16 ms·

Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

78 points by k4lk 5y ago

kleiba 5y ago
https://www.forbes.com/sites/deloitte/2021/06/21/the-future-of-energy-decarbonization-in-power-and-utilities/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/deloitte/2021/06/21/the-future-...?
tut-urut-utut 5y ago
There's a lot of discussion about hydrogen as an energy source for cars in Germany. It is generally considered more ecological than electric, because of much lesser environmental footprint than required for producing batteries. Another advantage would be bigger driving range and faster refuelling. However, it looks like that outside of Germany, electric cars just won, and Germany itself will not be able to reverse the trend.
- epistasis 5y ago
  >because of much lesser environmental footprint than required for producing batteries. I'm very concerned about this, but have found basically zero impact for batteries, in that if one is concerned about batteries, then all that iron mining to build the rest of the car should probably be a bigger concern. After doing research, I'm 99% sure that lithium battery environmental concerns are just concern trolling from fossil fuel interests. But I am very open to concrete new information.
  - varjag 5y ago
    Here is a rather detailed study on total emission effects of EV lifecyle: https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life-cycle-GHG_ICCT-Briefing_09022018_vF.pdf https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life... "An electric vehicle’s higher emissions during the manufacturing stage are paid off after only 2 years compared to driving an average conventional vehicle, a time frame that drops to about one and a half years if the car is charged using renewable energy."
    - pkphilip 5y ago
      That covers only the energy spent on mining etc but not the environmental impact of digging up entire country sides. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environmen...
      - epistasis 5y ago
        This seems to be a rather selective concern, when, as the article states, there's only 12kg of lithium in the batteries of a Tesla, which is one of the larger batteries out there. Are you also concerned about the steel, which is on the order of thousands of pounds per vehicle, and requires not only digging for iron, but also the coking coal? And speaking of digging, iron and coal do actually dig up landscapes, whereas most lithium is actually brine mined rather than dug out.
      - bbarnett 5y ago
        Steel is reused, car wreckers strip cars, crush the steel, and off it goes to be made into girders or something. What's more worrying is battery recycling. Toxoc batteries. So far, The West's plan has been to ship them to poor countries, which tend to just bury them. This can be resolved, but will it be? I say this to anyone claiming to be green, unless you know 100% how your product can be recycled, with concrete, in place processes and recyclers, you're a liar, and not green.
        epistasis 5y ago
        Shipping lithium ion batteries is expensive, because they weigh so much. And no, there's no plan to ship them to poor countries, that's just a fabrication, based on nothing. It's quite likely that battery production will be performed very close to fins assembly, because of the low price of batteries per pound, especially compared to something that does get supped a lot, like solar PV panels. Long distance shipping of batteries would add significantly to their cost. In reality, lithium ion battery recycling is baked into this supply chain from the start. There are many startups eager to recycle batteries, the biggest challenge is that there isn't any substantial amount to recycle at the moment. Manufacturing rejects are one of the prime inputs to current battery recyclers.
- Datagenerator 5y ago
  Smaller batteries, faster cars. In Germany one can really use all the available power in stark contrast to neighboring countries. Lighter cars and fast refueling for long distance travelling are very beneficial, not only to Germany.
  - phicoh 5y ago
    I assume that the vast majority of car owners is quite sensitive to cost. If all things considered the cost of hydrogen is similar to that of an BEV then it make sense that both will exist next to each other. On the other hand, if hydrogen proves to be a lot more expensive than a BEV, then you expect fewer hydrogen refueling stations, which makes hydrogen less attractive.
  - reader_mode 5y ago
    Let's say Germany has a decent hydrogen infrastructure. You go on vacation in say Croatia or Spain, you suddenly can't use your car. Every country has electric sockets everywhere so you can charge over night and building fast chargers is trivial compared to storing hydrogen. Hydrogen sounds useful for commercial vehicles where you can plan routes and stay close to pumps (eg. delivery, bus, etc.) Sounds horrible for personal vehicles. I can see Japan investing in it - you are unlikely to travel out of country with your car.
- chanux 5y ago
  According to James May, Only Japan and Germany can support Hydrogen Fuel Cell decently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XytYTxQEq_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XytYTxQEq_Y
  - polar 5y ago
    Pity he didn't get to drive it properly that day. Follow-up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v99AthjW78U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v99AthjW78U
    - chanux 5y ago
      Ah! Thanks for linking this. I linked to the wrong one.
- Ma8ee 5y ago
  They are betting on them in Japan, and they are using the olympic village as some kind of proof of concepts with both vehicles, but also residential energy production from hydrogen. And of course the Olympic torch will use hydrogen. Toyota are also betting on hydrogen. This is the reason why, even though they were early with hybrids, they still haven't released any purely electric cars.
  - varjag 5y ago
    They did release BEV series.
  - radicalbyte 5y ago
    Japan are building on Methane Hydrate as a strategic energy supply. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/japan-china-combustible-ice-frozen-fossil-fuel-extract-seafloor-energy-methane-hydrate-a7744456.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/japan-china-combu... We really are the most short sighted and stupid species, and only have ourselves to blame for what is to come.
    - chartpath 5y ago
      Yeah wow, let's melt more ice to power stuff.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    It feels like Toyota has made a massive miscalculation on this. They should have had a huge lead with all their experience of hybrids but now look like the are scrambling to catch up.
    - Ma8ee 5y ago
      Time will. I think hydrogen has huge advantages for e.g. long haul trucks, for which batteries don’t seem to be reasonable. And they will drive the infrastructure.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    For Toyota, the representative company of Japan, it's not easy decision to all in to BEV because of energy situation. Japan is going to be stuck for global decarbonize campaign because the land/grid is too small to make stable distributed renewables, and obviously nuclear is no longer future option. Making BEV (or Li-ON battery) is energy intensive so it won't competitive with other decarbonated countries for future carbon tax era. That's why they must investigating hydrogen, solid state battery, xEV, and so on rather than just BEV. Other companies investigating other techs like co2 collector. Investigating hydrogen for other uses like truck, ship, storage, emergency generator looks reasonable (Toyota also sell fuel cell system for various use), but still I doubt is they serious for hydrogen car like Mirai, or it's just a demo or for special case.
- jeeeb 5y ago
  FWIW. I’ve seen a lot of interest in Japan and Australia as well. Toyota in particular seems to be betting big on hydrogen with a PHEV -> BEV transition as backup.
- isoprophlex 5y ago
  We're not at the level of, say, > 50% market adoption of EVs. Getting electricity to a battery EV at scale is somewhat of a "last mile" problem, and I'm not sure if upgrading our grids to handle this will be cheaper than rolling out hydrogen infra. Consider that you can ship hydrogen on a truck to existing pump stations (maybe not as efficient) as we do with gas right now. I have no data to back this up, just the handwavy arguments above...
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    >Getting electricity to a battery EV at scale is somewhat of a "last mile" problem, and I'm not sure if upgrading our grids to handle this will be cheaper than rolling out hydrogen infra. I read recently that the UK just needs to go back to 2002 levels of electricity generation to cover the whole fleet switching to electric. There are some problem areas, generally people who live in dense urban areas without an allocated parking space but I don't think that is insurmountable.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Hydrogen is super hard to store and transport. Electrolyzers are prohibitively expensive, and probably won't be cost competitive until 2050: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-hydrogen-part-one-the-supply-side/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-h... However EV's last mile problem is solved, at least for people with garages. 220v is more than enough for daily charging. A 120v 15amp circuit is almost trickle charging at <5mph, but most car are idle >90% of the time and that slow charging is enough to replenish a typical days driving in 8 hours. As far as the transmission and distribution grid, shiftable load like car charging has the potential to drastically reduce grid costs, by shaving off peak capacity, and utilizing the times of Los grid usage. Chris Clack is a leading grid modeler, and his latest grid models tor decarbonization show massive savings by putting batteries and solar at electrical meters. Car charging is half of the function of home batteries, and it's likely that in the near future, many cars will allow vehicle to grid discharge, like the new f150 truck.
