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BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dumps diesel

100 points by _aavaa_ 3y ago

adrianN 3y ago
Was that ever controversial in the last fifteen years or so?
- fnord77 3y ago
  there's some still clinging to fuel cells despite the numbers showing the edge to BEVs I can think of one major car maker...
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Only to those without a firm grasp on the laws of thermodynamics. There are a lot of those people. They fall into two categories: - those genuinely confused about this (most of the general public) - those representing oil and gas lobbies that have been using hydrogen lobbying as a way to stay in the fossil fuel industry a bit longer. Because most hydrogen is made from natural gas and they love the idea of growing the market for that. In short, there's a lot of waffle about stored energy by people who don't get (or refuse to acknowledge) that most of that 1) needs to come from somewhere (which is a lossy process) and 2) needs to be transformed into a usable form of energy (which is also a lossy process). That's before you take into account the logistics of moving hydrogen around, which is challenging because it takes up a lot of space. You can either compress it to a few hundred bar (which takes energy) or cool it to a few degrees of kelvin (which takes energy, and keeping it there costs you more energy). And once you do that, you need to keep it contained for extended periods of time (which isn't 100% efficient, especially in liquid form), and use about 18x more trucks for hydrogen in gas form compared to methane in liquid form; or only about 3x more trucks is you actually do cool it down to liquid form. In short, you end up loosing a lot of energy in various lossy energy transformations, compression, storage, and transport of hydrogen before you even get to extract energy from it. All these inefficiencies multiply to a very significant cost disadvantage over simple battery electric. And even if you do all go down this path you end up charging a battery with a hydrogen fuel cell. Because fuel cells suck at producing variable output that you would need for a vehicle. Which is why most hydrogen vehicles today that use a fuel cell are fully functional battery electric vehicles that happen to have a tiny battery. You could just rip out the hydrogen bits and replace them with a bigger battery and you end up with a vehicle that's cheaper to operate. By about 2-3x. A better vehicle in other words. Vehicles like the ones BHP produces are huge. So, shoving a few mwh of battery in them is not going to be that big of a deal. Charging them is a logistical challenge but also a solvable one. Multi mw charger technology already exists. And of course not having to truck in lots of diesel/hydrogen trucks to the remote places where these things are used might also be a benefit. The main challenge for companies like this is access to enough battery and electricity.
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    Funnily enough, if you mine underground you spend an incredible amount of electricity trying to keep the air fresh down there, mostly due to whatever combustion reaction is powering your vehicles. I’ve seen reports claiming you break even or even use less electricity when operating electric vehicles since your ventilation requirements are significantly reduced.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    > Only to those without a firm grasp on the laws of thermodynamics. You are the one completely confused by the laws of thermodynamics. A hydrogen fuel cell is an electrochemical system. So are electrolyzers. They represent the equivalence of charging and discharging a battery. There is no fundamental reason why this must be less efficient. You can potentially reach 100% efficiency at least in theory. What people really are saying is that “in practice,” it is less efficient than a battery setup. But this is also mostly made-up and filled with exaggeration. Electrolyzers are reaching 98% efficiency. Fuel cells, at least in large installations, can already reach 85% efficiency or battery (assuming heat recapture). In short, it is already pretty close to what batteries can do. Future advancements will eliminate the efficiency gap almost entirely. Furthermore, it is actually more efficient to store and move around hydrogen than it is with electricity. Energy storage at scale is very difficult, and enough of a problem that we are looking at using hydrogen for long-duration energy storage. That alone basically kills the argument that batteries have any advantages in this respect. Finally, as the economics of hydrogen production scale up, we can expect cost to approach zero. That’s because it is very much like wind and solar: We’re using a basically free resource (wind, sunlight and water) and turning it into a fuel. People criticized the efficiency of photovoltaics in the past, but the fundamental advantage of not having to pay for fuel means that costs can drop to nearly zero, and it did. This is the same story again. Except nearly free green hydrogen in the long-run.
    - _aavaa_ 3y ago
