[HN Gopher] Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars...
___________________________________________________________________
Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay
electrification
Author : amadeuspagel
Score : 308 points
Date : 2023-10-10 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rechargenews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rechargenews.com)
| cromka wrote:
| Meanwhile Toyota announced an amonia engine. I guess we'll have
| to live and see what comes out of it.
| pornel wrote:
| NOx, most likely.
| g-b-r wrote:
| They've been doing it for twenty years, hydrogen allows
| maintaining a distribution network and *most of all* to keep
| using fossil fuels to generate it
| parineum wrote:
| This is true and is contrary to this headline/quote. The oil
| sector is lobby for hydrogen but the attribution of motive is
| off. They are lobbying _for_ hydrogen, not against EVs.
| ska wrote:
| Much longer than 20 years. But the reason it hasn't taken off
| is that both the economics and the physics don't work very well
| for consumer vehicles.
| Smoosh wrote:
| I think that it is just as important for the oil industry to
| make it look like alternatives are being tried, but they just
| don't work out, so that the status quo seems more acceptable.
| linsomniac wrote:
| What can we do to make it so that motivations are more clear
| around messaging? It feels like so many things are ruined because
| industries are so good at messaging and people are so bad and
| disadvantaged at recognizing misleading messaging.
|
| I took the afternoon off work to drive around town supplying
| school kids doing walkouts and walking across town to the
| administrative buildings to protest drastic changes that were
| announced <5 days ago, completely change 6 schools, and have
| apparently been planned in secret, for no good reason. We're
| starting to do some deep dive investigations because of the
| secrecy.
|
| It just feels like so much of the system is impossible right now.
| firebaze wrote:
| Renewable power calls for massive over provisioning to minimize
| time where backup energy has to be used. Over provisioned energy
| could power hydrogen production, in which case the "inefficiency"
| doesn't really matter, as long as there is no other better
| purpose for which the energy can be spent.
|
| There's obviously a sweet spot which may invalidate this
| argument. But to me it sounds like a win-win, even if only
| focusing on aviation.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Aviation could be interesting, but when it comes to cars the
| problem is not hydrogen production, it is delivery. The
| hydrogen could be produced for free and it would still be a bad
| solution.
| torginus wrote:
| People who are bullish for EVs I implore you to reconsider -
| current EVs containing a literal ton of batteries with limited
| lifespans belong in the green future, especially 80% of that
| doesn't get used for daily commute.
|
| It's obvious to me that considering the full-lifecycle costs
| (both manufacturing, usage and ownership), some sort of hybrid
| solution is the greenest, for the current crop of personal cars.
|
| But I believe once self-driving robotaxis arrive, they are going
| to reshape transportation - they're going to be used for short
| distance commute, and hauling people to train stations for long
| distance commute. At least in Europe.
|
| Range anxiety won't be a thing, since these taxis won't ever
| cover large distances.
| Beached wrote:
| in their current format no. but I think there is sufficient
| demand for long range personal vehicles, and as the world gets
| more electric, battery tech will get better. I can easily see a
| future where 1000 mile range on a single charge will be a norm.
| and I can easily see an America that requires that. range
| anxiety will decrease as charging gets faster and easier to
| access. but I just can't see an America household going 2x
| electric vehicles until 1000mile range with a charge up time of
| an hour or two is the norm.
|
| I'm actually a huge fan of full ev hybrids that have on board
| gasoline generators
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Batteries mostly outlast the EVs they are in and are being
| recycled when they don't. Most EVs produced since they entered
| the market a bit over a decade ago are actually still driving
| fine. Most of them even have their original battery. You can
| get some really nice second hand models at this point. Of
| course they hold their value pretty well too. That's why
| manufacturers give eight year warranties on their batteries and
| drive trains. Basically, very little risk for them.
|
| Hybrid is for people that are confused about what they want or
| need. You basically get the worst of both worlds: lots of
| maintenance and fuel cost, pollution, and they aren't that much
| more efficient. Or green. Lots of fiddly bits that break down
| and need maintenance. And the fuel economy isn't that great
| either. And the battery range is tiny.
|
| Range anxiety is going to be a thing for ICE and hybrid car
| owners pretty soon. As petrol demand collapses, the
| infrastructure for filling up cars is going to start
| disappearing. Starting with the least profitable, remote petrol
| stations in the middle of nowhere that are already struggling
| to get by. What happens when 20-30% of their customers start
| driving EVs that they mostly charge at home? Exactly, they
| won't survive that. Not a chance. And of course, that 20-30% is
| just a brief moment in time on the way to 50, 80, and
| eventually 100%. Between now and 2030, there's going to be
| increasingly more struggling gas station owners. And beyond
| that it's going to be a massacre. Year on year declines in
| business with no end in sight.
| natch wrote:
| I would encourage you to educate yourself more on this.
|
| The crossover point is 1.5 years for EVs to be net better than
| ICE cars, for one thing.
|
| Also electric motor drivetrains make much more efficient use of
| energy, so even when powered by coal-generated electricity, EVs
| still win. Meantime power sources are getting more clean over
| time.
| evdubs wrote:
| Feels pretty green charging an EV at home with solar panels.
| ezekiel68 wrote:
| I'm not trying to put white hats on petroleum executives, but it
| must be pointed out that -- given the overall incentives and
| regulatory environment -- they cannot do other than to attempt
| this.
| Clent wrote:
| I didn't realize this wasn't common knowledge.
|
| They oil companies own a lot of infrastructure for moving fuel
| around. They cannot use this infrastructure to move electricity
| but they can use the existing infrastructure to move hydrogen
| around.
| malchow wrote:
| The oil companies don't own many pipelines. Pipeline companies
| own those. And pipeline companies are eager to do business with
| hydrogen companies.
|
| The fight here is over whether natural gas-made hydrogen (SMR)
| is an interesting fuel at all. I think the numbers say no,
| while solar-made hydrogen is in fact extremely interesting.
| donatj wrote:
| I mean it does kind of seem silly just to throw billions of
| dollars of infrastructure to the wayside that could be
| repurposed.
| keep_reading wrote:
| Except the hydrogen will destroy the pipes
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement
| Pxtl wrote:
| More to the point, currently only 1% (edit: some articles I've
| seen put it less than 0.1%[1]) of hydrogen is "green". The rest
| is mostly made out of natural gas, a process that releases just
| as much CO2 as if you'd burned it. H2 isn't a way to save the
| Earth, it's a way to save the Natural Gas industry.
|
| [1]https://cleantechnica.com/2021/12/22/0-03-of-hydrogen-is-
| gre...
| bbarnett wrote:
| Ridiculous. You're conflating source and fuel.
|
| H2 can be produced in large quantities from green power. Part
| of the problem is, some people see everything as non-green.
|
| Dams? Oh, carbon and cement! Nuclear? Oh risk. Windmills? Oh
| birds. Solar? Short cell lift and manufacturing waste.
|
| So let's start with the snae assumption that a dam is green.
| Now you want to get power to cars.
|
| Guess what. You can make h2 on site, at night (low power
| demand), then send it anywhere using existing gaslines.
|
| And yes, you can. No, h2 isn't hard to store, hard to move.
|
| Frankly, it is the oil industry flooding green forums with
| false crap about h2, because they know h2 is the _only_
| complete threat to them
|
| Batteries, with their wonderful waste, slow charge time,
| massive weight, and vast dangers in a accident, won't be
| enough to break oil's back.
|
| We need h2 for that, and that's why all this bullwark is
| spewed at h2. A tech demonstrated as workijg quite well in
| buses, cars, and spaceships for 50+ years.
| Pxtl wrote:
| > Dedicated hydrogen production today is primarily based on
| fossil fuel technologies, with around a sixth of the global
| hydrogen supply coming from "by-product" hydrogen, mainly
| in the petrochemical industry. In 2022, 70% of the energy
| requirement for dedicated hydrogen production was met with
| natural gas and around 30% with coal (mostly used in China,
| which alone accounted for 90% of global coal consumption
| for hydrogen production).
|
| https://www.iea.org/energy-system/low-emission-
| fuels/hydroge...
| theshrike79 wrote:
| "Existing gaslines" won't work because hydrogen leaks. It's
| literally the smallest molecule in the universe. Very
| different from natural gas.
|
| Also you need around 55kWh of electricity to get 11kWh of
| power out of a Toyota Mirai's wheels to the ground. It'd be
| more efficient just to send that 55kWh to a waiting plugged
| in EV using existing power lines.
|
| As for "slow charge", you're behind on tech. The current
| Hyundai/Kia platform supports 800V charging, meaning it can
| take in power at 350kW. It'll take under 10 minutes to fill
| it from 0 to ~80%.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _Existing gaslines " won't work because hydrogen leaks.
| It's literally the smallest molecule in the universe.
| Very different from natural gas._
|
| It works just fine. The British did studies in the early
| 2000s, injecting h2 into Ng lines, and separating it back
| out at the other end with mebranes.
|
| _Also you need around 55kWh of electricity to get 11kWh
| of power out of a Toyota Mirai 's wheels to the ground.
| It'd be more efficient just to send that 55kWh to a
| waiting plugged in EV using existing power lines._
|
| Love how you ignored the power loss in transit, the power
| loss in charging, especially with fast charging, and
| didn't mention how inefficient batteries are as a
| comparison.
|
| _As for "slow charge", you're behind on tech. The
| current Hyundai/Kia platform supports 800V charging,
| meaning it can take in power at 350kW. It'll take under
| 10 minutes to fill it from 0 to ~80%._
|
| We'll only need about 100 trillion dollars in new power
| lines, transfer stations, and on demand power generation,
| to enable people to charge like that.
|
| Far better to build power plants, and when off peak load,
| generate h2 and ship through our existing pipelines.
| exabrial wrote:
| please feel free to vote me down into oblivion because, you know,
| "I'm wrong"... But I would prefer a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle
| over a battery-electric for a number of reasons. The first is
| theoretical recharge/refuel times, but the second is firefighter
| rescue personnel safety.
|
| BEVs are here-and-now technology though, and I don't oppose them,
| it's just I plan to wait until hydrogen technology matures and
| reaches deployment, or BEV finally solves those two problems.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Well..you are wrong. Firefighters are trained to understand
| battery fires. Here's one of the many online courses they take
| to do it. Perhaps if you take it you would gain peace of mind
| on the subject.
|
| https://fsri.org/research-update/online-training-available-s...
| tw04 wrote:
| If you're worried about firefighters, I'm not sure why you
| think hydrogen would be the solution. Hydrogen fires are
| invisible to the human eye, and carry an extremely high risk of
| catastrophic explosion. While a lithium fire isn't great, it's
| more the issue of "this is going to ruin the roadway that it's
| burning on" than "the firefighter is going to die trying to put
| it out".
|
| https://www.osha.gov/green-jobs/hydrogen/fire-
| explosion#:~:t....
| petre wrote:
| The firefighters will mainly sit and watch while H2 gets
| vented or burns off. A lithium battery fire is much more
| worse, not even mentioning the smoke.
|
| https://youtu.be/OA8dNFiVaF0
| cycrutchfield wrote:
| The rescue personnel will be safe because there won't be
| anything of you left to rescue.
| onethought wrote:
| But a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle has a battery that is cycled
| much more than a BEV (because it's small). So a fuel cell
| vehicle has less durability not more.
|
| How can you have an opinion on firefighter rescue and personal
| safety when there is next to no comparable data on fuel cell
| vehicles?
| Reason077 wrote:
| Article is from [2021]. But it might as well be from 2015 for all
| the relevance it has to today's automotive industry. Electric
| already won.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Yup. It's painfully obvious here in Canada, where the loudest
| champion of hydrogen-powered vehicles is the Premiere of the oil-
| and-gas-generating province of Alberta, and she's an ideological-
| conservative pro-oil leader at that.
|
| Seeing people like that rally to hydrogen over EVs is the loudest
| argument _against_ the tech.
|
| Hydrogen technology doesn't exist to save the Earth, it exists to
| save the natural gas industry.
