Hydrogen production technology getting closer to road-ready

Column appeared Nov. 19

November 23, 2022

2022-11-23

Troy Semelsberger, a chemical engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, contributed this guest column to the Albuquerque Journal’s Executive’s Desk.

The era of viable alternatives to fossil fuel-based transportation appears to be at hand.

With the transportation sector the biggest contributor of greenhouse gases in the United States, California recently became the first of potentially many states to put a 2035 expiration on the sale of new internal-combustion vehicles. Meeting climate-crisis-driven transportation challenges depends on developing new fuels and an infrastructure for producing, processing, delivering and storing those fuels.

Hydrogen is a promising alternative fuel for vehicles, especially light trucks and heavy vehicles, given the constraints of battery-only vehicle power. The hydrogen fuel-cell technology to power those vehicles is rapidly advancing. A complementary challenge emerges: How do we get the hydrogen where it needs to be? Can we make fueling with emission-free hydrogen as easy as filling up the tank on a gas guzzler? Recent research is making big strides toward finding solutions.

Read the full column.

The Executive’s Desk is a guest column providing advice, commentary or information about resources available to the business community in New Mexico.

LA-UR-22-30742