A Hydrogen Explosion Rattles Nerves, but Fuel-Cell Cars Have a Good Safety Record
I have two kids, and in about a month I plan to be putting them in the back of a fuel-cell Toyota Highlander. Fuel-cell cars are essentially electric vehicles that replace batteries with tanks of pressurized hydrogen, turning the gas onboard into electricity and water vapor. My car will be part of a special demonstration program revolving around a "hydrogen highway" network of refueling stations that will ultimately stretch from Maine to Florida. So was I worried when I heard today about a hydrogen explosion in Rochester, connected to General Motors' extensive hydrogen research efforts there?
Actually no. If I didn't think hydrogen was safe, I'd cancel my Highlander reservation. The incident was serious, but it has to be set against a truly enviable hydrogen safety record in modern times. Mention of the fuel-cell cars now being prepared for commercialization around 2015 (GM, Honda, Toyota and many others have serious programs) inevitably recalls the hydrogen-powered Hindenburg, whose horrendous crash in 1937 killed 36 people. But that tragedy may have had more to do with the flammable coating outside the blimp than the hydrogen inside it, and since then the industry has learned quite a lot about the proper handling of this highly volatile substance.
According to Dan O'Connell, a GM advanced vehicle executive who runs the company's operations near Rochester, "We have put 1.7 million miles on our Equinox fuel-cell cars, without incident, as part of our Project Driveway, and done 16,000 hydrogen fills. It is a safe process." GM, he said, has even had two of its fuel-cell cars crash into each other, totaling one, without a hydrogen release. A second test car also crashed in Washington, D.C. and was written off, without hydrogen involvement.
This was the first accident involving General Motors and hydrogen. The company is also launching a major hydrogen initiative on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where it will supply a network of pipelined hydrogen with 10 to 15 fuel-cell cars from the Project Driveway program.
Patrick Serfass, a vice president at the National Hydrogen Association, said that fuel-cell vehicles across the country are driven more than a million miles a year by 8,000 drivers, who dispense about 26,000 kilograms (the energy equivalent of 26,000 gallons) in that time.
In the end, hydrogen is not more dangerous than gasoline. And gas station fires (as well as the kind of flaming car crashes that regularly occur in action films) have not convinced people to stop filling their tanks. "There are incidents with traditional fuels all the time that people see as commonplace," said Serfass. Here's a look at a gas station fire caught on surveillance video (one of many):
All of this is not to minimize the Rochester fire, which you can see on video here. "The whole building shook, man," said Chris Harris, an eyewitness to the fiery explosion August 26 at a General Motors-owned hydrogen station at the Greater Rochester International Airport (causing it to be briefly closed). Two people were injured, one of them seriously enough to require hospitalization.
The incident was sparked (which may be the right word) when an employee of Praxair, which has the contract to supply hydrogen to the station, was switching out one of the station's large hydrogen tanks. It's unclear what happened, since the worker (who will fully recover) was following proper safety procedures. O'Connell thinks some kind of equipment failure may have occurred. A full investigation is underway.
"The public should look forward to their next opportunity to fuel a hydrogen car and take it for a drive," said Serfass. "They're safe, emit water vapor from the tailpipe and -- just ask anyone who's driven one --incredibly fun to drive."
I have driven many fuel-cell cars without incident, but have never refueled one. I'm looking forward to my adventures on the hydrogen highway, which I'll report on later.
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Photo: YNN