Build-up of a Hydrogen Infrastructure

摘要

It is generally conceded that the growth of the fuel cell industry is dependent on the growth of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure. It is also conceded that the cost of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure could be large. Furthermore, the demand for hydrogen fuel will be too small for several decades to justify the building of large-scale facilities. In this paper we show how a distributed hydrogen infrastructure can be built gradually, rationally and inexpensively based on market demand. Hydrogen fuelers, designed to meet different hydrogen fuelling demands, will be discussed. These hydrogen fuelers are already at the prototype stage, and therefore they present a viable fuelling option for the introduction of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in 2004, and for other hydrogen vehicles. Economics will be presented to show that this option makes sense in North America and Europe at least.