  - tyfon 5y ago
    I have no data here just my personal experience. In my area (in Norway) there are probably 50% EVs on the road now, closer to Oslo I bet the proportion is higher. In my street alone with 10 houses the cars are about 80% EVs and I just heard another neighbour has ordered an ID.4. The local bus is also electric and it has a pantograph that draws 450 kW from a charger just 50 meters from my house in it's "down time" as I am at the end of the route. No problem with the grid so far, but they have put a capacity charge on how much max capacity you use divided into 50 NOK ($5) monthly tiers. The tiers so far are 5, 10 and 15 kW, I'm unusually in the 5-10 bracket since I turned my cars down to 3.4 kW charging. In addition they lower the grid price during night to encourage people to charge when not much else is in use. But so far it has not required a massive grid build-out. It might be since the grid itself is well maintained being critical infrastructure. Since we are in the subject of hydrogen cars and pumps, there is also no tax on hydrogen cars here so there have been a few, but not nearly in the number of EVs. The pumps will sometimes require more time to refill than a charge since if you have many filling in a row the pump itself tends to freeze up and requires quite some time to thaw. The requirements of a hydrogen pump station is far higher than a gas station, it's not just the matter of shipping it on a truck to an existing one. You need compressors and decompressors (why it's freezing up) and it does take quite a bit of energy. There is also the issue of leaking since hydrogen atoms are so small, we did have one blow up not that far from here a couple years back. After living with only EVs for over two years now I think it's the way to go for personal cars and buses, but for ships and perhaps aircraft hydrogen makes more sense. It's also easier to store excess grid power on sunny or windy days using hydrogen, but right now the issue is also that most hydrogen is produced using steam-methane reforming [1] which emits CO2. Way better than petrol though. [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydrogen/production-of-hydrogen.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydrogen/production-of-h...
- timthorn 5y ago
  The UK Government is also looking hard at H2 and there's a lot of industrial activity in the area. Just today, Centrica announced a £1.6Bn investment in Hydrogen storage.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    I think that is mainly for heating homes, they want to switch gas boilers out for hydrogen.
- RobertoG 5y ago
  It seems like there is a push for hydrogen in Europe in the last months, and a lot of it seems coming from the big energy companies. Could be they are trying to find a way to get a piece of the European pandemic recovery funds, which are going mainly to "green" projects?
  - epistasis 5y ago
    There is a huge effort from natural gas companies to make hydrogen acceptable. In my opinion any fossil fuel hydrogen should be banned, or at least taxed at far higher rates than current carbon taxes. We need electrolyzed hydrogen for industry, and we should make sure it's the cheapest option so that we don't have a market failure again.
- Daniel_sk 5y ago
  There is a lot of talk about hydrogen in Slovakia - it's promoted by the head of Mistry of Trade and Industry (Richard Sulik), but not many actual steps towards hydrogen cars are being done so far.
adrianN 5y ago
>However, one disadvantage of producing hydrogen is the losses during electrolysis. The overall efficiency in the “power to vehicle drive” energy chain is therefore only half the level of a BEV That seems to be more optimistic that what I've heard in the past. What's the efficiency of electrolysis+compression (or whatever step is necessary from bubbles to fuel in a tank)? Isn't that already well below 50%? How efficient are fuel cells in converting Hydrogen back to electricity? I thought I remembered that this too was a bit worse than batteries.
LightG 5y ago
As someone with little knowledge of this domain except a few articles and this link, it appears that hydrogen is better enviromentally, but the electric-car lobby disagree. If there is a chicken and egg problem, as mentioned in the article, where mass adoption of a "better" technology is only held back due to the the number of hydrogen pumps - that seems like an appropriate point for government to step in to bridge the gap. 1) Is hydrogen the better solution? 2) Why wouldn't government recognise this and bridge the gap? 3) As the article is by BMW, what is their agenda? Why wouldn't they just accept and hop on board the prevailing EV trend? (edit: For the Elon cult downvotes, lol, note the word "appears" above, feel free to challenge it).
- epistasis 5y ago
  Even the most hydrogen positive environmentalists don't think hydrogen makes sense for cars. Those pushing h2 cars either have natural gas interests, or an extreme attachment to fueling. By far the best current assessment of how we will use hydrogen as energy transport I have found: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-hydrogen-part-two-the-demand-side/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-h...
- marvin 5y ago
  As for 3: BMW, like most of the transportation industry, is unwilling to make the massive investment in battery production required to profitably be able to switch their production from fossil to renewable. This reluctance obviously extends to hydrogen-electric drivetrains as well, if that option was even competitive. Since they're stuck in a classic Innovator's Dilemma situation, they vainly hope that the rest of the world will stand still until their subcontractors are magically able to produce all components required (at prices that leave them competitive!) to switch their entire production to renewable energy. Some hand-waving around technologies that are promising but "not quite there yet" is a central part of this strategy, as it allows them to sell their reluctance to investors. Just sitting there obviously doing nothing would make it too obvious. They've been doing this for 10 years now, so there's really nothing new to see. Meanwhile, the "electric-car lobby" keeps profitably producing mass-market vehicles and exponentially increasing production capacity, doing the hard work of actually building things in volume that haven't been built before. The market cap of Tesla implies that this is hardly a controversial stance today, although there is obviously still significant uncertainty.
polar 5y ago
A British company is making a Hydrogen powered hypercar. https://www.viritech.co.uk/ https://www.viritech.co.uk/
Transrapid 5y ago
Yeah Germany, Japan, South Korea, UK, China, Australia, France, India, California and so on seeing it as the future of cars. "It is generally considered more ecological than electric, because of much lesser environmental footprint than required for producing batteries. Another advantage would be bigger driving range and faster refuelling." And the biggest advantage: you're cleaning the air while driving from particles which harm your health. <- This reason alone is a key factor. Have a look here: https://youtu.be/ormfLJmWGC8 https://youtu.be/ormfLJmWGC8 People complained about the emission cheating regarding volkswagen. So everybody who did has to be pro hydrogen car. Because its real emission free. not like a battery car
- effie 5y ago
  It is cleaning air from pollution, but it is also removing lots of oxygen. You don't want to breathe hydrogen car exhaust.
  - Transrapid 5y ago
    Wrong. have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibo5fN727Rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibo5fN727Rg
    - effie 5y ago
      Notice the car is standing still, most probably having minimal consumption of oxygen.
- timbit42 5y ago
  So put an air filter in an EV and the motion of the car will also clean the air.
jokoon 5y ago
Hydrogen will always leak from any container. Clean hydrogen is difficult to make, giving an opportunity to the oil industry to easily make cheap hydrogen from refineries, which is not carbon neutral. I'm not sure there is enough platinum in the world to make all those cars. Mining platinum might cause additional carbon emissions. Hydrogen is very dangerous because it's highly explosive. Gas is safer in that regard.
- Transrapid 5y ago
  > Hydrogen will always leak from any container. not anymore > Clean hydrogen is difficult to make, giving an opportunity to the oil industry to easily make cheap hydrogen from refineries, which is not carbon neutral. It's not and everybody is talking about GREEN hydrogen > I'm not sure there is enough platinum in the world to make all those cars. Mining platinum might cause additional carbon emissions. you don't need it to create fuel cells > Hydrogen is very dangerous because it's highly explosive. Gas is safer in that regard. Nope industry is using it since decades
  - haar 5y ago
    I think generally your comments would be more well received if you provide links backing up your statements. Currently your posts just seem to be going through criticisms and simply stating "No, reverse of above statement". This doesn't lead to a discussion, or informative comment threads. You can ask for the same in return from those you're interacting with, but considering you're a brand new account seemingly created to provide a counterpoint; it felt worth calling out (with your declining Karma).
  - cheradenine_uk 5y ago
    Industry doesn't pump it around in pipelines though, it makes it on-site.
  - jokoon 5y ago
    Yes, going to answer the same thing, you don't provide sources. Green hydrogen is difficult to make because of low energy efficiency, which I agree, would be solved with nuclear since nuclear provides a lot of green energy. Platinum is required for fuel cells, please do a research or provide sources or explain.
sjaak 5y ago
I'll just leave this take on hydrogen fuel cells by our lord and saviour Mr. Musk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Causality1 5y ago
