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I used to drive a hydrogen car once in a while a few years ago. It was nice to fill the car in a few minutes and get about 300km of range, but that was it. Wit

I used to drive a hydrogen car once in a while a few years ago. It was nice to fill the car in a few minutes and get about 300km of range, but that was it. With the hydrogen you have so few refueling stations, they are very expensive, that range anxiety is a thing. To not improve things, reliability is very poor. My work had a hydrogen refueling station on its parking. It was often broken and actually a bit scary to walk past it. They eventually removed it, which was a good call. Another hydrogen station sharing the same design exploded a few months later. The hydrogen car sales dropped from not much to virtually zero since in the country. So to resume, hydrogen cars are expensive, refueling stations are expensive, the energy is expensive. Electric cars with large batteries are a much better solution to hydrogen cars IMHO. You can charge everywhere, the eletric grid is very will developped, the energy is cheap. The cars are also much more powerful thanks to the large batteries pack, it's useless but it feels nice.

Dumblydorr 6y ago
The issue of charging was also there with BEVs, until Tesla straight up built a huge network of superchargers. The players in hydrogen say they will do the same. But for personal vehicles, hydrogen won't math out, it's greatest advantage is its energy density for trucks. It's for long range trucks that we will see hydrogen first. Green hydrogen will act as energy storage, big renewables grids can dump excess into green hydrogen and thus avoid curtailment. Then, you replace heavy duty trucks, which need to be able to not have heavy batteries, with fuel cell trucks, and you build out 1000 large hydrogen stations across the transit network.
- RobertoG 6y ago
  Maybe ships is an even better fit than trucks?
  - hwillis 6y ago
    Trucks are explicitly limited by weight, ships are somewhat limited by volume. Container ships especially need to be loaded way up because the cargo is less dense than eg crude oil. Heavy trucks are also a much bigger issue than international shipping, which is only ~2% of global GHG. 6.7% of US GHG emissions come from medium and heavy duty trucks, or 23% of emissions due to transportation.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    Would it be though? I understand ships are heavy polluters, but the areas they are polluting in are much larger than trucks in traffic in cities. Cities are so much more dense, and you can see that effect in satellite imagery.
  - Eric_WVGG 6y ago
    I was wondering the same thing, from a density perspective. And similarly for airplanes. As planes and boats expend fuel, they get lighter, so less fuel is needed to move the second half of the journey, and less for the last quarter, etc. That “bonus” doesn’t work out with batteries, you need to move all the weight for all the journey. The energy density of batteries, to my understanding, just doesn’t add up correctly for boats or most airplanes. What I would like to know is, wouldn’t a hydrogen-powered boat or plane not only have a similar calculation on how much fuel is needed, but also (in the case of boats) be even cheaper to move because its fuel payload is lighter than water? Water 997kg/m3 vs liquid hydro 71kg/m3, also gasoline 783kg/m3, sounds like a nice bonus for jumbo jets too. (I am NOT a physicist or mechanical engineer) Gasoline-powered sea vessels are terrible polluters, incidentally, accounting for 18% of all air pollution. Between the air pollution benefits and possibility of the vessels being so much more fuel efficient, it seems like hydrogen would be a benefit even if the production isn’t completely clean.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      with batteries, you need to move all the weight for all the journey For metal-air batteries, one of the more promising areas of research, the problem is actually worse: the cells gain mass as oxygen is reacted with the metal anode, discharging the battery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal–air_electrochemical_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal–air_electrochemical_cell For marine propulsion, heavy fuels are typically preferred (bunker fuel typically, thogh deisel and petrol engines do exist). Much of the pollution is in the form of particulates and sulfer emissions. You can actually see major shipping routes on atmospheric sensing maps by SO2 emissions: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=so2smass/orthographic=-257.23,7.16,346 https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/ove... As long-term risks these are ... somewhat minor as these contaminants settle out quickly: in days to months rather than centuries to millennia for CO2 and methane. Not great for respiratory health, but not the long-term planetary risk fossil fuel combustion overall is.
      - MayeulC 6y ago
        > For metal-air batteries, one of the more promising areas of research, the problem is actually worse: the cells gain mass as oxygen is reacted with the metal anode, discharging the battery. That's interesting, thank you for the info. Having a different characteristic from the usual one might lead to interesting applications. For instance, airplanes use a lot of fuel for takeoff, as they pay double the price for the weight of their fuel: they need to carry it up, when they have the most. This could actually be a game-changer, I think. That could also be exploited: raise the battery when it is charged, have it gain weight, generate electricity while lowering it. Perpetual motion doesn't exist, of course. But gaining a bit of extra mileage is theoretically possible here :)