      > Fuel cells, at least in large installations, can already reach 85% efficiency or battery (assuming heat recapture). Heat recapture is great, but we care about electricity output. > Finally, as the economics of hydrogen production scale up, we can expect cost to approach zero. That’s because it is very much like wind and solar: We’re using a basically free resource It will never reach zero because the equipment, transportation, and people involved are not free. Further solar panels and wind turbines got cheaper due to learning effects. These effects are not present for over half of the things involved in a hydrogen fuel system. Pumps and tanks and valves and pipes are already mass produced. And while the sunlight might be free, the electricity from it is now, and never will be since the equipment isn’t free.
- local_issues 3y ago
  [flagged]
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  It’s controversial now. There are many people smoking the hopium pipe claiming that fuel cell vehicles are the solution of the future.
brnt 3y ago
Question is always: what's externalized and what isn't? Grid storage, required if you want to ensure your energy source is renewable, is usually not taken into account. Sure, diesel and commercial hydrogen isn't either, and an energy reduction even if not renewable is still great, but I'd be keen on knowing the number when taking it into account. That's the end goal after all.
- beej71 3y ago
  I think in this particular case the question might be "what is cheaper to operate?"
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Who pays for grid storage? Is it really externalized or does it just become part of the cost of doing business for the power company?
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    The answer for "who pays for X" is always similar. If no government intervenes, people that use electricity when its most expensive pay for it; or if the power company keeps the price constant, it gets included on the average price.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      But, governments tend to intervene in utility prices somewhat often, and power companies have varying policies WRT constant pricing, so we have at least three (fairly dissimilar) possible answers here.
      - marcosdumay 3y ago
        > so we have at least three possible answers here For a question of who pays for a service, in an undefined market, at an undefined place, not specifying what participant it's about, and not determining at what history period exactly it's about (yeah, near future, but how near?). Do you think that's too many?
logifail 3y ago
Q: Where is the electricity coming from to recharge the batteries? "Powered by electricity" doesn't necessarily mean "clean", years ago I visited friends in Germany who were within cycling distance of an open-cast lignite mine. It had its own (lignite-fueled) power station on-site, which powered much of the equipment. Will never forget climbing steps up the earthen embankment at the edge of the mine to reach a viewing platform. The scale of the destruction was literally breathtaking.
- adrianN 3y ago
  It’s talking about Australia. If they have one thing it’s sunlight.
  - pluies 3y ago
    Also a looooot of coal. https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-electricity-generation-fuel-mix https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-electricity-genera...
    - toomuchtodo 3y ago
      They have 30GW of renewables in the AEMO connection pipeline at the moment, ~7GW greater than entire continent coal generation (which will add to current renewables capacity) [1] [2]. Batteries are scaling up to consume grid services revenue and drive out thermal generation [3]. Also of note: "NEM total emissions declined this quarter to the lowest Q2 level on record, of 28.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, 6.6 per cent lower than Q2 2022, whilst emissions intensity dropped 4.3 per cent to 0.61 tCO2 e/MWh." "“Rooftop solar generation increased 30 per cent from Q2 2022, which reduced electricity demand from the grid. Coupled with higher renewable output, wholesale prices were zero or negative nine per cent of the quarter throughout the NEM, a new Q2 record,” Ms Mouchaileh said." This bears repeating: 9 percent of the time, the wholesale cost of power is zero or negative. [1] https://www.energymagazine.com.au/aemo-quarterly-energy-report-sees-a-drop-in-electricity-prices/ https://www.energymagazine.com.au/aemo-quarterly-energy-repo... [2] https://opennem.org.au/facilities/au/?status=operating https://opennem.org.au/facilities/au/?status=operating [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-04/how-tesla-tsla-elon-musk-are-helping-australia-quit-coal-power https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-04/how-tesla... | https://archive.is/egMXl https://archive.is/egMXl
atourgates 3y ago
I thought this sentence at the end was quite interesting: > BHP’s modelling shows that battery charging time may be the biggest cost on the electric side, something that dynamic charging can reduce significantly. For an industry like mining, the biggest cost of switching to electric isn’t buying vehicles, or batteries or setting up charging stations: it’s the downtime they experience while charging.
- audunw 3y ago
  Very interesting. Makes me imagine a battery swapping station for a huge mining truck. Probably not feasible but I’m sure it would look awesome if it was.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    They have hybrid test trucks that can power themselves via overhead lines for the uphill loaded portion of the trip. I wonder if something like that could reduce battery usage and time to charge.
    - atourgates 3y ago
