Comment on The American Physical Society Hydrogen Report

Amory B. Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) critiques the March 2004 American Physical Society (APS) report "The Hydrogen Initiative," arguing that it reaches erroneous conclusions regarding hydrogen economics and storage due to outdated assumptions and methodological flaws.

• The APS panel's claim that no existing material can meet consumer benchmarks for hydrogen fuel tanks is based on the fallacy of assuming current heavy and inefficient vehicle designs. Lovins asserts that commercial filament-wound carbon-fiber tanks can meet benchmarks—including a 300-mile range and 3-5 minute fill—if used in ultralight vehicles made of advanced polymer composites.
• Lovins disputes the APS panel's conclusion that natural-gas-reformed hydrogen costs must drop by 4x to compete with $1.50/gallon gasoline. He argues that distributed miniature reformers or hydrogen piped from near-urban refineries can be competitive when accounting for the 2-3x tank-to-wheels efficiency advantage of fuel cells over gasoline Otto engines.
• The document states that electrolytic hydrogen is too expensive to be viable unless electricity costs are below 2¢/kWh. Consequently, Lovins argues that electrolytic or thermolytic hydrogen does not justify further R&D investment or subsidies for nuclear power, asserting that nuclear technologies cannot meet this cost target.
• The APS report is criticized for omitting a strategy to integrate fuel-cell deployment across both mobile and stationary applications to accelerate the transition. Lovins attributes these errors to a methodology that relied on distilling a narrow range of outdated, often governmental, sources rather than conducting new scientific analysis.

APA

Lovins, A. B. (2004). Comment on The American Physical Society Hydrogen Report. RMI. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_T04-06_APSH2Report.pdf

Chicago

Lovins, Amory B. Comment on The American Physical Society Hydrogen Report. RMI, 2004. https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_T04-06_APSH2Report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Lovins |first1=Amory B. |title=Comment on The American Physical Society Hydrogen Report |publisher=RMI |date=July 2004 |url=https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_T04-06_APSH2Report.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{lovins2004comment, author = {Lovins, Amory B.}, title = {{Comment on The American Physical Society Hydrogen Report}}, publisher = {RMI}, year = {2004}, month = jul, url = {https://rmi.org/app/uploads/2017/05/RMI_Document_Repository_Public-Reprts_T04-06_APSH2Report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }