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We can't give up on hydrogen. A transfer to EV will not be practical for all current fossil fuel vehicles so we need an alternative for them. Hydrogen is not pr

We can't give up on hydrogen. A transfer to EV will not be practical for all current fossil fuel vehicles so we need an alternative for them. Hydrogen is not practical now but it has potential. I think electric and hydrogen are the only alternatives to fossil fuels. Are there others?

barbazoo 4y ago
> A transfer to EV will not be practical for all current fossil fuel vehicles so we need an alternative for them That's my impression too. It seems to be hard for some people to accept this as one solution for a narrow aspect of a complex problem. This is a problem I see a lot with "green energy" sceptics. The wind doesn't always blow, the sun doesn't always shine. If there isn't a one size fits all solution, it's not a solution at all. Almost as good as the old adage of electricity not being clean today, therefore electrifying cars doesn't make sense. Nevermind that switching to renewable energy can be achieved asynchronously and is not something we need to wait for.
danans 4y ago
> A transfer to EV will not be practical for all current fossil fuel vehicles But we can transfer most of them to EVs, including nearly the entire light duty vehicle fleet and short haul trucking, which is probably good enough. There will always be niche cases for ICE vehicles, like driving across Siberia, or military vehicles. But the vast majority can be electrified. Flight is a different story, perhaps hydrogen will be a viable path there.
- runarberg 4y ago
  > But we can transfer most of them to EVs, including nearly the entire light duty vehicle fleet and short haul trucking. No we can’t. We don’t have the industrial manufacturing capability. Not even by a long shot. And even if we did, we don’t have enough minded minerals to supply the manufactures, and even if we did, we don’t have enough electrical infrastructure to charge all the electric cars. Note this also applies to hydrogen, and even if we had both, each technology relieving the stress on the manufacturing capability of the other, then we’d still need the infrastructure capable of supplying to both. The best path forward for immediate success is public transit, using whichever technology is available (hydrogen, battery, overhead wires, diesel, whatever).
  - danans 4y ago
    > No we can’t. We don’t have the industrial manufacturing capability. Not even by a long shot. And even if we did, we don’t have enough minded minerals to supply the manufactures, and even if we did, we don’t have enough electrical infrastructure to charge all the electric cars. We don't have it today, but none that it is out of reach within a decade or two. Also, EV manufacturing is strictly less complicated than ICE manufacturing (as many engine parts suppliers are discovering). That's part of the reason you see so many EV startups (Aptera, Canoo, Lightyear, Rivian, Fisker) able to bootstrap vehicle manufacturing. That hasn't happened since the days of Preston Tucker. The claim about never having the electrical infrastructure is similarly unfounded. We don't have the infrastructure for all 100M passenger cars in the US to switch to electric today, but with enough time we can certainly evolve the grid to not only charge them, but also utilize them for the purpose of grid stabilization. > The best path forward for immediate success is public transit, using whichever technology is available (hydrogen, battery, overhead wires, diesel, whatever). I agree that public transit is the ideal - and follow through by being a daily public transit rider myself. We absolutely should be providing better alternatives to individual car ownership, but that won't happen overnight, and it frankly requires a cultural change in much of the US that is a generational project. We can't make the perfect the enemy of the good, so in the meantime, we need to evolve the current paradigm - passenger cars - away from ICEs.
    - runarberg 4y ago
      I don’t think we have a decade or two. We are already at 1.2°C and over 420 PPM CO2. We are already witnessing one of the warmest summers ever despite there being a la niña year. We can’t afford the luxury of a generational shift, and we can’t afford to wait for the production capabilities of electric cars to catch up to demand. We simply have to take what we have and implement it with money and policy. The alternative is a total disasters, what is already a disaster but infinitely worse. And what we have is a tiny bit of electric battery cars (even fewer hydrogen cars) and a lot of buses and trains.
linguae 4y ago
I agree. I bet on hydrogen by purchasing a new Toyota Mirai two months ago. The reason I purchased a Mirai instead of a BEV is because I am an apartment dweller with no convenient charging options available to me; my landlord has no plans to install any charging units anytime soon and relocating is very expensive (I live in Santa Cruz County). My employer also lacks chargers. Hydrogen-powered cars are good in situations where BEVs would be impractical or inconvenient, such as those who lack charging options at home or at work. In addition, I'm concerned about the effects of proverbially "putting all of our eggs in one basket." We should have a mixture of energy sources to accommodate the wide range of use cases that drivers have. Unfortunately at this time hydrogen is extremely expensive. A kilogram of hydrogen, roughly equivalent to a gallon of gas in energy, costs $26.75 at True Zero hydrogen stations, which is extremely expensive and is a massive price hike from $19.70/kg back when I purchased my Mirai two months ago. I'm still thinking whether purchasing a Mirai was a good financial decision for me, but I hope things will turn around in 2024.
- chronogram 4y ago
  While not currently realistic, Reliance is aiming to produce clean hydrogen for $1/kg. More importantly that would increase scale. I think you're going to notice that sooner in 2040 than in 2024 though. > With help from Stiesdal, a European clean-technology firm, Reliance is building a large factory in Jamnagar to manufacture electrolysers. These devices, powered by clean electricity from Reliance’s planned solar farms, will then be used to manufacture green hydrogen. Mr Ambani asserts that these investments will make India the first country to produce green hydrogen for $1 a kilogram, within a decade. (The current cost is more than $4/kg.) He dismisses doubters, pointing to his recent success in delivering data to mobile telephones at the world’s lowest cost. https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/10/20/will-india-become-a-green-superpower https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/10/20/will-india-bec... I don't have a stake in any race and haven't had a need to drive a car in years, but a combination of three energy sources sound ideal to me. Batteries for two-wheelers that keep the weight low and commercial vans & buses, grid solutions for static highly efficient routes (AKA trains), and something like hydrogen for long range non-static infrastructure (transport trucks). The road network where I live is of a high quality, and currently road maintenance for fully electric vehicles is fully subsidised to promote adoption, but eventually we'll have to choose between our roads and the funds. (I am not someone with any expertise in this matter)
fy20 4y ago
What about methane? There are already commercial processes in place to capture it from landfills, and there are industrial processes that can produce it from hydrogen with an 8% energy loss. So if the green hydrogen problem is solved that could be used here. A lot of Asian countries already have cars that run directly on CNG - from the factory -, as it produces less smog than petrol or diesel. I visited India recently, and I'd say 80% of vehicles I saw ran on CNG (they have a hazard label). Maybe the most important thing is the infrastructure to distribute it is already there in most countries.
- WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
  Methane is a greenhouse gas. It's more polluting than c02. Removing it from the environment is a good thing but creating more is not a good thing for global warming. I suspect for it to be an alternative to oil, an such, we would need to create it not just remove it from landfills. Compressed natural gas is mostly methane but we are trying to move away from fossil fuels so it's not a long term solution. Here's a link that gives some info on it: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gas-climatebox-explainer/explainer-cleaner-but-not-clean-why-scientists-say-natural-gas-wont-avert-climate-disaster-idUSKCN25E1DR https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gas-climatebox-explai...
  - leetnewb 4y ago
    I don't think that is a good comparison. Fossil fuel is a carbon sink. Extracting methane from fossil fuels in the ground releases the carbon from the sink and into the atmosphere. If synthesizing methane from hydrogen grabs carbon that is already present, it is carbon neutral.
mlindner 4y ago
EVs for land vehicles is a solved problem and is practical for all of them. Hydrogen makes sense for aircraft (though I'd argue artificial jet fuel production from algae makes more sense). Hydrogen has very narrow use cases that make it beat using batteries.

