Biographies

Pascal Lamy

Pascal Lamy served two consecutive terms as Director-General of

the World Trade Organisation (WTO). He was chief of staff for the
President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors,
from 1985 to 1994, and was Commissioner for Trade at the
European Commission between 1999 and 2004. Between these two
terms, he was the CEO of Crédit Lyonnais. Pascal Lamy holds
degrees from the Paris-based École des hautes études
commerciales (HEC), the Institut d’études politiques (IEP), and the
École nationale d›administration (ENA). He is currently the inter-
ministerial delegate for the preparation of France’s bid to host
the 2025 World’s Fair. He splits the rest of his time between the
Jacques Delors Institute, where he is President Emeritus, and
various European and international issues to which he is committed,
including the ethics of tourism, the fight against corruption, access to
medication, the oceans, the African continent, trade relations, and
global governance.

Pierre-Etienne Franc

Vice President of advanced business and technologies for Air

Liquide, and responsible in this capacity for opening up the group’s
new markets driven by the ecological transition, Pierre-Étienne Franc
is deeply involved in the promotion and development of hydrogen
energy. Since 2011, he has chaired the Industry Grouping for Fuel
Cell and Hydrogen technology (Hydrogen Europe) and the Fuel Cells
and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU), a structure co-managed
with the European Commission, which is financing its development
in Europe.

Pascal Mateo

This freelance journalist, working for a number of national and

regional publications, has scoured France several times, on the
lookout for the small and big events that make our regions
newsworthy.
manifestô

Manifest texts that place the new environmental and societal issues
at the heart of the debate.

Other titles of the collection:

• Cradle to Cradle
William McDonough / Michael Braungart
• Nos enfants nous accuseront
Jean-Paul Jaud / Anne-Laure Murier

• Terra Madre
Carlo Petrini

• Changeons de cap, changeons de Pac!

José Bové / Gilles Luneau
• Vive la COrévolution!
Anne-Sophie Novel / Stéphane Riot
• L’Âge de l’Homme
Christian Schwägerl
• La Métamorphose numérique
Sous la direction de Francis Jutand

• La Vie share
Anne-Sophie Novel

• Vers un nouveau mode de ville

Vidal Benchimol / Stéphanie Lemoine
• Ré-enchanter le monde
Sous la direction de Marie-Hélène Contal

• La ville rebelle
Sous la direction de Jana Revedin
• Semences hors-la-loi
Blanche Magarinos-Rey
 Hydrogen:
the energy transition
in the making!

PIERRE-ÉTIENNE FRANC
in collaboration with
PASCAL MATEO

Preface by
PASCAL LAMY
Preface

As I write, Europe is slowly emerging from a crisis like others it has

experienced, except that this time European unity has taken a hit.
The conflict between European solidarity and European
responsibility within the family of the Union’s member states came to
the forefront during the Greek drama. While we can rejoice that a
solution was found, it is in fact one that takes us along a narrow,
uncertain ridge. Today, Europe is looking for a second wind. On the
eve of the ninetieth birthday of Jacques Delors, the man who for a
long time inspired a “certain vision of Europe,” this observation is
necessarily bitter.
On this occasion, Jacques Delors restated how important it is for
Europe to rediscover the moral dimension at the heart of its project.
There are plenty of reasons to give the European adventure a
second wind, beginning with the imperious need to wield clout
against the world’s major geopolitical groupings being built around
it – powerful, homogenous and determined. A divided Europe would
probably signal the end of our models, our values, our dreams of
power and sovereignty.
In the list of projects that can help to construct a new European
mission, energy-related issues are likely to be among the most
meaningful, for several reasons.
First of all, the problem of the energy transition goes to the heart of
questions about civilization, an area where Europe has always
aspired to show the way, because it involves putting the entire planet
on a consumption pathway that is compatible with the preservation
of the resources that have been entrusted to us. Without falling into
the trap of naïve optimism, Europe continues to want to incarnate a
moral conscience for the planet and after successfully maintaining
peace within its ranks, for which it won a Nobel Prize, it is truly the
planetary ecosystem that should constitute the new horizon for
peace. Not only because this is an existential issue, but also
because it opens up the possibility of tackling a number of other
challenges that are of immediate concern for Europe – growth,
cooperation and integration.
Secondly, the solutions that are becoming more compelling each
day when it comes to making this transition attest to the return of
human ingenuity at the service of society, the return of technology at
the service of a desirable future. Indeed, we will not succeed in
shifting to a renewable world where electricity is competitive without
considerable technological developments. And this return to belief in
the virtues of technical progress is also a return to the foundations of
Enlightenment philosophy, the cauldron of the European project. It
seems to me that the progress made in the field of hydrogen,
presented in this book, offers an eloquent illustration of the way the
dreams of Jules Verne become realizable. Other sectors – wind,
solar, hydraulic, nuclear tomorrow and fusion thereafter – are not
standing still. It is not trivial to observe that the global ITER fusion
project is hosted on European soil and largely backed by European
technologies.
Thirdly, we Europeans are lucky to have among us some of the
most ingenious players on the planet when it comes to energy
matters, whether this means France’s savoir-faire in nuclear energy,
Germany’s “Energiewende,” the sustainable energy ecosystem in
the Scandinavian countries, or Europe’s expertise in industrial gases
and hydrogen technologies. This expertise runs the gamut from
cutting-edge research and development and start-ups to the utility
operators, major equipment and power plants manufacturers.
Moreover, it is worth noting that the developments required to roll
out this energy transition are great job generators and play a role in
the reconstruction of a regionally-driven economy, more
decentralized, more local, more integrated with the business sectors
that it irrigates. The impact on our trade balances and our collective
public debt – weighed down by an energy bill that comes to more
than 450 billion euros a year – of a reshoring of our energy
resources would also be considerable, even without factoring in the
geopolitical liberty that such an evolution would offer. Europe has the
opportunity to become a pioneer in the energy transition and hence
to promote a model of economic growth that is less destructive to the
environment.
But perhaps the most essential feature of this dynamic resides in
what this book endeavors to explain, i.e., the necessity – if our
change of model is to be successful – of revisiting the relationships,
roles and responsibilities of the various actors in society, driven by a
social democratic mindset that is, ultimately, very European. In fact,
there will be no successful energy transition without political
instruments and without institutional, financing and collaboration
frameworks, fully integrated across industries, public policymakers
and citizens. There will be no industry engagement in the
deployment of heavy alternative infrastructures without strong
support from regulation and without adequate, dedicated insurance
tools that can organize the synergy between political powers and
market players. There will be no affordable success in the energy
transition wager without the mobilization of citizens. And there will be
no mobilization of citizens without a clear conviction that the shift
from one model to another will be virtuous for the citizen as well as
for the society as a whole. We are in a unique situation, where the
positive collective externalities of the energy transition are building
the dynamic of the market and enabling a new balance to be struck
between the aspirations of the collective and the individual, the
industrial and the political. In this context, the European
public/private development model that constitutes the joint
undertaking over which the author presides is part of these
European originalities that promote the convergence of public policy
and private commitments.
Lastly, this work reminds us that we are not isolated. Hydrogen,
one of the vectors of this energy transition that is underway, is
advancing everywhere. The deployments, the commitments of large
industrial nations to promote more widespread use of this molecule,
in transportation and at home, and in energy storage, are
significant – starting with Japan, South Korea and the United States.
China, under fire, recently indicated its willingness to put hydrogen at
the heart of its future energy strategy. Europe is in the race and
could even stay in the lead. It is, once again, a question of political
will but also an opportunity to strengthen the co-development models
among the planet’s major economic actors, so critical when it comes
to ensuring that everyone puts in his or her fair share of the effort it
will take to build the energy solution of tomorrow.
Against this backdrop, the debates expected during the upcoming
COP21 in Paris remind me of those I experienced within the WTC. In
particular, I learned that in order to make headway on subjects this
complex, it is necessary to have a goal that is clear to everyone and
unflagging perspicacity. In this respect, the story of the hydrogen
sector, its successes, the stages of its development, its clear
awareness of the challenges to come, and the collaborative needs
for success, provide a good illustration of the global stakes of the
energy transition as a whole.
Pierre Étienne Franc repeats the words uttered by Claude Lévi-
Strauss in a documentary commemorating his centenary:
“Humanism is destructive if it is only applied to certain categories of
the living, for it leads by steps to selection upon selection. We need
a humanism that applies to all living and suffering beings.” Lévi-
Strauss then added, “this is why I am not optimistic for our modern
society.” The author responds by asking readers the following
question: “Is it possible to prove him wrong?”
This is the challenge presented to us here. The moral dimension
of the energy transition, in light of the climate issues we face and the
damage our productive model is doing to our ecosystem, is obvious.
The technological capacity of our societies to resolve this problem is
real, as this book demonstrates through its focus on hydrogen.
Admittedly, the question of whether the political will exists remains
an open one. But as this work shows, there is room for optimism if
we can obtain buy-in for an ethic of conviction within globalization.
 Pascal Lamy
President emeritus, Institut Jacques Delors
Introduction

And if, once again, he was right all along? And if Jules Verne had
once again demonstrated his incomparable clairvoyance? Everyone
knows how many times the writer proved he was a visionary.
Pushing back the limits of scientific knowledge at the end of the
nineteenth century, his anticipatory novels did indeed prophesize any
number of technological revolutions. Mentioned back in 1865, in
From the Earth to the Moon, the launch of a space gun with three
passengers onboard for a trip to the moon prefigures the conquest of
outer space, which only became a reality in 1961 with the maiden
voyage of Yuri Gagarin. Similarly, Captain Nemo’s submersibles,
described in 1869 in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, are
unanimously considered to be the precursors of the nuclear-powered
submarine and the scuba. As for the flying machine that imitated the
birds, which he imagined in 1886 for Robur the Conqueror, it
preceded the fabrication of the first helicopters by several decades.
And if, with respect to hydrogen, the writer’s incredible intuition also
came true? In 1874, Jules Verne has the engineer Cyrus Smith, one
of the protagonists of The Mysterious Island, say: “I believe that
water will one day be used as fuel, that hydrogen and oxygen, which
are used singly or together, will provide a source of heat and light
inexhaustible…” And nearly 150 years later, the energy revolution
suggested by the father of science fiction is well and truly in the
making: it turns out that hydrogen does in fact constitute a
remarkable vector of energy and, by the same token, a key to the
future.
In fact, this molecule allows us to store electricity, particularly that
produced by wind and sun power. Because these renewable
energies are intermittent, being able to capture the surplus energy
produced on particularly sunny or windy days is absolutely essential.
Hydrogen is able to do this. In addition, when combined with fuel cell
technology, it can turn this energy into electricity with remarkable
outputs and for multiple applications: a turbine, a heating network, a
car, and so on. The advent of a hydrogen society thus becomes
conceivable.
Better still: given that the world energy system, dominated by fossil
resources – gas, coal, and oil – is running out of steam, it is
indispensable. Fossil reserves are not extensible. These
hydrocarbons are the fruit of the sedimentation of organic residue
over a period of several million years, but their frenetic use over the
course of the last two centuries is leading to their irreversible
disappearance. Indeed, they will only become increasingly scarce in
the decades to come. The global productive model is tightly
dependent on these fossil energies, and the sustained pace of
demographic growth on a planetary scale is leading ineluctably to
higher consumption of coal, gas and, above all, oil. Moreover, the
fact that they are gradually becoming more expensive is obviously
the necessary corollary of the inexorable exhaustion of these natural
resources. The recent decline in oil prices is an outlier within the
long-term uptrend.
These two phenomena – dwindling supply and higher prices over
the long term for fossil fuels – require that we think about the
development of new vectors of energy. Hydrogen is one of them.
Though it is the smallest molecule in existence, hydrogen’s energy
density is exceptionally high. Moreover, as the most abundant
element in the Universe, it is inexhaustible! Provided that it is wisely
exploited from an energy perspective, hydrogen can help the planet
free itself from its dependency on fossil energies.
Especially since it is now unanimously recognized that the
immoderate use of these fossil energies poses a serious threat to
the environment. Fossil energies make a very significant contribution
to the emission of carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas.
Consequently, they are largely responsible for global warming and its
painful repercussions for the various ecosystems of our planet. The
ecological challenge is critical to our future, and it requires us to
reduce carbon dioxide emissions in every productive sector. The
challenge facing the transportation industry, which today is extremely
dependent on oil, is particularly daunting.
Is there a molecule other than hydrogen that could possibly help to
decarbonize the transportation industry? There is not a trace of
carbon in hydrogen! Used in a fuel cell system, it produces electricity
without any harmful emissions, with water as its only by-product!
Thus, hydrogen’s potential for playing a key role in the energy
transition is extraordinary.
It even constitutes one of the keys to the planetary shift toward a
carbon-free economy. Especially considering that, in the last fifteen
years or so, the technologies used to control the production,
packaging and use of hydrogen have for the most part moved
beyond the demo phase. Via electrolysis in particular, it is now
possible to produce hydrogen without emitting any greenhouse
gases whatsoever. And for the storage of hydrogen as a gas, a
liquid, or a solid, there are numerous methods to choose from –
some are tried and tested, while others are just getting started. In
addition, the world’s most influential automakers are manufacturing
hydrogen-powered vehicles and starting to sell them to consumers.
In every sector, the field of possibilities is considerable: hydrogen
can not only store intermittent electricity; it can also charge a mobile
phone, supply electricity to a remote site, or even fuel a ship. It has
been providing fuel for the Ariane launcher for more than 40 years!
On the other hand, while the technical challenges have now either
been resolved or are close to resolution, the economic challenges
remain to be met. Since the technologies are mature, it is now time
to begin rolling them out on an industrial scale. If this deployment
does not happen rapidly, the investment sequence that some key
industry players – automakers, energy specialists, and suppliers of
industrial gases among them1 – have initiated in recent years, with
the support of public powers, will grind to a sudden halt. Above all,
the countries that fail to start the process of industrialization in time
run the risk of not having the capacity needed to store intermittent
energies when the wind and solar grids reach maturity.
 Obviously, this deployment phase has a cost. By definition, the
first stages of industrial and commercial development are not
profitable. The risk is consequential for manufacturers that have to
build production units, new power trains, and dedicated
infrastructures for distribution. The public powers play a decisive role
in supporting the risk takers. Within the context of an energy
transition based on hydrogen, it is in fact fundamental, since the cost
question becomes even more acute: in this case, the goal is to
gradually transform the energy mix so that a growing proportion of
the existing fossil energies can be replaced by an energy solution
that will be more costly at the outset and more difficult to roll out!
Even if these fossil resources are both a source of pollution and
bound to gradually decrease, it is still not necessarily easy to make
the wisdom of this change apparent: measuring tomorrow with the
interpretive tools of today is no easy task. And yet… The energy
transition can only be achieved at the price of a genuine paradigm
shift!
In order to bring this societal disruption about, it is imperative to
convince. To demonstrate that there are solutions for resolving the
problem of rolling out this energy transition, of which hydrogen is one
of the keys. We must mobilize all stakeholders – from public powers
to ordinary citizens, not to mention businesses and research
laboratories – and convert them to cooperation and dialogue. We
must showcase the virtuous societal changes and the emergence of
an economy at the service of society, with hydrogen as a possible
source. We must demonstrate, in short, that it is in the interest of
France, Europe, and the entire world to bring about Jules Verne’s
premonition with respect to hydrogen. That’s the whole ambition of
this book.

1. Industrial gas companies manufacture and distribute, in liquid or gas form, air
gases (oxygen, nitrogen and rare gases), specialty gases, and small essential
molecules (helium and, of course, hydrogen).
 CHAPTER 1

One
molecule,
many
applications
IT appeared at the very moment the Universe was born, immediately
after the event scientists call the Big Bang… With its thirteen billion
years of existence, hydrogen thus constitutes the oldest chemical
element in the Universe! Yet it has been just a few centuries since
man became aware of its existence, and it was only little by little that
he began the process of understanding it.
In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Swiss alchemist and
physician Paracelsus conducted an experiment that consisted of
pouring vitriol on iron filings, observing an effervescent reaction and
suspecting that the air by-product – the term gas did not come into
use until the seventeenth century – was not exactly the same as the
air he breathed. This was a fundamental intuition for modern
science, since it called into question the older theory which held that
the Universe was composed exclusively of the four elements – air,
water, earth and fire. However, without a process for isolating this
mysterious air, Paracelsus did not venture any further.
In 1766, the British chemist Henry Cavendish took up the work of
Paracelsus, dissolving metal with acid. He too observed a strange
chemical reaction. But, unlike his illustrious predecessor, he was
able to fill a pig’s bladder with some of the gas emanations and
observe that they were much lighter than atmospheric air. He also
noted that these emanations were highly flammable, producing water
vapor when burned. Cavendish decided to call this gas “inflammable
air.” The process of identifying hydrogen had begun.
Less than two decades later, in 1783, Antoine de Lavoisier
reproduced the experiments conducted by Paracelsus and
Cavendish, coming to the exact same conclusions. The French
chemist proposed a new word to designate this inflammable air: from
the suffix hydro (from the Greek hudôr, meaning water) and the suffix
gen (from the Greek genomai, I engender), he formed the word
hydrogen. In other words, the “formative principle of water,” as
Lavoisier himself wrote in his Elementary Treatise of Chemistry,
published in 1789. Finally, the hydrogen adventure could begin.
Hydrogen, a unique molecule
In the periodic table of elements – Mendeleev’s famous Periodic
Table – hydrogen is the first element. And for good reason! Made up
of just a single proton and a single electron, this chemical element
with the symbol H is the simplest one of all. But further precision is
required here. The gas that Paracelsus detected, that Cavendish
discovered, and that Lavoisier named is in reality the molecular form
of this chemical element. Composed of two hydrogen atoms
combined, this molecule currently goes by the chemical formula H
2
and the scientific name dihydrogen. However, the term hydrogen
continues to be the molecule’s common name. For the sake of clarity
and simplicity, it is this common name, hydrogen, that will be used
for the molecule H2 throughout this work.

Plenty is no plague
In addition to being the oldest, hydrogen is also the most abundant
element in the Universe. Three-fourths of the Universe’s mass is
composed of hydrogen! Hydrogen is the principal component of the
Sun, whose energy is produced by thermonuclear fusion in its core
region, which transforms hydrogen into helium.1 This demonstrates
the essential role that hydrogen played in the birth of life on Earth.
Similarly, it is a fundamental component of the other stars, the giant
planets of our solar system (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune),
and the interstellar medium.
Hydrogen, though it is also present in abundance on Earth, is
rarely found in isolation. The product of an extremely rare
thermochemical phenomenon, naturally occurring hydrogen gas has
certainly been detected in certain regions of the globe, in particular
along the oceanic ridges and in some parts of the United States and
Mali. But for the time being, capturing this gas poses enormous
technical and financial challenges. Conversely, our planet is full of
resources in which hydrogen is combined with other chemical
elements. Water, first and foremost, is composed of two hydrogen
atoms and one oxygen atom, as its chemical formula indicates
(H2O). And 70 % of the Earth’s2 surface is composed of water.
Hydrogen is also present in numerous mineral compounds:
combined with carbon, it figures among the components of
hydrocarbons. Lastly, it appears to be one of the components of
every organic body, including the human body! Since the latter is
70 % water, hydrogen can obviously not be absent from the mix: it
represents around 10 % of the total mass of a human body and
plays an active role in cellular function. But like Molière’s Monsieur
Jourdain, who was speaking prose his whole life without knowing it,
most human beings have no idea that hydrogen is an integral part of
their environment.

An exceptional energy
This resource is therefore inexhaustible. Admittedly, for hydrogen to
be exploited from an energy perspective, it must first be isolated by
decomposing the substances in which it is present. But the rewards
make the effort well worthwhile given the enormity of its potential as
a source of energy. In fact, hydrogen is the molecule with the highest
energy content by weight. In other words, it boasts a remarkable
energy/mass ratio: 120 megajoules per kilogram, which is much
greater than coal (29 MJ/kg), gasoline (43 MJ/kg), or natural gas
(50 MJ/kg). What this means is that one kilogram of hydrogen
releases 4 .1 times more energy than one kilogram of coal, 2.8 times
more than one kilogram of gasoline, and 2.4 times more than one
kilogram of natural gas! Under these conditions, it is not surprising
that this remarkable concentration of energy might be considered as
the fuel of the future.
In addition, hydrogen is the lightest of all gases: as Cavendish
demonstrated back in the eighteenth century, it is 14 times less
dense than atmospheric air. So under normal conditions of pressure
and temperature, one cubic meter of hydrogen presents a mass
of 90 grams. This is a decisive advantage for technologies that
implement the properites of Archimedes’ Principle, which applies – is
it necessary to repeat this? – to liquids and gases alike.

A difficult molecule to control

But it isn’t all rosy: hydrogen also has the defects of its qualities.
With regard to the size of the hydrogen molecule – some 50 000
times thinner than a single strand of hair – its propensity to leak
through the least interstice, even across the walls of whatever is
containing it, is quite real. Consequently, it cannot be confined in just
any type of material: titanium, and certain kinds of steel and plastic,
in particular, are not recommended. In fact, they are totally inadapted
due to their porosity or the possibility that contact with hydrogen will
weaken them. Hydrogen’s volatility also poses problems. Indeed,
hydrogen has a high diffusion coefficient (also known as diffusivity)
into air: 0.61 cm2/second, versus 0.16 cm2/s for natural gas
and 0.05 cm2/s for gasoline fumes. While this rapid diffusivity into the
atmosphere offers a guarantee of safety in the open air, this is
obviously not exactly the case in a confined space.
Lastly, the buoyancy of hydrogen also comes with disadvantages.
For an equal mass, hydrogen occupies a lot more volume than any
other substance. Under normal conditions of temperature and
pressure, its density is 0.09 kilogram per cubic meter, while for
gasoline it is… 750 kg/m3! This means that to be stored and
transported, hydrogen must be compressed to 700 bars, which
is 700 times atmospheric pressure. This makes its density 42 kg/ m3,
which is still significantly lower than for gasoline. Since 1898 and a
discovery made by the Scottish physicist James Dewar, we know
that hydrogen can also be liquefied. But in addition to being a
particularly delicate operation – hydrogen must be cooled to a
temperature of – 253oC to reach a liquid state – the density of liquid
hydrogen (71 kg/m3) remains once again very low. In the end,
because the energy density by volume of hydrogen (4.8
megajoules/liter when it is compressed to 700 bars and 8.5 MJ/l in its
liquid state) is substantially lower than that of gasoline (32 MJ/l), it
takes 6.7 liters of hydrogen compressed to 700 bars or 3.8 liters of
liquid hydrogen to release as much energy as a liter of gasoline.
All of these parameters make this gas very difficult to domesticate
and accept. Nonetheless, technologies that allow us to control
hydrogen well and truly exist today and they bode well for the
prospects of convincing society of the vast potential of this
remarkable energy vector!

From fantasy to reality

How many science fiction writers have followed in the footsteps of
Jules Verne, who insisted in The Mysterious Island that the hydrogen
contained in water would become the energy of the future? Several
hundred, without a doubt! This is the case for the American novelist
Poul Anderson, who, in his novel Tau Zero (1970), imagined an
interstellar spaceship capable of collecting the hydrogen contained in
space and compressing it for subsequent use as fuel. Similarly, to
traverse vast distances faster than the speed of light, the starships of
the Star Trek universe were equipped with a warp engine that was
fueled by a mixture of antimatter and deuterium, one of the isotopes
of hydrogen. The most celebrated science fiction writers, including
Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Raymond Bradbury and Philip K. Dick,
also waxed eloquently about hydrogen, predicting one after the other
that it would be used as fuel or as a molecule that would be life – or
death-giving. Even though the technologies they mention do not
always strictly obey the laws of physics, they do give an idea not
only of the fascination that hydrogen has held for such a long time
but also of the magnitude of the fantasies it can give rise to.
Conversely, the scene in the 2011 film The Ides of March, directed
by George Clooney, is less the stuff of fantasy. In this particular
scene, the character played by Clooney, who also starred in the film,
says: “This will be the greatest speech ever made on hydrogen
power.” It’s almost as if Clooney and his co-scriptwriter, Beau
Willimon, thought of this character, the governor of Pennsylvania, as
a man ahead of his time…
This is also perhaps the case of the American economist and
futurist Jeremy Rifkin, who mentions the advent of the hydrogen
economy in his work of the same name, which he published in 2002.
To cope with the ineluctible exhaustion of fossile resources, he
militates for the development and widespread use of renewable
energies, using hydrogen as a means of storing and distributing
clean energy. Rifkin goes even further: according to him, this new
industrial revolution could harken the arrival of a genuine hydrogen
society, in which each human being could produce and store his or
her own green energy and then share it with others via an exchange
process that is not dissimilar to file sharing over the Internet. The
future will tell us if this is the premonition of a visionary or a utopian
prophecy.

