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Kinda glad this is the case. When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished. Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getti

Kinda glad this is the case. When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished. Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the ground. There seems to be some kind of psychosis around it being the next oil and therefore greedy people want to get in early on. But this blinds them to the basic chemistry and physics.

marcosdumay 8mo ago
> There seems to be some kind of psychosis around it being the next oil There's a very well financed propaganda campaign.
- pjc50 8mo ago
  Yes, it's not the new oil, it's the same oil in "green" packaging. Plus some comforting lies about carbon capture.
  - aunty_helen 8mo ago
    Even if it was fully green, you can’t run an electrolysis system from home. So you have to buy it, so there’s a market and an expensive solution. Electricity comes out the wall.
    - thrownthatway 8mo ago
      What do you mean? You can run electrolysis from a cup.
      - aunty_helen 8mo ago
        I know, I have one of those weird H shaped flasks with the plat electrodes. I also have a gas bbq, yet couldn't fill up a LNG car at my house. Maybe there's something more to it than just making small amounts of room temperature / pressure H2.
      - MagicMoonlight 8mo ago
        You can’t make and store bulk hydrogen at home
        CamperBob2 8mo ago
        You're not my HOA
        thrownthatway 8mo ago
        You can’t. I’m willing to give it a go. I’ve got the excess solar from the rooftop solar panels, the electrical and electronic knowledge, and the gas fitter and metal fabrication experience. I have an oil free air compressor, and anyone can by a helium based cryo-cooler. I have an account with an industrial gas supplier. Just enough knowledge to be dangerous. If Nile Red hasn’t blown his lab up by the time I publish this comment, I reckon I stand a chance.
        KennyBlanken 8mo ago
        Round trip efficiency of hydrogen is at best 50% and at worse half that. You have the horrendous efficiency of electrolysis and then the equally bad efficiency in the fuel cell. Efficiency pumping your excess solar into the EV itself is more like 80-85%, most of which is loss in the electronics, not the battery - those typically have a coulombic efficiency of over 95%. Hydrogen a boondoggle. It's not nearly as stupid as making ethanol from corn (which is an energy-negative process) but it's close. Also, "gas fitter and metal fabrication" experience isn't worth anything unless it was hydrogen-specific. It is far leakier than natural gas/propane. One of the biggest hassles of a hydrogen fuel chain is that the stuff leaks through everything.
        Ray20 8mo ago
        > Round trip efficiency of hydrogen is at best 50% In fact, even this level of efficiency may be sufficient. Solar panels are so cheap that if we had affordable, long-term energy storage options, even with such efficiency, we would have completely abandoned fossil fuels. But, unfortunately, storing hydrogen is difficult and dangerous. It is not like natural gas. > It's not nearly as stupid as making ethanol from corn (which is an energy-negative process) but it's close. Ethanol is produced from corn not for energy purposes, but for food security. It's like a placeholder for real corn so that if there's a crop failure for a couple of years, the low-iq idiots who think it's stupid to make ethanol from corn don't starve to death.
    - crimsonnoodle58 8mo ago
      > Electricity comes out the wall. Which unless you have solar, you are paying for. Even if you have solar, you are paying off the panels, batteries and inverter/chargers over a period of time. Nothing is free.
- KennyBlanken 8mo ago
  Same with nuclear. The most expensive form of electricity generation there is. No grid operator wants to touch it, but the nuclear industry has been very busy lobbying congress and both the current and last administration.
  - wisplike 8mo ago
    Nuclear is incredibly energy dense, can be stockpiled for a long time and is extremely safe. Yes its expensive but its one those industries any serious nation needs to subsidise for the energy security it offers and the countless high skill jobs it fosters.
    - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
      Well, no it's never been extremely safe by any stretch of the imagination. That's just an extreme interpretation of the way it's not as extremely unsafe as it could be. Plus at the rate it's being addressed by a few enthusiasts, it could be getting remarkably safer, maybe even in one person's lifetime someday. Developments may be positive but it makes the most sense to be realistic and avoid the completely unfounded hype involved. Plus when nuclear works best the high-skill jobs resulting have to be as non-countless as possible, that's one of the big factors which might someday allow the economics to be less unfavorable.
      - margalabargala 8mo ago
        It's extremely safe, except in the event of a black swan event, in which case it becomes extremely unsafe. This is compared to, for example, a coal plant, which is quite unsafe to be near constantly, all the time.
        fuzzfactor 8mo ago
        Pull back from the extremes a little bit and it's an excellent synopsis. Keep in mind an off-white swan can be pretty bad too :) The main thing about such uncommon or even unlkely events, is that nobody knows what to do about them.
ForHackernews 8mo ago
Why is it such a terrible idea? In theory you can generate it via electrolysis in places with plentiful renewable energy, and then you've got a very high-density, lightweight fuel. On the surface, it seems ideal for things like cars or planes where vehicle weight matters. Batteries are huge and heavy and nowhere near as energy dense as gasoline.
