Last week a 109 page document on hydrogen internal combustion engines (H2ICEs) was published by the Hydrogen Delivery Council which had a group emphasising the need for Non Road Mobile Machinery, in other words diggers, trucks and bulldozers operating on construction or mining sites. JCB, for example, has been working on a £100M project to make their machines run on hydrogen, but still using a modified diesel engine, while dismissing the fuel cell=battery electric versions. There are two major problems with this push-back approach to electric transport. The first is that emissions of NOx and nanoparticles are still poisoning the air quality, though reductions are described; the second snag is that electric machines create less heat, and therefore use about half the energy of combustion vehicles. We should really be aiming for zero emissions, recognising that the companies backing this new report, eg Volvo, Cummins, JCB and Johnson-Matthey are dragging their feet, demanding business as usual. In reality, they want buses, trucks, vans and taxis to go in this direction too, which would be a disaster.
We must react against this attempt very strongly and maintain the push to Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEVs) that have taken 34 years already to be accepted.