|
| The business model for hydrogen that's generated is
|
| 1. Hydrogen is extracted from natural gas.
|
| 2. A miracle happens, capturing the carbon dioxide from this
| process.
|
| 3. Hydrogen goes in cars.
|
| The amount of truly "green" hydrogen out there is functionally
| zero.
|
| So it's a tech that isn't green, has no refueling infrastructure,
| and practically no adoption in the car industry. At this point it
| only exists so that anti-environmentalists can claim there's an
| alternative they prefer, since it's politically unacceptable to
| be pro-apocalypse.
| malchow wrote:
| Green hydrogen is developing now, and is very real, and is
| based on polysilicon solar advancements and PEM electrolyzer
| advancements, both of which provide ~3 decadal cost-down paths.
| See these two companies of ours:
|
| [1] https://ohmium.com [2] https://novohydrogen.com
| Pxtl wrote:
| At present, the amount of green hydrogen in the total
| hydrogen economy is less than 1%. (edit: possibly less than
| 0.1% [1])
|
| Green hydrogen is vapourware.
|
| [1]https://cleantechnica.com/2021/12/22/0-03-of-hydrogen-is-
| gre...
| lbourdages wrote:
| Suspiciously missing are efficiency numbers. How many "joules
| of hydrogen" do you get from one joule of electricity? We
| already know electric cars are on the order of 80% efficiency
| overall.
| lbourdages wrote:
| > has no refueling infrastructure
|
| That's not true, there are a whopping five (5) hydrogen
| fuelling stations in Canada :D
|
| https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-efficiency/transp...
|
| I see some hydrogen cars from time to time on the road. They
| belong to some government agency. I wonder how many actual
| hydrogen cars there are in the entire country, it's probably
| less than a hundred -\\_(tsu)_/-.
| julienreszka wrote:
| 'Green' hydrogen produced by nuclear is just fine
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > At the bottom "uncompetitive" end of the ladder are hydrogen
| cars and domestic heating -- which he says make no sense when you
| have battery-powered electric vehicles (BEVs) and heat pumps.
|
| which begs a question: might we see hybrids with electric motor
| drive, small batteries for regenerative energy capture, and
| hydrogen fuel cell for quick refills? That is, hybrids that only
| involve battery and fuel cell to both drive a single electric
| powertrain?
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Hydrogen systems have zero advantage over GMO biodiesel (short-
| cycle carbon neutral) for energy capture, storage, and
| distribution.
|
| The local Ballard H2 bus test platforms were reverted to diesel
| after 6 years.
|
| Mostly, people see Hydrogen as a way to green-wash catalyzed
| natural gas (30000 years to reach carbon neutral).
|
| The Battery people seem to think $7000/Kg for global lithium
| deployment is feasible. Look, a EV/pollution-relocation device is
| impressive, but is still unsustainable.
|
| I retain the opinion goat-carts are the future. =)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFTyJDjfjG0
| jacquesm wrote:
| I wish them much good luck, but it's a bit like the dinosaurs
| complaining about those uppity mammals getting underfoot: their
| days are numbered. BEVs are here to stay, hydrogen is - as far as
| I can see - a non-starter except when it comes to heavy traffic
| and possibly rail or air but even there I have my doubts.
|
| Meanwhile BEVs are rapidly building momentum and coupled with
| solar and wind make very good sense. Even the last holdout for a
| passenger hydrogen vehicle (Toyota) has finally seen the light
| and is making BEVs now, I don't remember ever seeing a Mirai but
| given how many have been produced that's not so strange.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| I'm not so sure that BEVs will reach anything close to 100% of
| all cars on the road. My primary reason is this: as long as you
| "only" have 10%, 20%, even 30% BEVs the electric charging
| infrastructure is mostly free, we already have it. But after
| that, BEVs will require expensive infrastructure to be built in
| the electricity transmission grid. Think "we need to dig up all
| of the roads". Because it's not just cars going electric, it's
| everything else as well at the same time.
|
| At that point hydrogen cars could very well see a resurgence.
| Especially in places with cold weather, where the fuel cell
| waste heat can be used for the climate control, while the BEV
| needs to spend energy running a heat pump, so the efficiency
| advantage of BEVs is mostly gone.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, that's a good point. But: the grid can be expanded and
| probably will be expanded. I don't have a BEV but I've run
| the numbers and it would work very well for me today, it's
| just that I have an old, non-connected and fairly recently
| rebuilt car that I'll drive into the ground. But if I were
| younger and still in the market for a new vehicle I would
| definitely consider an electric one, though I'd make sure it
| had LiFePO4 or maybe even LTO in it (not yet available).
| Battery tech is getting better rapidly now that sufficient
| funds is pumped into it and I would expect the next two
| generations to be major improvements over what's on the
| market today.
| robertjpayne wrote:
| This 100%, we're not done with batteries yet as a society
| and it's probably one of the most heavily funded industries
| because the opportunity to strike "gold" with good battery
| tech is too large to ignore.
|
| Lithium wont be used forever and and downsides to batteries
| will slowly be eroded until we wonder why we ever used
| petrol in the first place.
|
| As far as the grid goes, in my eyes rooftop solar is going
| to provide a _huge_ amount of the power generation required
| for EVs. We 're not there yet but the price of solar keeps
| dropping rapidly and you'll see a shift in messaging from
| "discounts and charge overnight when demand is low" to
| "discounts and charge during the day because generation is
| high".
| jacquesm wrote:
| I could already supply an EV with all the power required
| for my trips inside the country. 7700 KWh surplus from
| solar this year and we're not done yet. That's a multiple
| of what an EV would use for my current mileage (which is
| a fraction of what it was pre-COVID, and to be fair I
| also use my (e-)bikes a lot more than before).
| abraae wrote:
| The counter to your "think of the grid" argument is that the
| fossil fuel network may start to atrophy once there are
| significantly less people fuelling their gas vehicles.
|
| If filling your gas car involves an unplesant trip to a
| peeling, cracking and unreliable gas station, then that's one
| more incentive to go BEV.
| pornel wrote:
| No, this has been debunked over and over.
|
| People imagine BEVs need to be charged every evening at some
| super high power. The reality is they need to be charged
| about once a week (median US commute is 1/10th of typical
| BEVs range at city speeds), and can charge overnight, or when
| parked at work, while using less electricity than your air
| conditioning unit.
|
| The grid is designed to handle peak demand (see the "duck
| curve"), and there is a lot of spare capacity outside of the
| peak hours, especially at noon when there's more solar
| production than consumption.
|
| BEVs are very flexible with their charging time, and
| scheduling charging in off-peak hours is a standard feature.
| [deleted]
| Apocryphon wrote:
| And whatever was the corn ethanol biofuel thing about?
| agumonkey wrote:
| i'd pay for a multiparty open investigation
| cpymchn wrote:
| Toyota was betting big on hydrogen.
|
| Were they being engineer-minded or where they being lobbied? I
| would like to think they were betting on Beta -- the superior
| technology -- in the Beta v VHS battle of our time.
|
| What am I missing here? Toyota's engineers have a great track
| record and the company isn't easily swayed by fads or Wall
| Street.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I would assume they were maintaining a visible (and subsidized)
| presence in a non-fossil technology, while ensuring their
| profitable ICE business faced no immediate threat.
| wilg wrote:
| Beta was the inferior technology, like hydrogen.
| jbm wrote:
| It is also possible that Toyota's engineers are not the level
| they used to be, much like Fujitsu's engineers (who caused one
| of the largest banking outages ever) or (other company of your
| choice that used to be a great engineering company but was
| hollowed out).
|
| Considering the work load at Toyota (it is often referred to as
| a "black company" by people I know), the level of pressure that
| is put on their shita-uke companies, and changes in what people
| consider acceptable work environments, I imagine that they
| might not attract the same level of talent in 2023 that they
| did in 1983.
| paganel wrote:
| Electrification for millions and millions of cars will never
| work, we don't have the "green" energy resources to actually
| produce that electricity, and second, and just as important, we
| don't have the distribution network that will be able to carry
| that extra power (both in the US and in Europe).
|
| So that leaves us with the logical conclusion that we won't have
| millions and millions personal cars going forward, for better or
| for worse.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| > Electrification for millions and millions of cars will never
| work
|
| 26+ million BEV already running in the world... Like 2 million
| driving around the US.
|
| https://www.iea.org/reports/global-ev-outlook-2023/trends-in...
| nomel wrote:
| Less that 1% of the cars in the US are electric [1]. The
| majority of those are powered by natural gas, at night [2].
| With 5% in CA, we already have "do not charge" notifications
| on hot days, here in California.
|
| What does 100% look like in California (definitely
| unrealistic, but can be scaled)?
|
| California uses 13 billion gallons of gasoline, per year [3].
| Let's say electric is 50% more efficient than gas, so we'll
| need 6.5 billion gallons worth of energy. At 33.7 kWh of per
| gallon of gas, that's 219 TWh of energy per year. In 2020,
| California produced 277 TWh [4]. They'll need to nearly
| double energy production, which matches most developed
| countries in Europe.
|
| [1] https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/what-
| percent-of...
|
| [2] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46236#:~:
| tex....
|
| [3] https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-
| almanac/transp...
|
| [4] https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-
| almanac/califo...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > we don't have the distribution network that will be able to
| carry that extra power
|
| I think people overestimate the net change in consumption.
| Making a gallon of gasoline takes about as much electricity as
| moving a BEV the distance the ICEV would go on that gallon.
| What'll change a bit is the distribution of the energy. But
| given that much of it will happen at night when the grid has
| historically been very underutilized, the net impact isn't a
| huge problem to deal with.
| [deleted]
| ahs1 wrote:
| [flagged]
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| [flagged]
| drewg123 wrote:
| The YouTube channel _Engineering Explained_ has an excellent
| video regarding why hydrogen is not a practical replacement for
| gasoline /petrol/diesel in a traditional internal combustion
| engine:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJjKwSF9gT8
| boringalterego wrote:
| The person in the thumbnail for the article is hitting my uncanny
| valley.
| cracrecry wrote:
| There is an Oil Sector Lobby and there is an electric sector
| Lobby too. All Lobbies hate competition.
|
| The electric sector wants to destroy Hydrogen because it competes
| with them, of course, they want to destroy the seed so no tree
| comes out of it. Hydrogen disappearing is not going to happen,
| because it going to be necessary for some things, like heavy
| transportation.
|
| Just because clean Hydrogen is in the early stages in
| development(like EV were 15 years ago) does not mean that we
| should not develop the technology.
|
| I personally believe that NH3 is great for storing energy and
| energy transportation, and extremely useful for things like
| growing food.
|
| It is also toxic and difficult to handle, like oil, but in lots
| of sectors(like heavy industries) it makes lots of sense. In
| other sectors, electricity and batteries make more sense.
| Different technologies will coexist together and compete.
| meindnoch wrote:
| >It is also toxic and difficult to handle, like oil
|
| Except oil is a liquid, while ammonia is a gas. You can put oil
| in an open container and it won't hurt anyone. Now try doing
| the same with ammonia...
| dexwiz wrote:
| Ammonia is more comparable to natural gas or propane than
| oil.
|
| Also crude oil is really toxic. It off gasses all sorts of
| questionable things, and touching it isn't recommended. I get
| what you mean by your comment, but oil isn't some super
| stable, safe material.
| cracrecry wrote:
| Oil burns and CH3 explodes easily, but we use it anyway
| because it makes economic sense.
|
| The same will happen with ammonia. There are risks, but the
| energy that you could store is immense at a very low price.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I was working in batteries and solar
| panels research in the early days. I heard the same arguments
| against it( why we should spend money when batteries and
| solar panels are so expensive and work so badly? They were
| expensive and worked badly)
|
| Now we work on fuel cells. They are expensive and there is
| room for improvement.
| jackmott wrote:
| [dead]
| downrightmike wrote:
| Most of the hydrogen made today is made from fossil fuels, so
| they of course love that idea.