- CamperBob2 8mo ago
  Besides being expensive to generate unless you already happen to have an electrolysis plant handy, hydrogen is awkward and hazardous to store. Once generated, it costs yet more energy to liquefy, and then it seeps right through many common metals, weakening them in the process. It's just not a good consumer-level energy source, and nobody could figure out why Toyota couldn't see that. Interestingly, liquid hydrogen is nowhere near the most energy-dense way to store and transport it. I don't recall the exact numbers but absorption in a rare-earth metal matrix is said to be much better on a volumetric basis. [1] Still not exactly cheap or convenient, but it mitigates at least some of the drawbacks with liquid H2. 1: https://www.fuelcellstore.com/blog-section/what-hydrogen-storage-is-best-for-me https://www.fuelcellstore.com/blog-section/what-hydrogen-sto...
  - smcin 8mo ago
    Remember that China briefly embargoed Japan for rare earth metals in 2010, and Toyota launched the Mirai in 2014. My theory was that it was developed as a national fallback for Japan in case that embargo continued or got worse. Think 1930s Volkswagen. Anyone can comment on that?
    - seanmcdirmid 8mo ago
      Japan went heavy into hydrogen for a couple of decades ago. The only reason we are even talking about hydrogen passenger vehicles now is because Japan thought it was the future, they made a mistake.
      - 8mo ago
dehrmann 8mo ago
> Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the ground. It's coming from Toyota because Toyota can't wrap its head around not making engines. Ironically, the place hydrogen might work is airplanes where the energy density of batteries doesn't work.
- breve 8mo ago
  > It's coming from Toyota because Toyota can't wrap its head around not making engines. Of course they can. Toyota sells BEVs. As time goes on BEVs will become a greater percentage of their sales.
  - formerly_proven 8mo ago
    Toyota sells bad EVs and was the last OEM to offer one. It’s the most anti-EV OEM by far and engages/engaged in the most EV FUD.
    - Spooky23 8mo ago
      The bZ4X was particularly bad. Toyota adopted a combo of NIH syndrome and DNGAF. They didn’t anticipate cold weather. The batteries lost like 30% of their capacity in the cold and the resale value of it tanked.
      - aaronbrethorst 8mo ago
        They’re also just phenomenally ugly cars.
        dcrazy 8mo ago
        It shares the same ugly design language as much of Toyota’s lineup.
      - magicalhippo 8mo ago
        > The batteries lost like 30% of their capacity in the cold Here in Norway Toyota was invited to include the bZ4X in this years winter range test[1], but they declined. Suzuki entered with their eVitara model, which is a "technological twin" of the Toyota Urban Cruiser. The Urban Cruiser really disappointed in a regular test performed in cold weather[2]. So perhaps unsurprisingly, the Suzuki eVitara was by far the worst in the winter range test, with the least range overall and more than 40% reduction compared to its WLTP range, among the worst in the test. [1]: https://www.tek.no/nyheter/nyhet/i/d4mMkA/verdens-stoerste-rekkeviddetest-gjennomfoert-disse-gjorde-det-best-i-sprengkulda https://www.tek.no/nyheter/nyhet/i/d4mMkA/verdens-stoerste-r... [2]: https://www.tek.no/test/i/OkQAwE/toyota-urban-cruiser https://www.tek.no/test/i/OkQAwE/toyota-urban-cruiser
nandomrumber 8mo ago
There is a great way to store, transport, and use hydrogen: Bind it to various length carbon chains. When burned as an energy source the two main byproducts are carbon dioxide which is an essential plant growth nutrient, and water which is also essential to plant growth. Environmentalists will love it! And they can prise my turbo diesel engines from my cold dead hands.
- mapontosevenths 8mo ago
  Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which makes the world warmer on average. It also lowers the PH levels of the oceans. If the oceans die, its very likely that many or even most humans will also. As a human I am pretty strongly opposed to dying, but thats just, like, my opinion man.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8mo ago
    Take The Great Barrier Reef for example. There’s more of it now than in the reefs recorded history. Well, 2022 data: https://www.aims.gov.au/information-centre/news-and-stories/great-barrier-reef-reviving-or-dying-heres-whats-happening-beyond-headlines https://www.aims.gov.au/information-centre/news-and-stories/...
    - Braxton1980 8mo ago
      "The picture is complex. Recovery here, fresh losses there. While the recovery we reported last year was welcome news, there are challenges ahead. The spectre of global annual coral bleaching will soon become a reality." This article also mentions that a recent large recovery was due to el nino conditions "Great Barrier Reef was reeling from successive disturbances, ranging from marine heatwaves and coral bleaching to crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks and cyclone damage, with widespread death of many corals especially during the heatwaves of 2016 and 2017. Since then, the Reef has rebounded. Generally cooler La Niña conditions mean hard corals have recovered significant ground, regrowing from very low levels after a decade of cumulative disturbances to record high levels in 2022 across two-thirds of the reef." Not sure if you were trying to imply some long term recovery or that global warming didn't hurt it because the article says heatwaves were part of a many other conditions that caused massive damage
foota 8mo ago
> Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the ground. See: the Hindenburg disaster afternote: There's the potential for an amazing pun in here, but I don't think I quite did the opportunity justice.
- AngryData 8mo ago
  Ehh, the Hindenburg had a flammable skin. Barrage balloons from the World Wars were most often filled with hydrogen and yet were extremely difficult to ignite or take down even with purpose build incindiary ammo for that purpose shows hydrogen balloons can be safe. Often they would be riddled with dozens of holes but still take many hours for them to lose enough hydrogen to float back down to the ground. The only real downsides are slow travel speed and vulnerability to extreme storms since there arent many places to put it with a large enough hanger even with days of warning beforehand.
  - cyberax 8mo ago
    That's because regular bullets are actually pretty cold, especially by the time they reach the height of anti-air balloons. But hydrogen itself is SCARY. It has an extremely wide range of ignitable concentrations, and it has very low ignition energy. It also tends to leak through ~everything.
    - AngryData 8mo ago
      But hydrogen is also so easy to produce on demand that you can design your balloon to be at small positive pressure all the time and always leaks outwards into the open air. If oxygen is allowed to leaked in undetected, yeah that's a death trap. The same if hydrogen leaked into semi contained oxygen enclosures. But leaking through the skin of the balloon to open sky even with decent size holes and a bit of positive pressure doesn't ignite particularly well, despite hydrogen's wide range of ignition conditions. It is not such a fool proof technology that everybody should have one, but to me building and operating a hydrogen balloon isn't dissimilar to running a steam locomotive. It can be dangerous if done badly or incorrectly, but it can also be done safely with pretty well known and understood technologies and methods and practices. And considering the massive efficiency of lighter-than-air transport I find it hard to dismiss its potential even so long after their heyday and previous problems.
belorn 8mo ago
People looked at how the cost of wind and solar went down and made a assumption that green hydrogen would follow. The reasoning was that the cost of green hydrogen was energy, and thus at some point green hydrogen would be too cheap to meter. The whole energy plan of central/northen Europe, especially Germany, was built for the last several decades on the idea that they would combine wind, solar and cheap natural gas and then replace the natural gas part with green hydrogen. In Sweden there were even several municipalities that spear headed this by switching mass transportation and heating towards hydrogen, initially with hydrogen produced through natural gas, as a way to get ahead on this plan. The more sensible project were the green steel project. As experts in green hydrogen said consistently said through those decades, is that green steel would be the real test to make green hydrogen economical. The economics of burning it for energy or transportation would come several decades later, if ever. The green steel project however has not ended up as planned and gotten severely delayed and has seen a cost increase by an estimated 10x. municipalities are now giving up the hydrogen infrastructure and giving it an early retirement, as maintenance costs was significantly underestimated. There is very little talk now about replacing natural gas with green hydrogen, and the new plan is instead to replace the natural gas with bio fuels, hinted at carbon capture, at some unspecified time.
- aunty_helen 8mo ago
  Good context. It's a shame none of these people did high school chemistry. I do remember there being some news about the steel manf. I wonder if further advancements in rocketry are adding H2 tech that could help us manage the difficulties of dealing with the stuff. It still only makes sense in very specific circumstances. Like when you need energy in tank form. But I think battery / biofuel is the future.
- throwaway473825 8mo ago
  Sweden has very little natural gas in its energy mix: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-country?stackMode=absolute&country=~SWE https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou... I highly doubt that hydrogen heating was ever considered. It's usually pushed by the gas lobby (since most hydrogen comes from gas), and Sweden doesn't have a strong gas lobby.
dmix 8mo ago
> When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished. Sounds like it was mostly just people reacting to government incentives. Subsidized markets acting irrational.
- aunty_helen 8mo ago
  Politicians are conduits. Someone wanted this to happen. But yea, subsidies. I've been on many a call where "there's govt funding available if we shape this like x" is one of the major selling points.
  - dmix 8mo ago
    Politics has a habit of being very insular once elections are finished. There will always be a strong belief in artificially changing market behaviour by simply throwing money at it and hoping it sticks. When the money dries up the public tends to go back to "what's practical and affordable?".
    - Joker_vD 8mo ago
      > There will always be a strong belief in artificially changing market behaviour by simply throwing money at it and hoping it sticks. Well, it can be made to work, you know. Late (in the XX century) industrialization stories are like that: competitive (dis)advantages make any such attempts simply unprofittable for any businessman (or even a group of them), but if the government keeps skewing the market for decades... The Japanese car manufacturing has been heavily subsidized for most of the XX century, even after their several disastrous attempts to enter the US market. But it all worked out in the end.
