9 ms·

Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world. The primary source for hydrogen would be from methane in natu

Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world. The primary source for hydrogen would be from methane in natural gas, and they could then sell this as a "zero pollution fuel" while continuing their non-renewable energy business as normal. If you read between the lines and look at the companies involved, they're always linked to fossil fuel companies directly or indirectly. That, or fossil fuel powered vehicle manufacturers that are reluctant to completely retool their factories. Hydrogen has a few legitimate use cases, such as iron ore refining and chemical feedstock, but that's about it. In all other scenarios, battery-based technology is vastly superior along multiple metrics.

TheRealPomax 4y ago
I didn't know Toyota was a fossil fuel company, or was owned by one? Japan is uniquely trying to make this thing work. They have no domestic oil production, and so few coal mines as to basically be irrelevant: all their fossil fuel is imported. Anywhere else on the planet: sure, this might be another way for big fossil to push for relevancy, but in Japan's case, hydrogen would be something that they can produce themselves, literally freeing them from fossil fuel dependency, which is a big part of why they keep trying to make it work. And yeah, the math says it's physically impossible to make it work without constant refueling, but again: it's Japan. The very idea of "my car needs to go 300 miles on one charge/tank" just isn't a thing there. Hydrogen, despite this article's claim, is actually perfect for Japan. Any tanker of import fuel saved is CO2 saved both on the tanker's transit, and on that fuel getting burned, but at the same time: it's also perfect much perfect only for Japan.
- jfengel 4y ago
  They're a car company committed to keeping the internal combustion engine. They are market leaders in hybrid cars, but have been surpassed in all electric. So they're not a fossil fuel company but their interests are aligned.
  - jojobas 4y ago
    There's nothing wrong with internal combustion per se, if electrolysis+ICE works out cheaper than battery in terms of lithium/rare earths/whatever there is no fundamental objection to it.
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      Wouldn’t ICEs be worse for local pollution?
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - ryao 4y ago
        There is a hypothetical internal combustion engine that burns hydrogen directly. I think that the other poster was talking about that. Unfortunately, it is not just inefficient, but also has a major rust problem. It also would still generate NOx.
      - gruez 4y ago
        What pollution would hydrogen/oxygen combustion produce?
        stephen_g 4y ago
        NOx is formed from combustion in air, from the nitrogen that makes up much of the air. If you could feed it pure oxygen then you'd avoid that but nobody's going to want a car with an oxidiser tank onboard.
    - XorNot 4y ago
      That seems completely implausible though based on the losses. An ICE tops out at 25% efficient or so. A hydrogen fuel cell is 40-60% and efficient and that's likely to rise. If you're bothering with fueling cars with hydrogen gas, you might as well make them electric and get a huge range boost for free (and way more torque, less maintenance etc.) There's just no logical reason to try and burn hydrogen in ICE engines.
- roneythomas6 4y ago
  The key here is Toyota is biggest employer in Japan and when you add its suppliers it's even bigger. Toyota very much wants an Hydrogen future so that they can retain those jobs.
  - ryao 4y ago
    I imagine that Japanese labor laws are a major motivator for Toyota. From what I have heard of Japanese labor laws, salaried employees in Japan appear to be guaranteed employment for life. The result is that Toyota will not be able to fire its employees even if their jobs become obsolete, so finding a solution that keeps those jobs from being made obsolete is extremely important for Toyota.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    I read this analysis last year about why Japan is so behind with EVs. The number of parts required is less then combustion and Japan's government is concerned about maintaining employment levels This article talks about the filler jobs and how the economy is stuck in the past. https://news.yahoo.com/japan-future-stuck-past-220130554.html https://news.yahoo.com/japan-future-stuck-past-220130554.htm... Annoyingly I can't find the source that went into why they are pushing EVs. Edit: To be clear that was the hypothesis of the source and they presented evidence that the government that backed it, like stressing job creation and the importance of the automotive industry, but there wasn't a smoking gun.
    - roneythomas6 4y ago
      Yup that is correct. I know what you are talking about. Japanese govt(MITI) is very much involved in Totyota’s future goals.
- danans 4y ago
  > I didn't know Toyota was a fossil fuel company, or was owned by one? > Japan is uniquely trying to make this thing work You have conflated Toyota with Japan there. Even in a society dominated by it's megacorps, they are not necessarily the same thing. After all, Nissan brought us the first mass market EV (and yes, they promptly punted on their first mover advantage). > Anywhere else on the planet: sure, this might be another way for big fossil to push for relevancy, but in Japan's case, hydrogen would be something that they can produce themselves, literally freeing them from fossil fuel dependency, Any domestic production of hydrogen in Japan would have to be via water electrolysis with electricity, since they have basically no natural gas production. Since that's the case, why not just use the electricity directly and not pay the 40-50% penalty of electrolysis? > The very idea of "my car needs to go 300 miles on one charge/tank" just isn't a thing there. > Hydrogen, despite this article's claim, is actually perfect for Japan. The first statement contradicts the second, because one of the benefits of hydrogen over batteries is that range isn't much of an issue and refueling is fast. That's why the only place it might be viable in ground transport is in long haul trucking in the US. In Japan, a 200 mile EV would probably be more than sufficient, even for longer trips, for exactly the reason you state.
