2 ms·

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 su

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...

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...