The alternative path for fossil oil: Electric vehicles or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles?

New energy vehicles are accelerating to substitute for internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) and fossil oil. Although most literature acknowledges this trend, few compare two specific substitutable paths in terms of the operation system, namely electric vehicles (EVs) and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs). This paper makes a comparative analysis of EVs and HFCVs in power sources, fuel storage and transportation, fuel supply infrastructure construction, and the cost and use of vehicles. Our findings indicate that electric passenger vehicles have more advantages in economy, safety, and environmental impact, in comparison with hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles. Nevertheless, great efforts should still be made to develop advanced rapid charging technology, shorten charging time, and accelerate charging infrastructure construction. Then, it is just around the corner for EVs to gradually take over from traditional motor vehicles driven by oil. In contrast, popularizing hydrogen fuel cell passenger vehicles faces several insurmountable obstacles in the short run, such as the high hydrogen production price, complicated storage process, and expensive hydrogen refueling station infrastructure. However, hydrogen fuel cell commercial vehicles have unique application scenarios. The dislocation and complementarity principle in different scenarios of EVs and HFCVs is supposed to be firmly grasped.

Urbanization and energy equity: an urban-rural gap perspective.

A high-speed urban expansion in China over the past two decades has been accompanied by a great leap forward for energy consumption. However, such a significant socio-economic transition may increase the potential risk of energy inequality, which deserves special attention. Using China's provincial panel data covering the periods of 1997-2020, this paper mainly studies the impact of urbanization on urban-rural electricity consumption inequality with a modified STRIPAT model. The results of the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation show that there is a significant U-shaped relationship between urbanization and urban-rural electricity consumption inequality. The estimated short-run turning point arrives at the urbanization level of around 63.54% and 61.18% for the long-run estimates. We further carry out a regional heterogeneity analysis and then have two interesting findings: firstly, the colder northern region's turning point (70.95%) arrives later than the south (57.69%). Secondly, the baseline U-shaped relationship remains for developed eastern regions and the estimated turning point is 57.91%, while for the undeveloped midwestern regions, the relationship is not nonlinear but linearly negative. As an extension, we lastly explore the mechanism underlying the U-shaped relationship, and find that the interaction of urbanization's scale and efficiency effect determines the U-shaped relationship. Our findings remind policymakers that, to narrow the urban-rural development gap, the future preference of energy policy should be dynamically adaptive to varied regions and development stages.