Many applications
The discovery of hydrogen by Cavendish in the eighteenth century
opened the way for the first very real applications. But over the
subsequent decades and as technologies evolved, the uses of this
molecule began to multiply rapidly.

Uses across history

Balloonists were the first to make use of the lifting power of hydrogen
for their balloons. While the famous Montgolfier brothers always
maintained a preference for hot air, the physicist Jacques Charles
was the first – in August 1783 – to fly a hydrogen-filled balloon. After
flying above the Champ de Mars in Paris, the balloon was retrieved a
few hours later in the town of Gonesse (Val d’Oise),
some 20 kilometers from its point of departure. In December of the
same year, Jacques Charles and the engineer Nicolas-Louis Robert
completed the first manned flight aboard a hydrogen-filled balloon. In
two hours, they traveled around 40 kilometers, between Paris and
Nesles-la-Vallée (Val d’Oise). Subsequently, hydrogen-filled balloons
were used by the army to observe enemy troop movements in the
battlefield. During the War of 1870, these balloons were used to
transport mail outside of Paris and thus work around the siege of
France’s capital city by Prussian troops. The final years of the
nineteenth century saw the rise in popularity of the dirigeable –
manoeuverable balloons filled with hydrogen and equipped with an
internal combustion engine.
But as the nineteenth century dawned, the use of hydrogen for
mobility purposes was not limited to air travel. In 1807, Isaac de
Rivaz, of French and Swiss nationality, filed a patent application for
the first internal combustion engine and invented a hydrogen-
powered vehicle with a working internal combution engine. But
gasoline and its derivatives soon replaced this fuel.
This was also the era that saw the use of hydrogen blossom with
the development of gas lighting. In 1799, the French chemist
Philippe Lebon carried out the process of wood pyrolysis or
gasification, obtaining a gas composed of carbon monoxide, carbon
dioxide, and hydrogen. Almost simultaneously, the Scottish engineer
William Murdoch distilled hard coal to produce a gas containing
methane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The first lanterns to burn
using this gas – with wood or coal – appeared on the streets of Paris
in 1829 and would remain there until they were replaced by the
widespread use of incandescent lamps. But by serving as a fuel for
these gaslights, hydrogen made a durable contribution to the first
modern public lighting system for the streets of the French capital.
As soon as the Second World War ended, research related to the
conquest of space gave hydrogen a new impetus. American
researchers were the first to understand that, in its liquid state,
hydrogen could be a sufficiently buoyant and energetic fuel to propel
their rockets. Nonetheless, for the Apollo program – which
culminated in Neil Armstrong’s first step on the Moon in 1969 –
NASA chose to equip the Saturn V launcher with engines that used a
mix of liquid kerosene and oxygen. Conversely, the engines of the
space shuttles designed in the United States starting in 1976 are
fueled by a blend of liquid hydrogen and oxygen. Efficiency oblige…
Hydrogen is also part of the DNA of the European space program:
the satellite launchers developed since the early 1970s by the
European Space Agency in connection with the Ariane program also
use a mix of liquid hydrogen and oxygen as fuel. The central tank of
the Ariane 5 launcher holds 28 tons of liquid hydrogen at a
temperature of – 253oC and 162 tons of liquid oxygen at – 183oC.
As for the future Ariane 6 launcher, it will be a cryogenic rocket
fueled by an identical blend.

Contemporary industrial uses

Nonetheless, in the twentieth as in the early twenty-first century, the
use of hydrogen as a source of energy remains confined to the field
of space. Conversely, hydrogen is one of the basic materials of
industry, mainly the chemical and petrochemical sectors: 550 billion
cubic meters of hydrogen are in fact produced each year to meet
industrial needs.
Most of this hydrogen is consumed by the oil industry, where it is
used to remove the sulfur contained in oil. During the oil refining
process, pressurized hydrogen is injected at a very high temperature
into gasoline or diesel fuel. Combined with this hydrogen, the sulfur
mass that hydrocarbon molecules contain is transformed into
hydrogen sulfide, which can be easily removed. This step is
completed to ensure that the fuels derived from oil meet the
emission standards in place in most of the world’s advanced and
emerging countries, because it considerably reduces the emission of
sulfides into the atmosphere: during combustion, these sulphurous
hydrocarbons in fact result in sulfur dioxide emissions, which are
harmful to the environment and to human beings. Since the
hydrogen molecule is essential to their desulfurization, it already
participates in reducing the release of pollutants into the
atmospehere!
 Hydrogen is also used to crack hydrocarbons, breaking them into
simpler molecules like gasoline via a process known as
“hydrocracking,” which modifies the atomic structure of the crude oil
fractions in refining, which are increasingly heavy due to the
depletion of the most noble sources. So, the gasoline we use today
is already very hydrogenated. In fact, the proportion of hydrogen
currently added to produce gasoline and the other fuels we need
today would probably be enough to fuel nearly 150 million vehicles!
The transition to the hydrogen economy has already begun.
Hydrogen also contributes to the ammonia synthesis process,
which was invented in 1909 by the German chemist Fritz Haber,
before being developed on an industrial scale in 1913 by his
colleague Carl Bosch, whose work led to the development of the
process of converting atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia using
hydrogen. This chemical compound, with its characteristic acrid odor,
is in fact the raw material that drives the industrial production of
nitrogen-based fertilizers. In other words, if our planet is currently
able to feed a population of more than seven billion human beings, it
owes this achievement in part to hydrogen.
The chemical industry also uses hydrogen to manufacture
hydrogen peroxide and methanol, used in the fabrication of paints,
plastics and synthetic resins. The agrifood industry uses hydrogen
as a chemical reagent to solidify fats, for example in the manufacture
of margarine. Mixed with oxygen in an oxyhydrogen torch that can
produce a very high temperature flame (more than 2 500oC), it is
also used to cut glass and some metals. Lastly, the electronics
industry also uses hydrogen in the manufacturing process for certain
computer and mobile device components.
In other words, even though most of us do not realize it, hydrogen
is currently an omnipresent element of our existence.

Hydrogen and the fuel cell

What is now changing the landscape when it comes to the possible
uses of hydrogen is the pressing need to find solutions that will
decarbonize the energy mix. Given its unique properties as an
energy, including the fact that it does not produce carbon monoxide
as a by-product, hydrogen constitutes an ideal molecule in this
respect. But we must still be able to extract this energy in the most
efficient way possible before making it available in the form of
electricity. In this regard, fuel cell technology can offer an essential
boost to the use of hydrogen in all its forms.
 WHAT IS A FUEL CELL SYSTEM?
A fuel cell is a generator that allows us to convert the
chemical energy of a fuel  –  hydrogen, in this case  –  into
electrical and thermal energy. This reaction takes place
inside a system called a cell, composed of two electrodes
(the anode and the cathode) separated by an electrolyte.
The surface area and the number of cells are adapted on
the basis of the desired electrical power and voltage.
Among the different types of fuel cell systems that
currently exist, the PEM (for Proton Exchange Membrane)
offers the most promising performances to date. Indeed,
the major deployment efforts tend to be focused on the
PEM.
The PEM is composed of layers or stacks of membranes,
each of which is inserted between two conductive plates.
The hydrogen molecule comes into contact with each
membrane and the electrochemical reation is triggered by
a catalyst composed of platinum nanoparticles. The
molecule then decomposes into two protons – or hydrogen
ions  –  and two electrons. But while the protons can pass
through the membrane and move toward one of the two
conductive plates, the electrons cannot and thus join the
electrical circuit. On the other side of the membrane, at
the cathode, the protons react with oxygen and the
electrons to generate an electrical current, but also water,
which is the only substance released by the system.
Developed in 1839 by the Welsh barrister – and electrochemistry
buff – William Grove, the hydrogen fuel cell remained relatively little
used during the 150 years that followed, because economists and
politicians preferred over the decades to use other types of electrical
energy generators. But since the early 1980s, when scientists and
researchers became aware of climate challeges and the depletion of
fossile fuels, the fuel cell has found new favor. In fact, today the
hydrogen and fuel cell combination offers a broad array of energy
uses. And while the use of hydrogen had been previously confined to
heavy industry, its association with the fuel cell for the purpose of
generating electricity is bringing it gradually closer to the end
consumer and, in the process, opening up a considerable range of
possibilities.

Energy uses for today and

tomorrow
So, when combined with a fuel cell system, the remarkable energy
properties of hydrogen can be recovered in the form of electricity.
What’s more, the number of applications is large.
In the short term, mobility certainly offers the best development
potential: via the fuel cell system, hydrogen is in fact able to produce
electricity directly onboard a vehicle, while emitting only water and
heat! This type of vehicle offers undeniable advantages: power that
is equivalent to that of a vehicle with an ignition combusion engine,
zero noise while running, significantly greater range than electric
vehicles that run on conventional batteries, recharging time limited to
just a few minutes and, above all, no toxic emissions. Accordingly, it
is not surprising that the world’s major automobile manufacturers
have begun to integrate hydrogen-powered fuel cell technology into
their strategy for passenger cars.
Most of these automakers began to invest in research and
development programs focused on this aspect of the e-car market in
the early 1990s. In 1996, the Japanese automaker Toyota thus
became one of the first to unveil the prototype for a fuel cell
technology car, designed by its own teams and powered by
hydrogen. Over the course of the years that followed, Toyota
presented a series of models before coming up with a new prototype
in 2008 known as the FCH-adv. After the Japanese Transport
Ministry cleared the vehicle for circulation in 2009, Toyota
announced in 2010 that it would start selling the vehicle in 2015.
Following a number of subsequent improvements, it was presented
to the general public for the first time in October 2014. With a
capacity of 5 kilograms of hydrogen compressed to 700 bars in its
two tanks, this fuel cell powered sedan has a range
of 500 kilometers! At the end of 2014, Toyota announced plans to
manufacture a first series of 700 vehicles for sale in Japan, the
United States, and Germany – the three most mature markets in
terms of hydrogen distribution infrastructure planning. At the same
time, Toyota officialized the name of this sedan, which it baptized
Mirai. In Japanese, the term means future. It is true that, with the
Mirai, Toyota truly is placing a bet on the future, even though its
announcement has already generated demand three times the
initially planned production volume for this inaugural series.
Other Japanese automakers also acquired the technology.
Between 1997 and 2001, Mazda presented several prototypes for
fuel cell powered vehicles, but the Fuchu automobile manufactruer
then decided to focus instead on hydrogen ignition combustion
engine vehicles, though it seemingly gave up on this idea and
program in 2011. Starting in 1999, Nissan unveiled a number of
models, not the least of which was the X-Trail FCV, which the
Japanese automaker demonstrated across Europe in 2008. Honda
then got into the act, launching its first prototypes in 1999. Three
years later, its Honda FCX became the first fuel cell vehicle to
receive clearance for commercial operation in the US and units were
leased to several businesses and public organizations. In 2008, the
first vehicles in the FCX Clarity series began to be sold to both
government organizations and consumers, both in Japan and in the
United States.
In 2001, it was South Korean automaker Hyundai’s turn to present
its first prototype, which it dubbed Santa Fe. Several other models
would follow, until the company’s engineers developed the Hyundai
ix35 Fuel Cell in 2010. With a tank that holds 5 kilograms of
hydrogen compressed to 700 bars, this SUV has a range
of 580 kilometers. For the first ones, which were rolled out starting
in 2013 by the Ulsan factory in South Korea, long-term leases were
signed with local governments in Denmark, Sweden and the UK, as
well as with private businesses. And the next year, Hyundai publicly
announced that it intended to produce 1 000 units of this Hyundai
ix35 Fuel Cell starting in 2015.
American automakers have not been sitting idly by either.
Between 1998 and 2009, General Motors developed a dozen or so
prototypes; one of them, the Chevy Sequel, reached a range of
480 kilometers in 2007, which at the time was a record. The same
year, about a hundred units of the Equinox model – equipped with a
fuel cell designed in-house and powered by 4.5 kilograms of
hydrogen compressed to 700 bars – were produced and road tested
in the US. Ford also got involved in this technology in the mid-1990s,
unveiling its first prototype in 2000. In 2013, the Detroit-based
company announced a partnership with the Japanese automaker
Nissan and Germany’s Daimler to jointly develop a fuel cell vehicle.
In parallel, although Ford continues to work on ignition combustion
engines that use hydrogen for fuel, it is now the only automaker with
a global footprint actively exploring this angle.
While German automaker BMW was certainly the first to launch an
internal combustion engine fueled by hydrogen, back in 1979, after
more than three decades of development, the company reversed
gear in 2013, shifting its focus to the fuel cell technology and working
in collaboration with Toyota. Daimler, on the other hand, chose this
promising technology from the start, releasing its first prototype
in 1994. Two other models – a Mercedes Class A F-Cell and a
Mercedes Class B F-Cell – were built in the 2000s in limited
quantities of a few dozen for leasing to American and Japanese
clients. In 2013, the German automaker announced plans to produce
a series of Mercedes Class B F-Cell starting in 2017, for the
consumer market.

On the French side, Renault and Peugeot have until now focused
their efforts on the development of battery-powered electric vehicles;
neither of France’s two major automakers has, for the time being,
announced any plans to develop a hydrogen-powered vehicle.
However, in the early 2000s, Peugeot worked in collaboration with
teams from the CEA/LITEN, very committed to pursuing this field, to
develop a fuel cell power train. In fact, the CEA continues to work on
numerous developments related to fuel cell technology as well as
high temperature electrolysis, and plays a leading role in promoting
these technologies, both in France and across Europe. But two
much smaller French automobile manufacturers have invested in this
field with success. In 2011, the Franche-Comté based automaker
FAM Automobiles developed – in partnership with Michelin – an
electric vehicle that runs on batteries, but with a fuel cell based
extended range capability connected to a tank that holds one
kilogram of hydrogen gas stored at 350 bars. Called the F-City H2,
this car offers a range of 150 kilometers, which makes it suitable for
urban driving. In 2012, the Isére-based Symbio FCell unveiled its
own version of an electric utility vehicle, developed by a major
automaker, in this case the Renault Kangoo ZE. In addition to its
original electric motor, Symbio FCell features a hydrogen-powered
fuel cell that extends its range from 120 to 300 kilometers. First
tested in the Franche-Comté region by France’s mail service, La
Poste, five of these vehicles were purchased by the La Manche
departmental council in January 2015, and another 50 or so were
delivered to several dozen clients in the Rhone Alpes region in
June 2015.
 Today, several hundred hydrogen-powered electric passenger cars
are on the roads. And the major automakers are now focusing their
energies on their widesperad deployment.

Moreover, experiments involving mass transit have been conducted

worldwide since the early 1990s. In the course of the last twenty
years, scores of buses equipped with hydrogen-powered fuel cell
systems have been tested around the globe. Notable examples have
coincided with global events, like the Olympic Games held in Beijing
(China) in 2008, the Shanghai World’s Fair (China) in 2010, and the
Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C. (Canada) in 2010. Today,
around 70 vehicles of this kind are being operated in around fifteen
countries! In Japan, similar buses, built by Japanese automakers
Toyota and Hino, are being used to provide airport shuttle service at
the Tokyo, Nagoya and Kansai airports. The German cities of Berlin,
Hamburg, Hürth, Cologne and Düsseldorf have begun to integrate
hydrogen-powered buses into their public transportation networks.
This is also the case for Oslo (Norway), Aargau (Switzerland),
London (England), Aberdeen (Scotland), Antwerp (Belgium),
Reykjavik (Iceland), Sao Paulo (Brazil), and other cities. In addition,
several private businesses in the US have introduced hydrogen-
powered buses into their corporate fleets, especially in California. In
other words, the technology has achieved technical maturity. The
next challenge is to reach economic maturity, which will happen once
the first large-scale deployments occur. But the hydrogen-powered
fuel cell bus seems to have a bright future ahead. Lastly, electric
scooters with rechargable hydrogen cartridges should soon be on
the market, following successful experimentation with a hundred of
them in Taiwan, laying the foundations for new models of energy
supply for mobility.

In addition, fuel cell forklift trucks constitute an emerging market.

Powered by hydrogen, they offer a number of comparative
advantages: for one thing, unlike machinery with an ignition
combustion engine, they are non-polluting, which is vital for
manœuvering in the confined atmosphere of a warehouse; for
another, it takes just minutes to fully recharge them, while electrical
engines using traditional batteries take much longer. In addition, the
gauge for the traditional battery is extremely imprecise – who has
never seen their cellphone stop functioning when the gauge
indicated 3 bars just 20 minutes earlier? – whereas the forklift driver
knows exactly how much energy is left: it is the hydrogen pressure in
the tank. Lastly, the power delivered by the battery is constant and
maximal up to the very last “drop” of hydrogen in the tank. So it
should come as no surprise that Walmart, the US retail giant, has
opted to equip its new procurement center in Calgary (Canada) with
several tens of forklift trucks that run on hydrogen. Nor is it surprising
that Coca-Cola recently acquired a fleet of some forty hydrogen-
powered forklift trucks for its distribution center in San Leandro
(United States). In all, around 60 logistics platforms – Europe
included – are currently equipped with hydrogen-powered forklift
trucks. That’s nearly 8 000 container-handling machines running
daily around the world.

Beyond mobility, the outlook for stationary uses of hydrogen is also

promising. Combined with a fuel cell system, hydrogen can meet
residential needs by providing homes and buildings with electricity
and heating. In this case, a combustible fuel – usually natural gas –
is delivered onsite and transformed into hydrogen through a process
known as reforming (see Chapter 2). This hydrogen is stored onsite
and when needed is converted into electricity and/or heat via the fuel
cell system.
While experiments of this kind have already been conducted in
Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and France, it is in
Japan that hydrogen for domestic purposes has seen the most rapid
development. By the end of 2014, more than 100 000 individual
homes in Japan were equipped with a co-generator as part of a
program known as Ene-Farm. Its power (800 to 1 000 watts) is
enough to provide electricity, hot water and heating. The source fuel
is natural gas, which the system converts into hydrogen and then
into electricity and heat. Today, both research labs and businesses
are working on making this technology suitable for collective
housing. And that’s not all: in 2020, hydrogen and fuel cell systems
will generate the electricity and hot water that will be used by
athletes in the Olympic Village during the Tokyo Games! These
systems, while extremely efficient, still present a cost price that is too
high. But the developments already made are promising.
Better still: on remote sites – insular regions and high mountains,
in particular – the hydrogen fuel cell system is being used to bypass
the electrical power grid, which is often difficult to set up and, for this
reason, particularly costly. Similarly, for sites that require a failsafe
back-up power supply – such as hospitals, military bases, etc. – the
hydrogen fuel cell system offers a solution that can replace the
current one, i.e., electrical power generators that run on gas. Above
all, in the long run the hydrogen – fuel cell combination could
probably help to change the energy footprint on a planet that even
today counts more than one billion inhabitants who lack access to
electricity. And this planet, in parallel, needs to reduce its emissions!
Lastly, a few modest niche markets have started to make their
appearance in recent years. These are mostly for mobile devices: by
connecting a fuel cell system to a small hydrogen tank, it is now
possible to enable a mobile phone, tablet or laptop to keep running
for several hours or days, depending on the solution. As the need for
extended runtime increases daily for these mobile devices, it does
not seem too farfetched to believe in the development of a recharge
system based in part on hydrogen. With respect to batteries, the
ability to develop recharge models that are easily interchangeable –
a concept that some manufacturers of electric bicycles are seriously
looking at in order to roll out H2 bicycle solutions – offers a genuine
plus.
To conclude, combining hydrogen with a fuel cell system to
generate energy is no longer just a promise: in the course of the last
three decades, the fundamental research stage has been largely
surpassed. Going forward, it is no longer a question of
demonstrating that this solution works in many areas of use, but
rather to begin its deployment.

Challenges for the future

Promised a bright future, fuel cell technology nonetheless faces a
number of technical challenges today. To address them, the pace of
research and experimentation has picked up in the last fifteen years
or so. The automakers have played a key role in spearheading this
work, as they seek to develop the ideal carbon-free mobility solution.
The first of these challenges concerns lifetime: for the fuel cell
system, this must be at least comparable to the technologies it
hopes to replace. In the transportation sector, the lifetime of a fuel
cell is about 3 000 hours of runtime today, which represents
some 150 000 kilometers traveled. But the objective of European
professionals is to extend this longevity up to 6 000 hours
(approximately 300 000 km) by around 2020.
Fuel cell technology must also meet an energy efficiency standard,
which corresponds to the amount of hydrogen that is needed to
produce a specific amount of electricity. Today, the energy efficiency
of a fuel cell system is around 50 %, which is clearly superior to that
of an internal combustion engine (20 %). The difference is all the
more striking given that internal combustion engine technology has
already nearly reached its limits, which is not the case for the fuel
cell. While the potential for improving the efficiency of the internal
combustion engine is very low, many possible improvements lie
ahead for fuel cell technology. Moreover, the European fuel cell
industry wants to improve the energy efficiency of the technology
by 20 % in the course of the next ten years, an ambition that will
entail developments in the performances of its membranes and
plates, as well as its auxillary parts (the efficiency of electric
converters, distributions of gases in the plates, homogeneity of
cooling, etc.).
In addition, fuel cell performances are sensitive to the impurities –
even infinitely small ones – contained in hydrogen, especially the
trace quantities of carbon monoxide that can cause deterioration in
the membrane without playing any role whatsoever in the release of
pollution. Today, it is vital to understand and describe the impact of
these impurities on the basis of their concentration so that we can
define an optimal degree of purity for hydrogen that will preserve the
integrity of the system.
For some applications, such as transportation, it is equally vital
that the fuel cell be lighter and as compact as possible so that the
interior comfort of the vehicle is not adversely impacted. Automakers
that include Hyundai and Toyota have already developed vehicles
that run on fuel cell technology with a level of interior comfort
comparable to gasoline or diesel powered cars. But more progress is
being sought in terms of extending the range capability of these
vehicles (around 600 kilometers today) without increasing the weight
or size of the fuel cell.
Lastly, fuel cell technology will have to address another daunting
challenge in the future: its cost. The currently high price tag is in
large part due to the fact that the fuel cell contains platinum – the
component that triggers the reaction that enables the production of
electricity. And platinum is a scarce and precious metal whose global
production today amounts to around 230 tons a year… most of it
used by the automotive industry, since every catalytic converter
contains around 20 grams of platinum! Since 2010, manufacturers of
fuel cell membranes have managed to reduce the amount of
platinum by almost 100 grams per vehicle, bringing the total to less
than 30 grams. Their ultimate goal is to reduce this amount to
just 15 grams, which they will do by using ever finer grains to
increase the effective surface area for equivalent mass and by
developing platinum-free catalysts. It is also worth noting that the
platinum contained in a membrane is easily recyclable. If one were
to place a bet that the use of hydrogen-powered fuel cells in vehicles
will increase, the prospects for recycling could become promising.
Especially considering that platinum reserves are limited on our
planet, where current estimates put the total amount at 13 000 tons.
Admittedly, recycling alone is not enough to resolve this problem
over the long term. But it could at least give researchers the time
they need to find alternative solutions to platinum, and some are
already being looked at in the lab setting. Of particular promise are
solutions based on graphene, a material that was isolated by two
researchers at the University of Manchester, a discovery that earned
them the Nobel Prize in physics in 2010.
Another illustrative example of this technology’s steady progress
relates to the cold start issue. At the level of the membrane, the fuel
cell in fact produces water, which can freeze at low temperatures
and thus prevent the protons from migrating across the membrane
when the engine is started. Today, this problem has been resolved
and a cold start is possible at temperatures of – 25oC.
To conclude, the coordinated rollout of specifications pertaining to
quality, safety, and the conditions for the recharging and the use of
tanks is being developed within the ISO and SAE communities,
which are responsible for defining a set of standards that meets with
the approval of the automobile industry and other industries involved
in the process, designed to ensure a well-structured market
introduction. In this respect as well, the hydrogen sector has adopted
a coordinated approach that is rather exemplary.
A technology in the making, an industry that is getting organized.