  - narrator 4y ago
    Hydrogen will be the only thing that will work for long-haul aviation and large scale container shipping, in the form of ammonia (see https://www.forbes.com/sites/nilsrokke/2021/10/05/ammonia-a-sustainable-fuel-option-for-shipping/?sh=7eb3c1357c00 https://www.forbes.com/sites/nilsrokke/2021/10/05/ammonia-a-... ). that isn't synthetic fuel which is ridiculously inefficient to produce from electricity, even more so than hydrogen. Japan being an island, this might be important to them. Zero Avia (http://www.zeroavia.com http://www.zeroavia.com) is the leader in the hydrogen aviation space currently. The other thing about hydrogen is that you can refuel quickly. Otherwise, you're going to need a ridiculous number of charging stations to have the same amount of transportation just to deal with charging time alone. Can you imagine how long it would take to refuel a long-haul container ship and/or what kind of electricity infrastructure would be needed for that?
    - 4y ago
- amluto 4y ago
  This doesn’t make sense to me. Hydrogen is not an energy source — it’s a way to store energy and make it portable. So Japan could import hydrogen (which is not obviously any better than importing LNG or oil), or Japan could make it from domestic or imported energy sources (nuclear, solar, wind, imported oil, imported LNG, etc). Turning electricity into hydrogen and then into motive power for a car is dramatically less efficient than using a battery, and car commutes in Japan are on the short side, so huge batteries wouldn’t be as necessary. I don’t think petroleum-derived hydrogen is much more efficient, if at all, than just burning the petroleum in an ICE. So the only way this seems like a win for Japan is if electricity were cheap, battery EVs were not economical, and the loss associated with electrically synthesized hydrogen didn’t matter.
  - mordymoop 4y ago
    > Turning electricity into hydrogen and then into motive power for a car is dramatically less efficient than using a battery This is true —- but the total quantity of battery storage potential is utterly dwarfed by the storage potential for gas, in subsurface storage reservoirs and salt caverns. You can store days worth of energy in batteries; you can store a winter’s worth of energy in gas. It’s not a matter of efficiency, it’s a matter of quantity. We do not, and will not, for decades, have the kind of battery storage required to support the grid.
    - nine_k 4y ago
      Storing hydrogen is substantially harder than storing stuff like methane, or CO2, or even O2. Hydrogen's atoms are so small they try to pass through the crystalline lattice of metals, making the hydrogen-enriched layer which is more fragile [1]. Your regular polymer hoses are much more permeable to hydrogen. Hydrogen gas burns with entirely infrared flame, not visible to human eyes [2]. Hydrogen, even highly compressed, is still very lightweight, so storing significant amounts requires either very high pressures, or liquefaction. Liquid hydrogen requires an uncomfortably low temperature of 20K, but starts to freeze into solid state at 14K. Hydrogen is the most efficient rocket fuel, there's no denying. For all other fuel applications, it's pretty problematic. [1]: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1727338 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1727338 [2]: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff1997/ps1.html https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff1997/ps1.html
- readonthegoapp 4y ago
  > I didn't know Toyota was a fossil fuel company, or was owned by one? huh? what did i miss?
- rippercushions 4y ago
  > The very idea of "my car needs to go 300 miles on one charge/tank" just isn't a thing there. Citation needed. No, you don't need to go 300 miles on one charge/tank if you live in a big Japanese city, in fact you don't even need a car in that case. However, if you live in rural areas or need to travel long distances, 300 mi is not a lot to ask for: the main island of Honshu is >800 mi long and 300 won't even get you from Tokyo to Osaka.
  - pezezin 4y ago
    People seem to forget that Japan is not only Kanto and Kansai. I live in Aomori and here everybody needs a car. I have to drive around 500 km per week, and I would really appreciate if my car would have better mileage.
    - fomine3 4y ago
      On your use case, you just need to plug in everyday, instead of go to gas station every week. Who often drive above 100km per day is rare in Japan even in rural area.
      - pezezin 4y ago
        Well, the only problem is that I don't have where to plug it, but sure, it is feasible. My neighbor drives a Nissan Leaf, and we had a co-worker with a Tesla, so I know it is possible.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  More lies and more deception: Japan has huge deposits of methan hydrate on sea floors it wants to mine.https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanhydrat https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanhydrat And this is why hydrogen is on the shit list, all the roads lead to ever more mined carbs, blown into the atmosphere in one way or another. The roads to green hydrogen are riddled with conversions that make it economically unviable. Its the equivalent of a addict switching from heroin injection to a fetanyl patch. Yes, the process is cleaner, less dangerous, but the longterm bad effects are still there.
  - TheRealPomax 4y ago
    No, it's more like a nation that was rolled into having a fuel dependency on other countries as suppliers trying to come up with ways to no longer be (as) dependent on countries like China or the US to keep the lights on and the cars going vroom. Also, pretending that emission reduction isn't worth the effort because it's not zero-emission is a perfect example of advocating for the worst possible solution by denying the merit of a transitional solution just because it's not the ultimate solution. The world's not going to improve with that attitude.
- hbarka 4y ago
  Not uniquely Japan. China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, in that order, lead the world in hydrogen fueling stations.
  - TheRealPomax 4y ago