Yet experts believe that hydrogen fuel cell cars will catch up in the future This is the same shtick they've been feeding us for thirty years. Fuel cell cars as a realistic choice for consumers has been five years away for decades now. At this point I'm tired of hearing about it. Battery electric vehicles have been making steady gains in terms of innovation and energy density for long time now. Battery electric has an enormous lead as well as fundamental efficiency advantages. https://i.imgur.com/SZFM97f.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SZFM97f.jpg Until someone comes up with groundbreaking new ways to do electrolysis and hydrogen storage, the fuel cell economy is dead in the water.
sunstone 5y ago
Car maker's attraction for fuel cells is that they neatly replace the internal combustion engine with another large, heavy, hot mechanism that continues to require about the same amount of ongoing maintenance. So the automaker's balance sheet remains about the same but now it's green. As Musk pointed out some years ago, hydrogen is not so much a fuel as it is an energy storage medium. Right out of the gate creating the hydrogen reduces the system efficiency by about 50% because of the electricity required. In essence then hydrogen fuel cells are just a less efficient form of electricity that require a complex and expensive mechanism to turn into motive force. Possibly useful for shipping or trains but not the way to bet for cars.
- bbarnett 5y ago
  People talk about hooking cars up to the grid, and charging them during times of excess power, and then selling that power back during peak. Yet, that shorten battery lifespan a lot (imagine a car charged weekly to get around town, now discharged/charged daily... battery life is now 1/7th). There is also loss during charging, and discharge, loss in power lines too. Meanwhile, you could create h2 right at the power plant during time of excess. Like at a dam. Then just send all that stored energy via pipelines, just a with natural gas.
  - epistasis 5y ago
    Cycling batteries small percentages around mid level charges does almost nothing to battery life. Already, it's expected that we will soon have car batteries that outlast the rest of the car, with million miles lifetimes. Plus, there's a specific cost to the battery life, that can be calculated, and evaluated against the gains from arbitraging electricity prices. If batteries are economical on the grid, and they are increasingly replacing natural gas peakers for cost reasons, then car batteries will be a huge resource that is an economic win for car owners and for electricity rate payers.
- Black101 5y ago
  Because batteries are not a storage medium and they are not filled by using electricity... ? of course gasoline is better because you get it out of the ground, but I have a feeling that we will discover an efficient way to produce hydrogen ...
k4lk 5y ago
In Denmark we could split water through hydrolyse whenever there is over-production from windmills. This over-production is something that we currently pay our neighbours to receive. In addition the heat produced can be used as district heating, making it less of an issue that it is less efficient to produce hydrogen.
- olau 5y ago
  Newer wind turbine contracts make the turbine owners turn off their engines. And it is only very few hours of the year that the prices turn negative anyway. You can't base anything off that. It's just not worth it.
- epistasis 5y ago
  From what I've heard, the capital costs of electrolyzers are currently far too high to make intermittent hydrogen production economical. Hopefully that will change, and intermittent usage will eventually be about the same cost as running continuously.
kieranmaine 5y ago
My understanding from the article is that Hydrogen vehicles will not be competitive with BEVs in terms of cost per mile for the next 10-20 years. The article states: "An FCEV can drive about 28 miles (45 km) on 1 lb (0.45 kg) of hydrogen" and "If the demand for hydrogen increases, the price could drop to around USD 2.50/lb (USD 5.60/kg) by 2030" Therefore 28 miles will cost 2.5 USD. However, according to ev-database.uk the most efficient Model 3 uses 235 Wh/mile. If we assume that most EVs will be charged using a cheap EV tariff by 2030 (see https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/0v0-dr1v3-fl3x-3n3rgy-pl4n-tr14l https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/0v0-dr1v3-fl3x-3n3rg...) with a cost per kWh of 0.06 GBP, it will cost 0.39 GBP to drive 28 miles. Even if the most expensive average UK electricity cost for today is used (15.60p - https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/tariffs-per-unit-kwh https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/tariffs-per-unit-kwh), it's still on 1.06 GBP, meaning the price per mile for a BEV today in the UK, is cheaper than a FCEV in 2030. Have I miscalculated or am I missing something?
- bbarnett 5y ago
  One thing. What happens to the power grid, if power needs double? Certainly, new power plant construction, even if green, will be financed by additional cost to the consumer.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    In the UK the grid has published a few white papers on this, and even had to issue corrections because newspapers keep misinterpreting what they say. Summary, no big deal and in fact smart EV charging tech can actively help the grid and make it easier to use all the cheap power we generate.
    - bbarnett 5y ago
      In Ontario, 6 successive government of all political stripes, one after another did nothing, leaving the grid burning coal and ng. Plants planned and canceled, one mess up after another, again all political parties the same mess. It is indeed easy, until it is time to execute. And it takes a decade at least, with zoning, environmental checks, just to get a plan planned and construction off the ground. This means that everyone should already have new plants in the planning stages. Not a report, but buying land, regulation hurdles, and when state owned, approved. Does the UK already have 3 or 4 new plants in these initial stages? And if so, how many may fall through?
perf1 5y ago
There is also the option of using a methane fuel cell that is ignored by everyone.
larshen 5y ago
Electric cars has an advantage now, but there is more energy consumption than passenger cars. Planes will never fly on batteries, Paris Airports are preparing for hydrogen planes delivered by Airbus. Trains already run on hydrogen. Ships will use ammonium. Steel plants plan to convert to hydrogen. Energy storage is a big issue to reach the goal line. In Nordic countries there is very little solar power in the winter. Energy can be stored in hydrogen. An extra bonus is that excessive heat from hydrolysis can be used in district heating.
fvdessen 5y ago
I think this makes a lot more sense for trucks, where the size, range, weight, cost & charging time of batteries are more impactful
dale_glass 5y ago
Hydrogen almost certainly won't go anywhere, in my opinion. * The efficiency compared to battery tech is horrendous. * Hydrogen is effectively a storage technology -- we have to generate it and compress it. Which combined with the above means that charging a hydrogen car will always be more expensive than putting the same amount of usable energy into a battery powered car. * Let's not forget that the cheapest way of generating hydrogen is from fossil fuels. Electrolysis is very inefficient. * Any concern there might exist for the effect on the electrical grid coming battery powered cars multiplies for hydrogen due to the inefficiency. * You need a large infrastructure to produce and distribute it. * It's a huge chicken and egg problem -- a hydrogen car needs hydrogen, and there's nowhere convenient right now to get it from. * In the end, a hydrogen car is ultimately electric. What is more convenient, having a car that can be plugged into an outlet, or a car that needs an extremely specialized hydrogen station? IMO the only excitement from hydrogen is for fossil fuel companies, because that's what the vast majority of it is made from, and because it'd be a fairly natural fit into their existing infrastructure. There may be some niches where hydrogen could be the better solution -- hydrogen trucks might be viable because there you can have well defined routes, and trucks have a weight limit which may not play well with batteries. But for normal cars I don't really see it.
- Transrapid 5y ago
  >The efficiency compared to battery tech is horrendous. nope >Hydrogen is effectively a storage technology -- we have to generate it and compress it. Which combined with the above means that charging a hydrogen car will always be more expensive than putting the same amount of usable energy into a battery powered car. Nope, 350kw charger -> loss >Let's not forget that the cheapest way of generating hydrogen is from fossil fuels. Electrolysis is very inefficient. no, newest one >95% >Any concern there might exist for the effect on the electrical grid coming battery powered cars multiplies for hydrogen due to the inefficiency. Nope you get more energy with less area used via pipeline than grid lines > In the end, a hydrogen car is ultimately electric. What is more convenient, having a car that can be plugged into an outlet, or a car that needs an extremely specialized hydrogen station? home hydrogen station exist > IMO the only excitement from hydrogen is for fossil fuel companies, because that's what the vast majority of it is made from, and because it'd be a fairly natural fit into their existing infrastructure. wrong fossil fuel companies still want to sell fossil fuels. we have to deal with emission inside cities. hydrogen cars cleaning the air while driving. battery cars still emit emissions.
larshen 5y ago
Car manufacturers are working on hydrogen combustion engine. Existing combustion cars have been modified to hydrogen in decades.
- garaetjjte 5y ago
  I don't think there's much to work on, it just works. But then you have another combustion powered car, so why bother?
larshen 5y ago
China has 118 hydrogen gas stations
