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After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

economist.com

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Re: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

#251

Post by esperent »

BurningFrog wrote: post #228
walrus01 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly curious what is the big challenge with keeping large arrays of ground mounted panels clean in Pakistan. The prevailing wage for unskilled labor for a 6 day a week, 45-hour work week for one laborer to clean panels is probably about $250-300 a month (USD equivalent, in rupees) in that area. That would be a good wage compared to construction work or farm work in that region. With some basic equipment like…

Windshield wipers are a mature and cheap technology that seems applicable.

They are designed to clean water off glass. I've never lived in a dessert area so I may be wrong, but I expect they're not great for cleaning large amounts of dry dust and dirt off at least without using huge amounts of water.

Re: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

#252

Post by jillesvangurp »

jitendrac wrote: post #16

I think article missed a really large sector which uses coal and produces millions of tons of co2 each year, That is cement industry. Heating clinker to produce cement is energy intensive long process, where big investments towards technology for using Hydrogen can be fruitful.

Wood is basically emerging as an alternative in this sector lately. There are some wood based building materials coming on the market that are cheap, sustainable, light, safe, strong, etc.

Think people building sky scrapers in areas with exposure to earthquakes and tropical storms safe. I'm talking about Tokyo. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/16/plyscraper-ci...

Hydrogen is not really needed to fix this.

Re: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

#253

Post by deltron3030 »

sacred_numbers wrote: post #144
mongol wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to have seen more elaboration on transmission losses in the power grid. For example, if we imagine solar cells in Sahara generating energy for Europe, is power grid transmission feasible or does hydrogen look better in comparison?

The problem with generating power in the Sahara for use in Europe has little to do with transmission losses and much more to do with the capital cost of building high capacity power lines over thousands of kilometers. There's also the cost of protecting those lines, since they would have to pass through several different countries that are not always politically stable.

It could be an incentive for political stability in those regions if they benefit from it.

Re: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

#254

Post by tenuousemphasis »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #18
speedgoose wrote: post #6

I used to drive a hydrogen car once in a while a few years ago. It was nice to fill the car in a few minutes and get about 300km of range, but that was it. With the hydrogen you have so few refueling stations, they are very expensive, that range anxiety is a thing. To not improve things, reliability is very poor. My work had a hydrogen refueling station on its parking. It was often broken and actually a bit scary to…

The issue of charging was also there with BEVs, until Tesla straight up built a huge network of superchargers. The players in hydrogen say they will do the same. But for personal vehicles, hydrogen won't math out, it's greatest advantage is its energy density for trucks. It's for long range trucks that we will see hydrogen first. Green hydrogen will act as energy storage, big renewables grids can dump excess into gre…

>The issue of charging was also there with BEVs

For long distance trips, yes. But unlike with hydrogen vehicles, charging at home is an incredibly simple proposition for BEVs.

Re: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

#255

Post by tenuousemphasis »

amelius wrote: post #49
speedgoose wrote: post #6

I used to drive a hydrogen car once in a while a few years ago. It was nice to fill the car in a few minutes and get about 300km of range, but that was it. With the hydrogen you have so few refueling stations, they are very expensive, that range anxiety is a thing. To not improve things, reliability is very poor. My work had a hydrogen refueling station on its parking. It was often broken and actually a bit scary to…

> Electric cars with large batteries are a much better solution to hydrogen cars IMHO. Electric cars are still very dangerous when they catch fire though. And the fires are very difficult to control. Especially in multistorey (or underground) car parks. And even more so if there are multiple EVs parked next to eachother.

Gasoline is also quite flammable.

Re: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

#256

Post by mongol »

sacred_numbers wrote: post #144
mongol wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to have seen more elaboration on transmission losses in the power grid. For example, if we imagine solar cells in Sahara generating energy for Europe, is power grid transmission feasible or does hydrogen look better in comparison?

