dc.contributor.author | Sandoval, Reynaldo. | |
dc.contributor.author | Karplus, Valerie J. | |
dc.contributor.author | Paltsev, Sergey. | |
dc.contributor.author | Reilly, John M. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2008-05-07T15:52:07Z | |
dc.date.available | 2008-05-07T15:52:07Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2008-02 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://mit.edu/globalchange/www/abstracts.html#a154 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41520 | |
dc.description | Abstract in HTML and technical report in PDF available on the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change website (http://mit.edu/globalchange/www/). | en |
dc.description.abstract | Hydrogen fueled transportation has been proposed as a low carbon alternative to the current gasoline-powered
fleet. Using a computable general equilibrium model of the world economy we explore the
economic viability of hydrogen transportation in several different tax and carbon dioxide stabilization
policy scenarios. We represent the capital, labor, fuel and other costs of hydrogen production and
hydrogen powered vehicles in the economic model. We examine scenarios where the hydrogen fuel price
and vehicle cost are varied over a wide range to evaluate what technology improvements would be
needed, in terms of cost reductions, for hydrogen vehicles to penetrate the market. We consider scenarios
with and without climate policy, and in competition with other reduced-carbon fuel substitutes, such as
ethanol-blend fuels. We find that hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicles could make a significant
contribution to de-carbonization of the transportation fuel cycle if production of hydrogen itself is not
carbon-intensive. Cost targets needed for the technology to penetrate in the USA are such that the
hydrogen fuel would need to be in the range of 1 to 1.7 times the 1997 price of gasoline and the vehicle
mark-up above an average fuel cell automobile would need no more than 1.3 to 1.5 times an average
conventional vehicle. At the lower end of these cost ranges, the vehicle fleet could be competitive by 2020
but at the upper end we would only see entry of the fleet toward the end of the century. High fuel taxes in
Europe makes fuel-efficient hydrogen fuel cell technology more competitive there than in the USA. Along
with cost reductions, these results assume that technical issues are solved and that market hurdles of
establishing the fuel distribution system are overcome. For those involved in hydrogen vehicle research
this analysis provides cost targets that would need to met and, given they are achieved, an idea of when
vehicles could be competitive and under what conditions. | en |
dc.description.sponsorship | The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support for this work provided by the MIT Joint
Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change through a consortium of industrial sponsors,
Federal grants that have supported the development of the modeling framework, especially the US
Department of Energy, Integrated Assessment Program in the Office of Biological and
Environmental Research (BER) grant DE-FG02-94ER61937 and US EPA agreement XA-
83344601-0 and XA-83240101, and an anonymous donor. | en |
dc.language.iso | en_US | en |
dc.publisher | MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change | en |
dc.relation.ispartofseries | Report no. 154 | en |
dc.title | Modeling the Prospects for Hydrogen Powered Transportation Through 2100 | en |
dc.type | Technical Report | en |
dc.identifier.citation | Report no. 154 | en |