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Paul Martin is not a valid authority on this. He is a known anti-hydrogen skeptic and had made many nonsensical claims about hydrogen. The most notable is perha

by _hypx 3y ago

Paul Martin is not a valid authority on this. He is a known anti-hydrogen skeptic and had made many nonsensical claims about hydrogen. The most notable is perhaps his limited understanding of how fuel cells work, and his claim that fuel cells can never dramatically exceed the efficiency of diesel engines. This is false, as fuel cells are electrochemical systems that do not follow Carnot's theorem. Which is to say that it is fully possible to build a fuel cell that greatly exceeds the efficiency of diesel engines. Not to mention that most of his claims are from some years ago, and are becoming obsolete even if they were true. He has not commented on (AFAIK) about the effects of subsidies nor admitted that costs are dropping rapidly. He just sounds like another anti-renewable skeptic similar to those that criticized wind and solar. It's worth mentioning that all of them are similar in a way: Old, retired or nearly retired, and usually coming from in the fossil fuel industry. And yes, Martin is from the fossil fuel industry, and has no experience with hydrogen beyond its existence as a feedstock for oil refining. He has never had any experience with modern hydrogen-related facilities, equipment and concepts. Engineers that actually do have experiences with those area do not agree with Paul Martin. So there are alternative viewpoints from knowledgeable people. You can look at recent statements by BMW and Bosch, including what their engineers have said. They are clearly believers of the idea: https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2022/09/01/bmw-bosch-announce-hydrogen-fuel-cell-production-plans/ https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2022/09/01/bmw-bosch-anno...

lll-o-lll 3y ago
Your argument is now “older people are stupid?”. The information is old and irrelevant? The article I linked was from this year. I just picked a critical engineer at random, but I can see I’m wasting my time here. You are clearly not any kind of expert. I am clearly not any kind of expert. This is just devolving into nothingness, and I’ll leave it here.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- _hypx 3y ago
  You are clearly misrepresenting my point. Your authority is not really an authority for a bunch of reasons. One of which is how he is basically a retired petroleum engineer with very little understanding of the modern state of hydrogen. And yes, this usually implies an old person, something Arthur C. Clarke noticed in one of his writings about elderly scientists. And while your link is from this year, he's been saying the same thing for many years now without change. In fact, the only recent change in tone is his exacerbation, as billions of dollars are being invested anyways and he is upset about that. You are not picking a critical engineer at random. You picking basically one of the very few credible critics, and they're all basically known to the community. The rest of the engineering community in this sector are certainly not as skeptical. In fact, you completely ignored my link about engineers that are doing real work in this area. I asked previous about "who's actually saying this?" to the question of engineers that doubt hydrogen. And that question is still relevant, because outside of a tiny minority of scientists and engineers, most of whom are outdated and poorly informed, the rest are just armchair experts and random celebrities. So the point is that you are simply wrong about your understanding of the issue. The intellectual community fully accepts the possibility of hydrogen as a widespread fuel and a way to solve climate change.
  - ehvatum 3y ago
    > So the point is that you are simply wrong about your understanding of the issue. The intellectual community fully accepts the possibility of hydrogen as a widespread fuel and a way to solve climate change. That is terribly naive and wishful thinking, I’m afraid. For even the smallest-scale industrial applications, hydrogen is almost invariably produced on-site, near or within the manufacturing cell consuming it. Even if Linde charged nothing at all for hydrogen, electrolysis would still win: no 10kpsi (good lord) tank, no inevitable 1% loss per month of high-pressure hydrogen, no extra insurance premium. If you’d dealt with hydrogen in industry, you might appreciate the problems with it. The static electric discharge from fingertip to ground required to ignite hydrogen is barely perceptible, and a ridiculously low atmospheric hydrogen concentration will burn with a very hot flame invisible in daylight. The proposition of the public driving high-pressure hydrogen tanks around is brain-damaged. If you want fuel, you should make methanol from your hydrogen - for the same reasons that, if you want hydrogen, you already produce it from water or natural gas or propane. Hydrogen has been an excellent topic for boastful press releases by car companies, corrupt nations, and fossil fuel producers murderously determined to continue the status quo indefinitely. It’s ideal for that, because there’s no danger of practicality.

by _hypx 3y ago

lll-o-lll 3y ago

Your argument is now “older people are stupid?”. The information is old and irrelevant? The article I linked was from this year. I just picked a critical engineer at random, but I can see I’m wasting my time here. You are clearly not any kind of expert. I am clearly not any kind of expert. This is just devolving into nothingness, and I’ll leave it here.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
_hypx 3y ago
You are clearly misrepresenting my point. Your authority is not really an authority for a bunch of reasons. One of which is how he is basically a retired petroleum engineer with very little understanding of the modern state of hydrogen. And yes, this usually implies an old person, something Arthur C. Clarke noticed in one of his writings about elderly scientists. And while your link is from this year, he's been saying the same thing for many years now without change. In fact, the only recent change in tone is his exacerbation, as billions of dollars are being invested anyways and he is upset about that. You are not picking a critical engineer at random. You picking basically one of the very few credible critics, and they're all basically known to the community. The rest of the engineering community in this sector are certainly not as skeptical. In fact, you completely ignored my link about engineers that are doing real work in this area. I asked previous about "who's actually saying this?" to the question of engineers that doubt hydrogen. And that question is still relevant, because outside of a tiny minority of scientists and engineers, most of whom are outdated and poorly informed, the rest are just armchair experts and random celebrities. So the point is that you are simply wrong about your understanding of the issue. The intellectual community fully accepts the possibility of hydrogen as a widespread fuel and a way to solve climate change.
- ehvatum 3y ago
  > So the point is that you are simply wrong about your understanding of the issue. The intellectual community fully accepts the possibility of hydrogen as a widespread fuel and a way to solve climate change. That is terribly naive and wishful thinking, I’m afraid. For even the smallest-scale industrial applications, hydrogen is almost invariably produced on-site, near or within the manufacturing cell consuming it. Even if Linde charged nothing at all for hydrogen, electrolysis would still win: no 10kpsi (good lord) tank, no inevitable 1% loss per month of high-pressure hydrogen, no extra insurance premium. If you’d dealt with hydrogen in industry, you might appreciate the problems with it. The static electric discharge from fingertip to ground required to ignite hydrogen is barely perceptible, and a ridiculously low atmospheric hydrogen concentration will burn with a very hot flame invisible in daylight. The proposition of the public driving high-pressure hydrogen tanks around is brain-damaged. If you want fuel, you should make methanol from your hydrogen - for the same reasons that, if you want hydrogen, you already produce it from water or natural gas or propane. Hydrogen has been an excellent topic for boastful press releases by car companies, corrupt nations, and fossil fuel producers murderously determined to continue the status quo indefinitely. It’s ideal for that, because there’s no danger of practicality.