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EVs are not a sustainable solution. It is just replacing a dependency on fossil fuels with battery related metals. All car companies will shift away from the EV

by _hypx 4y ago

EVs are not a sustainable solution. It is just replacing a dependency on fossil fuels with battery related metals. All car companies will shift away from the EV and towards hydrogen at some point. The dumbest idea is thinking that nothing comes after battery cars.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
You mean like high density LFP/LMFP that is coming into mass production this year at 200-230 wh/kg? (aka the 350-400+ mile car) That require no cobalt/nickel? You mean like sodium ion batteries that are coming into mass production this year at 150 wh/kg? (aka the 200-300 mile car) That don't even require lithium? You mean like Lithium Sulfur batteries that are poised in five years to double or triple battery density? Or you mean like the Sodium Sulfur batteries that will probably come a year or two after that which similarly double/triple NMC capacity but only require sodium and sulfur? Your take is ten years old. High density LFP and good-enough density sodium ion is going to deliver a comprehensively cheaper car drivetrain than ICEs can deliver, and each year will only be worse and worse news for ICEs. I would predict by 2030 there will be 600 mile range EVs (real world, not WLTP) whose drivetrain component cost is 1/2 of an ICE. We'll have to see what comes out of Toyota. They have the DNA of execution, efficiency, and engineering. It's hard to see if it is "too late", because EV transition is such a massive investment in vertically integrated manufacturing at this point, while carmakers outside of Tesla are so OEM focused. We'll see. I had kind of assumed that Toyota would be asleep at the switch and a joke for another 2-3 years, this is a surprising development. The fact they were pushing hydrogen still last year in public and poo-pooing EVs, and given the ossification and malaise of large Japanese corporations, I assumed it would be status quo until substantial market share was lost. Is this activist investors again, like BMW, VW, etc? Is that even a thing in Japanese megacorps?
- _hypx 4y ago
  You do realize that hydrogen has an effective energy density of ~1,000 Wh/kg? Even with the weight of tanks and fuel cells taken into account. Meanwhile, most of your listed battery chemistries haven’t been invented yet and may never exist.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    Speaking of not existing: All the hydrogen generation/splitting facilities (it all comes from methane, right oil company astroturfer?) I forget, did you guys fix the various fundamental laws of thermodynamics so that you can get hydrogen from water at high efficiency? You know, water, that ultra-stable molecule? Or should we just ship the electricity over the existing grid rather than take 30-50% losses putting it into hydrogen, physically ship it with some new fangled hydrogen tank truck, and then get the energy out? So how much energy do you use to GET to that 1000 wh/kg? Oh right, you'll really just get it from methane or tar sands or fracking or whatever. Right oil company executive. All the hydrogen transport infrastructure. Does hydrogen like being in tanks? I forget. Does it basically leak from everything? Hydrogen is really stable, right? All the hydrogen refuelling stations. Wait, is hydrogen a liquid? Oh, it's a gas? man, those'll be annoying to engineer. Right, bet that's a solved problem for Joe Q public. All the fuel cells that last longer than 100,000 miles. I forget, did you fix that little platinum problem? Right, solved problem. Here's the real kicker: what price are you targeting with hydrogen cars and infrastructure? It'll take, what, 10 years to get close to what the electrical grid and current recharging stations offer? I mean, we have EVs like NOW. Lots of them. Hyuuuuge factories. Does the "hydrogen economy" exist yet? Right, only if you use methane? Gotcha oil company dude. I forget, can I slap some solar panels on my roof (especially those perovskite multijuntion ones that I hope come out in a few years) and directly use that to generate hydrogen for my hydrogen car? Oh, is that a bad idea? I should just use an EV? Don't get me wrong, hydrogen has potential to be useful. Medium/long range aviation, really long haul shipping, really long haul trucking. You know, edge cases. You know, unless synth fuels become a thing. So just to reiterate: 1) you have no factories for a mass production car 2) you have no green production of hydrogen 3) you have no transportation infrastructure 4) you have no pumps/refueling 5) it'll take, what 10-20 years to get to where EVs are right now? While EVs: 1) have factories / in production 2) can use any generation source, just hook it to the grid. 3) transportation? You mean the grid? Or generation at home? 4) recharging stations, while yeah, not what gas stations are, they exist and are actively being built out 5) and just to reiterate, there's been production EVs for... 15 years now? Your little hydrogen bus system in Japan? I almost guarantee that gets chucked once cheap EV buses hit the mainstream (they don't need to go far, they do lots of stop-go so regen, it would be really nice to charge them off the grid, they will be cheap/in mass production). I mean, if you're a city, would you like supported / non-bespoke cheaper-than-ICE buses with low maintenance cost, cheap repair, or some screwy hydrogen thing? Yeah.
