Hydrogen Newsletter Fall 1996: Hydrogen Safety

Safety First! Hydrogen’s Double Standard

by James S. Cannon, President, Energy Futures, Inc.

The question came from the back of the room, but it raised an issue that should be front and center for all hydrogen advocates—hydrogen safety. During the question and answer period at a recent hydrogen fuel cell seminar, a man asked, “What’s to stop someone from taking a compressed hydrogen tank off of the back of a car and using it as a bomb?” A hydrogen bomb, I presumed, from the trepidation in his voice.

What made this question so startling was that it did not come from a grade-school science class, but rather from the audience at the prestigious NESEA Sustainable Transportation Conference, an annual showcase for advanced transportation technologies and meeting ground for some of the most knowledgeable people in the field. It shows that hydrogen remains “out of the loop” in some key circles. As is often the case for hydrogen, lack of knowledge expresses itself first as fear over safety.

A compressed hydrogen tank on an automobile, of course, cannot be converted into a thermonuclear device. Using it as a bomb of the conventional type is not very practical either. The storage tank has been designed specifically not to rupture, leak, or explode even when blasted with dynamite or shot with high-powered bullets. It is heavy and cumbersome to carry around for whatever nefarious purpose one may have in mind. Relative to other fuels, hydrogen is a poor choice for bomb making. If you really want an easy bomb, try a Molotov cocktail—a little gasoline in a bottle with a flaming rag stuffed in the top. Now there’s a tried and true lethal weapon.

Despite the gruesome toll taken by gasoline bombs, our society readily accepts gasoline as a automotive fuel with only the most transparent of efforts to prevent its use as a weapon. The only measure to obstruct the making of Molotov cocktails is a law prohibiting refueling stations from selling gasoline in glass bottles. In this day of self-service, who is around to see? At worst, you have to buy the gasoline in a metal can and decant it into a glass bottle somewhere else.

When it comes to perceptions about safety, the sad fact is that hydrogen faces a double standard. What is accepted as a reasonable safety risk involving gasoline may not be deemed safe enough if hydrogen is involved. Codes, standards, and operating procedures will ultimately be established to cover safety issues from all aspects of hydrogen production and use. The lack of comprehensive, universally accepted, safe practices for hydrogen today, however, could be a major stumbling block to hydrogen deployment. Unless local permitting and licensing agencies, insurance companies, and product underwriters are convinced that hydrogen can be handled and used safely, they could stop the very hydrogen demonstration projects needed to prove that hydrogen can be used safely.

Hydrogen is not the first alternative fuel to challenge the status quo, to face safety concerns, or to find its path to commercialization blocked by institutional barriers related to codes and standards. The natural gas vehicle industry has faced a number of very frustrating obstacles, including the battle to get permission to drive natural gas vehicles (NGVs) through the tunnels or over the bridges in New York City.

About 10 years ago, a serious effort was launched to increase the use of NGVs in New York City. Cars and trucks were converted to run on natural gas, refueling stations were built, and laws were enacted to encourage or require use of alternative fuels. No sooner was the program off and running than it was discovered that a 50-year-old regulation prohibited NGVs from many of the city’s major bridges and tunnels. Because Manhattan is an island, and a small one at that, this regulation threatened to be a real show-stopper.

It turned out that the regulation dated back to May, 1949, when a collision and fire occurred in the Holland Tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. The accident involved 10 heavy-duty freight trucks, including one tanker filled with highly flammable carbon disulfide. The tanker ruptured upon impact, igniting a fire that engulfed the other trucks. The accident closed the tunnel for one week, and more than 650 tons of charred debris were eventually removed. The 10 truck bodies had fused into one solid mass of metal. Painting one broad brush stroke, the resulting regulation banned a wide assortment of substances, including natural gas, from the region’s tunnels and even a few of its bridges.

Attempts to convince modern-day regulators about the safety advantages of natural gas vehicles and the unreasonableness of the antiquated restriction failed. Finally, in 1989, several natural gas utilities and the State Energy Research and Development Authority jointly funded an comprehensive safety analysis of fuel-related accidents in tunnels. The $1.2 million study discovered that modern tunnel environments, fanned by high-powered ventilation systems, would quickly remove and disperse gaseous fuels safely above ground in the event of an accident.

The real safety risks in tunnel accidents, it turned out, stems from liquid gasoline spills. In fact, the study concluded that the safety risks from an accident involving a small gasoline-powered passenger car exceeded the worst case natural gas vehicle accident scenario involving a full-size transit bus. In 1990, the tunnel restriction against natural gas vehicles was removed and the NGV industry moved on to its next hurdle—clearing NGVs for parking in covered garages.

The hydrogen community would do well to move expeditiously to establish clear ground rules for the handling of hydrogen in real world circumstances. This approach, along with broad public education efforts about hydrogen safety, can pay big dividends by ensuring that hydrogen demonstration projects won’t be shut down before they have a chance to get off the ground.

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