1. A phenomenon that the international ITER nuclear fusion project is attempting to

reproduce with an experimental thermonuclear reactor.
2. At the same time, it is not a question of exhausting the planet’s resources by
using hydrogen as a source of energy: combined with oxygen, hydrogen in fact
produces nothing but… water!
 CHAPTER 2

Produce,
store,
transport
E VEN though it is the most abundant atom in the Universe – it
represents more than 74 % of the Sun’s mass –, hydrogen in its
molecular form is virtually absent from the surface of the Earth. It is
nearly always combined with other chemical elements. It is true that
the media1 sometimes talk about the existence of natural sources of
hydrogen, which could ultimately constitute alternative forms of
access to hydrogen, except that, for now, the extraction of this
naturally occurring hydrogen is not even in its infancy and the cost of
doing so remains terribly prohibitive.
Today, the simplest and most immediate way to obtain hydrogen is
thus to extract it from the molecules in which it naturally occurs –
water and hydrocarbons for the most part. In sum, hydrogen is a
secondary energy, unlike primary energies that include oil, coal and
natural gas. Consequently, it must first be produced before being
stored, then transported, and then finally distributed.

Produce
Each year, 50 million tons of hydrogen are produced on the planet –
a volume which, all alone, would be enough to fuel 500 million
vehicles!
From the tried and tested to the highly experimental, there are
several methods that can be used to separate hydrogen from the
other chemical elements with which it is naturally associated. The
value of these various processes must be assessed using four
criteria. Their maturity, first of all: today, the manufacturing segment
has a growing need for hydrogen, so the methods of production must
be immediately operational. Second, their energy efficiency: it is
difficult to conceive of a process for producing hydrogen that
demands the expenditure of too much energy. Third, their
competitiveness: developing the large-scale production of hydrogen
if the cost of this production is not attractive is unthinkable. Lastly,
their cleanliness: in order to avoid annihilating hydrogen’s strong
suit – its non-polluting nature – the production process must release
as little carbon dioxide as possible. In light of recently heightened
awareness of the ecological challenges facing our planet, this last
criterion will undoubtedly soon become crucial.
Today, more than 95 % of the hydrogen used in connection with
industrial applications is obtained from fossil resources. The
gasification of coal is the oldest of the various methods that exist for
producing hydrogen. It consists of converting the coal into a gas
product by heating it to a very high temperature (more than 800oC).
But the carbon footprint of this process is very poor, as the
gasification of coal releases a tremendous amount of carbon dioxide
(CO2) into the atmosphere, unless it can be accompanied by
technologies for the capture and sequestration/enhancement of the
CO2 by-product.

Steam reforming
The dominant technique today for the production of hydrogen is the
reforming of natural gas. This method consists of reacting methane –
an essential component of natural gas – with steam heated to
between 840oC and 950oC in the presence of a nickel-based
catalyst. After this process is completed, a synthesis gas (syngas)
forms, a blend of hydrogen and carbon monoxide. When it is once
again exposed to very high temperature steam, this syngas forms
carbon dioxide and even more hydrogen. Once cooled, the blend is
separated and the hydrogen is then purified to the required level.
From a technical standpoint, steam reforming long ago reached its
maturity. In addition, it offers a high efficiency, somewhere
around 80 %. Today, it is the least expensive process on the market:
when it is produced in large quantity (more than 50 000 tons a year),
the cost of producing one kilogram of hydrogen through the process
of steam reforming oscillates between 1.5 euros and 2.5 euros
depending on the initial price of the natural gas. This makes it
particularly attractive to manufacturers whose activities absolutely
require the use of hydrogen.
Nonetheless, steam reforming continues to offer a mitigated
carbon footprint: this chemical reaction releases around 10 kilograms
of CO2 for every 1 kilogram of hydrogen produced. In addition,
carbon dioxide is also released into the atmosphere when the
hydrogen is transported and ultimately compressed. However,
overall, “well to wheel” emissions for automotive applications – when
the hydrogen is used in a fuel cell system – are still 20 % to 30 %
lower than for diesel. But in the future it will be more and more
difficult to be satisfied with this performance if we want solutions that
are 100 % decarbonized.
It is, however, possible to improve the carbon footprint of hydrogen
production by capturing and storing the carbon dioxide that is
emitted during the steam reforming process. For instance, at Notre-
Dame-de-Gravenchon (Seine-Maritime), the company Air Liquide is
rolling out a technology that enables the recovery of the carbon
dioxide released by one of its hydrogen production units. Once it has
been captured and treated via distillation, this carbon dioxide can be
sequestered in underground cavities. It can even be recycled for
other processing activities! Injecting it into fossil bearing deposits
that are being depleted shows real promise: one of its properties is
that it dissolves in oil, which both fosters an increase in the volume
of this hydrocarbon and decreases its viscosity. Similarly, by
sequestering CO2 in coal seams, it can trap the methane molecules
that are also present, making them easier to recover. It can also be
used for applications that require a direct dose of carbon dioxide, like
agricultural greenhouses – where the addition of a CO2 enriched
atmosphere helps vegetables grow faster – and the manufacturing of
sodas. While it is true that carbon dioxide is still being released into
the atmosphere, it is also true that before this happens it has been
put to commercial use and has replaced the natural sources of CO2
that are still used in some countries to meet their needs.
 Nonetheless, there is a more promising solution for decarbonizing
the production of hydrogen through steam reforming: by using
biogas instead of natural gas. Produced by the fermentation of
organic wastes, both plant and animal, biogas is made up of vapors
or fumes – of methane and carbon dioxide, mainly – which, when
they are not recovered, are released into the atmosphere. So why
not capture and use them to produce hydrogen? Once purified,
these fumes constitute an organic source of natural gas – also
known as biomethane – which, via steam reforming, allows us to
obtain hydrogen. The carbon footprint of this process is very good,
since the biogas that is released through the organic waste
fermentation process – if it were not recovered – would be directly
released into the atmosphere, with an impact twenty – five times
greater in terms of greenhouse gas emissions than CO2 itself!

Water electrolysis
Everyone who has taken high school chemistry is familiar with the
experiment involving electrolysis. And water electrolysis is indeed
one of the ways to produce the hydrogen, as well as the oxygen,
used in the fields of medicine and industrial chemicals.
 WHAT IS ELECTROLYSIS?

It was the English chemists Anthony Carlisle and William

Nicholson who, in  1800, discovered the process of
electrolysis. The principle is simple: it involves passing a
continuous electric current through a solution of
electrolytic water using two electrodes  –  the anode and
the cathode  –  hooked up to a generator. This electrical
energy current breaks the bonds between the hydrogen
and oxygen atoms that make up the water molecule (H2O).
In the course of this decomposition, the oxygen appears at
the anode while the hydrogen appears at the cathode.
In a nutshell, the technique used here is exactly the
opposite of that used by the fuel cell system. The basic
principle of electrolysis is the decomposition, using
electricity, of the hydrogen and oxygen atoms that form
water, while the basic principle behind the fuel cell system
involves combining hydrogen and oxygen to generate
electricity, with water as the by-product.

Used to produce hydrogen, this technique is perfectly mastered

today. Thanks to high-powered electrolyzers, it is possible to
generate large quantities of hydrogen in record time. However, the
hydrogen that is obtained through this process barely exceeds 5 %
of the global production of hydrogen in the world, and there are a
number of reasons for this.
First, for the time being the efficiency obtained through electrolysis
is far lower than for steam reforming, about 60 %.2 In other words,
the amount of energy that is required to produce hydrogen through
electrolysis is substantial. That said, recent scientific experiments –
made possible by advances in handling materials at high
temperatures – have validated the theoretical hypotheses whereby
the quantity of energy needed to produce hydrogen gradually
diminishes as the temperature of the system increases. A large
portion of the energy required for electrolysis could in fact be
provided by heat. In the future, it is thus possible that electrolysis
performed at a very high temperature (between 800oC and 1 000oC)
could produce a better output in terms of hydrogen produced,
around 80 %.
But there is another disadvantage to producing hydrogen through
electrolysis: the cost, which is two to five times higher
(at 4 to 10 euros per kilogram) than that of obtaining hydrogen
through steam reforming. This cost depends in part on the price of
the electrolyzer – which, depending on its size, requires an initial
investment that is more or less costly and a longer or shorter period
of amortization – and the cost of the electricity used in the process.
To ensure that such an investment is worthwhile, the electrolysis
process must be driven by relatively cheap electrical energy. For
example, hydraulic electricity costs from 15 to 20 €/ MWh to
produce, versus 70 to 100 €/MWh3 for the electricity produced by a
coal-fired power plant. Accordingly, electrolysis carried out near a
hydroelectric dam turns out to be much more affordable than if
carried out using a uniquely renewable source of energy but one that
functions only a few hundred hours each year.
Compared to natural gas driven steam reforming, electrolysis does
have one undeniable advantage: there is no release of carbon
dioxide as a result of the electrolysis process. Except that carbon
dioxide emissions are closely linked to the source of the electricity
that is used to complete the electrolysis process! And if this
electricity is produced in fossil fuel-fired power plants, the carbon
footprint of the hydrogen that is generated will remain substantial.
Conversely, if the electricity is produced from energy sources that
do not emit carbon dioxide, this changes everything! Electricity
produced by nuclear power plants is naturally a solution of interest if
our goal is to achieve a carbon footprint of zero, particularly in
France, where it already accounts for 75 % of the total production of
electricity. Moreover, the cost of producing electricity from nuclear
power plants was recently reassessed by France’s Government
Accounting Office to be 59.8 €/MWh. In other words, electricity
derived from nuclear sources can be used to fuel an electrolyzer that
will be used to produce hydrogen, not only without releasing carbon
dioxide but also while limiting the costs. It should be noted that the
production of nuclear fuel and the dismantling of a nuclear power
plant – in other words, the entire nuclear life cycle – release only
very low levels of CO2, around 5 grams per kilowatt hour of
electricity produced. Nonetheless, since the tragedies of Chernobyl
and Fukushima, the use of atomic energy to produce electricity
remains a controversial subject.
Consequently, the ideal solution for producing hydrogen via
electrolysis seems to reside in the use of renewable energies: the
electricity produced by photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, or
hydroelectric dams is indeed perfectly carbon dioxide neutral. If the
electrolysis needed to produce hydrogen is carried out using
electricity derived from renewable energy, then the entire chain
becomes renewable! It is thus possible, in an energy configuration of
this kind, to acquire a source of hydrogen energy that produces zero
carbon dioxide emissions. Renewable hydrogen, in other words. The
other advantage, and it is significant, is that energies supplied by the
sun, the wind, and water are renewable – in other words,
inexhaustible!
But for the time being, the electricity produced by wind turbines
and photovoltaic panels remains expensive. Numerous figures are
being circulated, depending on the country and the sector. The
French Commission for Energy Regulation (CRE) regularly assesses
the costs associated with producing renewable energies. The
executive summary, as reported by EdF on its website, L’énergie en
question, indicates that the cost of production is 82€/MWh when the
required electricity is produced by land-based wind turbines. The
figure climbs to 220 €/MWh for sea-based wind turbines, and to
between 229 and 370 €/MWh for electricity derived from photovoltaic
panels. Today, it is true that the use of these renewable energies
requires very substantial investments in infrastructures. But it is not
out of the question to think that within a decade or so solar and wind
energies could provide competitively priced electricity, thanks to
advances in the related technologies and industrial-scale
deployment. As for photovoltaic panels, the significant improvement
in costs and output has already brought the cost price close to
network parity (significantly below 100 €/MWh) in places in the world
with the best exposures. Naturally, the production via electrolysis of
wholly decarbonized hydrogen depends on this evolution.

The other problem that arises with these renewable energies is that,
by nature, they are intermittent. So, in order to envision their
widespread use by an entire network, it must be possible to know
how to store the electricity they produce so it can be tapped when
the need to do so is felt. And while storing energy in the form of
batteries offers undeniable advantages, it also presents significant
environmental limitations, particularly due to the energy required to
extract the principal components of the cathodes of lithium
batteries – nickel, manganese, cobalt and, obviously, lithium. In fact,
in the end, it turns out that the ideal way to store this renewable
energy (other than water pumping storage techniques) goes by the
name of… hydrogen!
 HYDROGEN FOR ENERGY STORAGE!

Along with its multiple properties, hydrogen can be stored

as a liquid or as a gas and then reused to produce
electricity or other forms of energy via a fuel cell system.
In the near future, this versatility of usage will give
hydrogen a role to play in the storage of renewable energy
whose intermittency in terms of production poses real
challenges when it comes to energy grid management.
To manage a grid that each day is composed of a little bit
more in the way of intermittent energies, it is necessary to
be able to store the available reserves  –  and to evacuate
this stored energy – daily (day / night), weekly (weekend /
weekdays) and seasonally (warm seasons / cold seasons):
these major sequences mark fundamental differences in
how the supply/demand for energy is structured in a given
geographic area. But it is very difficult to find a system
that can handle and process all of these configurations.
It turns out that hydrogen works across the broadest
spectrum of usages and needs, with acceptable levels of
efficiency. Produced through the process of electrolysis,
itself fueled by renewable energies, hydrogen can in fact
be stored in large quantities, either under pressure in
tanks or in underground salt caverns. It can then be
combined with natural gas in existing networks (up to a
concentration limit of  10  % volume), or reused as a
molecule whose properties are required in numerous
industries, or even used to manufacture more electricity.

To this end, electrolysis technologies are evolving toward the use of

proton exchange membranes as an electrolysis technique. Taking
inspiration from the progress made on fuel cell batteries, this
technology enables us to develop production response and
adjustment times based on the power provided by the electrical
power grid and adapted to the management of intermittence. Today,
they are more expensive than the so-called alkaline solutions
(conventional electrolysis), but show potential for significant
improvement in terms of their investment cost, driven by the major
R & D efforts that have been made in the field of fuel cell technology.
They will certainly have their place in the energy landscape of the
future, particularly when it comes to helping manage the
intermittence of a power grid composed substantially of renewable
energies.

The experimental methods

In addition to steam reforming and electrolysis, other methods for
producing hydrogen are currently in the research and development
phase, at more or less advanced stages. Pyrolysis is one of them. It
is a process whereby the decomposition of hydrocarbon molecules
into carbon and hydrogen is brought about by high temperatures
(between 1400oC and 2000oC), which is only possible via a fourth
generation thermonuclear reactor or a thermodynamic solar power
plant, also called a solar concentrator. It is necessary to wait until
these technologies are sufficiently mature and competitive to get a
better idea of what kind of future exists for the industrial production
hydrogen through pyrolysis.
The same can be said for bio-fermentation, a method that involves
the fermentation of biomass – intended to produce biogas – using
bacterial microorganisms or microbes and no light, which makes it
possible to increase the percentage of hydrogen in biogas. But the
output obtained using this technique has been mediocre so far. As
for plasma reforming, which consists of speeding up the
decomposition of liquid hydrocarbons into hydrogen and carbon
black by sparking an electric discharge that creates an ionized state
(the plasma) in their milieu, it is not very competitive for the time
being, as the electricity required to make the process work renders
this technology very costly.
The experimental process that appears to have the brightest
future – in part because it has earned the renewable label – seems
to be the production of hydrogen… through photosynthesis! This
biochemical mechanism allows plants and some bacteria to
manufacture organic matter by using sunlight as a source of energy.
But some aquatic micro-organisms – particularly certain one-celled
green algae or blue algae (cyanobacteria) – produce hydrogen
naturally during photosynthesis. The potential value is obvious: to
produce hydrogen, these microorganisms use sunlight and water
exclusively, two abundant resources! And the reproduction of this
phenomenon is no longer just the dream of researchers: laboratory
experiments conducted to date have demonstrated that this method
works. Now, the focus of researchers is on trying to improve the
process for a possible rollout on an industrial scale.

At the same time, waiting until all of these technologies are

operational and competitive to make the energy transition is simply
out of the question.

Clean production, a fundamental challenge

for the hydrogen economy
The most crucial challenge is thus clean production. But what does
clean production mean exactly? Without CO2? First, it is necessary
to dissociate the notions of clean hydrogen and renewable hydrogen.
Some call the first “clean” and the second “green” or “blue.”
Clean hydrogen is still produced using fossil fuels, but either these
energies do not themselves release CO2 (nuclear energy, for
example) or the CO2 emitted is captured and then reused or
sequestered. These are the methods known as carbon capture,
storage or enhancement (CCS). But as we have mentioned, it is also
possible to produce hydrogen using renewable energies. This is the
case when the energy source is biomass, biomass produced from
forest or farm waste, or biogas resulting from the fermentation of
organic wastes from our productive industrial or farming cycles or
household wastes. These two ways of using the energy residues
contained in this matter will generate fatal CO2. Therefore, they are
considered to be neutral from an emissions standpoint.
Lastly, if the production of hydrogen is generated using a
renewable primary source of energy (solar, wind or hydraulic) that is
itself totally CO2 neutral, the entire chain is renewable. It is therefore
possible, in a renewable energy pathway, to acquire a source of
hydrogen energy that is totally renewable. And this is a key point in
any analysis of the whole picture.

Store
The storage of hydrogen is also a crucial question in making this gas
one of the keys to achieving a planetary shift toward a carbon-free
economy. It is true that its physical and chemical properties make the
storage of hydrogen a challenge. Minuscule, the hydrogen molecule
escapes easily if it is not enclosed in a material that is adapted to its
containment. In addition, because it is extremely lightweight or
buoyant – hydrogen is 14 times lighter than air – and not very dense,
it occupies a considerable volume of space: storing 1 kilogram of
hydrogen under normal conditions of temperature and pressure
would require a tank with a capacity of 11 m3.
Consequently, it is important to identify solutions that allow for
hydrogen to be packaged or contained safely within a reasonable
volume. Today, there are three methods for storing hydrogen.
Although they have not yet reached the same level of maturity, they
can be considered in turn, depending on how the hydrogen will be
used (industrial, domestic, mobile).

Storage as a gas
Today, the most widespread method for storing hydrogen is under
pressure in the form of a gas: at constant temperature, the easiest
way to decrease the volume of a gas is to increase the pressure.
Accordingly, most manufacturers whose activity requires the use of
hydrogen take delivery of the gas in cylinders, where the hydrogen is
compressed to 200 bars, which is 200 times atmospheric pressure.
Introduced several decades ago for industrial purposes, the storage
of hydrogen as a compressed gas is currently the preferred method
for the first hydrogen energy applications that have been brought to
the marketplace. For onboard applications, the preference today
is 700 bars of compression, which limits the size of the storage tanks
and, consequently, makes them less cumbersome. And while
compression to 700 bars mobilizes a certain amount of energy, it is
also true that thus compressed, hydrogen has a density of 42 kg/m3,
which is not as good as that of oil but is much better than that of
batteries. The diagram below illustrates the challenges of storage, in
particularly inside a vehicle:
 Source: Opel

It is thus possible to store 6 kilos of hydrogen compressed to

700 bars in a system that has a tank weighing 125 kilos. This
performance is good enough to address two key constraints of the
automobile industry. On the one hand, a tank of this size can fit
perfectly inside the volume – necessarily reduced – of a vehicle.
Moreover, it offers extended range capacity of around
600 kilometers, which is comparable to that offered by gasoline and
clearly superior to that of the lithium batteries currently on the
market. Lastly, and unlike a battery, the energy storage
performances of a hydrogen tank do not deteriorate with the number
of charging/discharging cycles or with exposure to extreme
temperatures. For this reason, every major automaker working on
hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles has opted for the solution that
consists of storing hydrogen compressed to 700 bars.
However, implementing this solution will require that significant
technological developments be made in the materials industry to
ensure that tanks are lightweight, robust, and affordable. Alongside
the gas and aerospace industries, the automobile industry has
gotten involved in significant efforts to develop storage tanks made
of fiber-reinforced composites (FRC) that offer this combination of
advantages. The challenges pertaining to weight and performance
are obviously considerable, but they have already been resolved
from a technical perspective: much lighter than metallic tanks, those
made of composite materials have already shown themselves to be
sufficiently impermeable and resistant to shocks and pressure. On
the other hand, the cost of producing these storage methods will only
meet the industry standard, set at less than 600 euros per unit, once
they are produced in sufficiently large quantities.
While this method of storage in tanks is appropriate for uses that
require low or moderate quantities of hydrogen – particularly in the
automobile industry – it is not feasible when very significant amounts
of hydrogen are required. But once again, there is a solution: like
natural gas, hydrogen can be easily stored in underground cavities,
such as partially emptied salt caverns whose surface composition is
adapted to pressurized storage and that present no risk of leakage.
This type of storage cavern is already being used to store natural
gas in numerous regions of the planet and an equivalent use is being
made of these cavities for hydrogen at a few North American sites, in
particular in the Gulf of Mexico, and at Teeside in the United
Kingdom (210 000 m3). The capacity for the natural storage of large
quantities of hydrogen gives it the ability to recover very significant
quantities of energy and to address certain renewable energy grid
management configurations, such as the seasonal challenges (see
inset, chapter 2, page 49), which makes hydrogen unique with
respect to these energy ranges.

Liquid storage – cryogenics

The liquefaction of hydrogen gas is another process designed to
store substantial quantities of hydrogen in a limited volume. The
process is not exactly simple: along with helium, hydrogen is one of
the most difficult gases to liquefy. The process requires cooling it to a
temperature of –253oC. But this type of storage has its advantages:
low pressure storage allows for the use of a more lightweight tank
and the density of liquid hydrogen (71 kg/m3) is higher than that of
pressurized hydrogen gas (42 kg/m3). As a result, 5.2 kilograms of
liquid hydrogen can be stored in a 75-liter tank!
But the cooling process remains costly. It requires a significant
expenditure of energy: around one-quarter of the energy content of
the hydrogen is consumed in the liquefaction. Moreover, maintaining
the hydrogen at a temperature of – 253oC during its use is very
complex technically. Lastly, hydrogen has an unfortunate tendency to
want to return to its gaseous state. As things currently stand
technically, the daily loss during the normal use period is 2 to 3 %.
As a result, the use of liquid hydrogen for applications that impact
the general public – the automobile and mass transit, in particular –
is hard to imagine in the short term.
In spite of these limitations, the German automaker BMW has
used liquid hydrogen. Back in the 1980s, BMW developed several
different vehicle models with bivalent internal combustion engines
that ran on hydrogen or unleaded premium gasoline. Presented
in 2000 and 2006, respectively, the BMW 750hl and the BMW
Hydrogen 7 were equipped with a tank that could hold
around 8 kilograms of hydrogen. But whatever its technological
merits may be, this tank was unable to prevent the hydrogen from
gradually vaporizing due to heat transfer. Ultimately, BMW, in
partnership with Toyota, sharply shifted its focus in early 2010 to the
development of fuel cell vehicles powered by compressed hydrogen.
Conversely, the possibilities that liquid hydrogen offer are being
exploited in the space industry: the tanks designed by Air Liquide to
hold the fuel that powers the main engine of the launchers used in
the Ariane space program hold no less than 28 tons of liquid
hydrogen. Immobile until liftoff, the tanks can in fact be filled up to
the last minute, which eliminates the problem of gradual
vaporization.

Solid form storage

Efforts are currently underway to develop solutions for storing
hydrogen in its solid form. Success in this endeavor requires
combining hydrogen with another chemical element. Certain
materials, carbon in particular, are in fact capable of adsorbing the
hydrogen, which means fixing it to a surface. Hydrogen can thus be
stored on the surface of certain structures composed of carbon
nanotubes. Today, however, storage via adsorption remains at the
research stage.
Conversely, metal hydride storage for hydrogen made its
appearance in the market several years ago. Certain metallic
components – in particular magnesium-based alloys – have the
capacity to store hydrogen in a stable form: at a given temperature –
which depends on the exact metals used – these intermetallic
compounds absorb hydrogen much like a sponge would! Naturally,
the system is reversible: when the metallic hydrides are heated, the
process is reversed and the energy power of hydrogen is restituted.
But it is necessary to heat the material, and this is a source of
complication. The French firm McPhy4 is one of the main global
players in this particular technology, along with the Australian firm
Hydrexia. And a number of North American and European
laboratories continue to search for the right alloy, the one that will
help to optimize the cost of the solution and its energy scorecard.
One of the most promising aspects of this process lies in the fact
that it can achieve high storage volumes by eliminating the pressure
constraint that is inherent in gas storage solutions, not to mention the
inevitable vaporization that plagues liquid hydrogen. Transporting
hydrogen ‘’wafers’’ is, in addition, particularly easy. Lastly, solid
storage offers density excluding the container mass of 106 kg/m3,
compared with 71 kg/m3 for liquid hydrogen and just 42 kg/m3 for
hydrogen gas.
Conversely, its mass density remains low: the hydrogen storage
capacity is low, while the hydrides are quite heavy. The system’s
gravimetric – the ratio of the weight of the contents to the weight of
the container– is no greater than 2 or 3 %. This limitation is naturally
prohibitive for certain types of consumption.
 In the final analysis, this type of storage is currently relatively well
adapted to stationary uses, in particular the supply of residential
sites. But its deployment for activities that involve mobility does not
look promising in the short term.

