertilizer.  But convincing them to make a switch to clean H is not an easy sell. It will cost them money to do that. Buyers need to be sure that the amount needed will be produced and delivered, which will require non-existent as yet infrastructure of pipelines and storage facility and break up existing long-standing contracts. And the subsidies to make the three-times or more expensive hydrogen would need to last for decades. At least a quarter is made onsite as a byproduct and will be used onsite, so no reason to buy that hydrogen elsewhere. And difficult for man other complex economic reasons: St. John J (2024) Clean hydrogen has a serious demand problem. Experts worry that U.S. policies to make clean hydrogen cheaper aren’t enough to convince today’s dirty hydrogen users to make the switch. Canary media

Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.  Women in ecology  Podcasts: WGBH, Jore, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity,  Index of best energyskeptic posts

* * *

Alice Friedemann. 2008. “The Hydrogen Economy. Savior of Humanity or an Economic Black Hole?” Skeptic 14:48-51.

Skeptics scoff at perpetual motion, free energy, and cold fusion, but what about energy from hydrogen? Before we invest trillions of dollars in a hydrogen economy, we should examine the science and pseudoscience behind the hydrogen hype. Let’s begin by taking a hydrogen car out for a spin.

Although the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) in your car can burn hydrogen, the hope is that someday fuel cells, which are based on electrochemical processes rather than combustion (which converts heat to mechanical work), will become more efficient and less polluting than ICEs.¹ Fuel cells were invented before combustion engines in 1839 by William Grove. But the ICE won the race by using abundant and inexpensive gasoline, which is easy to transport and pour, and very high in energy content.²

Production

Unlike gasoline, hydrogen isn’t an energy source — it’s an energy carrier, like a battery. You have to make hydrogen and put energy into it, both of which take energy. Hydrogen has been used commercially for decades, so we already know how to do this. There are two main ways to make hydrogen: using natural gas as both the source and the energy to split hydrogen from the carbon in natural gas (CH4), or using water as the source and renewable energy to split the hydrogen from the oxygen in water (H2O).

1) Making Hydrogen from Fossil Fuels. Currently, 99.9 % of hydrogen is made from fossil fuels, mainly for oil refining, ammonia (fertilizer), and partially hydrogenated oil (IEA 2019,³). In the United States, 90 % is made from natural gas, with an efficiency of 72 %,⁴ which means you lose 28 % of the energy contained in the natural gas to make it (and that doesn’t count the energy it took to extract and deliver the natural gas to the hydrogen plant).

Hydrogen from water using electrolysis is 12 times more costly than natural gas, so no wonder “renewable” hydrogen from water is only made when an especially pure hydrogen is required, mainly by NASA for rocket fuel. 

The best element for electrolytic production is iridium, which is extremely expensive and rarer than even platinum.  No other element comes close to being an alternative. Iridium is a byproduct of mining for platinum and palladium, it is never mined for its own sake, and it’s supply is not growing (Böhm et al 2019, Hobson 2021). 

One of the main arguments made for switching to a “hydrogen economy” is to prevent global warming that has been attributed to the burning of fossil fuels. When hydrogen is made from natural gas, however, nitrogen oxides are released, which are 58 times more effective in trapping heat than carbon dioxide.⁵ Coal releases large amounts of CO2 and mercury. Oil is too powerful and useful to waste on hydrogen — it is concentrated sunshine brewed over hundreds of millions of years. A gallon of gas represents about 196,000 pounds of fossil plants, the amount in 40 acres of wheat.⁶

Natural gas as a source for hydrogen is too valuable. In the U.S. about 34% is used to generate electricity and balance wind and solar, 30% is used in manufacturing, 30% to heat homes and buildings, and another 3-5% to create fertilizer as both a feedstock and energy source. This has led to a many-fold increase in crop production, allowing 4+ billion more people to be alive.^7,8

We simply don’t have enough natural gas left to make a hydrogen economy happen from this nonrenewable, finite source. Extraction of natural gas is declining in North America.⁹  Although fracked natural gas has temporarily been a stopgap for the decline of conventional natural gas, the International Energy Agency estimates that fracked gas production will peak as soon as 2023 (IEA 2018).  Alternatively we could import Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), but it would take at least a decade to set up LNG ships and shoreline facilities at a cost of many billions of dollars. Making LNG is so energy intensive that it would be economically and environmentally insane to use it as a source of hydrogen.¹⁰

2) Making Hydrogen from Water. Only 4% of hydrogen is made from water via electrolysis. It is done when the hydrogen must be extremely pure. Since most electricity comes from fossil fuels in electricity generating plants that are 30 % efficient, and electrolysis is 70 % efficient, you end up using four units of energy to create one unit of hydrogen energy: 70% * 30% = 21% efficiency.¹¹

Fresh water hydrogen competes with agriculture and drinking water, so ideally hydrogen would be made from more abundant sea water. But that would require expensive purification and desalination, since electrolysis turns chloride ions into toxic chlorine gas and degrades the equipment. New technology, such as membranes, catalysts, and electrode materials need to be invented (Tong 2020).

