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This is like commenting on a battery tech article with, "Yes, but how are we going to charge all of those batteries?!" Or power grid technology, "Great, but whe

• aidenn0 12y ago
  There is no mention of efficiency either; the efficiency of hydrolysis is often around 50% which means that almost anywhere you live it would be better from a CO2 standpoint to just put gas in your car.
• lutorm 12y ago
  Well, if they claimed that using batteries was "emissions free", I would complain about that, too. With hydrogen, the issue issue is that (at least to my understanding) if you have electricity, we already have a far more efficient solution: put the electricity directly into a battery and use it to power a motor. Going the route over electrolysis->hydrogen storage->fuel cell imposes such efficiency penalties that it would need extremely compelling other advantages to be competitive, and I don't see them.
  • nardi 12y ago
    Hey, I like chemical batteries too, but they're not capacitors. You don't put electricity into them. You drive an electrochemical reaction with them, which is subject to its own inefficiencies, as well as wear and tear on the battery, which isn't a problem with hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen fuel cells also tend to be highly efficient.
    • lutorm 12y ago
      Sure. Are you saying the fuel cell cycle is actually more efficient than the battery cycle? The long-term performance question is interesting, though. Any idea how long the time scale would have to be before the fuel cell wins?
    • seanflyon 12y ago
      > wear and tear on the battery, which isn't a problem with hydrogen fuel cells. Sadly this is not the case. Fuel cells have similar lifespans as batteries.
  • epistasis 12y ago
    Using the batteries is emissions free. Claiming anything else is just bringing emotional baggage and irrationality to the situation.
    • lutorm 12y ago
      It is anything but. It's like saying "gasoline is emissions free, it's the burning of it that's the problem." If we're going to have a rational discussion about various forms of emission, we need to talk about total fuel cycle emissions, otherwise it's meaningless. Touting one small section of a fuel cycle as emissions free is at best confusing, at worst misleading.
      • epistasis 12y ago
        You're still being incredibly dishonest, and if you're willing to talk like that, you should really worry about how much it hurts your personal credibility. With gasoline, the use of stored energy requires emissions. With batteries, the use of stored energy does not require emissions. You are creating false equivalencies, the only purpose of which is to drag down the discussion and stop the discussion. You want to talk about fuel cycle, talk about the fuel cycle, don't say things that are blatantly false.
        • lutorm 12y ago
          Tone down the hyperbole a bit there. With gasoline, the use of stored energy requires emissions. With batteries, the production of stored energy required emissions. True, the analogy isn't perfect, because maybe the batteries were charged from a PV system (though in practice chances are they were not) but to call it "incredibly dishonest" and "blatantly false" seems a bit excessive, don't you think? The point is, while using power from a battery doesn't cause any emissions, you need to know where the energy came from to make any meaningful comparisons.
        • yongjik 12y ago
          Your statement would make sense if somewhere there is a vast reserve of charged batteries buried deep underground which we are mining, transporting, and putting on each car.