Should we drink to the New Zealand future of hydrogen vehicles?

Friday, 29 November 2019

How does Hyundai's Nexo fuel-cell car work in the real world?

OPINION: I really wanted to drink the emissions from this vehicle's exhaust system.

I was assured it was pure. Nothing but clean water and purified air. So I figured that since Hyundai New Zealand had committed to running that TV advert showing healthy fish swimming in a tank of water receiving the contents of the vehicle's exhaust emissions, then the emissions would be healthy enough for me to drink it.

But I couldn't find any. Obviously I couldn't collect any exhaust water while the vehicle was moving, and when it was stationary the vehicle made a quiet phffffffffff noise as any remaining water was converted to steam.

The water that comes out of the exhaust pipe of a fuel-cell car is incredibly clean.

It all meant therefore that if I was going to drink to the arrival in NZ of this fascinating new eco-vehicle, I was going to have to take a swig of tap water contained in a HNZ-supplied eco-friendly glass bottle with an electric motoring logo running down its side.

**READ MORE:

Hydrogen cars like Nexo (front) are electric, but you don't plug them in like a Kona Electric (coming up behind).

* First drive road test review: Hyundai Nexo

* Great Wall's big hydrogen dreams

Nexo is the first FCEV to be registered on NZ roads. But many more to come?

* Hyundai serious about hydrogen in New Zealand**

The vehicle is a medium-sized SUV called Nexo, the first hydrogen-fuelled passenger vehicle to arrive in NZ. It's not actually for sale here – Hyundai has imported two of them to be used as demonstration units to publicise what may become an integral part of electric motoring in this country.

NZ has the ability to become a leader in cleanly produced 'green hydrogen'.

Nexo is an electric vehicle, but not as we know it.

Whereas a standard EV such as a Nissan Leaf or a Tesla Model 3 charges the batteries that power its traction motor by plugging into a charging point, a Nexo fills its fuel tanks with hydrogen which feeds to a fuel cell stack located in the engine bay. There, the hydrogen mixes with air to cause an electrochemical reaction which generates the electricity that powers the traction motor.

So it's the same, but different. And this raises an obvious question: why bother? The quick answer is that a fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV) offers two important advantages.

One is that while EVs can take hours to recharge, it takes roughly the same time as a petrol or diesel-fuelled vehicle to fill an FCEV. The other is range – with an FCEV it will always be longer; in the Nexo's case it is more than 600km.

One other important consideration is that although an FCEV is fuelled with hydrogen, it isn't an H-bomb on wheels. Authorities consider it to be as safe, if not safer, than traditional cars or EVs because their hydrogen storage tanks are made of super-strong carbon fibre.

It's obvious that all over the world, hydrogen is seen as the automotive fuel of the future. In fact an organisation called the Hydrogen Council estimates that by 2050 such vehicles will account for at least 20 per cent of the world's total vehicle fleet – 400 million passenger cars, 20 million trucks, and 5 million buses.

All this forecasting is playing right into the hands of the NZ Government, which sees real potential for hydrogen not only as a clean transport fuel, but also as a product that could be made here for export.

For that reason it is supporting a number of projects in places such as Northland, Auckland, Taranaki and Taupo that are researching how we can use our natural energy resources to manufacture hydrogen in a sustainable way.

A few weeks ago the Government also released a document called A Vision for Hydrogen in New Zealand, which paints a picture of how this country could become a leader in production of 'green' hydrogen, a product so clean it could potentially receive a price premium on international markets.

At present the hydrogen manufactured throughout the world isn't particularly clean – not because of its end use, but because of how it is made.

The product can be manufactured several ways. The most common method is to make it from natural gas or coal gasification, during which CO2 is released into the atmosphere. This product is called brown hydrogen.

If the CO2 is captured and sequestered (in other words put somewhere, such as back underground), then the product is called blue hydrogen. And hydrogen made as a co-product during an industrial process, is called grey hydrogen.

Globally, about 95 per cent of all hydrogen is either brown or grey, which means that 99 per cent of the hydrogen produced globally is carbon emitting, and is calculated to be responsible for total emissions of around 830 metric tonnes of CO2 a year.

And then there's green hydrogen, which is produced by using electricity to break down water into its compound elements of hydrogen and oxygen. If that electricity has been generated in a renewable way such as via hydro or wind, then it can truly be described as green.

It's not hard to imagine that NZ, with its abundance of renewable energy, has the potential to remove itself from issues relating to the manufacture of brown, grey and blue product and make some of the cleanest green hydrogen in the world.

At present New Zealand has 85 per cent renewable energy, which is the fourth-highest percentage in the OECD. The Government's goal is for that to get to 100 per cent by 2035. It all appeals as the perfect scenario for creation of a whole new eco-friendly automotive fuel industry and network.

Could it happen? As I spent a few hours behind the wheel of the Nexo during a media event through mountain country at the bottom of the South Island, and spotted snow turned brown by the smoke from the Australian bush fires that had blown across the Tasman Sea, it occurred to me that it has to happen. The effects of climate change will demand no less.

As I said earlier, this Nexo isn't for sale in NZ – and nor it should be, not the least because there's nowhere to refuel it anyway.

But just as charging stations are popping up throughout the country to cater for EVs, I don't see any reason why refuelling stations couldn't be established at strategic locations to cater for FCEVs.

Remember, we did it in the early 1980s when the second oil shock resulted in a CNG refuelling network being quickly established. Close to 120,000 motorists take advantage of interest-free Government loans and converted their vehicles to that alternative fuel.

So it could happen again, but with a fuel completely removed from anything that contributes to climate change. Food for thought, isn't it? I'll drink some clean water to that.