roguesupport 5y ago
Anyone wo works with elements in a practical capacity will tell you; HYDROGEN IS TERRIFYING. It's very unstable, and difficult to control.
- timbit42 5y ago
  OH! The humanity!
ytNumbers 5y ago
Sandy Munro thinks Plasma Kinetics has a breakthrough technology that will, at some point in the future, allow hydrogen powered cars to dominate the auto industry. https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/e0f655f1-c51d-4fe6-9383-1ffe36baf462/Plasma%20Kinetics%20Mkt%20Apps_3_%20Intro%201Y%20dt%20(003)_.pdf https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/e0f655f1-c51d-4fe6-9383-1ff... Here's where Sandy Munro mentions Plasma Kinetics: https://youtu.be/06AhaQXhuwQ?t=226 https://youtu.be/06AhaQXhuwQ?t=226
- polar 5y ago
  H2GO Power is another company working on solid-state Hydrogen storage. It looks like they are targeting drones rather than cars though. https://www.h2gopower.com https://www.h2gopower.com
joe_91 5y ago
At this stage - I don't see wide spread adoption happening outside of Japan or somewhere where a country really pushes for it. Battery/recharging tech is improving year on year. For their latest model S plaid they've claimed: Tesla says that 15 minutes should be enough to replenish 187 miles (301 km) of range.[1] In 2-3 years when the rest of the worlds car companies/ fast chargers have caught on I just don't see how Hydrogen can compete with all the downsides it has. 1. https://insideevs.com/news/515641/tesla-models-plaid-charging-analysis/ https://insideevs.com/news/515641/tesla-models-plaid-chargin...
keymone 5y ago
> electrical energy is used to break water down into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen, via the process of electrolysis is this actually the process to get hydrogen on industrial scale? from wiki: As of 2020, the majority of hydrogen (∼95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming of natural gas, partial oxidation of methane, and coal gasification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production
rasz 5y ago
reality: They dont work. Honda has been trying to make it happen for 20 years now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX its all a huge failure https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36751587/honda-clarity-fuel-cell-vehicle-discontinued/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36751587/honda-cla... Whats fascinating is the realization Honda toyed with EVs even longer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus and still managed to fail miserably.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  Of course they work. Hyundai's fuel cell trucks are running well: https://www.thedrive.com/news/41389/hyundai-clocks-1-million-kilometers-with-hydrogen-truck-fleet https://www.thedrive.com/news/41389/hyundai-clocks-1-million...
  - rasz 5y ago
    I dont mean the technology, it obviously works as evidenced by prototypes 20 years ago. I mean the concept and energy generation/storage, it doesnt make sense as soon as you take more than cursory glance. Hydrogen embrittlement, electrolysis energy loss, ranges, it all falls apart.
    - clouddrover 5y ago
      Hydrogen production is only going to go up because there are many uses for it. If you want green steel you need to use hydrogen. It will also make sense to use that hydrogen for transportation. You're in some strange mindset of it being batteries versus hydrogen. It isn't one or the other. It's both.
- k4lk 5y ago
  Here is James May driving a Toyota Mirari which is available today: https://youtu.be/v99AthjW78U https://youtu.be/v99AthjW78U
yholio 5y ago
The train has left that station 10 years ago, and it's all electric. No point staying in the trenches like the apocryphal Japanese soldier, fighting for the resurgence of Hydrogen. It's less efficient, more expensive for vehicles and infrastructure and more expensive to fuel, has lower range, it's more dangerous. The range record for a Hydrogen vehicle is less than the range of mass-produced commercial cars available today for purchase. As an inferior technology, Hydrogen stood a chance if it was able to quickly deploy a network of charging stations, locking in customers with a strong network effect. The opposite is true now, electric charging points are popping up everywhere, because it's so damn easy to do, every shopping mall can accommodate at least a handful using its existing electric cabling. Most everybody has a 3.7KW power outlet at home that delivers significant range for an overnight or over-weekend charge. Meanwhile, Hydrogen needs a completely new pipeline distribution system, using special metals and seals because it's so agile and leaky. There is no point in investing in such a system, because battery electric has already won the race. And without this network, Hydrogen remains an oddity fuel relegated to specialty applications. It was a dead-end anyway. You either get Hydrogen form natural gas, which is an environmental killer, or you get it from green energy with a 20-30% whole cycle efficiency. Why not use the energy directly with a 80-90% efficiency, and use that vehicle fleet to regulate the whole electric grid?
- k4lk 5y ago
  I don't think it has left the station per se. I agree we should get as driving battery EV as possible, but at some point the current grid will not sustain more charging stations at the mall through existing cabling. At that point it makes sense to look to hydrogen. It should be possible to drive it to existing gas stations for refueling, reusing existing infrastructure on that front.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > the current grid will not sustain more charging stations at the mall through existing cabling. At that point it makes sense to look to hydrogen Is the assertion laying new hydrogen pipes would be cheaper than expanding electrical lines?
  - 5y ago
newsclues 5y ago
If an EV charging station has solar or wind generation and has excess power to contain in its battery bank, use the spill over to generate and store hydrogen and oxygen?
pfdietz 5y ago
Musk calls them "fool cells" for a reason.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  Is the reason marketing?
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    No, engineering and economics.
    - clouddrover 5y ago
      And let's not let any embarrassing examples of real world fuel cell use get in the way: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/41389/hyundai-clocks-1-million-kilometers-with-hydrogen-truck-fleet https://www.thedrive.com/tech/41389/hyundai-clocks-1-million...
      - pfdietz 5y ago
        The average US truck driver goes about 20,000 km in 11 months, so 1 million km would be 50 trucks. That is hardly a sign of a thriving large scale market. It looks more like a demonstration scale money pit, and doesn't contradict Musk's negative assessment.
- akomtu 5y ago
  These hydrogen cells is just the oil and gas industry trying to stay relevant: they can modify their processes to produce hydrogen, but they can't produce lithium.
haihwishev 5y ago
Given that history often rhymes, is there any energy technology that never went anywhere? I can only really think of successful ones (human power, draught animals, fossile fuels, electricity, etc). I guess nuclear maybe, in that it never reached the potential people thought it would?
- HPsquared 5y ago
  Fusion I suppose.
jppope 5y ago
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the cost as a major downside of hydrogen fuel cell cars. The Honda clarity was set to be priced at roughly $350,000 for something that looks very much like a civic.
NoblePublius 5y ago
HFCs are a scam designed to make oil investors think that Shell and Exxon will have a role in the electric transportation future. The notion that we are better off turning 3x the CNG into hydrogen fuel than burning 1x the CNG to charge a battery is absurd.
specialist 5y ago
TLDR: Li-ion is bridge to H2 future, will settle into niche use cases. -- I'm very bullish on hydrogen for transportation. Maybe more. Think forward 10-20 years out. Here's my current and partial and wild guess hot take on ICE vs EV vs H2: EV is great for cars and smaller. EV also good for energy storage, eg homes, utilities. H2 is great for trucks, delivery, heavy gear, buses, etc. Basically cars and bigger, or needing more range. ~2032 we'll hit peak yearly Li-ion production at ~8t gw/h. Market saturated, most materials recovered from recycling instead of mining. 2022 produces ~40m ICE, ~1m EVs cars per year. I don't know how many ICE vehicles (trucks, vans, etc) are made yearly. Installed base of automobiles is 1.2b to grow to 1.8b by 2030. Average ICE lifespan is ~30 years. Crunch the numbers. We cannot get passenger automobile sector to carbon zero fast enough on our current trend lines. We'd need to retire ICE early and produce enough replacements. I have NO IDEA how many EVs we'll produce yearly. Consider the yearly Li-ion production and kwh used per car. We'll have to make cars smaller. What Horace Dediu calls "micromobility". (eg The battery pack of the popular, cute, functional Chinese EV is 1/10th of a Tesla.) There's still no clear game plan for carbon zero for the other half of transportation, meaning trucks and buses and bigger. H2 today ~= Li-ion 2006. Think of how we might mature H2 even faster than Li-ion matured. H2 will be completely safe. As in solid state storage. Plasma Kinetics and such. https://plasmakinetics.com https://plasmakinetics.com H2 production will be (must be) completely off fossil fuels. In a few years, we'll have excess energy capacity looking for applications. Like producing H2, ammonia, etc. BMW, Toyota, others completely missed (biffed) the Li-ion technology wave. And will suffer for it. I think it's wise of them to look towards the next disruption. -- One wild card is ammonia NH3. It may prove a useful transition step. Helping us retire ICE faster, while EV and then H2 ramp up. I'm certain there are other wild cards.
serix 5y ago
What if all cars on roads will be emitting vapor? Can it influence on the weather, I mean more rains for example?