      That makes a lot of sense. I went in a road trip in our EV yesterday pulling a trailer for the first time. We basically drove down into a valley in the morning, and back up out in the evening. As you could imagine, we got basically infinity range going downhill, and much much shorter range going uphill. A track that powered/charged mining trucks while they were hauling material up, coupled with regenerative breaking seems like it could pretty much solve charging for that application.
      - defrost 3y ago
        Even better, many BHP iron sites in the Pilbarra are mesa mining .. they drive up unloaded and roll down with 100+ tonnes - plenty of opportunity to gravity charge while retarding downhill motion (free wheeling a laden HaulPak down a mesa doesn't end well).
defrost 3y ago
BHP Australia Operational Decarbonisation 'Report' (30 slides) June 2023 https://www.bhp.com/-/media/documents/media/reports-and-presentations/2023/230621_operationaldecarbonisationinvestorbriefing.pdf https://www.bhp.com/-/media/documents/media/reports-and-pres... Recently appointed as Principal Power Decarbonisation, Tamahra Kierath and her team are focused on exploring options to provide renewable energy to BHP's Western Australia Iron Ore operations. To achieve our aim of eliminating emissions from diesel by electrifying our truck and locomotive fleets, we will require more electricity to support that transition. Our Pilbara operations are not connected to the power grid, so my team are exploring a range of opportunities for renewable energy solutions. The transition will start with proven renewable technologies such as wind and solar and we will continue to explore long duration energy storage options as technology advances. ( yep, that's it so far ) from: https://www.bhp.com/news/articles/2023/06/tamahra-is-focused-on-renewable-energy-in-western-australia https://www.bhp.com/news/articles/2023/06/tamahra-is-focused...
gumby 3y ago
Process H2 generated at point of use makes sense (e.g. for steel production), but the whole “H2 as a fuel” story is simply nonsense to keep the legacy fossil fuel companies happy.
- Qwertious 3y ago
  It makes sense for large vehicles - a passenger plane from New York to London will never make sense for batteries, but could be done with hydrogen. Similarly, cargo ships can't run on batteries, but could fairly trivially be switched to hydrogen with only minor loss in storage capacity (1-5%). The benefit of hydrogen is that it was functioning just fine in the 1960s, there aren't any outright technical showstoppers here; just financial problems and technical problems that are hard to solve cheaply. I'm not saying that hydrogen is the best solution (if synthfuel pans out then it'll be a perfect drop-in replacement for existing jet fuel), but it's a solution that exists today. It's there if we care. Obviously we don't care, since coal plants are still around, but if we genuinely wanted to stop using fossil fuels ASAP then it would permit us to keep using planes/cargo ships.
  - martincmartin 3y ago
    Couldn't cargo ships use wind? A wind turbine on the ship? A kind of modern re-imaging of how sailing ships of old were powered. Is the problem that wind isn't reliable and you might go days without it? Or you wouldn't fit in ports or other areas with a big turbine sticking out? Or is there some other practical problem.
    - jackmott42 3y ago
      Cargo ships could use wind sure, it would just be much slower and each boat would have to carry far less stuff. Might solve problems for countries that have lost their own manufacturing capacity because shipping products gets way less appealing.
    - Manuel_D 3y ago
      It's not just that wind is unreliable, it's also very low energy density. You'd need a lot of sails to haul a small amount of cargo. There are applications using kite sails to supplement combustion engines, but that's just an opportunistic mitigation.
photochemsyn 3y ago
It's now pretty clear that chemical fuel systems, i.e. any system based on the combustion of a fuel with oxygen to generate heat/pressure/motive force, are going to be fairly niche markets in the future. International jet travel and orbital launch rockets, and maybe long-distance commercial shipping, are about it. The real value of renewable-energy-powered chemical synthesis will be in the production of things like fertilizers, dyes, carbon fiber, etc. Basically you can take the entire fossil-fuel-sourced front end of the petrochemical industry and replace it with hydrogen and carbon inputs from water and atmospheric CO2 respectively.
major505 3y ago
Well if theres a sector that can benefic form eletric vehicles, this would be big machines. They would have lighter engines, because they would not need a transmission.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Cat is one of the few manufacturers that make direct drive trucks. Most are diesel-electric.
  - daydream 3y ago
    Same with locomotives. Most are diesel-electric in that a diesel engine drives a generator, which generates electricity to power an electric motor that actually turns the wheels. Less mechanical wear and tear this way, though it adds some inefficiency as the article says.
    - major505 3y ago
      Also in locomotives is that no gear box would survicee so much weight.
legitster 3y ago
Not part of the official analysis, but BHP is a huge player in many of the raw resources of electric drivetrains. So they have a lot of personal stake in advancing electrification.
- sbradford26 3y ago
  I will say that they would also be a player in many of the metals utilized in hydrogen fuel cells as well.