| justapassenger wrote:
| So is most of electricity. None of that matters for the
| future.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| This is technically true, but only barely. In the US in
| 2022, renewables were 21.5% and Nuclear was 18.2% of total
| generated power (yes nuclear should be counted among
| renewables, oh well). That means nearly half of power
| generated is green compared to ~1% of hydrogen.
| mem0r1 wrote:
| The argumentation is flawed.
|
| 1. Just imagine the required charging infrastructure if all
| vehicles were suddenly battery powered. Charging electric
| vehicles requires quite some power. Can the power grid
| installations sustain that (power lines, Transformer stations...)
| ? What resources (financial and physical (e.g. Cooper)) are
| required in order to adapt the infrastructure ? Just an example:
| A supercharger station which can charge a few cars at "full
| speed" simultaneously can draw > 1 Megawatt. Furthermore,
| superchargers are quite complex (and expensive) technology;
|
| 2. Batteries are not a suitable large scale energy storage.
| However, non-dispatchable, fluctuating energy sources such as
| solar and wind power require huge amounts of storage in order to
| sustain the power demand.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/research/blog-can-the-g...
| ("A question that frequently comes up when discussing electric
| vehicles (EVs) is: "Can the grid handle it?" The short answer
| is "yes."") [Blog post demonstrates the math showing the grid
| can handle 100% EVs]
|
| Superchargers are primarily for road trips and people who need
| to fast charge because they don't have home charging (for now;
| infra is rolling out very fast). Most will charge at home,
| work, or other locations that perhaps have a level 2 charger
| (vs a fast DC charger). A 120V 15amp outlet is sufficient to
| fully charge your vehicle if left for 2-3 days or more at an
| airport or other longer dwell location.
|
| > Batteries are not a suitable large scale energy storage.
|
| They will get us most of the way to success. Some combination
| of seasonal storage, renewables overbuilding, transmission, and
| limited fossil generation (peakers, cogeneration, etc) will be
| needed to get close to 100% net zero.
|
| https://www.tesla.com/ns_videos/Tesla-Master-Plan-Part-3.pdf
|
| https://www.energy-storage.news/nrel-rapid-growth-of-energy-...
|
| https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy22osti/81779.pdf
|
| Enough sunlight falls on the Earth every ~2 minutes to power
| humanity for a year. We're just arguing shuffling the electrons
| around.
| jrajav wrote:
| Source for either of these claims other than "just imagine?"
|
| Of course infrastructure is a concern but I haven't seen any
| sources that claim we are unprepared to sustain significant EV
| deployment - and of course it will not ever happen overnight,
| so that's a strawman.
| re wrote:
| > The argumentation is flawed.
|
| Which argumentation are you referring to? You're re-iterating
| an anti-electric talking point that is explicitly debunked in
| the article.
|
| > "That's nonsense," says Liebreich. "[In] 1995, [people said]
| 'we'll never use the internet because there are not enough
| modems'. [In] 2000, 'we'll never do online video because there
| isn't enough bandwidth', then, 'you can't do multiple streams
| of video because you will never get fibre to the home'. We've
| got 30 years between now and 2050 [when countries plan to reach
| net-zero emissions] and we will simply have more and more
| investment. We've dug up the streets for cable, phone, gas,
| cable, fibre, electricity. It's a thing we do. We know how to
| just build slowly over time. This is not rocket science.
|
| > "Plus, there's smart charging. And of course, we know we're
| going to be doing this because we're also going to be having to
| add capacity because of electric heating. And so the idea that
| you'll say, 'no, no, we mustn't do that extension of existing
| infrastructure, we must build a completely new one [for
| hydrogen refuelling], it's nonsense, frankly."
| wilg wrote:
| 1. Yeah, we upgrade the grid over time as demand increases,
| exactly as we have been doing. Nobody gets bent out of shape
| when a grocery store or something goes in and it requires
| power. This is only a problem if vehicles are "suddenly"
| battery powered, which is not a thing.
|
| 2. Yes they are.
| t3rabytes wrote:
| Re 1: The US built 1,000,000 new homes last year without anyone
| saying "how we the country cope with this increase in need for
| wood/etc". Most new homes will have multiple 50A circuits to
| power an electric range and/or HVAC system. Most level 2
| electric car chargers max at 50-75A, and can be configured to
| only charge during times of low grid power demand. Every
| electric car in existence won't be DC fast charging all the
| time. In fact, I'd wager for most EV owners in the US today, DC
| fast charging is a very very low percent of their total charge
| allocation (between DC fast and AC level 2).
| ertgbnm wrote:
| Your argument is textbook anti-EV propaganda that has been
| debunked for over a decade now.
|
| Ask anyone that owns an EV how many times a month they go to a
| super charger. The answer is probably zero because unless they
| went on a road trip, they are definitely charging at home. You
| don't even need to install a 240V charger. For most people's
| commute a 120V charger (which can charge at ~1.4 kw) can
| recharge about 40 miles over night which is equivalent to the
| average American's commute.
|
| It's still not ideal for apartment dwellers yet, but they don't
| need a super charger in their complex. They just need a
| standard power outlet accessible from their parking space.
|
| I know managing the grid is probably really hard. But if we can
| power every home in America in less than a century, I'm pretty
| sure we can figure out how to add standard power outlets to
| parking garages without crashing the economy.
|
| EV's are in fact a solution to the sporadic nature of
| renewables since they can charge anytime the car is sitting
| still such as for the 8 hours of sunshine that people spend in
| office buildings every day.
| jcfrei wrote:
| Re 1: Charging mostly happens overnight where there isn't a lot
| of demand. Smart meters can distribute the demand to spread it
| out optimally. BEVs are actually very valuable for the
| electrical grid when they can feed their power back into it -
| further balancing supply and demand.
|
| Re 2: Batteries keep getting cheaper due to economies of scale.
| Batteries for grid stabilization don't need high energy density
| and will soon (or maybe already are) more cost effective than
| pumped-storage hydroelectricity.
| SCAQTony wrote:
| Water is a greenhouse gas as is the methane infrastructure that
| will be used to create the hydrogen. I don't say this
| disparagingly, but an ignorant populace will fall for it, and
| that includes Congress.
| contravariant wrote:
| I'm not too sure we need to worry too much about the additional
| water vapour becoming a problem. About a third of all sunlight
| that reaches earth is spent just evaporating water [1].
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_Energy_Budget_with_...
| z_rex wrote:
| One thing I never see discussed about why hydrogen is so popular
| as a replacement for hydrocarbons: You can fairly easily generate
| hydrogen from natural gas via methane pyrolysis, and the carbon
| falls out as carbon black, a solid. The waste heat from a single
| gas turbine can generate enough hydrogen to power about 3
| turbines of the same size, so when it's all said and done at a
| combined cycle plant with a steam turbine on the other 2 units,
| you're down about 12% on your net energy production, but it's not
| releasing any carbon into the atmosphere.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Scratch an inch deep and this is always hydrogen stripped from
| methane. Still fossil fuel based.
|
| They oil industry are filthy liars, aided by petrostates like KSA
| and Russia. They are like the tobacco industry, but many
| thousands of times worse.
| 0wis wrote:
| My view on hydrogen is that we will look at it like pressurized
| air in the 1900's. Some industrial applications exists but its
| not the silver bullet many articles are talking about. It is
| inefficient and we shouldn't spend many ressources on it.
| However, I am happy some people experiment with it, we may
| discover an innovative application that may be a true
| breakthrough. But I won't bet on it.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Not saying the oil sector is powerless by any means, and I guess
| maybe they're going for regulatory capture, but this is a non-
| starter from an economic reality perspective so I'm not too
| worried about it. The train is well out of the station for
| electric vehicles. I believe every car maker (save 1 that I know
| about) is fully committed to 100% electrified vehicles in the
| not-too-distant future. I feel like eventually even Toyota will
| give up their weird H2 push.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > The train is well out of the station for electric vehicles.
|
| British government has just postponed it's EV vehicle
| transition by 5 years, British tabloids are printing articles
| about how EVs will never work for British uniquely harsh
| weather
| MBCook wrote:
| Would gasoline be anywhere near something people wanted to use
| if it was taxed to correctly account for its externalities?
|
| Petroleum is a huge industry and they could make a big problem
| by getting subsidies to make some other fuel look competitive
| even though it's a disaster.
|
| Look at biodiesel.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > if it was taxed to correctly account for its externalities?
|
| I think you kind of identified the issue there, though.
| Externalities are notoriously difficult to tax and account
| for. The issue with EVs is that they are _intrinsically_
| better than hydrogen in nearly every way. Even issues with
| long distance driving and recharging are quickly improving
| with EVs, and the improvements are happening much faster than
| anything going on with hydrogen.
| tw04 wrote:
| It's not just Toyota - it does seem to be a Japanese thing.
| Honda is also actively producing H2 powered vehicles.
|
| https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a42796089/2024-honda-cr-v-...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _this is a non-starter from an economic reality perspective
| so I 'm not too worried about it_
|
| Still dangerous. It reminds me of Zubrin's takedown of VASIMR
| [1]. An unrealistic counterproposal can torpedo a workable one
| by appealing to peoples' tendency to choose the perfect over
| the good.
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/myYs4DCCZts?si=Ksqw_MFLKHKIgMod
| asdff wrote:
| All it takes is a new pump at existing gas stations and what
| becomes more compelling to the consumer flips overnight. Same
| cultural process of fueling up at the same place you've always
| fueled up in about the same amount of time as its always taken.
| It seems like there's a lot lot less inertia to get consumers
| over that hurdle than the EV hurdle, where charge times are
| long and convenient chargers not a guarantee in comparison to
| the fuel station network.
| alerighi wrote:
| I have a diesel car. Every 3 weeks I have to fill my tank.
| This wastes me around 5/10 minutes, depending if the gas
| station is full of person that want to fill their tank. And
| this only thanks to the fact that I've one of the gas station
| with the cheapest price of my city 50 meters from where I
| work. Otherwise I would need to spend time (and gas) to get
| to the station with the cheapest price, because paying 2
| euros for a liter of gas is not something I like to do.
|
| With an electric car I can get home at evening, park my car
| and connect a plug, exactly as I connect my phone to the
| charger before going to bed. Time wasted? Probably less than
| a minute every couple of days. Also, I pay it in my
| electricity bill, the price of electricity doesn't go as high
| as the price of gas. Also... it's impossible to distinguish
| between the electricity used to charge a car than the one
| used for domestic purpose. This means that the government
| cannot add taxes on electricity used in vehicles, as it does
| with gas. Finally there is the possibility to install solar
| and produce the electricity myself.
|
| > All it takes is a new pump at existing gas stations
|
| Easy? We have natural gas cars since decades. Only recently
| (last 10 years) you find a sufficient number of stations that
| serve you natural gas. Still for nonsense rules in my country
| you can't fill your natural gas car by yourself but it has to
| be done by an operator, so good luck filling it in the
| weekend or at night. I imagine the same rules would apply for
| hydrogen.
|
| Now, after decades of natural gas cars, they are mostly
| usable (my parents have one). Inconvenient, since you maybe
| have to drive 10km to get to a station, and you have the same
| range than an electric car (350km more or less). Will
| hydrogen be that better? I don't think so.
|
| While all of this happens, electric car chargers are starting
| to appear everywhere. You go to a supermarket, there is a
| charger, you stop to eat on the highway, there is a charger,
| or more of them really, in the cities there are plenty of
| them (plus while the car is charging you don't pay for
| parking!).
|
| It's nonsense to this day to not consider buying an electric
| car if buying a new car to me! I keep my diesel car since I
| already have it, it has more than 10 years, and works fairly
| well, and I don't like changing things that works, but when I
| will change it, I will buy an electric for sure.
| zolbrek wrote:
| >This means that the government cannot add taxes on
| electricity used in vehicles, as it does with gas.
|
| You don't think you'll be paying a significant electricity
| tax once ICE cars are fully phased out?