Analemma_ 4y ago
> It is just replacing a dependency on fossil fuels with battery related metals. All car companies will shift away from the EV and towards hydrogen at some point. You are aware that nearly all commercial hydrogen comes from fossil fuel extraction, yes?
- _hypx 4y ago
  Nearly all electricity comes from fossil fuels too (well, ignoring hydroelectric and nuclear). Renewables still make a small contribution to the grid, and 10 years it was tiny. It's obviously just history repeating itself. People complain about current emissions while ignoring future emissions. In hydrogen's case, it is the same as electricity. It is as green as the source energy, which in the long run will be green.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    > Nearly all electricity comes from fossil fuels too (well, ignoring hydroelectric and nuclear). Renewables still make a small contribution to the grid, and 10 years it was tiny VRE has produced more world wide than Nuclear for several years now, and is increasing at roughly 1/4th of the cumulative size of the entire nuclear fleet every year.
    - _hypx 4y ago
      Not true at all. Nuclear is still bigger than VRE: https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix And that is with a dramatic reduction in nuclear power in recent years.
      - Schroedingersat 4y ago
        Try some data from 2022 instead of 2019. Then realise you have to include the installed capacity, not just stuff that has been there a whole year. Edit: LOL even your own source has the correct answer further down the page (which is still 2 years of massive expansion under current production) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?tab=table&time=1861..latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s... Here's you're 'recent' 'dramatic reduction' https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/WorldTrendinElectricalProduction.aspx https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/WorldTrendinElect... 2021 Nuclear production was the historic max. Why does the industry and pro nuclear crowd lie constantly about even the most trivial and inconsequential things?
Schroedingersat 4y ago
You're right. Mining 400kg of carbon, iron, and aluminium for a battery in a sodium ion car is prohibitive. Rather than replacing it with nickel, copper, noble metals, and rare earths in an electrolyser and fuel cell we should remove and shrink as many cars as we can by mass expanding transit, active transport, and LEV infrastructure.
RC_ITR 4y ago
>All car companies will shift away from the EV and towards hydrogen at some point. Sure and all coal plants will be replaced by fusion, but a utility executive single-mindedly pursuing fusion is not a good corporate leader.
- _hypx 4y ago
  FYI, coal is nowhere near dead. In fact it had it's biggest year just last year. It's most likely replacement is... natural gas. And if you replace "fusion" with "fission" it is a very sensible argument.
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    > FYI, coal is nowhere near dead. In fact it had it's biggest year just last year. Maybe globally because India/China, but the US has shed Gigawatts of coal capacity over the last two decades. > It's most likely replacement is... natural gas. Yeah. > And if you replace "fusion" with "fission" it is a very sensible argument. Like it or not, we are losing our ability to build fission plants (Google Vogtle if you’re not familiar) and the only way an Electricity CEO in 2023 should be single-mindedly thinking about fission is if they have some inside information that the government is going to subsidized the heck out of it. Otherwise, they'll just be the CEO with unconstrained capex and higher prices (and an angry utilities commission that has a singular mission to cut the rate base to reduce said prices as much as possible)
    - _hypx 4y ago
      And replaced it with natural gas... Coal is nowhere near dead. Europe is increasing production right now. People have greatly exaggerated the death of fossil fuels. We are decades away from moving away from fossil fuels. A lot of the opposition to nuclear fission is just bad environmentalism. Take that away and we'd be building hundreds of reactors right now. We can easily reduce construction cost if it wasn't for excessive regulation designed to make it expensive.