deleted 8mo ago
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HPsquared 8mo ago
Synthetic fuels (including hydrogen) do still make a lot of sense for heavy stuff like trucks, buses or trains, and aircraft where the energy density is a big plus. Those are where you'd expect to see hydrogen take off first, not passenger cars. Same as how diesel started in trucks - expensive engines but economical when amortized and worth it for heavy usage applications. If they couldn't crack those areas, no chance in the highly competitive passenger car space.
- aunty_helen 8mo ago
  Trucks and busses would be better off with battery swaps at depo like electric forklifts do. More mileage more towing weight for trucks, just stack more batteries. Overweight? Use a diesel. Trains is an easy one, over head lines. Aircraft, I think short distance trips <1hr maybe otherwise biofuel. Likely we’ll see biofuels widely used by 2040. Electric motors on a 777, I’m not sure.
  - MaKey 8mo ago
    With the upcoming MCS charging standard you won't need battery swaps for trucks or busses. Even today you have trucks that can charge with up to 400 kW, which is good enough for charging during mandatory pauses or downtimes.
- masklinn 8mo ago
  > Synthetic fuels (including hydrogen) do still make a lot of sense for heavy stuff like trucks, buses or trains Synthetic fuels don't "make a lot of sense" for "heavy stuff", rail electrification has been the norm everywhere the capital costs were justified (it's at about 30% worldwide, 57% in europe, some countries like Switzerland are nearly 100% electric). Synthetic fuels make sense for autonomy reasons when you can't tether the "heavy stuff", but fuel engines absolutely suck for heavy work loads, electric transmissions started being a thing before railway electrification even was. And of course those are situations where hydrogen sucks, fuel is useful there because it's a stable and dense form of energy storage which is reasonably easy to move about without infrastructure, you can bring a bunch of barrels on a trailer, or tank trailers, to an off-grid site and fuel all your stuff (including electric generators). With hydrogen you're now wasting a significant portion of the energy you brought in trying to keep the hydrogen from going wild.
jjtheblunt 8mo ago
> When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished. This is the most ridiculous assertion i've seen today. You'd shut down science, for example, and innovation in general.
- fuzzfactor 8mo ago
  Really, they shouldn't be punished, they should be rewarded if they can become more sensible. Positive incentive please :) That is how EVs got here as soon as they did.
laughing_man 8mo ago
>When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished. You could say the same about EVs. Most people in the US who bought an EV decided to go back to ICE for their next vehicle.
rswail 8mo ago
Green hydrogen makes sense as a way to ship solar power to places that don't have it. Using it as a car fuel only makes sense as an interim step to full renewable/EVs. Internal combustion engines, no matter what the fuel, are way more complicated than electric motors. Doesn't matter how you slice and dice the argument.
- Hendrikto 8mo ago
  Also the losses are much higher when converting electricity to hydrogen and then burning that hydrogen.
- panick21 8mo ago
  No . No . No. Please No. Absolutely fucking not. Shipping hydrogen is literally one of the dumbest things you can ever do. Its pure and utter nonsense that is only getting pushed for political reasons. It has 0 actual viability. Even if you were willing to pay 5-10x more for hydrogen, shipping doesn't make sense. The only way we are ever moving any quantity of hydrogen anywhere is with pipelines. Literally everything about hydrogen makes it a complete nightmare to ship. And nobody is likely ever going to build these hydrogen pipelines. Hydrogen is completely idiotic as a 'energy move' medium. > Using it as a car fuel only makes sense as an interim step to full renewable/EVs. No it doesn't and it never did. Only such a tiny amount were ever sold, and those were only sold because of massive subsidies and sold below value by car companies who wanted to push the concept (and farm subsidies). EV by 2008 already outsold hydrogen vehicles and have grown every year, hydrogen vehicles never became more then marketing gimick and were never sold in numbers that even approach relevance.
thewhitetulip 8mo ago
With solar/wind oligarchs can't charge you every time you charge your EV at home Hydrogen was meant to replace Oil so that the oligarchs can keep their oligarchy rather than "pull themselves up by bootstraps"
m4rtink 8mo ago
Yeah, it might make sense for some industrial processes as natural gas or coal replacement, but not really anywhere else just because all the tricky leaks and invisible fire hazards.
theshrike79 8mo ago
Some people legitimately think we can just suck hydrogen out of the air or ground and store it in tanks. (We can, to a limited degree, there's a fancy color attached to that kind of hydrogen). Then when you attempt to explain that no, that's not how it works, we need to always separate the hydrogen molecules from another substance, which takes energy. A significant amount of energy. So much energy that it's better to shove the same amount of kWh to a battery instead. The only vaguely useful thing for Green Hydrogen would be renewable overflow storage. When your solar/wind farm is producing too much energy for the grid, you shove it to an electrolysis station that converts water to hydrogen and pressurises it. Then you pump that into a gigantic fuel cell when the sun is down or it's not windy anymore.

