The Hindenburg disaster didn’t just kill 36 people in Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937. It killed the public’s faith in hydrogen for decades. The airship was a blimp of gas, literally. Hydrogen is the simplest element in the universe—one proton, one electron, the lightest atom there is. It also packs a violent punch. When you mix that lightest fuel with oxygen and add a spark, you get vast energy release. The public saw that energy release in fire and twisted metal.
Fear took hold. The “hydrogen fear factor” became a permanent fixture in the cultural psyche. For a long time, no one wanted to touch the stuff with a ten-foot pole.
Now, we’re looking at a different kind of crisis. Oil supplies are tightening. Emissions are choking the sky. Energy researchers are circling back to hydrogen with fresh eyes. It promises a clean alternative. No greenhouse gases. Just water vapor and heat as byproducts. It has the highest energy output by weight of any fuel available. It’s plentiful, too. You can pull it from natural gas or split it from water.
But there’s a catch. We are still asking if hydrogen fuel cell cars are actually safe. And more importantly, how do you even use it? The technology exists, but the hurdles are steep.
The Storage Problem
The main issue isn’t generating hydrogen. It’s storing it. To get any meaningful range from a hydrogen car, you need a lot of gas. Compressing hydrogen requires immense pressure. Most current systems compress the gas to 700 bar. That’s about 10,000 pounds per square inch.
Handling that pressure introduces new risks. You aren’t just dealing with a flammable gas anymore. You are dealing with a compressed bomb. The tanks need to be incredibly strong. Carbon fiber wrapped around a plastic liner is the standard solution today. It’s expensive. It’s heavy. And it’s complex to manufacture at scale.
Refueling Infrastructure
Where do you fill up? There are no hydrogen stations. Not really. The network is sparse. You might find a pump in California, maybe in Japan or Germany. But in most of the world, you’re out of luck. This infrastructure gap creates a chicken-and-egg problem. People won’t buy the cars without stations. Companies won’t build stations without cars.
Building stations is expensive. The pumps need to handle high-pressure dispensing safely. They need specialized safety systems that gas stations don’t require. The cost to build a single hydrogen station can run into millions of dollars. Compare that to a standard gas pump or even an electric charger.
The Efficiency Question
Then there’s the efficiency debate. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are often touted as cleaner than battery electric vehicles (BEVs). But the math gets murky. You have to generate the hydrogen first. Electrolysis uses electricity to split water. That process loses energy. Then you compress it. Then you transport it. Then you put it in a fuel cell to turn it back into electricity to drive the motor.
Each step adds loss. Battery electric vehicles charge directly. Less conversion steps. Less energy wasted. Hydrogen fuel cells offer a different advantage—fast refueling and longer range. But the overall
Hydrogen isn’t a source. It’s a carrier.
Think of electricity. You can’t burn electrons in a piston. But you generate electricity by burning coal, gas, or oil. That electricity travels to your outlet. Hydrogen works the same way. It holds energy created during production.
This distinction matters because hydrogen needs input. We have to put energy in to get it out.
Compare that to oil. Oil requires drilling. Pumping. Refining. Shipping. It’s a messy, geopolitically charged supply chain. Hydrogen lets us produce fuel locally. It sidesteps the geopolitical strife tied to petroleum reserves.
The Methane Problem
The current standard is reforming. Specifically, methane reforming.
We burn natural gas to separate hydrogen from hydrocarbons. It’s the most viable method today. It’s also dirty.
We are right back at square one regarding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The car emits nothing. But the production process burns fossil fuels. It releases GHGs. The transfer is clean. The creation is not.
Clean Production Paths
Clean electricity exists. Hydroelectric power. Wind. Solar.
Hydrogen can be made the same way. Researchers are testing electrolysis powered by renewables. Some groups are even using microbes that eat algae. The microbes excrete hydrogen as waste.
These methods avoid burning fossil fuels entirely. They are still being evaluated for reliability. But they offer a path to truly clean fuel.
How Fuel Cells Work
Auto engineers built hydrogen fuel cells to solve the storage and usage puzzle.
These cells use electrochemical conversion. Hydrogen is split. Protons and electrons are separated. This split generates electricity.
The electrons flow through an external circuit. That powers the motor. The protons and electrons recombine with oxygen. The only byproduct is water.
A single cell doesn’t produce enough power for a sedan. Engineers stack them. Fuel cell stacks increase voltage and current. Put enough stacks together, and the car moves.
Storage Headaches
Storing hydrogen onboard is the bottleneck.
Two methods exist. Highly pressurized gas. Or extremely cold liquid. Cryogenic hydrogen.
Pressurized tanks work at the pump. They are heavy. Bulky.
