Last month, Patrick Bedard of Car & Driver (my favorite automotive publication) wrote a great article in which he crunched some numbers on what our country’s energy consumption would be if we all drove hydrogen-powered cars. The underlying problem is producing hydrogen. Because pure hydrogen does not exist naturally, it requires an input of energy to seperate hydrogen from a hydrogen-containing molecule (most often this molecule is water and the process is electrolysis). So where does this energy input come from?

Coal - Producing Hydrogen using coal is 12% efficient. If all cars in the US were hydrogen powered, we would consume twice as much coal than we currently are with gasoline power. We would also produce 2.7x carbon emissions.

Natural Gas - The popular process for creating Hydrogen from natural gas is called “steam reforming” and is 30% efficient. If all cars in the US ran on hydrogen created from natural gas, our gas consumption would actually increase 66% over current levels.

As depressing as it may be, the article offers clear evidence that hydrogen power cars are far from mainstream reality. Until scientists can come up with a very efficient way to produce hydrogen, this technology just does not make sense.