    That's not what I said, though. China and Germany have massive coal supplies, and oil pipelines at their disposal. They don't have to literally ship (with actual ships from other countries) anything in just to keep the cars going vroom. They'd benefit way more from real batteries rather than using hydrogen as the battery of choice.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >literally freeing them from fossil fuel dependency, which is a big part of why they keep trying to make it work. Exactly. Freedom isn't free. It's always mind boggling that HN doesn't get this despite this being a community in which paying more for energy sources we like is highly popular.
makeitdouble 4y ago
There is no doubt fossil fuel companies want to keep selling more fuel, and current hydrogen is a prime client for that. At this point I don't think anyone is arguing that fossil fuel companies will push anything to continue making money through different venues while touting to help progress. Now, hydrogen in cars isn't just about how the "fuel" is produced. People try to reduce it to CO2 emission number, but to me there's a lot more nuance. Petrol fuel burned by thousands of vehicles in the middle of a city isn't the same as petrol fuel burned in an hydrogen plant. The CO2 numbers might be similar, but the effect on people's life is completely different. EVs achieve the same goal, but if all vehicles can't be EVs (I think it's reasonable to expect cases where EV won't work), the rest being hydrogen or other low pollution alternatives is I think important. Car makers themselves aren't touting hydrogen as the end all be all either, most makers in the game are using it as diversification to not put all their eggs in the EV basket.
senectus1 4y ago
>Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world. The primary source for hydrogen would be from methane in natural gas, and they could then sell this as a "zero pollution fuel" while continuing their non-renewable energy business as normal. while there is a strong degree of green washing going on in hydrogen there are REAL, Concerted efforts for 100% GREEN HYDROGEN in place as well. Calling all hydrogen a green wash is doing the job of big oil for them stop ignoring the real efforts for a green hydrogen industry by calling all hydrogen a greenwash. Its not the reality. Be a positive force in the world.
- birdyrooster 4y ago
  Why is it so enticing for people to act like edge lord? I hate this tendency in myself too. Thanks for being cool.
hammock 4y ago
Do you hate fossil fuels or do you want to save the planet? I feel your words seem prejudiced against allowing fossil fuel companies to help us fight climate change
- gumby 4y ago
  We need to stop using fossil fuels. Both their extraction and they use are ecologically disastrous. They power they provide is all op ex, rather than cap ex as with solar or wind (or nukes for that matter).
  - gruez 4y ago
    How does this have anything to do with the question posed by the parent? You want the whole world to stop using fossil fuels, but clearly the world isn't ready for that. In the meantime, what's wrong with fossil fuel companies using some of their profits to fuel (heh) renewable energy projects?
    - acdha 4y ago
      Those companies have a half century history of lying about the science. We have no reason to believe they aren’t lying now about this technology’s feasibility or the carbon emissions in their production process — or that any profits wouldn’t be used in part to fund their political lobbying to prevent action or dodge the consequences of their actions.
      - gruez 4y ago
        >We have no reason to believe they aren’t lying now about this technology’s feasibility It'd be a pretty big lie for them to pull off. It's one thing to spend a few million funding some climate change denying think tanks. It's a whole other level of deception to spend hundreds of millions on a technology in the hopes that others will fall for it. >the carbon emissions in their production process This seems like the weakest possible argument. Either the chemical reaction they're proposing generates carbon or it doesn't. It's very easy to validate. Are you expecting them to build an entire "green" hydrogen plant that claims to use a process that doesn't produce co2, but is secretly burning oil? That seems extremely risky to pull off and very easy to discover. >or that any profits wouldn’t be used in part to fund their political lobbying to prevent action or dodge the consequences of their actions. So you would rather shoot ourselves in the feet (metaphorically) when it comes to the green energy transition, because you can't stand the thought of the bad guys making money in the process? Do you also think that we should drag out the pandemic a bit longer because a bad guy[1] might be making money in process? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Legal_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Legal_issues
roamerz 4y ago
>> Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world. You are assuming that ship has sailed and it has not. Depending the political climate both here in the United States and abroad green energy, at least in automotive applications, will have to compete of functional merit alone. If the elections in a couple of years go the way Republicans would like, fuel will be down at $2 a gallon again and frankly unless there are breakthroughs in range and safety battery powered cannot compete except in certain categories.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > fuel will be down at $2 a gallon again Absent an American state oil company, zero chance. Even the majors are treating oil as a semi-stranded asset.
Xixi 4y ago
These few legitimate use cases should not be dismissed though, from the perspective of sizing an energy grid: for example reducing iron ore with hydrogen rather than coal works out to about one nuclear reactor for one furnace. No idea for chemical feedstock, but it's likely to also be huge. I don't think anyone pushing for hydrogen in cars in Japan has done even a back-of-the-envelope calculation of how many nuclear reactors/wind turbines/solar panels Japan would need to migrate their fleet... So the plan is likely to make it from natural gas, import it, or -more likely- there is no serious plan at all, only subsidies being collected. Note that in I have a very similar feeling with regard to wind turbines in Europe (at least in Germany and France): behind each wind turbine field there is a very real gas turbine or lignite power plant, and a lot of hand-waving regarding storage... Heard jokes (pre invasion of Ukraine) about Gazprom being behind every wind turbine sale. The situation is different in Northern Europe though, with lots of wind turbines in Denmark, and pumped storage in Norway.
