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No. :-) Yeah, I know, not helpful. Hydrogen storage continues to be a huge issue. It is just so much more efficient to manufacture long chain molecules with hy

No. :-) Yeah, I know, not helpful. Hydrogen storage continues to be a huge issue. It is just so much more efficient to manufacture long chain molecules with hydrogen that you can then drive around in tanker trucks, store underground for pumping into units which burn them to recover the energy. Once there is enough excess energy I expect you will see Fischer-Tropsch[1] type refineries that convert hydrogen and CO2 into liquid fuel rather than trying to ship around the hydrogen. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces...

neltnerb 6y ago
This should really just be the top post... I've been in this field for a while and totally agree. You're going to get vastly more practical applications out of liquid fuels or electricity stored in batteries. The energy density of hydrogen is great on a mass basis but sucks on a volume basis unless it's compressed in which case the container is heavy enough that you lose all the gains. Plus compressed hydrogen is way harder to protect in an accident. I think any theoretical application for hydrogen fuel cells you will find is using batteries in ten years. That's my opinion. The biggest advantage of a fuel cell is decoupling energy density from power density and flow cells solve that with batteries that use liquids that are easier to handle than hydrogen.
- fpoling 6y ago
  Methanol fuel cells are very inefficient at 30%. It is still better than internal combustion engine, but with H2 one gets over 70%. Still I agree that for niche applications like electrical cars in a very cold climate methanol fuel cells should be way more practical then hydrogen.
  - ChuckMcM 6y ago
    Bloom Energy's fuel cells are 53%+ efficient[1] on natural gas (Methane). Methane is easily liquified and transported and the infrastructure that supports this is widely deployed today. [1] https://www.bloomenergy.com/datasheets/energy-server-es5-250kw https://www.bloomenergy.com/datasheets/energy-server-es5-250...
    - neltnerb 6y ago
      Yeah, I've been keeping an eye on Bloom since they were still in stealth. It's neat and I believe their technology. It seems to me like their fuel cell is designed to be a replacement for natural gas power plants and that it would better complement renewables than traditional fossil fuel use because it's probably extremely fast to respond to being turned up and down so it can follow unpredictable supplies. That's great! Though to be fair, a combined cycle natural gas plant is also likely a lot more efficient than you are thinking, they're more like 50-60% than 30%. The gains may be very marginal... so maybe more for home use where if the electricity goes out maybe you still have gas (though in such an emergency I imagine you'd be more concerned with reliability than efficiency). I can't really imagine these being used in cars, LNG does have infrastructure as you point out but if you think it's widespread I have to wonder where you live. In my life I've only ever seen LNG pumps in California and New Zealand. I think it heavily depends on what the country has kind of settled on as a standard fuel... but batteries are also 90% efficient at storing and releasing energy in temperate climates and I know solid oxide fuel cells tend to need to be super hot to get reasonable ionic conductivity don't they? But also on the point of grid use, I should point out that the big difference between these fuel cells and a battery storage system is that these fuel cells as best I can see don't work in reverse. So you can't like take extra solar electricity and just run it backwards to make natural gas like you'd store power in a battery. So I guess... within the error bars of the efficiency of a combined cycle natural gas plant and it can't store power? I hope it's cheap.