      - 4y ago
gitfan86 4y ago
Hydrogen is superior because those high pressure tanks and electronics do not require metals.
majormajor 4y ago
Your "just" there ignores the efficiency, pollution, and emissions aspects. Going from gas to electric is slow. If electric -> hydrogen offers fewer of the benefits beyond removing a dependency on battery metals over much-cleaner-already EVs, that transition will take even longer, if it happens.
- _hypx 4y ago
  You can convert existing cars to run on hydrogen. Also, hydrogen can be combined with CO₂ to create e-fuels.
  - laverya 4y ago
    Uh... How? You'd need an entirely new fuel system at a minimum, even if you could reuse the rest of the powertrain. And hydrogen tanks are a lot larger than a gas tank, so finding a place for it might be difficult!
  - sbradford26 4y ago
    I don't deny that EVs have issues that we will have to solve like recycling and reducing the amount of rare earth metals in them. But just saying Hydrogen fixes that glosses over the massive amount of problems that needs to be solved for hydrogen to be viable. Short list and no nowhere near exhaustive list: Extremely high pressures required to get sufficient energy density Hydrogen embrittlement basically requiring expiration dates on tanks in vehicles Inefficiency/cost of green methods for producing hydrogen How to create cheap fueling stations like we have with gas stations That isn't to say these problems are not solvable but we have been working on them a long time and haven't made a ton of progress. Meanwhile EVs have already been able to overcome most of the big hurdles. I think hydrogen has a possible future in aircraft because the issue of cost, maintenance, and special equipment for fueling is status quo for aircraft already.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - _hypx 4y ago
jhp123 4y ago
Hydrogen cars are no help here unfortunately, they also use metals such as steel and aluminum.
- tibu 4y ago
  Rare-metals used in batteries are much problematic then steel and Al.
  - jhp123 4y ago
    Steel is very problematic. 90% comes from China. Proven reserves of iron will run out at some point and we'll need to find new ones. Smelting uses coal. Iron mining is environmentally destructive.
    - _hypx 4y ago
      Iron is one of the most common elements in the Earth's crust. It is not going to run out.
      - jhp123 4y ago
        Amount in the crust is hardly relevant. After all there are trillions of tons of lithium etc. in the Earth's crust. Transition to a "hydrogen economy" would put unprecedented demand on existing sources. It's not realistic.
        _hypx 4y ago
        Hydrogen is also one of the most common elements in the Earth's crust. Hence why it will never run out. It is very relevant.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dymk 4y ago
> fossil fuels > battery related metals only one of these continuously emits greenhouse gasses through its use hint: it's not the one that you can recycle into new batteries
ElijahLynn 4y ago
Hydrogen still requires a distribution network yah? The electric distribution network (electrical grid) is already here, and every building and house has a hose. Incrementally upgrading that infra seems light years better than building a hydrogen distribution network.
- tibu 4y ago
  The electrical grid is not capable to fill the role for the electrification of all cars. The current gas distribution is suitable for hydrogen too.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    We can do load balancing on the grid, it's proven and old tech. Smart grids handle it easily and you don't need an unicorn startup to cycle the car chargers to balance the grid load. We can use exactly zero of the current gas distribution system for hydrogen. Hydrogen molecules are literally the smallest in the universe, we haven't invented a container where they won't escape. You can't just pour hydrogen into a gas station tank or transport it in a natural gas pipe. Transporting hydrogen will always result in huge losses. Less huge if you transport it as a liquid, but then you need to transport it at -252 Celsius - which brings a whole new set of problems.
    - _hypx 4y ago
      Transporting hydrogen is easier than transporting electricity on the large scale. A pipeline is both simpler and more scalable than wires after you get to a certain size.
      - jaybeavers 4y ago
