7 ms·

It is often interesting how things are framed in international media when you know the local discussion. To put this in perspective: The role of hydrogen in th

by hannob 7y ago

It is often interesting how things are framed in international media when you know the local discussion. To put this in perspective: The role of hydrogen in the German energy system is extremely small. There are a couple of test plants, but that's about it. Yeah, lately there have been a few calls for more investments in that area, some articles discussing a larger role in the future. But it's certainly not at the center of the debate. The headline seems heavily overblown.

marcell 7y ago
Google the “Gell-Mann” effect for a name to attach to this phenomenon.
- ethbro 7y ago
  That's hilarious. Apparently Michael Crichton named it after a physicist he talked about the phenomena with, in a semi self-referential nod to the effect itself. Tl;dr: appeals to authority work, even when there's previous proof the authority has no pants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
_ph_ 7y ago
I have to second this. Mercedes has a nice fuel cell demonstrator car, but will lease out only a few of them and no larger production is planned at this time. Other than a few projects which get shown to the press to have something new to show, there is no larger activity around hydrogen in Germany.
- new_realist 7y ago
  Germany has over 100 H2 stations, with plans for 400.
  - rmoriz 7y ago
    75 https://h2.live/netzausbau https://h2.live/netzausbau
    - solarkraft 7y ago
      These are only the stations built by H2 Mobility, which is a joint venture of Daimler, Linde, Air Liquide, OMV, Shell and Total. I wonder how much money they have spent on it so far.
      - rmoriz 7y ago
        To my knowledge it includes all public available H2 stations, for example the test station by Fraunhofer. After the explosion in Oslo some of them are shut down until further notice due to rework.
the8472 7y ago
There's also a few experimental train lines running on fuel cells, they seemed successful enough that more have been ordered. Trains may be better candidates than cars. There are many non-electrified branch lines that currently run on diesel and you need far fewer gas stations that have to deal with hydrogen and all its problems.
- majewsky 7y ago
  > There's also a few experimental train lines running on fuel cells Your wording is a bit funny, so let me clarify: That's an actual train line with actual passengers. More train lines will be converted from diesel to hydrogen soon.
ethbro 7y ago
But this graphic from the article indicates that (starting in 2030) hydrogen use will soon be widespread (by 2050)! /s https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i1uJSbkueQNI/v1/960x-1.jpg https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i1uJSbkueQN...
- bubblewrap 7y ago
  Things that are projected to happen 10 to 12 years in the future seem to have a pesky tendency to happen 10 to 12 years in the future indefinitely.
jillesvangurp 7y ago
BMW just appointed a new CEO who is supposed to come up with a strategy that apparently they expect to still involve hydrogen cars. They have been partnering with Toyota on hydrogen fuel cells. The last CEO kind of failed on the BEV front after launching the i3 and then failing to follow through with more/better cars. His failure on this front is widely cited as the key reason for being replaced as they are feeling the pressure now from other manufacturers (Tesla, VW, Mercedes, etc.). The new CEO is apparently under a lot of pressure to start announcing things that are not lame concept cars to reassure investors that they are still relevant. I don't see a big hydrogen movement happening in Germany any time soon no matter what the wishful thinking on that is at BMW and elsewhere. What I do see is two of the three car manufacturers flooding the market with BEVs in the next five years. They've been a bit slow to catch up to Tesla but VW and Mercedes seem to be quite serious about ramping up production.
- kiba 7y ago
  I have no idea why auto companies are still pursuing hydrogen cars when BEV is just better?
  - rbf 7y ago
    Hard to say. Their hydrogen efforts seem half-assed at best; so maybe it is just management not yet convinced BEV will work, and assume hydrogen at some point will be good enough so they want to have some experience with it. Most likely there is internal company politics in many of these car companies which makes it hard to convert to BEV development, it will mean many people losing their jobs, factories closing, etc.
  - turbinerneiter 7y ago
    You can use hydrogen as fuel for an ICE. Given that the knowledge of German carmakers is in ICE, transmission and assembly, the have a problem with battery cars, which have no ICE and no (complex) transmission. They would be reduced to their assembly lines.
  - groestl 7y ago
    Auto companies that do this are essentialy motor engine companies. At their core, the structure is aligned to the R&D and supply chain required to build a complex machine with thousands of small parts. BEVs threaten this model, as the components are much simpler and require a different organizational structure. Hydrogen engines, in contrast, do not (or to a much lesser extend) so the relevant actors are more inclined to push this idea.
VvR-Ox 7y ago
Yes, it seems a bit clickbaity to me... The Germans sold their cheat-cars as long as they weren't detected and even now when their own children protest against the political practices regarding climate change they don't really do something serious about it. The sad thing is that this could be as good as the world will come with combating climate change. Nice.
- dgellow 7y ago
  > The Germans sold their cheat-cars You mean “some German companies”. > even now when their own children protest against the political practices regarding climate change they don't really do something serious about it. Germany is one of the best player in Europe in this domain. The country has ~35% of its electricity generated from windmills and solar panel (average during the year) and it’s in very active development. The main critic from my point of view is the fact that the country renounced using nuclear power, but that’s what people in Germany were asking for. Just look at the most recent European Parliament elections, the Green Party got more than 20% of German votes. I expect to see politics spending more of their time and budget focused on ecological and environmental issues in the future as a way to gain those votes.
  - bboygravity 7y ago
    > The main critic from my point of view is the fact that the country renounced using nuclear power, but that’s what people in Germany were asking for. Oh really? Germany held a referendum where the majority of "the people" voted against nuclear? I don't think so. There's no reliable way to know what "the people" really want other than a referendum IMO. I don't believe for a second that "we know" that this is what Germans wanted. As far as I remember Merkel used the (German) emotions during the Fukushima nuclear disaster as an argument to shut down all German Nuclear reactors. The timing: the political campaigns for the next elections about 2 weeks later. The decision to close down Germany's nuclear plants was political. The votes on Merkel (her party) are not equal to German anti-nuclear votes. I don't agree that there is a way to know that "this is what the people wanted". Let's not pretend Germany is a direct democracy... It's impressive that Germany got to 35 % renewable. It's CO2 emissions however have not gone down sufficiently to reach their 40 % reduction goal[1]. In part because "renewable" doesn't mean "no CO2 emitted". Renewables still emit significantly more CO2 than nuclear plants do per generated unit of energy. Solar panels need to be produced, transported, installed and maintained, they are not recyclable, their lifetime is very limited (25 to 50 years efficient production). A similar thing goes on with wind. Renewables are also more deadly per TWH than nuclear. Even when counting all the disasters [2]. Compare France (a nuclear power generation country) to Germany and this all becomes very clear. France has one of the lowest consumer electricity prices in Europe. Germany has the second highest consumer electricity price in the world. Yet, France has significantly lower CO2 emissions per capita. Also, the "wasted CO2 cost" of shutting down nuclear plants prematurely is not 0. Significant amounts of CO2 are produced during installing and "uninstalling" of nuclear power plants. If you close such a plant prematurely it means the tons of CO2 per generated TWH go up. Your clean nuclear plant all of a sudden becomes dirtier. I wasn't able to find or calculate how significant this is however. [1]https://duckduckgo.com/?q=germany+reduction+goal&t=ffab&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleanenergywire.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Flarge%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Farticle%2F2018%2F03%2F20180326-uba-german-greenhousegasemissions1990-2017.png%3Fitok%3DZqI2IYHV https://duckduckgo.com/?q=germany+reduction+goal&t=ffab&iar=... [2]https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...
onetimemanytime 7y ago
>>Still the Govt is investing: To get emission cuts back on track, the government announced in July that 20 new research laboratories will receive a total 100 million euros ($110 million) a year to test new hydrogen technologies for industrial-scale applications. Even more money is earmarked for labs in “structural change” regions, or those most affected by the nations’ shift.