  - eqvinox 6y ago
    Or non-electrified railways. A modern "diesel" engine is actually diesel-electrical anyways, since curiously diesel->electric->movement is more efficient than straight diesel->movement. For a hydrogen-electrical engine you could presumably stick one or two special tanker cars behind it with the necessary tech to keep it cool. The engine could even be dual-mode and use electrification where available (like this one already does for diesel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_ALP-45DP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_ALP-45DP ) For comparison, an ES44AC [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Evolution_Series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Evolution_Series] carries 18900l of diesel (weighing 15.7 tons), which at 38.6 MJ/l rounds to 730GJ of energy. Hydrogen seems to have a specific energy of 120-142 MJ/kg, using the conservative 120 that's about 6.1 tons of hydrogen, but now for the volume... https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage lists "0.03kg/l" as a "system target"... so 6.1 tons is 203,333l. That's 2 conventional tank cars (but those don't have any cooling or pressurization systems.) (Of course this assumes the efficiency of diesel->electrical and hydrogen->electrical to be similar, which is not the case.) P.S.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrail & https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200227-how-hydrogen-powered-trains-can-tackle-climate-change https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200227-how-hydrogen-pow...
- bogdanu 6y ago
  You can't charge your hydrogen car at home, not to mention without any special and expensive equipment.
  - chefandy 6y ago
    Can't gas up at home either. By my reckoning, if there was a huge network of hydrogen stations that should do the trick.
    - bogdanu 6y ago
      Nope, but you can with a BEV. A SMB could afford to offer a low electric charging station; heck, software companies could offer the possibility to charge their employee cars for free as a perk; even a normal outlet would be enough, 8-9 hours would be more than enough for charging. Maybe the local administration could offer some incentives to companies that have this.
  - jiofih 6y ago
    It pays off to read the comment fully before replying to it.
    - bogdanu 6y ago
      My reply was mostly meant only for the first 2 sentences, except the trucking part. I was trying to evidentiate that charging stations built by tesla supplement home charging or any normal outlet. It's a bit different than building a network of superchargers because the demand would be a lot higher because a hydrogen powered car will be fully dependent of those specially built charging stations. The main idea is that a BEV owner doesn't need a supercharger station to use his car. Sure, it'll be nice, but not mandatory; let's not forget that not everybody lives in US or W. Europe where the network is more developed.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - 6y ago
- Certhas 6y ago
  Hydrogen to avoid curtailment is key. Hydrogen is super inefficient. But if you would be dumping the energy otherwise that doesn't matter.
  - darksaints 6y ago
    Efficiency isn't, and never has been, a deal breaker. There are hundreds of millions of vehicles that have been built with efficiency levels far lower than the best in class for ICE, and they're still used. Efficiency is just one factor of many that contribute to cost of ownership and operation. Even then, fuel cells are not super inefficient. At the low end of efficiency, PEM fuel cells are already more efficient than the vast majority of current generation ICE vehicles. And with SOFCs with novel heat recuperation technologies, 85-90% efficiencies are already achievable.
- henrikschroder 6y ago
  > The issue of charging was also there with BEVs, until Tesla straight up built a huge network of superchargers. The players in hydrogen say they will do the same. The fact that EV players actually delivered and built charging networks should offer plenty of proof as to which technology is more viable. It took decades to build out the network of gas stations across countries. The reason it took much less to build out charging networks is because the power grid already existed, we already had 95% of the infrastructure for delivering the "fuel" for EVs. But hydrogen companies are still talking as if it's super simple to build out a hydrogen infrastructure. Why would that not take decades as well? And that's assuming there was some kind of massive consumer demand for hydrogen vehicles, which there just isn't.
  - Dumblydorr 6y ago
    You're forgetting decades of lithium ion buildout for personal devices. Hydrogen needs time to scale, batteries have been doing so for decades. Tesla was able to build dozens of chargers because others had invented and scaled great cylindrical batteries and they had straubel who knew how to make great packs.
- tenuousemphasis 6y ago
  >The issue of charging was also there with BEVs For long distance trips, yes. But unlike with hydrogen vehicles, charging at home is an incredibly simple proposition for BEVs.
hwillis 6y ago
And you always have full (trip) range every morning with an EV. Yes, filling up in 5 minutes is better than 20. Never needing to fill up is even better.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  > Never needing to fill up is even better. And which technology allows for that? The cars "running on water" that new age alien enthusiasts are always on about?
  - aae42 6y ago