78 points by k4lk 5y ago

https://www.forbes.com/sites/deloitte/2021/06/21/the-future-of-energy-decarbonization-in-power-and-utilities/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/deloitte/2021/06/21/the-future-...?

tut-urut-utut 5y ago

There's a lot of discussion about hydrogen as an energy source for cars in Germany. It is generally considered more ecological than electric, because of much lesser environmental footprint than required for producing batteries. Another advantage would be bigger driving range and faster refuelling. However, it looks like that outside of Germany, electric cars just won, and Germany itself will not be able to reverse the trend.

epistasis 5y ago
>because of much lesser environmental footprint than required for producing batteries. I'm very concerned about this, but have found basically zero impact for batteries, in that if one is concerned about batteries, then all that iron mining to build the rest of the car should probably be a bigger concern. After doing research, I'm 99% sure that lithium battery environmental concerns are just concern trolling from fossil fuel interests. But I am very open to concrete new information.
- varjag 5y ago
  Here is a rather detailed study on total emission effects of EV lifecyle: https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life-cycle-GHG_ICCT-Briefing_09022018_vF.pdf https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life... "An electric vehicle’s higher emissions during the manufacturing stage are paid off after only 2 years compared to driving an average conventional vehicle, a time frame that drops to about one and a half years if the car is charged using renewable energy."
  - pkphilip 5y ago
    That covers only the energy spent on mining etc but not the environmental impact of digging up entire country sides. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environmen...
    - epistasis 5y ago
      This seems to be a rather selective concern, when, as the article states, there's only 12kg of lithium in the batteries of a Tesla, which is one of the larger batteries out there. Are you also concerned about the steel, which is on the order of thousands of pounds per vehicle, and requires not only digging for iron, but also the coking coal? And speaking of digging, iron and coal do actually dig up landscapes, whereas most lithium is actually brine mined rather than dug out.
    - bbarnett 5y ago
      Steel is reused, car wreckers strip cars, crush the steel, and off it goes to be made into girders or something. What's more worrying is battery recycling. Toxoc batteries. So far, The West's plan has been to ship them to poor countries, which tend to just bury them. This can be resolved, but will it be? I say this to anyone claiming to be green, unless you know 100% how your product can be recycled, with concrete, in place processes and recyclers, you're a liar, and not green.
      - epistasis 5y ago
        Shipping lithium ion batteries is expensive, because they weigh so much. And no, there's no plan to ship them to poor countries, that's just a fabrication, based on nothing. It's quite likely that battery production will be performed very close to fins assembly, because of the low price of batteries per pound, especially compared to something that does get supped a lot, like solar PV panels. Long distance shipping of batteries would add significantly to their cost. In reality, lithium ion battery recycling is baked into this supply chain from the start. There are many startups eager to recycle batteries, the biggest challenge is that there isn't any substantial amount to recycle at the moment. Manufacturing rejects are one of the prime inputs to current battery recyclers.
Datagenerator 5y ago
Smaller batteries, faster cars. In Germany one can really use all the available power in stark contrast to neighboring countries. Lighter cars and fast refueling for long distance travelling are very beneficial, not only to Germany.
- phicoh 5y ago
  I assume that the vast majority of car owners is quite sensitive to cost. If all things considered the cost of hydrogen is similar to that of an BEV then it make sense that both will exist next to each other. On the other hand, if hydrogen proves to be a lot more expensive than a BEV, then you expect fewer hydrogen refueling stations, which makes hydrogen less attractive.
- reader_mode 5y ago
  Let's say Germany has a decent hydrogen infrastructure. You go on vacation in say Croatia or Spain, you suddenly can't use your car. Every country has electric sockets everywhere so you can charge over night and building fast chargers is trivial compared to storing hydrogen. Hydrogen sounds useful for commercial vehicles where you can plan routes and stay close to pumps (eg. delivery, bus, etc.) Sounds horrible for personal vehicles. I can see Japan investing in it - you are unlikely to travel out of country with your car.
chanux 5y ago
According to James May, Only Japan and Germany can support Hydrogen Fuel Cell decently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XytYTxQEq_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XytYTxQEq_Y
- polar 5y ago
  Pity he didn't get to drive it properly that day. Follow-up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v99AthjW78U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v99AthjW78U
  - chanux 5y ago
    Ah! Thanks for linking this. I linked to the wrong one.
Ma8ee 5y ago
They are betting on them in Japan, and they are using the olympic village as some kind of proof of concepts with both vehicles, but also residential energy production from hydrogen. And of course the Olympic torch will use hydrogen. Toyota are also betting on hydrogen. This is the reason why, even though they were early with hybrids, they still haven't released any purely electric cars.
- varjag 5y ago
  They did release BEV series.
- radicalbyte 5y ago
  Japan are building on Methane Hydrate as a strategic energy supply. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/japan-china-combustible-ice-frozen-fossil-fuel-extract-seafloor-energy-methane-hydrate-a7744456.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/japan-china-combu... We really are the most short sighted and stupid species, and only have ourselves to blame for what is to come.
  - chartpath 5y ago
    Yeah wow, let's melt more ice to power stuff.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  It feels like Toyota has made a massive miscalculation on this. They should have had a huge lead with all their experience of hybrids but now look like the are scrambling to catch up.
  - Ma8ee 5y ago
    Time will. I think hydrogen has huge advantages for e.g. long haul trucks, for which batteries don’t seem to be reasonable. And they will drive the infrastructure.
- fomine3 5y ago
  For Toyota, the representative company of Japan, it's not easy decision to all in to BEV because of energy situation. Japan is going to be stuck for global decarbonize campaign because the land/grid is too small to make stable distributed renewables, and obviously nuclear is no longer future option. Making BEV (or Li-ON battery) is energy intensive so it won't competitive with other decarbonated countries for future carbon tax era. That's why they must investigating hydrogen, solid state battery, xEV, and so on rather than just BEV. Other companies investigating other techs like co2 collector. Investigating hydrogen for other uses like truck, ship, storage, emergency generator looks reasonable (Toyota also sell fuel cell system for various use), but still I doubt is they serious for hydrogen car like Mirai, or it's just a demo or for special case.
jeeeb 5y ago
FWIW. I’ve seen a lot of interest in Japan and Australia as well. Toyota in particular seems to be betting big on hydrogen with a PHEV -> BEV transition as backup.
isoprophlex 5y ago
We're not at the level of, say, > 50% market adoption of EVs. Getting electricity to a battery EV at scale is somewhat of a "last mile" problem, and I'm not sure if upgrading our grids to handle this will be cheaper than rolling out hydrogen infra. Consider that you can ship hydrogen on a truck to existing pump stations (maybe not as efficient) as we do with gas right now. I have no data to back this up, just the handwavy arguments above...
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  >Getting electricity to a battery EV at scale is somewhat of a "last mile" problem, and I'm not sure if upgrading our grids to handle this will be cheaper than rolling out hydrogen infra. I read recently that the UK just needs to go back to 2002 levels of electricity generation to cover the whole fleet switching to electric. There are some problem areas, generally people who live in dense urban areas without an allocated parking space but I don't think that is insurmountable.
- epistasis 5y ago
  Hydrogen is super hard to store and transport. Electrolyzers are prohibitively expensive, and probably won't be cost competitive until 2050: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-hydrogen-part-one-the-supply-side/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-h... However EV's last mile problem is solved, at least for people with garages. 220v is more than enough for daily charging. A 120v 15amp circuit is almost trickle charging at <5mph, but most car are idle >90% of the time and that slow charging is enough to replenish a typical days driving in 8 hours. As far as the transmission and distribution grid, shiftable load like car charging has the potential to drastically reduce grid costs, by shaving off peak capacity, and utilizing the times of Los grid usage. Chris Clack is a leading grid modeler, and his latest grid models tor decarbonization show massive savings by putting batteries and solar at electrical meters. Car charging is half of the function of home batteries, and it's likely that in the near future, many cars will allow vehicle to grid discharge, like the new f150 truck.
- tyfon 5y ago
  I have no data here just my personal experience. In my area (in Norway) there are probably 50% EVs on the road now, closer to Oslo I bet the proportion is higher. In my street alone with 10 houses the cars are about 80% EVs and I just heard another neighbour has ordered an ID.4. The local bus is also electric and it has a pantograph that draws 450 kW from a charger just 50 meters from my house in it's "down time" as I am at the end of the route. No problem with the grid so far, but they have put a capacity charge on how much max capacity you use divided into 50 NOK ($5) monthly tiers. The tiers so far are 5, 10 and 15 kW, I'm unusually in the 5-10 bracket since I turned my cars down to 3.4 kW charging. In addition they lower the grid price during night to encourage people to charge when not much else is in use. But so far it has not required a massive grid build-out. It might be since the grid itself is well maintained being critical infrastructure. Since we are in the subject of hydrogen cars and pumps, there is also no tax on hydrogen cars here so there have been a few, but not nearly in the number of EVs. The pumps will sometimes require more time to refill than a charge since if you have many filling in a row the pump itself tends to freeze up and requires quite some time to thaw. The requirements of a hydrogen pump station is far higher than a gas station, it's not just the matter of shipping it on a truck to an existing one. You need compressors and decompressors (why it's freezing up) and it does take quite a bit of energy. There is also the issue of leaking since hydrogen atoms are so small, we did have one blow up not that far from here a couple years back. After living with only EVs for over two years now I think it's the way to go for personal cars and buses, but for ships and perhaps aircraft hydrogen makes more sense. It's also easier to store excess grid power on sunny or windy days using hydrogen, but right now the issue is also that most hydrogen is produced using steam-methane reforming [1] which emits CO2. Way better than petrol though. [1] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydrogen/production-of-hydrogen.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/hydrogen/production-of-h...
timthorn 5y ago
The UK Government is also looking hard at H2 and there's a lot of industrial activity in the area. Just today, Centrica announced a £1.6Bn investment in Hydrogen storage.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  I think that is mainly for heating homes, they want to switch gas boilers out for hydrogen.
RobertoG 5y ago
It seems like there is a push for hydrogen in Europe in the last months, and a lot of it seems coming from the big energy companies. Could be they are trying to find a way to get a piece of the European pandemic recovery funds, which are going mainly to "green" projects?
- epistasis 5y ago
  There is a huge effort from natural gas companies to make hydrogen acceptable. In my opinion any fossil fuel hydrogen should be banned, or at least taxed at far higher rates than current carbon taxes. We need electrolyzed hydrogen for industry, and we should make sure it's the cheapest option so that we don't have a market failure again.
Daniel_sk 5y ago
There is a lot of talk about hydrogen in Slovakia - it's promoted by the head of Mistry of Trade and Industry (Richard Sulik), but not many actual steps towards hydrogen cars are being done so far.