Transport and distribute

The physical and chemical properties of hydrogen being what they
are (buoyant, low density, difficulty of liquefaction, etc.), transporting
and distributing it require technological skill and industrial knowhow.
One thing is certain, however: hydrogen can be distributed in the
same way gasoline is, at a service station pump. In just a few
minutes, drivers can “fill” their vehicle up with hydrogen! Today, it is
estimated that 300 stations have been designed and installed –
mostly by the companies Air Liquide, Linde, and Air Products, but
also the Danish company H2 Logic – around the world, particularly in
Germany, in Japan (with a strong commitment from Iwatani), in the
United States (California), and in Northern Europe (Denmark, the
Netherlands), over the last ten years. Some are for private use only,
for research centers and logistics centers mainly, where they supply
vehicle fleets and forklift trucks. Others, increasingly often, are for
public users (buses, passenger cars).

But many countries are gradually installing small networks designed

to meet the needs of privately owned car or bus fleets. In both
Germany and Japan, there are plans to build several dozen
hydrogen charging stations in the months ahead, designed to
complete their existing networks.
It remains, though, that replenishing these service stations
requires the support of an efficient infrastructure for the transport of
hydrogen. And the amounts of hydrogen that will be consumed
tomorrow will help to define the contours of the logistical system that
will be rolled out to manage the delivery of hydrogen to the stations.
Today, the hydrogen that is shipped to these charging stations
arrives mostly via overland transport, in trucks. Compressed
hydrogen gas can be placed in large stainless steel tubes
pressurized to 200 bars that transporters deliver to the stations in
question. But it can also be confined in multi-cylinder bundles and
placed in special metal boxes.

In some states in the US, liquid hydrogen tends to be the norm with
respect to logistics. According to experts, the preference for liquid
hydrogen is attributable to NASA’s decision to install a number of
liquefaction units in the 1970s, at a time when the US agency was
developing its space strategy; indeed, its rocket engines are fueled
by liquid hydrogen. If it were necessary to offer proof that the space
industry has stood at the forefront of the development of hydrogen
energy, this would be it. With liquid hydrogen, the delivery density is
ten times better but this method also engenders major expenses, as
the liquefaction process is energy intensive and, for this reason, very
costly.

Going forward, the prevailing logic is on the side of distributing

hydrogen in its gaseous form via a system of pipelines. In the past,
the chemical and oil industries, which use large quantities of
hydrogen, have spearheaded the development of these buried
pipeline networks in a number of heavily industrialized regions, from
Benelux and the Ruhr Valley to the Gulf of Mexico, Singapore, Hong
Kong and Japan. Air Liquide and Linde operate several hundreds of
kilometers of pipelines in Benelux and in Germany, as well as in the
US with Praxair and Air Products. This connects the hydrogen
production plants directly to the facilities where the gas is being
used. Over the medium term, it may be possible to hook some
charging stations up to these pipelines – in some places, this is
already being done, for example in the US state of California and in
the Netherlands (Rotterdam). This method would not only obviate
the need to transport hydrogen in trucks, it would also eliminate the
need to invest in onsite storage solutions, since the network would
play that role! However, these pipeline networks are not always
located near major road traffic infrastructures, and the cost of
deviating these pipelines to accommodate this need is not always
affordable.

In addition, thanks to the development of electrolyzers with power

that is adapted to the needs of the network, we can already begin
thinking about ways to produce hydrogen at the charging point! The
obvious advantage of this solution is that it eliminates not only the
cost of transporting the hydrogen to the charging station but also
reduces the carbon footprint of the process. This system is already
conceivable for service stations that accommodate passenger
vehicles, with production capacities of several tens of kilograms of
hydrogen a day, which is enough to meet the needs of a fleet of
several hundred cars! In addition, several stations are already
operating on this decentralized production basis, especially in
Germany, in Denmark, and in Iceland.
Nonetheless, compared to the hydrocarbon-based solution, an
electrolyzer remains both more costly and less efficient from an
energy perspective. The challenge remains to lower the cost of this
technology so that it can reach the point of equilibrium. In fact, this
means cutting current investment costs in half for a unit of
electrolysis, in order to make it competitive against other hydrogen
production and distribution solutions.
An identical approach holds for the use of onsite steam reforming
solutions. Tomorrow, it will be easy to ensure that the current natural
gas networks, which are highly developed, can be used to replenish
supply for remote reforming sites, which could then themselves
directly fuel vehicles. For this to happen, though, the question of
intermittent demand will have to be resolved, as it is not adapted to
the habitual continuous supply production model that applies to
steam reforming. It will also be necessary to bear in mind that, to
produce clean hydrogen, the natural gas that is intended for the
steam reforming process must itself be derived from biogas or other
forms of biomass.
Lastly, over the longer term, why not invent solutions for the
production and distribution of hydrogen in the home? This may seem
utopic but it is not as farfetched as it might appear: working in
collaboration with Honda, the Japanese manufacturer Iwatani is
already developing prototypes of small service stations designed to
recharge hydrogen-powered vehicles at the owner’s home!
In the near future, the ongoing rise of digital technologies will
radically change our approach to mobility and the services that
revolve around it. For example, it is not impossible that tomorrow our
cars will drive themselves to the station when it is time to recharge
thanks to integrated energy charge management systems, or that
mobile hydrogen charging stations will make their appearance, as
many players in the industry seem to be hoping for. In fact, Toyota
and Honda were not wrong to equip their hydrogen-powered
vehicles with a plug in the trunk that can be used to provide
electricity for the owner’s home in the event of a natural disaster. The
car serves in this case as an emergency generator.
In other words, it is unlikely that an infrastructure to distribute
hydrogen identical to the one that today fuels gasoline-powered
vehicles will be developed tomorrow. Thanks to the alternative
mobility solutions available – particularly those made possible by
information technologies – it’s a good bet that a country like France
or Germany will not need to have 15 000 hydrogen recharging
stations because other distribution and charging solutions will be
developed. And far from being a transitory solution, this notion of
alternative mobility could well drive the development of new business
models.

1. For example, see the article entitled “Hydrogène, la ressource que personne
n’attendait,” published on April 20, 2015 in issue 1172 of Science et Vie.
2. Here, we are comparing electricity output (60 %) against heat output (80 % for
reforming), which means that the ratio is nearly 3 if the energy input in both cases
is natural gas.
3. Source: Overview presented by EDF of studies conducted by the CRE (French
Commission for Energy Regulation) and the Cour des Comptes (French
Government Accounting Office) in April and May of 2014 on evaluating the
production costs for renewable energies in France.
4. For more information: www.mcphy.com/fr
 CHAPTER 3

A vector of
the energy
transition
T HE energy storage capacity of hydrogen offers a vital key to
addressing the issues related to the energy transition. Indeed, it is
largely due to this capacity that hydrogen can lay claim to
becoming – alongside the electron – one of the integrative vectors
with respect to the various energy needs of our societies. It provides
the link between the production of renewable primary energy and its
use in areas such as transportation, electricity distribution, and
district heating.

No real transition without the

integration
of energy and transportation
There are multiple ways of presenting the challenges of the energy
transition. However, the most informative is without a doubt the Kaya
Identity, an equation attributed to the Japanese energy economist
Yoichi Kaya.1 This equation consists of breaking global carbon
dioxide (CO2) emissions down into four principal components: the
population of the planet (POP), the gross domestic product per
capita (GDP/POP), the energy intensity – measured in ton oil
equivalent – of our wealth production system (TOE/GDP), and
carbons emissions per unit of energy consumed (CO2/TOE).
Multiplying these four components out results in global
CO2 emissions from human sources:
CO2 = POP x GDP/POP x TOE/GDP x CO2/TOE

A few years ago, the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change)

estimated that, in order to achieve a lasting reversal of the current
global warming trend and thus conserve a planet that is livable for all
of its inhabitants, it would be necessary by the year 2050 to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 75 % compared with their level
in 2005. And in order to do so, it would be necessary to divide one of
the components of the Kaya equation by more than three – in fact,
closer to four. Can we achieve a reduction of this magnitude in the
world’s population? Impossible, of course, since the demographic
transition supporting the stabilization of the world's population is still
underway and the planet will count between nine and ten billion
inhabitants in 2050. What about the production of wealth? Achieving
stability in GDP per capita seems equally improbable. How about
energy intensity? This would require being capable of developing
growth in a way that requires less energy, which is far from
certain.2 And carbon dioxide emissions? Yes, certainly. But cutting
the CO2 content of the energy used on the planet three – or four-fold
requires returning to nuclear power and renewable energies on a
massive scale. The orders of magnitude in play are undeniably
considerable.
Given the circumstances, the energy transition is an urgent matter.
Urgent, surely, but also delicate because it requires a complete
change in the productive paradigm. Indeed, it means we must
conceive of and integrate a complete reversal of the parameters that
must be factored into the construction of our future systems of
production. In the years ahead, we must turn our current thinking on
its head when it comes to how we manage electrical power grids.
From centralized production driven by demand for energy, the world
must move toward mixed or decentralized production driven in part
by the available supply of renewable energy which, in addition, is not
totally predictable.
In the future, it will also be necessary to reverse the driver of
systems of production. Contemporary energy systems were
developed in accordance with the rules of economies of scale,
favoring the emergence of a network of very powerful hydroelectric
or nuclear power plants. Thanks to the electrical power distribution
grids and the flexibility of power plants – which today still manage
the peaks in energy consumption – it is possible to meet demand for
electricity with an appropriate response. Conversely, the
development of renewable energies is characterized by resource
access from every site… even though some places and certain time
periods are better adapted than others when it comes to capturing
light photons and wind regularity! However, with these renewable
energies we do achieve economies of scale more rapidly and the
possibility of developing small, decentralized, multi-site power plants
transforms the structure of production and command. So instead of a
few dozen large and centralized production structures, hundreds or
even thousands of production sites will emerge across the
landscape, as close as possible to where the energy is consumed.
Production is no longer driven by demand, but instead depends on
the availability of the resource – wind or sunlight – which is only
partly predictable.
The very meaning of power grid management thus changes:
demand must be driven to some extent by electricity supply. There is
no longer a pull strategy, where demand drives the resources, which
are controlled on the basis of the availability of intermediate or buffer
stock and managed power plants. Instead, we are entering a push
strategy, where the electricity that arrives must be put into the grid,
while the fossil fuel-based power plants are there to pick up the slack
or fill unmet demand. And this leads to a disruption in the way these
plants work economically, since they can no longer function on the
basis of ensuring production levels that are sufficient to amortize the
capital invested in them.
The second major characteristic of a renewable energy production
grid is the reversal of the criteria for cost management and control.
Today, power plants function on the basis of the lowest marginal
cost, which depends on the cost of commodities (the price of a barrel
of oil, or of a megawatt hour of natural gas, or of a ton of coal); the
race for machine productivity is, in addition, the predominant criterion
for technological development. But with renewable energies, the
lowest marginal cost is no longer the only criterion and the notion of
productive outputs is clearly less relevant. The wind, solar energy,
and water flow are in fact free sources of energy! Admittedly, the fact
that they are free does not mean there is no longer any need to work
to convert the available energy as efficiently as possible. However,
the critical parameter becomes the cost of the assets that are
installed to harness these energies, the amounts invested in these
assets, and the cost of their maintenance. The driver thus becomes
the quest to keep the invested assets functioning over the longest
possible period of time in order to amortize their value over the
largest possible quantity of energy. This constraint is all the more
important given that the cost price per unit of installed power for wind
turbines, onshore and offshore, and for solar panels is generally
higher than it is for conventional power plants.
Germany’s major energy suppliers took a serious hit when that
country decided to offer incentives for the development of renewable
sources of energy, with a preference given to the injection of green
electrons into the network. This radical reversal of the prevailing
mindset meant that it was no longer possible to keep the country’s
conventional big power plants running at full capacity and several of
them had to close their coal-based plants and announce major
losses. In 2014, EON and RWE both posted losses totaling several
billion euros.
Today, some analysts believe that close to half of all conventional
assets (coal and natural gas) are at risk. In Germany, close to 25 %
of all electricity generated is from a renewable source, compared
with less than 15 % for nuclear and 45 % for coal-based power. To
achieve this 25 %, Germany rolled out a combination of wind
turbines offering nearly 40 GW of power and solar power of about
the same magnitude. If hydroelectricity and electricity produced from
biomass is added to the mix, the combined installed power from
renewable sources comes to practically half of Germany’s total
installed power (170 GW)!
The problem is that the rate of use for this installed power
oscillates between 10 % – for solar power – and 15 % – for wind
power. For hydraulics and biomass, the totals are a little higher. For
fossil-derived energies, conversely, the use rates are closer to 45 %
for an installed base of more than 90 GW. As a result, Germany’s
average electricity prices are the highest in Europe, more
than 340 euros per MWh versus just 140 €/MWh for France! These
figures illustrate both the patrimonial nature of the model and the
need, for the very heavy installed assets, to find ways of better using
the sources of energy they produce.
Nonetheless, progress in the technologies used to produce
renewable energy has led to considerable reductions in the complete
cost of energy production. In some countries, the cost price gap with
respect to the regular grid is closing. For the latest generations of
photovoltaic production plants, in fact, the cost price has fallen
below 80 €/MWh. In some case, these solutions can even become
more competitive than the latest generations of nuclear power plants
currently being built, including the EPR (European Pressurized
Reactors) at Olkiluoto (Finland) and Flamanville (France).

The graph below illustrates how the electricity generation costs of

the major renewable technologies are expected to decrease in the
years ahead, as technologies improve and volume effects kick in.
 Expected development of electricity generation costs from fossil fuel
and renewable options

Source: GWEC / Greenpeace

Analyzing the various methods of producing electricity, whether

renewable or not, is no simple matter, because the parameters are
numerous and do not yield a straightforward basis for comparison
that is acceptable to all stakeholders. The conditions governing the
rollout of the underlying technologies differ from one country to the
next, as do the power, the exposures to resources, etc. Surveys
carried out by the IEA (the International Energy Agency) probably
offer the most neutral analysis of this eminently political subject, i.e.,
how we calculate the cost price of different technologies, a huge
battle between the defenders of different energy-related fields
(nuclear, oil, gas, coal, renewable).

But the analysis also becomes more complex depending on how

we account for whether the energy solutions being analyzed are
intermittent or not and how/whether we take into account the need
for fossil solutions to manage their CO2 emissions. The graph below
shows one way of conducting a comparative cost analysis, taking
into account the fact that fossil-fuel based energy solutions will
eventually have to acquire the means to capture and store their CO2
emissions.

Estimated Levelized Cost of New Electric Generating Technologies

in 2019 (2012 $/megawatt hour)

Source:
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/topics/policy/electricity-
generation-cost/

Other studies seek to calculate the negative externalities that must

be borne by the conventional sources of energy generation, which
naturally lead to very different graphs, which favor renewable
sources and which, naturally, are just as contested by conventional
players in the field of energy. It is undoubtedly sufficiently telling to
observe the raw figures, which clearly show the progress made by
renewable energies, on the one hand, and the rising costs
associated with the production of conventional solutions, on the
other hand.

Cost prices of producing electricity in 2013

Cost price of various types of energy in euro cents/KwH in 2013
(preferential financing rate of 1.5 % for renewable energies, price of
fossil fuels rising by 10 % every ten years)

Source: Analysis of the DGEC, 2013

Consequently, with the development of renewable energies, storing

this energy inevitably becomes a critical factor in increasing their
dispatchability. When the cost price margin of the energy generated
exceeds the cost of the storage system that must be rolled out to
conserve this energy when there is no immediate need for its use, it
becomes absolutely crucial to find tools for storing it. Accordingly, the
gradual development of an energy mix in which the proportion of
renewable energies increases necessarily calls for the creation of
physical storage capacity.
Indeed, implementing smart grids alone will not solve the whole
problem, and in particular leaves unanswered the questions
pertaining to the interconnection of distribution networks between the
sites where energy is generated and the places where this energy is
consumed. This is one of the key preoccupations in Germany and its
energy transition: a large proportion of the electricity generated by
offshore wind turbines takes place in Northern Germany, while the
major pockets of energy consumption are located in the South and in
the Ruhr industrial basin. Today, the networks designed to ensure
the transportation of this energy are extremely limited and in need of
very costly upgrades. In this case, a successful energy transition
means focusing on the urgent problem of finding physical solutions
for the storage and reuse of renewable energy when it is available.
Moreover, it is important to understand that, in cities, the biggest
consumers of fossil energy – and the biggest emitters of greenhouse
gases and particulate matter – are building heating systems and
modes of transportation. So thinking about the energy transition
without taking into account the challenges for the transportation
industry would obviously be incomplete, with respect both to its
contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and from the perspective
of energy independence. In addition, placing transportation in a
position to absorb renewable energy would solve at least part of the
problem of storing this source of energy: the electrification of
vehicles would in fact encourage the absorption of this energy
whenever and wherever it is available.

No decarbonization of
transportation without
electrification
In France, the transportation industry is behind more than one-fourth
of all greenhouse gas emissions and almost one-third of all carbon
dioxide emissions. The situation is not really better in the other
industrialized countries, where transport represents
between 20 and 25 % of total emissions depending on the energy
mix in place, with a global average of 22 %.
In parallel, transportation represents almost 30 % of all energy
consumption nationwide in France and absorbs more than 70 % of
all oil that is imported to France, contributing 35 billion euros each
year to France’s energy dependency, for a global energy bill of more
than 60 billion euros. Consequently, transportation is a major
contributor to France’s trade deficit.
Two of the major stated objectives of the energy transition are, first
of all, to reduce polluting emissions and, second of all, to increase
energy independence. Neither of these two ambitions can be
achieved unless the technologies and the attitudes toward
transportation and mobility are radically transformed. First, because
if we are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase the use of
renewable energies, and develop energy savings, we must take
action in every major sector, transportation in particular. But also
because transportation is a key contributor to the particle emissions
that plague cities and pose a serious public health risk. Accordingly,
there can be no energy transition without an equally strong effort to
decarbonize transportation.

New mobility practices are not enough

Recourse to car – and ride-sharing, the reinforcement of mass transit
networks, and the reorganization of work itself to prevent needless
commutes: all of these new practices are developing today in an
attempt to resolve the issue of decarbonizing transportation. These
new mobility solutions constitute an underlying trend and they are
helping to improve the global equation in a significant way. Some
people are even dreaming of a society structured exclusively around
mass transit solutions. But while in the years ahead these new forms
of mobility will definitely decrease the number of cars in circulation
per capita, it is unlikely that the number of vehicles circulating
worldwide will decline, in light of demographics and the fact that the
emerging countries are still in the process of increasing the number
of vehicles in circulation.
In addition, the impact on the number of vehicles in circulation is
not completely linear in nature. A reduction in the number of
consumers will in fact be offset by a higher replacement rate due to
the significant increase observed each year in the average duration
of vehicle use.
 Under the circumstances, reducing transportation-generated
greenhouse gas emissions cannot occur in the absence of a few
fundamental disruptions in how we choose to get around.

New motors are required

In 2012, the average emission level from Europe’s automobiles
was 131.7 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer driven.3 Coming in
behind Denmark (117 g/km) and Portugal (119 g/km), France is a
pretty good student in Europe, with an average rate of 124 g/ km.
But how high should Europe aim for the future? In 2014, the
European Parliament passed a bill that requires automakers to reach
an average level of 95 g/km by 2020. Most observers agree,
however, that in order to meet this requirement a significant portion
of the automobiles in circulation will have to shift to different kinds of
motors. To offset the big cylinder engines they will continue to offer,
automakers will have to also offer smaller models with hybrid or
electric motors, which release less carbon dioxide.
Admittedly, current trends – from improved performances of existing
motorized vehicles and more widespread adoption of the start and
stop system to the increasing use of lighter materials and more
efficient motor outputs – support a gradual decrease in emission
levels. But it seems that ignition combustion engine technologies
have now reached their limits. A motor that uses two liters of fuel for
every one hundred kilometers driven, a goal that figures among the
ambitions of certain French automakers, would only reduce the
average level of emissions by half: for example, even though it only
consumes 1.9 l/100 km, the Peugeot 208 Hybrid FE prototype has a
CO2 emission rate of around 46 g/km. Moreover, fuel consumption
of 1.9 l/100 km is only possible with small urban vehicles and is out
of the question for road vehicles, which represent three-quarters of
Europe’s passenger car CO2 emissions.
In addition, the ability to manufacture biofuels competitively cost-
wise might have seemed to be a promising alternative solution. By
using rich biomass – i.e., the calorific portion of green plants – it is
possible to fabricate biofuels at relatively affordable prices. Or to
develop solutions involving the use of ethanol, or a combination of
ethanol and gasoline, to fuel vehicle powertrains, which has been
done in South America and in some US states. The problem is that
this rich biomass – also referred to as first generation biomass – is
potentially food. And the use of arable land intended for growing
nutritional crops to produce fuel is of course highly contested. In
addition, the carbon footprint of these solutions is not totally neutral
because harvesting, transporting, and processing this biomass
requires the use of machinery that uses energy and that emits CO2.
Lastly, the production of these alternative fuels alone will never
deliver enough energy to allow us to seriously entertain the
possibility of it gradually and totally replacing the oil and gas used for
transportation purposes. However, there is an arithmetic consensus
forming around the possibility of substituting the fuels used in air
transportation with biofuels. But although this would be considerable,
it would still not be enough.
Today, there is talk of trying solutions based on second generation
biomass: in this case, the issue is no longer using food crops but
instead using their less energy rich dry parts. These solutions leave
a smaller carbon footprint and devour much less arable surface area.
However, they generate less energy, the technical challenges are
greater and, as a result, the cost is higher. As for algae, or third-
generation biomass, their potential has already been exploited to
some extent by the cosmetic industry, whose oil needs are much
lower in terms of quantity. But as a source of biofuel, they constitute
a distant hope and not an industrial reality for now.
In any case, where hydrogen powered motors are available, it
appears to be much less costly to use the syngas produced via
gasification processes used on biomass to make hydrogen directly!
This makes it possible to dispense with all of the steps involved in
reconverting the gas into fuel, steps that are as cumbersome as they
are costly in terms of the required investments.
 The challenge, as estimated by the IEA (International Energy
Agency) for the European Union, is to reduce both the particulate
matter and greenhouse gas emissions generated by transportation
by 95 %.
To achieve this aim, it is necessary to cross the line into alternative
powertrains and fuels, which in turn means a complete technological
disruption, not just for automobile manufacturers but also for
networks and infrastructures. The intermediate solutions – especially
hybrids and plug-ins – will play a very important role initially, but only
in helping consumers gradually get used to the big shift to electricity
and then hydrogen.
Produced in connection with the Power Trains survey that was
commissioned by the European Commission,4 the diagram below
schematizes the results that can be expected from various power
trains for passenger cars between now and 2050, from the
perspective of emissions as well as extended range capability.

Autonomy VS carbon footprint comparison

This diagram indicates that, through the use of biocarbons and

thanks to changes in consumer habits, ICEs (Internal or Ignition
Combustion Engines) – whether they run on gasoline or diesel –
could reduce by a quarter their CO2 emissions within the next four
decades. For plug-in hybrids, this reduction should be even more
spectacular. But it turns out to be far below the reduction that is
forecast for battery electric vehicles (BEV) and for hydrogen-
powered fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV): in 2050, these two modes
of propulsion could produce emissions that are close to zero! But
because of their limited extended range capacity, battery-powered
electric vehicles will only be efficient for relatively short urban car
travel, as is the case today. Conversely, hydrogen-powered fuel cell
electric vehicles will be better adapted for long distance travel.

