Fuel of the Future: Fuel Cell Technology : Daily Current Affairs

Relevance: GS-3: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Key phrases: Fuel cell technology, chemical energy, hydrogen, safety concern, expensive, National Hydrogen Energy Mission.

Why in News?

The automotive sector in particular has sought to evolve to renewable energy sources and reduce its carbon footprint. Against this backdrop, hydrogen fuel cell technology is emerging globally as a valuable multisector alternative for fossil fuels.

Context:

The need to combat climate change and stall ecological degradation has made itself felt with pressing significance. With leading nations across the world actively attempting to reach the net-zero emissions goal in the next few decades, the quest to seek alternative energy sources has become more earnest than ever before. India too has set an ambitious target of reducing the emissions intensity of its economy by 45 per cent by 2030.
In such a scenario, hydrogen fuel could be a cost-efficient, effective and long-term alternative to fossil fuels like petrol or diesel. While hydrogen fuel cell technology is one segment, on which several automakers around the world are working for quite some time, in India, hydrogen fuel cell technology is still in the prenatal stage.
Countries like the US, Germany, South Korea, China and Japan have already deployed a fleet of hydrogen-fuelled commercial vehicles. The French government too aims to use hydrogen fuel cell technology in transportation. However, the development of hydrogen fuel cell technology in India is not sufficient, despite the country being one of the major automobile markets in the world.

What is Fuel cell technology?

Fuel cell technology relies on the chemical energy of hydrogen to generate electricity in a clean manner and effectively. Unlike primary fuels like coal and petroleum, or renewable energy sources like wind or solar power, hydrogen is an energy carrier. This means that hydrogen is required to be produced using primary sources of energy, such as natural gas, water, biomass, etc. Once procured, hydrogen can be used to supply electricity across sectors, including industrial and commercial buildings, transportation, and long-term grid-based energy storage in reversible systems.
Fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) are powered by hydrogen. Like all electric vehicles, FCEVs use electricity to power an electric motor. However, instead of using electricity through batteries that draw power from the grid to function, FCEVs generate electricity using a fuel cell stack powered by hydrogen, which is stored on-board.

Benefits of Fuel cell electric vehicles:

FCEVs are among the cleanest modes of transportations as they release no harmful tailpipe emissions, and only emit water vapour and warm air. With future technical enhancements, there will be a forecasted improvement in overall WTW (well-to-wheel) efficiency for FCEVs which is pegged at around 30–35 per cent% today.
FCEVs can be instrumental in achieving energy security and fulfilling de-carbonisation goals. While it is crucial to remember battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and FCEVs are not competing but complementary technologies, hydrogen-operated EVs offer some important benefits over lithium-powered BEVs.
In the context of certain duty cycles and applications, they possess higher energy density (more energy per unit mass), require shorter fuelling durations, and have long-range applications that are not viable with BEVs because of the constraints of LI-Ion batteries. With an inherent renewability component and no emissions, FCEVs are also very environmental friendly.
In particular, transitioning to hydrogen fuel cell heavy-duty vehicles can have a significant impact in reducing greenhouse emissions. In the near future, hydrogen fuel cells will be key in achieving higher range applications (exceeding 500 km) because of faster refuelling and higher density.

Challenges for adoption of Fuel cell electric vehicles in India:

However, despite hydrogen being a promising alternative fuel solution, there are several challenges for India to adopt this technology, at least in near future.

Lack of infrastructure: Infrastructure remains a major hindrance ahead of the growth of hydrogen fuel cell technology powered vehicles. In India, the hydrogen fuel cell dispensing fuel stations are only a few, which way lower than adequate to encourage the automakers and vehicle buyers to adopt hydrogen fuel cell technology powered vehicles.
Higher safety concern: Safety is a major concern around hydrogen fuel cell technology. Hydrogen fuel is highly flammable, even higher than fossil fuels like petrol or diesel. It is not necessary to store the fuel in hydrogen form only, but other hydrogen-generating sources like methane, propane, alcohols, or even regular gasoline too can create gaseous hydrogen in the vehicle itself. However, all of these come with respective flammability issues and the hydrogen itself is highly flammable as well, which brings the safety concern.
The possibility of electric shock too is another safety concern around the hydrogen fuel cell technology. This system electro-chemically combines hydrogen with oxygen, both of which are flammable and generates electrical energy to power the vehicle and emits water instead of toxic tailpipe gases. Some hydrogen fuel cell motors run on voltages exceeding 350 volts.
Considering the fact that anything greater than 50 volts can stop a human heart, there are great risks of electric shock from a hydrogen fuel cell powertrain.
Not robust system: Unlike the gas or oil powertrains, the hydrogen fuel cell powertrains are not very robust, because of their delicate and intricate system. These powertrain technologies demand highly sensitive surroundings and environment, as very high or very low temperatures can result in the failure of the system. In a country like India, where it is too hot and humid at places during summer and extreme cold in the northern part of the country during summer, the chances of breakdown for these powertrains are pretty high.
Quite expensive: Hydrogen fuel cell powertrains are way much expensive than conventional internal combustion engine technologies. These powertrains use extremely rare earth metal like platinum, which results in the manufacturing of hydrogen fuel cells a lot more expensive than drilling transporting and refining fossil fuels. While it is expected that in future, hydrogen fuel cells will pay for themselves in terms of the amount of money they will save, but the steeper upfront costs certainly drive the investors away.

Way forward:

Hydrogen technology is still at a very nascent stage in the country, and there are limited infrastructure and scale of hydrogen dispensing units available. This makes the acquisition and total cost of ownership for FCEVs higher. Further, most hydrogen production methods deployed today rely on fossil fuels.
However, government incentives and localisation of core aggregates are likely to reduce costs and improve the overall economics of FCEV. A surge in the demand for this technology is expected in the second half of the current decade.
The newly introduced National Hydrogen Energy Mission Programme by the Prime Minister aims to bring open access to renewable energy and increase the production of green hydrogen (that does not rely on fossil fuels to be produced).
With these positive steps, one can expect a decisive move towards a sustainable future of mobility, with hydrogen fuel cell technology playing a predominant role across segments, in public transport, commercial vehicles, and passenger vehicles.

Source: The Hindu BL

Mains Question:

Q. “Hydrogen fuel cell technology is emerging globally as a valuable multisector alternative to fossil fuels.” Critically analyse the statement. (250words).