adrianN 5y ago

>However, one disadvantage of producing hydrogen is the losses during electrolysis. The overall efficiency in the “power to vehicle drive” energy chain is therefore only half the level of a BEV That seems to be more optimistic that what I've heard in the past. What's the efficiency of electrolysis+compression (or whatever step is necessary from bubbles to fuel in a tank)? Isn't that already well below 50%? How efficient are fuel cells in converting Hydrogen back to electricity? I thought I remembered that this too was a bit worse than batteries.

LightG 5y ago

As someone with little knowledge of this domain except a few articles and this link, it appears that hydrogen is better enviromentally, but the electric-car lobby disagree. If there is a chicken and egg problem, as mentioned in the article, where mass adoption of a "better" technology is only held back due to the the number of hydrogen pumps - that seems like an appropriate point for government to step in to bridge the gap. 1) Is hydrogen the better solution? 2) Why wouldn't government recognise this and bridge the gap? 3) As the article is by BMW, what is their agenda? Why wouldn't they just accept and hop on board the prevailing EV trend? (edit: For the Elon cult downvotes, lol, note the word "appears" above, feel free to challenge it).

epistasis 5y ago
Even the most hydrogen positive environmentalists don't think hydrogen makes sense for cars. Those pushing h2 cars either have natural gas interests, or an extreme attachment to fueling. By far the best current assessment of how we will use hydrogen as energy transport I have found: https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-hydrogen-part-two-the-demand-side/ https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-separating-hype-from-h...
marvin 5y ago
As for 3: BMW, like most of the transportation industry, is unwilling to make the massive investment in battery production required to profitably be able to switch their production from fossil to renewable. This reluctance obviously extends to hydrogen-electric drivetrains as well, if that option was even competitive. Since they're stuck in a classic Innovator's Dilemma situation, they vainly hope that the rest of the world will stand still until their subcontractors are magically able to produce all components required (at prices that leave them competitive!) to switch their entire production to renewable energy. Some hand-waving around technologies that are promising but "not quite there yet" is a central part of this strategy, as it allows them to sell their reluctance to investors. Just sitting there obviously doing nothing would make it too obvious. They've been doing this for 10 years now, so there's really nothing new to see. Meanwhile, the "electric-car lobby" keeps profitably producing mass-market vehicles and exponentially increasing production capacity, doing the hard work of actually building things in volume that haven't been built before. The market cap of Tesla implies that this is hardly a controversial stance today, although there is obviously still significant uncertainty.

polar 5y ago

A British company is making a Hydrogen powered hypercar. https://www.viritech.co.uk/ https://www.viritech.co.uk/

Transrapid 5y ago

Yeah Germany, Japan, South Korea, UK, China, Australia, France, India, California and so on seeing it as the future of cars. "It is generally considered more ecological than electric, because of much lesser environmental footprint than required for producing batteries. Another advantage would be bigger driving range and faster refuelling." And the biggest advantage: you're cleaning the air while driving from particles which harm your health. <- This reason alone is a key factor. Have a look here: https://youtu.be/ormfLJmWGC8 https://youtu.be/ormfLJmWGC8 People complained about the emission cheating regarding volkswagen. So everybody who did has to be pro hydrogen car. Because its real emission free. not like a battery car

effie 5y ago
It is cleaning air from pollution, but it is also removing lots of oxygen. You don't want to breathe hydrogen car exhaust.
- Transrapid 5y ago
  Wrong. have a look here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibo5fN727Rg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibo5fN727Rg
  - effie 5y ago
    Notice the car is standing still, most probably having minimal consumption of oxygen.
timbit42 5y ago
So put an air filter in an EV and the motion of the car will also clean the air.

jokoon 5y ago

Hydrogen will always leak from any container. Clean hydrogen is difficult to make, giving an opportunity to the oil industry to easily make cheap hydrogen from refineries, which is not carbon neutral. I'm not sure there is enough platinum in the world to make all those cars. Mining platinum might cause additional carbon emissions. Hydrogen is very dangerous because it's highly explosive. Gas is safer in that regard.

Transrapid 5y ago
> Hydrogen will always leak from any container. not anymore > Clean hydrogen is difficult to make, giving an opportunity to the oil industry to easily make cheap hydrogen from refineries, which is not carbon neutral. It's not and everybody is talking about GREEN hydrogen > I'm not sure there is enough platinum in the world to make all those cars. Mining platinum might cause additional carbon emissions. you don't need it to create fuel cells > Hydrogen is very dangerous because it's highly explosive. Gas is safer in that regard. Nope industry is using it since decades
- haar 5y ago
  I think generally your comments would be more well received if you provide links backing up your statements. Currently your posts just seem to be going through criticisms and simply stating "No, reverse of above statement". This doesn't lead to a discussion, or informative comment threads. You can ask for the same in return from those you're interacting with, but considering you're a brand new account seemingly created to provide a counterpoint; it felt worth calling out (with your declining Karma).
- cheradenine_uk 5y ago
  Industry doesn't pump it around in pipelines though, it makes it on-site.
- jokoon 5y ago
  Yes, going to answer the same thing, you don't provide sources. Green hydrogen is difficult to make because of low energy efficiency, which I agree, would be solved with nuclear since nuclear provides a lot of green energy. Platinum is required for fuel cells, please do a research or provide sources or explain.

sjaak 5y ago

I'll just leave this take on hydrogen fuel cells by our lord and saviour Mr. Musk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPnT-DCBVs

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Causality1 5y ago

Yet experts believe that hydrogen fuel cell cars will catch up in the future This is the same shtick they've been feeding us for thirty years. Fuel cell cars as a realistic choice for consumers has been five years away for decades now. At this point I'm tired of hearing about it. Battery electric vehicles have been making steady gains in terms of innovation and energy density for long time now. Battery electric has an enormous lead as well as fundamental efficiency advantages. https://i.imgur.com/SZFM97f.jpg https://i.imgur.com/SZFM97f.jpg Until someone comes up with groundbreaking new ways to do electrolysis and hydrogen storage, the fuel cell economy is dead in the water.

