According to the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, the Bush administration’s plans to use nuclear power to generate hydrogen are off base, and wind power presents a better option. “Electricity from wind is currently four cents per kilowatt-hour,” the group says. “This is a verifiable, experienced cost. Wind energy and photovoltaic systems coupled to electrolyzers used for hydrogen separation are perhaps the most versatile of the approaches and are likely to be the major hydrogen producers of the future.” Princeton researcher Joan Ogden, a booster of solar and wind-based hydrogen, adds that nuclear hydrogen is dependent on “difficult technology that is much further from commercialization than many other hydrogen-production options.”

There are, however, certainly realistic obstacles to overcome before wind-based hydrogen can become a reality. A report by Science for Democratic Action concluded that “there are no real cost advantages to integrating fuel cells into the electricity system on a large scale.” Bill Leighty, director of the Leighty Foundation in Juneau, Alaska, has some sobering second thoughts on the idea of transmitting large amounts of wind-generated electricity via a hydrogen pipeline from North Dakota, for example, to Chicago, a possibility examined in a study underwritten by his foundation.

“Hydrogen transmission does not appear to offer an economically attractive alternative to gigawatt-scale transmission of Great Plains wind energy via high-voltage [electric lines] because of the extra costs of conversion from electric to hydrogen energy at the Great Plains source,” said a key sentence in Leighty’s paper. “Capital, operations and maintenance, and energy conversion loss costs are significant, though energy storage as compressed hydrogen gas in the pipeline is a valuable benefit.”

Leighty says wind-generated hydrogen is dependent on what the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Letter describes as “the emergence of a large market for pure hydrogen…for [fuel-cell-based] transportation and for distributed generation.”

But what if that market does develop? Claus Moller of the Danish Wind Energy Association says that the concept of hydrogen from wind is being actively pursued in Denmark, with small-scale demonstration projects and long-term feasibility studies underway in research institutes. If economics of scale come into play to dramatically reduce the cost of wind-powered hydrogen electrolyzers, reports a paper by Harry Braun of the Hydrogen Political Action Committee posted on EV World, then electricity could be generated at a cost of one cent per kilowatt-hour, resulting in liquid hydrogen produced for the same cost as gasoline at $1.95 a gallon.

Braun calls for 12 million wind systems to be mass-produced and installed within 24 months and coupled to an interstate hydrogen pipeline. “It is possible for the U.S. to be energy independent, with a pollution-free and inexhaustible energy resource within five to 10 years,” he says.

The Earth Policy Institute’s Lester Brown offers a plausible scenario for wind-based hydrogen. “Surplus wind power can be stored as hydrogen and used in fuel cells or gas turbines to generate electricity, leveling supply when winds are variable,” says Brown. “Wind, once seen as a cornerstone of the new energy economy, may turn out to be its foundation. The wind meteorologist who analyzes wind regimes and identifies the best sites for wind farms will play a role in the new energy economy comparable to that of the petroleum geologist in the old energy economy.

“With the advancing technologies for harnessing wind and powering motor vehicles with hydrogen, we can now see a future where farmers and ranchers can supply not only much of the country’s electricity, but much of the hydrogen to fuel its fleet of automobiles as well. For the first time, the United States has the technology and resources to divorce itself from Middle Eastern oil.” 

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