Sure, renewables could generate the electricity, but only about 6.6% of power comes from wind, and 1.6% from solar (EIA 2019).

Producing hydrogen by using fossil fuels as a feedstock or an energy source defeats the purpose, since the whole point is to get away from fossil fuels. The goal is to use renewable energy to make hydrogen from water via electrolysis. When the wind is blowing, current wind turbines can perform at 30–40 percent efficiency, producing hydrogen at an overall rate of 25 percent efficiency — 3 units of wind energy to get 1 unit of hydrogen energy. The best solar cells available on a large scale have an efficiency of ten percent, or 9 units of energy to get 1 hydrogen unit of energy. If you use algae making hydrogen as a byproduct, the efficiency is about .1 percent.¹² No matter how you look at it, producing hydrogen from water is an energy sink. If you want a more dramatic demonstration, please mail me ten dollars and I’ll send you back a dollar.

Hydrogen can be made from biomass, but there are numerous problems:

1. it’s very seasonal;
2. it contains a lot of moisture, requiring energy to store and dry it before gasification;
3. there are limited supplies;
4. the quantities are not large or consistent enough for large-scale hydrogen production;
5. a huge amount of land is required because even cultivated biomass in good soil has a low yield — 10 tons per 2.4 acres;
6. the soil will be degraded from erosion and loss of fertility if stripped of biomass;
7. any energy put into the land to grow the biomass, such as fertilizer and planting and harvesting, will add to the energy costs;
8. the delivery costs to the central power plant must be added; and
9. it is not suitable for pure hydrogen production.¹³

Putting Energy into Hydrogen

No matter how it’s been made, hydrogen has no energy in it. It is the lowest energy dense fuel on earth.¹⁴ At room temperature and pressure, hydrogen takes up three thousand times more space than gasoline containing an equivalent amount of energy.¹⁵ To put energy into hydrogen, it must be compressed or liquefied. To compress hydrogen to the necessary 10,000 psi is a multi-stage process that costs an additional 15 percent of the energy contained in the hydrogen.

If you liquefy it, you will be able to get more hydrogen energy into a smaller container, but you will lose 30–40 percent of the energy in the process. Handling it requires extreme precautions because it is so cold — minus 423 F. Fueling is typically done mechanically with a robot arm.¹⁶

BloombergNEF estimates that to generate enough green hydrogen to meet just 25% of our energy requires more electricity than the world generates today from all sources combined, and an investment of $11 trillion in production, storage and transportation infrastructure (Petrova 2020).

Storage

You may stumble on stories about storing hydrogen in underground salt caverns. This is how the single Compressed Air Energy Storage electricity generation facility stores compressed air. But only 3 gulf states and a tiny part of Utah have these salt caverns containing very large underground caverns at a depth of 1650–4250 feet. CAES has yet to be deployed in rock salt, aquifers, or abandoned rock mines because these formations are less likely to be airtight, and hydrogen, being the smallest element, even more likely than air to escape.

For the storage and transportation of liquid hydrogen, you need a heavy cryogenic support system. The tank is cold enough to cause plugged valves and other problems. If you add insulation to prevent this, you will increase the weight of an already very heavy storage tank, adding additional costs to the system.¹⁷

Let’s assume that a hydrogen car can go 55 miles per kg.¹⁸ A tank that can hold 3 kg of compressed gas will go 165 miles and weigh 400 kg (882 lbs).¹⁹ Compare that with a Honda Accord fuel tank that weighs 11 kg (25 lbs), costs $100, and holds 17 gallons of gas. The overall weight is 73 kg (161 lbs, or 8 lbs per gallon). The driving range is 493 miles at 29 mpg. Here is how a hydrogen tank stacks up against a gas tank in a Honda Accord (last column is cost):

Amount of fuel	Tank weight with fuel		Driving Range
Hydrogen	55 kg @3000 psi	400 kg	165 miles13	$200021
Gasoline	17 gallons	73 kg	493 miles	$100

According to the National Highway Safety Traffic Administration (NHTSA), “Vehicle weight reduction is probably the most powerful technique for improving fuel economy. Each 10 percent reduction in weight improves the fuel economy of a new vehicle design by approximately eight percent.”