marcosdumay 8mo ago

> There seems to be some kind of psychosis around it being the next oil There's a very well financed propaganda campaign.

pjc50 8mo ago
Yes, it's not the new oil, it's the same oil in "green" packaging. Plus some comforting lies about carbon capture.
- aunty_helen 8mo ago
  Even if it was fully green, you can’t run an electrolysis system from home. So you have to buy it, so there’s a market and an expensive solution. Electricity comes out the wall.
  - thrownthatway 8mo ago
    What do you mean? You can run electrolysis from a cup.
    - aunty_helen 8mo ago
      I know, I have one of those weird H shaped flasks with the plat electrodes. I also have a gas bbq, yet couldn't fill up a LNG car at my house. Maybe there's something more to it than just making small amounts of room temperature / pressure H2.
    - MagicMoonlight 8mo ago
      You can’t make and store bulk hydrogen at home
      - CamperBob2 8mo ago
        You're not my HOA
      - thrownthatway 8mo ago
        You can’t. I’m willing to give it a go. I’ve got the excess solar from the rooftop solar panels, the electrical and electronic knowledge, and the gas fitter and metal fabrication experience. I have an oil free air compressor, and anyone can by a helium based cryo-cooler. I have an account with an industrial gas supplier. Just enough knowledge to be dangerous. If Nile Red hasn’t blown his lab up by the time I publish this comment, I reckon I stand a chance.
        KennyBlanken 8mo ago
        Round trip efficiency of hydrogen is at best 50% and at worse half that. You have the horrendous efficiency of electrolysis and then the equally bad efficiency in the fuel cell. Efficiency pumping your excess solar into the EV itself is more like 80-85%, most of which is loss in the electronics, not the battery - those typically have a coulombic efficiency of over 95%. Hydrogen a boondoggle. It's not nearly as stupid as making ethanol from corn (which is an energy-negative process) but it's close. Also, "gas fitter and metal fabrication" experience isn't worth anything unless it was hydrogen-specific. It is far leakier than natural gas/propane. One of the biggest hassles of a hydrogen fuel chain is that the stuff leaks through everything.
        Ray20 8mo ago
        > Round trip efficiency of hydrogen is at best 50% In fact, even this level of efficiency may be sufficient. Solar panels are so cheap that if we had affordable, long-term energy storage options, even with such efficiency, we would have completely abandoned fossil fuels. But, unfortunately, storing hydrogen is difficult and dangerous. It is not like natural gas. > It's not nearly as stupid as making ethanol from corn (which is an energy-negative process) but it's close. Ethanol is produced from corn not for energy purposes, but for food security. It's like a placeholder for real corn so that if there's a crop failure for a couple of years, the low-iq idiots who think it's stupid to make ethanol from corn don't starve to death.
  - crimsonnoodle58 8mo ago
    > Electricity comes out the wall. Which unless you have solar, you are paying for. Even if you have solar, you are paying off the panels, batteries and inverter/chargers over a period of time. Nothing is free.
KennyBlanken 8mo ago
Same with nuclear. The most expensive form of electricity generation there is. No grid operator wants to touch it, but the nuclear industry has been very busy lobbying congress and both the current and last administration.
- wisplike 8mo ago
  Nuclear is incredibly energy dense, can be stockpiled for a long time and is extremely safe. Yes its expensive but its one those industries any serious nation needs to subsidise for the energy security it offers and the countless high skill jobs it fosters.
  - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
    Well, no it's never been extremely safe by any stretch of the imagination. That's just an extreme interpretation of the way it's not as extremely unsafe as it could be. Plus at the rate it's being addressed by a few enthusiasts, it could be getting remarkably safer, maybe even in one person's lifetime someday. Developments may be positive but it makes the most sense to be realistic and avoid the completely unfounded hype involved. Plus when nuclear works best the high-skill jobs resulting have to be as non-countless as possible, that's one of the big factors which might someday allow the economics to be less unfavorable.
    - margalabargala 8mo ago
      It's extremely safe, except in the event of a black swan event, in which case it becomes extremely unsafe. This is compared to, for example, a coal plant, which is quite unsafe to be near constantly, all the time.
      - fuzzfactor 8mo ago
        Pull back from the extremes a little bit and it's an excellent synopsis. Keep in mind an off-white swan can be pretty bad too :) The main thing about such uncommon or even unlkely events, is that nobody knows what to do about them.

ForHackernews 8mo ago

Why is it such a terrible idea? In theory you can generate it via electrolysis in places with plentiful renewable energy, and then you've got a very high-density, lightweight fuel. On the surface, it seems ideal for things like cars or planes where vehicle weight matters. Batteries are huge and heavy and nowhere near as energy dense as gasoline.

