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Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

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Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#91

Post by paulintrognon »

pkphilip wrote: post #76
epistasis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cheapest way of charging EVs is from fossil fuels. Fossil fuel electricity is more expensive than wind and solar. Even the most expensive solar, residential, is cheaper than buying from a dirty grid for the vast majority of customers. And the intermittent nature of solar and wind is a perfect match for charging a fleet of EVs. In contrast, green hydrogen is nowhere near as cheap as fossil fuel hydrogen from steam m…

Battery technology isn't very "green" either. Lithium and its alternatives require extensive, polluting mining operations while Hydrogen can be generated from water, water vapor, methane etc.

No energy is green. Not a single energy source does not require some mining / oil extracting at some point. We have to choose the solution which impact as little as possible the environment on global scale.

Beware of the Nirvana Fallacy! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#92

Post by theluketaylor »

threeseed wrote: post #54
dale_glass wrote: post #38

Hydrogen almost certainly won't go anywhere, in my opinion. * The efficiency compared to battery tech is horrendous. * Hydrogen is effectively a storage technology -- we have to generate it and compress it. Which combined with the above means that charging a hydrogen car will always be more expensive than putting the same amount of usable energy into a battery powered car. * Let's not forget that the cheapest way of…

> cheapest way of generating hydrogen is from fossil fuels Cheapest way of charging EVs is from fossil fuels. > You need a large infrastructure to produce and distribute it But you can reuse gas stations as the delivery mechanism. Versus EVs which require all new infrastructure since the charging time is so much longer. > It's a huge chicken and egg problem No different from EVs right now. > What is more convenient,…

> Cheapest way of charging EVs is from fossil fuels.

Solar is now cheaper to install than it costs to operate existing coal and oil power stations. That's a startling fact that really inverts some traditional intuition on carbon emissions.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#93

Post by kenOfYugen »

dale_glass wrote: post #38

Hydrogen almost certainly won't go anywhere, in my opinion. * The efficiency compared to battery tech is horrendous. * Hydrogen is effectively a storage technology -- we have to generate it and compress it. Which combined with the above means that charging a hydrogen car will always be more expensive than putting the same amount of usable energy into a battery powered car. * Let's not forget that the cheapest way of…

I rarely see this mentioned, but you don't have to compress hydrogen that much for transportation/storage. Ongoing research on metal hydrides is promising [1].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_storage#Metal_hydride...

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#94

Post by b112 »

sunstone wrote: post #29

Car maker's attraction for fuel cells is that they neatly replace the internal combustion engine with another large, heavy, hot mechanism that continues to require about the same amount of ongoing maintenance. So the automaker's balance sheet remains about the same but now it's green. As Musk pointed out some years ago, hydrogen is not so much a fuel as it is an energy storage medium. Right out of the gate creating t…

People talk about hooking cars up to the grid, and charging them during times of excess power, and then selling that power back during peak.

Yet, that shorten battery lifespan a lot (imagine a car charged weekly to get around town, now discharged/charged daily... battery life is now 1/7th).

There is also loss during charging, and discharge, loss in power lines too.

Meanwhile, you could create h2 right at the power plant during time of excess. Like at a dam.

Then just send all that stored energy via pipelines, just a with natural gas.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#95

Post by ZeroGravitas »

b112 wrote: post #90
kieranmaine wrote: post #32

My understanding from the article is that Hydrogen vehicles will not be competitive with BEVs in terms of cost per mile for the next 10-20 years. The article states: "An FCEV can drive about 28 miles (45 km) on 1 lb (0.45 kg) of hydrogen" and "If the demand for hydrogen increases, the price could drop to around USD 2.50/lb (USD 5.60/kg) by 2030" Therefore 28 miles will cost 2.5 USD. However, according to ev-database.…

One thing. What happens to the power grid, if power needs double? Certainly, new power plant construction, even if green, will be financed by additional cost to the consumer.

In the UK the grid has published a few white papers on this, and even had to issue corrections because newspapers keep misinterpreting what they say.

Summary, no big deal and in fact smart EV charging tech can actively help the grid and make it easier to use all the cheap power we generate.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#96

Post by b112 »

pkphilip wrote: post #77
varjag wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a rather detailed study on total emission effects of EV lifecyle: https://theicct.org/sites/default/files/publications/EV-life... "An electric vehicle’s higher emissions during the manufacturing stage are paid off after only 2 years compared to driving an average conventional vehicle, a time frame that drops to about one and a half years if the car is charged using renewable energy."

That covers only the energy spent on mining etc but not the environmental impact of digging up entire country sides. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environmen...

Steel is reused, car wreckers strip cars, crush the steel, and off it goes to be made into girders or something.