ortusdux 3y ago
Hydrogen is a battery.
- jillesvangurp 3y ago
  Just not a very good one.
  - _hypx 3y ago
    It’s the theoretically best one possible. BEV fanatics are just spreading propaganda against it.
    - jillesvangurp 3y ago
      The laws of thermodynamics disagree with you on this. There are inherent inefficiencies with hydrogen that you can't get rid off without basically inventing a perpetuum mobile machine.
      - _hypx 3y ago
        You don't understand the thermodynamics of the situation. Fuel cells/electrolyzers are electrochemical systems with theoretically the same efficiency as batteries. If the alternative is just battery, then both have the same fundamental limitations. You are spending more energy than you are get back. At best, you are saying that for now, there is a more efficient way of doing it. But in the long run, that advantage will disappear. But the real point is that you can power things with wind or solar energy without depending on fossil fuels. While you can do this with both batteries and hydrogen, you avoid the heavy weight and the resource requirements if you go with the latter. You need only just wind, solar and water in order to create an an energy storage system. That puts the cost at potentially very close to zero. In the long-run, it likely will approach zero, just like how wind and solar power itself plunged in cost once they scaled up. As a result, it is likely going to be the dominant solution for most transportation needs.
- jansan 3y ago
  Thanks, I did not know the definition of an accumulator or battery is that broad. "A device that stores energy is generally called an accumulator or battery." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage
iamflimflam1 3y ago
There seems to be a lot of lobbying going on around hydrogen and unfortunately politicians seem to think: Hydrogen is a gas - therefore everywhere you use gas you can use hydrogen instead. I’m not sure it’s quite so simple.
adolph 3y ago
The US has seemed to "hit the gas" [0] with large expenditures to support hydrogen use as a fuel. In November 2021, Congress passed, and President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). This historic, once-in-a-generation legislation authorizes and appropriates $62 billion for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), including $9.5 billion for clean hydrogen. [1] the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included $1.5 billion to support hydrogen electrolysis and $8 billion to fund a broad Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs program. [1] 0. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hit%20the%20gas https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hit%20the%20gas 1. (largish pdf) https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/us-national-clean-hydrogen-strategy-roadmap.pdf https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/us-national-clean-hydro... 2. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2023/07/05/the-economics-of-demand-side-support-for-the-department-of-energys-clean-hydrogen-hubs/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2023/07/05/...
causi 3y ago
BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen Well, duh. Hydrogen is just a (terrible) liquid battery you have to re-manufacture every time you discharge it. You lose a third of the energy making the hydrogen, another quarter moving it around, and then half of it converting from hydrogen to electricity.
tivert 3y ago
I wasn't sure who "BHP" were, it turns out it's an Australian mining company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BHP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BHP: > BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, and natural gas petroleum public company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. > The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded on 16 July 1885 in the mining town of Silverton, New South Wales.[3] By 2017, BHP was the world's largest mining company, based on market capitalisation,[4][5] and was Melbourne's third-largest company by revenue.[6]
Kon5ole 3y ago
Storing hydrogen in vehicles has never seemed like a good idea to me. The risk is too high since the gas tanks can't be made indestructible and hydrogen goes boom quite spectacularly. But as a grid storage medium it could make a lot of sense. The fundamental equation is just too good to ignore - energy plus water becomes hydrogen, hydrogen becomes energy plus water - and only water. The world needs both energy and clean water, so it seems like a potentially perfect "twofer". (I must admit that I have no idea if the amount of water generated from combustion is relevant). The inefficiency doesn't seem to be a fundamental problem, as we get increasingly more surplus energy from solar and wind. This summer utility companies have had to "pay" customers to use electricity in Europe, a mere 6 months after they had the highest electricity prices on record. Any method to store even a fraction of the current surplus so that it can be sold for 50+ cents per kwh in 6 months should be very interesting.
xbmcuser 3y ago
That's what I have been saying for the last 2-3 years that solar, renewables and batteries are making ice vehicles uncompetitive. The coming electric revolution will be interesting almost everything will use electricy motors while the variable cost to run those motors ie electricity will be getting cheaper.