The more you compress hydrogen, the smaller the tank can be. But as you increase the pressure, you also have to increase the thickness of the steel wall, and hence the weight of the tank. Cost increases with pressure. At 2000 psi, it is $400 per kg. At 8000 psi, it is $2100 per kg.²⁰ And the tank will be huge — at 5000 psi, the tank could take up ten times the volume of a gasoline tank containing the same energy content.

Fuel cells are heavy. According to Rosa Young, a physicist and vice president of advanced materials development at Energy Conversion Devices in Troy, Michigan: “A metal hydride storage system that can hold 5 kg of hydrogen, including the alloy, container, and heat exchangers, would weigh approximately 300 kg (661 lbs), which would lower the fuel efficiency of the vehicle.”²¹

Fuel cells are also expensive. In 2003, they cost $1 million or more. At this stage, they have low reliability, need a much less expensive catalyst than platinum, can clog and lose power if there are impurities in the hydrogen, don’t last more than 1000 hours, have yet to achieve a driving range of more than 100 miles, and can’t compete with electric hybrids like the Toyota Prius, which is already more energy efficient and low in CO2 generation than projected fuel cells.²²

Hydrogen fuel cells need a lot of platinum — far more than can be obtained if they were to become commercial (41).

Hydrogen is the Houdini of elements. As soon as you’ve gotten it into a container, it wants to get out, and since it is the lightest of all gases, it takes a lot of effort to keep it from escaping. Storage devices need a complex set of seals, gaskets, and valves. Liquid hydrogen tanks for vehicles boil off at 3–4 percent per day.²³

Hydrogen also tends to make metal brittle.²⁴ Embrittled metal can create leaks. In a pipeline, it can cause cracking or fissuring, which can result in potentially catastrophic failure.²⁵ Making metal strong enough to withstand hydrogen adds weight and cost.

Leaks also become more likely as the pressure grows higher. It can leak from un-welded connections, fuel lines, and non-metal seals such as gaskets, O-rings, pipe thread compounds, and packings. A heavy-duty fuel cell engine may have thousands of seals.²⁶ Hydrogen has the lowest ignition point of any fuel, 20 times less than gasoline. So if there’s a leak, it can be ignited by any number of sources.²⁷  And an odorant can’t be added because of hydrogen’s small molecular size (SBC).

Worse, leaks are invisible — sometimes the only way to know there’s a leak is poor performance.

Hydrogen leakage increases climate change

New reports show that hydrogen leaks have warming effects 11 times worse than those of CO2 over a 100-year timespan from extending the life of methane, increasing tropospheric ozone, and greater amounts of water vapor. Leaks occur at all stages, up to 10% overall during electrolysis, compression or liquefaction, pipelines, and storage (Warwick 2022, FNC 2022)

 

And hydrogen can be bad for your health. Burning hydrogen in power plants can produce lung-damaging nitrogen oxides as a byproduct (Chediak 2022).

Distribution

One barrier to hydrogen is pipelines. There are currently 700 miles of hydrogen pipelines in operation—that is in comparison to 1 million miles of natural gas pipelines. To move to a nationwide use of hydrogen, safe and effective pipelines have to be developed. Tests have to be developed to test for the degradation that is likely to occur to the metals that can be caused by hydrogen weakening the pipeline.

According to former secretary of energy Steven Chu (39), hydrogen seeps into metal and embrittles it, and is a materials problem that has not been solved for decades and may never be solved.  

Nor can hydrogen piggyback on natural gas pipelines at less dangerous concentrations of 5 to 15% — it can’t be extracted at the other end until pressure swing adsorption membranes are invented, and all impurities taken out so that fuel cells aren’t damaged.  Even if invented, renewable wind or solar would only be able to create excess electricity to make hydrogen for just part of the year. Pipeline operators won’t want to install and remove expensive extraction equipment seasonally (40).

If added to natural gas pipelines, existing compressor stations don’t work well with it, and home gas appliances can only handle a mix of 80% natural gas / 20% hydrogen at best.  Blending hydrogen into gas pipelines for use in buildings and power generation would increase customer costs, increase air pollution and cause safety risks from explosions and fires from leaks, while minimally reducing greenhouse gases. Hydrogen also produces less energy than natural gas, so a 20% hydrogen blend would provide only a 6% to 7% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at a much higher cost (Chediak 2022).

