In other words, FCVs are just going to be NGVs.

Could this be one of the lower cost solution for future H2 stations?

The same could probably be done using clean electricity/H2 converter stations?

Engineer Poet, FCV will still be FCV, the challenge of a Hydrogen Infrastructure has never been technical, but rather, Economic, the stations but be small enough and inexpensive enough to be easily distributable, to grow an infrastructure at a pace and cost that works for all. Nick, yes the energy companies will benefit, it would be almost impossible to move forward with a bridge technology without them. Harvey a great deal of progress has been done in electric from H2, Clear Edge Power has some great solutions for many applications. SJC, i think of it as the bridge to a cleaner version ahead of us.

Rob

Rob, in the long run, when clean electricity (Hydro, Solar, Wind, Nuke) will be plentiful and low cost, conversion to and from H2 will become very competitive and common place.

H2 may become a valuable widely used energy storage medium. Large FCs may be used to meet peak electricity demands. Small FCs will become common power units for Extended range EVs.

Future H2 stations may be much cheaper (and cleaner) than many expect.

I meant to say this is for a volume of 1500kg/dy.

But we hear that proton exchange membranes are the best type of fuel cell, but are expensive, degraded by the inevitable heat of combustion, and have about 2000 hours of performance. So what progress has been made? And how many types of alternatives to the ICE can an auto market support?

Davemart, the link pasted in your reply is the link to this page. Perhaps you meant to past the one to the 2011 DOE study?

Rob Wise, your "different approach" seems to be a PlugShare style app for finding fueling stations that are operated by small independents. Presumably these independents would be capitalizing the station and hoping to recoup the cost over time by fuel and related sales. What are you estimating the cost of fuel and the margin for these independent operators?

Here are the references I am working from:

Projected costs of hydrogen (assuming high-volume production and widespread deployment) have been reduced to approximately <$2.00/gallon gasoline equivalent (gge) produced (<~$4.00/gge produced, delivered and dispensed), for a wide range of natural gas prices—a cost that is competitive with gasoline.

From:
http://energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/accomplishments-and-progress

Methodology:
http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/11007_h2_threshold_costs.pdf

Background:
http://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/h2a_analysis.html

Who is going to buy this $4gge H2 fuel when the EV fuel equivalent is $1gge, the cost of the vehicle is lower, and most people have EV fueling options at home and/or work?

@EC-insider,

Your quote for H2 is analogous to quoting the price of flat-panel TV 10-15 years ago (or PC or memory chips etc) and expect it to stay the same today. Long-term stabilized prices will likely be many folds lower than initial pricing.

The retail price of electricity is a very stable commodity for over many decades. The initial prices of H2 cannot be compared to the stabilized retail pricing of electricity.

For H2 produced from NG, the price of NG is now around $5-8 per MMBtu (293 kWh). Let's pick the $8/293 kWh. Using steam methane reformation at 70% efficiency, this will jack up the energy cost of the H2 to $8/ 0.70 = $11.42/293 kWh, then compressing this H2 to 700 bar will take away 10% of the energy, so $11.42/.9 = $12.7/293kWh. So, each kWh of H2 will have an energy cost of 0.043/kWh...Adding profit and amortization cost of equipments and the number will get higher, perhaps to
$0.06/kWh...for H2-FCV
This, in comparison to average retail electricity in the USA to be $0.12/kWh. With loss in the charger and rectifier, the energy cost of charging BEV may be around
$0.14/kWh...for BEV

Who will pay more for energy cost?
And who can say that the purchasing cost of FCV's will be higher than the purchasing cost of BEV's?

Use solar energy to make H2 where solar energy is economical and use wind where wind is economical, and NG where NG is available at low cost, and nuclear energy where nuclear is available in excess of baseload. Houston is not known for reliable sunlight nor reliable wind energy.

The main message is whatever the primary source of energy, H2 will be the most efficient and least expensive chemical fuel that can be made. Synthetic hydrocarbon fuels are more costly to make and less efficient, but can use existing infrastructure and can be stored and transported easier than H2. Still, people who prefer to drive ICEV will continue to be able to do so with synthetic hydrocarbon fuels in the future at no higher cost than they are paying for petroleum today.