Review of the Effects of Fossil Fuels and the Need for a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Policy in Malaysia
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript reviews the effects of fossil fuel usage and highlights the need for a hydrogen/ fuel cell policy in Malaysia. The manuscript presents interesting data about fossil fuel, CO2 emissions, and some general proposals for hydrogen usage by means of fuel cells; in a certain degree of data mining of other published sources. However, the presentation of data is boring and poor because it is only text. The addition of graphs and images would improve the interest of potential readers. Thus, I encourage authors to present data in graphs or images.
While presenting interesting data from several countries, I would expect more data and facts about Malaysia's situation facing hydrogen and fuel cells. Include information such as How much hydrogen is used currently? Who is producing it? Who is using it? What is the expected increase in hydrogen usage in the future? How much of the population would be benefited? etc.
Page 7 line 326: "Thus the alternative source of energy is abundant"; hydrogen is not an abundant source of energy. Hydrogen is abundant in the universe, but it is bonded to other elements. Hydrogen (H2) must be produced using another source (in mass and energy). Correct that concept.
Table 1: Hydrogen and fuel cells are not included, it would be interesting to compare the cost (as many times mentioned in the manuscript) and CO2 emissions.
Several English grammar and spelling errors must be corrected.
Author Response
Please check yellow highlight
- graphics inserted to make the discussion interesting
- the concept on 'abundant' has been corrected
- the cost of hydrogen included in Table 1
- hydrogen roadmap in Malaysia included
- grammatical errors checked
Reviewer 2 Report
The main contribution of the article is to propose a specific policy for the application of fuel cell towards achieving a carbon free society in Malaysia. Stakeholders need to prioritize a hydrogen as a potential energy source in the future was also highlighted. Scientific evidence to support this contribution were quite weak.
Thematic analysis is good approach but it should be described more detail how it has been applied in this research.
Results chapter is more like discussion about the topic but how these results are derived from this research is unclear.
The appropriateness of references is unclear because only 20% of references are less than fife years old.
No-one of references are in the 2020s. This may end-up to conclusion that the research has been done in the year 2020? How relevant are the results nowadays because awareness of carbon emission has increased very fast in the last years.
Recently, hydrogen has been seen as one potential method to manage the one big challenge of renewal energies which is variability depending on solar and wind. So, the energy generated from the renewable sources could be stored to hydrogen and this would support to expand the usage of the renewable energy sources. This aspect was not highlighted in the article.
Based on the above remarks I don't see the manuscript's results enough meaningfull to be published in this journal.
Author Response
Revisions highlighted in blue
The main contribution of the article is to propose a specific policy for the application of fuel cells towards achieving a carbon free society in Malaysia. Stakeholders need to prioritize hydrogen as a potential energy source in the future was also highlighted. Scientific evidence to support this contribution was quite weak.
The findings and suggestion are based on the qualitative data analysed through Atlas.ti 8, this has been elaborated in 3.1: Data from Atlas.ti 8
Thematic analysis is a good approach but it should be described in more detail how it has been applied in this research.
Thematic analysis based on qualitative data guides authors on further findings and related suggestions.
Results chapter is more like discussion about the topic but how these results are derived from this research is unclear.
The findings and discussions are based on thematic analysis.
The appropriateness of references is unclear because only 20% of references are less than five years old. No-one references the 2020s. This may end-up to the conclusion that the research has been done in the year 2020? How relevant are the results nowadays because awareness of carbon emission has increased very fast in the last few years.
Older references have been replaced by recent ones, the oldest are only 2012 articles, not 2004.
Recently, hydrogen has been seen as one potential method to manage the one big challenge of renewal energies which is variability depending on solar and wind. So, the energy generated from the renewable sources could be stored to hydrogen and this would support the expansion of the usage of the renewable energy sources. This aspect was not highlighted in the article.
Relevant discussion is added as requested (in the conclusion section).
Thank you.
Reviewer 3 Report
In this paper, the effects of fossil fuel and the need for a hydrogen fuel cell policy in Malaysia are reviewed and reported. The pare is well organized and written. But two important issues shown below must be addressed before acceptance.
1) In Results section, some important data cited were published 10-15 years ago. Now it is 2022, the latest data should be referred instead of those published 15 years ago.
2) Page 5, it is stated that “To resolve this issue, the government of Malaysia has, amongst other initiatives, established a Rural Electrification Program to intensify energy accessibility by 99 percent in 2020” in Line 241-244. The same statement can be found in Line 250-252. What happened? Please check and confirm.
Author Response
1) New references have been inserted, the oldest is 10 years old (2012)
2) Line 241-244 deleted as repeated Line 250-252
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript "Reviews of the effects of fossil fuel and the need for a hydrogen fuel cell policy in Malaysia" has improved slightly since the last version.
Figures 1-3 really do not improve the quality of the manuscript, they are colorful images but no novelty in the field is indicated. Statistical data, data mining, or data processed in infographics are better and thus recommended.
In contrast, Figure 4 is very interesting. Additionally, as the road map has information since 2005, it would be interesting to comment on the degree of compliance of the Malaysian government or policymakers with such objectives.
A few corrections were made from the last version and English/ spelling/ formulae errors are still present.
I cannot recommend the publication of the manuscript.
Author Response
Figures 1-3 really do not improve the quality of the manuscript, they are colorful images, but no novelty in the field is indicated. Statistical data, data mining, or data processed in infographics are better and thus recommended.
Figures 4-7 have been added to support the arguments.
In contrast, Figure 4 is very interesting. Additionally, as the road map has information since 2005, it would be interesting to comment on the degree of compliance of the Malaysian government or policymakers with such objectives.
Figure 4 (now Figure 8) has been moved to new sub-paragraph to match the following recommendation.
A few corrections were made from the last version, and English/ spelling/ formulae errors are still present.
The manuscript has undergone the Grammarly software check, whereby 475 mistakes were amended. Hope the manuscript can be considered for publication, thank you.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
My comments have been taken into account in this revision.
Author Response
Thank you for your kind consideration.
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors of "Reviews of the Effects of Fossil Fuel and the Need for a Hydrogen Fuel Cell Policy in Malaysia" made quite an improvement of the manuscript. Now it is more readable and interesting. The authors addressed the main points of this reviewer. Thus, the manuscript can be accepted for publication in sustainability MDPI. However, it is recommendable a revision of English grammar and spelling.