CamperBob2 8mo ago
Besides being expensive to generate unless you already happen to have an electrolysis plant handy, hydrogen is awkward and hazardous to store. Once generated, it costs yet more energy to liquefy, and then it seeps right through many common metals, weakening them in the process. It's just not a good consumer-level energy source, and nobody could figure out why Toyota couldn't see that. Interestingly, liquid hydrogen is nowhere near the most energy-dense way to store and transport it. I don't recall the exact numbers but absorption in a rare-earth metal matrix is said to be much better on a volumetric basis. [1] Still not exactly cheap or convenient, but it mitigates at least some of the drawbacks with liquid H2. 1: https://www.fuelcellstore.com/blog-section/what-hydrogen-storage-is-best-for-me https://www.fuelcellstore.com/blog-section/what-hydrogen-sto...
- smcin 8mo ago
  Remember that China briefly embargoed Japan for rare earth metals in 2010, and Toyota launched the Mirai in 2014. My theory was that it was developed as a national fallback for Japan in case that embargo continued or got worse. Think 1930s Volkswagen. Anyone can comment on that?
  - seanmcdirmid 8mo ago
    Japan went heavy into hydrogen for a couple of decades ago. The only reason we are even talking about hydrogen passenger vehicles now is because Japan thought it was the future, they made a mistake.
    - 8mo ago

dehrmann 8mo ago

> Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the ground. It's coming from Toyota because Toyota can't wrap its head around not making engines. Ironically, the place hydrogen might work is airplanes where the energy density of batteries doesn't work.

breve 8mo ago
> It's coming from Toyota because Toyota can't wrap its head around not making engines. Of course they can. Toyota sells BEVs. As time goes on BEVs will become a greater percentage of their sales.
- formerly_proven 8mo ago
  Toyota sells bad EVs and was the last OEM to offer one. It’s the most anti-EV OEM by far and engages/engaged in the most EV FUD.
  - Spooky23 8mo ago
    The bZ4X was particularly bad. Toyota adopted a combo of NIH syndrome and DNGAF. They didn’t anticipate cold weather. The batteries lost like 30% of their capacity in the cold and the resale value of it tanked.
    - aaronbrethorst 8mo ago
      They’re also just phenomenally ugly cars.
      - dcrazy 8mo ago
        It shares the same ugly design language as much of Toyota’s lineup.
    - magicalhippo 8mo ago
      > The batteries lost like 30% of their capacity in the cold Here in Norway Toyota was invited to include the bZ4X in this years winter range test[1], but they declined. Suzuki entered with their eVitara model, which is a "technological twin" of the Toyota Urban Cruiser. The Urban Cruiser really disappointed in a regular test performed in cold weather[2]. So perhaps unsurprisingly, the Suzuki eVitara was by far the worst in the winter range test, with the least range overall and more than 40% reduction compared to its WLTP range, among the worst in the test. [1]: https://www.tek.no/nyheter/nyhet/i/d4mMkA/verdens-stoerste-rekkeviddetest-gjennomfoert-disse-gjorde-det-best-i-sprengkulda https://www.tek.no/nyheter/nyhet/i/d4mMkA/verdens-stoerste-r... [2]: https://www.tek.no/test/i/OkQAwE/toyota-urban-cruiser https://www.tek.no/test/i/OkQAwE/toyota-urban-cruiser

nandomrumber 8mo ago

There is a great way to store, transport, and use hydrogen: Bind it to various length carbon chains. When burned as an energy source the two main byproducts are carbon dioxide which is an essential plant growth nutrient, and water which is also essential to plant growth. Environmentalists will love it! And they can prise my turbo diesel engines from my cold dead hands.

mapontosevenths 8mo ago
Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which makes the world warmer on average. It also lowers the PH levels of the oceans. If the oceans die, its very likely that many or even most humans will also. As a human I am pretty strongly opposed to dying, but thats just, like, my opinion man.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8mo ago
  Take The Great Barrier Reef for example. There’s more of it now than in the reefs recorded history. Well, 2022 data: https://www.aims.gov.au/information-centre/news-and-stories/great-barrier-reef-reviving-or-dying-heres-whats-happening-beyond-headlines https://www.aims.gov.au/information-centre/news-and-stories/...
  - Braxton1980 8mo ago
    "The picture is complex. Recovery here, fresh losses there. While the recovery we reported last year was welcome news, there are challenges ahead. The spectre of global annual coral bleaching will soon become a reality." This article also mentions that a recent large recovery was due to el nino conditions "Great Barrier Reef was reeling from successive disturbances, ranging from marine heatwaves and coral bleaching to crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks and cyclone damage, with widespread death of many corals especially during the heatwaves of 2016 and 2017. Since then, the Reef has rebounded. Generally cooler La Niña conditions mean hard corals have recovered significant ground, regrowing from very low levels after a decade of cumulative disturbances to record high levels in 2022 across two-thirds of the reef." Not sure if you were trying to imply some long term recovery or that global warming didn't hurt it because the article says heatwaves were part of a many other conditions that caused massive damage

foota 8mo ago

> Hydrogen is such a terrible idea it was never getting off the ground. See: the Hindenburg disaster afternote: There's the potential for an amazing pun in here, but I don't think I quite did the opportunity justice.