And get this — no matter how little hydrogen is mixed with natural gas in pipelines, it will degrade the  “mechanical properties of most metals. Fatigue is accelerated over 30 times. There is no threshold below which hydrogen effects can be ignored. Even small amounts of hydrogen have large effects (Ronevich and San Marchi 2019).

One of the challenges in the use of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel is the seemingly trivial matter of measuring fuel consumption. Refueling with hydrogen is a problem because there are currently no mechanisms to ensure accuracy at the pump. Hydrogen is dispensed at a very high pressure, at varying degrees of temperature and with mixtures of other gases (S.HRG. 110-1199)

Transport

Canister trucks ($250,000 each) can carry enough fuel for 60 cars.²⁸ These trucks weigh 40,000 kg, but deliver only 400 kg of hydrogen. For a delivery distance of 150 miles, the delivery energy used is nearly 20 percent of the usable energy in the hydrogen delivered. At 300 miles, that is 40 percent. The same size truck carrying gasoline delivers 10,000 gallons of fuel, enough to fill about 800 cars.²⁹

 

Another alternative is pipelines. The average cost of a natural gas pipeline is one million dollars per mile, and we have 200,000 miles of natural gas pipeline, which we can’t re-use because they are composed of metal that would become brittle and leak, as well as the incorrect diameter to maximize hydrogen throughput. If we were to build a similar infrastructure to deliver hydrogen it would cost $200 billion. The major operating cost of hydrogen pipelines is compressor power and maintenance.³⁰ Compressors in the pipeline keep the gas moving, using hydrogen energy to push the gas forward. After 620 miles, 8 percent of the hydrogen has been used to move it through the pipeline.³¹

 

Another option is shipping hydrogen, but “tell that to the people who’ll have to ship it across the globe at hyper-cold temperatures close to those in outer space”. There are three prototype ships in experimental stages with many technical challenges to overcome.  The hydrogen has to be chilled to minus 253 degrees Celcius (-423 F), just 20 degrees above absolute zero, the coldest possible temperature, to keep it in liquid form and keep the vessel from cracking. That’s even colder than liquefied natural gas (-160 C, -260 F). To prevent embrittlement, new high-strength steel, super insulation, and welding techniques will be necessary. The costs will be extremely high though none of the prototype makers were willing to say what the cost might be (Saul 2021).

How much electricity would we need to make hydrogen for light-duty vehicles (Post 2017)?

Conclusion

At some point along the chain of making, putting energy in, storing, and delivering the hydrogen, we will have used more energy than we can get back, and this doesn’t count the energy used to make fuel cells, storage tanks, delivery systems, and vehicles.³² When fusion can make cheap hydrogen, when reliable long-lasting nanotube fuel cells exist, and when light-weight leak-proof carbon-fiber polymer-lined storage tanks and pipelines can be made inexpensively, then we can consider building the hydrogen economy infrastructure. Until then, it’s vaporware. All of these technical obstacles must be overcome for any of this to happen.³³ Meanwhile, the United States government should stop funding the Freedom CAR program, which gives millions of tax dollars to the big three automakers to work on hydrogen fuel cells. Instead, automakers ought to be required to raise the average overall mileage their vehicles get — the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard.³⁴

At some time in the future the price of oil and natural gas will increase significantly due to geological depletion and political crises in extracting countries. Since the hydrogen infrastructure will be built using the existing oil-based infrastructure (i.e. internal combustion engine vehicles, power plants and factories, plastics, etc.), the price of hydrogen will go up as well — it will never be cheaper than fossil fuels. As depletion continues, factories will be driven out of business by high fuel costs^35,36,37 and the parts necessary to build the extremely complex storage tanks and fuel cells might become unavailable.

The laws of physics mean the hydrogen economy will always be an energy sink. Hydrogen’s properties require you to spend more energy than you can earn, because in order to do so you must overcome waters’ hydrogen-oxygen bond, move heavy cars, prevent leaks and brittle metals, and transport hydrogen to the destination. It doesn’t matter if all of these problems are solved, or how much money is spent. You will use more energy to create, store, and transport hydrogen than you will ever get out of it.