    i think he's referring to those who have the ability to charge their car at home, effectively never having to visit actual charging station
  - freehunter 6y ago
    One of the HN guidelines is to assume good faith when you respond to a comment.
  - UnpossibleJim 6y ago
    There's also the work on wireless charging via the roadway, itself. No, it isn't working right now but it's in its infancy. Only the very first prototypes have been rolled out, and they don't wear well, admittedly. Solutions are being worked on. Technology is only limited by your imagination and your ability to problem solve. =)
    - fennecfoxen 6y ago
      Capital expenditure, in a system where resources are finite and trade-offs must be made, is a notoriously tricky problem to solve.
      - 6y ago
svara 6y ago
The article isn't about hydrogen cars and in fact points out that hydrogen cars have lots of problems.
- Ottolay 6y ago
  I hate that most people just respond to the title and don't respond to the contents of the article.
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
Maybe the way forward for the hydrogen power is to tackle the power storage in the grid first. Yes, I know that it is not very efficient, but few solutions there are efficient and we need some solution if we are going to increase reliance on solar and wind. Maybe while hydrogen energy storage will take its place in the grid, the technologies will get developed further, up to theoretically a point where a hydrogen-based car will make more sense realistically. (For example availability of hydrogen itself, the price and the number of stations around will be more allowing of it.)
amelius 6y ago
> Electric cars with large batteries are a much better solution to hydrogen cars IMHO. Electric cars are still very dangerous when they catch fire though. And the fires are very difficult to control. Especially in multistorey (or underground) car parks. And even more so if there are multiple EVs parked next to eachother.
- kolinko 6y ago
  And gasoline cars aren’t?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- speedgoose 6y ago
  Sure when the batteries burn it's a problem. But the batteries don't burn that often. For example, when a diesel car did burn inside an airport parking in Stavanger, many electric cars did burn as well but not their batteries.
- tenuousemphasis 6y ago
  Gasoline is also quite flammable.
jasonlaramburu 6y ago
When you consider the energy required to produce lithium ion batteries they are actually worse than fuel cells from an emissions perspective: “As an example, a 100kWh battery will give a potential range of 250 miles and, in order to produce that battery, it will take around 20 tonnes of CO2,” he said. “A typical battery lasts for 150,000 miles, so that equates to around 83g/km of CO2. Then, when you take into account charging over that same distance, the same battery car will deliver 124g/km of CO2 over its lifetime.” By comparison, Auto Express says that a recent study found that a Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell car produces around 120g/km of CO2 over its lifetime when the manufacturing process is taken into account. But if hydrogen were to be produced by renewable energy, that figure could be reduced significantly.” Source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/electric-cars/101196/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vs-battery-electric-cars-which-are-better https://www.theweek.co.uk/electric-cars/101196/hydrogen-fuel...
- Ottolay 6y ago
  The lithium and other metals in that battery though can be recycled at its end of life. Subsequent batteries will have lower life cycle carbon footprint.
- mcot2 6y ago
  1.) There is already tech in development for batteries to last 1M miles. https://www.autoblog.com/2020/06/11/catl-million-mile-battery-electric-cars/ https://www.autoblog.com/2020/06/11/catl-million-mile-batter... 2.) Energy required to produce the batteries will eventually shift to zero emission sources. 3.) Materials can be recycled from the battery even after its million+ mile use. It’s hard to overcome the energy required to produce hydrogen plus the bad efficiency of fuel cells compared to batteries/electric motors.
  - jasonlaramburu 6y ago
    Green energy will decarbonize hydrogen production as well.
- kolinko 6y ago
  How are those emissions calculated? Is there anything in the process that needs to generate co2? (like in concrete, where production of concrete generates co2 by itself). If this co2 is due to electricity/transportation cost then the problem will solve itself with more electricity from green sources.
darksaints 6y ago
Hydrogen may never be competitive with batteries for intermittently used passenger cars, but not all vehicles are intermittently used passenger cars. There is a lot of evidence that hydrogen can be competitive and potentially superior for vehicles which are used all day long, like taxis, delivery vehicles, etc.. And for continuous high power applications like maritime and aviation, batteries are so far from a realistic possibility that at best they are research projects. Batteries might work for ultra low range applications of trucking, like LTL and local delivery, but a lot of useful hauling capacity is given up by hauling batteries around.
Gibbon1 6y ago
I feel like the draw of hydrogen as a fuel source is that it doesn't disturb the current power structure which is based on control of oil and gas supplies. Countries have to constantly import oil and gas to power their transport networks. That requires those countries to pay in dollars (usually). Control that and you have them by the nose. Electrification completely upends that. A country that is self sufficient in energy can tell other countries to take a hike.