AngryData 8mo ago
Ehh, the Hindenburg had a flammable skin. Barrage balloons from the World Wars were most often filled with hydrogen and yet were extremely difficult to ignite or take down even with purpose build incindiary ammo for that purpose shows hydrogen balloons can be safe. Often they would be riddled with dozens of holes but still take many hours for them to lose enough hydrogen to float back down to the ground. The only real downsides are slow travel speed and vulnerability to extreme storms since there arent many places to put it with a large enough hanger even with days of warning beforehand.
- cyberax 8mo ago
  That's because regular bullets are actually pretty cold, especially by the time they reach the height of anti-air balloons. But hydrogen itself is SCARY. It has an extremely wide range of ignitable concentrations, and it has very low ignition energy. It also tends to leak through ~everything.
  - AngryData 8mo ago
    But hydrogen is also so easy to produce on demand that you can design your balloon to be at small positive pressure all the time and always leaks outwards into the open air. If oxygen is allowed to leaked in undetected, yeah that's a death trap. The same if hydrogen leaked into semi contained oxygen enclosures. But leaking through the skin of the balloon to open sky even with decent size holes and a bit of positive pressure doesn't ignite particularly well, despite hydrogen's wide range of ignition conditions. It is not such a fool proof technology that everybody should have one, but to me building and operating a hydrogen balloon isn't dissimilar to running a steam locomotive. It can be dangerous if done badly or incorrectly, but it can also be done safely with pretty well known and understood technologies and methods and practices. And considering the massive efficiency of lighter-than-air transport I find it hard to dismiss its potential even so long after their heyday and previous problems.

belorn 8mo ago

People looked at how the cost of wind and solar went down and made a assumption that green hydrogen would follow. The reasoning was that the cost of green hydrogen was energy, and thus at some point green hydrogen would be too cheap to meter. The whole energy plan of central/northen Europe, especially Germany, was built for the last several decades on the idea that they would combine wind, solar and cheap natural gas and then replace the natural gas part with green hydrogen. In Sweden there were even several municipalities that spear headed this by switching mass transportation and heating towards hydrogen, initially with hydrogen produced through natural gas, as a way to get ahead on this plan. The more sensible project were the green steel project. As experts in green hydrogen said consistently said through those decades, is that green steel would be the real test to make green hydrogen economical. The economics of burning it for energy or transportation would come several decades later, if ever. The green steel project however has not ended up as planned and gotten severely delayed and has seen a cost increase by an estimated 10x. municipalities are now giving up the hydrogen infrastructure and giving it an early retirement, as maintenance costs was significantly underestimated. There is very little talk now about replacing natural gas with green hydrogen, and the new plan is instead to replace the natural gas with bio fuels, hinted at carbon capture, at some unspecified time.

aunty_helen 8mo ago
Good context. It's a shame none of these people did high school chemistry. I do remember there being some news about the steel manf. I wonder if further advancements in rocketry are adding H2 tech that could help us manage the difficulties of dealing with the stuff. It still only makes sense in very specific circumstances. Like when you need energy in tank form. But I think battery / biofuel is the future.
throwaway473825 8mo ago
Sweden has very little natural gas in its energy mix: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-source-and-country?stackMode=absolute&country=~SWE https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou... I highly doubt that hydrogen heating was ever considered. It's usually pushed by the gas lobby (since most hydrogen comes from gas), and Sweden doesn't have a strong gas lobby.

dmix 8mo ago

> When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished. Sounds like it was mostly just people reacting to government incentives. Subsidized markets acting irrational.

aunty_helen 8mo ago
Politicians are conduits. Someone wanted this to happen. But yea, subsidies. I've been on many a call where "there's govt funding available if we shape this like x" is one of the major selling points.
- dmix 8mo ago
  Politics has a habit of being very insular once elections are finished. There will always be a strong belief in artificially changing market behaviour by simply throwing money at it and hoping it sticks. When the money dries up the public tends to go back to "what's practical and affordable?".
  - Joker_vD 8mo ago
    > There will always be a strong belief in artificially changing market behaviour by simply throwing money at it and hoping it sticks. Well, it can be made to work, you know. Late (in the XX century) industrialization stories are like that: competitive (dis)advantages make any such attempts simply unprofittable for any businessman (or even a group of them), but if the government keeps skewing the market for decades... The Japanese car manufacturing has been heavily subsidized for most of the XX century, even after their several disastrous attempts to enter the US market. But it all worked out in the end.