Any diversion of declining fossil fuels to a hydrogen economy subtracts that energy from other possible uses, such as planting, harvesting, delivering, and cooking food, heating homes, and other essential activities. According to Joseph Romm, a Department of Energy official who oversaw research on hydrogen and transportation fuel cell research during the Clinton Administration: “The energy and environmental problems facing the nation and the world, especially global warming, are far too serious to risk making major policy mistakes that misallocate scarce resources.³⁸

Related articles

See posts in categories hydrogen, manufacturing, electric trucks, batteries (vehicles also need an electric battery), and When trucks stop running.

• Heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell trucks a waste of energy and money

• Hydrogen fuel cell cars are a waste of time and money, and explosive

• Hydrogen production would use WAAAAAAAAAY too much water

• Diesel is finite. Trucks are the bedrock of civilization. So where are the battery electric trucks?
• Just 16,000 catenary trucks would use 1% of California’s electricity generation, all vehicles 2.5 times more power than available
• Hybrid electric trucks are very different from HEV cars
• All Electric Trucks. Probably not going to happen. Ever. Why not?
• Who Killed the Electric Car?
• Electric vehicle overview
• Making the most energy dense battery from the palette of the periodic table
• Heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell trucks a waste of energy and money
• When Trucks Stop Running, So Does Civilization. Energy and the Future of Transportation
• What would happen if trucks stopped running?
• Electric vehicle overview

References from Skeptic magazine:

1. Thomas, S. and Zalbowitz, M. 1999. Fuel cells — Green power. Department of Energy, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 5. www.lanl.gov/orgs/mpa/mpa11/Green%20Power.pdf
2. Pinkerton, F. E. and Wicke, B.G. 2004. “Bottling the Hydrogen Genie,” The Industry Physicist, Feb/Mar: 20–23.
3. Jacobson, M. F. September 8, 2004. “Waiter, Please Hold the Hydrogen.” San Francisco Chronicle, 9(B).
4. Hoffert, M. I., et al. November 1, 2002. “Advanced Technology Paths to Global Climate Stability: Energy for a Greenhouse Planet.” Science, 298, 981–987.
5. Union of Concerned Scientists. How Natural Gas Works. www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/renewable_energy/page.cfm?pageID=84
6. Kruglinski, S. 2004. “What’s in a Gallon of Gas?” Discover, April, 11. http://discovermagazine.com/2004/apr/discover-data/
7. Fisher, D. E. and Fisher, M. J. 2001. “The Nitrogen Bomb.” Discover, April, 52–57.
8. Smil, V. 1997. “Global Population and the Nitrogen Cycle.” Scientific American, July, 76–81.
9. Darley, J. 2004. High Noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis. Chelsea Green Publishing.
10. Romm, J. J. 2004. The Hype About Hydrogen: Fact and Fiction in the Race to Save the Climate. Island Press, 154.
11. Ibid., 75.
12. Hayden, H. C. 2001. The Solar Fraud: Why Solar Energy Won’t Run the World. Vales Lake Publishing.
13. Simbeck, D. R., and Chang, E. 2002. Hydrogen Supply: Cost Estimate for Hydrogen Pathways — Scoping Analysis. Golden, Colorado: NREL/SR-540-32525, Prepared by SFA Pacific, Inc. for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), DOE, and the International Hydrogen Infrastructure Group (IHIG), July, 13. www.nrel.gov/docs/fy03osti/32525.pdf
14. Ibid., 14.
15. Romm, 2004, 20.
16. Ibid., 94–95.
17. Phillips, T. and Price, S. 2003. “Rocks in your Gas Tank.” April 17. Science at NASA. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/17apr_zeolite.htm
18. Simbeck and Chang, 2002, 41.
19. Amos, W. A. 1998. Costs of Storing and Transporting Hydrogen. National Renewable Energy Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, 20. www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/25106.pdf
20. Simbeck and Chang, 2002, 14.
21. Valenti, M. 2002. “Fill’er up — With Hydrogen.” Mechanical Engineering Magazine, Feb 2. www.memagazine.org/backissues/membersonly/feb02/features/
    fillerup/fillerup.html
22. Romm, 2004, 7, 20, 122.
23. Ibid., 95, 122.
24. El kebir, O. A. and Szummer, A. 2002. “Comparison of Hydrogen Embrittlement of Stainless Steels and Nickel-base Alloys.” International Journal of Hydrogen Energy #27, July/August 7–8, 793–800.
25. Romm, 2004, 107.
26. Fuel Cell Engine Safety. December 2001. College of the Desert www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/tech_validation/pdfs/fcm06r0.pdf
27. Romm, J. J. 2004. Testimony for the Hearing Reviewing the Hydrogen Fuel and FreedomCAR Initiatives Submitted to the House Science Committee. March 3. http://gop.science.house.gov/hearings/full04/mar03/romm.pdf
28. Romm, 2004. The Hype About Hydrogen, 103.
29. Ibid., 104.
30. Ibid., 101–102.
31. Bossel, U. and Eliasson, B. 2003. “Energy and the Hydrogen Economy.” Jan 8. www.methanol.org/pdf/HydrogenEconomyReport2003.pdf
32. Ibid.
33. National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap Production, Delivery, Storage, Conversion, Applications, Public Education and Outreach. November 2002. U.S. Department of Energy. www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/pdfs/national_h2_roadmap.pdf
34. Neil, D. 2003. “Rumble Seat: Toyota’s Spark of Genius.” Los Angeles Times. October 15. www.latimes.com/la-danneil-101503-pulitzer,0,7911314.story
35. Associated Press, 2004. “Oil Prices Raising Costs of Offshoots.” July 2. www.tdn.com/articles/2004/07/02/biz/news03.prt
36. Abbott, C. 2004. “Soaring Energy Prices Dog Rosy U.S. Farm Economy.” Forbes, Reuters News Service. May 24.
37. Schneider, G. 2004. “Chemical Industry in Crisis: Natural Gas Prices Are Up, Factories Are Closing, And Jobs Are Vanishing.” Washington Post, 1(E). March 17. www.marshall.edu/cber/media/040317-WP-chemical.pdf
38. Romm, 2004. The Hype About Hydrogen, 8.
39. Chu, S. June 23, 2020. Stanford Global energy dialogue series. Stanford University. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9SPglLg0W0&feature=youtu.be
40. Chatsko M. 2020. Does the hydrogen economy have a pipeline problem? The Motley Fool.
41. Chatsko M. 2020. Will platinum doom hydrogen cars? The Motley Fool.

