Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

hydrogeninsight.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 454 posts

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#71

Post by SantalBlush »

exac wrote: post #22
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I understand this. If you want to build up electric cars you invest in building electric cars. Investing in some other third technology does not get you to electric cars faster.

I think he means that they are intentionally trying to get the government to push hydrogen for the next few years while they are secretly working on electric cars. If the government focuses on electric and spends money building electrical infrastructure, the domestic automakers stand to lose a lot of ground to foreign companies that have already developed electric technology. They don't want a repeat of Tesla install…

There's no need for that, the government can just give its domestic car industry special treatment; that's pretty common in a lot of countries and industries.

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#72

Post by ryao »

kube-system wrote: post #34
xt00 wrote: post #16

I would imagine somebody has floated this idea before, but I wonder if the distraction of hydrogen rather than electric cars was a ploy by Japanese automakers to give them time to build up the cars / supply chain etc to switch to electric. Typically cars (at least in the US) take around 4-5 years of development to get to market, so rather than assuming the Japanese policy makers just made a dumb decision, it could be…

Toyota started dumping money into hydrogen vehicle R&D more than 25 years ago. They just picked the wrong technology, and they’ve been advocating for their horse in the race ever since.

It was not just Toyota. GM made headlines with their Hy-Wire concept car. At some point after that, I learned to stop listening to whatever these companies said about the future of automobiles.

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#73

Post by ryao »

lucidguppy wrote: post #32

I heard somewhere that trying to make hydrogen from water was like trying to make wood from ash. It doesn't make sense.

You can make hydrogen from water with a simple electrolysis reaction. It happens as a side effect in gel electrophoresis.

It might not be cost competitive, but it is much more doable than making wood from ash.

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#74

Post by tshaddox »

jojobas wrote: post #48
jfengel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're a car company committed to keeping the internal combustion engine. They are market leaders in hybrid cars, but have been surpassed in all electric. So they're not a fossil fuel company but their interests are aligned.

There's nothing wrong with internal combustion per se, if electrolysis+ICE works out cheaper than battery in terms of lithium/rare earths/whatever there is no fundamental objection to it.

Wouldn’t ICEs be worse for local pollution?

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#75

Post by yuppie_scum »

rr808 wrote: post #35
grahar64 wrote: post #25

For example, Toyota makes good reliable cars, and saw massive success with the Prius because it was the only good alternative to a full internal combustion engine. Now, years after that success, Toyota has only a very limited selection of fully electric plug in vehicles, and all their competitors are a decade in front of them because they continue to chase some pipe dream of hydrogen, is just disappointing.

RAV4 Prime is awesome and huge wait list. PHEV is a great solution, it doesn't require these huge heavy batteries.

But it does require hauling around an engine, transmission, gas tank, etc that you aren’t using half the time and require periodic service. The question really is, does adding that weight and complexity offset the weight and cost of moar battery? Especially as the charging infrastructure continues to improve in more populated regions?

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#76

Post by shagie »

jfengel wrote: post #41
TheRealPomax wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't know Toyota was a fossil fuel company, or was owned by one? Japan is uniquely trying to make this thing work. They have no domestic oil production, and so few coal mines as to basically be irrelevant: all their fossil fuel is imported. Anywhere else on the planet: sure, this might be another way for big fossil to push for relevancy, but in Japan's case, hydrogen would be something that they can produce thems…

They're a car company committed to keeping the internal combustion engine. They are market leaders in hybrid cars, but have been surpassed in all electric. So they're not a fossil fuel company but their interests are aligned.

> They're a car company committed to keeping the internal combustion engine.

A vehicle running on hydrogen isn't an ICE. These are fuel cells.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai

This is an electric vehicle which generates power through hydrogen fuel cells rather than storing it as electrical energy in a battery (though it has a battery too).

> Toyota's latest generation hybrid components were used extensively in the fuel cell powertrain, including the electric motor, power control and main battery. The electric traction motor delivers 113 kilowatts (152 hp; 154 PS) and 335 N⋅m (247 lbf⋅ft) of torque. The Mirai has a 245V (1.6 kWh) sealed nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) traction rechargeable battery pack, similar to the one used in the Camry hybrid.

A question for Japan is "how do you store and refuel a car?" With a hydrogen station, it's a lot like a regular gas station in terms of space, process and time spent. They don't quite have the space for making large charging stations ( e.g. https://electrek.co/2022/05/19/tesla-building-new-worlds-lar... ) which take longer and in turn require more land per car.

There's also the "charging at home isn't as viable". https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1913767,138.6480478,3a,75y,3... or https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1913767,138.6480478,3a,75y,3... or https://www.google.com/maps/@35.1888588,138.697268,14z

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#78

Post by roamerz »

jiggawatts wrote: post #31

Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world. The primary source for hydrogen would be from methane in natural gas, and they could then sell this as a "zero pollution fuel" while continuing their non-renewable energy business as normal. If you read between the lines and look at the companies involved, they're always linked to fossil fuel companies directly or indir…

>> Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world.

You are assuming that ship has sailed and it has not. Depending the political climate both here in the United States and abroad green energy, at least in automotive applications, will have to compete of functional merit alone. If the elections in a couple of years go the way Republicans would like, fuel will be down at $2 a gallon again and frankly unless there are breakthroughs in range and safety battery powered cannot compete except in certain categories.

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#79

Post by newsclues »

makeitdouble wrote: post #8
skybrian wrote: post #4

This article mostly quotes a report by a Tokyo-based think tank. The report is here: https://www.renewable-ei.org/en/activities/reports/20220922....

Thanks, in this day and age it's so weird to post an online article, and mention the source title without linking to it when it's also an online publication.

Linking to source material should be a journalistic standard for online news publication.

Re: Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

#80

Post by roneythomas6 »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #37
jiggawatts wrote: post #31

Hydrogen is 100% an attempt by fossil fuel companies to remain relevant in a "green energy" world. The primary source for hydrogen would be from methane in natural gas, and they could then sell this as a "zero pollution fuel" while continuing their non-renewable energy business as normal. If you read between the lines and look at the companies involved, they're always linked to fossil fuel companies directly or indir…

I didn't know Toyota was a fossil fuel company, or was owned by one? Japan is uniquely trying to make this thing work. They have no domestic oil production, and so few coal mines as to basically be irrelevant: all their fossil fuel is imported. Anywhere else on the planet: sure, this might be another way for big fossil to push for relevancy, but in Japan's case, hydrogen would be something that they can produce thems…

The key here is Toyota is biggest employer in Japan and when you add its suppliers it's even bigger. Toyota very much wants an Hydrogen future so that they can retain those jobs.
Post reply on HN