No electrification of
transportation
without clean hydrogen
Numerous studies have indicated the road that will gradually lead to
clean transportation. These same studies also demonstrate the
extent to which hydrogen-based solutions must be part of the
equation. The fuel-cell electric vehicle powered by hydrogen is, in
fact, the only alternative that combines the advantages of the internal
combustion engine (extended range and quick refueling) and the
advantages of the electric car (driving comfort, high energy efficiency
and absence of polluting emissions5).
In addition to the possibilities offered by the battery-powered
electric vehicle used in an urban setting, the hydrogen-powered
electric vehicle allows users to travel between cities, over long
distances. Moreover, the possibility of producing large quantities of
hydrogen through electrolysis will, in the long run, serve as a means
of storing and even using intermittent renewable electricity that is not
absorbed by the network, which could thus be converted into
hydrogen. In this vein, transportation of the future should make a
dual contribution to the environmental equation – on the one hand by
absorbing some of the renewable energy mix and on the other by
reducing its own contribution to emissions.
The stakes are well known and in addition often fuel the polemic
between the French and the Germans on the relevance of each
country’s energy planning preferences, Energie Wende versus the
nuclear power strategy.6
In order to assess these stakes, we must first get some idea of
magnitude. In Germany, forecasts show that in 2020 it will probably
be necessary to manage a renewable energy surplus of
about 30 TWh, which is the equivalent of 5 % of Germany’s total
energy consumption! If by this time – unfortunately, it will be too
early, but the calculations are telling – it were possible to store this
energy in the form of hydrogen, the would be enough hydrogen to
fuel around 4 million vehicles, which is about 10 % of Germany’s
passenger vehicles on the road. This in turn would enable us to save
about 20 million barrels of oil which – at a price of 70 dollars a
barrel – would lower the imported energy bill by nearly 1.5 billion
euros! But this would require building nearly 4000 hydrogen charging
stations – which represents an investment of about 4 billion euros –
as well as the equivalent of 3 000 MW of electrolysis capacity, for a
total investment in the neighborhood of 10 billion euros.
In France, the orders of magnitude are different. Since the use of
renewable energies is increasing more slowly, storage needs would
reach between 20 and 30 TWh only by 2030. In parallel, the figure of
several hundred million euros a year is given to indicate the stakes
related to the development of the transportation and energy
distribution infrastructures in order to ensure it is stored by the
network. But a portion of this amount – around 250 million euros a
year – could be allocated to finance the gradual construction of a
hydrogen production and distribution network that could absorb
approximately 10 TWh of surplus energy… but also to fuel
nearly 1.5 million vehicles and thus lower France’s bill for imported
oil by about 500 million euros a year!
 Obviously, these are only ballpark figures. Other impacts, more
complex, will also be generated: not just tax and industrial impacts,
but also impacts on employment and on the development of new
fields of production and technology. As for the challenges of storage,
they are of course much broader, since energy surplus phases are
not homogenous over time and follow phases of shortage that have
to be offset. As a consequence, in the near future it will be difficult to
get along without any fossil fuels at all. But these figures show the
extent to which the opportunities offered by a transversal approach
to subjects related to the energy transition allow us to look at things
differently.
The initiatives launched in France to develop electric or hybrid
solutions are deemed by many to be too expensive. The same can
be said for the fuel cell technology-based solutions of the kind rolled
out in Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. The
critics notwithstanding, it cannot be denied that they constitute the
source of tomorrow’s technologies, investments and jobs! A survey
commissioned by the European Climate Foundation, and carried out
in 2013 by Cambridge Econometrics7 with the help of data from the
automobile industry, the IEA, and the US and UK governments,
demonstrates that more than 400 000 jobs could be generated by
around 2020 in Europe if efforts were made to develop these power-
train solutions and other technologies that will help to reduce
emissions in line with the stated objectives of the European Union.
Another illustration of the potential of these solutions: in July of 2014,
the European Commission announced that it was renewing the JTI
(Joint Technology Initiative) dedicated to hydrogen and fuel cell
technology,8 with funding of 1.4 billion euros.
Transportation remains a critical sector for our Western
economies, and a large portion of their organization and their
development is concomitant to those of mobility-related
infrastructures and industries. Despite its current woes, the
transportation sector as a whole contributes more than 15 % to
France’s GDP. The direct and indirect jobs that are associated with
this sector are estimated to be more than two million. The sector’s
contribution to tax revenue is significant as well (more than 35 billion
euros), and its important role in daily life in France is obvious,
whether we are talking about collective or individual, private or
business-related mobility. Improving the quality of public
transportation, maintaining the ability of industries to compete, and
developing the occupations of tomorrow are clear imperatives. And
hydrogen must be part of the answer.

1. Popularized in France by Jean-Marc Jancovici, who is also an energy economist

2. In this effort, evolving the indicators we use to measure wealth towards
elements that are less tangible, such as happiness, or what is called the HDI
(Human Development Index), would help usher in a movement where growth is
seen as less material and less energy consuming. A different sort of growth, better
aligned with the new challenges that lie before us.
3. Source: ADEME. Emissions are calculated "wheels only" and do not take the
entire chain into account ("well to wheels"), from the production and delivery of fuel
to its injection into the tank..
4. Can be downloaded from the following address:
http://ec.europa.eu/research/fch/pdf/a_portfolio_of_power_trains_for_europe_a_fa
ct_based_analysis.pdf
5. The emissions of the electric car – if the complete cycle of producing batteries is
included – are debatable, as a recent survey conducted by the ADEME suggests,
and which can be downloaded from the following address:
http://www.ademe.fr/sites/default/files/assets/documents/90511_acv-comparative-
ve-vt-rapport.pdf. Conversely, the emissions of hydrogen-powered fuel cell
systems are not controversial.
6. Numerous studies have been carried out on issues related to the storage of
intermittent energy (challenges, technologies, and savings). To our knowledge, the
most recent one, on the commercialization of energy storage in Europe, was
commissioned by the FCH JU in October of 2014. Also worth mentioning, the
France Stratégie study on Germany’s Energie Wende (energy transition),
published in late 2014.
7. To consult the survey, go to:
http://www.camecon.com/EnergyEnvironment/EnergyEnvironmentEurope/Fuelling
EuropesFuture.
8. The goal of the JTI is to promote the pooling of private sector resources, of the
European Union and its member states, in order to carry out research projects.
The goal of the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen JTI is to fund research projects so that
applications using hydrogen-powered fuel cell systems can be ready for market
rapidly.
 CHAPTER 4

The roadblocks
to be lifted
W E master the molecule and the technologies for producing,
storing and transporting it are ready. Its role in achieving the energy
transition no longer remains to be demonstrated. However, the path
leading to widespread use of hydrogen still seems very long. There
are two major roadblocks that need to be lifted in order to get to this
disruptive technology: societal acceptance of the hydrogen molecule
and funding for the infrastructures that are indispensable to a
hydrogen-led energy revolution.
Convince and finance – these are the two challenges that are now
facing players in the hydrogen field.

Lifting the psychological

barriers
Widespread societal acceptance of hydrogen has not yet happened.
But if hydrogen still incites fear, this is often due to the persistence of
misunderstandings and misconceptions about it.1

The Hindenburg: a real accident, a false

indictment
The spectacle of the Hindenburg airship, on fire above Naval Air
Station Lakehurst, in New Jersey, on May 6, 1937, is obviously not
an example of good publicity for hydrogen. In fact, almost eight
decades later, the reputation of hydrogen continues to be adversely
impacted by these terrible images.2 Today, there is not a single
criticism or interview by an opponent of hydrogen that does not
include a reference to this disaster.
And yet…
The investigation carried out by a NASA scientist, Doctor Addison
Bains, showed that, contrary to received wisdom, the deaths of the
Hindenburg victims were not caused by an explosion of hydrogen.
During the accident, the 200 000 m3 of hydrogen used to inflate the
zeppelin caught fire very rapidly, but did not generate an explosion.
Luckily, not one of the victims was burned, because the hydrogen
flame spread above the nacelle. In addition, of the 97 passengers
that were on board the airship, the 62 who remained on board made
it back to earth safe and sound. And the 35 victims who did not
survive were the ones that jumped overboard in a panic when they
saw the gas catch fire.
The investigation conducted by the American authorities led to the
formation of an initial hypothesis to explain the tragedy: an
electrostatic discharge, or spark, that ignited the highly combustible
canvas fabric covering around the airship’s bladder. A second, more
recent, hypothesis takes into account several contextual elements.
The day of the drama, a landing maneuver allegedly caused a steel
mooring cable to snap. There were thunderstorms and rain as the
airship attempted to dock, which could have created a difference of
potential between the airship’s bladder and the ground, which could
in turn have caused a spark and ignited the hydrogen.
What is certain, however, is that the pioneers of this period were
mistaken in their use of hydrogen, in the sense that they were
interested in its lightness when in fact what gives hydrogen its
immense value today is obviously its high energy density. The use of
helium would apparently not have had the same impact, even if this
gas is less easily accessible than hydrogen.
Regardless, can we in all seriousness judge the merits of a
technology on the basis of one tragic event that occurred nearly
80 years ago? A fortiori since, once investigated, it turns out that the
technology in question did not cause this terrible accident?

When the downside of the molecule

becomes an upside for safety
More generally, hydrogen’s detractors harbor fears that often turn out
to be irrational, accentuating an allegedly high accidentology which
in reality is not different from that associated with the other forms of
energy we use in our daily lives (natural gas, gasoline,3 etc.) and that
we accept because they are indeed perfectly acceptable and we are
accustomed to the related risks.
An objective analysis of the risks related to this molecule – and the
preventive measures whose adoption will limit them! – is certainly
the best response that can be given. And the figures for hydrogen,
provided by the European producers of industrial gases, differ little
from those for other gases or energy fuels. For other fuels, these
results are considered to be reasonably acceptable risks that are in
some cases a thing of the past thanks to technological
improvements, whether we are talking about the combustion engine
used for vehicles or the combustion technology found in individual
boilers or in our own kitchens.
Statistics compiled internally by Air Liquide offer the following
clarifications. For 51 years, the hydrogen activities of the company
have been delivering hydrogen daily to thousands of customers. In
all, 1 500 trucks circulate every day around the world to deliver
hydrogen in the form of several tens of thousands of cylinders
packed into thousands of frames. For the entire supply and
distribution chain and over this 50-year period, there have been on
average two accidents per year.
Yet hydrogen is the molecule with the greatest energy intensity,
which means that it can present a real danger. One of the
characteristics of hydrogen is that its flammable or flammability
range – i.e., the range of a concentration of a gas or vapor that will
burn (or explode) if an ignition source is introduced – is broader than
that of other gases (by 5 % to 75 %). The source of energy needed
to ignite hydrogen is very small, all of which both explains its
potential danger and why its packaging and distribution must be
managed with great caution. The technical characteristics of this
molecule are presented below, in comparison with other major
sources of energy that are part of our daily lives:

hydrogen propane natural gasoline

 H2 C3H8 gas (vapor)
(methane
CH4)

molar mass (en g/mol) 2 44 16

density 0.08 1.87 0.7
(under atmospheric conditions) (in kg/m3)

heat of combustion (lower) (in kj/g) 120 46 50 44.5

flammability limits in air (in vol %) 4.0 - 2.1 - 5.3 - 1.0 -
75.0 9.5 15.0 7.6
minimum ignition energy (in mJ, for a stoichiometric 0.02 0.26 0.29 0.24
mixture at ambient pressure and temperature)

self-ignition temperature (in oC) 585 487 540 228 -

501
flame temperature (in oC) 2045 1875 2200
detonability limits (in vol %) 13 - 65 6.3 - 1.1 -
13.5 3.3
rate of combustion in air (under atmospheric 265 - 30 - 40
conditions) (in cm2/s) [laminar flame velocity]
325 40
explosive energy (in TNT kg/m3) 2.02 20.3 7.03 44.24
diffusion coefficient in air (in cm2/s) 0.61 0,16 0.05
flame velocity in air (cm/s) 260 37
detonation velocity in air (km/s) 2 1.8

These are the facts.

It is interesting to note, in addition, that hydrogen – unlike a
number of other types of energy – presents no risk of toxicity and is
not corrosive, carcinogenic or polluting.
The principal danger associated with hydrogen is related to its
high energy density. But another key feature of hydrogen puts this
danger into immediate relative perspective: hydrogen is also the
lightest, most buoyant of molecules (14 times lighter than air), which
means that it dilutes as soon as it is released into the atmosphere.
Consequently, comparisons with the explosion in an enclosed
garage of a vehicle that runs on LPG are not relevant. Contrary to
LPG, which is much heavier and which converts rapidly into its liquid
phase, hydrogen leaking from a tank does not stagnate – instead, it
dilutes much more quickly than any other gas whatsoever!
In addition, the issue of confinement is often mentioned by
hydrogen’s opponents. It is clear that given the flammable range
indicated and the high pressure of hydrogen in a tank, a leak would
very quickly release a sufficient volume of hydrogen to pose a real
threat – ignition with a long and powerful flame, not highly visible but
also with low radiant heat or deflagration – if the vehicle in question
was located in an enclosed space. But, once again, the major
technological challenge of the molecule, which makes it hard to
manage and limits its uses, i.e., its buoyancy and its small molecular
size, becomes an advantage when it comes to safety: the spaces
that might be able to successfully confine the molecule and allow it
to build up are pretty hard to find!4
The challenge for those who are developing this sector is thus dual:
prevent leaks and/or control their development when circumstances
require. Automakers all take extreme precautions when it comes to
developing solutions for storing hydrogen in vehicles, in order to
ensure a level of safety equivalent to that of conventional cars. And if
Toyota (after Daimler, Hyundai and the others) is making thousands
of these vehicles available to ordinary consumers – starting with
Japan’s Prime Minister! – it means they have achieved a level of
safety that complies with the requirements of the industry. This,
however, does not mean it is impossible that an accident linked to
the specific features of hydrogen will never happen, just as accidents
can occur involving other forms of energy used to fuel vehicles. But
decidedly, hydrogen does not deserve the bad reputation that some
would like it to wear!

Risks related to pressure?

Another question that is regularly asked has to do with pressure. It is
true that drivers of hydrogen-powered vehicles are asked to sit on
tanks that contain a molecule stored under high pressure (700 bars)
… But does this make it crazy? Not when one considers the fact that
all of us spend our lives surrounded by devices under pressure
without living in a state of high anxiety! The force of habit, no doubt:
from the natural gas line that supplies the gas burners in a home
kitchen to a bottle of champagne, not to mention pods for coffee
machines or bottles of CO2 (pressurized to 50 bars) used to make
sparkling water and oxygen tanks for deep sea diving (200 bars), or
the Common Rail fuel injection system of an Audi 3.0 TDi
to 2 000 bars or the airbags installed on our cars, some of which
include tanks pressurized to 600 bars, linked to a gas generator.... a
myriad of objects under pressure are part and parcel of our daily
lives! What about the power of a washing machine drum when it is
rotating at several thousand revolutions a minute?

To be more precise, we are not entering into unknown territory. First

of all, millions of canisters of gas stored under pressure are used
every day around the world and their mechanical integrity is proven,
judging from the very low accident rate for this type of equipment.
They are subject to testing and certification processes whose safety
factors (ratio of burst pressure to operating or working pressure) are
the same regardless of whether the gases are stored at 200,
300 or 700 bars. These processes include destructive testing,
hydraulic pressure cycle testing, exposure to extreme temperatures,
bullet tests using real bullets, etc.
The second factor relative to pressure is much more important:
thanks to technology and scientific progress in materials, it is
possible today to design storage that can resist pressures we don’t
really encounter in ordinary life. Indeed, in the crash tests conducted
by automobile manufacturers to ensure that their models meet safety
requirements before they are on the road, we see images of cars
crushed like cans of aluminum soda with their gas tanks still intact.
These crash tests would be comparable to crushing a can of soda
with a small pebble inside. The small pebble inside would be
comparable to the tank, obviously!
In the course of its life cycle, a tank can certainly sustain all sorts
of impacts, falls and shocks… But the types of damage generated by
mechanical impacts are radically different on a hydrogen tank –
made of carbon fiber composite – than what is observed when the
tank is metallic: now, manufacturers are focusing on the risks that
composite materials will burst and delaminate rather than on the risk
of cracks and nicks. The resilience of tanks pressurized to 700 bars
no longer remains to be proven: numerous tests have been carried
out highlighting their air and water tightness when they sustain an
impact of several thousand joules, far in excess of what might be
encountered in daily life.
As for the fire behavior of these tanks, it is characterized by a risk
of deterioration at levels of excess pressure generated by
overheating that might crack the tank. In addition, the tanks are
equipped with thermal fuses that are triggered when overheating
occurs to release the stored gas and thus prevent excessive
pressure buildup.
It would be irresponsible to deny the importance of ensuring an
adequate level of safety before this gas, which is combustible under
pressure, can be widely used to meet the daily needs of tomorrow,
as opposed to limiting its use to industrial purposes. But it would be
just as irresponsible to find excuses not to continue moving in this
direction, since technological progress is such that we can now
achieve perfect control over the use of this key molecule for
tomorrow.
In fact, French public opinion on this subject is not mistaken.

Preconceived notions are fading

The Médiascopie Institute recently conducted a survey on the
language of hydrogen energy for the purpose of identifying the
immediate, almost unconscious, perception of the French population
with regard to this molecule that everyone has heard of but which, at
the end of the day, few people are really familiar with. The findings of
this survey are astonishing.

In fact, it turns out that questions of safety do not come to mind

unprompted for those surveyed. In addition, using a scale that runs
from positive to negative on the desired future for hydrogen, we see
that for questions pertaining to the energy transition and the notion of
technological and technical progress, the global image of hydrogen
is highly positive. When asked, most people indeed see hydrogen as
a source of jobs and development, as well as a factor contributing to
competitive strength and productive revival.
It is obvious that, like LPG, whose rise was suddenly halted by an
accident that occurred in a parking lot – thus generating a level of
fear disconnected from the actual accidentology of this molecule –, a
serious accident that impacts the general public due to the
inadequately controlled use of hydrogen could elicit the same kind of
lasting rejection. On this point as well, new energies suffer from a
disadvantage in the face-off with fossil energies – oil and gas in the
lead – whose dangers remain real but that we accept because they
are under control and we have been living with them for such a long
time!

Resolving the funding

The question of how to fund the ramp-up of a hydrogen economy
opens up a number of project areas.

Externalities: a challenge for society, thus

collective
Today, humanity faces a new problem set, one that has no
equivalent in its history. It amounts to building a productive solution
whose major and primary intended benefit entails going from a fossil
economy to a non-fossil one and to solving the issues that affect
each and every one of us but whose resolution is nonetheless
collective. It is important to be clear from the outset: it is precisely
because oil, coal and natural gas are the most accessible and easy
to use energies that we find it difficult today to move on to other
resources. And if the use of these fossil resources did not have
adverse impacts on the climate and on the air we breathe, nobody
would even be raising the issue of transitioning out of the carbon
economy!
The challenge therefore lies in developing energy solutions that
meet the needs of society and that are comparable to those the
fossil economy offers but without their disadvantages. Indeed, these
disadvantages are perceived as collective negative externalities,
meaning that their cost cannot be billed to anyone in particular, either
individually or collectively. The cost of emitting particles that are
detrimental to human health is in fact diluted across a cohort of
individuals, within which some are more sensitive than others to
these phenomena.5
The facts are now quantified and incontestable. The illnesses
caused by atmospheric pollution (asthma, chronic bronchitis, lung
disease, cancer of the respiratory tracts, not to mention various
allergies) affect to varying degrees nearly 30 % of the population in
industrialized countries. In France alone, 3.5 million people suffer
from asthma and serious respiratory failure affects more than 50
000 people. Also in France, atmospheric pollution is responsible for
nearly 42 000 premature deaths each year. The oil and gas
companies are not directly and solely responsible for this situation,
any more than automobile manufacturers, local governments which
allow cars that emit carbon dioxide to circulate, or the end consumer,
who is not necessarily in a position to choose what kinds of
motorized transportation he or she will use to get around.
 So, this is well and truly a societal issue, which touches on the
very principle of living together in societies. Transitioning from the
carbon economy is a problem by definition, because each of us will
very quickly see that the impact of any energy solution initially
selected will be higher costs. And while we will benefit individually
from this shift, none of us will reap the benefits of lower greenhouse
gas emissions and lower particle emissions unless society as a
whole makes the effort. It is this collective-individual duality that
makes the shift to a new model more difficult than other major
changes we have experienced in the past.
The planet is in fact about to begin a shift for which history offers
nothing remotely comparable, since every previous shift came with a
host of additional advantages that justified the need to pay a
surcharge based on the immediately perceived utility of the shift.
This was the case for the shift from horsepower to the automobile,
which also offered additional mobility-related uses. But this was also
the case when the world shifted from landlines to mobile telephones,
or when it made the transition from vinyl to the CD, which was
eventually replaced by digital downloading. With the shift to a
hydrogen economy and during the energy transition, the individual
benefits are not immediately perceptible and they cannot be
perceived as positive unless everyone is able to capitalize on them.
The positive effects – cities that are cleaner, less polluted and less
noisy – do not resonate with individuals until their collective impact
can be perceived. Naturally, this can happen on the level of a local
community or a city when it comes to air quality, but for CO2 and
greenhouse gases, the issue is a planetary one. Of course, the
benefits in terms of driver comfort, the absence of vibrations, the
silence, are immediately perceptible to the user of an electric car
(hydrogen or battery), but will this be enough to ignite the shift if the
costs are initially higher? The difficult ascent for battery-powered
vehicles demonstrates that a more widespread dynamic is needed to
step up the pace of these changes.
 At the same time, this does not mean productive solutions based
on renewable energies will not eventually be as competitive as
solutions based on the use of fossil fuel resources, since the growing
scarcity of the latter will necessarily make them durably more
expensive over time. But the reality of competitive strength appears
too far in the future to make it possible today to retro-calculate the
impact and advance with an immediately positive bottom line. It is
important not to obscure this fact: there will be a relatively long
period, lasting ten to twenty years depending on the speed with
which these technologies can be rolled out, during which the new
productive solutions – primary energy (wind, nuclear, solar,
hydraulic, biomass) as well as secondary energy (hydrogen and fuel
cell systems) – will be more costly to use than the conventional
solutions.

Our relationship to energy must change

The recent development of new productive behaviors and the
appearance of new mobility models will, in the future, support better
use of resources, which in turn will make it possible to smooth out a
portion of the intrinsic rise in the cost of energy in our society.
However, a productive approach that is totally disconnected from
asset-based notions relative to our resources appears to have
reached its limits. And it appears that we have moved beyond the
era where the inhabitants of industrialized countries had the luxury of
considering energy to be an infinitely available and financially
affordable resource. The fault lies with a society driven by ever-
increasing energy consumption, as the following figure illustrates
 World* total primary energy supply from 1971 to 2012 by fuel (Mtoe)

Source: IEA 2014, Key World Energy Statistics

Here is an even more telling measurement. In just one century, the

energy consumed per capita in the countries of Western Europe has
gone from 1.5 tons of oil equivalent (TOE) to 3.5 TOE. In the United
States, over the same period, the ratio has gone from 3 TOE/per
capita to 8 TOE/per capita! Most of this acceleration took place over
the second half of the 20th century and has leveled off over the past
twenty years or so. Both improved energy efficiency and the tilt in the
productive structure toward more services are helping to slow the
increase in demand for energy. However, GDP and energy
consumption remain strongly correlated, even as energy intensity
diminishes.
 Annual per capita energy consumption and GDP in selected advanced
and BRIICS economies, 1965 - 2012

Accordingly, energy abundance has enabled unparalleled economic

development. We can be thankful for this abundance and what it has
generated in terms of economic and social progress. It is also highly
likely that this abundance made it possible to abandon the slave-
based productive models of centuries past, which is no less
significant progress! This is one of the ideas defended by the
historian Jean-François Mouhot in his work Des esclaves
énergétiques.6 According to Mouhot, it is machines – powered by
fossil fuels – that have gradually rendered the use of forced labor
less and less necessary and made the shift to machines possible
because producers found a viable economic substitute for the free
forced labor provided by slaves. The political cause found an
unexpected ally in its righteous quest. This analogy reminds us, if we
needed reminding, that it is easier to transition from a model if we
can take the high road. It also reminds us that technical progress
itself opened the door to our modern productive world. Our mastery
of fossil fuels has in fact allowed us to reach unprecedented levels of
energy intensity. On his website,7 the energy economist Jean-Marc
Jancovici demonstrates that today, on average, every inhabitant of
an industrialized country has access to energy power that is equal to
the combined strength of nearly 400 slaves!
But this cannot go on indefinitely. In a documentary produced by
Arte celebrating the centenary of the structural anthropologist Claude
Levi-Strauss, he stated: “Humanism is destructive if it is only applied
to certain categories of the living, for it leads by steps to selection
upon selection. We need a humanism that applies to all living and
suffering beings.” He then added, “This is why I am not optimistic for
our modern society.” Is it possible to prove him wrong?
It is likely, indeed, that a few centuries from now our intensive use
of resources will be condemned as having been deadly given its
impact on our ecosystems. We are not there yet, but the analogy
with the exit from the slave-based productive model has the
pedagogic virtue of raising awareness. It tells us that the shift from
one model to another is more rapid if we can take the high road to
achieve it. Accordingly, it is no use proclaiming its political necessity
if we do not find the technologies and replacement solutions that
offer new and promising development horizons.

