Social cost-benefit analysis of hydrogen mobility in Europe
Résumé
The deployment of hydrogen technologies in the energy mix and the use of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCV) are expected to significantly reduce European greenhouse emissions. We present a social cost-benefit analysis to estimate the period of socio-economic conversion, period for which the replacement of gasoline internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEV) by FCV becomes socio-economically profitable. In this study, we considered a hydrogen production mix of five technologies: natural gas reforming processes with or without carbon capture and storage, electrolysis, biogas processes and decentralized production. We estimate two external costs: the use of non-renewable resources in the manufacture of fuel cells by measuring platinum depletion, and the abatement cost of CO2 through FCV. We forecast that carbon market could finance approximately 10% of the deployment cost of hydrogen-based transport and that an early economic conversion could be targeted for FCV: about 10 years could be saved by considering externalities.