      - ChuckMcM 6y ago
        I designed an urban data center with them which was pretty cool. (fun fact, a lot of metro areas have way more gas capacity than they need, as opposed to electrical grid capacity) The bonus factor was not needing diesel generators onsite for backup power just keep a natural gas reservoir from the local supply. We had some of these at Google powering the lab in one of the buildings with some standard Google type equipment racks. Easy start, rapid response, and N+1 or N+2 or 3 redundancy without needing a whole additional plant. (four of their 250kW units could cooperate to generate 1MW of power, and a fifth 250kW unit could provide surge and allowed for you to take a unit offline for maintenance without losing power.
socialdemocrat 6y ago
Companies supplying equipment to do hydrogen electrolysis still matter in this equation though since hydrogen is feedstock in this equation.
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  Yes, but the number of them and their overall value is much smaller, maybe $100B.
  - Hypx 6y ago
    At the scale we're looking at, it would still be around $2.5T. Actually more, since this process adds an additional inefficiency step.
Taniwha 6y ago
Electricity has a big leg up here, we already have a great distribution system for this (with lots of capacity at off peak times) - battery technology (ie storage) has been the missing link here and it's rapidly being solved
perardi 6y ago
Sounds like a commenter who knows what’s up. Is storage a problem because of hydrogen loss due to diffusion, container embrittlement, or just the sheer nastiness of compressing and chilling something that can done blow up on you?
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  All of the above.
  - Hypx 6y ago
    More like none of the above. The problems are long solved or greatly minimalized.
eezurr 6y ago
It's possible that they know this, but from a marketing perspective, hydrogen has a big ol' green circle/clean font plastered all over it.
Hypx 6y ago
So the future is internal combustion powered cars forever?
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  No, but the industry around tapping excess energy for use on demand is not moving hydrogen around. It is either putting into the grid (if user wants it immediately), into a battery if the user is attached to the grid and wants it later, or turned into a transportable hydrocarbon (probably methane) for storage and transport where electrical infrastructure is either too expensive or otherwise unavailable.
  - Hypx 6y ago
    Except if you're making vast amounts of hydrocarbon such as methane at a cost effective rate, then there's little real incentive for any of the electric stuff. Internal combustion stays viable effectively forever.
    - ChuckMcM 6y ago
      Actually as the cost of electricity goes down the economics for electric vehicles stack. They are already a win from a maintenance perspective with fewer moving parts and fewer assemblies. As battery and regen technology improves wrt to charging, recovering charge from deceleration, and cost per kWH it just gets better still. LNG is not as efficient as diesel in an ICE, electricity however is more efficient. Lots of discussion here[1] [1] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f8/deer12_kargul.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f8/deer12_ka...
      - Hypx 6y ago
        You can run the Fischer-Tropsch process and make any hydrocarbon fuel you want. Fuel efficiency of engines could exceed 50% in the near future. Remember, you're creating a scenario where we never figure out hydrogen, and therefore we'll be forced to make synfuels in vast quantities for a number of purposes. If you follow the nature tendency of capitalism, this will end give you hydrocarbon fuels so cheap that it wouldn't make sense to go with electric vehicles at all. At best, hybrids for that regenerative breaking ability.

