Hydrogen Bus Alliance continues drive for hydrogen future

The Alliance is currently chaired by Transport for London. It launched a high profile dialogue in autumn 2007 with the aim of working in partnership with the industry to facilitate the commercialisation of hydrogen technology in the public transport sector. It invited suppliers and key industry experts to contribute to the Alliance’s planning process for bus procurement between 2010 and 2015.

Since then, its it has presented its message at bus and transport exhibitions across Europe and the US. It envisages that all responses to its ideas will be received by the end of January 2008, with a draft action plan published in March/April.

Viable
The Alliance was originally established in October 2006 when the transport authorities of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, British Columbia (Canada), Cologne, Hamburg, London, South Tyrol and Western Australia, agreed to work together to develop and procure hydrogen fuel cell buses and make the technology commercially viable.

One of the few significant international partnerships in the sustainable transport arena that has no Scandinavian or Dutch representation, the Alliance aims to ensure that hydrogen buses can compete with their diesel counterparts in terms of cost and performance by 2015. The partners have all committed to buying at least five new hydrogen buses to begin operating between 2008 and 2012.

Practical view
Despite the scepticism which still surrounds the short-term feasibility of hydrogen-based transport, the Alliance has a very practical view of the challenges it needs to overcome in order to achieve its ambitious aims. In particular, it is looking for industry input on:

• the routes to commercialisation envisaged by hydrogen bus manufacturers, in terms of key technical steps, requirements for deployment of pre-commercial vehicles and the points when commitment to high volume manufacturing would need to occur;
• warranty issues around key components of hydrogen fuelled buses;
• industry reassurances that commercial and technical targets can be met;
• the projected fuel consumption for hydrogen buses by 2015;
• on-board fuel storage developments;
• overall costs and economies of scale in procurement now and by 2015;
• on-going design developments, e.g. double-decker hydrogen buses;
• the synergies between hydrogen buses and the development of diesel hybrid drive-trains for urban buses.

Peter Hendy, Commissioner for Transport for London, said: “We need to work with suppliers to ensure that our aspirations are realistic. Transport for London are in the process of buying ten hydrogen buses, and while we are prepared to pay a premium for these early models, we need reassurances that costs can and will come down in the very near future. Those assurances will allow us to plan for a rapid expansion of the hydrogen bus fleet.”

No future
Nevertheless, many experts may regard Hendy’s ambitions as over-optimistic. In December 2007, James Woolsey, chairman of the US advisory board of the Clean Fuels Foundation, said that hydrogen and fuel cells have no future as replacements for petrol or diesel in the immediate future. He said a hydrogen infrastructure will cost the US alone one trillion dollars.

Similarly, Professor Julia King, who is leading the UK government’s study into options for decarbonising road transport, also recently expressed doubts about the near-term viability of the hydrogen/fuel cell pathway for vehicles. Speaking in November, Prof. King said that it is currently difficult to find efficient ways to produce and transport hydrogen and that the process of producing hydrogen for use in transport could result in more CO2 emissions than burning conventional fuels.