Surcharge… or displacement value?

Let’s not kid ourselves: implementing an alternative structure for
producing energy will require substantial financial efforts. But what is
even more essential, probably, is that these efforts will not line the
same pockets! Today, the money spent on energy mainly lines
pockets located outside of Europe: Europe’s energy imports are
estimated to be close to 450 billion euros a year, while France’s
portion comes to almost 70 billion euros. Tomorrow, the shift to a
carbon-free economy could not only reinforce the Old Continent’s
energy independence but also finance a large portion of the local
jobs related to establishing, maintaining and distributing new
energies, henceforth decentralized.
Despite the size of its nuclear power program, France is also
concerned. In light of the current difficulties facing the nuclear
industry – its costs are going up as never before in order to keep up
with safety and waste treatment requirements – a survey conducted
in early 2015 by the ADEME8 demonstrated that if France were to
get its entire supply of energy from renewable sources in 2050, this
scenario would be as competitive as its current plan of maintaining a
nuclear share in the mix of 50 %.
On many occasions and under various angles, it has also been
demonstrated that the additional cost that would be incurred to
create a new structure for producing energy would in fact be a case
of value displacement, on several different levels. First of all, a
displacement of imported added value (fossil resources) to local
added value (renewable resources). Secondly, a displacement of the
additional cost of energy that will generate cost gains for health and
the general productivity of productive systems. Lastly, a
displacement of the added value of the energy industry to the
manufacturing, productive and processing sectors, since the
transformation of renewable primary energy requires more steps
than for fossil raw materials.

Sharing costs is a must

Moreover, it is necessary to fund all of the infrastructures (wind
farms, the rollout of a network for the distribution of electricity in the
form of battery recharging or stations for hydrogen recharging, etc.)
that will initially be added to existing networks, in place for dozens of
years. And this expenditure must be borne by all stakeholders: public
powers, private enterprise, consumers and producers.
In the case of hydrogen, the additional cost relates first and
foremost to the acquisition of the vehicle, which today means an
outlay of between 10 000 and 20 000 euros, because production
volumes are still low. On the infrastructure side, the initial burden
comes to several hundreds of millions of euros, because it is
impossible for vehicles to circulate nationwide if there is not at least
a barebones recharging system. Lastly, the fuel initially presents a
certain potential cost differential, which will nonetheless decrease as
the price of fossil fuels rises over the long term.
 In all, this means a global price tag that the market cannot bear
alone and in isolation, because it is not in the interest of the industrial
stakeholders to bear the risk entirely without any assurance that the
productive paradigm shift will well and truly occur. Nor are
government institutions in a position to assume the entire burden of
ensuring such a shift, because they have neither the financial means
nor the technical knowhow to do so. However, they do have the
wherewithal to develop a coordinated approach to technology
decisions, such that deployment occurs across a sufficiently vast
area to generate the level of market demand needed to support the
rollout of enough production in volume terms to lower costs.
The public powers can, in addition, wield the regulatory lever: they
are in a position to set in motion binding paths toward reducing
carbon dioxide emissions, forcing the gradual shift from one
technology to another. Published in the Official Journal of the
European Union on October 28, 2014, the European Directive on the
deployment of an alternative fuels infrastructure was a step in this
direction. The aim of this directive was to gradually set up a network
of infrastructures across Europe to support the dissemination of
alternatives to fossil fuels (liquefied natural gas, hydrogen, batteries).
Its force lay in its binding nature. Unfortunately, some of its
substance got watered down. The nations of Europe are not yet
prepared to sacrifice a portion of their sovereignty when it comes to
issues related to energy and transportation, and they are enabled in
their regression by opponents who feared that the constraints in
terms of location would be too strong, such as the obligation to install
devices for electricity, natural gas and hydrogen recharging within
their existing retail networks.
Public institutions also have a role to play in the fight against the
abusive use and misuse of the pure and perfect rules of competition,
which restrict or otherwise limit the implementation of industry
incentives like special buyback rates or subsidies for certain
deployment policies. They can in fact favor one-off collaborative
efforts between players that normally compete in a particular sector,
allowing these players to “de-risk” the entire sector before the laws of
the market resume their course. It is interesting to reread certain
articles in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union with
this in mind; these articles indicate clearly that ententes or state
subsidies are allowed provided that they open the way to the
development of activities that serve the collective good. Of particular
interest is the famous Article 101-3 of the consolidated Treaty of
Rome, which is not used enough. This article stipulates that
agreements between businesses are acceptable, as long as they
contribute “to improving the production or distribution of goods or to
promoting technical or economic progress, while allowing consumers
a fair share of the resulting benefit.”
Here we are!

CO2 mon amour: choosing the right

technologies
But we must also make sure that we are supporting the right
technologies. All the technologies currently competing for
consideration as the most likely to foster the energy transition use
the same metrics for self-assessment and make the same bid for
leadership. Here, market mechanisms need to be used, as they are
the best way to gauge the appetite of private players to promote their
own solutions. The amount they are willing to invest offers a
yardstick of the effort they are willing to expend to ensure that the
technologies they support develop and prevail. In this case, the
market deploys its talent for mobilizing investments in forward-
looking technologies, and this mobilization itself is guided by a long-
term orientation determined by society and governed by rules
(environmental protection, public policy regulations, etc.).
The notions used to compare the different technologies are those
involving the evolution of the full cost of implementation – i.e., an
investment cost amortized over a period of reference and
accompanied by a normative profitability, the cost of operation, and a
few parameters governing the change over time of these costs, so
that experience curves, price/volume effects, and disruptive or
breakthrough technologies can be taken into account.
On this point, it is useful to factor in a few key figures in order to
understand the orders of magnitude involved when it comes to
hydrogen. Hydrogen costs about 1.5 to 2 €/kg to produce using the
conventional production methods based on natural gas, which
corresponds to a cost price of 60 €/MWh of heat. Then the hydrogen
must be packaged and shipped to the point of use, which is
another 2 to 3 €/kg depending on the pressure required and the
distance to be covered. Lastly, the hydrogen must be distributed to
its end consumer. If that consumer is a driver, then this point is the
charging station, and this station has costs: maintenance and repair,
the cost of compressing the hydrogen and, naturally, amortization
and profitability requirements. For a station that distributes 200 kilos
of hydrogen a day, correctly charged (above 60 %), the price is
around 5 €/kg.
So, to get hydrogen into the tank of a vehicle currently costs
around 10 €/kg, and with a kilogram of hydrogen in the tank a driver
can drive 100 km.
Let’s compare this with gasoline. The average consumption of
diesel for a comparable car with an ignition combustion engine is
around 6 or 7 liters/100 km. If the price of crude oil oscillates
between 60 and 100 dollars the barrel, driving 100 km on diesel
costs around 10 to 12 €/kg TTC.
This means that hydrogen costs the same or is 20 % less
expensive.

Not including tax, however, the price of the gasoline/oil solution

remains lower. But why in the world should hydrogen, which is clean,
be subject to the same taxes as diesel fuel or gasoline, which are the
cause of the very emissions we are trying to avoid?
Produced via natural gas reforming, the hydrogen we are talking
about here is not in fact totally clean. In order for it to be clean or
renewable, we would have to add 2 to 3 €/kg, which is the estimated
additional cost of using bio-methane or electrolyzers, centralized or
decentralized, based on renewable energy, which is more expensive,
or producing clean hydrogen with CCS techniques. While awaiting
the significant abatements in the costs of the technologies that would
enable us to absorb this difference, at the level of infrastructures and
production alike, we are already at a cost, not including taxes, of
around 13 €/ kg to drive a car whose extended range would be
comparable with a conventional vehicle but whose carbon footprint
would be neutral! For the average user – who drives
around 10 000 km/ year – we arrive at a difference based on the
current price of diesel, taxes included, of 100 to 200 €/year. A difficult
equation? Let the reader judge.
As soon as the price of oil reaches the summits announced, due to
the growing scarcity of this commodity and to a surtax based on the
tons of CO2 it contains (from 0.5 to 1 €/100 km), it is a good bet that
the vision will change. It is worth remembering that, since 1998, the
price paid at the pump for both diesel and gas has increased by
close to 80 %.9 During the same period, the price per barrel of crude
oil has increased almost threefold (from $27 to almost $70 today).
An identical projection over the 20 years to come would make the
comparison with hydrogen very advantageous, even if the price of
hydrogen were to increase by 10 % in order to be totally carbon
neutral! Especially considering that, with the development of
hydrogen produced using renewable energy, the portion of the price
of hydrogen pegged to fossil derived commodities will tend toward
zero. Today, it already represents slightly less than 10 % of the price
paid at the pump.
The level of tons of CO2 avoided is also a parameter that needs to
be taken into account. It consists of measuring in an uncontestable
way the number of tons of CO2 that using the technology allows us
to avoid producing, with respect to a benchmark scenario that has its
own underlying assumptions. For example, it is obvious that
tomorrow’s automobile mix will be utterly unlike that of 10 years ago
when it comes to the ignition combustion fuel component of that mix.
Emissions will have fallen sharply, making the expected gain of
technologies described as “clean”, low carbon or “green” smaller.
Nonetheless, it is the capacity of these technologies to reduce tons
of CO2 that makes them more or less valuable!
With respect to hydrogen, everything depends on how it is
produced: it is either totally “clean” and every kilometer covered by a
hydrogen-powered electric vehicle fully destroys the grams of
CO2 that this car would have emitted if it were running on gasoline or
diesel, or it is not totally green, “blue,” or clean and the gain is less.
Developed in 2012 by the International Energy Agency (IEA), the
analysis below indicates the differences in performance attributable
to various technologies, incorporating the gradual move from making
hydrogen from a carbonized fossil base to a process based on
renewables (or biomass) in the future.
 Change in well to wheel carbon emissions for passenger vehicles over the
period for the United States, Europe and Japan, compared with hydrogen
technologies

Source: IEA (International Energy Agency)

Key point: while today the reduction of well to wheel emissions for
hydrogen-powered electric vehicles remains moderate in comparison
with conventional ignition combustion engine vehicles, in the long
run they may offer very low emission solutions for long-distance
transportation.

These are the various hypotheses that then allow us to determine

the abatements taken into account for each technology.
As for the infrastructure, on the other hand, it is possible to
consider that once deployed, it has the capacity to accommodate a
given mass of consumers (cars and buses, for the transportation
portion of hydrogen mobility) and that, fully charged, it benefits from
a defined abatement capacity. The cost, which remains to be seen,
is in fact the next parameter.
This parameter, which is the result of the two that precede it, is the
total cost of the technology for a ton of CO2 avoided. The underlying
metrics are relatively complex to implement, particularly when it is a
question of developing an infrastructure whose use will extend over
time and whose costs will evolve – both intrinsically and
comparatively with respect to the existing infrastructure that is being
replaced. This results in figures that are bitterly debated, in the name
of the need to avoid aberrant choices.
A study10 conducted in 2015 by researchers at France’s Ecole
Polytechnique, INRA and CNRS attempted to rethink this approach,
using hydrogen technology and applying a consistent framework to a
significant territorial base (an entire country). The methodology
developed for this study is a first in the analysis of the appropriate
metric for infrastructure cost accounting, i.e., goods that are not
directly productive but that are indispensable instruments in the
production of a given activity. It defines an upward path in the rates
of infrastructure use with increasing and declining sensitivities for
this use and their concomitant impacts on the cost curve of vehicles
put on the market and molecules of hydrogen delivered.
This study analyzes all of the additional costs over the period
leading up to technological and industrial maturity. In so doing, it
uncovers a CO2 emissions avoided price resulting from the entire
process end to end. In other words, the authors of the study refused
to produce static reasoning (at time T) for the development of the
technology and all of the infrastructures that enable the shift from
one paradigm to another. This static approach is rough and unable to
capture the dynamic that must be put in place. In fact, if we remain
stuck in static thinking about this issue, then we end up with
aberrations. This static approach – cleverly maintained by all of
those who do not want to move toward a decarbonized and/or
decentralized economy – amounts to taking into consideration the
current additional cost associated with a station and a vehicle and
tons of emissions avoided. The bases of comparison are obviously
critical. Putting a car that uses 2 liters per 100 km – which is not yet
on the market – in a side by side comparison with a hydrogen car
that is still at the start of its cost curve, with hydrogen manufactured
using coal as the source of energy, is obviously highly tendentious!
The analysis in this case shows a cost price that is obviously too
expensive. But how could things be otherwise when we are
comparing the technology before it has been able to produce results
and we are approaching the subject without taking into account the
change in infrastructure required and hence the time needed to
complete the transition?
Conversely, the study carried out by researchers from Ecole
Polytechnique takes these factors into consideration. It also
mentions the major differences in terms of costs between fossil
based power-train solutions and the hydrogen solution. Similarly, it
takes into account an initial infrastructure that can only be in a state
of overcapacity with respect to the vehicles it serves since at the
start there will inevitably be as many stations as cars. But this study
shows that, after about 20 years, the market will reach cruising
speed, at a vehicle price that is comparable to that for a conventional
passenger car, with a reasonable infrastructure and a price for
hydrogen that factors in the eventual predominance of clean
hydrogen!
The aggregation of additional costs engendered and tons of CO2
avoided over the entire period is used to determine the societal cost
of shifting from one model to another. Based on various scenarios for
the rising costs of the fossil economy, the study ends up with a range
of 50 €/t CO2 to 60 €/t CO2 and negative values whenever the price
of oil increases on average by more than 3 %/ year: the shift to this
new paradigm turns out to ultimately be less costly than maintaining
the existing system, because it occurs without it even being
necessary to give a price to CO2! In fact, the oil price had increased
on average by more than 7 % a year in the last 20 years before the
price drop observed more recently. With prices hovering around
$50 currently, the average increase in the oil price over the entire
period remains 5 % a year. Since the alternative solutions use far
less fuel – the added value being more broadly distributed across
industrial components (production, distribution, transportation and
storage) – their sensitivity to increases in reference prices is very
limited.
 This is one of the central points of the transition to non-fossil
energies, one that its promoters do not always insist upon enough:
there is a strong decrease in the portion of the added value of the
service of making the source of energy available (primary or
secondary) linked to the energy resource itself. For wind and solar
energies, it is even zero, in fact! For the supply of renewable energy
resources (gas, hydrogen, biomass) and their transformation into
energy resources that can be assimilated by a vehicle’s system of
propulsion, the portion of the added value that is purely energy-
related decreases sharply. It is, in fact, replaced by a series of
transformation and supply processes, which have more to do with
manufacturing and logistics than with typically energy-related
occupations.
The energy transition thus becomes an efficient way to regain
control over energy resources, to relocate production, and to build a
productive paradigm that is not dependent on the commodities
markets! In addition, after having observed its gradual
financialization, we will see the energy industry reindustrialize. Given
how easy it is to use and store a barrel of crude oil, the latter
metamorphosed into a monetizable asset, perfectly adapted to the
practices of the financial markets and thus to some extent enabling
the shift in economic value from industrial players to financial players
and markets. And, as we have seen in recent years, this
phenomenon has generated strong economic turmoil.

Hot potato and valley of death

The analysis of various technological routes – generally
complementary but sometimes competing (very little, in fact, if we
take their uses into account) – generates serious industrial policy
debates. And if the initial choices are badly positioned or not well
defined, we end up with the absurdities observed in the solar energy
field: most of the funding for projects aimed at injecting solar power
into the electrical power grid merely served to finance the Chinese
solar panel industry because, instead of boosting local industries, we
directly financed the kWh produced without taking into account the
local component of the added value.
In all of these debates, the hot potato that gets passed around is
the risk that the energy transition will not ultimately pan out, that the
consumer will not make the shift and that the costs of the technology
in question will not achieve the stated objectives. But everyone really
feels that the world is moving toward a different energy universe, one
that is going to turn our thinking upside down. However, the
government does not want to be accused of using public monies
unchecked to finance businesses with few scruples. Businesses
don’t want to take substantial risks without assurances that the policy
underpinning them will be lasting. Consumers wait until the
technology is developed before they really commit and only
technology geeks or public buyers of technology are potentially
willing and able to be the first to take the risks.

Then comes the debate on the right time to go from a research

and development or demo project type financing method to more
massive deployment funding. When is it the right time for businesses
to borrow amounts of money that represent much more significant
financial risks, alone in their quest to reach production volumes that
allow the marginal cost to gradually fall until it is below the selling
cost and bring the average cost down?
This moment is called the valley of death and the name is quite
apt. It means that businesses must continue to move forward on a
parched but necessary path in order to reach profitability, which
consists of accelerating the process of getting the product on the
market so that the volumes produced rapidly enable the company to
reach a cost price that is lower than the selling price. But throughout
this dry period, each additional product that goes on the market
increases losses until breakeven is reached and finally profitability.
So, losses begin by piling up higher before decreasing and then
turning into profits. Industrial players are like hikers in the desert who
get in a little deeper with each passing day before finally seeing the
way out. This valley of death is the phase of inevitable, maximal risk
before reaching the other side of the desert and the oasis of profits!
The valley of death may last for five years, ten years, even fifteen
years. As its name indicates, lots of technologies or players in a
given industry will lose their skin. Especially since, in the middle of
the desert, a revolutionary technology could appear on the
market11 that leaves the developments already committed high and
dry, totally devoid of an outlet.

Some experiments are compelling

Despite these obstacles, several experiments revolving around the
deployment of hydrogen technology for mobility have been initiated
around the world.

In California
The most emblematic from a regulatory perspective was first rolled
out in California a few years ago. Aimed at helping to reduce
transportation-related emissions, this experiment consists of
mandating zero emission vehicle quotas on automobile
manufacturers. Two regulations have been implemented, one
covering the period running from 2009 to 2017, the other beginning
in 2018. And the actual ZEV quotas evolve over time. For the 2012-
2014 period, 12 % of vehicles for sale had to be zero emission
vehicles, while the quota was set at 14 % for the 2015-2017 period.
To ensure that zero emission vehicles are actually put on the
market, the mandate also allows automakers to meet the
requirement by issuing three types of power trains. Those that do not
meet their quotas are subject to fines of more than 5 000 dollars per
vehicle not produced. Conversely, those that do meet the quota
acquire emission rights, i.e., the right to continue to pollute for the
rest of their production. Different types of power trains receive
different levels of credit. Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles earn more
credits. Thus, in 2014, a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle gave access to
seven credits, versus just 0.2 credit for a reduced particle emission
conventional vehicle (ultra clean gas vehicle). As for automakers that
do not sell zero emission models, they must bank credits in order to
be able to keep selling their conventional cars on the market.
This mandate allowed the automaker Tesla to enter the California
market. Founded in 2003, this Palo Alto based company only makes
zero emission vehicles.12 This meant that Tesla was able to join the
market without having the constraint of the other automakers, which
have to meet ZEV production quotas in addition to their regular
production in order to be in compliance with the mandate. In
addition, Tesla can resell its quotas to automakers that do not have
adequate or any electric, hybrid, or hydrogen solutions, allowing
them to comply with the program. And by selling its own quotas,
Tesla is able to finance some of the additional cost of its own
vehicles and thereby stay in the market.
The Tesla phenomenon offers a perfect illustration of what makes
the program in California worthwhile, which is the fact that it
encourages disruptive innovation and not incremental innovations,
which only move forward by little steps that tweak existing
technologies, without ever pushing automakers to shift over to the
technologies of tomorrow. Indeed, it is for this reason that California
has become the top destination market for the first demo programs
and industrial series involving fuel cell vehicles!13

In Japan
The very bold approach of the Japanese government, in support of
its world champion automaker Toyota, remains potentially stymied by
overly cautious regulations pertaining to the implementation of the
technologies. Japanese regulations must evolve rapidly so that
reasonable infrastructure costs can be achieved, a necessary
prerequisite for market growth. In Japan, hydrogen charging stations
today cost two or three times more than their European or American
counterparts. The result of this additional cost turns up in the
average price of hydrogen, which should nonetheless make it
possible to achieve infrastructure profitability. The investment will
have to be cut in half if the price is to be competitive. It is probable
that the ambitious effort to deregulate undertaken by the government
of Shinzō Abe will make some headway. Similarly, it is reasonable to
think that a few technology innovations and other series effects will
improve the cost price of these stations. This development will be a
decisive factor in ensuring that the exemplary Japanese dynamic,
which is both powerful and collective, lives up to its full potential.

In Europe
Things are moving on the Old Continent. And this is partly due to
strong support from national and European agencies and to the
effort made by the companies that produce industrial gases,
determined to resolve the chicken or egg problem blocking the
sector.
And while the problem is simple, the resolution is not.
Today, the “gas at the pump” distribution market is relatively
fragmented. Mass retailers have gotten control over part of this
market, while the major oil companies are pulling out and a number
of private players are developing branded franchise-based models
with more additional revenue from the sale of goods in their stores
than from the sale of gas or diesel fuel. There is no longer a clearly
dominant player in this business, but the distribution infrastructure
costs for an alternative fuel remain high. An independent player thus
does not have the clout to get involved in an adventure like this with
no certainty regarding volume, which is in no way guaranteed at the
outset.
Naturally, the development of a fleet of hydrogen vehicles requires
the establishment of a minimum network before a consumer will
decide to buy a vehicle that he or she will want to be able to
recharge easily. So it is necessary to build a full network of stations
from the start or develop networks of captive fleets that can gradually
attain nationwide coverage. Automobile manufacturers constantly
hammer home the point that they cannot commit to selling vehicles
for as long as there is no network of recharging stations for these
cars. And the oil companies reply by asking why they would roll out
an entire network when there are no electric cars on the road. As for
the major retailers, they are not looking for additional customers: the
reason they started selling fuel in the first place was to develop more
business with a captive customer base, while the oil companies and
other independent distributors are looking for tools to build loyalty
and thus ensure that the customer decides to stop at their pump
instead of the neighbor’s. Consequently, except for the question of
image and the gradual development of clean fuel, the major retailers
are not really interested in being the first to occupy this niche.
Lastly, the two industries that are the most concerned by a power-
train shift intended to decarbonize transportation find an opportunity
in this landscape to do absolutely nothing in good faith. And it is easy
to understand why.
For oil companies and automakers alike, this energy transition
constitutes a very violent shift that could knock them out of the game
if they fail to make the turn with ample precautions and intelligent
preparation. Most of the oil companies are developing the concept of
the gas shift, a transition to renewable energy via natural gas, which
is cleaner than oil and which allows them to respond at least partly to
commitments in terms of emissions. This is why they are so heavily
mobilized in the development of natural gas. This mobilization at
least has the merit of paving the way for a broad shift from liquid to
gas, which is probably, along with electrical cars, the big change to
come in the area of power trains once we begin to move toward a
world that is cleaner and less carbon intensive.