by hannob 7y ago

marcell 7y ago

Google the “Gell-Mann” effect for a name to attach to this phenomenon.

ethbro 7y ago
That's hilarious. Apparently Michael Crichton named it after a physicist he talked about the phenomena with, in a semi self-referential nod to the effect itself. Tl;dr: appeals to authority work, even when there's previous proof the authority has no pants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect

_ph_ 7y ago

I have to second this. Mercedes has a nice fuel cell demonstrator car, but will lease out only a few of them and no larger production is planned at this time. Other than a few projects which get shown to the press to have something new to show, there is no larger activity around hydrogen in Germany.

new_realist 7y ago
Germany has over 100 H2 stations, with plans for 400.
- rmoriz 7y ago
  75 https://h2.live/netzausbau https://h2.live/netzausbau
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    These are only the stations built by H2 Mobility, which is a joint venture of Daimler, Linde, Air Liquide, OMV, Shell and Total. I wonder how much money they have spent on it so far.
    - rmoriz 7y ago
      To my knowledge it includes all public available H2 stations, for example the test station by Fraunhofer. After the explosion in Oslo some of them are shut down until further notice due to rework.

the8472 7y ago

There's also a few experimental train lines running on fuel cells, they seemed successful enough that more have been ordered. Trains may be better candidates than cars. There are many non-electrified branch lines that currently run on diesel and you need far fewer gas stations that have to deal with hydrogen and all its problems.

majewsky 7y ago
> There's also a few experimental train lines running on fuel cells Your wording is a bit funny, so let me clarify: That's an actual train line with actual passengers. More train lines will be converted from diesel to hydrogen soon.

ethbro 7y ago

But this graphic from the article indicates that (starting in 2030) hydrogen use will soon be widespread (by 2050)! /s https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i1uJSbkueQNI/v1/960x-1.jpg https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/i1uJSbkueQN...

bubblewrap 7y ago
Things that are projected to happen 10 to 12 years in the future seem to have a pesky tendency to happen 10 to 12 years in the future indefinitely.

