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I think your focus is a bit narrow here, and physical impossibility is a really strong statement. Advances in photocatalytic water splitting could easily make

by rsfern 6y ago

I think your focus is a bit narrow here, and physical impossibility is a really strong statement. Advances in photocatalytic water splitting could easily make this a reality. That said I’m under the impression that progress in battery tech is a lot more active right now, and it’s not really clear that finding an efficient and economical photocatalytic material is very realistic

bryanlarsen 6y ago
No matter how efficient your hydrogen production is, it still has to be compressed and chilled. You can't do this without energy.
- rsfern 6y ago
  Sure, I agree with you, it seems unlikely that fuel cell tech will overtake advances in batteries in the near future, and that compressed hydrogen doesn’t seem likely to become competitive. My point is that there are many other hydrogen generation and storage technologies at various degrees of maturity and viability, and it doesn’t seem productive to write off a potential economical fuel cell system as a physical impossibility. I do think there are many challenging engineering problems along that path, and I’m not convinced it’s tractable at all, much less likely to outpace advances in battery systems.
  - Hypx 6y ago
    > I do think there are many challenging engineering problems along that path, and I’m not convinced it’s tractable at all, much less likely to outpace advances in battery systems. I disagree on that last part. Fuel cell is moving at warp speed right now, and batteries are losing ground at a rapid rate. We're seeing fuel cells move into everything from e-bikes to aircraft. If there's any kind of disruptive event here, it will be fuel cells replacing batteries at a much faster rate than expected.
- Hypx 6y ago
  Not necessarily. You can store it in metal hydrides. It's also a small amount of energy comparatively, so it's not a big loss. Finally, you can recover a lot of the energy back.

by rsfern 6y ago

bryanlarsen 6y ago

No matter how efficient your hydrogen production is, it still has to be compressed and chilled. You can't do this without energy.

rsfern 6y ago
Sure, I agree with you, it seems unlikely that fuel cell tech will overtake advances in batteries in the near future, and that compressed hydrogen doesn’t seem likely to become competitive. My point is that there are many other hydrogen generation and storage technologies at various degrees of maturity and viability, and it doesn’t seem productive to write off a potential economical fuel cell system as a physical impossibility. I do think there are many challenging engineering problems along that path, and I’m not convinced it’s tractable at all, much less likely to outpace advances in battery systems.
- Hypx 6y ago
  > I do think there are many challenging engineering problems along that path, and I’m not convinced it’s tractable at all, much less likely to outpace advances in battery systems. I disagree on that last part. Fuel cell is moving at warp speed right now, and batteries are losing ground at a rapid rate. We're seeing fuel cells move into everything from e-bikes to aircraft. If there's any kind of disruptive event here, it will be fuel cells replacing batteries at a much faster rate than expected.
Hypx 6y ago
Not necessarily. You can store it in metal hydrides. It's also a small amount of energy comparatively, so it's not a big loss. Finally, you can recover a lot of the energy back.