Dumblydorr 6y ago

The issue of charging was also there with BEVs, until Tesla straight up built a huge network of superchargers. The players in hydrogen say they will do the same. But for personal vehicles, hydrogen won't math out, it's greatest advantage is its energy density for trucks. It's for long range trucks that we will see hydrogen first. Green hydrogen will act as energy storage, big renewables grids can dump excess into green hydrogen and thus avoid curtailment. Then, you replace heavy duty trucks, which need to be able to not have heavy batteries, with fuel cell trucks, and you build out 1000 large hydrogen stations across the transit network.

RobertoG 6y ago
Maybe ships is an even better fit than trucks?
- hwillis 6y ago
  Trucks are explicitly limited by weight, ships are somewhat limited by volume. Container ships especially need to be loaded way up because the cargo is less dense than eg crude oil. Heavy trucks are also a much bigger issue than international shipping, which is only ~2% of global GHG. 6.7% of US GHG emissions come from medium and heavy duty trucks, or 23% of emissions due to transportation.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Would it be though? I understand ships are heavy polluters, but the areas they are polluting in are much larger than trucks in traffic in cities. Cities are so much more dense, and you can see that effect in satellite imagery.
- Eric_WVGG 6y ago
  I was wondering the same thing, from a density perspective. And similarly for airplanes. As planes and boats expend fuel, they get lighter, so less fuel is needed to move the second half of the journey, and less for the last quarter, etc. That “bonus” doesn’t work out with batteries, you need to move all the weight for all the journey. The energy density of batteries, to my understanding, just doesn’t add up correctly for boats or most airplanes. What I would like to know is, wouldn’t a hydrogen-powered boat or plane not only have a similar calculation on how much fuel is needed, but also (in the case of boats) be even cheaper to move because its fuel payload is lighter than water? Water 997kg/m3 vs liquid hydro 71kg/m3, also gasoline 783kg/m3, sounds like a nice bonus for jumbo jets too. (I am NOT a physicist or mechanical engineer) Gasoline-powered sea vessels are terrible polluters, incidentally, accounting for 18% of all air pollution. Between the air pollution benefits and possibility of the vessels being so much more fuel efficient, it seems like hydrogen would be a benefit even if the production isn’t completely clean.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    with batteries, you need to move all the weight for all the journey For metal-air batteries, one of the more promising areas of research, the problem is actually worse: the cells gain mass as oxygen is reacted with the metal anode, discharging the battery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal–air_electrochemical_cell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal–air_electrochemical_cell For marine propulsion, heavy fuels are typically preferred (bunker fuel typically, thogh deisel and petrol engines do exist). Much of the pollution is in the form of particulates and sulfer emissions. You can actually see major shipping routes on atmospheric sensing maps by SO2 emissions: https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=so2smass/orthographic=-257.23,7.16,346 https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/ove... As long-term risks these are ... somewhat minor as these contaminants settle out quickly: in days to months rather than centuries to millennia for CO2 and methane. Not great for respiratory health, but not the long-term planetary risk fossil fuel combustion overall is.
    - MayeulC 6y ago
      > For metal-air batteries, one of the more promising areas of research, the problem is actually worse: the cells gain mass as oxygen is reacted with the metal anode, discharging the battery. That's interesting, thank you for the info. Having a different characteristic from the usual one might lead to interesting applications. For instance, airplanes use a lot of fuel for takeoff, as they pay double the price for the weight of their fuel: they need to carry it up, when they have the most. This could actually be a game-changer, I think. That could also be exploited: raise the battery when it is charged, have it gain weight, generate electricity while lowering it. Perpetual motion doesn't exist, of course. But gaining a bit of extra mileage is theoretically possible here :)
- eqvinox 6y ago
  Or non-electrified railways. A modern "diesel" engine is actually diesel-electrical anyways, since curiously diesel->electric->movement is more efficient than straight diesel->movement. For a hydrogen-electrical engine you could presumably stick one or two special tanker cars behind it with the necessary tech to keep it cool. The engine could even be dual-mode and use electrification where available (like this one already does for diesel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_ALP-45DP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_ALP-45DP ) For comparison, an ES44AC [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Evolution_Series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_Evolution_Series] carries 18900l of diesel (weighing 15.7 tons), which at 38.6 MJ/l rounds to 730GJ of energy. Hydrogen seems to have a specific energy of 120-142 MJ/kg, using the conservative 120 that's about 6.1 tons of hydrogen, but now for the volume... https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage lists "0.03kg/l" as a "system target"... so 6.1 tons is 203,333l. That's 2 conventional tank cars (but those don't have any cooling or pressurization systems.) (Of course this assumes the efficiency of diesel->electrical and hydrogen->electrical to be similar, which is not the case.) P.S.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrail & https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200227-how-hydrogen-powered-trains-can-tackle-climate-change https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200227-how-hydrogen-pow...