100 points by _aavaa_ 3y ago

adrianN 3y ago

Was that ever controversial in the last fifteen years or so?

fnord77 3y ago
there's some still clinging to fuel cells despite the numbers showing the edge to BEVs I can think of one major car maker...
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Only to those without a firm grasp on the laws of thermodynamics. There are a lot of those people. They fall into two categories: - those genuinely confused about this (most of the general public) - those representing oil and gas lobbies that have been using hydrogen lobbying as a way to stay in the fossil fuel industry a bit longer. Because most hydrogen is made from natural gas and they love the idea of growing the market for that. In short, there's a lot of waffle about stored energy by people who don't get (or refuse to acknowledge) that most of that 1) needs to come from somewhere (which is a lossy process) and 2) needs to be transformed into a usable form of energy (which is also a lossy process). That's before you take into account the logistics of moving hydrogen around, which is challenging because it takes up a lot of space. You can either compress it to a few hundred bar (which takes energy) or cool it to a few degrees of kelvin (which takes energy, and keeping it there costs you more energy). And once you do that, you need to keep it contained for extended periods of time (which isn't 100% efficient, especially in liquid form), and use about 18x more trucks for hydrogen in gas form compared to methane in liquid form; or only about 3x more trucks is you actually do cool it down to liquid form. In short, you end up loosing a lot of energy in various lossy energy transformations, compression, storage, and transport of hydrogen before you even get to extract energy from it. All these inefficiencies multiply to a very significant cost disadvantage over simple battery electric. And even if you do all go down this path you end up charging a battery with a hydrogen fuel cell. Because fuel cells suck at producing variable output that you would need for a vehicle. Which is why most hydrogen vehicles today that use a fuel cell are fully functional battery electric vehicles that happen to have a tiny battery. You could just rip out the hydrogen bits and replace them with a bigger battery and you end up with a vehicle that's cheaper to operate. By about 2-3x. A better vehicle in other words. Vehicles like the ones BHP produces are huge. So, shoving a few mwh of battery in them is not going to be that big of a deal. Charging them is a logistical challenge but also a solvable one. Multi mw charger technology already exists. And of course not having to truck in lots of diesel/hydrogen trucks to the remote places where these things are used might also be a benefit. The main challenge for companies like this is access to enough battery and electricity.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  Funnily enough, if you mine underground you spend an incredible amount of electricity trying to keep the air fresh down there, mostly due to whatever combustion reaction is powering your vehicles. I’ve seen reports claiming you break even or even use less electricity when operating electric vehicles since your ventilation requirements are significantly reduced.
- _hypx 3y ago
  > Only to those without a firm grasp on the laws of thermodynamics. You are the one completely confused by the laws of thermodynamics. A hydrogen fuel cell is an electrochemical system. So are electrolyzers. They represent the equivalence of charging and discharging a battery. There is no fundamental reason why this must be less efficient. You can potentially reach 100% efficiency at least in theory. What people really are saying is that “in practice,” it is less efficient than a battery setup. But this is also mostly made-up and filled with exaggeration. Electrolyzers are reaching 98% efficiency. Fuel cells, at least in large installations, can already reach 85% efficiency or battery (assuming heat recapture). In short, it is already pretty close to what batteries can do. Future advancements will eliminate the efficiency gap almost entirely. Furthermore, it is actually more efficient to store and move around hydrogen than it is with electricity. Energy storage at scale is very difficult, and enough of a problem that we are looking at using hydrogen for long-duration energy storage. That alone basically kills the argument that batteries have any advantages in this respect. Finally, as the economics of hydrogen production scale up, we can expect cost to approach zero. That’s because it is very much like wind and solar: We’re using a basically free resource (wind, sunlight and water) and turning it into a fuel. People criticized the efficiency of photovoltaics in the past, but the fundamental advantage of not having to pay for fuel means that costs can drop to nearly zero, and it did. This is the same story again. Except nearly free green hydrogen in the long-run.
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    > Fuel cells, at least in large installations, can already reach 85% efficiency or battery (assuming heat recapture). Heat recapture is great, but we care about electricity output. > Finally, as the economics of hydrogen production scale up, we can expect cost to approach zero. That’s because it is very much like wind and solar: We’re using a basically free resource It will never reach zero because the equipment, transportation, and people involved are not free. Further solar panels and wind turbines got cheaper due to learning effects. These effects are not present for over half of the things involved in a hydrogen fuel system. Pumps and tanks and valves and pipes are already mass produced. And while the sunlight might be free, the electricity from it is now, and never will be since the equipment isn’t free.
local_issues 3y ago
[flagged]
_aavaa_ 3y ago
It’s controversial now. There are many people smoking the hopium pipe claiming that fuel cell vehicles are the solution of the future.