jillesvangurp 7y ago

BMW just appointed a new CEO who is supposed to come up with a strategy that apparently they expect to still involve hydrogen cars. They have been partnering with Toyota on hydrogen fuel cells. The last CEO kind of failed on the BEV front after launching the i3 and then failing to follow through with more/better cars. His failure on this front is widely cited as the key reason for being replaced as they are feeling the pressure now from other manufacturers (Tesla, VW, Mercedes, etc.). The new CEO is apparently under a lot of pressure to start announcing things that are not lame concept cars to reassure investors that they are still relevant. I don't see a big hydrogen movement happening in Germany any time soon no matter what the wishful thinking on that is at BMW and elsewhere. What I do see is two of the three car manufacturers flooding the market with BEVs in the next five years. They've been a bit slow to catch up to Tesla but VW and Mercedes seem to be quite serious about ramping up production.

kiba 7y ago
I have no idea why auto companies are still pursuing hydrogen cars when BEV is just better?
- rbf 7y ago
  Hard to say. Their hydrogen efforts seem half-assed at best; so maybe it is just management not yet convinced BEV will work, and assume hydrogen at some point will be good enough so they want to have some experience with it. Most likely there is internal company politics in many of these car companies which makes it hard to convert to BEV development, it will mean many people losing their jobs, factories closing, etc.
- turbinerneiter 7y ago
  You can use hydrogen as fuel for an ICE. Given that the knowledge of German carmakers is in ICE, transmission and assembly, the have a problem with battery cars, which have no ICE and no (complex) transmission. They would be reduced to their assembly lines.
- groestl 7y ago
  Auto companies that do this are essentialy motor engine companies. At their core, the structure is aligned to the R&D and supply chain required to build a complex machine with thousands of small parts. BEVs threaten this model, as the components are much simpler and require a different organizational structure. Hydrogen engines, in contrast, do not (or to a much lesser extend) so the relevant actors are more inclined to push this idea.

VvR-Ox 7y ago

Yes, it seems a bit clickbaity to me... The Germans sold their cheat-cars as long as they weren't detected and even now when their own children protest against the political practices regarding climate change they don't really do something serious about it. The sad thing is that this could be as good as the world will come with combating climate change. Nice.

dgellow 7y ago
> The Germans sold their cheat-cars You mean “some German companies”. > even now when their own children protest against the political practices regarding climate change they don't really do something serious about it. Germany is one of the best player in Europe in this domain. The country has ~35% of its electricity generated from windmills and solar panel (average during the year) and it’s in very active development. The main critic from my point of view is the fact that the country renounced using nuclear power, but that’s what people in Germany were asking for. Just look at the most recent European Parliament elections, the Green Party got more than 20% of German votes. I expect to see politics spending more of their time and budget focused on ecological and environmental issues in the future as a way to gain those votes.
- bboygravity 7y ago
  > The main critic from my point of view is the fact that the country renounced using nuclear power, but that’s what people in Germany were asking for. Oh really? Germany held a referendum where the majority of "the people" voted against nuclear? I don't think so. There's no reliable way to know what "the people" really want other than a referendum IMO. I don't believe for a second that "we know" that this is what Germans wanted. As far as I remember Merkel used the (German) emotions during the Fukushima nuclear disaster as an argument to shut down all German Nuclear reactors. The timing: the political campaigns for the next elections about 2 weeks later. The decision to close down Germany's nuclear plants was political. The votes on Merkel (her party) are not equal to German anti-nuclear votes. I don't agree that there is a way to know that "this is what the people wanted". Let's not pretend Germany is a direct democracy... It's impressive that Germany got to 35 % renewable. It's CO2 emissions however have not gone down sufficiently to reach their 40 % reduction goal[1]. In part because "renewable" doesn't mean "no CO2 emitted". Renewables still emit significantly more CO2 than nuclear plants do per generated unit of energy. Solar panels need to be produced, transported, installed and maintained, they are not recyclable, their lifetime is very limited (25 to 50 years efficient production). A similar thing goes on with wind. Renewables are also more deadly per TWH than nuclear. Even when counting all the disasters [2]. Compare France (a nuclear power generation country) to Germany and this all becomes very clear. France has one of the lowest consumer electricity prices in Europe. Germany has the second highest consumer electricity price in the world. Yet, France has significantly lower CO2 emissions per capita. Also, the "wasted CO2 cost" of shutting down nuclear plants prematurely is not 0. Significant amounts of CO2 are produced during installing and "uninstalling" of nuclear power plants. If you close such a plant prematurely it means the tons of CO2 per generated TWH go up. Your clean nuclear plant all of a sudden becomes dirtier. I wasn't able to find or calculate how significant this is however. [1]https://duckduckgo.com/?q=germany+reduction+goal&t=ffab&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleanenergywire.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2Flarge%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Farticle%2F2018%2F03%2F20180326-uba-german-greenhousegasemissions1990-2017.png%3Fitok%3DZqI2IYHV https://duckduckgo.com/?q=germany+reduction+goal&t=ffab&iar=... [2]https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-d...

onetimemanytime 7y ago

>>Still the Govt is investing: To get emission cuts back on track, the government announced in July that 20 new research laboratories will receive a total 100 million euros ($110 million) a year to test new hydrogen technologies for industrial-scale applications. Even more money is earmarked for labs in “structural change” regions, or those most affected by the nations’ shift.