bogdanu 6y ago
You can't charge your hydrogen car at home, not to mention without any special and expensive equipment.
- chefandy 6y ago
  Can't gas up at home either. By my reckoning, if there was a huge network of hydrogen stations that should do the trick.
  - bogdanu 6y ago
    Nope, but you can with a BEV. A SMB could afford to offer a low electric charging station; heck, software companies could offer the possibility to charge their employee cars for free as a perk; even a normal outlet would be enough, 8-9 hours would be more than enough for charging. Maybe the local administration could offer some incentives to companies that have this.
- jiofih 6y ago
  It pays off to read the comment fully before replying to it.
  - bogdanu 6y ago
    My reply was mostly meant only for the first 2 sentences, except the trucking part. I was trying to evidentiate that charging stations built by tesla supplement home charging or any normal outlet. It's a bit different than building a network of superchargers because the demand would be a lot higher because a hydrogen powered car will be fully dependent of those specially built charging stations. The main idea is that a BEV owner doesn't need a supercharger station to use his car. Sure, it'll be nice, but not mandatory; let's not forget that not everybody lives in US or W. Europe where the network is more developed.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- 6y ago
Certhas 6y ago
Hydrogen to avoid curtailment is key. Hydrogen is super inefficient. But if you would be dumping the energy otherwise that doesn't matter.
- darksaints 6y ago
  Efficiency isn't, and never has been, a deal breaker. There are hundreds of millions of vehicles that have been built with efficiency levels far lower than the best in class for ICE, and they're still used. Efficiency is just one factor of many that contribute to cost of ownership and operation. Even then, fuel cells are not super inefficient. At the low end of efficiency, PEM fuel cells are already more efficient than the vast majority of current generation ICE vehicles. And with SOFCs with novel heat recuperation technologies, 85-90% efficiencies are already achievable.
henrikschroder 6y ago
> The issue of charging was also there with BEVs, until Tesla straight up built a huge network of superchargers. The players in hydrogen say they will do the same. The fact that EV players actually delivered and built charging networks should offer plenty of proof as to which technology is more viable. It took decades to build out the network of gas stations across countries. The reason it took much less to build out charging networks is because the power grid already existed, we already had 95% of the infrastructure for delivering the "fuel" for EVs. But hydrogen companies are still talking as if it's super simple to build out a hydrogen infrastructure. Why would that not take decades as well? And that's assuming there was some kind of massive consumer demand for hydrogen vehicles, which there just isn't.
- Dumblydorr 6y ago
  You're forgetting decades of lithium ion buildout for personal devices. Hydrogen needs time to scale, batteries have been doing so for decades. Tesla was able to build dozens of chargers because others had invented and scaled great cylindrical batteries and they had straubel who knew how to make great packs.
tenuousemphasis 6y ago
>The issue of charging was also there with BEVs For long distance trips, yes. But unlike with hydrogen vehicles, charging at home is an incredibly simple proposition for BEVs.

hwillis 6y ago

And you always have full (trip) range every morning with an EV. Yes, filling up in 5 minutes is better than 20. Never needing to fill up is even better.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
> Never needing to fill up is even better. And which technology allows for that? The cars "running on water" that new age alien enthusiasts are always on about?
- aae42 6y ago
  i think he's referring to those who have the ability to charge their car at home, effectively never having to visit actual charging station
- freehunter 6y ago
  One of the HN guidelines is to assume good faith when you respond to a comment.
- UnpossibleJim 6y ago
  There's also the work on wireless charging via the roadway, itself. No, it isn't working right now but it's in its infancy. Only the very first prototypes have been rolled out, and they don't wear well, admittedly. Solutions are being worked on. Technology is only limited by your imagination and your ability to problem solve. =)
  - fennecfoxen 6y ago
    Capital expenditure, in a system where resources are finite and trade-offs must be made, is a notoriously tricky problem to solve.
    - 6y ago

svara 6y ago

The article isn't about hydrogen cars and in fact points out that hydrogen cars have lots of problems.