        I have three BEV chargers at my home now. i didnt need to change a thing to my “built in 2000 to code” home to do this, as it “came out of the box” w/ 200 amp service. My chevy bolt will charge at 8a (conservative) or 12a (“fast”) at my preference. It takes maybe 3-4 hours over night to charge from my average driving day with a decent commute. My car consumes, while charging for a few hours overnight, about the same amps as a good clothing iron or a beefy vacuum. If i wanted, i could delay charge so three EV charged overnight, never draeing power at the same time. My next car will buffer power so solar cells can overcharge and supply back to the house. And it will be a backup power supply for storms and grid outages so I no longer need a standby generator. Tell me again about how the grid isnt ready for my BEVs and why we should be pumping some liquid or gas into tanks?
doctorshady 4y ago
I wish more people would realize that lithium battery production is still pretty nasty, especially in countries like China with minimal environmental regulations. Not to mention the electrical grid will take some significant investment (hopefully in renewable energy sources for this huge transition to make any sense) to be ready to accommodate such a huge increase in consumption. A dependency on fossil fuels isn't a good thing, certainly not to the extent that we've developed, but I really don't think the answer is as clear cut as everybody treats it to be.
- notacoward 4y ago
  The nice thing about battery EVs is that 95% of what's there is completely indifferent to the kind of battery used. The charging infrastructure can remain exactly the same. Even the battery management system can be tweaked to handle the charge rates and thermal characteristics of almost any chemistry. Lithium isn't the only option. Anything that gets us away from combustion-based/pumped-fuel designs, which lack this flexibility, is a good thing.
- megaman821 4y ago
  The comparable here is oil extraction. I have never seen any evidence that oil extraction is better for the environment than lithium mining. The grid will require significant investment no matter what at this point. Many parts are nearing the end of their useful lifespan, being built more than 50 years ago. Renewables and electrified transport definitely add to it, but people are trying to pin the entire cost on those things which is just wrong.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    > The comparable here is oil extraction. Not really. Batteries are energy storage, oil is energy production. Most of the energy used to charge batteries comes from burning fossil fuels. Even if we convert the grid to 100% renewables and get rid of fossil fuels, we will still need to mine for battery materials.
    - CydeWeys 4y ago
askvictor 4y ago
One of the hardest parts about hydrogen is bootstrapping the infrastructure. You need new production facilities, pipelines, storage tanks, pumps, and probably a lot more. All of which need to handle hydrogen, an extremely flammable gas that likes to squeeze through any material you contain it in due to its tiny size. In terms of switching away from oil, the only options are biofuels (which have their own major issues) or electricity (which already has a distribution system across much of the world). If we run out of Lithium in the ground, we'll start recycling it a lot more efficiently. While mining isn't ideal, at least mining and using Lithium isn't causing climate change. The fact you can charge you EV at home (from your own solar panels if you have then) is a massive added bonus that's going to be hard to convince people away from once its established. Thinking about what comes after battery cars (assuming there's a Lithium shortage) - I'd be very surprised if Hydrogen can scale up; I think it's much more likely we move to other battery tech, or perhaps novel liquid fuels. Hydrogen was always a greenwashing ruse by petrolchem companies.
- _hypx 4y ago
  There's only one element above lithium on the periodic table. If there's a replacement for lithium, it is hydrogen. Most of what you say is not that different than what people said about batteries. Let's not forget that li-ion batteries are really hard to make and have their own major challenges, and for a long while seemed like a terrible idea. The story is basically repeating with anti-hydrogen arguments. This includes the dumbest of them all: that it is just a conspiracy by oil companies. Last I checked, there is no carbon in hydrogen, and "novel liquid fuels" will imply adding carbon to it. So either it is not a conspiracy by the oil companies, or the oil companies were right all along.
  - askvictor 4y ago
    Given your seeming misunderstanding of chemistry, I'm not going to debate any further, but for the sake of others reading, I'll point out that there are two elements above Lithium (Hydrogen and Helium), and that Lithium is a (solid at room temperature) metal makes all the difference. And the fact that Lithium not being burnt as a fuel like H2 (thus requiring fuel storage and refueling), but instead as part of a compound that is used for energy storage.