- runarberg 4y ago
  There is a double standard here because any back of the envelope calculation for migrating the entire fleet of any sizeable country with battery electric cars will also turn out to be an impossible task with current technology and industrial manufacturing capabilities. If your standard of passing as a technology is that it has to replace the current one in its entirety, you’ll always find it lacking, even with battery electric cars. No, to stop fossil fuel pollution we need many technologies to come together, a lot of infrastructure and some societal change to happen gradually while not to slowly. Indeed all the current battery electric cars (even adding every one that will be produced this year) are only providing a tiny relief for the climate disaster relatively speaking (if any). I bet that you don’t have to add together many bus and metro lines in Mexico and Brazil to sum up to all the electric cars in terms of climate relief.
- widdershins 4y ago
  > behind each wind turbine field there is a very real gas turbine or lignite power plant But isn't it still better to be using wind turbines 75% of the time when it's windy, and gas/coal only 25% of the time when it's not? Surely even without adequate battery storage that's an improvement?
7e 4y ago
For long term energy storage (seasonal) hydrogen is vastly cheaper than batteries.
_8j50 4y ago
Battery based technology requires rare earth minerals which only a few countries control from what I understand. It is also not feasible due to weight to ship batteries to transfer power, you can only use them near the power source, is that not correct? Desalination is desparately needed, one byproduct is hydrogen: https://scitechdaily.com/efficient-seawater-desalination-and-hydrogen-production-possible-with-new-catalyst/ https://scitechdaily.com/efficient-seawater-desalination-and... Solutions that solve multiple problems and don't disrupt the norm are ideal are they not? I mean, by all means, go to war with fossil fuel companies if your goal is only that but less people to fight means more practical change. I am hoping micro nuclear reactors become all the rage but even then a light fuel you can transport easily (despite the difficulty of efficiently transporting hydrogen) is sort of a battery except you can send lots of it continually.
- stephen_g 4y ago
  EV batteries don't actually contain rare-earth metals (but fuel-cells and catalytic converters in ICE cars do). Some types of electric motors use them (in the permanent magnets), which is where a lot of the confusion probably comes from.
  - enslavedrobot 4y ago
    Fuel cells based in anionic exchange membranes (AEM) don't require rare metal catalysts. They run on nickel-iron catalysts. Latest gen systems meet or exceed the capabilities of proton exchange systems (that require pt or ir). Also, since anionic membranes aren't made of complex fluoropolymers they can be synthesized much more cheaply. Scaling to under 100$/kg. 1 kg of material is around enough to make a megawatt fuel cell unit. Batteries are definitely going to capture the entire wheeled vehicle market but hydrogen tech is set to take a large fraction of the overall energy market.
  - _8j50 4y ago
    Electric cars are one thing I disagree with after driving one. I trally think sustainable public transport is ideal for day to day urban tranport needs and charging cars for any longer than 5min in a long roadtrip is not pleasant. But even if EVs are the right approach, hydrogen hybrids that convert hydrogen to battery stored energy or plain hydrogen powered cars where you fill them up like gas make more sense and are less disruptive to existing infra and consumer desires. Just one small example: I don't see a car charging solution for the majority urban people that live in apartments anytime in the near future. I will never sit 45min on a good day or scramble to find a free charging station in random neighborhoods again! Or be stranded because the battery level display doesn't consider X miles means steep winding mountain roads. Let's not make a religion out of energy sources.
amluto 4y ago
Toyota may or may not be reluctant to do a massive retooling, but have you looked at a Mirai? It’s an EV that happens to be powered by a fuel cell.
newyankee 4y ago
For Japan, it reeks of highest scale sunk cost fallacy in action
fwungy 4y ago
They are not competitors, they are complementary. Hydrogen is cheaper and easier to store than electricity is. Hydrogen provides resiliency because of this and is better for long range vehicles because it can be produced and stored relatively easily.
hannob 4y ago
> Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world. > Hydrogen has a few legitimate use cases, such as iron ore refining and chemical feedstock, but that's about it. I don't see how these two statements are compatible.
cbmuser 4y ago
»The primary source for hydrogen would be from methane in natural gas, and they could then sell this as a "zero pollution fuel" while continuing their non-renewable energy business as normal.« No, that’s wrong. They’re planning to produce their hydrogen from high-temperature reactors like the HTGR in Ibaraki prefecture. See: https://www.jaea.go.jp/04/o-arai/en/research/research_03.html https://www.jaea.go.jp/04/o-arai/en/research/research_03.htm...
POPOSYS 4y ago
Thank you very much for your information. Unfortunately you invalidate your own work by not providing the sources of your knowledge. The internet has a cool feature called "URL", it is meant to provide the source of some information so that your readers can access your sources, too. Just use it! In a mature, scientific discussion you always want to provide these sources. Just saying something without sources is an internet discussion style of the past and should not be accepted by modern humans.
flavius29663 4y ago
> reluctant to completely retool their factories Whenever they release a new car model, they have to re-tool their factories, just saying. I don't think this is a good argument.

