How Modi govt’s Hydrogen push will be driven by the auto sector

You need to understand technology and software to change a car’s character. But as an automotive writer, I increasingly find myself delving into chemistry.

There are a couple of hydrogen-powered cars in India, one of them is a Toyota Mirai. It is used by Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari who often jokes about the fact that his car needs to travel all the way up to Faridabad to be refilled. | (Image: PIB)

Back in the day while studying for my Class XII board exams, I had a huge chemistry textbook. Around 500 pages of organic chemistry and another 500 pages of inorganic chemistry. And I did fairly well in the subject, scoring 92. This was in 1997, so do not judge me by today’s scores. And while the engineering option was open, in no small part because my grandfather was a chemical engineer, life had different plans. One where there was little chemistry involved. Until now when the subject made a comeback in my life.

Gone are the days when vehicles were mechanical beings, where a carburettor mixed the fuel and the air together and suspension settings could be changed with a screwdriver. Today you need to understand software to be able to change anything on a car. Some things are easy, like changing the steering ‘weight’ or the softness of the suspension. Even small cars now have ‘modes’ such as ‘Sport’ and ‘Eco’, where at the press of a button, you can change the way your car behaves. And the likes of BMW M series cars throw up a multitude of different settings, all of which that can be accessed from the drivers’ seat. For more ‘cool’ changes, you can alter things like the compression ratios of the pistons (or removing the speed alarms) by plugging in a computer with the requisite port to the car.

So you need to understand technology and software to change a car’s character. But as an automotive writer, I increasingly find myself delving more and more into chemistry. Inorganic chemistry, which is non-Carbon chemistry basically, thanks to the development of electric vehicles. They force me to apply my mind to electro-chemical properties of batteries — What are the advantages and disadvantages of one battery chemistry such as Lithium-NMC versus another, such as LFD? Or keep track of new chemistries such as Sodium-Ion and Aluminium-Ion. This, notwithstanding the knowledge required to understand the intricacies of the electrical grid and charging ecosystem.

The hydrogen push

Most vehicles run on Hydrocarbons, the chains of Hydrogen and Carbon atoms that make up natural gas, petrol, diesel and more. All from the realm of Organic chemistry. And while cars have run on petrol since, well, Karl Benz invented the car, even this space is seeing massive change. I have written about the government’s plan to introduce more ethanol blending into the petrol you fill every day. But now there is the National Green Hydrogen Mission, a massive Rs 19,744 crore project that aims to produce five million tonnes of hydrogen affordably by 2030.

There are articles on ThePrint website that explain the Modi government’s plans better, and I’d recommend them to you. The reason I am bringing up Hydrogen here is because the automotive sector will play a critical role in the government’s ambitious Hydrogen push. And a recent conversation I had with Rajeev Singh, Partner and Lead, Automotive Practice at the consultancy firm Deloitte India made that quite apparent.

There are a couple of hydrogen-powered cars in India, one of which is a Toyota Mirai. It is used by Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari who often jokes about the fact that his car needs to travel all the way up to Faridabad to be refilled. Why Faridabad? That is because India’s only hydrogen filling station that belongs to Indian Oil is located there. And as of the Auto Expo in January, it was under maintenance. Now that may raise the practicality issues associated with the fuel.

But Rajeev Singh says that Hydrogen will be the fuel of the future, particularly for long-haul transport and some types of cars, because of the government’s commitment to this. And while cars like the Mirai and other various hydrogen-powered vehicles made by the likes of BMW, Honda, Hyundai and Toyota use Fuel-Cell technology, Singh said he believes that it will be hydrogen combustion that will drive the Indian automotive sector’s hydrogen push.

A little bit about fuel-cells and combustion. The latter is easier to understand: Hydrogen will combust in the presence of oxygen and produce energy (and water). But storing this hydrogen is a challenge and the modifications required in car engines to burn the fuel are going to be an issue.

The fuel-cell technology is ostensibly easier. Fuel cells require less hydrogen but need a lot of expensive metals such as platinum to play a role as electrolysers. In a fuel-cell, hydrogen and oxygen combine not to burn but produce electricity. When I drove the Toyota Mirai in and around Dhyan Chand Stadium a few years ago, it was most often running on power from the battery pack that stored the energy produced. In essence, a fuel-cell vehicle is akin to a hybrid.

Fuel cells are expensive. While they might make sense for large applications such as trucks, and also space vehicles, for mass adoption of hydrogen, Rajeev Singh says, combustion engines are the only way around and new developments in hydrogen combustion should make that possible.

There are issues around hydrogen production, storage and most importantly transportation. One of the solutions that makes the fuel truly green is to use off-grid renewable sources of power to split water into Oxygen and Hydrogen and then convert the Hydrogen to Ammonia, which is a liquid, by adding Nitrogen and then transport it by truck, or if the costs are sustainable, pipelines. Then at the distribution end remove the nitrogen and retail the hydrogen. The chemistry seems easy except it isn’t, Singh acknowledges.

So why go for Hydrogen when its adoption is riddled with challenges?

India remains a net importer of energy, even some of the coal we need for the thermal plants that power most Indian homes comes from Australia and South Africa. The move to Ethanol, another push towards greener fuel, is just a short-term fix. Singh says “while the government is bullish on Ethanol, the overall carbon benefits of blending ethanol produced from water-intensive crops is questionable. At hydrogen, the government in India and other governments in the world are looking at more seriously. And that should be the way forward for large-scale adoption, particularly in countries like India where we do not have the critical resources needed for EV batteries.”

Of course, people like Elon Musk have questioned the utility of hydrogen as a fuel. But India is on to something. Massive challenges and pitfalls are ahead, but here is the thing — if you buy a car in 2030 or beyond, it could well be running on hydrogen. But that also means chemistry is here to stay in my life.

@kushanmitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. Views are personal.

(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)