by _hypx 4y ago

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

You mean like high density LFP/LMFP that is coming into mass production this year at 200-230 wh/kg? (aka the 350-400+ mile car) That require no cobalt/nickel? You mean like sodium ion batteries that are coming into mass production this year at 150 wh/kg? (aka the 200-300 mile car) That don't even require lithium? You mean like Lithium Sulfur batteries that are poised in five years to double or triple battery density? Or you mean like the Sodium Sulfur batteries that will probably come a year or two after that which similarly double/triple NMC capacity but only require sodium and sulfur? Your take is ten years old. High density LFP and good-enough density sodium ion is going to deliver a comprehensively cheaper car drivetrain than ICEs can deliver, and each year will only be worse and worse news for ICEs. I would predict by 2030 there will be 600 mile range EVs (real world, not WLTP) whose drivetrain component cost is 1/2 of an ICE. We'll have to see what comes out of Toyota. They have the DNA of execution, efficiency, and engineering. It's hard to see if it is "too late", because EV transition is such a massive investment in vertically integrated manufacturing at this point, while carmakers outside of Tesla are so OEM focused. We'll see. I had kind of assumed that Toyota would be asleep at the switch and a joke for another 2-3 years, this is a surprising development. The fact they were pushing hydrogen still last year in public and poo-pooing EVs, and given the ossification and malaise of large Japanese corporations, I assumed it would be status quo until substantial market share was lost. Is this activist investors again, like BMW, VW, etc? Is that even a thing in Japanese megacorps?

_hypx 4y ago
You do realize that hydrogen has an effective energy density of ~1,000 Wh/kg? Even with the weight of tanks and fuel cells taken into account. Meanwhile, most of your listed battery chemistries haven’t been invented yet and may never exist.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Speaking of not existing: All the hydrogen generation/splitting facilities (it all comes from methane, right oil company astroturfer?) I forget, did you guys fix the various fundamental laws of thermodynamics so that you can get hydrogen from water at high efficiency? You know, water, that ultra-stable molecule? Or should we just ship the electricity over the existing grid rather than take 30-50% losses putting it into hydrogen, physically ship it with some new fangled hydrogen tank truck, and then get the energy out? So how much energy do you use to GET to that 1000 wh/kg? Oh right, you'll really just get it from methane or tar sands or fracking or whatever. Right oil company executive. All the hydrogen transport infrastructure. Does hydrogen like being in tanks? I forget. Does it basically leak from everything? Hydrogen is really stable, right? All the hydrogen refuelling stations. Wait, is hydrogen a liquid? Oh, it's a gas? man, those'll be annoying to engineer. Right, bet that's a solved problem for Joe Q public. All the fuel cells that last longer than 100,000 miles. I forget, did you fix that little platinum problem? Right, solved problem. Here's the real kicker: what price are you targeting with hydrogen cars and infrastructure? It'll take, what, 10 years to get close to what the electrical grid and current recharging stations offer? I mean, we have EVs like NOW. Lots of them. Hyuuuuge factories. Does the "hydrogen economy" exist yet? Right, only if you use methane? Gotcha oil company dude. I forget, can I slap some solar panels on my roof (especially those perovskite multijuntion ones that I hope come out in a few years) and directly use that to generate hydrogen for my hydrogen car? Oh, is that a bad idea? I should just use an EV? Don't get me wrong, hydrogen has potential to be useful. Medium/long range aviation, really long haul shipping, really long haul trucking. You know, edge cases. You know, unless synth fuels become a thing. So just to reiterate: 1) you have no factories for a mass production car 2) you have no green production of hydrogen 3) you have no transportation infrastructure 4) you have no pumps/refueling 5) it'll take, what 10-20 years to get to where EVs are right now? While EVs: 1) have factories / in production 2) can use any generation source, just hook it to the grid. 3) transportation? You mean the grid? Or generation at home? 4) recharging stations, while yeah, not what gas stations are, they exist and are actively being built out 5) and just to reiterate, there's been production EVs for... 15 years now? Your little hydrogen bus system in Japan? I almost guarantee that gets chucked once cheap EV buses hit the mainstream (they don't need to go far, they do lots of stop-go so regen, it would be really nice to charge them off the grid, they will be cheap/in mass production). I mean, if you're a city, would you like supported / non-bespoke cheaper-than-ICE buses with low maintenance cost, cheap repair, or some screwy hydrogen thing? Yeah.