deleted 8mo ago

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HPsquared 8mo ago

Synthetic fuels (including hydrogen) do still make a lot of sense for heavy stuff like trucks, buses or trains, and aircraft where the energy density is a big plus. Those are where you'd expect to see hydrogen take off first, not passenger cars. Same as how diesel started in trucks - expensive engines but economical when amortized and worth it for heavy usage applications. If they couldn't crack those areas, no chance in the highly competitive passenger car space.

aunty_helen 8mo ago
Trucks and busses would be better off with battery swaps at depo like electric forklifts do. More mileage more towing weight for trucks, just stack more batteries. Overweight? Use a diesel. Trains is an easy one, over head lines. Aircraft, I think short distance trips <1hr maybe otherwise biofuel. Likely we’ll see biofuels widely used by 2040. Electric motors on a 777, I’m not sure.
- MaKey 8mo ago
  With the upcoming MCS charging standard you won't need battery swaps for trucks or busses. Even today you have trucks that can charge with up to 400 kW, which is good enough for charging during mandatory pauses or downtimes.
masklinn 8mo ago
> Synthetic fuels (including hydrogen) do still make a lot of sense for heavy stuff like trucks, buses or trains Synthetic fuels don't "make a lot of sense" for "heavy stuff", rail electrification has been the norm everywhere the capital costs were justified (it's at about 30% worldwide, 57% in europe, some countries like Switzerland are nearly 100% electric). Synthetic fuels make sense for autonomy reasons when you can't tether the "heavy stuff", but fuel engines absolutely suck for heavy work loads, electric transmissions started being a thing before railway electrification even was. And of course those are situations where hydrogen sucks, fuel is useful there because it's a stable and dense form of energy storage which is reasonably easy to move about without infrastructure, you can bring a bunch of barrels on a trailer, or tank trailers, to an off-grid site and fuel all your stuff (including electric generators). With hydrogen you're now wasting a significant portion of the energy you brought in trying to keep the hydrogen from going wild.

jjtheblunt 8mo ago

> When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished. This is the most ridiculous assertion i've seen today. You'd shut down science, for example, and innovation in general.

fuzzfactor 8mo ago
Really, they shouldn't be punished, they should be rewarded if they can become more sensible. Positive incentive please :) That is how EVs got here as soon as they did.

laughing_man 8mo ago

>When people go out of their way to avoid common sense they should be punished. You could say the same about EVs. Most people in the US who bought an EV decided to go back to ICE for their next vehicle.

rswail 8mo ago

Green hydrogen makes sense as a way to ship solar power to places that don't have it. Using it as a car fuel only makes sense as an interim step to full renewable/EVs. Internal combustion engines, no matter what the fuel, are way more complicated than electric motors. Doesn't matter how you slice and dice the argument.

Hendrikto 8mo ago
Also the losses are much higher when converting electricity to hydrogen and then burning that hydrogen.
panick21 8mo ago
No . No . No. Please No. Absolutely fucking not. Shipping hydrogen is literally one of the dumbest things you can ever do. Its pure and utter nonsense that is only getting pushed for political reasons. It has 0 actual viability. Even if you were willing to pay 5-10x more for hydrogen, shipping doesn't make sense. The only way we are ever moving any quantity of hydrogen anywhere is with pipelines. Literally everything about hydrogen makes it a complete nightmare to ship. And nobody is likely ever going to build these hydrogen pipelines. Hydrogen is completely idiotic as a 'energy move' medium. > Using it as a car fuel only makes sense as an interim step to full renewable/EVs. No it doesn't and it never did. Only such a tiny amount were ever sold, and those were only sold because of massive subsidies and sold below value by car companies who wanted to push the concept (and farm subsidies). EV by 2008 already outsold hydrogen vehicles and have grown every year, hydrogen vehicles never became more then marketing gimick and were never sold in numbers that even approach relevance.

thewhitetulip 8mo ago

With solar/wind oligarchs can't charge you every time you charge your EV at home Hydrogen was meant to replace Oil so that the oligarchs can keep their oligarchy rather than "pull themselves up by bootstraps"

m4rtink 8mo ago

Yeah, it might make sense for some industrial processes as natural gas or coal replacement, but not really anywhere else just because all the tricky leaks and invisible fire hazards.

theshrike79 8mo ago

Some people legitimately think we can just suck hydrogen out of the air or ground and store it in tanks. (We can, to a limited degree, there's a fancy color attached to that kind of hydrogen). Then when you attempt to explain that no, that's not how it works, we need to always separate the hydrogen molecules from another substance, which takes energy. A significant amount of energy. So much energy that it's better to shove the same amount of kWh to a battery instead. The only vaguely useful thing for Green Hydrogen would be renewable overflow storage. When your solar/wind farm is producing too much energy for the grid, you shove it to an electrolysis station that converts water to hydrogen and pressurises it. Then you pump that into a gigantic fuel cell when the sun is down or it's not windy anymore.