Hydrogen as fuel for Trucks: Reality vs. Hype – A Deep Dive

Today, I stopped believing that cost-efficient Long-Distance Hydrogen Trucks will take the market before Electric Trucks within the next 20 years.

Listening to my favorite science communicator, Sabine Hossenfelder, it sounds like long-distance Hydrogen Trucking will not be cheaper than electric Trucking anytime soon due to some physics limitations and politics.

If you still believe in the future of Hydrogen Transportation, please listen to these three videos by Sabine Hossenfelder. I am happy to discuss this in the comments.

a.)??? Hydrogen Will Not Save Us. Here's Why. {14th Jan 2024}

b.)??? “The most dumb thing" for energy storage: Hydrogen {11th Jul 2024}

c.)??? Hydrogen Hype is Dying, And That's a Good Thing {Today, 5th Jan 2025}

In short:

Based on basic physics, there is a too-high energy loss. Lobyism will try to delay the transformation, and you can count on delays due to politics and election cycles. In the meantime, Electric Trucks will be trucking on.

Here is the extended version:

1.) Basic Physics.

Hydrogen is not a source of energy; it is a storage system. We never create energy. We convert one type of energy into another. Whenever we convert energy from one type to another, we lose some energy to heat. Typically, the round-trip efficiency (electricity to hydrogen and back to electricity) is supposedly around 30-40%. This means that 70 to 60% of the energy is lost to conversion (friction, heat, & other physical effects of nature).

I say “supposedly“ because I could not find a research paper showing its experimental data. It is talked about in scientific channels. But what does this mean? To me, it sounds plausible that there truly is this amount of energy loss, but data is better. Let's find the data to back this up. Going down the path of ?“He said, she said, …“ in research papers, I ended up here:

By Tom DiChristopher says its 18%-46% here: Hydrogen technology faces efficiency disadvantage in power storage race | S&P Global Market Intelligence; which though references Arjun Flora, director of energy finance studies IEEFA, but not a paper that has data. Arjun Flora seems to point out the industry of the Gas Lobby to push Hydrogen here IEEFA Europe: Snam and the hydrogen distraction | IEEFA. No surprise. Electricity is coming, and hydrogen looks like a good delay method by Gas & Oil industry sector. Back to finding the data, I get to Hydrogen Production Energy Conversion Efficiencies | H2tools | Hydrogen Tools by Tom DiChrisopher, referencing sources that once might have worked are now outdated. There, the data he published shows an efficiency of 44 to 71%. I could not find a basic source after 2 hours of search. Again, I don’t doubt it, cause it seems plausible, but I will keep an eye for it over the coming month.

So, I can not claim that I know for sure, but what I saw in these papers makes it sound plausible. Yes, humanity might get lucky with a big "White-Hydrogen" find, but I would not bank on that or build an industry around black, grey or blue hydrogen in the meantime.

2.) Powerful “Gas” & “Pipeline Owner” interest groups.

Lobby groups steer our politicians in directions that are financially beneficial for them. The oil and gas industries have substantial financial resources and aim to secure future income streams from gas. Methane (CH?) contains a significant amount of hydrogen, but the problem lies in its carbon content. By using energy to split hydrogen (H) from carbon (C) in methane, we still produce carbon dioxide (CO?), which needs to be managed. This process is known as producing blue hydrogen, where CO? is captured and stored. Essentially, it's a methane truck at that point, not a hydrogen truck, because the carbon from methane must go somewhere. You and I can see how those with a financial interest in the gas and pipeline industry would likely make Hydrogen from Methane sound sweet and green and whisper it into the ears of politicians who want to be re-elected to promote it as such.

3.) Reality check by EU Auditors.

The report published by Home | European Court of Auditors here (Special report 11/2024: The EU’s industrial policy on renewable hydrogen) was referenced by Sabine Hossenfelder, and in particular, ?

Observation 22 to 45, with the title: The Commission set unrealistic hydrogen production and import targets - the EU is not on track for achieving them.

Observation 122 ?- under Conclusions and recommendations “We found that the renewable hydrogen targets were not clearly defined. Moreover, they were driven by political will rather than being based on robust analyses. In addition, at the time of writing, it is unlikely that these targets for 2030 can be achieved (see paragraphs 25-30 and 38-45).

The key observation here for me regarding hydrogen trucking vs electric trucking is the following:

Obersvation 41 - In fact, although there are many announcements about future projects to produce renewable hydrogen, project developers had only taken a few final investment decisions by the end of 2023. However, projects that are supposed to be operational in 2030 should make their investment decisions between 2025 and 2027 at the latest. This is because of the average project lead time32: it takes approximately 3-5 years for the final investment decision to be made and another 3-5 years for construction and commissioning before operations can start

From this, I understand that Hydrogen production will ramp up only around 2030 to 2040 and be only by then could be available in high and cheap quantities.

My Conclusion:

What does this mean for trucking from my point of view for the next 10 years?

In short, my bet is that electric trucks will win the race. Cost-effective hydrogen trucks will likely arrive too late for mass adoption, and by then, truck owners will have heavily invested in electric trucks and their charging infrastructure, which first needs to be amortized and written off.

Over the last two years, I have regularly looked at these two maps, www.H2.Live and www.h2-map.eu, and the overall amount and density of fuel stations along the highways have increased significantly. This truly makes long-distance trucking, with hydrogen trucks that have a +1000 km range, feasible from a technical standpoint. I don’t believe that there will be a lack of infrastructure. I simply don’t think that it will be cheaper to run hydrogen trucks than electric trucks, and here is the reason. Research into special Aluminium, Nickel, or Titanium alloys and steels might find a way to reduce hydrogen's impact and tendency to make its storage tanks and truck fuel tanks less brittle. Research into electrolysis (like capillary-fed electrolysis) might minimize energy transformation losses but never entirely negate them. Maybe in the future, there will be no need for platinum and iridium to convert hydrogen back to electricity, and hydrogen combustion might become efficient and hopefully not produce nitrogen oxides (NOx) as a by-product. I sure hope. I truly do. Until then, research for electric transportation will not be asleep. Lithium batteries will likely be replaced by Sodium-Ion, Nickel-Metal, Lead-Acid, or Magnesium-Ion batteries before the Hydrogen industry gets there.

Hence, if a hydrogen truck still costs twice or three times as much as an electric truck, and there are enough 450 kW or 1 MW chargers on the highways of Europe that charge you back up to 95% battery capacity within an hour, that could carry you 800 km, why buy a more expensive truck?

Yes, one can refill a Hydrogen Truck quickly, but electric fuel is easier to transport over power lines, and upgrading these should be easier, I think, than creating Hydrogen pipelines that run the danger of becoming brittle and starting to leak.

Some beautiful hydrogen trucks were already on the road in the last few years, but at high costs. My total cost of ownership calculation in 2023 and 2024 did not show that a break-even of costs could be realized even at peak utilization, driving 1000 km per day.

I guess that the steel, asphalt, and other chemical industries will likely still need that hydrogen more anyway at that point in the future. They will be happy not to have to compete with trucks for it in terms of capacity, which would drive the costs up. Still, it's a win for the environment.

Also, in terms of production, as long as we use coal or methane for hydrogen production, carbon emissions from that process will need to be managed. In essence, we would be driving “methane” or “coal” trucks disguised as hydrogen trucks, and I don’t think end consumers would buy that of their politicians {who want to be re-elected}, when electric trucks are available that don't depend on the oil & gas industry.