Analemma_ 4y ago

> It is just replacing a dependency on fossil fuels with battery related metals. All car companies will shift away from the EV and towards hydrogen at some point. You are aware that nearly all commercial hydrogen comes from fossil fuel extraction, yes?

_hypx 4y ago
Nearly all electricity comes from fossil fuels too (well, ignoring hydroelectric and nuclear). Renewables still make a small contribution to the grid, and 10 years it was tiny. It's obviously just history repeating itself. People complain about current emissions while ignoring future emissions. In hydrogen's case, it is the same as electricity. It is as green as the source energy, which in the long run will be green.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > Nearly all electricity comes from fossil fuels too (well, ignoring hydroelectric and nuclear). Renewables still make a small contribution to the grid, and 10 years it was tiny VRE has produced more world wide than Nuclear for several years now, and is increasing at roughly 1/4th of the cumulative size of the entire nuclear fleet every year.
  - _hypx 4y ago
    Not true at all. Nuclear is still bigger than VRE: https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix https://ourworldindata.org/electricity-mix And that is with a dramatic reduction in nuclear power in recent years.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      Try some data from 2022 instead of 2019. Then realise you have to include the installed capacity, not just stuff that has been there a whole year. Edit: LOL even your own source has the correct answer further down the page (which is still 2 years of massive expansion under current production) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-stacked?tab=table&time=1861..latest https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s... Here's you're 'recent' 'dramatic reduction' https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/WorldTrendinElectricalProduction.aspx https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/WorldTrendinElect... 2021 Nuclear production was the historic max. Why does the industry and pro nuclear crowd lie constantly about even the most trivial and inconsequential things?

Schroedingersat 4y ago

You're right. Mining 400kg of carbon, iron, and aluminium for a battery in a sodium ion car is prohibitive. Rather than replacing it with nickel, copper, noble metals, and rare earths in an electrolyser and fuel cell we should remove and shrink as many cars as we can by mass expanding transit, active transport, and LEV infrastructure.

RC_ITR 4y ago

>All car companies will shift away from the EV and towards hydrogen at some point. Sure and all coal plants will be replaced by fusion, but a utility executive single-mindedly pursuing fusion is not a good corporate leader.

_hypx 4y ago
FYI, coal is nowhere near dead. In fact it had it's biggest year just last year. It's most likely replacement is... natural gas. And if you replace "fusion" with "fission" it is a very sensible argument.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  > FYI, coal is nowhere near dead. In fact it had it's biggest year just last year. Maybe globally because India/China, but the US has shed Gigawatts of coal capacity over the last two decades. > It's most likely replacement is... natural gas. Yeah. > And if you replace "fusion" with "fission" it is a very sensible argument. Like it or not, we are losing our ability to build fission plants (Google Vogtle if you’re not familiar) and the only way an Electricity CEO in 2023 should be single-mindedly thinking about fission is if they have some inside information that the government is going to subsidized the heck out of it. Otherwise, they'll just be the CEO with unconstrained capex and higher prices (and an angry utilities commission that has a singular mission to cut the rate base to reduce said prices as much as possible)
  - _hypx 4y ago
    And replaced it with natural gas... Coal is nowhere near dead. Europe is increasing production right now. People have greatly exaggerated the death of fossil fuels. We are decades away from moving away from fossil fuels. A lot of the opposition to nuclear fission is just bad environmentalism. Take that away and we'd be building hundreds of reactors right now. We can easily reduce construction cost if it wasn't for excessive regulation designed to make it expensive.
    - 4y ago

gitfan86 4y ago

Hydrogen is superior because those high pressure tanks and electronics do not require metals.

majormajor 4y ago

Your "just" there ignores the efficiency, pollution, and emissions aspects. Going from gas to electric is slow. If electric -> hydrogen offers fewer of the benefits beyond removing a dependency on battery metals over much-cleaner-already EVs, that transition will take even longer, if it happens.

