Interesting post.

Air Products will indeed supply the hydrogen, derived from natural gas reformation, from its facility in Rotterdam. Air Products will also supply the refueling equipment as well as specialist maintenance of the equipment.

You raise a number of valid points and I’d love to hear more if you choose to investigate this issue further.

Could I ask you that you research further into this? I am a big supporter of hydrogen and fuel cell applications; however I am concerned that the partnership you refer to does not reflect a realistic approach to reducing carbon emissions. My understanding from your article is that the hydrogen will be shipped in from the continent, which I guess is in the form of liquid hydrogen? If this is the case most of the hydrogen will evaporate (possibly as high as 90%) on-route as it needs to be kept at -253 degrees to remain as a liquid, even then a vast amount of energy (around 30% of that in the hydrogen itself) is needed to cool the gas in the first place. If hydrogen was free then that would be fine however; I understand Air Products produce their hydrogen from natural gas reformation, splitting hydrogen molecules from the carbon chains, emitting CO2 in the process. As a PhD student in this area, I’m tempted to work out the well-to-wheels carbon emissions of these new “green” busses, but I fear the result may prove the Hydrogen busses to be the most polluting vehicles on the road, not due to the vehicles themselves, but due to the fuel supply method; there certainly are ways of producing hydrogen without carbon emissions, but this seems lost on the organisers, if this is the case, how could the Olympic Delivery Authority justify this move?