brnt 3y ago

Question is always: what's externalized and what isn't? Grid storage, required if you want to ensure your energy source is renewable, is usually not taken into account. Sure, diesel and commercial hydrogen isn't either, and an energy reduction even if not renewable is still great, but I'd be keen on knowing the number when taking it into account. That's the end goal after all.

beej71 3y ago
I think in this particular case the question might be "what is cheaper to operate?"
bee_rider 3y ago
Who pays for grid storage? Is it really externalized or does it just become part of the cost of doing business for the power company?
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  The answer for "who pays for X" is always similar. If no government intervenes, people that use electricity when its most expensive pay for it; or if the power company keeps the price constant, it gets included on the average price.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    But, governments tend to intervene in utility prices somewhat often, and power companies have varying policies WRT constant pricing, so we have at least three (fairly dissimilar) possible answers here.
    - marcosdumay 3y ago
      > so we have at least three possible answers here For a question of who pays for a service, in an undefined market, at an undefined place, not specifying what participant it's about, and not determining at what history period exactly it's about (yeah, near future, but how near?). Do you think that's too many?

logifail 3y ago

Q: Where is the electricity coming from to recharge the batteries? "Powered by electricity" doesn't necessarily mean "clean", years ago I visited friends in Germany who were within cycling distance of an open-cast lignite mine. It had its own (lignite-fueled) power station on-site, which powered much of the equipment. Will never forget climbing steps up the earthen embankment at the edge of the mine to reach a viewing platform. The scale of the destruction was literally breathtaking.

adrianN 3y ago
It’s talking about Australia. If they have one thing it’s sunlight.
- pluies 3y ago
  Also a looooot of coal. https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-electricity-generation-fuel-mix https://www.energy.gov.au/data/australian-electricity-genera...
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    They have 30GW of renewables in the AEMO connection pipeline at the moment, ~7GW greater than entire continent coal generation (which will add to current renewables capacity) [1] [2]. Batteries are scaling up to consume grid services revenue and drive out thermal generation [3]. Also of note: "NEM total emissions declined this quarter to the lowest Q2 level on record, of 28.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, 6.6 per cent lower than Q2 2022, whilst emissions intensity dropped 4.3 per cent to 0.61 tCO2 e/MWh." "“Rooftop solar generation increased 30 per cent from Q2 2022, which reduced electricity demand from the grid. Coupled with higher renewable output, wholesale prices were zero or negative nine per cent of the quarter throughout the NEM, a new Q2 record,” Ms Mouchaileh said." This bears repeating: 9 percent of the time, the wholesale cost of power is zero or negative. [1] https://www.energymagazine.com.au/aemo-quarterly-energy-report-sees-a-drop-in-electricity-prices/ https://www.energymagazine.com.au/aemo-quarterly-energy-repo... [2] https://opennem.org.au/facilities/au/?status=operating https://opennem.org.au/facilities/au/?status=operating [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-04/how-tesla-tsla-elon-musk-are-helping-australia-quit-coal-power https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-04/how-tesla... | https://archive.is/egMXl https://archive.is/egMXl

atourgates 3y ago

I thought this sentence at the end was quite interesting: > BHP’s modelling shows that battery charging time may be the biggest cost on the electric side, something that dynamic charging can reduce significantly. For an industry like mining, the biggest cost of switching to electric isn’t buying vehicles, or batteries or setting up charging stations: it’s the downtime they experience while charging.

audunw 3y ago
Very interesting. Makes me imagine a battery swapping station for a huge mining truck. Probably not feasible but I’m sure it would look awesome if it was.
- pixl97 3y ago
  They have hybrid test trucks that can power themselves via overhead lines for the uphill loaded portion of the trip. I wonder if something like that could reduce battery usage and time to charge.
  - atourgates 3y ago
    That makes a lot of sense. I went in a road trip in our EV yesterday pulling a trailer for the first time. We basically drove down into a valley in the morning, and back up out in the evening. As you could imagine, we got basically infinity range going downhill, and much much shorter range going uphill. A track that powered/charged mining trucks while they were hauling material up, coupled with regenerative breaking seems like it could pretty much solve charging for that application.
    - defrost 3y ago
      Even better, many BHP iron sites in the Pilbarra are mesa mining .. they drive up unloaded and roll down with 100+ tonnes - plenty of opportunity to gravity charge while retarding downhill motion (free wheeling a laden HaulPak down a mesa doesn't end well).