|
| Also, I don't know what you drive but my diesel has quite a
| bit more range than 350 km. Yours must be quite the
| guzzler.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Yeah, Texas already charges an additional $400 for EV
| registration and then $200 annually.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Have you ever read up on what storing hydrogen entails? Both
| at the station and in the cars? The tanks are totally
| different beasts than gasoline.
| abraae wrote:
| > Same cultural process of fueling up at the same place
| you've always fueled up in about the same amount of time as
| its always taken.
|
| I don't know that people's cultural attraction to fueling at
| the gas station is high at all.
|
| After we got an EV I realised how much I had actually
| disliked filling the car. Smelly, every time an in your face
| reminder of the fossil fuels you are burning. Having to go in
| an queue. Having to wait and jostle for a spot with the
| filler hoses on the correct side for my vehicle. Dodgy
| characters milling around. Unable to use cellphone and take
| calls. Possibility of being involved in holdups/antisocial
| behaviour.
| p1mrx wrote:
| > Unable to use cellphone and take calls.
|
| Why are you unable to use your cellphone?
| zo1 wrote:
| They're apparently "banned" or "dangerous" at fuel
| filling stations. Whether that's actually true is a
| different matter, but all the stations I've been to have
| had prominent "cellphones not allowed" signs displayed.
| serial_dev wrote:
| Isn't the long charging time an issue? After a quick
| search, Tesla needs 30 minutes to charge to 80% with
| superchargers and this is good for 300 kms. Assuming 120
| kmh, this means that about every 2.5 hrs, I need to take a
| 30 min break.
|
| With the old system, I fuel in 2 minutes and I can travel
| 600 kms on it or approx 6 hrs (assuming 50 litres fuel tank
| and 7.5 litres per 100 km, and 120 km/h).
|
| (I don't have a car, and I'm open minded about EVs, just
| honestly wondering)
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| If your main usecase is using the car in the city, which
| it is for my family for example, then you go for months
| without seeing a fuel station of any sort.
| nicpottier wrote:
| They aren't as good at long distances, you have that part
| right. Your numbers could be debated but are close
| enough. Most people don't drive long distances on the
| regular though.
|
| They are MUCH better for day to day if you can charge at
| your home. You always start the day with a full battery.
| I only use a supercharger on long trips. Note that I
| actually drive farther than most for various reasons but
| that route has a supercharger at a grocery store. I tend
| to come back at the end of the weekend and do my shopping
| at the same time, so in reality I don't spend any time
| refueling.
|
| So total yearly time where you are actively "fueling"
| your vehicle in a supervised manner favors EVs for the
| vast majority of people.
| abraae wrote:
| It's an entirely different paradigm.
|
| With an ICE, you can only fuel up at a gas station, but
| it is fast (not always though, queues, etc.).
|
| With an EV you charge overnight at home, and only charge
| on the road as required, and it can be slow (not all that
| slow though, not a big problem for us). Depending on your
| usage and vehicle range, you may never need to charge on
| the road at all.
|
| I wouldn't personally want to own an EV if we couldn't
| charge at home.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Lol at _all_ ; Hydrogen can't easily be transported in
| current pipelines; Can't be transported in current trucks,
| and can't be stored in current gas station tanks.
|
| And if the gas station doesn't maintain its hoses, nozzles,
| or seals; you don't wind up with a slight smell, a
| carcinogenic irritation -- you experience frostbite to you
| hand immediately.
| smileysteve wrote:
| Though the maintenance issue can be solved with a nitrogen
| pressure test before - the equivalent of electrical
| connectors verifying the connection digitally before
| sending the amps.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > you don't wind up with a slight smell, a carcinogenic
| irritation -- you experience frostbite to you hand
| immediately.
|
| If you're lucky. If you're unlucky the first you realize
| there is a leak is when it ignites. Fortunately it is
| harder to make it explode than gasoline vapors but it also
| escapes far more readily than gasoline does.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > All it takes is a new pump at existing gas stations
|
| "All it takes" is doing _very heavy_ lifting in that
| sentence. There 's a good reason that hydrogen fueling
| stations are basically non-existent aside from a few in
| California. Distribution and fueling is quite complicated
| compared to conventional liquid fuels.
| yread wrote:
| there are 86 now in Germany.
|
| https://h2.live/en/
|
| basically most of the main highways are covered
| jacquesm wrote:
| Not even close. It requires a whole new delivery network,
| trucks, pipelines need to be re-sleeved and tons of safety
| measures. Switching to hydrogen from diesel or gasoline is a
| non-trivial exercise. And large scale storage is yet another
| problem. That's hard enough with LNG, LPG, diesel and
| gasoline, with hydrogen it is much more complex and carries
| more risk.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| One irony is that hydrogen cars are actually a better option than
| ICE. They're just both blown away by BEVs because batteries and
| supporting tech has progressed so dramatically.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| A better option in what circumstance?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| In the circumstance that we wanted to deal with climate
| change, local air pollution and inefficiency of ICE, but
| didn't have modern battery tech available.
|
| If we somehow magically knew that we'd hit a physics limit
| with battery tech over a decade ago, hydrogen for personal
| vehicles would be a good range extender option and worth
| rolling out the infrastructure to support.
|
| And bear in mind, basically every FCEV containts a small
| battery BEV at its heart.
| dainiusse wrote:
| The problem is simple - EVs are overpriced and battery density is
| too low. It needs to be at least twice of current ones. EVs are
| Definitely going to be over hydrogen, but the tech is just not
| there yet for many markets. 200 kilometers in harsh conditions is
| wayyto small range
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| Why? Commuting 100 miles to work each day is ridiculous. For
| anything less than that, your 300 mile range is going to be
| plenty. There's an argument to be made that the tech isn't
| quite there yet for long haul trucking and the like, but 95+%
| of commuter vehicles could and should be replaced with EVs
| tomorrow.
| deviantbit wrote:
| The electric car industry is spinning alternatives. Hydrogen is a
| much better alternative all around. You'll be able to convert
| existing cars much easier.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| unfortunately no one's going to be converting existing cars to
| anything other than scrap metal no matter which technology
| proves to be the most promising
| henearkr wrote:
| Well I agree with your other comment, but about this one,
| retrofitting (ICE->EV) is a thing. Even if very niche for
| now.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Used Prius is always free and used Tesla is cheaper than a
| conversion. It never will make sense except for few classic
| cars.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| With the way cars are built today it can be an endeavor to
| change a lightbulb, let alone the entire propulsion system.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| It is niche but growing less so by the day as conversion
| kits mature and more options make it onto market.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Classic cars are much easier to convert to electric than
| hydrogen. I'm not even sure anyone would make a kit to do it.
| There's just so much complexity with fuel cells.
| thehappypm wrote:
| How is it better? It seems worse than electric by just about
| every measure
| gtvwill wrote:
| Why would you want to? Existing cars suck to work on compared
| to an electric. Ice needs too many parts it's inefficient for
| moving vehicles. Legit ditch all that running gear and give me
| hub motors on suspension arms. That's it. Don't need anything
| else.
|
| Ice vehicles gonna get squeezed out by economics. Why pay some
| Muppet a few k to pull a block out to do gaskets when for
| little more than removing a Tyre I could replace the entire hub
| motor. Maybe a few hundred in labor compared to a few thousand.
| Hell for some car models like my subi I basically have to
| remove the entire front end or pull the block out just to do
| the head gaskets.
| zolbrek wrote:
| >Ice vehicles gonna get squeezed out by economics
|
| You mean ICE vehicles are going to get squeezed out by
| regulations.
| ggreer wrote:
| What EVs on the road today have hub motors? That unsprung
| mass would ruin handling. Also the motor could easily be
| damaged by hard bumps from potholes or curbs.
| ggreer wrote:
| I doubt it would be economically feasible to convert existing
| cars to hydrogen. If you want to use a hydrogen fuel cell,
| you'd have to replace the gas engine with a hydrogen fuel cell
| and electric motor, then mate that to the existing transmission
| (though with an electric motor, things like a clutch and six
| gears wouldn't be very useful). Then you'd need another
| electric motor to run the accessory belt(s) for things like the
| power steering pump and the air conditioning compressor. If you
| want to warm the interior of the car, you'd have to replace the
| heater core with some sort of heat pump or resistive heating
| element.
|
| If you want to modify the gasoline engine to run on hydrogen,
| you'd need to replace the entire top end and many components in
| the bottom such as the connecting rods. You'd also need
| different spark plugs, a higher voltage ignition coil,
| different fuel injectors, a stronger head gasket, and a
| modified ECU. Burning hydrogen at stoichiometric ratios causes
| lots of nitric oxide, so you'd probably have to run lean to get
| emissions down. This means the engine won't be as powerful.[1]
|
| There are other modifications you'd have to do in either case.
| You'd have to replace the fuel tank with a hydrogen tank,
| replace the fuel lines, and replace the gas cap with a high
| pressure nozzle. Hydrogen is an odorless invisible gas, so
| you'd need to add some hydrogen sensors to the car to warn
| about leaks.
|
| After solving all of these problems, your car would have less
| range and fewer ways to refuel.
|
| 1. See page 25 of
| https://web.archive.org/web/20110905043908/http://www1.eere....
| Smoosh wrote:
| It seems that the low efficiency when using hydrogen in an
| internal combustion engine, combined with it's low energy
| density, makes it unlikely to be viable for mainstream
| vehicles.
|
| https://evcentral.com.au/why-burning-hydrogen-in-an-ice-is-a...
| nuancebydefault wrote:
| Thanks for sharing the clearly written article!
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| Not sure who's pocket you're in but you need to get your facts
| straight. I can convert anything from a Model T to a modern
| vehicle from ICE to EV with nothing more complex than a
| conversion kit, and those come in flavors. Want to keep your
| original transmission and drive train? They make EV kits in a
| form factor to replace just the motor portion of a power train.
| Not married to having a stick shift? Toss the entire drive
| train, drop in a solid rear axle with hub motors. Fact is you
| can convert a vehicle from ICE to EV in a weekend and most of
| the work involves removing unnecessary deadweight.
| beders wrote:
| What would "convert existing cars" get you?
|
| A BEV is so much simpler to build and maintain.
| smileysteve wrote:
| The U.S. unlike the U.K. never adopted LPG or natural gas
| vehicles in any types of scale; That's with natural gas going
| directly to many houses.
|
| If LPG/Natural gas ice conversions had taken off in the 80s/90s
| THEN evidence would be more in Hydrogen's favor.
| api wrote:
| There's also a huge amount of idiotic anti-EV FUD and
| misinformation being pushed.
| gmane wrote:
| Anyone who has followed hydrogen as a fuel for a while sees
| pretty easily that its a solution in search of a problem. It
| really doesn't make sense to use renewables to make hydrogen fuel
| to then burn: batteries are better for storage of energy in most
| cases (I will grant that there are edge cases where a liquid/gas
| fuel is a better technical solution than batteries, but I think
| that options like ethanol are probably better than hydrogen for
| those use cases). My gut is that the majority of hydrogen
| proponents are oil and gas lobbyists or funded by them.
