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> plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035. It's a handout to the dying hydrogen industry of which EU was a huge supporter of. The electric revolu

by yholio 5y ago

> plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035. It's a handout to the dying hydrogen industry of which EU was a huge supporter of. The electric revolution killed any chances of hydrogen powered cars, and the new hype in the industry is using excess renewable electricity to store in hydrogen batteries, which would then supply process heat or residential heating with zero emissions. This is all a bunch of crap that will never be economic, since transporting, handling and using hydrogen is a nightmare and generating it via electrolysis is expensive and ineficient - to the point where the only economic source is to crack methane and release CO2. But that does not seem to stop the hydrogen hype, and it will likely continue in Europe for a few more years, until die it must, as prescribed by the laws of physics.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"The electric revolution killed any chances of hydrogen powered cars" It was never meant to succeed, much like Apple's concessions to right to repair, it's just a distraction designed to buy time
user_7832 5y ago
I'm curious on why you're pessimistic on hydrogen. I agree that cars are likely not the best use of fuel cells (heavy vehicles are able to utilize H2's strengths much more), but in a future based on renewables hydrogen allows you to store energy in a very dense way. Lithium batteries are acceptably heavy/expensive at small scales, but how do you think will supply vary to meet demand in the medium-long term without a chemical fuel (hydrogen/ammonia)?
- Gwypaas 5y ago
  Call it a solution in search of a problem. The best fuel cells today reach about 50% round trip efficiency. That's even a high estimate. That by physics defines the price difference between where you buy low and sell high. Without even counting the hydrogen storage, fuel cell itself and everything needed to make it function. That number also defines the arbitrage marginal any other solution has against hydrogen. Be it batteries, over built renewables or geographically coupled networks. Hydrogen as a feedstock for industry?? Definitely. Hydrogen for airplanes? Likely synthetic hydrocarbons but we will see, the hydrogen has to come from somewhere. Same with long distance ocean transport. Emergency reserve of power for a nation state? Just use fossil fuels.
  - user_7832 5y ago
    Yeah I agree with what you say (especially your last part), that its use is likely to be much more for some industries than others; for eg. for Battery EVs particularly outside North America iirc a much smaller battery can do 95% of trips, so hydrogen makes very little sense for a family car. Though the person I was replying to was more pessimistic in general.
  - michaelt 5y ago
    Well, Europe needs some way to store renewable energy in the summer for use in the winter. Especially if they plan to move all transport and heating off hydrocarbons, without using nuclear. And storing energy during summer for use in winter needs a battery 100x larger than storing it in the day for use at night. I don't know what solution our leaders have in mind for this - but I can imagine the costs of gas and battery storage scale differently.
  - _hypx 5y ago
    The best fuel cells already reach >70% efficiency.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    You need a large amount of electricity for a short term event - say a festival or a building site. You wheel in a hydrogen generator, powered by hydrogen from renewable electrolysis, job done.
- trembonator 5y ago
- yholio 5y ago
  Firstly, the energy density of hydrogen is a lie. Yes, the fuel itself has the highest know energy content per mass, but it's nearly useless as a gas. To reach any useful volume density you need a high pressure COPV tank that weights an other of magnitude more than the fuel it contains. To generate electricity you need a bulky fuel cell with low efficiency, which in turn requires a very beefy cooling system, larger than the one used on an ICE vehicle since the fuel cell is so much sensitive to overheating. If you add it all up, you get something that's comparable with a battery in terms of energy density, but with half the round trip efficiency, expensive and dangerous refueling, larger upfront costs and lower lifetime. It's no surprise then that the range record for a hydrogen car is actually lower than the corresponding BEV car. The only genuine advantage of fuel cells is faster refill, but with advances in battery chemistry and ubiquity of charging spots, this becomes less of an issue. As for the mineral scarcity issue, fuel cells have it much worse, each requiring a small fortune in platinum or other rare minerals. The lithium content for batteries is dropping and a somewhat lower performance sodium ion chemistry is available, with practically limitless supply.
  - _hypx 5y ago
    A COPV has about 6% hydrogen by mass. At 33.3 kWh/kg, that’s ~2000 Wh/kg. This is far beyond the theoretical limits of li-ion batteries. Platinum is not a critical component, only necessary in current PEM fuel cells. Future fuel cells should eventually do away with platinum altogether. As hydrogen is effectively limitless too this is never going to be a resource concern.
    - yholio 5y ago
      A typical Mirai fuel consumption is 0.76kg/100km in similar driving conditions with a Tesla doing 15kWh/100km, so real world fuel density is 20kWh/kg - with a corresponding decrease in COPV density. You would then almost halve that density to take into consideration the whole electricity generating system, cell + cooling + the supercap or NiMH assembly that handle transients and regen braking etc. So the density advantage of Hydrogen is limited, half to a third the battery mass with comparable volume. Not a game changer in 2010, and certainly not now, when everything else is against it. The much improved and high performance fuel cells have been just around the corner for two decades. In the meantime, BEV sales have outstripped H2EVs one thousand to one, growing exponentially every year. How could anyone even consider buying a H2EV when the reliability of infrastructure is a joke even in the most mature US market [1]? Considering electric chargers are becoming ubiquitous and anyone can install one in their own home? I think one needs to smell the roses, it's not a festive occasion for H2EVs. [1] https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2021-toyota-mirai-long-term-test-review-update-3-dispatches-hydrogen-fuelpocalypse/ https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2021-toyota-mirai-long-te...
liketochill 5y ago
There are new developments in the hydrogen field relevant to transporting it by converting the hydrogen to ammonia, which is routinely transported safely. Perhaps it will be competitive with batteries or synthetic or carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuels.
_hypx 5y ago
Efficiency is quite irrelevant to this subject when the cost of energy is nearly zero. Hydrogen will win out simply because it is cheaper and more sustainable than batteries.