defrost 3y ago

BHP Australia Operational Decarbonisation 'Report' (30 slides) June 2023 https://www.bhp.com/-/media/documents/media/reports-and-presentations/2023/230621_operationaldecarbonisationinvestorbriefing.pdf https://www.bhp.com/-/media/documents/media/reports-and-pres... Recently appointed as Principal Power Decarbonisation, Tamahra Kierath and her team are focused on exploring options to provide renewable energy to BHP's Western Australia Iron Ore operations. To achieve our aim of eliminating emissions from diesel by electrifying our truck and locomotive fleets, we will require more electricity to support that transition. Our Pilbara operations are not connected to the power grid, so my team are exploring a range of opportunities for renewable energy solutions. The transition will start with proven renewable technologies such as wind and solar and we will continue to explore long duration energy storage options as technology advances. ( yep, that's it so far ) from: https://www.bhp.com/news/articles/2023/06/tamahra-is-focused-on-renewable-energy-in-western-australia https://www.bhp.com/news/articles/2023/06/tamahra-is-focused...

gumby 3y ago

Process H2 generated at point of use makes sense (e.g. for steel production), but the whole “H2 as a fuel” story is simply nonsense to keep the legacy fossil fuel companies happy.

Qwertious 3y ago
It makes sense for large vehicles - a passenger plane from New York to London will never make sense for batteries, but could be done with hydrogen. Similarly, cargo ships can't run on batteries, but could fairly trivially be switched to hydrogen with only minor loss in storage capacity (1-5%). The benefit of hydrogen is that it was functioning just fine in the 1960s, there aren't any outright technical showstoppers here; just financial problems and technical problems that are hard to solve cheaply. I'm not saying that hydrogen is the best solution (if synthfuel pans out then it'll be a perfect drop-in replacement for existing jet fuel), but it's a solution that exists today. It's there if we care. Obviously we don't care, since coal plants are still around, but if we genuinely wanted to stop using fossil fuels ASAP then it would permit us to keep using planes/cargo ships.
- martincmartin 3y ago
  Couldn't cargo ships use wind? A wind turbine on the ship? A kind of modern re-imaging of how sailing ships of old were powered. Is the problem that wind isn't reliable and you might go days without it? Or you wouldn't fit in ports or other areas with a big turbine sticking out? Or is there some other practical problem.
  - jackmott42 3y ago
    Cargo ships could use wind sure, it would just be much slower and each boat would have to carry far less stuff. Might solve problems for countries that have lost their own manufacturing capacity because shipping products gets way less appealing.
  - Manuel_D 3y ago
    It's not just that wind is unreliable, it's also very low energy density. You'd need a lot of sails to haul a small amount of cargo. There are applications using kite sails to supplement combustion engines, but that's just an opportunistic mitigation.

photochemsyn 3y ago

It's now pretty clear that chemical fuel systems, i.e. any system based on the combustion of a fuel with oxygen to generate heat/pressure/motive force, are going to be fairly niche markets in the future. International jet travel and orbital launch rockets, and maybe long-distance commercial shipping, are about it. The real value of renewable-energy-powered chemical synthesis will be in the production of things like fertilizers, dyes, carbon fiber, etc. Basically you can take the entire fossil-fuel-sourced front end of the petrochemical industry and replace it with hydrogen and carbon inputs from water and atmospheric CO2 respectively.

major505 3y ago

Well if theres a sector that can benefic form eletric vehicles, this would be big machines. They would have lighter engines, because they would not need a transmission.

pixl97 3y ago
Cat is one of the few manufacturers that make direct drive trucks. Most are diesel-electric.
- daydream 3y ago
  Same with locomotives. Most are diesel-electric in that a diesel engine drives a generator, which generates electricity to power an electric motor that actually turns the wheels. Less mechanical wear and tear this way, though it adds some inefficiency as the article says.
  - major505 3y ago
    Also in locomotives is that no gear box would survicee so much weight.

legitster 3y ago

Not part of the official analysis, but BHP is a huge player in many of the raw resources of electric drivetrains. So they have a lot of personal stake in advancing electrification.