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| Hydrogen for cars is dead. However long haul flights,
| fertilizer, green steel, etc. very difficult to find a carbon
| free alternative that isn't hydrogen.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| For long haul flight, hydrogen's main use is going to be
| producing fuels that can actually go that distance. Hydrogen
| has a volumetric problem and it just isn't a great fuel for
| that reason. Even over short distances this is problematic.
| It just takes up too much space. It's about 2.5 x that of lng
| in both liquid and gas form. In liquid form, you need to cool
| it to a few degrees above 0 degrees kelvin, which makes it
| very impractical in a plane. And of course lng even in liquid
| form does not compare that favorably to things like kerosene.
|
| Green steel you can do without hydrogen. Basically you need
| lots of heat and some carbon to produce steel. Generating
| heat with electricity is not that hard. You can use
| induction, plasma heating, resistive heating, etc. And doing
| that is a lot more efficient than using that same electricity
| to first create hydrogen and then burn it.
|
| Hydrogen has its place, mostly as a chemical half product
| that is used to create other stuff. It doesn't store very
| well; it doesn't travel very well. It's mostly used close to
| where it is generated. Which as of yet is done almost
| exclusively by expending large amounts of fossil methane or
| coal. Green hydrogen production is minuscule and relatively
| inefficient and costly. Most uses of hydrogen today are
| neither green nor sustainable. Or carbon free. And that's
| going to stay like this for a while. Even just shifting
| current hydrogen production to being green is going to take a
| massive investment and take decades.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Green hydrogen production is minuscule and relatively
| inefficient and costly. Most uses of hydrogen today are
| neither green nor sustainable. Or carbon free. And that's
| going to stay like this for a while.
|
| Your other points hold, but I don't think this one is
| necessarily so (depending what you mean by "a while"):
| electrolysis is so incredibly trivial that I suspect it'll
| become green as fast as the grid in general, and if current
| exponential trend continues, that's going to be almost
| everything within a decade.
|
| _If_ the current exponential continues. It might, but such
| is never assured.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| We'd need a lot of renewables for this to work though.
| Like a lot more than we currently have or that is
| currently planned/under construction. Orders of magnitude
| more. At the cost of a few trillion $. The math just
| isn't great for this.
|
| Just doing the simple math of the twh needed to produce
| the fuel for a major airport on a daily basis is kind of
| eye watering. Just a little back of the envelope math
| makes it really obvious that that's not going to be a
| thing any time soon even if we do get some magic laws of
| physics defying electrolysis technology (those pesky laws
| of thermodynamics are hard to beat though).
|
| And even just shifting current hydrogen production, which
| is good for a few percent of carbon emissions today, is a
| huge undertaking. I agree that electrolysis improvements
| will actually make that cost effective to do at some
| point. Possibly even as soon as next decade. But right
| now it just isn't and most of those electrolysis
| companies still have a few things to prove. Like having
| working products or the ability to produce those cost
| effectively at scale. Either way, within now and a
| decade, we won't have nearly enough renewables in place
| to power any of this new hydrogen economy. We'd struggle
| to power the current one with that. As long as renewables
| remain scarce, hydrogen is not a great use case for
| wasting them.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Orders of magnitude more
|
| Yes. 30% per year compound growth does that very quickly.
|
| (Exponentials will turn into s-curves of course, no
| guarantees, but growth here doesn't have to be asymptotic
| to the current market).
| nwiswell wrote:
| > Hydrogen has a volumetric problem and it just isn't a
| great fuel for that reason. Even over short distances this
| is problematic. It just takes up too much space.
|
| Blended wing body designs may solve the volume problem.
| It's only intractable if you try to fit the same energy
| content into a modern airliner that was designed for Jet A.
|
| Weight is the usual suspect in aerospace, and fuel weight
| significantly favors hydrogen over Jet A (factor of ~2), so
| a blended wing body design with a much larger internal
| volume wouldn't even have to have equal aerodynamic
| efficiency in order to be a suitable replacement.
|
| To be clear, this is not a simple shift and will probably
| take decades, but it is merely an engineering challenge
| rather than a fundamental constraint.
| espadrine wrote:
| Sure, but the same companies that lobby for hydrogen for cars
| & heating, claiming green benefits there one day, don't raise
| a finger to decarbonate hydrogen for fertilizers, which does
| make it seem like they don't actually care about reducing CO2
| emissions. The article points out the hypocrisy:
|
| > _Liebreich gives an example of Shell being happy to spend
| $12bn on a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) platform, the
| Prelude, which has seen a host of problems, "but they won 't
| spend $12bn just producing blue, green, pink, or any other
| sort of clean hydrogen for those [existing] uses where we
| currently are driving 3-4% of global emissions"._
| toss1 wrote:
| Yup. Even Toyota, a big H2 promoter is bailing and announcing
| high-range. solid-state, fast charging batteries [0, 1, 2].
| Makes me wonder if the H2 promotion was just a ruse to
| misdirect the rest of the industry while it caught up, and
| possibly even leapfrogged (we'll see if their announcements
| play out), on battery tech?
|
| [0] Toyota Teases Solid-State Batteries in 2027
|
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/toyota-solid-state-battery
|
| [1] Toyota reveals its plan to catch up on EV battery
| technology Three liquid chemistries, solid state cells, and
| flatter battery packs.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/09/toyota-reveals-its-
| plan...
|
| [2] LGES to supply Toyota with batteries, invest $3 billion
| in US plant
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/toyota...
| mulmen wrote:
| I think Toyota also had their hands tied a bit because the
| entire country of Japan has heavily invested in hydrogen. I
| can understand why it makes sense strategically for a
| country like Japan without their own oil (or lithium?)
| reserves. Toyota is a Japanese industrial powerhouse so I
| wouldn't be surprised if they were receiving subsidies and
| maybe even direction on hydrogen research. Only now that
| they have invested enough to prove hydrogen is a fantasy
| can they move on to batteries.
|
| I'm not sure it's such a loss though. Nissan was early with
| the Leaf but nobody talks about them as cornering the EV
| market. Toyota can benefit from the battery advancements
| everyone else made over the last 15 years and catch up
| quickly.
|
| At the time it made sense to invest in hydrogen. And in
| hindsight it wasn't as much of a mistake as it might seem.
| It was a moonshot but they didn't risk their existence on
| it and if it had worked they'd look like geniuses. If
| hydrogen was feasible Toyota and Japan would be world
| leaders in energy tech or at least have secure domestic
| energy independence.
| pauldenton wrote:
| Maybe it just needs to work in their borders Japan had a
| unique response to the 1973 oil crisis. Given recent
| instability in Russia/Ukraine, Afghanistan after the
| Withdrawal, and now Israel, having a hedge against
| petroleum primarily sourced in the Middle East and Russia
| it's a smart hedge to have. Besides, Americans have
| switched from wanting big extravagant American Made cars
| to small fuel efficient ones from Japan before
| pornel wrote:
| I think Toyota is making these pie-in-the-sky announcements
| to Osborne[1] other manufacturer's BEVs, and delay
| electrification too, because Toyota's actual battery tech
| that exist is far behind their competitors.
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
| [deleted]
| xoa wrote:
| > _very difficult to find a carbon free alternative that
| isn't hydrogen._
|
| The basic mistake you're making here is thinking that "carbon
| free" is key. It is not, what matters is that a given energy
| source is carbon _NEUTRAL_. Anthropogenic global warming is
| driven primarily by _net_ increase in atmospheric CO2 on our
| timescale. When CO2 in consumed from the atmosphere, and then
| shortly released again (textbook example being a plant fixing
| CO2 /H2O into sugar and the getting eaten by an animal and
| the animal the metabolizing sugar back to CO2/H2O) the short
| term net change is zero. The problem has come from releasing
| stored carbon that was fixed in geologically long term ways,
| ie, fossil fuels.
|
| We're used to thinking of "hydrocarbons" as equivalent to
| "fossil fuels" but that's not true. It's perfectly possible
| to directly synthesize any hydrocarbon from atmospheric CO2,
| water, and zero carbon energy like solar. Burning those
| hydrocarbons later will result in net zero change to
| atmospheric CO2, and thus are perfectly acceptable from an
| AGW POV (at ground level in particular burning fuels have
| other pollution issues that may be worth getting away from,
| but not global warming). The issue is "just" cost, it's much
| more inefficient and thus costlier to go solar -> fuel
| synthesis -> combustion -> useful work vs solar ->
| transmission -> battery -> work. But for applications where
| battery energy density is insufficient or other properties
| are required (like high performance aircraft that use fuel as
| coolant as well as energy) that could be worth it.
|
| So green hydrogen directly faces not just batteries, but
| green methane, gasoline and other hydrocarbons. Which are
| far, far easier to work with and have many better properties
| than hydrogen itself. And on top of course feed seamlessly
| into existing infrastructure and system.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Steel production _really_ needs hydrogen though. Hopefully
| the first test-production facilities will come online soon
| in Sweden. But I agree on for instance air travel. Don 't
| faff around with hydrogen in planes. Convert the hydrogen
| to something liquid, like the Porsche e-fuel, then use it
| in regular jet turbofans.
| bluGill wrote:
| The processes to make synthetic fuels are well known have
| proven to scale to a countries needs for energy. Germany
| did it in WWII, South Africa did it for a while too.
|
| The problem is it costs a lot of energy, and so it ends up
| 4-5 times more expensive than oil from a well.
| nrr wrote:
| I've seen some presentations over the last half a decade
| that are trying to couple this to fission as a form of
| cogeneration, and the carbon capture story for the
| resulting hydrocarbon synthfuels is pretty compelling.
| xoa wrote:
| > _The problem is it costs a lot of energy, and so it
| ends up 4-5 times more expensive than oil from a well._
|
| The real problem there though of course is that oil from
| the a well has always been cheating by not pricing in its
| externalities. To get an apples-to-apples comparison with
| synthetic fuel, fossil fuel would also have to be made at
| a minimum [0] carbon net neutral too, such as by running
| an atmospheric scrubber and ensuring that for every ton
| of carbon coming out of the ground a ton was getting
| captured again in an equivalently long term stable way.
|
| ----
|
| 0: Fossil fuel extraction has always resulted in a ton of
| other externalities too, not just in terms of massive
| non-carbon pollution but geopolitical costs. That itself
| may well be a driver, if a country can switch fully to
| renewable/nuclear power and then run its entire economy
| solely off of that via grid/batteries/synthetic
| hydrocarbons the security implications alone are pretty
| massive. No more fossil fuel blackmail from hostile
| regimes, ever.
| malchow wrote:
| Are you referring to hydrogen as a mobility fuel specifically?
| I generally agree.
|
| However, it is a critical large-scale industrial input, a
| replacement industrial input for several additional large
| industries, and an excellent large-scale stationary energy
| store.
| mohaine wrote:
| Is it an excellent large-scale stationary energy store
| though?
|
| I mean, it seems like it should be but
|
| * Hydrogen really likes to leak.
|
| * Hydrogen breaks down the container holding it over time.
|
| * Hydrogen is very low density. This means you need either a
| very large container or very high pressure. Combined with 1
| and 2 this is going to be expensive.
|
| I'm really asking the question. I would love to know the full
| cost difference with current tech vs other options.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > * Hydrogen really likes to leak.
|
| Yes, but the rate of leakage is tiny enough that for any
| reasonable sized tank it's going to be years till it's all
| leaked away.
|
| The real risk is the leakage causing explosions if you ever
| put a tank in a confined space.
| jfengel wrote:
| It leaks a lot faster if it corrodes a hole in the
| container. Hydrogen is fairly reactive.
| pixl97 wrote:
| That's probably only the 'primary' real risk, there are
| some number of secondary real risks of hydrogen being a
| very reactive chemical. Not in the flammable boom boom,
| but the interacting with stuff it shouldn't and causing
| degradation and corrosion.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Am not well versed on these considerations but it appears one
| advantage of hydrogen is energy density compared to batteries.
| This may be less an issue for passenger vehicles but could be
| more relevant for air travel - as an example. No comments or
| opinions otherwise re: funding etc.
|
| Found the below article useful as a primer:
|
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/articles/fuel-cell-and...
| DriverDaily wrote:
| Anybody who needs to run 24/7 and/or can't count on an
| electric grid could use hydrogen power: A logistics network,
| an army, public transportation, utility companies, foresting
| or mining...
| lazide wrote:
| Or they could just use the well known
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process to
| convert it the rest of the way to a hydrocarbon, not have
| the pesky raw hydrogen issues, and be able to use all their
| existing infrastructure to burn it? With the advantage of
| pulling carbon from the air in the process?
| dieselgate wrote:
| This is a technical requirement often overlooked by the
| Consumer Market compared to the Commercial Market - the
| heavy and long usage of equipment in remote places
| (generators that run for days or shipping across oceans).
|
| Hydrogen may be a solution along with other hybrid
| approaches (WA state ferry electrification being relevant
| [1])
|
| [1] https://wsdot.wa.gov/construction-planning/major-
| projects/fe...