sunstone 5y ago

Car maker's attraction for fuel cells is that they neatly replace the internal combustion engine with another large, heavy, hot mechanism that continues to require about the same amount of ongoing maintenance. So the automaker's balance sheet remains about the same but now it's green. As Musk pointed out some years ago, hydrogen is not so much a fuel as it is an energy storage medium. Right out of the gate creating the hydrogen reduces the system efficiency by about 50% because of the electricity required. In essence then hydrogen fuel cells are just a less efficient form of electricity that require a complex and expensive mechanism to turn into motive force. Possibly useful for shipping or trains but not the way to bet for cars.

bbarnett 5y ago
People talk about hooking cars up to the grid, and charging them during times of excess power, and then selling that power back during peak. Yet, that shorten battery lifespan a lot (imagine a car charged weekly to get around town, now discharged/charged daily... battery life is now 1/7th). There is also loss during charging, and discharge, loss in power lines too. Meanwhile, you could create h2 right at the power plant during time of excess. Like at a dam. Then just send all that stored energy via pipelines, just a with natural gas.
- epistasis 5y ago
  Cycling batteries small percentages around mid level charges does almost nothing to battery life. Already, it's expected that we will soon have car batteries that outlast the rest of the car, with million miles lifetimes. Plus, there's a specific cost to the battery life, that can be calculated, and evaluated against the gains from arbitraging electricity prices. If batteries are economical on the grid, and they are increasingly replacing natural gas peakers for cost reasons, then car batteries will be a huge resource that is an economic win for car owners and for electricity rate payers.
Black101 5y ago
Because batteries are not a storage medium and they are not filled by using electricity... ? of course gasoline is better because you get it out of the ground, but I have a feeling that we will discover an efficient way to produce hydrogen ...

k4lk 5y ago

In Denmark we could split water through hydrolyse whenever there is over-production from windmills. This over-production is something that we currently pay our neighbours to receive. In addition the heat produced can be used as district heating, making it less of an issue that it is less efficient to produce hydrogen.

olau 5y ago
Newer wind turbine contracts make the turbine owners turn off their engines. And it is only very few hours of the year that the prices turn negative anyway. You can't base anything off that. It's just not worth it.
epistasis 5y ago
From what I've heard, the capital costs of electrolyzers are currently far too high to make intermittent hydrogen production economical. Hopefully that will change, and intermittent usage will eventually be about the same cost as running continuously.

kieranmaine 5y ago

My understanding from the article is that Hydrogen vehicles will not be competitive with BEVs in terms of cost per mile for the next 10-20 years. The article states: "An FCEV can drive about 28 miles (45 km) on 1 lb (0.45 kg) of hydrogen" and "If the demand for hydrogen increases, the price could drop to around USD 2.50/lb (USD 5.60/kg) by 2030" Therefore 28 miles will cost 2.5 USD. However, according to ev-database.uk the most efficient Model 3 uses 235 Wh/mile. If we assume that most EVs will be charged using a cheap EV tariff by 2030 (see https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/0v0-dr1v3-fl3x-3n3rgy-pl4n-tr14l https://www.ovoenergy.com/electric-cars/0v0-dr1v3-fl3x-3n3rg...) with a cost per kWh of 0.06 GBP, it will cost 0.39 GBP to drive 28 miles. Even if the most expensive average UK electricity cost for today is used (15.60p - https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/tariffs-per-unit-kwh https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/tariffs-per-unit-kwh), it's still on 1.06 GBP, meaning the price per mile for a BEV today in the UK, is cheaper than a FCEV in 2030. Have I miscalculated or am I missing something?

bbarnett 5y ago
One thing. What happens to the power grid, if power needs double? Certainly, new power plant construction, even if green, will be financed by additional cost to the consumer.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  In the UK the grid has published a few white papers on this, and even had to issue corrections because newspapers keep misinterpreting what they say. Summary, no big deal and in fact smart EV charging tech can actively help the grid and make it easier to use all the cheap power we generate.
  - bbarnett 5y ago
    In Ontario, 6 successive government of all political stripes, one after another did nothing, leaving the grid burning coal and ng. Plants planned and canceled, one mess up after another, again all political parties the same mess. It is indeed easy, until it is time to execute. And it takes a decade at least, with zoning, environmental checks, just to get a plan planned and construction off the ground. This means that everyone should already have new plants in the planning stages. Not a report, but buying land, regulation hurdles, and when state owned, approved. Does the UK already have 3 or 4 new plants in these initial stages? And if so, how many may fall through?

perf1 5y ago

There is also the option of using a methane fuel cell that is ignored by everyone.

larshen 5y ago

Electric cars has an advantage now, but there is more energy consumption than passenger cars. Planes will never fly on batteries, Paris Airports are preparing for hydrogen planes delivered by Airbus. Trains already run on hydrogen. Ships will use ammonium. Steel plants plan to convert to hydrogen. Energy storage is a big issue to reach the goal line. In Nordic countries there is very little solar power in the winter. Energy can be stored in hydrogen. An extra bonus is that excessive heat from hydrolysis can be used in district heating.

fvdessen 5y ago

I think this makes a lot more sense for trucks, where the size, range, weight, cost & charging time of batteries are more impactful

dale_glass 5y ago

Hydrogen almost certainly won't go anywhere, in my opinion. * The efficiency compared to battery tech is horrendous. * Hydrogen is effectively a storage technology -- we have to generate it and compress it. Which combined with the above means that charging a hydrogen car will always be more expensive than putting the same amount of usable energy into a battery powered car. * Let's not forget that the cheapest way of generating hydrogen is from fossil fuels. Electrolysis is very inefficient. * Any concern there might exist for the effect on the electrical grid coming battery powered cars multiplies for hydrogen due to the inefficiency. * You need a large infrastructure to produce and distribute it. * It's a huge chicken and egg problem -- a hydrogen car needs hydrogen, and there's nowhere convenient right now to get it from. * In the end, a hydrogen car is ultimately electric. What is more convenient, having a car that can be plugged into an outlet, or a car that needs an extremely specialized hydrogen station? IMO the only excitement from hydrogen is for fossil fuel companies, because that's what the vast majority of it is made from, and because it'd be a fairly natural fit into their existing infrastructure. There may be some niches where hydrogen could be the better solution -- hydrogen trucks might be viable because there you can have well defined routes, and trucks have a weight limit which may not play well with batteries. But for normal cars I don't really see it.

Transrapid 5y ago
>The efficiency compared to battery tech is horrendous. nope >Hydrogen is effectively a storage technology -- we have to generate it and compress it. Which combined with the above means that charging a hydrogen car will always be more expensive than putting the same amount of usable energy into a battery powered car. Nope, 350kw charger -> loss >Let's not forget that the cheapest way of generating hydrogen is from fossil fuels. Electrolysis is very inefficient. no, newest one >95% >Any concern there might exist for the effect on the electrical grid coming battery powered cars multiplies for hydrogen due to the inefficiency. Nope you get more energy with less area used via pipeline than grid lines > In the end, a hydrogen car is ultimately electric. What is more convenient, having a car that can be plugged into an outlet, or a car that needs an extremely specialized hydrogen station? home hydrogen station exist > IMO the only excitement from hydrogen is for fossil fuel companies, because that's what the vast majority of it is made from, and because it'd be a fairly natural fit into their existing infrastructure. wrong fossil fuel companies still want to sell fossil fuels. we have to deal with emission inside cities. hydrogen cars cleaning the air while driving. battery cars still emit emissions.

larshen 5y ago

Car manufacturers are working on hydrogen combustion engine. Existing combustion cars have been modified to hydrogen in decades.

garaetjjte 5y ago
I don't think there's much to work on, it just works. But then you have another combustion powered car, so why bother?

larshen 5y ago

China has 118 hydrogen gas stations

roguesupport 5y ago

Anyone wo works with elements in a practical capacity will tell you; HYDROGEN IS TERRIFYING. It's very unstable, and difficult to control.

timbit42 5y ago
OH! The humanity!