sbradford26 3y ago
I will say that they would also be a player in many of the metals utilized in hydrogen fuel cells as well.

ortusdux 3y ago

Hydrogen is a battery.

jillesvangurp 3y ago
Just not a very good one.
- _hypx 3y ago
  It’s the theoretically best one possible. BEV fanatics are just spreading propaganda against it.
  - jillesvangurp 3y ago
    The laws of thermodynamics disagree with you on this. There are inherent inefficiencies with hydrogen that you can't get rid off without basically inventing a perpetuum mobile machine.
    - _hypx 3y ago
      You don't understand the thermodynamics of the situation. Fuel cells/electrolyzers are electrochemical systems with theoretically the same efficiency as batteries. If the alternative is just battery, then both have the same fundamental limitations. You are spending more energy than you are get back. At best, you are saying that for now, there is a more efficient way of doing it. But in the long run, that advantage will disappear. But the real point is that you can power things with wind or solar energy without depending on fossil fuels. While you can do this with both batteries and hydrogen, you avoid the heavy weight and the resource requirements if you go with the latter. You need only just wind, solar and water in order to create an an energy storage system. That puts the cost at potentially very close to zero. In the long-run, it likely will approach zero, just like how wind and solar power itself plunged in cost once they scaled up. As a result, it is likely going to be the dominant solution for most transportation needs.
jansan 3y ago
Thanks, I did not know the definition of an accumulator or battery is that broad. "A device that stores energy is generally called an accumulator or battery." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_storage

iamflimflam1 3y ago

There seems to be a lot of lobbying going on around hydrogen and unfortunately politicians seem to think: Hydrogen is a gas - therefore everywhere you use gas you can use hydrogen instead. I’m not sure it’s quite so simple.

adolph 3y ago

The US has seemed to "hit the gas" [0] with large expenditures to support hydrogen use as a fuel. In November 2021, Congress passed, and President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. signed into law the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). This historic, once-in-a-generation legislation authorizes and appropriates $62 billion for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), including $9.5 billion for clean hydrogen. [1] the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included $1.5 billion to support hydrogen electrolysis and $8 billion to fund a broad Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs program. [1] 0. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hit%20the%20gas https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hit%20the%20gas 1. (largish pdf) https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/us-national-clean-hydrogen-strategy-roadmap.pdf https://www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/us-national-clean-hydro... 2. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2023/07/05/the-economics-of-demand-side-support-for-the-department-of-energys-clean-hydrogen-hubs/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2023/07/05/...

causi 3y ago

BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen Well, duh. Hydrogen is just a (terrible) liquid battery you have to re-manufacture every time you discharge it. You lose a third of the energy making the hydrogen, another quarter moving it around, and then half of it converting from hydrogen to electricity.

tivert 3y ago

I wasn't sure who "BHP" were, it turns out it's an Australian mining company: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BHP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BHP: > BHP Group Limited (formerly known as BHP Billiton) is an Australian multinational mining, metals, and natural gas petroleum public company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. > The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was founded on 16 July 1885 in the mining town of Silverton, New South Wales.[3] By 2017, BHP was the world's largest mining company, based on market capitalisation,[4][5] and was Melbourne's third-largest company by revenue.[6]

Kon5ole 3y ago

Storing hydrogen in vehicles has never seemed like a good idea to me. The risk is too high since the gas tanks can't be made indestructible and hydrogen goes boom quite spectacularly. But as a grid storage medium it could make a lot of sense. The fundamental equation is just too good to ignore - energy plus water becomes hydrogen, hydrogen becomes energy plus water - and only water. The world needs both energy and clean water, so it seems like a potentially perfect "twofer". (I must admit that I have no idea if the amount of water generated from combustion is relevant). The inefficiency doesn't seem to be a fundamental problem, as we get increasingly more surplus energy from solar and wind. This summer utility companies have had to "pay" customers to use electricity in Europe, a mere 6 months after they had the highest electricity prices on record. Any method to store even a fraction of the current surplus so that it can be sold for 50+ cents per kwh in 6 months should be very interesting.

xbmcuser 3y ago

That's what I have been saying for the last 2-3 years that solar, renewables and batteries are making ice vehicles uncompetitive. The coming electric revolution will be interesting almost everything will use electricy motors while the variable cost to run those motors ie electricity will be getting cheaper.