| Reason077 wrote:
| Not really, because if you don't have access to electricity
| then you very likely don't have access to hydrogen either.
| Hydrogen is much more difficult to transport and store
| compared to natural gas, gasoline, diesel, etc.
| cjrp wrote:
| JCB are heavily in to hydrogen. They've shown how they can
| convert existing diesel equipment, and setup fuel bowsers
| on work sites.
| linsomniac wrote:
| Haven't we tried hydrogen for air travel before? ;-)
| Reason077 wrote:
| It's been used successfully for space travel, in liquid
| (cryogenic) form. The Space Shuttle's main engines ran on
| hydrogen fuel, for example.
|
| However the latest generation of rockets seems to have
| moved away from hydrogen back to things like RP-1
| (kerosene) and liquid methane. The high cost and
| difficulties of working with hydrogen is a factor in this.
| the-dude wrote:
| Hindenburg
| ge96 wrote:
| I thought it was hard to contain since the particle is so
| small (leaks).
|
| Liquid I suppose, temperature concern though.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Engineering Explained occasionally discusses hydrogen energy
| density: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJjKwSF9gT8
| freedude wrote:
| They definitely fly better than a lead balloon (batteries).
| [deleted]
| scythe wrote:
| For boats, fuel cells can make sense. But air travel not only
| requires a high energy density but also a high power density,
| and here the fuel cells are relatively weak even by car
| standards. The alternative is to burn hydrogen, which
| introduces an inefficiency that eats up most of your
| advantage. For a car, you can have a small auxiliary battery,
| but a jet engine will run at max power for several minutes
| continuously during take-off, and for existing jet engines
| the power-to-weight ratio is considered a crucial figure of
| merit.
|
| For hydrogen storage, the DoE targets are truly sobering [1].
| That whittles down hydrogen from roughly 100 times as dense
| as batteries to about 5. Throw a 50% thermodynamic efficiency
| (jet engines are not efficient!) on top of that and hydrogen
| still has an advantage, but it lags quite badly behind jet
| fuel. There have been four decades of intensive government-
| sponsored research effort into hydrogen storage materials,
| but all existing systems in practical use rely on fiber-
| composite tanks at 700 bar.
|
| You get better results with an ammonia-burning jet engine.
| Here the tank weight is negligible and the hydrogen storage
| density is effectively 15% (after correcting for the enthalpy
| of formation). But ammonia still has just half the energy
| density of jet fuel, and it's rather unpleasant to work with.
| Plus, the existing production process of ammonia faces its
| own serious inefficiencies, and extensive investigation of
| more efficient ammonia production has been painstaking with
| only one Japanese startup [3] that is behind its timeline
| (probably a little COVID-influenced) and other contenders at
| lab stage.
|
| With the direct ammonia fuel cell, the power density issue is
| even worse, but the energy density is very good. This
| technology competes well with fossil fuels for weight-
| sensitive applications that do not require high power (DARPA
| has been interested in a DAFC drone). But ammonia fuel cells
| are mostly at lab stage, partially because ammonia production
| remains disappointing (despite a theoretical energy cost of
| zero) despite considerable research effort.
|
| 1: https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage
|
| 2: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-lm&q=tsub
| am...
| spott wrote:
| What kind of energy density? There is energy density by
| volume (where it matches batteries, when you ignore all the
| stuff you need to keep hydrogen at 700bar safe), and energy
| density by weight (where it wins pretty handily against
| pretty much everything).
| dieselgate wrote:
| Am not historically familiar with this topic though the
| attached paper above shows a comparative figure of Specific
| Energy in terms of Wh/Kg at both 5k and 10k psi
|
| Edit: interesting to do the conversion and realize 700bar
| is just over 10k psi - misunderstood the parent comment
| regarding "700bar safe"
|
| Edit2: further interesting to note how the 5k compression
| of the hydrogen has _higher_ Specific Energy density than
| 10k due to _decreased_ pressure vessel requirements
| Retric wrote:
| Just be careful with Hydrogen energy density as there's a
| huge range of non obvious issues. Compressed you lose a
| great deal of energy converting it to kinetic energy and
| weight due to the containers + engines. Fuel cells also
| need electric motors and ideally a hybrid battery.
|
| Cryogenic fuel looks great until you need to have it sit
| around unused. Embrittlement, volume, cost, and a rage of
| safety hazards make it unappealing for aircraft or ships.
|
| So, my guess is the ideal long term solution barring
| "super batteries" is some sort of synthetic hydrocarbons
| that uses atmospheric CO2 but we are a long way from
| viability there.
| Pxtl wrote:
| Once you're already committed to green hydrogen
| (electrolysis-made hydrogen) you may as well go whole hog and
| do green methane (methane made through the Sabatier process,
| which consumes Hydrogen and CO2).
|
| Making a methane-powered jetliner is far more practical than
| a hydrogen-powered one.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| That's right, but there's an even better option: making
| synthetic kerosene from green H2 and CO2 so it can be used
| in existing jetliners.
| idontpost wrote:
| > My gut is that the majority of hydrogen proponents are oil
| and gas lobbyists or funded by them
|
| I don't understand how any one looks at the electric car
| charging situation and thinks it makes sense to scale that out
| to 100% of vehicles.
|
| A 2 hour wait to get a charger spot isn't a workable transport
| system.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Have you seen the queues for H2 stations? 2 hours is peanuts.
|
| Also: the longest wait I've had in the almost 3 years I've
| owned an EV has been about 15 minutes and in that case it was
| a couple who had clearly rented an EV and was charging it for
| the first time ever.
|
| The infrastructure is perfectly solvable. The US is just at a
| disadvantage because gasoline is practically free over there
| compared to the rest of the world so there isn't that much of
| an incentive to improve the charging infrastructure.
|
| As a reference, currently gasoline at the station near to me
| is $7.47/gallon, which actually pretty cheap. The most
| expensive price here is $9.24/gallon at the moment.
|
| Compare that to electricity, which costs 0.02c/kWh right now.
| That's 0,0002EUR/kWh. Looking at the market price it'll dip
| down to -0.18c/kWh in the morning hours, they're literally
| paying people to use electricity =)
| jsight wrote:
| Even in the US it is mostly a solved problem for Tesla
| owners. There are a few places that are consistently
| problematic (eg, Las Vegas), but there are new stalls
| planned there to help.
|
| Several companies are in the early stages of national DCFC
| rollouts. It will get better quickly in a lot of places.
| marssaxman wrote:
| The future is public transport.
| troupe wrote:
| The decline in passenger trains seems to indicate that
| future is headed in the other direction.
| wongarsu wrote:
| The envisioned car charging situation is that you charge your
| car at home or at work. Cars sit unused 99% of the time, they
| can use that time charging without issues.
|
| What we are experiencing now is transitional, where people
| use infrastructure intended for road-trips for their daily
| needs. That phase will pass
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| I charge at my parking spot with around 2-2.5kW power use.
| With that I'll get about 100-150km of range overnight
| easily. I drive less than that daily, which means my car's
| battery is full practically all the time.
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| Almost all charging is done at home.
| jsight wrote:
| I don't see why you'd look at a 2 hour wait somewhere and
| extrapolate that out as an impossible problem. Show an EV
| nerd a video of a 2 hour wait and they can probably tell you
| where it happened and maybe even when, because that is really
| unusual.
|
| This is a solvable problem.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > 2 hour wait to get a charger spot isn't a workable
| transport system.
|
| That rules out widespread use of hydrogen, then. Hydrogen
| filling stations need to periodically recompress their
| hydrogen. Which is never a problem because current hydrogen
| stations are virtually always idle. However, if they were
| continuously busy, you'd have to wait.
| asdff wrote:
| If the case for the battery was objectively better, oil
| companies would pull a phillip morris and buy out their
| antithesis to profit on both ends. The fact that they are
| doubling down on hydrogen itself I think its really
| interesting. To me, this shows that perhaps there is a true
| advantage, and also a high enough barrier to entry where only
| these oil companies at the scale they already exist can reap
| the most benefit. Its hard to know where the truth actually
| lies due to our propaganda/media environment, but I think these
| actions at least do inform of it a little.
| gmane wrote:
| Like BP? https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/bp-joins-forces-
| with-harmony...
|
| or Exxon?
| https://www.aa.com.tr/en/p/duyurular/1002/exxonmobil-
| launche...
|
| or Chevron? https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/ev-charging-
| startup-ele...
| [deleted]
| PaulKeeble wrote:
| Hydrogen can be captured out of some of the oil wells they
| have. Its not about producing it from green energy they have
| a plan to keep extracting it from the ground.
| timschmidt wrote:
| Nissan has famously owned the patent on large format NiCad
| batteries without producing them or offering them for sale on
| the open market. So you're right.
| pixl97 wrote:
| "If the case for digital cameras was objectively better Kodak
| would have bought up chip companies and profited on both
| sides".....
| pie420 wrote:
| "If the case for digital video consumption was objectively
| better, Blockbuster would have bought Netflix to profit on
| both ends"
| reducesuffering wrote:
| Hydrogen was pushed by the Japanese government because BEV's
| aren't as ideally suited to the country's economy and
| resources. It's not a coincidence the only two companies making
| hydrogen cars were both the largest Japanese automakers, Toyota
| and Honda. And both of those models are economic failures
| atypical of their usual engineering prowess.
|
| Toyota Mirai sales have been flatlined at low ~1-2k since they
| started, for 7 years: https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/toyota-
| mirai-sales-figures-usa...
|
| While Tesla immediately had ever-growing sales:
| https://www.goodcarbadcar.net/tesla-us-sales-figures/
| jacquesm wrote:
| Toyota is said to lose in excess of $100k per hydrogen car.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" BEV's aren't as ideally suited to the country's economy
| and resources."_
|
| BEVs are better suited to Japan's economy and resources than
| any other fuel, the vast majority of which is imported
| (including natural gas).
|
| It's just that it's taken Japan's government a long time to
| realise this. But it seems like they're finally coming
| around!
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The Japanese electric grid is even worse than the one in
| the US.
|
| Their grid is a mix of 60Hz and 50Hz networks because of
| weird historical reasons. It's also single-phase, which
| isn't the best for mass EV charging.
|
| Compare that to, say, Finland where every single apartment
| and house has three-phase power. 3x16A or 3x32A usually.
| It's completely trivial to install a 11kW home charger for
| example, it's just running some cables and maybe adding a
| load balancer - all 100yo tech.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Most Japanese houses do not have parking garages or
| private parking spaces, so the ability to charge from
| home is irrelevant.
|
| But in any case, single phase is fine for home charging
| and it's the default in many parts of the world. Three
| phase charging is a nice luxury, but far from a
| necessity.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| In many Japanese cities you won't get a permit to buy a
| car unless you can prove you have a place to park it.
| Curbside parking isn't a thing.
|
| So in those cases it really is irrelevant whether you can
| charge or not =)
| super256 wrote:
| What about using hydrogen in lorries/trucks? I see that
| argument thrown around often in hydrogen vs battery
| discussions.
| crote wrote:
| It's an option.
|
| But short-range trucks can operate with batteries just fine,
| and for long-range trucks it might end up being more viable
| to just construct overhead wires[0] above long-distance
| highways and avoid the problem altogether.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg
| theshrike79 wrote:
| For long-haul trucks it's a viable option. I think there's a
| large-ish test fleet in Switzerland.
|
| But for personal vehicles it's 100% dead unless we get some
| huge advances in the technology.
| tw04 wrote:
| I don't blame you for being skeptical, but it isn't just the
| oil and gas industry. The Japanese government went all-in on
| hydrogen.
|
| https://thediplomat.com/2023/07/a-look-at-japans-latest-hydr...
