After decades of R&D for light-duty vehicles such as cars and crossovers, where the focus was on low cell cost, it’s trucking’s turn to get green and clean.
As a critical secondary part of this effort, the DOE is also funding a $50 million, five-year national lab-based consortium to develop large-scale, efficient, hydrogen-generating electrolyzers us- ing renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, wave or geothermal. Electrolysis is the process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. Currently, only 5 percent of commercial hydrogen is generated through electrolysis; 95 percent comes from natural gas, oil and coal using steam reformation.
Shift spoke with Rod Borup, fuel cell program manager at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Here are edited excerpts.
Q: How important is the fueling infrastructure to run Class 8 trucks on hydrogen?
A: If you’re going to…
With Energy Dept. funding, researchers see big hauling power from fuel cells
