Fuel options for the fuel cell vehicle: hydrogen, methanol or gasoline?

Fuel cell vehicles can be powered directly by hydrogen or, with an onboard chemical processor, other liquid fuels such as gasoline or methanol. Most a nalysts agree that hydrogen is the preferred fuel in terms of reducing vehi cle complexity, but one common perception is that the cost of a hydrogen in frastructure would be excessive. According to this conventional wisdom, the automobile industry must therefore develop complex onboard fuel processors to convert methanol, ethanol or gasoline to hydrogen. We show here, howeve r, that the total fuel infrastructure cost to society including onboard fue l processors may be less for hydrogen than for either gasoline or methanol, the primary initial candidates currently under consideration for fuel cell vehicles. We also present the local air pollution and greenhouse gas advan tages of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles compared to those powered by gasoline or methanol. (C) 2000 International Association for Hydrogen Energy. Publis hed by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.