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Japan is clinging to hydrogen like a drowning man to
| driftwood.
|
| About 80% of Japan's energy is imported coal and natural gas.
| Their electric grid is a bonkers mix of 50Hz and 60Hz single-
| phase.
|
| Hydrogen is the only viable solution for them and even that's
| not going too well despite lofty goals. They can't build the
| tech and infrastructure alone and the rest of the world just
| isn't as enthusiastic on H2.
| jbm wrote:
| The 50Hz and 60Hz is an accident of history and neatly
| splits the country in half. It's not a problem.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Their domestic voltage is also 100v. I've never thought
| about it before but it does seem like that might pose
| some challenges in electrifying their road
| transportation. 240v is considerably more useful when you
| are trying to suck down 7kw or more.
| jbm wrote:
| Now that you mention it, the electric connection in my
| home in Tokyo was much worse than the one I have in
| Calgary. They might have connections of 60 amps [1] or
| less where I lived (whereas my home in Calgary has a 100
| amp connection which can be upgraded to 200 if I paid for
| it)
|
| [1] Found this here (https://www4.tepco.co.jp/en/customer
| /guide/moving-e.html), I don't recall what exactly it was
| where I lived.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| It is a problem, because there's limited capacity to move
| electricity between the systems. You can just plug them
| together, they have essentially two separate grids.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| I think it would be a problem if they had ten tiny grids,
| but is two decently sized grids that are in roughly the
| same time zone (so peak solar doesn't need to go from A
| to B) a big deal?
| elihu wrote:
| I think that may be due to pressure from their automotive
| industry, who for whatever reason are very resistant to
| making battery electric cars.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| It's because batteries are expensive to produce, maintain,
| and are not as environmentally friendly as going from solar
| directly to hydrogen via electrolysis. There's more parity
| for existing fossil fuel engine use cases with hydrogen as
| well.
| gmane wrote:
| Sure, and it's by and large viewed as a complete failure[0].
| Is your argument that we should repeat that failure?
|
| [0] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-
| tech/a4266501...
| tw04 wrote:
| No? I'm not sure why you jumped to attack me when I was
| simply providing a counter-point to your claim that it's
| all "oil and gas". I drive an EV, I'm quite happy with it.
|
| As to the article: they fail to mention that Japan hasn't
| even begun to throw in the towel. The newest CEO of Toyota
| is doubling down on hydrogen powered vehicles.
|
| https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report/toyotas-bold-us-
| pla...
| appleiigs wrote:
| Also, it's not a complete failure according to the
| article he mentions "The 20-page report doesn't argue for
| hydrogen's complete removal from the energy mix. In fact,
| REI argues that hydrogen is vital for industries where
| decarbonization is particularly tricky (think: aviation,
| shipping, and steelmaking). However, to use hydrogen in
| place of electrification via other renewable sources is a
| mistake, REI says."
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Japan has little traditional fossil fuels, but they were
| making a lot of noise about exploiting the methane
| hydrate in their seas:
|
| > Methane hydrate is confirmed to exist abundantly in the
| sea near Japan and is expected to become one of the
| domestic energy resources of the future
|
| https://www.japex.co.jp/en/technology/research/mh/
|
| So in this case, they're really just a subset of the "oil
| and gass industry" boosting hydrogen vehicles.
| londons_explore wrote:
| You know what _does_ make it make sense?
|
| If you can take natural gas out of the ground, split it into
| hydrogen and CO2 (releasing heat, which can be used to generate
| electricity), and inject the CO2 back underground to help
| release more oil and gas.
|
| At this point, you have hydrogen gas.
|
| Sure, you could burn that hydrogen to make more electricity,
| but it works out financially better if you can directly use it.
|
| The benefit of this approach is it can make use of most of the
| existing oil and gas infrastructure, and countries sitting on
| big gas reserves have a use for them.
|
| The downside is it makes minimal sense unless there is some
| financial disincentive from just burning the gas and releasing
| the CO2.
| crote wrote:
| Unfortunately it is a bit tricky in practice, and still have
| a very significant global warming footprint[0]. You're never
| going to capture 100% of the CO4, and oil and gas wells tend
| to leak quite a lot of methane to the atmosphere.
|
| So-called "blue" hydrogen only results in about 10% less GHG
| emissions than traditional "grey" hydrogen. It's _something_
| , but not big enough of a difference to actually be usable.
|
| [0]:
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ese3.956
| theshrike79 wrote:
| You hit the nail on the head, this is why oil companies are
| pro-hydrogen.
|
| They can greenwash their natural gas into "green" hydrogen
| and get even more profits. H2 prices are at least 5-10x
| compared to natural gas.
| espadrine wrote:
| Isn't that effectively what they call "blue hydrogen"[0]? All
| oil companies seem very slow in deploying that; there is no
| question that it is much more expensive than just releasing
| the CO2 in the air.
|
| [0]: https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/what-we-do/delivering-
| indus...
| londons_explore wrote:
| I think oil+gas companies are currently just waiting for
| the right moment to deploy it.
|
| Blue hydrogen _only_ makes sense with global carbon caps,
| taxes or quotas. And it _only_ makes sense if CO2 injected
| underground doesn 't count towards that cap/tax/quota.
|
| So far, there is no political appetite for global
| taxes/caps/quotas, so blue hydrogen is only at pilot-plant
| scale.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| This is similar to fracking, no? Doesn't it have the same
| seismic/water table problems?
| katbyte wrote:
| Yep. And it won't be 100% efficient. The energy to capture
| and store the co2 is likely greater then the energy you get
| in hydrogen
| londons_explore wrote:
| CO2 reduces the viscosity of oil, and helps get more oil
| out of the oil well.
|
| Even ignoring climate benefits, it's _still_ worth
| pumping CO2 down the well for financial reasons alone -
| especially towards the end of the lifespan of classical
| oil wells.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| My understanding is liquid hydrogen could be a contender for a
| green jet fuel alternative. Batteries are too heavy.
| MBCook wrote:
| The big problem is that fueling with liquid hydrogen is not
| easy. Getting things down to that temperature is not easy.
| Getting hydrogen cleanly is not easy.
|
| I mean if hydrogen was just as abundant in the atmosphere as
| oxygen and didn't need to be at ridiculous temperatures to be
| liquid, it would be a great fuel.
|
| But to keep things green you're fighting a ton of trade-offs
| using electricity, it which point why don't you just use the
| electricity directly?
| konschubert wrote:
| My understanding of the airline industry is that it will be
| MUCH easier to further synthesise that green hydrogen into
| proper jet fuel than to build and certify a jet that runs on
| Hydrogen.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I think we'll see a synthetic version of jet fuel before we
| see a hydrogen powered plane in mass production.
|
| Far less trouble to store and use and much higher energy
| density, also works with existing airframes (fuel tanks!) and
| engines.
| konschubert wrote:
| Plus it works with the FAA and with the existing expertise
| in the Airline industry.
| [deleted]
| askvictor wrote:
| The problem is that oil/gas companies see their impending
| demise. They are good at moving flammable things through pipes.
| Electricity is not that, and if it takes hold, they're in for a
| _major_ pivot. So they do what they've always done.
| ant6n wrote:
| The fdp, a small german party part of government, that holds
| the traffic ministry, managed to block an EU-wide phase-out of
| ICE vehicles to promote e-fuels. Whats e-fuels you ask? Its
| even more ridiculous than hydrogen cars - using renewable
| energy to synthesize fossil fuels. The beauty is that this
| makes ICE vehicles supposedly green, so then you can just keep
| selling them forever. And at some point down the line u just
| kill the e-fuel requirement.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| Batteries go bad over a rather short period of time and are
| incredibly expensive too. They're basically currently
| infeasible as a mode of transport without _a lot_ of trade
| offs. Compare that to a tank for fuel, which is comparatively
| minuscule in cost and basically never goes bad. I don't think
| electrical is as scalable as liquid fuel and I'm not convinced
| it ever will be, especially if it's continued to be made by
| exotic materials.
| robertjpayne wrote:
| Fuel definitely goes bad, at least once the storage is in
| vehicles. The petroleum industry keeps peddling all this FUD
| about how awful batteries are.
|
| The difference is batteries can be improved (and there's a
| tooooon of $$$$ pouring into this problem) and they are
| improving. Petroleum is a dead end while batteries, solar,
| and electrical grids have a bright future and lost of room
| for growth.
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| Liquid fuel is inherently unscalable, it is a finite
| resource.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| How long is a "rather short period of time"? There are decade
| old EV batteries still in use and over 80% SOH.
|
| And fuel definitely goes bad. It doesn't work like in the
| movies where you can just find a 30 year old car in the
| desert and grab more fuel for your awesome roadwarrior
| vehicle. You can use additives to make it last longer and
| store better, but still.
|
| As for "exotic materials" we're figuring out new battery
| chemistries at a record pace. Some are better for vehicles,
| that need a good kWh/kg ratio. Others are better for grid
| storage where kWh/EUR is a more relevant measurement.
| elihu wrote:
| I think the point the post you're replying to was making is
| that the gas tank itself doesn't usually go bad. It's true
| you can't just let gas sit in a tank forever, but with EVs
| it's also true that you can't usually just leave a battery
| to sit unused for years; eventually, it'll self-discharge
| below a threshold where it becomes permanently damaged.
|
| I do agree that battery "problems" are exaggerated -- most
| will last a very long time, and batteries that don't use
| cobalt and nickel are available now. Sodium-ion might be
| relatively common in a few years for low-end applications.
| elihu wrote:
| > "Batteries go bad over a rather short period of time"
|
| Not really. They do gradually lose capacity over a long time,
| but it's a slow process. The US Government requires EV
| batteries to have an 8 year / 100,000 mile warranty, and
| California requires 10 years and 150,000 miles. I expect most
| batteries will significantly exceed that.
|
| LFP batteries generally have about 3x the longevity of other
| lithium ion types.
|
| There are some examples of early battery failures, like the
| Nissan Leaf didn't use liquid cooling; now basically everyone
| else learned from their example and does it. Chevy Bolts had
| a battery recall due to bad manufacturing. Basically, if a
| battery fails early someone somewhere screwed up. Most EV
| batteries are fine and will continue to be fine for a very
| long time.
|
| >> "I'm not convinced it ever will be, especially if it's
| continued to be made by exotic materials."
|
| Resource constraints are an issue, but there are workarounds.
| Nickel and cobalt can be avoided simply by using LFP cells.
| Permanent magnet motors are more efficient than induction,
| but the permanent magnets don't need to be based on rare-
| earth elements -- it's just that the non-rare-earth-magnet
| version would be less powerful and/or bulkier. Similarly you
| could wind the motors with aluminum instead of copper, and
| the motor would be less powerful and/or bulkier. But that's
| fine -- electric motors are already quite a bit smaller and
| more powerful than they need to be anyways.
|
| Lithium is probably the hardest-to-get-around resource
| constraint with current technology, but lithium production is
| ramping up.
|
| Also worth noting that the need for large batteries would be
| substantially reduced if were to invest heavily into charging
| infrastructure and even the electrification of roads so that
| cars don't even need to stop. (There are some projects in
| Sweden and Germany along those lines.)
| baq wrote:
| Batteries are heavy, expensive and we don't have infrastructure
| to charge them at the required scale.
|
| I don't believe hydrogen is the answer but methane cells could
| be... liquid energy storage is just so much more practical
| compared to alternatives.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| _You_ don't. We do.
|
| There are 6 over 100kW charging spots under 1km of my house.
| Although I don't need any of them, because I can charge where
| I park at 2kW all day and night.
| wilg wrote:
| Well, we have a power grid and not a hydrogen grid.
| linkjuice4all wrote:
| We (in the US) have very little hydrogen infrastructure but
| there's high voltage power lines basically everywhere - so it
| seems like hydrogen has the infrastructure and scaling
| issues.
|
| Batteries are indeed heavy - but so are portable hydrogen
| storage cell that don't easily explode or require liquid
| cooling.
|
| I agree with you that hydrogen isn't the answer but methane
| doesn't really seem to be either. Batteries and electric cars
| are already here - they just need to continue scaling the
| infrastructure and work on lightening up the vehicles.
| LtWorf wrote:
| There isn't enough infrastructure to power all the eventual
| electric cars.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| You're right, we'll need about 20% more electricity if we
| replaced all our ICE cars with electric ones. If we stop
| selling gas cars in 2035 then by about 2045 we'll hit
| ~99% electric cars.