TheRealPomax 4y ago

I didn't know Toyota was a fossil fuel company, or was owned by one? Japan is uniquely trying to make this thing work. They have no domestic oil production, and so few coal mines as to basically be irrelevant: all their fossil fuel is imported. Anywhere else on the planet: sure, this might be another way for big fossil to push for relevancy, but in Japan's case, hydrogen would be something that they can produce themselves, literally freeing them from fossil fuel dependency, which is a big part of why they keep trying to make it work. And yeah, the math says it's physically impossible to make it work without constant refueling, but again: it's Japan. The very idea of "my car needs to go 300 miles on one charge/tank" just isn't a thing there. Hydrogen, despite this article's claim, is actually perfect for Japan. Any tanker of import fuel saved is CO2 saved both on the tanker's transit, and on that fuel getting burned, but at the same time: it's also perfect much perfect only for Japan.

jfengel 4y ago
They're a car company committed to keeping the internal combustion engine. They are market leaders in hybrid cars, but have been surpassed in all electric. So they're not a fossil fuel company but their interests are aligned.
- jojobas 4y ago
  There's nothing wrong with internal combustion per se, if electrolysis+ICE works out cheaper than battery in terms of lithium/rare earths/whatever there is no fundamental objection to it.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    Wouldn’t ICEs be worse for local pollution?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - ryao 4y ago
      There is a hypothetical internal combustion engine that burns hydrogen directly. I think that the other poster was talking about that. Unfortunately, it is not just inefficient, but also has a major rust problem. It also would still generate NOx.
    - gruez 4y ago
      What pollution would hydrogen/oxygen combustion produce?
      - stephen_g 4y ago
        NOx is formed from combustion in air, from the nitrogen that makes up much of the air. If you could feed it pure oxygen then you'd avoid that but nobody's going to want a car with an oxidiser tank onboard.
  - XorNot 4y ago
    That seems completely implausible though based on the losses. An ICE tops out at 25% efficient or so. A hydrogen fuel cell is 40-60% and efficient and that's likely to rise. If you're bothering with fueling cars with hydrogen gas, you might as well make them electric and get a huge range boost for free (and way more torque, less maintenance etc.) There's just no logical reason to try and burn hydrogen in ICE engines.
roneythomas6 4y ago
The key here is Toyota is biggest employer in Japan and when you add its suppliers it's even bigger. Toyota very much wants an Hydrogen future so that they can retain those jobs.
- ryao 4y ago
  I imagine that Japanese labor laws are a major motivator for Toyota. From what I have heard of Japanese labor laws, salaried employees in Japan appear to be guaranteed employment for life. The result is that Toyota will not be able to fire its employees even if their jobs become obsolete, so finding a solution that keeps those jobs from being made obsolete is extremely important for Toyota.
- themitigating 4y ago
  I read this analysis last year about why Japan is so behind with EVs. The number of parts required is less then combustion and Japan's government is concerned about maintaining employment levels This article talks about the filler jobs and how the economy is stuck in the past. https://news.yahoo.com/japan-future-stuck-past-220130554.html https://news.yahoo.com/japan-future-stuck-past-220130554.htm... Annoyingly I can't find the source that went into why they are pushing EVs. Edit: To be clear that was the hypothesis of the source and they presented evidence that the government that backed it, like stressing job creation and the importance of the automotive industry, but there wasn't a smoking gun.
  - roneythomas6 4y ago
    Yup that is correct. I know what you are talking about. Japanese govt(MITI) is very much involved in Totyota’s future goals.
danans 4y ago
> I didn't know Toyota was a fossil fuel company, or was owned by one? > Japan is uniquely trying to make this thing work You have conflated Toyota with Japan there. Even in a society dominated by it's megacorps, they are not necessarily the same thing. After all, Nissan brought us the first mass market EV (and yes, they promptly punted on their first mover advantage). > Anywhere else on the planet: sure, this might be another way for big fossil to push for relevancy, but in Japan's case, hydrogen would be something that they can produce themselves, literally freeing them from fossil fuel dependency, Any domestic production of hydrogen in Japan would have to be via water electrolysis with electricity, since they have basically no natural gas production. Since that's the case, why not just use the electricity directly and not pay the 40-50% penalty of electrolysis? > The very idea of "my car needs to go 300 miles on one charge/tank" just isn't a thing there. > Hydrogen, despite this article's claim, is actually perfect for Japan. The first statement contradicts the second, because one of the benefits of hydrogen over batteries is that range isn't much of an issue and refueling is fast. That's why the only place it might be viable in ground transport is in long haul trucking in the US. In Japan, a 200 mile EV would probably be more than sufficient, even for longer trips, for exactly the reason you state.
- narrator 4y ago
  Hydrogen will be the only thing that will work for long-haul aviation and large scale container shipping, in the form of ammonia (see https://www.forbes.com/sites/nilsrokke/2021/10/05/ammonia-a-sustainable-fuel-option-for-shipping/?sh=7eb3c1357c00 https://www.forbes.com/sites/nilsrokke/2021/10/05/ammonia-a-... ). that isn't synthetic fuel which is ridiculously inefficient to produce from electricity, even more so than hydrogen. Japan being an island, this might be important to them. Zero Avia (http://www.zeroavia.com http://www.zeroavia.com) is the leader in the hydrogen aviation space currently. The other thing about hydrogen is that you can refuel quickly. Otherwise, you're going to need a ridiculous number of charging stations to have the same amount of transportation just to deal with charging time alone. Can you imagine how long it would take to refuel a long-haul container ship and/or what kind of electricity infrastructure would be needed for that?