neltnerb 6y ago

This should really just be the top post... I've been in this field for a while and totally agree. You're going to get vastly more practical applications out of liquid fuels or electricity stored in batteries. The energy density of hydrogen is great on a mass basis but sucks on a volume basis unless it's compressed in which case the container is heavy enough that you lose all the gains. Plus compressed hydrogen is way harder to protect in an accident. I think any theoretical application for hydrogen fuel cells you will find is using batteries in ten years. That's my opinion. The biggest advantage of a fuel cell is decoupling energy density from power density and flow cells solve that with batteries that use liquids that are easier to handle than hydrogen.

fpoling 6y ago
Methanol fuel cells are very inefficient at 30%. It is still better than internal combustion engine, but with H2 one gets over 70%. Still I agree that for niche applications like electrical cars in a very cold climate methanol fuel cells should be way more practical then hydrogen.
- ChuckMcM 6y ago
  Bloom Energy's fuel cells are 53%+ efficient[1] on natural gas (Methane). Methane is easily liquified and transported and the infrastructure that supports this is widely deployed today. [1] https://www.bloomenergy.com/datasheets/energy-server-es5-250kw https://www.bloomenergy.com/datasheets/energy-server-es5-250...
  - neltnerb 6y ago
    Yeah, I've been keeping an eye on Bloom since they were still in stealth. It's neat and I believe their technology. It seems to me like their fuel cell is designed to be a replacement for natural gas power plants and that it would better complement renewables than traditional fossil fuel use because it's probably extremely fast to respond to being turned up and down so it can follow unpredictable supplies. That's great! Though to be fair, a combined cycle natural gas plant is also likely a lot more efficient than you are thinking, they're more like 50-60% than 30%. The gains may be very marginal... so maybe more for home use where if the electricity goes out maybe you still have gas (though in such an emergency I imagine you'd be more concerned with reliability than efficiency). I can't really imagine these being used in cars, LNG does have infrastructure as you point out but if you think it's widespread I have to wonder where you live. In my life I've only ever seen LNG pumps in California and New Zealand. I think it heavily depends on what the country has kind of settled on as a standard fuel... but batteries are also 90% efficient at storing and releasing energy in temperate climates and I know solid oxide fuel cells tend to need to be super hot to get reasonable ionic conductivity don't they? But also on the point of grid use, I should point out that the big difference between these fuel cells and a battery storage system is that these fuel cells as best I can see don't work in reverse. So you can't like take extra solar electricity and just run it backwards to make natural gas like you'd store power in a battery. So I guess... within the error bars of the efficiency of a combined cycle natural gas plant and it can't store power? I hope it's cheap.
    - ChuckMcM 6y ago
      I designed an urban data center with them which was pretty cool. (fun fact, a lot of metro areas have way more gas capacity than they need, as opposed to electrical grid capacity) The bonus factor was not needing diesel generators onsite for backup power just keep a natural gas reservoir from the local supply. We had some of these at Google powering the lab in one of the buildings with some standard Google type equipment racks. Easy start, rapid response, and N+1 or N+2 or 3 redundancy without needing a whole additional plant. (four of their 250kW units could cooperate to generate 1MW of power, and a fifth 250kW unit could provide surge and allowed for you to take a unit offline for maintenance without losing power.

socialdemocrat 6y ago

Companies supplying equipment to do hydrogen electrolysis still matter in this equation though since hydrogen is feedstock in this equation.

ChuckMcM 6y ago
Yes, but the number of them and their overall value is much smaller, maybe $100B.
- Hypx 6y ago
  At the scale we're looking at, it would still be around $2.5T. Actually more, since this process adds an additional inefficiency step.

Taniwha 6y ago

Electricity has a big leg up here, we already have a great distribution system for this (with lots of capacity at off peak times) - battery technology (ie storage) has been the missing link here and it's rapidly being solved

perardi 6y ago

Sounds like a commenter who knows what’s up. Is storage a problem because of hydrogen loss due to diffusion, container embrittlement, or just the sheer nastiness of compressing and chilling something that can done blow up on you?

toomuchtodo 6y ago
All of the above.
- Hypx 6y ago
  More like none of the above. The problems are long solved or greatly minimalized.

eezurr 6y ago

It's possible that they know this, but from a marketing perspective, hydrogen has a big ol' green circle/clean font plastered all over it.

Hypx 6y ago

So the future is internal combustion powered cars forever?

ChuckMcM 6y ago
No, but the industry around tapping excess energy for use on demand is not moving hydrogen around. It is either putting into the grid (if user wants it immediately), into a battery if the user is attached to the grid and wants it later, or turned into a transportable hydrocarbon (probably methane) for storage and transport where electrical infrastructure is either too expensive or otherwise unavailable.
- Hypx 6y ago
  Except if you're making vast amounts of hydrocarbon such as methane at a cost effective rate, then there's little real incentive for any of the electric stuff. Internal combustion stays viable effectively forever.
  - ChuckMcM 6y ago
    Actually as the cost of electricity goes down the economics for electric vehicles stack. They are already a win from a maintenance perspective with fewer moving parts and fewer assemblies. As battery and regen technology improves wrt to charging, recovering charge from deceleration, and cost per kWH it just gets better still. LNG is not as efficient as diesel in an ICE, electricity however is more efficient. Lots of discussion here[1] [1] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f8/deer12_kargul.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f8/deer12_ka...
    - Hypx 6y ago
      You can run the Fischer-Tropsch process and make any hydrocarbon fuel you want. Fuel efficiency of engines could exceed 50% in the near future. Remember, you're creating a scenario where we never figure out hydrogen, and therefore we'll be forced to make synfuels in vast quantities for a number of purposes. If you follow the nature tendency of capitalism, this will end give you hydrocarbon fuels so cheap that it wouldn't make sense to go with electric vehicles at all. At best, hybrids for that regenerative breaking ability.