References added after publication in Skeptic Magazine

Blain L (2021) Powerpaste packs clean hydrogen energy in a safe, convenient gray goop. New Atlas.

Böhm D, Beetz M, Maximilian Schuster M et al (2019) Efficient OER Catalyst with Low Ir Volume Density Obtained by Homogeneous Deposition of Iridium Oxide Nanoparticles on Macroporous Antimony-Doped Tin Oxide Support. Advanced Functional Materials, 2019; 1906670 DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201906670

Chediak M (2022) Hydrogen is every U.S. gas utility’s favorite future savior. Bloomberg.

DOE. 2011. Advanced technologies for high efficiency clean vehicles. Vehicle Technologies Program. Washington DC: United States Department of Energy.

EIA. 2019. Table 7.2a Electricity net generation total (all sectors). U.S. Energy Information Administration.

FNC (2022) Fugitive hydrogen emissions in a future hydrogen economy. Frazer-Nash consultancy.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1067137/fugitive-hydrogen-emissions-future-hydrogen-economy.pdf

Hobson P (2021) Tight supply and hydrogen hopes drive iridium up 160%. Reuters.  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-precious-iridium/tight-supply-and-hydrogen-hopes-drive-iridium-up-160-idUSKBN2AC1DG

Huang, E. 2019. A hydrogen fueling station explosion in Norway has left fuel-cell cars nowhere to charge. Quartz.

IEA. 2018. World Energy Outlook. International Energy Agency.

IEA (2019) The future of hydrogen. International Energy Agency.

Kane, M. 2019. Hydrogen fueling station explodes: Toyota & Hyundai halt fuel cell car sales. insideevs.com.

Pena, L. 2019. Hydrogen explosion shakes Santa Clara neighborhood. ABC News.

Petrova M (2020) Green hydrogen is gaining traction, but still has massive hurdles to overcome. CNBC

Post, W. March 6, 2017. The Hydrogen Economy Will Be Highly Unlikely. energycollective.com

Ronevich J, San Marchi C (2019) Hydrogen effects on pipeline steels and blending into natural gas. Sandia National Laboratories, H2FC hydrogen and fuel cells program, American Gas association sustainable growth commitee, November 5th, 2019

Saul J (2021) Too Cold to Handle? Race is on to pioneer shipping of hydrogen. Reuters.

SBC. February 2014. Hydrogen-based energy conversion. SBC Energy Institute.

S.HRG. 110-1199. June 24, 2008. Climate change impacts on the transportation sector. Senate Hearing.

Tong W, et al. 2020. Electrolysis of low-grade and saline surface water. Nature Energy.

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Woodrow, M. 2019. Bay Area experiences hydrogen shortage after explosion. ABC News.