  - 4y ago
amluto 4y ago
This doesn’t make sense to me. Hydrogen is not an energy source — it’s a way to store energy and make it portable. So Japan could import hydrogen (which is not obviously any better than importing LNG or oil), or Japan could make it from domestic or imported energy sources (nuclear, solar, wind, imported oil, imported LNG, etc). Turning electricity into hydrogen and then into motive power for a car is dramatically less efficient than using a battery, and car commutes in Japan are on the short side, so huge batteries wouldn’t be as necessary. I don’t think petroleum-derived hydrogen is much more efficient, if at all, than just burning the petroleum in an ICE. So the only way this seems like a win for Japan is if electricity were cheap, battery EVs were not economical, and the loss associated with electrically synthesized hydrogen didn’t matter.
- mordymoop 4y ago
  > Turning electricity into hydrogen and then into motive power for a car is dramatically less efficient than using a battery This is true —- but the total quantity of battery storage potential is utterly dwarfed by the storage potential for gas, in subsurface storage reservoirs and salt caverns. You can store days worth of energy in batteries; you can store a winter’s worth of energy in gas. It’s not a matter of efficiency, it’s a matter of quantity. We do not, and will not, for decades, have the kind of battery storage required to support the grid.
  - nine_k 4y ago
    Storing hydrogen is substantially harder than storing stuff like methane, or CO2, or even O2. Hydrogen's atoms are so small they try to pass through the crystalline lattice of metals, making the hydrogen-enriched layer which is more fragile [1]. Your regular polymer hoses are much more permeable to hydrogen. Hydrogen gas burns with entirely infrared flame, not visible to human eyes [2]. Hydrogen, even highly compressed, is still very lightweight, so storing significant amounts requires either very high pressures, or liquefaction. Liquid hydrogen requires an uncomfortably low temperature of 20K, but starts to freeze into solid state at 14K. Hydrogen is the most efficient rocket fuel, there's no denying. For all other fuel applications, it's pretty problematic. [1]: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1727338 https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1727338 [2]: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff1997/ps1.html https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff1997/ps1.html
readonthegoapp 4y ago
> I didn't know Toyota was a fossil fuel company, or was owned by one? huh? what did i miss?
rippercushions 4y ago
> The very idea of "my car needs to go 300 miles on one charge/tank" just isn't a thing there. Citation needed. No, you don't need to go 300 miles on one charge/tank if you live in a big Japanese city, in fact you don't even need a car in that case. However, if you live in rural areas or need to travel long distances, 300 mi is not a lot to ask for: the main island of Honshu is >800 mi long and 300 won't even get you from Tokyo to Osaka.
- pezezin 4y ago
  People seem to forget that Japan is not only Kanto and Kansai. I live in Aomori and here everybody needs a car. I have to drive around 500 km per week, and I would really appreciate if my car would have better mileage.
  - fomine3 4y ago
    On your use case, you just need to plug in everyday, instead of go to gas station every week. Who often drive above 100km per day is rare in Japan even in rural area.
    - pezezin 4y ago
      Well, the only problem is that I don't have where to plug it, but sure, it is feasible. My neighbor drives a Nissan Leaf, and we had a co-worker with a Tesla, so I know it is possible.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
More lies and more deception: Japan has huge deposits of methan hydrate on sea floors it wants to mine.https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanhydrat https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanhydrat And this is why hydrogen is on the shit list, all the roads lead to ever more mined carbs, blown into the atmosphere in one way or another. The roads to green hydrogen are riddled with conversions that make it economically unviable. Its the equivalent of a addict switching from heroin injection to a fetanyl patch. Yes, the process is cleaner, less dangerous, but the longterm bad effects are still there.
- TheRealPomax 4y ago
  No, it's more like a nation that was rolled into having a fuel dependency on other countries as suppliers trying to come up with ways to no longer be (as) dependent on countries like China or the US to keep the lights on and the cars going vroom. Also, pretending that emission reduction isn't worth the effort because it's not zero-emission is a perfect example of advocating for the worst possible solution by denying the merit of a transitional solution just because it's not the ultimate solution. The world's not going to improve with that attitude.
hbarka 4y ago
Not uniquely Japan. China, Japan, South Korea, Germany, in that order, lead the world in hydrogen fueling stations.
- TheRealPomax 4y ago
  That's not what I said, though. China and Germany have massive coal supplies, and oil pipelines at their disposal. They don't have to literally ship (with actual ships from other countries) anything in just to keep the cars going vroom. They'd benefit way more from real batteries rather than using hydrogen as the battery of choice.
dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>literally freeing them from fossil fuel dependency, which is a big part of why they keep trying to make it work. Exactly. Freedom isn't free. It's always mind boggling that HN doesn't get this despite this being a community in which paying more for energy sources we like is highly popular.