barbazoo 4y ago

> A transfer to EV will not be practical for all current fossil fuel vehicles so we need an alternative for them That's my impression too. It seems to be hard for some people to accept this as one solution for a narrow aspect of a complex problem. This is a problem I see a lot with "green energy" sceptics. The wind doesn't always blow, the sun doesn't always shine. If there isn't a one size fits all solution, it's not a solution at all. Almost as good as the old adage of electricity not being clean today, therefore electrifying cars doesn't make sense. Nevermind that switching to renewable energy can be achieved asynchronously and is not something we need to wait for.

danans 4y ago

> A transfer to EV will not be practical for all current fossil fuel vehicles But we can transfer most of them to EVs, including nearly the entire light duty vehicle fleet and short haul trucking, which is probably good enough. There will always be niche cases for ICE vehicles, like driving across Siberia, or military vehicles. But the vast majority can be electrified. Flight is a different story, perhaps hydrogen will be a viable path there.

runarberg 4y ago
> But we can transfer most of them to EVs, including nearly the entire light duty vehicle fleet and short haul trucking. No we can’t. We don’t have the industrial manufacturing capability. Not even by a long shot. And even if we did, we don’t have enough minded minerals to supply the manufactures, and even if we did, we don’t have enough electrical infrastructure to charge all the electric cars. Note this also applies to hydrogen, and even if we had both, each technology relieving the stress on the manufacturing capability of the other, then we’d still need the infrastructure capable of supplying to both. The best path forward for immediate success is public transit, using whichever technology is available (hydrogen, battery, overhead wires, diesel, whatever).
- danans 4y ago
  > No we can’t. We don’t have the industrial manufacturing capability. Not even by a long shot. And even if we did, we don’t have enough minded minerals to supply the manufactures, and even if we did, we don’t have enough electrical infrastructure to charge all the electric cars. We don't have it today, but none that it is out of reach within a decade or two. Also, EV manufacturing is strictly less complicated than ICE manufacturing (as many engine parts suppliers are discovering). That's part of the reason you see so many EV startups (Aptera, Canoo, Lightyear, Rivian, Fisker) able to bootstrap vehicle manufacturing. That hasn't happened since the days of Preston Tucker. The claim about never having the electrical infrastructure is similarly unfounded. We don't have the infrastructure for all 100M passenger cars in the US to switch to electric today, but with enough time we can certainly evolve the grid to not only charge them, but also utilize them for the purpose of grid stabilization. > The best path forward for immediate success is public transit, using whichever technology is available (hydrogen, battery, overhead wires, diesel, whatever). I agree that public transit is the ideal - and follow through by being a daily public transit rider myself. We absolutely should be providing better alternatives to individual car ownership, but that won't happen overnight, and it frankly requires a cultural change in much of the US that is a generational project. We can't make the perfect the enemy of the good, so in the meantime, we need to evolve the current paradigm - passenger cars - away from ICEs.
  - runarberg 4y ago
    I don’t think we have a decade or two. We are already at 1.2°C and over 420 PPM CO2. We are already witnessing one of the warmest summers ever despite there being a la niña year. We can’t afford the luxury of a generational shift, and we can’t afford to wait for the production capabilities of electric cars to catch up to demand. We simply have to take what we have and implement it with money and policy. The alternative is a total disasters, what is already a disaster but infinitely worse. And what we have is a tiny bit of electric battery cars (even fewer hydrogen cars) and a lot of buses and trains.

