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That’s absurd. Hydrogen cars will drop to costs comparable to ICE cars. It is a massive reduction in raw material needs. Not to mention the millions of people w

by _hypx 3y ago

That’s absurd. Hydrogen cars will drop to costs comparable to ICE cars. It is a massive reduction in raw material needs. Not to mention the millions of people who need fast public refueling since they do not have access to home chargers. People are stuck in an innovation trap with BEVs. It is pretty much what Clay Christensen wrote about in his book Innovator’s Dilemma. You cannot just linearly improve a single idea until it surpasses all other ideas, now and forever. Especially one that has many limits as BEVs. It is inevitable that there will be step functions in change, i.e. disruptive changes, coming to the market. Forward thinking companies will plan for that inevitability, not pretend BEVs are the final destination of personal transportation. The world has already squandered billions of dollars on every kind of green technology. That could easily imply BEVs themselves. It is the biggest of double standards to not insist on hydrogen subsidies. If you truly oppose the idea, then oppose all subsidies for all green energy. If not, then accept hydrogen subsidies as a good idea.

theluketaylor 3y ago
There was a time 150 years ago national grids didn't even exist as a concept. Now you're never more than 10 ft from a plug at any given moment when inside a city. A current lack of places to charge is easy to build out of. I'm for hydrogen subsidies, just not for personal transport. Use the money for heavy transport, agriculture, and forestry. If that also happens to make fuel cells cheaper all around and changes the economics of fuel cell vehicles, that's fine, just don't subsidize hydrogen personal cars directly because it's deeply unlikely they will ever be more than a curiosity. Thermodynamics means green hydrogen always has to pay the round trip conversion loss, so it will always be more expensive than raw electricity. I do agree there is opportunity to soak up excess renewable generation with hydrogen, but if you're right about hydrogen demand that won't ever affect the price more than a few %. Raw, direct electricity use will always be cheaper, so people will figure out ways to make that arbitrage work for them in ways other than hydrogen storage. The lack of losses with batteries will mean there is a huge incentive to shoehorn them into anything where it possibly makes sense. That doesn't necessarily mean current lithium chemistry and that's where your innovation will come from.
- _hypx 3y ago
  The grid was not designed for everyone to charge large BEVs with them. Nor are there DC fast chargers on every block. And I’m not sure what 150 years ago had to do with anything. Today, we will build whatever infrastructure will allow for cheap transportation. Which technically is mass transit, but because of other factors we chose a much more expensive route with cars. But if we insist on having cars, it makes more sense to have a system that allows for rapid refueling all the time. That will enable everyone to have a single refueling system. So basically the gas station model, which implies hydrogen cars as the future. Again, hydrogen cars can be as cheap as ICE cars to manufacture. Your argument here is pure shortsightedness and is insisting on a double standards. What was the cost of BEVs when they first came out? It took subsidies to drive cost down in the early days. Same is true for hydrogen cars. As mass production expands, hydrogen cars will get cheaper until they are cheaper than BEVs. You do not understand the thermodynamics of the subject matter. Again, electrolyzers/fuel cells are an electrochemical systems. It basically doesn’t have “thermal-dynamics”. Theoretical efficiency is the same as li-ion batteries. A fuel cell car is effectively the equivalent of a battery car whose battery is made from water. Although there are practical issues to deal with in reality, so this isn’t totally the case, but it is much closer to being true than what you’re imagining. If you can understand that electrolyzers/fuel cells are functionally the same thing as li-ion batteries, and are subject to the same basic physics, then the real conclusion is to replace li-ion batteries with hydrogen systems wherever possible. After all, if the long-term level of efficiency will be parity between the two, then why insist on the one that is much more resource dependent?
  - theluketaylor 3y ago
    I have no issues with the efficiency of fuel cells. It's the overall efficiency of producing hydrogen in the first place. The "well-to-wheel" efficiency (though with green hydrogen there isn't an actual well). It's very energy intensive to create green hydrogen, far more so than charging a battery. Losses on green hydrogen are 50-60% of total energy used compared to <5% on a battery. That's a huge energy deficit to overcome that will always result in an opex difference. That's why I'm bearish on hydrogen for personal transport, but bullish on it for things like very long distance trains and farm use.

by _hypx 3y ago

theluketaylor 3y ago

There was a time 150 years ago national grids didn't even exist as a concept. Now you're never more than 10 ft from a plug at any given moment when inside a city. A current lack of places to charge is easy to build out of. I'm for hydrogen subsidies, just not for personal transport. Use the money for heavy transport, agriculture, and forestry. If that also happens to make fuel cells cheaper all around and changes the economics of fuel cell vehicles, that's fine, just don't subsidize hydrogen personal cars directly because it's deeply unlikely they will ever be more than a curiosity. Thermodynamics means green hydrogen always has to pay the round trip conversion loss, so it will always be more expensive than raw electricity. I do agree there is opportunity to soak up excess renewable generation with hydrogen, but if you're right about hydrogen demand that won't ever affect the price more than a few %. Raw, direct electricity use will always be cheaper, so people will figure out ways to make that arbitrage work for them in ways other than hydrogen storage. The lack of losses with batteries will mean there is a huge incentive to shoehorn them into anything where it possibly makes sense. That doesn't necessarily mean current lithium chemistry and that's where your innovation will come from.

_hypx 3y ago
The grid was not designed for everyone to charge large BEVs with them. Nor are there DC fast chargers on every block. And I’m not sure what 150 years ago had to do with anything. Today, we will build whatever infrastructure will allow for cheap transportation. Which technically is mass transit, but because of other factors we chose a much more expensive route with cars. But if we insist on having cars, it makes more sense to have a system that allows for rapid refueling all the time. That will enable everyone to have a single refueling system. So basically the gas station model, which implies hydrogen cars as the future. Again, hydrogen cars can be as cheap as ICE cars to manufacture. Your argument here is pure shortsightedness and is insisting on a double standards. What was the cost of BEVs when they first came out? It took subsidies to drive cost down in the early days. Same is true for hydrogen cars. As mass production expands, hydrogen cars will get cheaper until they are cheaper than BEVs. You do not understand the thermodynamics of the subject matter. Again, electrolyzers/fuel cells are an electrochemical systems. It basically doesn’t have “thermal-dynamics”. Theoretical efficiency is the same as li-ion batteries. A fuel cell car is effectively the equivalent of a battery car whose battery is made from water. Although there are practical issues to deal with in reality, so this isn’t totally the case, but it is much closer to being true than what you’re imagining. If you can understand that electrolyzers/fuel cells are functionally the same thing as li-ion batteries, and are subject to the same basic physics, then the real conclusion is to replace li-ion batteries with hydrogen systems wherever possible. After all, if the long-term level of efficiency will be parity between the two, then why insist on the one that is much more resource dependent?
- theluketaylor 3y ago
  I have no issues with the efficiency of fuel cells. It's the overall efficiency of producing hydrogen in the first place. The "well-to-wheel" efficiency (though with green hydrogen there isn't an actual well). It's very energy intensive to create green hydrogen, far more so than charging a battery. Losses on green hydrogen are 50-60% of total energy used compared to <5% on a battery. That's a huge energy deficit to overcome that will always result in an opex difference. That's why I'm bearish on hydrogen for personal transport, but bullish on it for things like very long distance trains and farm use.