Ottolay 6y ago
I hate that most people just respond to the title and don't respond to the contents of the article.

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago

Maybe the way forward for the hydrogen power is to tackle the power storage in the grid first. Yes, I know that it is not very efficient, but few solutions there are efficient and we need some solution if we are going to increase reliance on solar and wind. Maybe while hydrogen energy storage will take its place in the grid, the technologies will get developed further, up to theoretically a point where a hydrogen-based car will make more sense realistically. (For example availability of hydrogen itself, the price and the number of stations around will be more allowing of it.)

amelius 6y ago

> Electric cars with large batteries are a much better solution to hydrogen cars IMHO. Electric cars are still very dangerous when they catch fire though. And the fires are very difficult to control. Especially in multistorey (or underground) car parks. And even more so if there are multiple EVs parked next to eachother.

kolinko 6y ago
And gasoline cars aren’t?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
speedgoose 6y ago
Sure when the batteries burn it's a problem. But the batteries don't burn that often. For example, when a diesel car did burn inside an airport parking in Stavanger, many electric cars did burn as well but not their batteries.
tenuousemphasis 6y ago
Gasoline is also quite flammable.

jasonlaramburu 6y ago

When you consider the energy required to produce lithium ion batteries they are actually worse than fuel cells from an emissions perspective: “As an example, a 100kWh battery will give a potential range of 250 miles and, in order to produce that battery, it will take around 20 tonnes of CO2,” he said. “A typical battery lasts for 150,000 miles, so that equates to around 83g/km of CO2. Then, when you take into account charging over that same distance, the same battery car will deliver 124g/km of CO2 over its lifetime.” By comparison, Auto Express says that a recent study found that a Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel cell car produces around 120g/km of CO2 over its lifetime when the manufacturing process is taken into account. But if hydrogen were to be produced by renewable energy, that figure could be reduced significantly.” Source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/electric-cars/101196/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vs-battery-electric-cars-which-are-better https://www.theweek.co.uk/electric-cars/101196/hydrogen-fuel...

Ottolay 6y ago
The lithium and other metals in that battery though can be recycled at its end of life. Subsequent batteries will have lower life cycle carbon footprint.
mcot2 6y ago
1.) There is already tech in development for batteries to last 1M miles. https://www.autoblog.com/2020/06/11/catl-million-mile-battery-electric-cars/ https://www.autoblog.com/2020/06/11/catl-million-mile-batter... 2.) Energy required to produce the batteries will eventually shift to zero emission sources. 3.) Materials can be recycled from the battery even after its million+ mile use. It’s hard to overcome the energy required to produce hydrogen plus the bad efficiency of fuel cells compared to batteries/electric motors.
- jasonlaramburu 6y ago
  Green energy will decarbonize hydrogen production as well.
kolinko 6y ago
How are those emissions calculated? Is there anything in the process that needs to generate co2? (like in concrete, where production of concrete generates co2 by itself). If this co2 is due to electricity/transportation cost then the problem will solve itself with more electricity from green sources.

darksaints 6y ago

Hydrogen may never be competitive with batteries for intermittently used passenger cars, but not all vehicles are intermittently used passenger cars. There is a lot of evidence that hydrogen can be competitive and potentially superior for vehicles which are used all day long, like taxis, delivery vehicles, etc.. And for continuous high power applications like maritime and aviation, batteries are so far from a realistic possibility that at best they are research projects. Batteries might work for ultra low range applications of trucking, like LTL and local delivery, but a lot of useful hauling capacity is given up by hauling batteries around.

Gibbon1 6y ago

I feel like the draw of hydrogen as a fuel source is that it doesn't disturb the current power structure which is based on control of oil and gas supplies. Countries have to constantly import oil and gas to power their transport networks. That requires those countries to pay in dollars (usually). Control that and you have them by the nose. Electrification completely upends that. A country that is self sufficient in energy can tell other countries to take a hike.