IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v37y2009i9p3325-3335.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

System-level energy efficiency is the greatest barrier to development of the hydrogen economy

Author

Listed:
  • Page, Shannon
  • Krumdieck, Susan

Abstract

Current energy research investment policy in New Zealand is based on assumed benefits of transitioning to hydrogen as a transport fuel and as storage for electricity from renewable resources. The hydrogen economy concept, as set out in recent commissioned research investment policy advice documents, includes a range of hydrogen energy supply and consumption chains for transport and residential energy services. The benefits of research and development investments in these advice documents were not fully analyzed by cost or improvements in energy efficiency or green house gas emissions reduction. This paper sets out a straightforward method to quantify the system-level efficiency of these energy chains. The method was applied to transportation and stationary heat and power, with hydrogen generated from wind energy, natural gas and coal. The system-level efficiencies for the hydrogen chains were compared to direct use of conventionally generated electricity, and with internal combustion engines operating on gas- or coal-derived fuel. The hydrogen energy chains were shown to provide little or no system-level efficiency improvement over conventional technology. The current research investment policy is aimed at enabling a hydrogen economy without considering the dramatic loss of efficiency that would result from using this energy carrier.

Suggested Citation

  • Page, Shannon & Krumdieck, Susan, 2009. "System-level energy efficiency is the greatest barrier to development of the hydrogen economy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3325-3335, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:9:p:3325-3335
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(08)00700-3
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hammerschlag, Roel & Mazza, Patrick, 2005. "Questioning hydrogen," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(16), pages 2039-2043, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hanley, Emma S. & Deane, JP & Gallachóir, BP Ó, 2018. "The role of hydrogen in low carbon energy futures–A review of existing perspectives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 82(P3), pages 3027-3045.
    2. Görling, Martin & Larsson, Mårten & Alvfors, Per, 2013. "Bio-methane via fast pyrolysis of biomass," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 440-447.
    3. Monteiro, Marcos Roberto & Kugelmeier, Cristie Luis & Pinheiro, Rafael Sanaiotte & Batalha, Mario Otávio & da Silva César, Aldara, 2018. "Glycerol from biodiesel production: Technological paths for sustainability," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 109-122.
    4. Murphy, Jerry D. & Browne, James & Allen, Eoin & Gallagher, Cathal, 2013. "The resource of biomethane, produced via biological, thermal and electrical routes, as a transport biofuel," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 474-479.
    5. Mohamed, Ayman & Hasan, Ala & Sirén, Kai, 2014. "Fulfillment of net-zero energy building (NZEB) with four metrics in a single family house with different heating alternatives," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 385-399.
    6. Mason, I.G. & Page, S.C. & Williamson, A.G., 2010. "A 100% renewable electricity generation system for New Zealand utilising hydro, wind, geothermal and biomass resources," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(8), pages 3973-3984, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wietschel, Martin & Hasenauer, Ulrike, 2007. "Feasibility of hydrogen corridors between the EU and its neighbouring countries," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(13), pages 2129-2146.
    2. Nocera, Silvio & Cavallaro, Federico, 2016. "The competitiveness of alternative transport fuels for CO2 emissions," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 1-14.
    3. Krumdieck, Susan & Hamm, Andreas, 2009. "Strategic analysis methodology for energy systems with remote island case study," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3301-3313, September.
    4. Greenblatt, Jeffery B., 2015. "Modeling California policy impacts on greenhouse gas emissions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 158-172.
    5. Blanchette Jr., Stephen, 2008. "A hydrogen economy and its impact on the world as we know it," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 522-530, February.
    6. Bergthorson, J.M. & Goroshin, S. & Soo, M.J. & Julien, P. & Palecka, J. & Frost, D.L. & Jarvis, D.J., 2015. "Direct combustion of recyclable metal fuels for zero-carbon heat and power," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 368-382.
    7. Murphy, Jerry D. & Browne, James & Allen, Eoin & Gallagher, Cathal, 2013. "The resource of biomethane, produced via biological, thermal and electrical routes, as a transport biofuel," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 474-479.
    8. Wietschel, Martin & Hasenauer, Ulrike & de Groot, Arend, 2006. "Development of European hydrogen infrastructure scenarios--CO2 reduction potential and infrastructure investment," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 1284-1298, July.
    9. Kriegler, Elmar, 2011. "Comment," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 594-596, July.
    10. Duke, Mike & Andrews, Deborah & Anderson, Timothy, 2009. "The feasibility of long range battery electric cars in New Zealand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 3455-3462, September.
    11. Dougherty, William & Kartha, Sivan & Rajan, Chella & Lazarus, Michael & Bailie, Alison & Runkle, Benjamin & Fencl, Amanda, 2009. "Greenhouse gas reduction benefits and costs of a large-scale transition to hydrogen in the USA," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 56-67, January.
    12. Wee, Jung-Ho, 2010. "Contribution of fuel cell systems to CO2 emission reduction in their application fields," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 735-744, February.
    13. Bergthorson, Jeffrey M. & Yavor, Yinon & Palecka, Jan & Georges, William & Soo, Michael & Vickery, James & Goroshin, Samuel & Frost, David L. & Higgins, Andrew J., 2017. "Metal-water combustion for clean propulsion and power generation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 186(P1), pages 13-27.
    14. Lund, Peter D. & Lindgren, Juuso & Mikkola, Jani & Salpakari, Jyri, 2015. "Review of energy system flexibility measures to enable high levels of variable renewable electricity," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 785-807.
    15. Sdanghi, G. & Maranzana, G. & Celzard, A. & Fierro, V., 2019. "Review of the current technologies and performances of hydrogen compression for stationary and automotive applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 150-170.
    16. Converse, Alvin O., 2006. "The impact of large-scale energy storage requirements on the choice between electricity and hydrogen as the major energy carrier in a non-fossil renewables-only scenario," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(18), pages 3374-3376, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:37:y:2009:i:9:p:3325-3335. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.