_hypx 4y ago
You can convert existing cars to run on hydrogen. Also, hydrogen can be combined with CO₂ to create e-fuels.
- laverya 4y ago
  Uh... How? You'd need an entirely new fuel system at a minimum, even if you could reuse the rest of the powertrain. And hydrogen tanks are a lot larger than a gas tank, so finding a place for it might be difficult!
- sbradford26 4y ago
  I don't deny that EVs have issues that we will have to solve like recycling and reducing the amount of rare earth metals in them. But just saying Hydrogen fixes that glosses over the massive amount of problems that needs to be solved for hydrogen to be viable. Short list and no nowhere near exhaustive list: Extremely high pressures required to get sufficient energy density Hydrogen embrittlement basically requiring expiration dates on tanks in vehicles Inefficiency/cost of green methods for producing hydrogen How to create cheap fueling stations like we have with gas stations That isn't to say these problems are not solvable but we have been working on them a long time and haven't made a ton of progress. Meanwhile EVs have already been able to overcome most of the big hurdles. I think hydrogen has a possible future in aircraft because the issue of cost, maintenance, and special equipment for fueling is status quo for aircraft already.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - _hypx 4y ago

jhp123 4y ago

Hydrogen cars are no help here unfortunately, they also use metals such as steel and aluminum.

tibu 4y ago
Rare-metals used in batteries are much problematic then steel and Al.
- jhp123 4y ago
  Steel is very problematic. 90% comes from China. Proven reserves of iron will run out at some point and we'll need to find new ones. Smelting uses coal. Iron mining is environmentally destructive.
  - _hypx 4y ago
    Iron is one of the most common elements in the Earth's crust. It is not going to run out.
    - jhp123 4y ago
      Amount in the crust is hardly relevant. After all there are trillions of tons of lithium etc. in the Earth's crust. Transition to a "hydrogen economy" would put unprecedented demand on existing sources. It's not realistic.
      - _hypx 4y ago
        Hydrogen is also one of the most common elements in the Earth's crust. Hence why it will never run out. It is very relevant.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

dymk 4y ago

> fossil fuels > battery related metals only one of these continuously emits greenhouse gasses through its use hint: it's not the one that you can recycle into new batteries

ElijahLynn 4y ago

Hydrogen still requires a distribution network yah? The electric distribution network (electrical grid) is already here, and every building and house has a hose. Incrementally upgrading that infra seems light years better than building a hydrogen distribution network.

tibu 4y ago
The electrical grid is not capable to fill the role for the electrification of all cars. The current gas distribution is suitable for hydrogen too.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  We can do load balancing on the grid, it's proven and old tech. Smart grids handle it easily and you don't need an unicorn startup to cycle the car chargers to balance the grid load. We can use exactly zero of the current gas distribution system for hydrogen. Hydrogen molecules are literally the smallest in the universe, we haven't invented a container where they won't escape. You can't just pour hydrogen into a gas station tank or transport it in a natural gas pipe. Transporting hydrogen will always result in huge losses. Less huge if you transport it as a liquid, but then you need to transport it at -252 Celsius - which brings a whole new set of problems.
  - _hypx 4y ago
    Transporting hydrogen is easier than transporting electricity on the large scale. A pipeline is both simpler and more scalable than wires after you get to a certain size.
    - jaybeavers 4y ago
      I have three BEV chargers at my home now. i didnt need to change a thing to my “built in 2000 to code” home to do this, as it “came out of the box” w/ 200 amp service. My chevy bolt will charge at 8a (conservative) or 12a (“fast”) at my preference. It takes maybe 3-4 hours over night to charge from my average driving day with a decent commute. My car consumes, while charging for a few hours overnight, about the same amps as a good clothing iron or a beefy vacuum. If i wanted, i could delay charge so three EV charged overnight, never draeing power at the same time. My next car will buffer power so solar cells can overcharge and supply back to the house. And it will be a backup power supply for storms and grid outages so I no longer need a standby generator. Tell me again about how the grid isnt ready for my BEVs and why we should be pumping some liquid or gas into tanks?