linguae 4y ago

I agree. I bet on hydrogen by purchasing a new Toyota Mirai two months ago. The reason I purchased a Mirai instead of a BEV is because I am an apartment dweller with no convenient charging options available to me; my landlord has no plans to install any charging units anytime soon and relocating is very expensive (I live in Santa Cruz County). My employer also lacks chargers. Hydrogen-powered cars are good in situations where BEVs would be impractical or inconvenient, such as those who lack charging options at home or at work. In addition, I'm concerned about the effects of proverbially "putting all of our eggs in one basket." We should have a mixture of energy sources to accommodate the wide range of use cases that drivers have. Unfortunately at this time hydrogen is extremely expensive. A kilogram of hydrogen, roughly equivalent to a gallon of gas in energy, costs $26.75 at True Zero hydrogen stations, which is extremely expensive and is a massive price hike from $19.70/kg back when I purchased my Mirai two months ago. I'm still thinking whether purchasing a Mirai was a good financial decision for me, but I hope things will turn around in 2024.

chronogram 4y ago
While not currently realistic, Reliance is aiming to produce clean hydrogen for $1/kg. More importantly that would increase scale. I think you're going to notice that sooner in 2040 than in 2024 though. > With help from Stiesdal, a European clean-technology firm, Reliance is building a large factory in Jamnagar to manufacture electrolysers. These devices, powered by clean electricity from Reliance’s planned solar farms, will then be used to manufacture green hydrogen. Mr Ambani asserts that these investments will make India the first country to produce green hydrogen for $1 a kilogram, within a decade. (The current cost is more than $4/kg.) He dismisses doubters, pointing to his recent success in delivering data to mobile telephones at the world’s lowest cost. https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/10/20/will-india-become-a-green-superpower https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/10/20/will-india-bec... I don't have a stake in any race and haven't had a need to drive a car in years, but a combination of three energy sources sound ideal to me. Batteries for two-wheelers that keep the weight low and commercial vans & buses, grid solutions for static highly efficient routes (AKA trains), and something like hydrogen for long range non-static infrastructure (transport trucks). The road network where I live is of a high quality, and currently road maintenance for fully electric vehicles is fully subsidised to promote adoption, but eventually we'll have to choose between our roads and the funds. (I am not someone with any expertise in this matter)

fy20 4y ago

What about methane? There are already commercial processes in place to capture it from landfills, and there are industrial processes that can produce it from hydrogen with an 8% energy loss. So if the green hydrogen problem is solved that could be used here. A lot of Asian countries already have cars that run directly on CNG - from the factory -, as it produces less smog than petrol or diesel. I visited India recently, and I'd say 80% of vehicles I saw ran on CNG (they have a hazard label). Maybe the most important thing is the infrastructure to distribute it is already there in most countries.

WheelsAtLarge 4y ago
Methane is a greenhouse gas. It's more polluting than c02. Removing it from the environment is a good thing but creating more is not a good thing for global warming. I suspect for it to be an alternative to oil, an such, we would need to create it not just remove it from landfills. Compressed natural gas is mostly methane but we are trying to move away from fossil fuels so it's not a long term solution. Here's a link that gives some info on it: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gas-climatebox-explainer/explainer-cleaner-but-not-clean-why-scientists-say-natural-gas-wont-avert-climate-disaster-idUSKCN25E1DR https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-gas-climatebox-explai...
- leetnewb 4y ago
  I don't think that is a good comparison. Fossil fuel is a carbon sink. Extracting methane from fossil fuels in the ground releases the carbon from the sink and into the atmosphere. If synthesizing methane from hydrogen grabs carbon that is already present, it is carbon neutral.

mlindner 4y ago

EVs for land vehicles is a solved problem and is practical for all of them. Hydrogen makes sense for aircraft (though I'd argue artificial jet fuel production from algae makes more sense). Hydrogen has very narrow use cases that make it beat using batteries.