The problem with generating power in the Sahara for use in Europe has little to do with transmission losses and much more to do with the capital cost of building high capacity power lines over thousands of kilometers. There's also the cost of protecting those lines, since they would have to pass through several different countries that are not always politically stable.

Good point. But that could also ve an argument for hydrogen?

Re: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

#257

Post by [deleted] »

superklondike wrote: post #131

EV owner here. Why would I want to drive to a fueling station when I can fuel up at home with electricity? And from a maintenance level, ev’s have substantially fewer parts and almost zero maintenance, whereas hydrogen perpetuates the ICE-engine paradigm... frequent oil changes, many moving parts, lots of service costs at the dealership. The economics of H2 may be different at the commercial scale, but we use a Chevy…

[deleted]

Re: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

#258

Post by kanox »

dmckeon wrote: post #138
atombender wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this diagram from Volkswagen visualizing the energy loss at every step for hydrogen versus BEV: https://images.hgmsites.net/lrg/hydrogen-vs-electric--volksw... This image (don't know the source), which includes oil and coal, is also a good visualization: https://i.imgur.com/Wuhnlvu.png Even simpler: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPkaz0nX4AAcr_v.jpg

With regard to https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPkaz0nX4AAcr_v.jpg if the capture and separate elements can be decentralized, then distribution and one storage phase are eliminated. In other words, if a refueling station can do solar or wind capture and electrolysis on-site, the economics are better. This would be unlikely for stations in urban or high-density areas, but for rural and suburban locations it might be a win…

> if a refueling station can do solar or wind capture and electrolysis on-site, the economics are better.

Are the economics better than just placing that solar or wind plant on the grid and using electricity for battery-powered cars? You still have big losses in electrolysis, compression and then power generation in a fuel cell.

Re: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

#259

Post by sorenbs »

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #192
sorenbs wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 11-15 Tonnes come from the study that you referenced page is disputing? There is a persistent narrative in Germany that diesel cars are better for the environment, and your comment is playing into that. This narrative is wrong and damaging. Why are you doing this?

The paper didn’t dispute anything. It made the point that emissions from battery production depend on the local mix of energy sources. At the time of publication, Germany got 1/3 of its energy mix from coal, hence batteries produced there have a higher emissions profile. What am I ‘doing’ exactly, pointing out a fact that there is no ‘free lunch’ when reducing emissions?

The narrative that diesel cars are better for the environment, which is pushed by the scientists who found the 11-15 tonnes was disputed by your article. From the first section:

“The Belgian newspaper De Standaard published this claim on their website on the 18th of April. We rate this claim as mostly false.”

Again, even if the cost of b battery production in Germany two years ago was 15 tones, it doesn’t matter. Why? Because Germany made almost no car batteries two years ago, and the grid is rapidly decarbonising - in Germany and most of the world.

Now, if you are arguing that it would be better if people lived closer to where they work, and stopped driving cars altogether - I’d agree with that. But cars will continue to be with us for a long time, and the Sonne we can transition the fleet to electric the better.

Re: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now bear fruit

#260

Post by Andys »

jasonlaramburu wrote: post #57
speedgoose wrote: post #6

I used to drive a hydrogen car once in a while a few years ago. It was nice to fill the car in a few minutes and get about 300km of range, but that was it. With the hydrogen you have so few refueling stations, they are very expensive, that range anxiety is a thing. To not improve things, reliability is very poor. My work had a hydrogen refueling station on its parking. It was often broken and actually a bit scary to…

When you consider the energy required to produce lithium ion batteries they are actually worse than fuel cells from an emissions perspective: “As an example, a 100kWh battery will give a potential range of 250 miles and, in order to produce that battery, it will take around 20 tonnes of CO2,” he said. “A typical battery lasts for 150,000 miles, so that equates to around 83g/km of CO2. Then, when you take into account…

That is interesting because 20 tonnes is hardly anything for a home solar system to offset, with PV panels on the roof.
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