The diagram below summarizes this trend in our uses of energy

resources fairly well, since our history begins with a long period of
procuring energy in its solid state (wood, hay, and then carbon). The
very rapid oil era filled the twentieth century, the era of liquid
energies. We are most likely entering the era of gases.
 The Age of Energy Gases

Source: Robert A. Hefner III – The GHK Company, 2007

As for automobile manufacturers, they have made considerable

efforts to go as far as possible in terms of the performances of diesel
or gas engines. At the initiative of Toyota, they in fact launched the
first hybrid vehicles, which are helping to bring the cost of electric
cars down, as well as reducing emissions of particulate matter in
cities, and getting drivers and their passengers accustomed to these
new forms of locomotion, while also conserving a strong oil base and
thereby continuing to use the existing infrastructures. Thus,
in 15 years the production volumes for the Toyota Prius, which was
the butt of jokes when it first appeared, have gone from a few
hundred to one million units a year. In Japan, hybrids now account
for almost 50 % of new vehicle registrations!
The move to the battery electric vehicle constitutes a more
significant technological leap. At the outset, it offers the advantage of
giving the illusion of an existing infrastructure: the most affluent
consumers are the only ones to buy in the beginning and the
volumes sold remain sufficiently low to not call powerful existing
distribution infrastructures into question. And when it is taken in hand
with the inspiration of a man like Vincent Bolloré, this power train can
be used to develop business models that tally with the sharing
economy, the internet of things, and smart commuting (or smart
mobility) – i.e., the very ingredients of the success of Autolib.
However, the widespread adoption of the electric plug-in vehicle
remains contestable from an environmental standpoint14 and, above
all, from an infrastructure cost perspective.15
To overcome the chicken or egg dilemma, the equation is thus a
difficult one. The only method is to get players with an intrinsic and
absolute interest in advancing the issue to enter the fray – those for
whom the development of hydrogen is a source of growth and not a
factor of risk. The two big players that could be interested are
producers of industrial gases and the major purveyors of gas and
electricity. But for this to happen, they have to make the decision to
descend the value chain of their business, downstream from the
electron for some, downstream from natural gas for others, which is
another business entirely. For now, they are holding back.
In the meantime, however, this impasse has led industrial gas
producers, in particular Air Liquide, Linde, and Iwatani in Japan to
decide to overcome the dilemma by positioning themselves as
potential investors in the infrastructure and by making it known that
they are ready to assist the automakers in building enough of a
network to get the market off the ground. Only the future will tell if
this strategy will open up the markets they are hoping for, but who
will initiate this dynamic if they do not? It is clear that this approach
has been one of the factors that has stepped up the pace of the
decision-making process, not just on the part of the automakers –
who have found other players to join them – but also some oil
companies, which have understood that the game was starting with
or without them and that it was better to be part of it than to be a
distant onlooker. Admittedly, Air Liquide, Linde and Air Products are
not Total, Shell and BP: the annual cash flows of the latter alone are
roughly equal to the market capitalization of the first three. But these
players have enough industrial knowhow and the financial resources
needed to get the movement underway. After that, the market will
step in.

This was the rationale behind an original initiative that emerged in

Germany in 2010, based on cooperation between the players
competing against one another in their respective sectors. At the
behest of a few committed business leaders, a consortium was born,
comprised of automobile manufacturers, oil companies with large
distribution networks, and suppliers of industrial gases with expertise
in the production and distribution of hydrogen and with mastery of
the technology for developing the charging stations.16
For three years, this consortium studied the economic conditions
supportive of the ramp-up of a minimum infrastructure covering
Germany and the concomitant availability on the market of
hydrogen-powered vehicles in order to de-risk the technology.
Approved by the competition authorities and supported by
Germany’s public policymakers, the principle consists of neutralizing
the competitive forces by uniting them in a consortium charged with
carrying the risk of rolling out the recharging station infrastructure
until the latter surpasses the minimum profitability threshold needed
to reach viability. When this threshold has been reached, the
consortium will be dismantled, as the installed stations will be taken
over by the major players in the infrastructure, for a price agreed to
in advance.
All of the conditions governing the viability of the program have
been set forth in an extremely detailed contractual framework that
stipulates the cost principles for the stations, the rules pertaining to
the supply of hydrogen, the ramp-up of decarbonized sources of
supply, and the principles related to managing the infrastructure’s
growth on the basis of the number of vehicles on the road.
 The main virtue of this approach resides in the emergence of a
cooperative, multi-sector mindset, including both public and private
sector players, and designed to neutralize the risk of failure through
an agreement between the principal industrial players under the
requisite conditions for success. By establishing a consortium, it is
possible to break the vicious chicken or egg cycle by agreeing to
build up to a hundred hydrogen recharging stations without
demanding any conditions other than the guarantee that certain
automakers commit to actually bringing their hydrogen-powered
vehicles to market.
The consortium is now entering a new phase of assembling the
necessary financing, which obviously conditions the entire build-up.
The first steps have been partly resolved by the use of financing
solutions that already exist in the German and European funding
platforms for the sector, which support both the demo process and
the foundations for getting the products on the market. Despite
regular criticisms of European inertia, it is a fact that by 2018 Europe
is the continent that could have the highest number of vehicles and
service stations functioning, based on the financing and programs
already committed: that’s more than eighty stations, around a
hundred buses, and more than 600 vehicles! Lastly, it is also worth
mentioning the first deployments of captive fleets of utility vehicles in
France, at the initiative of a company called Symbio FCell, with the
financial backing, technical support and industrial assets of Michelin;
and the existence in Denmark of the first real, small network of
stations that cover the entire country, in which the company Air
Liquide is an investor in partnership with a local company called
H2 Logic, made possible by very favorable tax treatment for zero
emission vehicles. Other initiatives are also emerging in the United
Kingdom, with support from public policymakers and several agile
businesses in the sector, such as Intelligent Energy.
But now we are getting to the heart of the matter: the pivotal
question involving actually getting these products to market, which
requires much more intensive risk taking.
 Today on the Old Continent, the challenge lies in deploying an
infrastructure that is able to correctly link up the major countries of
Europe, while also equipping them with tools for storing a portion of
the renewable energy in the form of hydrogen. Because we also face
the challenge of having to generate decarbonized hydrogen and the
parallel use of some of this hydrogen for stationary fueling solutions
for residential and office buildings and small industrial facilities. A
quick look at the math indicates that these deployments would
require funding of around 25 billion euros.
That’s a lot.
That’s a lot, but it is also very little when placed alongside the
450 billion euros worth of oil imported annually by the European
Union. That’s a lot, but it is also very little compared with how much
renewable energy will be lost if solutions for storing it are not found
in the years ahead, not to mention the impact on the cost of health
care that could come if there were a drastic reduction in particle
emissions in our cities due to a successful transition of our modes of
urban transit to non-polluting power trains.
So that’s a lot; but it is also a question of perspective and
priorities.
That being said, these 25 billion euros will not be put on the table
by the industry or by public policymakers without the implementation
of strong, lasting and meaningful mutual commitments with a wide
scope. The challenge comes up against government budget
constraints, regulatory uncertainty, and the international situation,
which isolates any continent that might take more drastic steps than
the others in the regulatory obligations it imposes on its economic
agents.
And thus we enter the heart of the necessary paradigm shift.

1. Such as the famous H bomb: Far from being a hydrogen bomb, as it is often
called, the term refers to a bomb that uses two isotopes of hydrogen – deuterium
and tritium – which are present in water alongside hydrogen in very small trace
amounts. In other words, no connection to the hydrogen (dihydrogen, in reality, as
has already been specified) referred to in this work!
2. The accident was filmed and can be viewed online here:
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgWHbpMVQ1U
3. There are numerous websites that analyze the accidentology of the major
domestic energies, featuring both nationwide statistics and those provided by
industry organizations.
4. The most recent tragic example of the risks of confinement was the hydrogen-
air explosion that damaged the reactor of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. This
explosion occurred due to a combination of unfortunate circumstances, one of the
main ones being that these reactors are, by definition, designed to be hermetically
sealed and thus absolutely contained. In addition, the temperature of the primary
containment vessel rose to a very high level due to the malfunctioning of the
cooling systems (at the origin of the chain of events that developed subsequently),
combined with the presence of zirconium and steam, which triggered a reaction
that produced hydrogen, which then accumulated in the secondary containment
building under conditions propitious to deflagration.
5. In 2012, the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy
estimated the annual cost of air pollution generated by transportation to be
between 20 and 30 billion euros (i.e., about 500 €/ French citizen) for public health
policy. Go to http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/Ameliorer-la-qualite-de-l-
air-un.html
6. Des esclaves énergétiques: réflexions sur le changement climatique, Jean-
François Mouhot, Champ Vallon, 2011
7. www.manicore.com/documentation/esclaves.html
8. Vers un mix électrique 100 % renouvelable en 2050, which can be downloaded
from the following address:
www.ademe.fr/sites/default/files/assets/documents/rapport100enr_comite.pdf
9. Source: INSEE study, March 2013. The impact on the consumer’s budget is
limited to just 27 % over the same period, due to the concomitant and positive
trend in vehicle performances.
10. The study, a cost benefit analysis of fuel cell electric vehicles, can be
downloaded here: hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01116997
11. From this standpoint, the unique intrinsic energy characteristics of hydrogen
and the potential for the economic and technical improvement in the technologies
related to its uses compare very favorably with respect to the high level of maturity
of plug-in battery solutions, which are already being produced in very large
quantities for the consumer electronics market, and hence having a margin for
improvement which is smaller.
12. Nonetheless, it is now known that the complete cycle of a battery electric
vehicle generates upstream CO2 emissions, particularly when the significant
energy expenditures required to extract lithium and other scarce minerals needed
to manufacture the battery's electrolytes are factored in.
13. Since, some of the Northeastern states have taken inspiration from the
California ZEV program and bilateral partnerships between automakers and
infrastructure suppliers are being set up. The most recent one partners Toyota and
Air Liquide.
14. The ADEME study mentioned on page 76 of this work provides a few
elements. The decision to requalify electric cars, calling them “clean” and not “zero
emission” is another way to communicate that the overall environmental footprint is
not 100 % positive.
15. If France were to decide to actually install and pay for the seven million
recharging devices that are called for in the draft bill on the energy transition, we
are talking about an expenditure of several tens of billions of euros!
16. Air Liquide, Daimler, Linde, OMV, Shell and TOTAL are the investors. The
other major automakers (Hyundai, Toyota, Honda, BMW, Volkswagen, Nissan and
Intelligent Energy) are partners in the initiative.
 CHAPTER 5

A new model
for new energy
F ROM levying a tax on vehicles with ignition combustion engines to
offering incentives for the purchase of electric cars, not to mention
programs that fund demo projects in Europe, Germany and
California, various methods have been used here and there to
support hydrogen and boost the sector’s development. All of them
are a step in the right direction. But they will not be enough to move
to the level of true mass deployment, which is the only road that will
lead to significantly lower costs and to a meaningful impact on
climate-related challenges and the fight against atmospheric
pollution.
In order to shift from one paradigm to another, it is therefore
absolutely necessary to find a global model and take a bold stand.

A decisive issue for Europe

The need for growth, which is so crucial for getting the European
economy out of the deflationary spiral into which it is slowly but
surely falling, is currently severely compromised by the budget
austerity policies conducted by the member states of the Union. The
particularly cautious policy of the European Monetary Union does not
allow for recovery approaches that target specific productive sectors.
And it offers more latitude for the financial economy rather than
increasing it for productive investments.
In an environment like this one, the problem posed by the energy
transition adds an additional constraint at first glance. It entails rolling
out technologies that will replace existing sources of energy in order
to produce the same level of use, but without the negative
externalities of fossil energies. In the triptych that defines member
state government energy policy – sovereignty, competitiveness and
sustainable development – the short term pleads for
competitiveness!
Nonetheless, the renewable energies that underpin these
technologies are of interest for two immediate reasons: not only do
they constitute a potentially infinite energy resource, they also have
the capacity to enable the Old Continent to get over its dependency
on available fossil resources, for which Europe today finds itself
competing with other regions of the world that consume them,
particularly China and Japan. In the future, renewable energies
could, all in all, allow us to tackle the energy question using a
patrimonial approach instead of a today’s simple market approach.
Unfortunately, this ambition is not currently considered to be one
of the major challenges. Raising awareness of the inexorable
exhaustion of fossil resources and of the need to acquire the means
to make energy infinite again is not perceived as a pressing issue. In
fact, for some, it is not perceived as an issue at all. And yet… we are
truly talking about a vital matter, with economic, geopolitical and
societal ramifications. Indeed, this may even be a question of
civilization.

An economic issue
From an economic perspective, developing energy production
capacity in Europe would loosen the current deflationary noose,
which is maintained in part by the feeling of energy scarcity: today,
Europe is largely dependent on oil, a source of energy characterized
by virtually unchanged global production levels and steadily
increasing consumption, which will ultimately lead to problems of
resource sharing. In the same movement, debottlenecking access to
energy would itself generate economic activity that would create a
wealth of jobs and technologies, provided that the economic
characteristics required for development emerge. These
characteristics are of three kinds.
First, there is the substitution economics characteristic. Since
technologies based on renewable energies do not bring new uses or
practices, pricing policy adjustments must be made with respect to
existing prices, such that the final consumer is offered the same
added value at the same price. This peculiarity lies at the heart of the
problem: a simple market approach does not kick start this
substitution economics for as long as the market does not assign a
value to the problems whose treatment it makes possible! And it is
rather difficult for the market to assign a value to the positive
externalities that the energy transition may engender – in other
words, to monetize the collective and individual benefits for public
health and the quality of life that lowering particulate matter
emissions would bring about.
Second, there is infrastructure economics: the scale effects only
appear at unit “n.” There is, therefore, a cost of ownership gap that
only grows for as long as the marginal cost has not yet reached the
average cost of the substituted technology. This is the valley of death
issue already mentioned in chapter 4: despite their initial losses, the
investors must continue to push ahead.
Third and last, there is the open economy. For one thing, a
substitution effect cannot be imposed in any way other than through
regulation, even though any regulation passed will never be
sufficiently coercive to force a shift toward renewable energies once
and for all. For another, the agents implementing the technology are
necessarily private players and, as such, are bound by profitability
requirements that do not allow them to invest too much money over
too long a period with no guarantee of a return. In this vein, if the
policies that are developed in Europe stray too far from those
adopted in other regions, the risks of staying competitive increase
the temptation to ship electricity-intensive industries elsewhere.

A geopolitical issue
On the geopolitical level, the approach that consists of asserting that
energy must become part of the Patrimonial base of our economies
offers a way of handling several major geopolitical debates from a
very different perspective and position, since certain levers of the
debate are obviously very dependent on the power relationships
between the countries that produce oil and those that consume oil
and gas resources. A report that was recently published by France’s
ADEME1 demonstrates that an energy mix comprised solely of
renewable sources is perfectly achievable in France by around 2050.
The birth of an ecosystem based on renewable energies would
mean that Europe would be able to develop forms of local autonomy
in terms of both access to and use of the energy resources it needs.
A good portion of the money flowing away from the continent to pay
for importing energy resources could thus, in the future, be devoted
to other economic activities, reshored or serving the countries of
Europe directly.2
In addition, Europe must find a solution for the programmed
extinction of fossil resources, for its structural debt problem, and for
the need to be as energy independent as possible in tomorrow’s
world. Moreover, this is what drives the determination shown by the
United States to develop its shale gas and oil resources and also
explains China’s obstinacy when it comes to exploiting its own coal
resources, located in its interior provinces.
Lastly, if Europe no longer depends on the world’s great oil-
producing nations, its scope of action and its freedom of speech with
respect to conflicts in the Near and Middle East will probably be very
different! And this emancipation should open up a few new pockets
of influence, facilitating more effective geopolitical action on the part
of Europe.

A societal issue
From a societal perspective, the re-territorialization of the energy
industry will also be a massive source of the reshoring of jobs and
expertise: the birth of a decentralized network of renewable energy
production will in fact make it possible to secure locally those
manufacturing activities that are key to the creation, operation, and
maintenance of this network as well as the automobile industry. In
addition, according to a study by the European Climate Foundation
(see footnote 7, p.81) whose particular focus is on the automobile
industry, stepping up the shift from our current power trains to
electrical engines would in fact lead to the creation of several
hundreds of thousands of jobs, notably by virtue of the principle
according to which the added value of the oil industry is far less job
intensive than that of the manufacturing sector, in particular the
automobile industry.
Similarly, reshoring the energy sector will offer a perfect
opportunity to resocialize regions: local populations will be able to
reappropriate their local economy and, in so doing, forge new and
interlocking ties to one another. Economically, the subject is not
trivial, since access to renewable energy will, at least initially, be
more expensive and will thus make goods whose production and
distribution require a high energy input more expensive. It is
probably easier to pay more for a source of energy that comes with
the psychological assurance of security because it is produced close
to home, rather than to accept and bear – with no hope of
autonomy – constantly rising fossil energy prices. Indeed, this is part
of the reason that the Japanese are so keen to acquire autonomous
energy production systems based on stationary fuel cell technologies
(see Chapter 1, page 32). This does not mean that the re-
territorialization of energy should be viewed as a way to get
consumers to swallow a concomitant increase in their budget, but at
least it makes the causes of this increase understandable and
facilitates acceptance of their virtues (security, local creation of jobs
and business, greater independence with respect to the energy
sources not under control, etc.).
The fact of contributing directly and locally to energy generation
also changes the relationship of individuals to the economy, to
business and, very likely, to wealth and resources. Awareness of the
value of their region’s assets transforms public perception of it, as
well as how people understand its development and upkeep. A new
way of valuing space, land and landscapes is also in the gestation
phase.
Lastly, significant savings will be generated in other sectors of the
European economy, especially health care. The adverse health
impacts of atmospheric pollution – on both indoor and outdoor air
quality – are such3 that any decrease in particle emissions can only
have very positive consequences for the financial situation of public
health systems. In France, the cost to the healthcare system of poor
outdoor air quality is an estimated 825 million to 1.7 billion euros a
year, while for indoor air pollution the annual cost is 10 to 40 billion
euros, including 1 billion euros just to cover reimbursements for anti-
asthmatic drugs.

A question of civilization?
On an even broader level, while our civilization was built on a base
of technical progress (which in turn was built on a belief in science
and the spread of knowledge), individual liberty, and resource
abundance (especially energy), the time has come for civilization to
build a future that involves something other than a war between
societies and classes for dwindling resources. A different future from
the one that entails a slow dissolution of the social fabric – which is
where we are heading if we fail to make a paradigm shift – where
only the most protected groups will maintain full access to energy in
the century ahead. A future that bears no resemblance to the
“energy blackmail” exercised by those who possess the resources
over those who don’t. A future that is the polar opposite of the one
leading to drought, dustbowl conditions, and the dense haze that
already prevents some city dwellers on the planet from breathing
freely, not mention the disappearance of some flora and fauna, and
to the gradual rise in temperatures that seems inexorable today.
In a word, there is an imperious need for political will.
In her latest book,4 the Canadian journalist and militant Naomi
Klein correctly reminds her readers that there is no lack of will when
it comes to restructuring the various elements of the existing social
security and welfare framework (health, unemployment, old age).
When the agents behind these reforms show a bit of audacity, they
are perfectly capable of implementing the political will. So why not
assess the extent of the catastrophe – ecological, economic, and
geopolitical – that is on the horizon and draw the necessary
conclusions now so that the energy transition can truly be launched?
 This is really a fairly simple matter of placing the issue at the
appropriate level: urgency.

A wager on the future

Several reports5 have demonstrated the potential impact on growth –
assuming that this is the right criterion, given the societal challenge
at hand – that could result from taking action or, on the contrary,
doing nothing. It is clear that, for every technology that is ready and
that will play a role, the means supporting the energy transition must
be rolled out rapidly. Ideas are not lacking.
The State – or rather, Europe, because only a market that has the
depth of Europe, China, the United States or Japan is able to absorb
the impact of taking a risk of this magnitude – could decide to
regulate only. But demanding without financing doesn’t work.
Implementing an isolated regulation, which would lead automobile
manufacturers to make the energy transition in one fell swoop, would
likely be doomed to fail. The risk of market exit would be
accompanied by a quick strategy for off-shoring the industries
concerned.
But financing without demanding does not work either. In isolation,
a program of subsidies would in fact expose the public power to the
risk of financing developments that commit no one and that lead
nowhere, due to the failure to light the way with a set of clearly
defined regulatory standards.
Obviously, a mix has to be built: a pathway of standards and
support mechanisms, but also cooperative policies designed to
encourage the early adopters of the technologies developed.
When the question becomes one of building a network for the
distribution of alternative fuels such as hydrogen, it is obvious that
the competitive advantage for the first one to get in the game is
insignificant compared to the player who waits until the network is
built and the market has taken off before adding, one by one,
additional charging points for vehicles. Thus it is in no one’s interest
to be the first to enter the valley of death and even less to be the
only one to take this step. Consequently, it is necessary to
encourage the sector to move forward in coordinated fashion and
offer collective responses to the problems that arise, which is the
polar opposite of the rules and practices usually associated with pure
and perfect competition. This offers additional proof, if proof were
needed, that in the world that’s coming – made of interconnections
and fundamental bets on new paradigms – market logic must be
prefaced by rules of engagement that allow the market to function
but that make sure proper value is assigned – monetarily or in terms
of regulations – to things the market doesn’t know how to
immediately value. This could take the form of subsidies for a limited
time, permission to operate at a loss for a limited period of time, or
other rights granted to those who take the first risks, which those
who come after will avoid, using a rationale the market might not
deem relevant under normal circumstances.
The support mechanisms are in fact very complex to implement and
require that everything possible be done to mobilize private
resources as early as possible so that they are involved in financing
the risk that is assumed. This is especially critical given the current
scarcity of public budget resources, which is why it is necessary to
devise support mechanisms that guarantee target buyback prices or
clean vehicle quotas (as is the practice in California) or even to offer
some form of insurance against a certain level of losses the risk-
takers might sustain during the deployment period.
Whatever scenario is adopted for the energy transition, the
salvation of individual mobility will involve the electron and hydrogen,
as well as a combination of the two. It will be necessary to move
toward a more electric world with vectors that involve hydrogen and
networks. Deploying these networks takes us into the economy of
substitution infrastructures, and a whole new economic science must
be developed in order to grasp this challenge, which consists of
rebuilding alongside in order to replace later on. This economy of
substitution infrastructures will inevitably have to risk operating
before all of the uses eventually related to it can justify its operation.
It’s a wager. And if it is not made by sovereign governments, the
only ones in a position to point the game in the right direction –
through regulation, international agreements, or fiscal policy
measures – it is very unlikely that COP216will amount to anything
serious. If a government is not ready to implement solutions that will
be partly financed via the assignment of a value (a clear mechanism
intended to determine the social cost of CO 2 emitted) for a ton of
CO2, why should we think the international community is ready to
take the leap required to launch the energy transition? And if this
community is not ready and does not give the signal, why in the
world would businesses and others in the private sector get involved
without a safety net, now that we’ve listed all the difficulties that must
be surmounted?
CO2 emissions will only be reduced if there are sanctions against
those who emit them. Today, this sanction takes one of two forms:
either a prohibition on producing (standard) or a financial penalty for
doing so (taxation). If a government is not ready to wager that in ten
years, via the market or regulation, we will be in a situation where
the de facto cost of CO2 will be high – whether this cost is
materialized in the form of a tax or a quota driven market price – how
can any serious progress be made? If, on the contrary, we can put
ourselves in this frame of mind, if the future becomes certain
because there is an international agreement in this direction, then it
becomes very easy to change the present starting now. “The secret
of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on
building the new,” said Socrates. Let’s try and take inspiration from
those words.
The issue is, in a way, to reposition the future at the heart of the
present, to give the future meaning and value once again.
And it is this value that serves as the guarantee for financing the
construction of this future. The current oversupply of money looking
for a landing and the persistence of low interest rates – in some
cases, they are negative – attest to a general sense that the
monetization of the future is stalled due to the lack of a shared
ambition and a few certainties.
But if there is one certainty, it is that we need to exit from the
carbon economy: this is an indispensable precondition for the
survival of an economic model that does not know how to function
without growth, but also for the long-term survival of our planetary
ecosystem. Unlike Naomi Klein, who deems it necessary to
completely redraw the existing capitalist model in order to fight
against global warming, we believe that the imperative is instead to
build on the projects objectively offered to industry and global capital
in order to mobilize resources for change. It is then possible to begin
discussing how to make sure this change is equally distributed and
shared among all citizens. But it will be extremely difficult to
simultaneously engage in a revolution against the system and use
the resources this system offers to transform the carbon economy
and move beyond it!
At the end of the day, it is absolutely necessary to use the future to
finance the present when the issue is risking the deployment of
substitution infrastructures whose success cannot be guaranteed
prior to total implementation.