|
| Are you implying we can't increase our infrastructure by
| 20% in 20 years?
| pie420 wrote:
| There wasn't enough silicon wafer manufacturing
| infrastructure in 2005 to meet global silicon wafer
| demand in 2023 either, yet somehow humans magically got
| together, invested money, built plants, and wow, a decade
| and a half later there is silicon wafer manufacturing
| infrastructure to meet global demand.
|
| Imagine not understanding the ability for humans to build
| things. Pretty sure the comment i'm responding to is a
| gas industry shill.
| natch wrote:
| Yet.
| ben_w wrote:
| This is one reason I like to suggest putting PV onto cars
| directly, even though normal shaped cars will only get
| 8-12 miles of extra range per day from this, and even
| though the surface of a vehicle is one of the worst
| places for PV cells: 8-12 miles per vehicle per day makes
| a big difference to the overall infrastructure
| requirements.
| dangus wrote:
| "We don't have the infrastructure" is a temporary problem.
| The same could have been said about gas stations and the
| electrical grid capacity needed for widespread air
| conditioning.
|
| Weight isn't such a crazy thing either. The Tesla Model Y
| long range weighs 900 pounds more than a Honda CRV. It's a
| lot, but the most popular car in America is the Ford F-150
| which weighs about the same as a Model Y at the low end.
|
| The weight efficiency can only improve from here and more
| charging infrastructure and faster recharge times will mean
| less demand for long range variants. This is ideal for
| electrics because shorter frequent stops are more time
| efficient for EVs while for gas vehicles it's the opposite.
|
| The great thing about electricity is that it's even easier to
| transport and generate than liquid fuel storage. Generation
| can be centralized with a diverse set of energy sources.
| ninkendo wrote:
| > The weight efficiency can only improve from here
|
| I don't think this is a given. I can imagine plenty of
| future battery tech that is much more physically dense, and
| also more energy-dense, but with an overall mass that's
| heavier than what we have now. Consumers really want more
| range, and they don't really care about their car's weight
| so long as it isn't prohibitive. (They will definitely care
| collectively as the roads deteriorate faster and they have
| to pay more in tax dollars and wasted time spent in
| construction to repair them, but that will end up being a
| tragedy of the commons.)
| nithril wrote:
| Is range really an issue if you can easily find charging
| spot and recharge in less than 15min?
| ninkendo wrote:
| It is in the mind of consumers, yes (I have not offered
| my personal opinion and don't want to, as it's irrelevant
| to the point.) There has been a lot of consumer studies
| on this and range anxiety is a very real thing.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > They will definitely care collectively as the roads
| deteriorate faster and they have to pay more in tax
| dollars and wasted time spent in construction to repair
| them, but that will end up being a tragedy of the commons
|
| The difference in wear between a 3600 pound RAV4 and a
| 4400 pound Model Y is so minor that it'll disappear in
| the noise. Nobody will notice. The only time it'll even
| come close to mattering is on residential streets that
| never see any commercial trucks. And even then, nobody
| cares now about the 6500 pound HD pickups that are so
| popular, so I can't see why that would suddenly become an
| issue.
| ninkendo wrote:
| I mean, if we're picking models to support our points,
| I'd counter with the Hummer EV which is 9,630 lbs. Road
| wear goes up with the 4th power of weight, so doubling
| the weight increases road wear 16x... it's not something
| we should just ignore.
| vel0city wrote:
| About the infrastructure. I've got many ways to recharge my
| car available today. I've got zero places to fill hydrogen. I
| don't even have many CNG options.
| jackmott42 wrote:
| >we don't have infrastructure to charge them at the required
| scale.
|
| Yeah we do, or to be more precise, we are having no trouble
| expanding the infrastructure at the same rate people are
| buying the cars.
| numbers_guy wrote:
| Your comment contains no substance. You are just pushing a
| conspiracy theory.
|
| Hydrogen based fuels make sense on multiple fronts: long term
| storage (batteries cannot do this), scale (adding more tanks is
| cheaper than whole battery packs) and energy/power densities
| are still above what the best batteries can provide.
| otabdeveloper4 wrote:
| Putting two tons of highly toxic and flammable lithium into a
| car-shaped object just to commute one person a few dozen miles
| is quite literally _insane_ from all practical points of view.
|
| Our ancestors will never believe that we were nuts enough to
| not only allow this, but actually _legally manndate_ it. They
| will think it 's an urban legend and no ancient people could
| have been so short-sighted and egotistical.
| _gtly wrote:
| A canister of hydrogen in your car isn't exactly safe,
| either!!
| jackvalentine wrote:
| The insane bit when you look at it logically is the car
| shaped object part - we drive around in and store portable
| living rooms.
| wongarsu wrote:
| We currently put toxic and highly flammable gasoline into
| car-shaped objects. The car needs to carry its energy with it
| somehow. Energetic things tend to be flammable and toxic,
| since those are just uncontrolled ways to release energy
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Putting two tons of highly toxic and flammable lithium
|
| Maybe cut back on the hyperbole a bit. Two tons is the entire
| car. The lithium content of the battery is 15-20 pounds. And
| it's not straight lithium metal that becomes flammable in the
| presence of water. It's the electrolytes that are flammable.
| And most EVs in the world use LFP, which doesn't have that
| flammability problem.
| elihu wrote:
| LFPs are flammable too, they just don't tend to ignite as
| easily. I suspect they're probably easier to put out, but I
| don't know for sure.
|
| (I'd be curious what the real-life vehicle fire statistics
| actually are so far for regular lithium ion versus LFP. LFP
| is promoted as being safer, but at this point there should
| be enough vehicle fire statistics to be able to quantify
| how much safer they are. The Tesla Model 3 might be a good
| model to compare because it's available in both versions,
| though maybe there just aren't enough model 3 fires to be
| statistically significant.)
| xtorol wrote:
| Any mechanism that can store enough energy to get a car from
| point A to point B is going to store a nontrivial amount of
| energy and be subject to some eyebrow-raising failure modes.
| This applies to gasoline, diesel fuel, batteries, and all
| flavors of hydrogen.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Or possibly our descendants ;)
| parker_mountain wrote:
| Fun fact: per mile driven, there are about 1/10th to 1/5th as
| many EV fires, as there are gas car fires.
|
| Putting ten gallons of highly toxic and flammable fuel into a
| car-shaped object just to commute one person a few dozen
| miles is quite literally insane from all practical points of
| view. Electric tech is marginally less crazy, and also a step
| forward.
| [deleted]
| duskwuff wrote:
| > Putting ten gallons of highly toxic and flammable fuel
| into a car-shaped object just to commute one person a few
| dozen miles is quite literally insane from all practical
| points of view.
|
| And there's another 10-20 gallons of various oils in the
| engine and transmission. While they aren't nearly as
| volatile as the gasoline, they're still quite flammable.
| Really, it's a wonder these things were ever allowed. :)
| giardini wrote:
| duskwuff says: _> "And there's another 10-20 gallons of
| various oils in the engine and transmission. While they
| aren't nearly as volatile as the gasoline, they're still
| quite flammable"<_
|
| 1. Off by an order of magnitude: ~4-6 quarts of oil in
| the motor, about the same for the transmission yielding
| for a large motor about 2 gallons total.
|
| 2. duskwuff says _> "they're still quite flammable."<_
| Nonsense. Engine oil is so hard to burn that it is not
| classified as flammable by OSHA:
|
| https://firefighterinsider.com/is-motor-oil-flammable-
| you-ma...
|
| Furthermore these oils are encased in heavy metal (the
| engine block, the transmission block and the differential
| casing).
|
| Starting batteries (the 6- and 12-volt kind) cause more
| fires than do engine and/or transmission oils.
|
| To paraphrase Charlton Heston: "I'll give you my gasoline
| car when you can pry it from my cold, greasy, dead
| hands."
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > quite literally insane from all practical points of view
|
| Erm. I don't think that's true.
| r87 wrote:
| I'd expect that, but would have assumed it is due to there
| being more old gas vehicles on the road. Is that data
| normalized for age of the cars driven?
|
| I assume that my neighbors 30 year old gas guzzler is more
| likely to catch fire than my 1 year old PHEV for example
| (or maybe I'm more likely since I have both a lithium
| battery and a gas tank).
| freedude wrote:
| That fun fact may be true, but ask any firefighter that has
| had to put out a lithium based car fire how fun that fact
| is. The lithium based fires require 12-15 times the amount
| of water to extinguish.
| jsight wrote:
| They can also be put out with a blanket apparently.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv2L_QYg4oA
|
| Although weirdly enough the video demonstration doesn't
| seem to be of a battery fire. :facepalm
| oblio wrote:
| > Putting two tons of highly toxic and flammable lithium into
| a car-shaped object just to commute one person a few dozen
| miles is quite literally insane from all practical points of
| view.
|
| And ICEs are powered by many thousands of mini explosions per
| minute with a side effect of producing an odorless gas that
| can kill us silently.
|
| Everything can be scaremongered.
|
| And personal transportation, as much as I wish wasn't the
| case, is a fact of life since 1910.
| tremon wrote:
| What happened in 1910? The first automobile dates from
| 1886, and I'm pretty sure the horse&buggy personal
| transportation method predates it by several centuries.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| I still believe there is potential for hydrogen/ammonia/methane
| fuel to be a seasonal storage mechanism. Battery technology
| does not seem capable of offering grid scale storage for the
| entirety of Winter. While the solar->fuel->electricity
| conversion takes huge efficiency hits, for "free" renewable
| energy, it can still pencil out as economical. Plus, it is
| feasible today without unobtanium (but not currently cost
| competitive vs fossil fuels)
| redox99 wrote:
| > seasonal storage mechanism
|
| Is this even needed? With solar, wind, etc storing more than
| a few days worth of energy seems very wasteful.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| Hydrogen is _really_ hard to store. It leaks from every
| container, transport and storage losses are just an accepted
| fact.
|
| It might be a good option when we have so much renewables
| that we can't find any more batteries to shove it in. Then we
| can use it to store compressed hydrogen, that can be released
| as electricity from large-scale fuel cells during calm cloudy
| days.
| bparsons wrote:
| There are good use cases for both technologies.
|
| For smaller, lighter vehicles in warmer climates, lithium
| batteries make a lot of sense.
|
| For heavy, long haul trucks that require minimal refueling,
| hydrogen fuel cell makes a lot of sense.
|
| You need to build out the infrastructure for both.
| flkenosad wrote:
| Finally, not an either/or perspective.
| beefandcheese wrote:
| Its mostly the infrasctructure thats the problem though. Its
| complex, expensive and overall just less efficient than full
| EV. Ageing wheels has an entertaining vid of the Toyota Mirai
| where he discusses the pros and cons of hydrogen.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtZQLUtckS4
| theshrike79 wrote:
| The difference here is that long haul infrastructure needs a H2
| station every 200 maybe 300 kilometers.
|
| For personal vehicles we need orders of magnitude more, because
| refuelling a H2 vehicle is even slower than liquid fuels.
| freedude wrote:
| In a free market-based economy all options are on the table. An
| entrepreneur (like Elon Musk) can invest in a technology and
| market it in such a way to capture some share of the market.
|
| I would encourage these "oil executives" to find creative
| solutions. Diverse market options drive costs down and promote
| innovative products. To say one technology is always better than
| another because "some oil executive" does or doesn't promote it,
| is FUD. In tech we hear enough FUD we should be immune to it. We
| are not.
|
| It is a proven fact enough electricity is not produced to handle
| the charging of enough BEVs to replace the current number of ICE
| vehicles. We need more options not fewer.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| It's incredible that the oil lobby can so persistently and
| flagrantly spread disinformation to the extent that they have for
| decades. I suppose this is what happens when you have enough
| money to out-lobby everyone.
|
| It's not only electric cars either, recently they've been
| propping up opposition to wind farms off of the new england coast
| by posing as environmentalists concerned about whales.
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