by yholio 5y ago

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

"The electric revolution killed any chances of hydrogen powered cars" It was never meant to succeed, much like Apple's concessions to right to repair, it's just a distraction designed to buy time

user_7832 5y ago

I'm curious on why you're pessimistic on hydrogen. I agree that cars are likely not the best use of fuel cells (heavy vehicles are able to utilize H2's strengths much more), but in a future based on renewables hydrogen allows you to store energy in a very dense way. Lithium batteries are acceptably heavy/expensive at small scales, but how do you think will supply vary to meet demand in the medium-long term without a chemical fuel (hydrogen/ammonia)?

Gwypaas 5y ago
Call it a solution in search of a problem. The best fuel cells today reach about 50% round trip efficiency. That's even a high estimate. That by physics defines the price difference between where you buy low and sell high. Without even counting the hydrogen storage, fuel cell itself and everything needed to make it function. That number also defines the arbitrage marginal any other solution has against hydrogen. Be it batteries, over built renewables or geographically coupled networks. Hydrogen as a feedstock for industry?? Definitely. Hydrogen for airplanes? Likely synthetic hydrocarbons but we will see, the hydrogen has to come from somewhere. Same with long distance ocean transport. Emergency reserve of power for a nation state? Just use fossil fuels.
- user_7832 5y ago
  Yeah I agree with what you say (especially your last part), that its use is likely to be much more for some industries than others; for eg. for Battery EVs particularly outside North America iirc a much smaller battery can do 95% of trips, so hydrogen makes very little sense for a family car. Though the person I was replying to was more pessimistic in general.
- michaelt 5y ago
  Well, Europe needs some way to store renewable energy in the summer for use in the winter. Especially if they plan to move all transport and heating off hydrocarbons, without using nuclear. And storing energy during summer for use in winter needs a battery 100x larger than storing it in the day for use at night. I don't know what solution our leaders have in mind for this - but I can imagine the costs of gas and battery storage scale differently.
- _hypx 5y ago
  The best fuel cells already reach >70% efficiency.
- iso1210 5y ago
  You need a large amount of electricity for a short term event - say a festival or a building site. You wheel in a hydrogen generator, powered by hydrogen from renewable electrolysis, job done.
trembonator 5y ago
yholio 5y ago
Firstly, the energy density of hydrogen is a lie. Yes, the fuel itself has the highest know energy content per mass, but it's nearly useless as a gas. To reach any useful volume density you need a high pressure COPV tank that weights an other of magnitude more than the fuel it contains. To generate electricity you need a bulky fuel cell with low efficiency, which in turn requires a very beefy cooling system, larger than the one used on an ICE vehicle since the fuel cell is so much sensitive to overheating. If you add it all up, you get something that's comparable with a battery in terms of energy density, but with half the round trip efficiency, expensive and dangerous refueling, larger upfront costs and lower lifetime. It's no surprise then that the range record for a hydrogen car is actually lower than the corresponding BEV car. The only genuine advantage of fuel cells is faster refill, but with advances in battery chemistry and ubiquity of charging spots, this becomes less of an issue. As for the mineral scarcity issue, fuel cells have it much worse, each requiring a small fortune in platinum or other rare minerals. The lithium content for batteries is dropping and a somewhat lower performance sodium ion chemistry is available, with practically limitless supply.
- _hypx 5y ago
  A COPV has about 6% hydrogen by mass. At 33.3 kWh/kg, that’s ~2000 Wh/kg. This is far beyond the theoretical limits of li-ion batteries. Platinum is not a critical component, only necessary in current PEM fuel cells. Future fuel cells should eventually do away with platinum altogether. As hydrogen is effectively limitless too this is never going to be a resource concern.
  - yholio 5y ago
    A typical Mirai fuel consumption is 0.76kg/100km in similar driving conditions with a Tesla doing 15kWh/100km, so real world fuel density is 20kWh/kg - with a corresponding decrease in COPV density. You would then almost halve that density to take into consideration the whole electricity generating system, cell + cooling + the supercap or NiMH assembly that handle transients and regen braking etc. So the density advantage of Hydrogen is limited, half to a third the battery mass with comparable volume. Not a game changer in 2010, and certainly not now, when everything else is against it. The much improved and high performance fuel cells have been just around the corner for two decades. In the meantime, BEV sales have outstripped H2EVs one thousand to one, growing exponentially every year. How could anyone even consider buying a H2EV when the reliability of infrastructure is a joke even in the most mature US market [1]? Considering electric chargers are becoming ubiquitous and anyone can install one in their own home? I think one needs to smell the roses, it's not a festive occasion for H2EVs. [1] https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2021-toyota-mirai-long-term-test-review-update-3-dispatches-hydrogen-fuelpocalypse/ https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/2021-toyota-mirai-long-te...

liketochill 5y ago

There are new developments in the hydrogen field relevant to transporting it by converting the hydrogen to ammonia, which is routinely transported safely. Perhaps it will be competitive with batteries or synthetic or carbon neutral hydrocarbon fuels.

_hypx 5y ago

Efficiency is quite irrelevant to this subject when the cost of energy is nearly zero. Hydrogen will win out simply because it is cheaper and more sustainable than batteries.