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Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

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Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#141

Post by reportingsjr »

boringg wrote: post #134
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…

Red Herring in that --> Green hydrogen + Solar + Wind + Energy Storage are all important components of the future energy portfolio as we deleverage traditional O&G. They serve different functions and should all be targeted aggressively. I agree a Hydrogen car is a long way away though. Many more viable options in the near term. And electrolysis and plasma based hydrogen from renewable natural gas coupled with renewab…

"green" hydrogen is a greenwashing term being pushed heavily by oil and gas to make people think that hydrogen is currently low pollution, sustainable material/energy storage device.

Effectively all hydrogen currently produced, and this will be true for decades, is from splitting methane.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#142

Post by iamthemonster »

jackthezipper wrote: post #129
theluketaylor wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For passenger vehicle road trips charging time is already into "doesn't matter" territory for a number of models. I have taken a 1000 km+ trip in a BEV that I used to take in gas vehicles. We didn't have to stop more often or stay any longer than we would have with gasoline. Really think about the time you spend stationary when stopping for fuel on a road trip. It's not just pumping fuel, you also go to the bathroom,…

>Extremely fast charging [...] can charge 10-80% in 18 minutes, which is enough to travel around 330 km. That's roughly 3 hours of driving in most counties. This is not very impressive, and exactly where I see hydrogen have the upper hand. I suppose it's a matter of opinion, but _having_ to stop for 20 minutes every 3 hours isn't ideal at all for me.

Bloody hell, how much non-stop driving are you doing? If you're driving a solid 12 hours a day, that is only three 18-minute breaks, one of which is your lunch break.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#143

Post by specialist »

TLDR: Li-ion is bridge to H2 future, will settle into niche use cases.

--

I'm very bullish on hydrogen for transportation. Maybe more. Think forward 10-20 years out.

Here's my current and partial and wild guess hot take on ICE vs EV vs H2:

EV is great for cars and smaller. EV also good for energy storage, eg homes, utilities.

H2 is great for trucks, delivery, heavy gear, buses, etc. Basically cars and bigger, or needing more range.

~2032 we'll hit peak yearly Li-ion production at ~8t gw/h. Market saturated, most materials recovered from recycling instead of mining.

2022 produces ~40m ICE, ~1m EVs cars per year.

I don't know how many ICE vehicles (trucks, vans, etc) are made yearly.

Installed base of automobiles is 1.2b to grow to 1.8b by 2030. Average ICE lifespan is ~30 years. Crunch the numbers. We cannot get passenger automobile sector to carbon zero fast enough on our current trend lines. We'd need to retire ICE early and produce enough replacements.

I have NO IDEA how many EVs we'll produce yearly. Consider the yearly Li-ion production and kwh used per car. We'll have to make cars smaller. What Horace Dediu calls "micromobility". (eg The battery pack of the popular, cute, functional Chinese EV is 1/10th of a Tesla.)

There's still no clear game plan for carbon zero for the other half of transportation, meaning trucks and buses and bigger.

H2 today ~= Li-ion 2006. Think of how we might mature H2 even faster than Li-ion matured.

H2 will be completely safe. As in solid state storage. Plasma Kinetics and such. https://plasmakinetics.com

H2 production will be (must be) completely off fossil fuels. In a few years, we'll have excess energy capacity looking for applications. Like producing H2, ammonia, etc.

BMW, Toyota, others completely missed (biffed) the Li-ion technology wave. And will suffer for it. I think it's wise of them to look towards the next disruption.

--

One wild card is ammonia NH3. It may prove a useful transition step. Helping us retire ICE faster, while EV and then H2 ramp up.

I'm certain there are other wild cards.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#144

Post by epistasis »

k4lk wrote: post #30

In Denmark we could split water through hydrolyse whenever there is over-production from windmills. This over-production is something that we currently pay our neighbours to receive. In addition the heat produced can be used as district heating, making it less of an issue that it is less efficient to produce hydrogen.

From what I've heard, the capital costs of electrolyzers are currently far too high to make intermittent hydrogen production economical. Hopefully that will change, and intermittent usage will eventually be about the same cost as running continuously.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#145

Post by dng88 »

theluketaylor wrote: post #89
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…

For passenger vehicle road trips charging time is already into "doesn't matter" territory for a number of models. I have taken a 1000 km+ trip in a BEV that I used to take in gas vehicles. We didn't have to stop more often or stay any longer than we would have with gasoline. Really think about the time you spend stationary when stopping for fuel on a road trip. It's not just pumping fuel, you also go to the bathroom,…

Total agreed. It is a surprise that this niche product came back to confuse us customers. Why? Electricity at home and work shared EV ... hydrogen meant going back to gas station. We can stop at place we like to rest and stretch our legs if the rest. and park have these chargers, not gas station ...

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#146

Post by pcurve »

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…

By law you have to take 30minute break after 8 hours. And you cannot drive more than 14 hours per day. Iirc Tesla semi can get 400mi from 30 minute. If they can up that figure to 600, then fuel cells range and competitive advantages diminish greatly.

But when you have near autonomous truck that runs closer to 24 hours per day or have a co driver in cab splitting duty then fuel cell will have an edge

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#147

Post by specialist »

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…

How do we transmute those disadvantages into wins?

What will it take? What are the alternatives?

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#148

Post by jackthezipper »

iamthemonster wrote: post #142
jackthezipper wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Extremely fast charging [...] can charge 10-80% in 18 minutes, which is enough to travel around 330 km. That's roughly 3 hours of driving in most counties. This is not very impressive, and exactly where I see hydrogen have the upper hand. I suppose it's a matter of opinion, but _having_ to stop for 20 minutes every 3 hours isn't ideal at all for me.

Bloody hell, how much non-stop driving are you doing? If you're driving a solid 12 hours a day, that is only three 18-minute breaks, one of which is your lunch break.

>that is only three 18-minute breaks

Those are three _mandatory_ breaks, that add up to almost an hour, in ideal circumstances. To answer your question, not a whole lot, but in that 1% 6 hour drives aren't uncommon at all.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#149

Post by specialist »

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…

The future has always been H2.

Li-ion is a bridge to H2, an enabler.

H2 fuel pellets will be passed around like hard candy.

H2 production will be just as distributed, decentralized as our future energy generation.

Li-ion will peak ~2032, hitting yearly (battery) production of ~8T gw/h, and state of the art attaining a large fraction of theoretical max energy density.

Assuming H2 today is ~= Li-ion 2006, peak H2 would be ~2050. Assuming civilization lasts that long.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#150

Post by jokoon »

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…

So hydrogen busses might be viable... As long as there are enough passengers in a day, that could be a good use-case, provided maintenance is good enough.
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