According to researcher Carlos Roldán, from the Technological Institute of Costa Rica (TEC),
Today, if a person consumes 20 thousand colones in gasoline per week, with hydrogen they would have to pay 44 thousand colones.”
The hydrogen project is powered by Dr. Franklin Chang Díaz. However, a group of energy specialists point out that although at a technical level the initiative is feasible, the economic part would become a very expensive bill to pay for Costa Ricans, because the cost of hydrogen production is very high.
The specialist says that electric vehicles are more efficient than hydrogen-based vehicles. A hydrogen car requires an electricity consumption 2.7 times higher than an electric vehicle operated with batteries.
In very few scenarios hydrogen is a real alternative for the transportation sector. The World Energy Council estimates that by 2060, only 2% of global transport will run with hydrogen,”
explained the consultant.
According to Roldán’s calculations, Costa Ricans paid $2,407 million in fuels in 2016, but if they used hydrogen, the bill would be $5,350 million.
Dr. Chang’s proposal implies that the cost of energy for transportation would increase on average by 122%.”
On March 3rd, astronaut Franklin Chang presented the lecture “Costa Rica making history: From oil to hydrogen” to the Legislative Assembly, where he proposed his project for a public bus to travel Liberia using hydrogen from June.
The country has enough energy to generate its own fuel at home, it does not have to buy oil. We are looking for it to be self-sustainable and to allow us to validate a model for Costa Rica,”
said Chang in early March.
Since March 8th, an attempt has been made to know the Ad Astra criterion about Roldán’s questioning regarding the high price of producing hydrogen, but 13 days later, they have not responded.