doctorshady 4y ago

I wish more people would realize that lithium battery production is still pretty nasty, especially in countries like China with minimal environmental regulations. Not to mention the electrical grid will take some significant investment (hopefully in renewable energy sources for this huge transition to make any sense) to be ready to accommodate such a huge increase in consumption. A dependency on fossil fuels isn't a good thing, certainly not to the extent that we've developed, but I really don't think the answer is as clear cut as everybody treats it to be.

notacoward 4y ago
The nice thing about battery EVs is that 95% of what's there is completely indifferent to the kind of battery used. The charging infrastructure can remain exactly the same. Even the battery management system can be tweaked to handle the charge rates and thermal characteristics of almost any chemistry. Lithium isn't the only option. Anything that gets us away from combustion-based/pumped-fuel designs, which lack this flexibility, is a good thing.
megaman821 4y ago
The comparable here is oil extraction. I have never seen any evidence that oil extraction is better for the environment than lithium mining. The grid will require significant investment no matter what at this point. Many parts are nearing the end of their useful lifespan, being built more than 50 years ago. Renewables and electrified transport definitely add to it, but people are trying to pin the entire cost on those things which is just wrong.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  > The comparable here is oil extraction. Not really. Batteries are energy storage, oil is energy production. Most of the energy used to charge batteries comes from burning fossil fuels. Even if we convert the grid to 100% renewables and get rid of fossil fuels, we will still need to mine for battery materials.
  - CydeWeys 4y ago

askvictor 4y ago

One of the hardest parts about hydrogen is bootstrapping the infrastructure. You need new production facilities, pipelines, storage tanks, pumps, and probably a lot more. All of which need to handle hydrogen, an extremely flammable gas that likes to squeeze through any material you contain it in due to its tiny size. In terms of switching away from oil, the only options are biofuels (which have their own major issues) or electricity (which already has a distribution system across much of the world). If we run out of Lithium in the ground, we'll start recycling it a lot more efficiently. While mining isn't ideal, at least mining and using Lithium isn't causing climate change. The fact you can charge you EV at home (from your own solar panels if you have then) is a massive added bonus that's going to be hard to convince people away from once its established. Thinking about what comes after battery cars (assuming there's a Lithium shortage) - I'd be very surprised if Hydrogen can scale up; I think it's much more likely we move to other battery tech, or perhaps novel liquid fuels. Hydrogen was always a greenwashing ruse by petrolchem companies.

_hypx 4y ago
There's only one element above lithium on the periodic table. If there's a replacement for lithium, it is hydrogen. Most of what you say is not that different than what people said about batteries. Let's not forget that li-ion batteries are really hard to make and have their own major challenges, and for a long while seemed like a terrible idea. The story is basically repeating with anti-hydrogen arguments. This includes the dumbest of them all: that it is just a conspiracy by oil companies. Last I checked, there is no carbon in hydrogen, and "novel liquid fuels" will imply adding carbon to it. So either it is not a conspiracy by the oil companies, or the oil companies were right all along.
- askvictor 4y ago
  Given your seeming misunderstanding of chemistry, I'm not going to debate any further, but for the sake of others reading, I'll point out that there are two elements above Lithium (Hydrogen and Helium), and that Lithium is a (solid at room temperature) metal makes all the difference. And the fact that Lithium not being burnt as a fuel like H2 (thus requiring fuel storage and refueling), but instead as part of a compound that is used for energy storage.