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Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

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Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#101

Post by kieranmaine »

b112 wrote: post #99
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The UK has 5 wind farms under construction with a capacity of 5125 MW and 4 proposed wind farms with a capacity of 5454 MW (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in...). There has also been an increase in solar farm applications (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/28/solar-farm-...).

On the flipside a number of UK nuclear plants are reaching EOL with only 1 currently under construction.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#102

Post by haihwishev »

Given that history often rhymes, is there any energy technology that never went anywhere?

I can only really think of successful ones (human power, draught animals, fossile fuels, electricity, etc).

I guess nuclear maybe, in that it never reached the potential people thought it would?

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#103

Post by JumpCrisscross »

k4lk wrote: post #78
yholio wrote: post #70

The train has left that station 10 years ago, and it's all electric. No point staying in the trenches like the apocryphal Japanese soldier, fighting for the resurgence of Hydrogen. It's less efficient, more expensive for vehicles and infrastructure and more expensive to fuel, has lower range, it's more dangerous. The range record for a Hydrogen vehicle is less than the range of mass-produced commercial cars available…

I don't think it has left the station per se. I agree we should get as driving battery EV as possible, but at some point the current grid will not sustain more charging stations at the mall through existing cabling. At that point it makes sense to look to hydrogen. It should be possible to drive it to existing gas stations for refueling, reusing existing infrastructure on that front.

> the current grid will not sustain more charging stations at the mall through existing cabling. At that point it makes sense to look to hydrogen

Is the assertion laying new hydrogen pipes would be cheaper than expanding electrical lines?

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#104

Post by eptcyka »

krzyk wrote: post #98
epistasis wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (…

I recently made a trip through Poland, and, starting with a full tank of gas, I only needed to refuel the car once. But we still made 3 stops on the way, each being longer than 30 minutes. That's plenty of time to recharge an electric car. I think the issue would be that we'd never make it if all of the cars on the road were electric - a petrol pump can service far more cars hour than a tesla super charger.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#105

Post by clouddrover »

rasz wrote: post #69

reality: They dont work. Honda has been trying to make it happen for 20 years now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_FCX its all a huge failure https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36751587/honda-cla... Whats fascinating is the realization Honda toyed with EVs even longer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_EV_Plus and still managed to fail miserably.

Of course they work. Hyundai's fuel cell trucks are running well:

https://www.thedrive.com/news/41389/hyundai-clocks-1-million...

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#108

Post by bzzzt »

jackthezipper wrote: post #79
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…

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…

Because hydrogen has to be pumped at 700 bar there's a delay when the pump buffer has to be recompressed. This will happen after 1 or 2 cars have filled up, the third will have to wait for 20-30 minutes. Not that different from charging an EV...

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#109

Post by drewg123 »

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've taken multiple ~1000mi road trips in my Tesla. Charging typically adds ~2 hours to such a trip (14hrs -> 16+ hrs). I'm an "eat in the car and stop only for fuel" road tripper, so a ~30-40 minute stop every ~2-3 hours is far worse than an 3-5min stop every 4-5 hours.

What's especially frustrating is what happens when I arrive at my destination, where I don't have access to charging and the nearest Tesla supercharger is an "urban" charger with 72Kw max. I'll typically pull into that charger between 1 and 2am and spend nearly an hour there to get the car up to 80% so that I have a charge for trips during the week. The last thing I want to be doing then is sitting in an empty parking garage, waiting for my car to charge when I just want to get some sleep in my bed. I'd love to have a quick refueling option.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#110

Post by Robotbeat »

oblio wrote: post #97
_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, I think seasonal storage with hydrogen makes more sense than hydrogen trucks. People often underestimate just how heavy hydrogen fuel tanks are and the required cells and especially the huge radiator you need to get rid of all the heat. I once heard that the prototype for a Nikola hydrogen truck had a heat rejection system that required just as much power as a Nissan Leaf.
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