Preface

Summary

The world is facing a severe energy and environmental challenge – how to provide competitive and clean energy for its citizens in light of an escalating global energy demand, concerns over energy supply security, climate change and local air pollution. More specifically, with soaring crude oil prices and with conventional oil becoming harder to find and produce, and its production eventually declining, there is a growing imperative to develop alternative fuels. At the same time, governments are stepping up their efforts to address the challenges of sustainable mobility and to foster the expansion of low-carbon fuels. Against this backdrop, this book centres around the question on how the growing energy demand for transport services can be met in the long term, while adhering to the aforementioned external framework conditions.

While the road-transport sector is expected to witness a much broader portfolio of fuels in the future, the context for considering alternative fuels is dynamic and uncertain. However, there is a growing consensus that electric mobility (i.e., whereby the vehicle drive is provided by an electric motor) is going to play a significant role in transforming the transport sector and could experience a substantial uptake in the future. Under such a scenario, hydrogen-powered vehicles could capture a noticeable market share. Hydrogen is particularly promising as it has the potential to address simultaneously all the major energy policy objectives in the transport sector, i.e., greenhouse-gas emissions reduction, energy security and reduction of local air pollution.