makeitdouble 4y ago

There is no doubt fossil fuel companies want to keep selling more fuel, and current hydrogen is a prime client for that. At this point I don't think anyone is arguing that fossil fuel companies will push anything to continue making money through different venues while touting to help progress. Now, hydrogen in cars isn't just about how the "fuel" is produced. People try to reduce it to CO2 emission number, but to me there's a lot more nuance. Petrol fuel burned by thousands of vehicles in the middle of a city isn't the same as petrol fuel burned in an hydrogen plant. The CO2 numbers might be similar, but the effect on people's life is completely different. EVs achieve the same goal, but if all vehicles can't be EVs (I think it's reasonable to expect cases where EV won't work), the rest being hydrogen or other low pollution alternatives is I think important. Car makers themselves aren't touting hydrogen as the end all be all either, most makers in the game are using it as diversification to not put all their eggs in the EV basket.

senectus1 4y ago

>Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world. The primary source for hydrogen would be from methane in natural gas, and they could then sell this as a "zero pollution fuel" while continuing their non-renewable energy business as normal. while there is a strong degree of green washing going on in hydrogen there are REAL, Concerted efforts for 100% GREEN HYDROGEN in place as well. Calling all hydrogen a green wash is doing the job of big oil for them stop ignoring the real efforts for a green hydrogen industry by calling all hydrogen a greenwash. Its not the reality. Be a positive force in the world.

birdyrooster 4y ago
Why is it so enticing for people to act like edge lord? I hate this tendency in myself too. Thanks for being cool.

hammock 4y ago

Do you hate fossil fuels or do you want to save the planet? I feel your words seem prejudiced against allowing fossil fuel companies to help us fight climate change

gumby 4y ago
We need to stop using fossil fuels. Both their extraction and they use are ecologically disastrous. They power they provide is all op ex, rather than cap ex as with solar or wind (or nukes for that matter).
- gruez 4y ago
  How does this have anything to do with the question posed by the parent? You want the whole world to stop using fossil fuels, but clearly the world isn't ready for that. In the meantime, what's wrong with fossil fuel companies using some of their profits to fuel (heh) renewable energy projects?
  - acdha 4y ago
    Those companies have a half century history of lying about the science. We have no reason to believe they aren’t lying now about this technology’s feasibility or the carbon emissions in their production process — or that any profits wouldn’t be used in part to fund their political lobbying to prevent action or dodge the consequences of their actions.
    - gruez 4y ago
      >We have no reason to believe they aren’t lying now about this technology’s feasibility It'd be a pretty big lie for them to pull off. It's one thing to spend a few million funding some climate change denying think tanks. It's a whole other level of deception to spend hundreds of millions on a technology in the hopes that others will fall for it. >the carbon emissions in their production process This seems like the weakest possible argument. Either the chemical reaction they're proposing generates carbon or it doesn't. It's very easy to validate. Are you expecting them to build an entire "green" hydrogen plant that claims to use a process that doesn't produce co2, but is secretly burning oil? That seems extremely risky to pull off and very easy to discover. >or that any profits wouldn’t be used in part to fund their political lobbying to prevent action or dodge the consequences of their actions. So you would rather shoot ourselves in the feet (metaphorically) when it comes to the green energy transition, because you can't stand the thought of the bad guys making money in the process? Do you also think that we should drag out the pandemic a bit longer because a bad guy[1] might be making money in process? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Legal_issues https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Legal_issues

roamerz 4y ago

>> Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world. You are assuming that ship has sailed and it has not. Depending the political climate both here in the United States and abroad green energy, at least in automotive applications, will have to compete of functional merit alone. If the elections in a couple of years go the way Republicans would like, fuel will be down at $2 a gallon again and frankly unless there are breakthroughs in range and safety battery powered cannot compete except in certain categories.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> fuel will be down at $2 a gallon again Absent an American state oil company, zero chance. Even the majors are treating oil as a semi-stranded asset.

Xixi 4y ago

These few legitimate use cases should not be dismissed though, from the perspective of sizing an energy grid: for example reducing iron ore with hydrogen rather than coal works out to about one nuclear reactor for one furnace. No idea for chemical feedstock, but it's likely to also be huge. I don't think anyone pushing for hydrogen in cars in Japan has done even a back-of-the-envelope calculation of how many nuclear reactors/wind turbines/solar panels Japan would need to migrate their fleet... So the plan is likely to make it from natural gas, import it, or -more likely- there is no serious plan at all, only subsidies being collected. Note that in I have a very similar feeling with regard to wind turbines in Europe (at least in Germany and France): behind each wind turbine field there is a very real gas turbine or lignite power plant, and a lot of hand-waving regarding storage... Heard jokes (pre invasion of Ukraine) about Gazprom being behind every wind turbine sale. The situation is different in Northern Europe though, with lots of wind turbines in Denmark, and pumped storage in Norway.