What's more worrying is battery recycling. Toxoc batteries. So far, The West's plan has been to ship them to poor countries, which tend to just bury them.

This can be resolved, but will it be? I say this to anyone claiming to be green, unless you know 100% how your product can be recycled, with concrete, in place processes and recyclers, you're a liar, and not green.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#97

Post by oblio »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #88
dale_glass wrote: post #38

Hydrogen almost certainly won't go anywhere, in my opinion. * The efficiency compared to battery tech is horrendous. * Hydrogen is effectively a storage technology -- we have to generate it and compress it. Which combined with the above means that charging a hydrogen car will always be more expensive than putting the same amount of usable energy into a battery powered car. * Let's not forget that the cheapest way of…

I don't really see hydrogen going anywhere for cars (except maybe as range extender there might be case). However, for certain applications batteries become to heavy to be practical, i.e. aviation, shipping, large trucks etc.

Hydrogen could be great for the power grid.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#98

Post by krzyk »

epistasis wrote: post #84
jackthezipper wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While inefficiency is indeed a problem, I feel like a lot of people overlook the one huge pro hydrogen has over batteries, namely charging time. Of course this might not be important for the daily commute, or 99% of the vehicles' use. But for that remaining 1% it _is_ a huge deal. And most people buy cars to fulfill a 100% of their needs, not 99%. Now I should say, I know basically nothing about battery tech. But unl…

I don't think the difference between 10 and 15 minutes is enough to cause a huge problem in those 1% of situations. There are a lot of happy EV customers that go on multi-day road trips, just as they would in a gas car, without issue. I'm one of them, and will never go back to a fuel based car. That extra five minutes on road trips is far far far less than the amount of extra time that has cars take day to day, needi…

> I don't think the difference between 10 and 15 minutes is enough to cause a huge problem

"Charging" with gasoline is like 2 minutes. With electricity AFAIR it is more like 30 minutes (in case of fast charger or longer in case of ordinary one).

The time difference is huge (e.g. if you travel with kids, every minute counts).

E.g. vacation travel in Poland from south to north (very popular during vacation) takes ~8h (depending where you start), during that time I need to tank gas twice, EV would need at least 2-4 times, this would increase travel time by 1-2h.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#99

Post by b112 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #95
b112 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing. What happens to the power grid, if power needs double? Certainly, new power plant construction, even if green, will be financed by additional cost to the consumer.

In the UK the grid has published a few white papers on this, and even had to issue corrections because newspapers keep misinterpreting what they say. Summary, no big deal and in fact smart EV charging tech can actively help the grid and make it easier to use all the cheap power we generate.

In Ontario, 6 successive government of all political stripes, one after another did nothing, leaving the grid burning coal and ng.

Plants planned and canceled, one mess up after another, again all political parties the same mess.

It is indeed easy, until it is time to execute. And it takes a decade at least, with zoning, environmental checks, just to get a plan planned and construction off the ground.

This means that everyone should already have new plants in the planning stages.

Not a report, but buying land, regulation hurdles, and when state owned, approved.

Does the UK already have 3 or 4 new plants in these initial stages?

And if so, how many may fall through?

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#100

Post by kieranmaine »

b112 wrote: post #90
kieranmaine wrote: post #32

My understanding from the article is that Hydrogen vehicles will not be competitive with BEVs in terms of cost per mile for the next 10-20 years. The article states: "An FCEV can drive about 28 miles (45 km) on 1 lb (0.45 kg) of hydrogen" and "If the demand for hydrogen increases, the price could drop to around USD 2.50/lb (USD 5.60/kg) by 2030" Therefore 28 miles will cost 2.5 USD. However, according to ev-database.…

One thing. What happens to the power grid, if power needs double? Certainly, new power plant construction, even if green, will be financed by additional cost to the consumer.

The UK's national grid predicts that an overnight switch to EVs would only increase demand by "around 10 per cent" (https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero/5-m...).

On the other hand the low-voltage network may need to be upgraded to cope with the increased energy demand. Here smart charging can reduce the load, and associated costs, for a number of years (https://www.kaluza.com/blog-busting-the-myth-ev-smart-chargi...).

Assuming that the intially purchase price of EVs reach parity with ICE vehicles, the consumer should save money, in an EV only world IF the consumer is able to use smart charging to take advantage of fluctuations in energy prices.

In addition to this Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology (that allows the consumer to sell energy to the grid during times of high demand + low generation) will generate income (https://www.edie.net/news/8/-World-s-largest--V2G-trial-find...) further increasing the affordability of EVs in comparison to hydrogen vehicles.

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