4 ms·

I ask this genuinely, how polluting is it to build a battery (mining, etc)? Is it worth it? How that compares with hydrogen produced by renewable and/or nuclear

I ask this genuinely, how polluting is it to build a battery (mining, etc)? Is it worth it? How that compares with hydrogen produced by renewable and/or nuclear?

tuatoru 3y ago
There are a lot of assumptions that people would have to make in answering that question. What is the assumed life of the battery vs the hydrogen electrolyzer and storage/distribution network? What are the maintenance requirements over that life? Are you assuming best-practice mine management or worst practice? What fraction of each battery can be recycled, and what fraction of batteries will in fact be recycled? How much leakage of hydrogen will there be and how many fires will happen, with the pollution that attends them? And so on and on. The simple answer is that both of them are way less bad than what we have now (fossil fuels), and commercially the world has chosen batteries.
jillesvangurp 3y ago
A lot less than it is to burn lots of fuel. Basically manufacturing related emissions and damage is basically offset within the first year or so of driving a EV. After that first year they are basically cleaner than an ICE vehicle on every dimension that matters. And that's just current state of the art. Hydrogen for road transport simply makes no economical sense. It's been tried and it failed hard in the market. Even Toyota, who have been trying to convince world+dog that hydrogen was the future has failed to convince people to buy their hydrogen cars to the point that they are already making vastly more EVs than they've ever produced hydrogen cars. And that's them dragging their heels and barely trying to produce EVs. Hydrogen fueling infrastructure is a big obstacle. It's not happening. The handful of fueling stations that actually exist are barely being used and some are actually being shut down. If you are at all range anxious, hydrogen would be your nightmare fuel. Most of the world is well out of range from any hydrogen fuel station. You can't go anywhere if you have a hydrogen car. EVs on the other hand can go anywhere there are wall sockets.

I ask this genuinely, how polluting is it to build a battery (mining, etc)? Is it worth it? How that compares with hydrogen produced by renewable and/or nuclear?

tuatoru 3y ago

There are a lot of assumptions that people would have to make in answering that question. What is the assumed life of the battery vs the hydrogen electrolyzer and storage/distribution network? What are the maintenance requirements over that life? Are you assuming best-practice mine management or worst practice? What fraction of each battery can be recycled, and what fraction of batteries will in fact be recycled? How much leakage of hydrogen will there be and how many fires will happen, with the pollution that attends them? And so on and on. The simple answer is that both of them are way less bad than what we have now (fossil fuels), and commercially the world has chosen batteries.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

A lot less than it is to burn lots of fuel. Basically manufacturing related emissions and damage is basically offset within the first year or so of driving a EV. After that first year they are basically cleaner than an ICE vehicle on every dimension that matters. And that's just current state of the art. Hydrogen for road transport simply makes no economical sense. It's been tried and it failed hard in the market. Even Toyota, who have been trying to convince world+dog that hydrogen was the future has failed to convince people to buy their hydrogen cars to the point that they are already making vastly more EVs than they've ever produced hydrogen cars. And that's them dragging their heels and barely trying to produce EVs. Hydrogen fueling infrastructure is a big obstacle. It's not happening. The handful of fueling stations that actually exist are barely being used and some are actually being shut down. If you are at all range anxious, hydrogen would be your nightmare fuel. Most of the world is well out of range from any hydrogen fuel station. You can't go anywhere if you have a hydrogen car. EVs on the other hand can go anywhere there are wall sockets.