Abstract
This chapter summarizes the key greenhouse gas (GHG) findings from this book. Our analysis shows that only the hydrogen-powered fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) can reach the goal of reducing GHGs by 80 % below 1990 levels. All other alternative vehicle options fall short of this goal.
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Notes
- 1.
With the election of many climate change “deniers” to the US Congress in 2010, chances for any climate change legislation in the USA seem to remote baring any major electoral shifts in the next few years, unless states such as California are able to launch a shift toward greener electricity through their proposed cap and trade legislation.
- 2.
AR4 refers to the last IPCC report in 2007.
- 3.
According to the 2015 AEO reference case projections, renewable energy will grow only slightly (from 13 % in 2013 to 18 % in 2040, while nuclear power is projected to decrease slightly (from 19.4 to 16.5 %), so the zero-carbon electricity sources will not significantly decrease greenhouse gas emissions from generating electricity in the USA, according to the EIA.
- 4.
The EPA may force some utilities to retire their old coal-burning plants to comply with the Clean Air Act provision on limiting mercury and soot pollution, a process that has already started in 2011 with multiple coal plant closures; however, other plants will continue burning coal or other fossil fuels by adding pollution control devices. Hence it is unlikely that there will be a major shift to cleaner burning power plants without major climate change legislation.
- 5.
Not all hydrogen is made from natural gas today; one hydrogen fueling station in Fountain Valley, California, already generates the hydrogen from the digester gas at a wastewater treatment plant at the Orange County Sanitation District, which is a true zero-carbon (or even negative-carbon) hydrogen, a waste-to-hydrogen green project. Zero-carbon hydrogen can also be made from landfill gas which does not require the expensive and time-consuming “greening of the grid” that would be necessary before BEVs could reduce GHG emissions.
- 6.
Technology is being developed and tested to extract the carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from the power plants, and store or “sequester” the gas underground in salt caverns or depleted natural gas formations.
- 7.
Some CO2, the main GHG, is released by the MCFC reformer, but these GHGs are much less than the GHGs displaced by reduced electricity and natural gas consumption, and the GHGs that are saved by replacing conventional vehicles with FCEVs running on this renewable hydrogen with no GHG gas emissions from the vehicle.
- 8.
Presumably, “road transport” includes both light-duty vehicles (cars, trucks, and SUVs) as well as heavy-duty vehicles including buses and long-haul trucks.
- 9.
This all-ICV scenario is already obsolete, since HEVs are already capturing a sizeable fraction of global auto sales.
- 10.
However, electrolytic hydrogen requires significant water which is also in short supply in many parts of the world, so making hydrogen by splitting water may be limited in the future, unless technology can be developed to electrolyze seawater.
- 11.
CO2 concentrations might be 15–50 % precombustion, but only 5–15 % in the smokestack after combustion in a conventional coal boiler making CO2 separation much easier precombustion in an IGCC plant.
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Thomas, C.E.(. (2015). Greenhouse Gas Emissions for Alternative Vehicles. In: Sustainable Transportation Options for the 21st Century and Beyond. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16832-6_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16832-6_8
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