Liquid hydrogen requires an onboard system to keep it frozen. That system adds weight. Weight kills efficiency. The vehicle has to carry the cooling infrastructure everywhere. It’s not practical for current consumer vehicles.
The Fear Factor
Research continues. Engineers are optimizing storage. They are refining the stacks.
But there is a human element. Public fear.
People picture hydrogen like gasoline. Explosive. Volatile. They imagine a fender bender turning their car into a ball of white-hot flame.
Science might crack the physics. But if drivers refuse to buy the car because they think it will explode, the technology fails. The next step isn’t just engineering. It’s psychology.
Why Hydrogen Is Actually Safer Than Gasoline
The fear of hydrogen is largely historical baggage. In practice, hydrogen is often safer than the carbon-based fuels currently chugging through our gas tanks. Liquid gasoline spills and spreads. It clings. When it ignites, it produces hot ash and intense radiant heat that burns everything nearby. Hydrogen doesn’t do that. Pure hydrogen burns without carbon, creating no hot ash and generating very little radiant heat.
There’s also physics on its side. If hydrogen leaks, it doesn’t pool on the ground. It ascends rapidly into the atmosphere. It has less time to accumulate and burn compared to a heavier fuel like propane or gasoline vapor.
Debunking the Hindenburg Myth
Both proponents and opponents of hydrogen fuel seize on the Hindenburg disaster. Opponents call it a cautionary tale. Proponents argue it’s actually exoneration for hydrogen.
The disaster wasn’t caused by the hydrogen itself. It was the aluminum powder coating the blimp’s skin to reflect sunlight—a material equivalent to rocket fuel. The cotton fabric was waterproofed with highly flammable acetate. When the fire started, the hydrogen flames burned upward because the gas is so lightweight. This left the passengers beneath relatively unmolested. Thirty-five of the 36 deaths resulted from passengers jumping from the airship. Everyone who stayed aboard survived.
The Storage Challenge: Steel vs. Composites
The real hurdle isn’t safety in use. It’s storage. We need tanks that won’t become cautionary tales in the event of a crash. What makes the best storage tank to prevent hydrogen from exploding in a car accident?
Steel is one option. These tanks are strong enough to carry hydrogen gas reliably. In an accident, a steel tank can withstand impact without puncturing or rupturing. But there’s a catch. Hydrogen is lightweight and less dense than gasoline. To hold enough fuel for a reasonable range, a steel tank would need to be much larger than a conventional gas tank. It would also be heavy. That weight kills energy efficiency.
Advanced Materials and Metal Hydrides
Composite materials look more promising than steel. Tanks made of polyethylene are lightweight and can be molded to fit a car’s chassis. They are designed to powder —absorbing impact energy by reducing to dust, ostensibly releasing the hydrogen safely into the atmosphere.
Hydrogen may ultimately be stored in materials that trap the element and release it only when needed. Metal hydride is one such technology. Certain metals trap hydrogen molecules within their structural lattice. The hydrogen stays safe until the metal is heated, at which point it releases the gas. This is particularly appealing because the heat required to release the hydrogen could come from the waste heat produced by the fuel cell itself.
The “hydrogen fear factor” isn’t stopping research. If the world is indeed running out of oil, those fears might have to be set aside. The technology is evolving, but the infrastructure is still catching up.
Lots More Information
Related HowStuffWorks Articles
- Fuel Cell Quiz
- How the Hydrogen Economy Works
- How Fuel Cells Work
- How Blimps Work
- How Electric Cars Work
- Alternative Fuel
More Great Links
- U.S. DOE Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Home Page
- Rocky Mountain Institute
- Hindenburg Disaster Radio Broadcast at National Archives
Sources
- Edwards, Peter P. “Our fear of hydrogen fuel stations.” The Times. April 21, 2008.
- Kruszelnicki, Karl S. “Hindenburg and hydrogen.” Australian Broadcasting Company. 2004.
- Murphy, Christian. “Differentiating energy sources and carriers.” Consumer Energy Council of America. July 30, 2003.
- “Fuel cell vehicles.” California Energy Commission.
- “Fuel storage.” Princton University.
- “How they work: PEM fuel cells.” Fuel Economy.gov.
- “Hydrogen facts.” Consumer Energy Council of America. 2003.
- “Hydrogen production and delivery.” National Renewable Energy Laboratory. June 1, 2007.
- “Is hydrogen dangerous?” Rocky Mountain Institute.
- “Metal hydrides.” U.S. Department of Energy. November 6, 2006.
- “Scenes from hell: Herb Morrison – Hindenburg disaster, 1937.” National Archives.