runarberg 4y ago
There is a double standard here because any back of the envelope calculation for migrating the entire fleet of any sizeable country with battery electric cars will also turn out to be an impossible task with current technology and industrial manufacturing capabilities. If your standard of passing as a technology is that it has to replace the current one in its entirety, you’ll always find it lacking, even with battery electric cars. No, to stop fossil fuel pollution we need many technologies to come together, a lot of infrastructure and some societal change to happen gradually while not to slowly. Indeed all the current battery electric cars (even adding every one that will be produced this year) are only providing a tiny relief for the climate disaster relatively speaking (if any). I bet that you don’t have to add together many bus and metro lines in Mexico and Brazil to sum up to all the electric cars in terms of climate relief.
widdershins 4y ago
> behind each wind turbine field there is a very real gas turbine or lignite power plant But isn't it still better to be using wind turbines 75% of the time when it's windy, and gas/coal only 25% of the time when it's not? Surely even without adequate battery storage that's an improvement?

7e 4y ago

For long term energy storage (seasonal) hydrogen is vastly cheaper than batteries.

_8j50 4y ago

Battery based technology requires rare earth minerals which only a few countries control from what I understand. It is also not feasible due to weight to ship batteries to transfer power, you can only use them near the power source, is that not correct? Desalination is desparately needed, one byproduct is hydrogen: https://scitechdaily.com/efficient-seawater-desalination-and-hydrogen-production-possible-with-new-catalyst/ https://scitechdaily.com/efficient-seawater-desalination-and... Solutions that solve multiple problems and don't disrupt the norm are ideal are they not? I mean, by all means, go to war with fossil fuel companies if your goal is only that but less people to fight means more practical change. I am hoping micro nuclear reactors become all the rage but even then a light fuel you can transport easily (despite the difficulty of efficiently transporting hydrogen) is sort of a battery except you can send lots of it continually.

stephen_g 4y ago
EV batteries don't actually contain rare-earth metals (but fuel-cells and catalytic converters in ICE cars do). Some types of electric motors use them (in the permanent magnets), which is where a lot of the confusion probably comes from.
- enslavedrobot 4y ago
  Fuel cells based in anionic exchange membranes (AEM) don't require rare metal catalysts. They run on nickel-iron catalysts. Latest gen systems meet or exceed the capabilities of proton exchange systems (that require pt or ir). Also, since anionic membranes aren't made of complex fluoropolymers they can be synthesized much more cheaply. Scaling to under 100$/kg. 1 kg of material is around enough to make a megawatt fuel cell unit. Batteries are definitely going to capture the entire wheeled vehicle market but hydrogen tech is set to take a large fraction of the overall energy market.
- _8j50 4y ago
  Electric cars are one thing I disagree with after driving one. I trally think sustainable public transport is ideal for day to day urban tranport needs and charging cars for any longer than 5min in a long roadtrip is not pleasant. But even if EVs are the right approach, hydrogen hybrids that convert hydrogen to battery stored energy or plain hydrogen powered cars where you fill them up like gas make more sense and are less disruptive to existing infra and consumer desires. Just one small example: I don't see a car charging solution for the majority urban people that live in apartments anytime in the near future. I will never sit 45min on a good day or scramble to find a free charging station in random neighborhoods again! Or be stranded because the battery level display doesn't consider X miles means steep winding mountain roads. Let's not make a religion out of energy sources.

amluto 4y ago

Toyota may or may not be reluctant to do a massive retooling, but have you looked at a Mirai? It’s an EV that happens to be powered by a fuel cell.

newyankee 4y ago

For Japan, it reeks of highest scale sunk cost fallacy in action

fwungy 4y ago

They are not competitors, they are complementary. Hydrogen is cheaper and easier to store than electricity is. Hydrogen provides resiliency because of this and is better for long range vehicles because it can be produced and stored relatively easily.

hannob 4y ago

> Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world. > Hydrogen has a few legitimate use cases, such as iron ore refining and chemical feedstock, but that's about it. I don't see how these two statements are compatible.

cbmuser 4y ago

»The primary source for hydrogen would be from methane in natural gas, and they could then sell this as a "zero pollution fuel" while continuing their non-renewable energy business as normal.« No, that’s wrong. They’re planning to produce their hydrogen from high-temperature reactors like the HTGR in Ibaraki prefecture. See: https://www.jaea.go.jp/04/o-arai/en/research/research_03.html https://www.jaea.go.jp/04/o-arai/en/research/research_03.htm...

POPOSYS 4y ago

Thank you very much for your information. Unfortunately you invalidate your own work by not providing the sources of your knowledge. The internet has a cool feature called "URL", it is meant to provide the source of some information so that your readers can access your sources, too. Just use it! In a mature, scientific discussion you always want to provide these sources. Just saying something without sources is an internet discussion style of the past and should not be accepted by modern humans.

flavius29663 4y ago

> reluctant to completely retool their factories Whenever they release a new car model, they have to re-tool their factories, just saying. I don't think this is a good argument.