Dedicated financial
instruments?
This is where the notion of dedicated financial instruments becomes
meaningful, if it is possible to put it back on the table as part of a
sector-wide agreement, COP21, or something else.
Financial instruments must be put in place at the European level,
dedicated to financing the rollout of the energy transition in
transportation, energy, and district heating. They must finance
activities being carried out on European soil, which will prevent a
repeat of the deadweight losses exploited in the past by the Chinese
solar panel industry. They must be immediately monetized in
renewable asset investments directly supported by the market. They
must make it possible to pay for the gap between cost prices and the
competitive market price during a pre-defined period of amortization.
The payment must not be made to EU member states but instead
could be made to a dedicated global European compensation fund
that would issue a fifteen-year bond to finance the implementation of
the infrastructure.
The main idea is to use the certainty of the future as a guarantee
for the present that would in fact never be used. In a way, this is a
self-fulfilling promise, since it is in the interest of all stakeholders to
ensure that the promise comes to fruition.
Let’s return here to the development of the infrastructures that will
usher in the energy transition – the hydrogen and electrical power
distribution grids. For hydrogen, it will cost several tens of billions of
euros to roll out the infrastructures for renewable energy storage and
for the distribution of hydrogen in transportation. The initial additional
cost is several billion euros. But it becomes profitable if users
gradually shift to hydrogen-powered electric vehicles, as well as to
local power plants that run on fuel cell systems, and if the
infrastructure in fact decarbonizes transportation because the
hydrogen distributed is clean or green.
Only private industry is in a position to implement the
infrastructure, and automobile manufacturers will only sell vehicles if
this infrastructure is developed. Private industry alone, without the
support of governments, cannot assume the risk. But governments
don’t have the financial wherewithal to fund this support alone.
Conversely, they can offer private investors and other sovereign
funds offering support the guarantee that the infrastructure will have
a value tomorrow, which is the equivalent of its potential contribution
to the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. If a hydrogen
charging station, when fully utilized, allows an abatement
of 2 000 tons of CO2 a year – based on hypotheses of clean
hydrogen and an average level of emissions for existing carbon
solutions – then tomorrow it will have a contributive value that the
government can set in concertation with its partners. Tomorrow,
perhaps in ten or fifteen years, but not any later than that because
this could cancel the value of the guarantee: a guarantee that is too
far in the future is too uncertain for a private industrial investor, while
one that comes too soon is unfeasible for a government.
A halfway point has to be determined to give an equilibrium value
to the feasibility of this idea. The government can thus guarantee
that within a ten – or fifteen-year timeframe the tons of CO2 avoided
thanks to the infrastructure put in place are worth at
least 30 euros7 and that, if they do not reach this value within the
stated timeframe, it will buy them back for the guaranteed price. This
should help the market for financing these infrastructures open up
and would allow the government to send a strong signal that it will do
what is necessary to ensure that, in ten years, CO2 reaches this
minimum value so it avoids having to make payment on the
guarantee. In parallel, this offers general guidance to industrial
players that all stakeholders have a clear desire to reach
agreements of this kind.
As mentioned previously, a quick analysis of Europe’s investment
needs puts the figure at around 25 billion euros over a period
of 15 years. Without regulations that track authorized automobile
emissions and that ensure harmonious development across Europe
leading to the predominance of renewable energies, the movement
cannot get going. If regulations are not accompanied by genuine
price signals of the kind mentioned for CO2, it will not be financed
and will strangle Europe’s manufacturers. It is not necessary to
finance these needs directly at the level of individual states: a
guarantee to buy back the CO2 credits or offsets generated by the
infrastructures built would be enough to make the risk acceptable to
private financing institutions.
To ensure that this dynamic is efficient, it should be rolled out at
the international level by the major countries worldwide that have
already placed their bets on hydrogen and that, by the same token,
agree to derisk the technology for others, the emerging countries.
Looking at the case of distribution infrastructures – which are still
twice as expensive as they should be – and the support of the major
industrial nations (Japan and South Korea, Germany and France, or
Europe itself, the United States, China?) for the first deployments,
this already represents a few billion euros, i.e., a de facto
contribution to other countries on the planet to help push costs down
to the required competitive level. The same reasoning holds for the
issue of sovereign governments and manufacturers absorbing the
additional cost of the first vehicles.
Meeting as a group for the COP21, the sovereign governments
should at least be able to agree on the principle of implementing a
compensation fund with the financial capacity to guarantee the loans
granted by private institutions for the deployment of infrastructures or
technologies whose impacts on CO2 emissions will have been
tested.
Several possibilities come to the forefront. One is that the network
develops during the period covered by the guarantee and the
revenues from the market deployment of the sector allow lenders to
be repaid and, in this case, the credits conserve their value and will
be shared according to principles to be negotiated with the sovereign
issuers. It could be that, in the meantime, a tax on CO2 has been
introduced, in which case these credits will have a value that will
probably be shared between the two parties that have taken the
initial risk, i.e., the public power and the manufacturers. Another
possibility is that the situation will not change in terms of the
valuation of CO2, which is not very likely. In this case, the credits
would probably be cancelled because they would simply become
useless. In another scenario, the network has not developed to the
extent required to reach a level of maturity that allows the projects to
repay the debts owed to the financial issuers and, in this case, the
lenders would be in a position to demand the monetization of the
credits in order to offset their loss and thus cover their own risk. The
rest would be the subject of discussion between the public power
and the private parties, its use dependent on the existence of a
value – normative, regulatory or market derived – for the CO2 on the
credit implementation date.
This method would make it possible to commit private funds –
which are more abundant than the public capacity for debt –, to
avoid putting public resources into play immediately, and to get
everyone behind the same rationale, whose main objective is to
ensure that these credits are ultimately not usable because they
have acquired value for all stakeholders.

Too much caution kills

initiative
The question of the energy transition approached from the hydrogen
angle offers a good illustration of this new phenomenon, which
touches on economic issues that will impact our world of tomorrow.
The interactions between sectors are multiple and societal, because
changing our energy mix will also transform our import-export
structure, our healthcare expenditures, the major industrial sectors
present, and the weight of energy in overall added value, which will
reach a value closer to its real cost if we consider that we cannot
indefinitely pillage our finite resources.
But this subject also raises the question of the relationship that the
planet’s inhabitants will have to risk tomorrow, this fear of the
unknown that is associated with the use of a type of energy that
consumers are not familiar with and for which there are many strong
ideas out there, some true and some false in their interpretation.
Today, the principle of precaution has in fact become one of the
cornerstones of our societies. And the way we now approach risk is
such that had it prevailed then, the internal combustion engine would
never have been invented – too dangerous – and it probably would
have been impossible to seriously test the first airplanes!
To paraphrase the Swiss doctor and aviator Bertrand Piccard,8 at
least some of the spiritual barriers that we human beings imposed on
ourselves by allowing religious dogma to trump our capacities for
invention have been lifted, which opens up a universe of unique
scientific and technical possibilities. Moreover, the Ancient Egyptians
already had the materials and knowledge needed to build an
airplane, but it was not until the dawn of the twentieth century that
human beings dared to imagine it might be possible to fly… Today,
however, fears are returning to limit our ontological appetite for risk
and adventure, in the name of some sort of new demand – no longer
to save our world – but to take care of each and every one of us. So,
because in the name of collective ideologies mass crimes were
committed in the past, it seems no longer possible – due to the
alleged risks run – to propose going further toward a collective ideal
that is nothing other than saving our skin and that of our
descendants!
Today, the planet is poised before a simple alternative, stagnation
or progress. This does not mean that we must absolutely move
ahead, without any guarantees, with the rapid testing and
deployment of all these new technologies, which will necessarily
come with their own set of surprises and side effects, some positive
and others perhaps negative. But society is confronted by the need
for collective interaction with technologies that both individuals and
businesses appropriate very quickly when the individual benefits and
uses are immediate for them.
The forces of change have thus reversed, which poses a serious
problem when it comes to our ability to understand the importance of
the challenges underway. Market forces are blind when it comes to
measuring collective emergencies that are non-monetary or too
remote – because the market does not do a good job of assessing
the value of the long term – and yet it is the market that accelerates
the pace of the major societal upheavals (in matters related to
education or the deployment of major breakthroughs in science and
technology). The urgency with respect to global warming and
pollution is of this order.
Elected officials have their hands tied by a democratic practice
that has become procedural, categorical, and fear-driven, such that
they no longer know how to move forward quickly. So we are caught
between two very strong trends: on one side, the infinite possibilities
that underpin technique and knowledge and, on the other, the
development of a protective cult of the individual, which tends to
overestimate the risks of our adventures at the expense of their
collective potential.
Today, we face the risk of immobility caused by fear of acting on
the wrong choice. In the area of energy, things are nonetheless
becoming more urgent, and it seems the risk of doing nothing is now
greater than the economic risks associated with a faster march
forward in the adoption of the entire array of renewable technologies
(hydrogen, solar, wind, etc.).
The international capacity to mobilize hundreds of billions of euros
to save a portion of the banking system during the crisis of 2009 was
impressive. In parallel, it seems chimerical to think we can agree on
the deployment of a few dozen billion euros worth of credits that
would be used to accelerate the implementation of the energy
transition solutions that will allow us to exit the carbon economy at
last. It’s a little like saying that the famous management adage Take
care of what’s important, not what’s urgent is totally impossible to
apply collectively.
In fact, this question is being asked on the subject of hydrogen
but, in reality, it goes very much further!

Market and politics

What is the state of today’s relationships between market and
leadership, market and politics? This is a big question. The mandate
that imposes only one possible form of governance, by the rules of
the market – out of fear of ideologies – itself becomes an ideology
that refuses to see its own limits, even though the market’s strength
supposedly lies precisely in its self-regulated nature.
The market thus tends to function in a vacuum; products or
practices that are not easily monetized are sanctioned through a
collapse in either demand or price. The value of a truth or an opinion
or a societal position is thus judged only through the prism of its
possible marketable value, not in and of itself. This rules out not only
dogmatic approaches but also the existence of values that lie above
or outside the market, scientific truths in particular.
Admittedly, the market reinforces everyone’s freedom of thought. It
enables fluidity in terms of values and offers a guarantee against
spheres of totalitarian thinking. But by evaluating ideas, even in the
sciences and the production of meaning, on the basis of only one
criterion – their market value – market dogma leads to an
overvaluation of things that can rapidly and easily be monetized at
the expense of those that cannot be. In other words, by desacralizing
the existence of values that are not for sale it demonetizes them
because, by definition, they cannot be looked at through the prism of
exchange, but of essence.
And so it is that Science, which once opposed religion with the
advance of Reason, now comes up short in the face of the market’s
imperious demand for monetization. In the name of market interests,
scientific truth – that which pertains to global warming, for example –
is no longer enough to trigger a dynamic of change because it can’t
be monetized to produce a quick profit in the supply and demand
game. And both – Church9 and Science – are now joining forces
against the market to demand action on global warming!
The question of the energy transition offers a perfect illustration of
the current dilemma: it is costly, it takes time, and it runs contrary to
numerous individual interests in the name of the collective interest.
The market does not know how to monetize it, because the collective
dimension is not, in this case, merely the sum of all individual
interests. The value promised by the energy transition is neither
tangible enough nor immediately monetizable enough to generate
the requisite demand. Nonetheless, the game of supply and demand
has well and truly allowed market agents to appropriate the question
of the energy transition once the rules of the game were clearly
articulated by the public powers in the form of regulatory constraints
and emission standards. So it is not the market that is contestable,
but rather the fact that – perhaps due to the failure of political will –
we have been tempted to make it into the only tool of governance
and judgement.
The question of the energy transition is probably the one that most
clearly puts into perspective the danger of relying solely on market
principles when it comes to measuring, ranking and selecting the
major societal decisions the world will inevitably face in the very near
future. It is not surprising that this question awakens political
passions which, in turn, unfortunately muddy the waters of the
debate when in fact the issue is simply submitting market rule to
principles that are beyond it, precisely because we are talking about
notions that cannot be assessed by reference to purely economic
criteria but which concern the broader question of the future of our
societies. Hydrogen once again finds itself at the heart of this cluster
of issues, because only clear priorities on international political
agendas and instruments that are adapted to their implementation
will allow us to move forward in its development and that of the other
major tools in the energy transition.
With the deployment of a hydrogen economy, the world would find
itself at the heart of an economic model that implements the dream
of some thinkers and economists, that of using technology to
produce goods and services that clearly respond to societal issues.
And, in so doing, developing cooperative economic models,
integrated into the city, with a seamless blend of public support and
private initiatives. The ability to roll out these dynamics is, without a
doubt, the most delicate challenge we face today, because they form
the cornerstone of our twenty-first century societies if we want
technologies – which are now evolving faster than our wildest
dreams – to remain at the service of a society anchored within a
broader and virtuous planetary ecosystem.10
And the development of a hydrogen economy will occur in a
society that has achieved a better balance between its deeper
aspirations and economic growth, by way of an economic model that
combines market forces and long-term needs.

1. Vers un mix électrique 100 % renouvelable en 2050, which can be downloaded

from the following address:
www.ademe.fr/sites/default/files/assets/documents/rapport100enr_comite.pdf
2. An interesting analysis of the Beyond Ratings agency shows that the aggregate
debt of the PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain) is just about equal to
their combined energy bill.
3. For France, these impacts were broadly spelled out in the 2013 edition of the
national air quality review. See www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/Ameliorer-la-
qualite-de-l-air-un.html
4. This Changes Everything, by Naomi Klein, published in 2014 by
Simon & Schuster
5. The best known is surely the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate
Change, first published in 2006 by the economist Nicholas Stern for the British
government and updated in 2014.
6. COP21 is the UN Environment Programme Conference of Parties on Climate
Change, which will be held this year in Paris, from November 30 to December 11,
2015.
7. This price is offered as an example only, since it could be 50 or 20 euros,
depending in part on the maturity of the technology we need to launch.
8. In 1999, Bertrand Piccard was the first to make it around the world in a hot air
balloon. In 2015, he was also the first to attempt a trip around the world aboard a
solar-powered aircraft, Solar Impulse.
9. The recent Encyclical Letter on the subject, “Laudato si” by Pope Francis, is
worth noting.
10. Philippe Lukacs, Stratégie pour un futur souhaitable, published in 2008 by
Dunod
Conclusion

It was a sunny afternoon in April. I was on my way to La Défense for

a ministerial hearing intended to establish whether or not it was
worth pursuing, or perhaps stepping up, public support for hydrogen
and fuel cell technology. France had been among the first to have
strongly supported the development of the first technological objects
making it possible to open up niche markets. But we were now
waiting for nationwide automakers. At the same time, we learned that
Germany had just renewed its financial support of 150 million euros
for progress in the sector, following in the footsteps of the European
Commission, which had renewed and increased its budget
allocations for the joint European technology initiative created to
promote innovation in the sector. Some were recommending that the
research be resumed when the rest of the world made a commitment
to step up deployments.

I was getting ready once again to lay out the analysis of the sector
on these subjects. The situation remains difficult… The promises
considerable… The potential untouched… the needs undeniable…
The vision of the rest of the world, in the process of accelerating…

I got there a few minutes late and was received very warmly by the
redactors and auditors. We introduced ourselves and I was asked to
begin my presentation. I often begin in the same way: we would not
be talking about hydrogen if we were not living with the sword of
Damocles poised over our heads, that is, the increasing scarcity of
fossil energies and the threat of global warming. I emphasized global
warming and the concomitant need to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.1 But I was barely able to finish my sentence because one
of the attendees cut me off, with a worried smile at the corner of his
mouth, to ask: “The energy transition… In any case, isn’t it perhaps
too late already?” Surprising.

Naturally, it was a bit of humor; everyone does what he can; it is

important to take a bit of a step back. Of course, it is necessary to
work on this issue. Of course, nothing is ever easy and we are not
going to solve this problem with the wave of a magic wand. No,
hydrogen won’t save the world and it is not the only possible vector
by which the energy transition can succeed. But it is an integral part
of a much deeper movement that we should be supporting starting
now in order to finally make the shift to a new economic and energy
era.

Nonetheless, this anecdote raises a big question: how much space

is left for conviction and mobilization in our society? Have we
reached a point of no return, where an attitude of resigned cynicism,
everyone for himself, and short-term thinking are the only horizons
that beckon in the face of our dreams of movement and change?
Admittedly, young people have and will always have the strength of
their dreams and hopes. But our societies are aging.... And yet, the
opportunities before us are superb!
When it comes to changing the world, the obstacles placed before
those who seek change are considerable. When the change in
question is a change of paradigm, such as the one that has been
mentioned repeatedly in this work, the reasons for stopping at the
beginning of the journey are many. One of them is our difficulty in
escaping from the established box and the usual dogma about
growth indicators, which push us to see any investment in tomorrow
as nothing but an expense. Our way of seeing only constraints in
every attempt to develop new modes of mobility, not to mention
consumption and energy production, is another. Our fear of seeing
the emergence of a different distribution of value among the major
productive sectors is a third one. These resistances, both formal and
substantive, these fears of the unknown, are so many reasons to just
go along with the current flow of unsustainable lifestyles or give in to
the trap of immobility.

And therein lies the paradox. Everyone says and everyone knows
that the world is in the process of changing irremediably. The
distribution of wealth between our nations, whose needs have been
satisfied for many centuries, and the new worlds, the demands
emerging from the transition – whether demographic, energy related
or digital – are leading to a profound revolution in the major financial
balances and our modes of producing and sharing value. In addition,
this disruption in the old balances is jeopardizing our sense of
security, both individual and collective. The way we work has
changed utterly: many jobs can now be offshored, while others can
be done by robots… and not necessarily just manual tasks! Work will
undergo even more change, become more unstable and more
threatened each day, without it being the case that the increase in
the production of wealth is stopped. Similarly, the intermediation
between goods, services and users is in the process of being
dismantled by the digital era. Advances in terms of solutions for
decentralized energy production are disrupting the usual economies
of scale and yesterday’s capacity based profits are tomorrow’s debt
and burden. The importance of energy will only increase in our lives
and some people do not want to accept this, so convinced are they
that maintaining an oil-based economy will protect them. In fact, the
opposite is obviously true, without outside dependency in addition…
Our demographic balances are destabilizing the financing of our
systems of protection, whether collective or individual, and
reinforcing the feeling of precariousness in society.

So everything is changing. But what are we doing to support this

change?
The economic logic of tomorrow will be different, and the hydrogen
adventure is just one example among others. The question is not
whether or not this is a good or bad thing, economically virtuous for
everyone or not. This is no longer the issue. The movement toward
decentralization that is coming – and that is not limited to the subject
of hydrogen – is neither better nor worse on an economic or social
level. It just is.
Once again, a change in attitude allows us to understand that this
constitutes a marvelous opportunity to reconcile value paths that
sometimes tend to move apart, the individual and the collective, the
demands of society and the logic of finance, the long – and short-
term thinking of markets. In fact, the shift underway will find its
culmination in the development of long-term and highly collaborative
approaches that return each stakeholder to their true role: the state
as regulator, the industrialist as producer and developer, and the
mobilized citizen to ensure that the shift happens rapidly – because
the faster it is, the less costly it is. What we have here is a unique
opportunity to support these changes and thereby ensure that they
take collectively positive forms. And with the hydrogen economy, this
is truly the case.
The economic and societal efficiency of all these evolutions
depends on their rapid implementation. This is probably the point
that is the least factored into the analyses. Since we are talking
about rolling out a substitutive productive model, the longer the
period of cohabitation between the two models, the more costly the
transition will be, because we will have to finance indirectly the cost
of maintaining two systems simultaneously. This does not mean that
we should consider shutting an entire system down in just one fell
swoop. But it is imperative to anticipate and accelerate the transition
so that it is as efficient and rapid as possible.

To conclude, the notion of leadership must once again be put on the

table. It has been thirty years since the irreversible victory of the
market economy over communist ideology has placed free market
dogma in the unfortunate position of being alone, without any
adversary. This is the worst sort of victory: it leads to a form of
ideological entropy due to the absence of any alternative meaning to
offer. But the market alone cannot guide our societies toward
choices that surpass it because they do not arise from principles of
individual utility but rather from stakes that are collective and, going
forward, often planetary.

The capacity of our societies to find leadership that can replace the
invisible hand of the market, on the one side, and the disappearance
of political will, on the other, is probably the biggest challenge we
face. This challenge is particularly fundamental for Europe, which is
currently suffering from an absence of federating projects that can
reinvigorate its integration and cooperation. The energy question,
which is in equal parts a question of necessity and competitiveness,
aspiration for independence and societal commitment to renewable
sources, could become one of the pillars of this new European
adventure waiting to be built.
We have to choose and our choice must be strong. It’s the only
way to guide the market irreversibly toward the right tradeoffs and
put its efficiency to work for a collective ambition.
But choosing also means evolving. Choosing the energy transition
and hydrogen will lead to an evolution in our relationship to energy, a
process that is already underway with the rise in renewable sources
and the use of electricity. It will also allow us to put an end – at last! –
to the ways in which our productive model threatens the
environment, the economy, geopolitics and, more generally, our
societies. Choosing hydrogen and the energy transition also means
finally having the certainty that we will acquire – in view of a
transition to a carbon-free economy – an inexhaustible resource and
a vector of energy whose power is remarkable.

For decades, hydrogen – via ammonia synthesis, which provides the

raw material of fertilizers – has made it possible to feed the planet.
Going forward, hydrogen is perfectly mature to supply the planet with
the energy it needs.
 Pierre-Étienne Franc

1. Published by The Lancet in its June 2015 issue, the conclusions of a report on
the impact of climate change on public health are unflinching. In addition to the
economic impact that a successful battle against air pollution and in favor of more
active forms of transportation (bicycling, walking, etc.) would have on the health of
individuals (diabetes, obesity, respiratory illnesses, etc.), this report reaffirms the
urgency of acting to counter a phenomenon that today represents the greatest
global threat to public health.
Acknowledgements

The hydrogen adventure recounted in these pages combines the

efforts of science, technology and industry. A history that was built by
men and women working in laboratories, start-ups and large
corporations for years, in an effort to help this essential vector of the
energy transition reach maturity. Represented by its industrial group
(Hydrogen Europe) and by its research arm (NRGHY), the European
hydrogen and fuel cell industry is working alongside the European
Commission and the EU’s member states on the joint technology
platform (FCH JU). The various national agencies – French, German
and English, in particular – also support the sector’s development.
Along with the Japanese, the South Koreans, and the Americans,
they are the people who are working every day on the global
progression whose importance I have tried to describe here.
Without them, there is no story.
Going forward, the massive industrialization of technologies that is
coming will require the effort, fidelity and persistence of a handful of
large industrial groups, automakers, suppliers of industrial gases,
large energy groups, efforts driven from the top, which offers the only
guarantee of their commitment. They deserve our praise for this,
because it is the long-term and disruptive wagers that produce the
most durable changes.
In particular, I would like to thank Anne, Chloé, Corinne, Katelyne,
Laurence, Laurent, Lucie, Ole and Philippe for their thorough and
highly technical editing, as well as Pascal, for his subtle and
pedagogic touch alongside me as a co-writer.
A huge thanks once again to Dominique, for her intuitions and her
unflagging enthusiasm for this industry, as well as for her ongoing
support in our efforts to move it forward.
Pierre-Étienne Franc
Production process
This book has been printed with vegetable-based inks that do not
contain heavy metals.
The Munken Print book paper from Arctic Paper used for this work is
manufactured from fibers originating from sustainably and equitably
managed forests. The Swedish paper mill in Munkedals that
manufactures the paper uses a water recycling system based on the
ecocycle water reuse principle (3-4 liters/kg of paper instead of the
usual 10 to 15 l/kg).

Printing and production by IME (Imprimerie Moderne de l’Est),

located in Baume-les-Dames, in the Doubs, which is committed to
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environmental protection.
IME earned the Imprim’Vert label in 2004, and has decreased its
emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) by almost 80 % in
five years and participates in efforts to preserve the water table and
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In 2005, IME received an environmental gold trophy.
ISO 14001 since 2006, FSC and PEFC certified since 2007, the
company was one of the first eight printing presses to earn Print
Environment certification. Protection of the cover is ensured by the
use of a water soluble acrylic varnish that allows it to be recycled in
the traditional paper chain.
 © Éditions Gallimard
www.editionsalternatives.com
Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing the
gradual disappearance of fossil fuels figure among the
challenges the planet must face in the years to come. Hydrogen
can and indeed must play an important role in the energy
transition. Since the technologies that allow for the safe
production and use of hydrogen are now mature, this carbon-
free molecule can enable the shift to a “clean” world.

Hydrogen has the capacity to store primary energy, particularly

renewable energies. Combined with a fuel cell battery, it can
also make this energy available in the form of electricity in a
large number of applications, starting with those that pertain to
mobility. But while the technical difficulties are in the process of
being resolved today, responses to the economic and financial
challenges have yet to be found: going forward, it will be
necessary to structure large-scale industrial and commercial
deployments. And doing so will require new forms of global
cooperation between the private sector and public
policymakers at the international level. In a word, launching the
energy transition requires a paradigm shift.
Cette édition électronique du livre Hydrogen : the energy transition in the making !
de Pierre-Etienne Franc et Pascal Mateo a été réalisée le 06 novembre 2015 par
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Elle repose sur l'édition papier du même ouvrage (ISBN : 9782072642333 -
Numéro d'édition : 292793).
Code Sodis : N79444 - ISBN : 9782072650888 - Numéro d'édition : 295378

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