Letters to the Editor: Hydrogen isn’t perfect, but it’s our best shot at abandoning diesel

To the editor: Climate columnist Sammy Roth has it right — hydrogen is both a huge opportunity and a significant challenge with real complexity. But he fails to mention the villain that hydrogen can help us defeat: diesel fuel.

Most of the vehicles and equipment that will use hydrogen fuel cells (which do not burn hydrogen, but create electricity) are now powered by diesel fuel, the dominant source of the worst of our air pollution.

Diesel is a major cause of lung cancer, especially in communities along our freeways or near the ports. Using hydrogen fuel cells to end the use of diesel fuel while also reducing carbon emissions will be an even greater environmental justice benefit.

We believe — and it is our understanding — that the Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems has prioritized green hydrogen created through electrolysis, whereby electricity is passed through water to yield hydrogen, and whereby the electricity used in this process is itself wholly renewable.

But it is possible that some hydrogen production may need to use grid power, which is currently a mix of renewable and fossil fuel power. This is no different from the grid electricity used to charge nearly all electric vehicles, knowing that by 2045 California’s grid will be 100% renewable.

Denny Zane, Los Angeles

The writer is policy director of the transit advocacy group Move LA.

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To the editor: Of all the ill-advised approaches to addressing what can rightly also be called the energy crisis, hydrogen is probably the winner. Has anyone actually penciled out the cost-benefits of this approach? Unlikely, as it would quickly show that this is a losing proposition.

You need energy to create free hydrogen — and then you are going to use that same hydrogen to create energy. Elementary thermodynamics must be lost on the policymakers promoting hydrogen.

Geothermal energy would be a much better investment. It is inexhaustible. It has a low surface footprint. It uses technology that the fossil fuel industry has already developed. It is everywhere.

Please, California, redirect these funds for hydrogen toward something useful.

Bart Woolery, Santa Barbara