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The Danish hydrogen refueling stations all closed down in 2023. Reasons were no/low hydrogen production and just about zero vehicles available. Orsted has also

The Danish hydrogen refueling stations all closed down in 2023. Reasons were no/low hydrogen production and just about zero vehicles available. Orsted has also shut down their PtX project. Electric cars simply got too good too fast for Hydrogen to ever take off. Most EVs today has a similar range to HEVs, and already has the infrastructure in place, and doesn't have the energy loss that producing hydrogen has. Last i checked, it cost about 60 kWh to produce 1kg of hydrogen, which will give you about 100km range. For comparison an EV can do about 400km on the same energy.

magicalhippo 2y ago
> For comparison an EV can do about 400km on the same energy. I checked prices here in Norway. My car has a 60 kWh battery and my car can indeed do about 400 km when full. Hydrogen here goes for about 195 NOK/kg at the pumps, so 4 kg would be 780 NOK. Even if I use an expensive super-charger to charge it up fully, at ~6.5 NOK/kWh it'll cost me 390 NOK. So half the price of H2. Tesla super-chargers are now available for regular plebs and they charge about 5.5 NOK/kWh, and there's at least one other that charges around 4.5 NOK/kWh. If I charge at home it's typically 0.8-1.2 NOK/kWh during summer, up to 2-3 NOK/kWh during winter. Since I have this option, I only use super-chargers a few times a year, when on longer trips.
- 8fingerlouie 2y ago
  There is an ongoing argument that producing Hydrogen using "surplus" power would bring the effective costs down, but considering that we don't currently have a massive surplus of energy, it seems rather wasteful to design the power grid for a massive overproduction just to produce fuel for cars that would run equally well on a quarter of the energy. I'm not saying that there isn't a place for PtX. Some industries will certainly benefit or even require an alternative to gasoline/diesel, but for private transportation it's never going to compete with EVs in terms of cost.

magicalhippo 2y ago

> For comparison an EV can do about 400km on the same energy. I checked prices here in Norway. My car has a 60 kWh battery and my car can indeed do about 400 km when full. Hydrogen here goes for about 195 NOK/kg at the pumps, so 4 kg would be 780 NOK. Even if I use an expensive super-charger to charge it up fully, at ~6.5 NOK/kWh it'll cost me 390 NOK. So half the price of H2. Tesla super-chargers are now available for regular plebs and they charge about 5.5 NOK/kWh, and there's at least one other that charges around 4.5 NOK/kWh. If I charge at home it's typically 0.8-1.2 NOK/kWh during summer, up to 2-3 NOK/kWh during winter. Since I have this option, I only use super-chargers a few times a year, when on longer trips.

8fingerlouie 2y ago
There is an ongoing argument that producing Hydrogen using "surplus" power would bring the effective costs down, but considering that we don't currently have a massive surplus of energy, it seems rather wasteful to design the power grid for a massive overproduction just to produce fuel for cars that would run equally well on a quarter of the energy. I'm not saying that there isn't a place for PtX. Some industries will certainly benefit or even require an alternative to gasoline/diesel, but for private transportation it's never going to compete with EVs in terms of cost.