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You have to factor in the losses inherent to hydrogen energy storage. You have to produce the hydrogen, compress it and then use a fuel cell to convert it back

by y04nn 5y ago

You have to factor in the losses inherent to hydrogen energy storage. You have to produce the hydrogen, compress it and then use a fuel cell to convert it back to electricity. If you account for all the losses, I bet that in practice, storing electricity with hydrogen is not so much different than using lithium batteries. Does anyone have some figures?

skystarman 5y ago
Hydrogen is far more efficient. At least for long-haul class 7 & 8 trucks. The problem is the massive infrastructure investment needed to support it. All the substantial investments I've seen in commercial long-haul trucking are in hydrogen. You have Tesla, Nikola and others claiming they have a long-haul battery solution but they are full of shit. Tesla has already delayed their Semi for 3 years now. Nikola is a joke but even they were pushing hydrogen along with their BEV stuff. And the legacy CV companies are, again, only investing in BEV for short-haul stuff.
intrasight 5y ago
https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydrogen-or-battery--that-is-the-question.html https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydroge... has a good infographic showing overall efficiency. And this text: With battery-powered e-cars, only eight percent of the energy is lost during transport before the electricity is stored in the batteries of the vehicles. When the electrical energy used to drive the electric motor is converted, another 18 percent is lost. This gives the battery-operated electric car an efficiency level of between 70 to 80 percent, depending on the model. With the hydrogen-powered electric car, the losses are significantly greater: 45 percent of the energy is already lost during the production of hydrogen through electrolysis. Of this remaining 55 percent of the original energy, another 55 percent is lost when hydrogen is converted into electricity in the vehicle. This means that the hydrogen-powered electric car only achieves an efficiency of between 25 to 35 percent, depending on the model.
- intrasight 5y ago
  But there's other ways to produce hydrogen that are both more efficient and "greener" - using algae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohydrogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohydrogen Also I just found out that over 90% of our hydrogen comes from "natural gas reforming" https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-natural-gas-reforming https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-na...
thehappypm 5y ago
The losses can be made to be completely irrelevant though. There are many places on Earth with abundant energy -- think hydro plants in the middle of Wyoming, geothermal plants in Iceland -- that simply are too far away from population centers to be directly viable. Those places are where hydrogen will be produced, since you can pipe hydrogen basically infinitely, or compress and ship on-site.

by y04nn 5y ago

skystarman 5y ago

Hydrogen is far more efficient. At least for long-haul class 7 & 8 trucks. The problem is the massive infrastructure investment needed to support it. All the substantial investments I've seen in commercial long-haul trucking are in hydrogen. You have Tesla, Nikola and others claiming they have a long-haul battery solution but they are full of shit. Tesla has already delayed their Semi for 3 years now. Nikola is a joke but even they were pushing hydrogen along with their BEV stuff. And the legacy CV companies are, again, only investing in BEV for short-haul stuff.

intrasight 5y ago

https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydrogen-or-battery--that-is-the-question.html https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydroge... has a good infographic showing overall efficiency. And this text: With battery-powered e-cars, only eight percent of the energy is lost during transport before the electricity is stored in the batteries of the vehicles. When the electrical energy used to drive the electric motor is converted, another 18 percent is lost. This gives the battery-operated electric car an efficiency level of between 70 to 80 percent, depending on the model. With the hydrogen-powered electric car, the losses are significantly greater: 45 percent of the energy is already lost during the production of hydrogen through electrolysis. Of this remaining 55 percent of the original energy, another 55 percent is lost when hydrogen is converted into electricity in the vehicle. This means that the hydrogen-powered electric car only achieves an efficiency of between 25 to 35 percent, depending on the model.

intrasight 5y ago
But there's other ways to produce hydrogen that are both more efficient and "greener" - using algae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohydrogen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohydrogen Also I just found out that over 90% of our hydrogen comes from "natural gas reforming" https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-natural-gas-reforming https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-na...

thehappypm 5y ago

The losses can be made to be completely irrelevant though. There are many places on Earth with abundant energy -- think hydro plants in the middle of Wyoming, geothermal plants in Iceland -- that simply are too far away from population centers to be directly viable. Those places are where hydrogen will be produced, since you can pipe hydrogen basically infinitely, or compress and ship on-site.