US hydrogen-infrastructure results

The SSCHISM infrastructure model calculates the cost of the potential hydrogen pathway-supply options shown in Table 15.3 for 73 of the largest US urbanised areas and selects the cheapest supply pathway in each city at a specified market penetration. The cheapest pathway choice for any given city depends on the size of the city, level of demand, demand density, and local energy and feedstock prices. 

In the real world, it is possible that these early stations could be supplied using excess hydrogen from industrial or refinery sources, rather than dedicated hydrogen production facilities, but this option is not included in the model. 

9 All coal and central natural-gas hydrogen plants are assumed to have carbon-capture and sequestration (CCS). Biomass hydrogen plants are assumed to be smaller (30-200 tonnes/day), compared with 50-400 tonnes/day for natural gas central SMRs, and 250-1200 tonnes/day for coal plants. We use a regional biomass supply curve (which specifies the amount of biomass available at a certain /tonne) (Walsh et al., 1999), to reflect biomass feedstock cost increases as demand grows. 

Given the low cost and abundance of coal, we find that coal-based hydrogen with CCS is the cheapest central production technology in many parts of the USA. 

Refuelling stations Pipeline delivery Biomass plants NG plants Coal plants Onsite SMR 

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