ytNumbers 5y ago

Sandy Munro thinks Plasma Kinetics has a breakthrough technology that will, at some point in the future, allow hydrogen powered cars to dominate the auto industry. https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/e0f655f1-c51d-4fe6-9383-1ffe36baf462/Plasma%20Kinetics%20Mkt%20Apps_3_%20Intro%201Y%20dt%20(003)_.pdf https://img1.wsimg.com/blobby/go/e0f655f1-c51d-4fe6-9383-1ff... Here's where Sandy Munro mentions Plasma Kinetics: https://youtu.be/06AhaQXhuwQ?t=226 https://youtu.be/06AhaQXhuwQ?t=226

polar 5y ago
H2GO Power is another company working on solid-state Hydrogen storage. It looks like they are targeting drones rather than cars though. https://www.h2gopower.com https://www.h2gopower.com

joe_91 5y ago

At this stage - I don't see wide spread adoption happening outside of Japan or somewhere where a country really pushes for it. Battery/recharging tech is improving year on year. For their latest model S plaid they've claimed: Tesla says that 15 minutes should be enough to replenish 187 miles (301 km) of range.[1] In 2-3 years when the rest of the worlds car companies/ fast chargers have caught on I just don't see how Hydrogen can compete with all the downsides it has. 1. https://insideevs.com/news/515641/tesla-models-plaid-charging-analysis/ https://insideevs.com/news/515641/tesla-models-plaid-chargin...

keymone 5y ago

> electrical energy is used to break water down into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen, via the process of electrolysis is this actually the process to get hydrogen on industrial scale? from wiki: As of 2020, the majority of hydrogen (∼95%) is produced from fossil fuels by steam reforming of natural gas, partial oxidation of methane, and coal gasification. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production

rasz 5y ago

reality: They dont work. Honda has been trying to make it happen for 20 years now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX its all a huge failure https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36751587/honda-clarity-fuel-cell-vehicle-discontinued/ https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36751587/honda-cla... Whats fascinating is the realization Honda toyed with EVs even longer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus and still managed to fail miserably.

clouddrover 5y ago
Of course they work. Hyundai's fuel cell trucks are running well: https://www.thedrive.com/news/41389/hyundai-clocks-1-million-kilometers-with-hydrogen-truck-fleet https://www.thedrive.com/news/41389/hyundai-clocks-1-million...
- rasz 5y ago
  I dont mean the technology, it obviously works as evidenced by prototypes 20 years ago. I mean the concept and energy generation/storage, it doesnt make sense as soon as you take more than cursory glance. Hydrogen embrittlement, electrolysis energy loss, ranges, it all falls apart.
  - clouddrover 5y ago
    Hydrogen production is only going to go up because there are many uses for it. If you want green steel you need to use hydrogen. It will also make sense to use that hydrogen for transportation. You're in some strange mindset of it being batteries versus hydrogen. It isn't one or the other. It's both.
k4lk 5y ago
Here is James May driving a Toyota Mirari which is available today: https://youtu.be/v99AthjW78U https://youtu.be/v99AthjW78U

yholio 5y ago

The train has left that station 10 years ago, and it's all electric. No point staying in the trenches like the apocryphal Japanese soldier, fighting for the resurgence of Hydrogen. It's less efficient, more expensive for vehicles and infrastructure and more expensive to fuel, has lower range, it's more dangerous. The range record for a Hydrogen vehicle is less than the range of mass-produced commercial cars available today for purchase. As an inferior technology, Hydrogen stood a chance if it was able to quickly deploy a network of charging stations, locking in customers with a strong network effect. The opposite is true now, electric charging points are popping up everywhere, because it's so damn easy to do, every shopping mall can accommodate at least a handful using its existing electric cabling. Most everybody has a 3.7KW power outlet at home that delivers significant range for an overnight or over-weekend charge. Meanwhile, Hydrogen needs a completely new pipeline distribution system, using special metals and seals because it's so agile and leaky. There is no point in investing in such a system, because battery electric has already won the race. And without this network, Hydrogen remains an oddity fuel relegated to specialty applications. It was a dead-end anyway. You either get Hydrogen form natural gas, which is an environmental killer, or you get it from green energy with a 20-30% whole cycle efficiency. Why not use the energy directly with a 80-90% efficiency, and use that vehicle fleet to regulate the whole electric grid?

k4lk 5y ago
I don't think it has left the station per se. I agree we should get as driving battery EV as possible, but at some point the current grid will not sustain more charging stations at the mall through existing cabling. At that point it makes sense to look to hydrogen. It should be possible to drive it to existing gas stations for refueling, reusing existing infrastructure on that front.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > the current grid will not sustain more charging stations at the mall through existing cabling. At that point it makes sense to look to hydrogen Is the assertion laying new hydrogen pipes would be cheaper than expanding electrical lines?
- 5y ago

newsclues 5y ago

If an EV charging station has solar or wind generation and has excess power to contain in its battery bank, use the spill over to generate and store hydrogen and oxygen?

pfdietz 5y ago

Musk calls them "fool cells" for a reason.

clouddrover 5y ago
Is the reason marketing?
- pfdietz 5y ago
  No, engineering and economics.
  - clouddrover 5y ago
    And let's not let any embarrassing examples of real world fuel cell use get in the way: https://www.thedrive.com/tech/41389/hyundai-clocks-1-million-kilometers-with-hydrogen-truck-fleet https://www.thedrive.com/tech/41389/hyundai-clocks-1-million...
    - pfdietz 5y ago
      The average US truck driver goes about 20,000 km in 11 months, so 1 million km would be 50 trucks. That is hardly a sign of a thriving large scale market. It looks more like a demonstration scale money pit, and doesn't contradict Musk's negative assessment.
akomtu 5y ago
These hydrogen cells is just the oil and gas industry trying to stay relevant: they can modify their processes to produce hydrogen, but they can't produce lithium.

haihwishev 5y ago

Given that history often rhymes, is there any energy technology that never went anywhere? I can only really think of successful ones (human power, draught animals, fossile fuels, electricity, etc). I guess nuclear maybe, in that it never reached the potential people thought it would?

HPsquared 5y ago
Fusion I suppose.

jppope 5y ago

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the cost as a major downside of hydrogen fuel cell cars. The Honda clarity was set to be priced at roughly $350,000 for something that looks very much like a civic.

NoblePublius 5y ago

HFCs are a scam designed to make oil investors think that Shell and Exxon will have a role in the electric transportation future. The notion that we are better off turning 3x the CNG into hydrogen fuel than burning 1x the CNG to charge a battery is absurd.

specialist 5y ago

TLDR: Li-ion is bridge to H2 future, will settle into niche use cases. -- I'm very bullish on hydrogen for transportation. Maybe more. Think forward 10-20 years out. Here's my current and partial and wild guess hot take on ICE vs EV vs H2: EV is great for cars and smaller. EV also good for energy storage, eg homes, utilities. H2 is great for trucks, delivery, heavy gear, buses, etc. Basically cars and bigger, or needing more range. ~2032 we'll hit peak yearly Li-ion production at ~8t gw/h. Market saturated, most materials recovered from recycling instead of mining. 2022 produces ~40m ICE, ~1m EVs cars per year. I don't know how many ICE vehicles (trucks, vans, etc) are made yearly. Installed base of automobiles is 1.2b to grow to 1.8b by 2030. Average ICE lifespan is ~30 years. Crunch the numbers. We cannot get passenger automobile sector to carbon zero fast enough on our current trend lines. We'd need to retire ICE early and produce enough replacements. I have NO IDEA how many EVs we'll produce yearly. Consider the yearly Li-ion production and kwh used per car. We'll have to make cars smaller. What Horace Dediu calls "micromobility". (eg The battery pack of the popular, cute, functional Chinese EV is 1/10th of a Tesla.) There's still no clear game plan for carbon zero for the other half of transportation, meaning trucks and buses and bigger. H2 today ~= Li-ion 2006. Think of how we might mature H2 even faster than Li-ion matured. H2 will be completely safe. As in solid state storage. Plasma Kinetics and such. https://plasmakinetics.com https://plasmakinetics.com H2 production will be (must be) completely off fossil fuels. In a few years, we'll have excess energy capacity looking for applications. Like producing H2, ammonia, etc. BMW, Toyota, others completely missed (biffed) the Li-ion technology wave. And will suffer for it. I think it's wise of them to look towards the next disruption. -- One wild card is ammonia NH3. It may prove a useful transition step. Helping us retire ICE faster, while EV and then H2 ramp up. I'm certain there are other wild cards.

serix 5y ago

What if all cars on roads will be emitting vapor? Can it influence on the weather, I mean more rains for example?