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Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

hydrogeninsight.com

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

#81

Post by JumpCrisscross »

roamerz wrote: post #78
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…

> fuel will be down at $2 a gallon again

Absent an American state oil company, zero chance. Even the majors are treating oil as a semi-stranded asset.

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

#82

Post by ryao »

roneythomas6 wrote: post #80
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…

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.

I imagine that Japanese labor laws are a major motivator for Toyota. From what I have heard of Japanese labor laws, salaried employees in Japan appear to be guaranteed employment for life. The result is that Toyota will not be able to fire its employees even if their jobs become obsolete, so finding a solution that keeps those jobs from being made obsolete is extremely important for Toyota.

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

#83

Post by cameldrv »

shagie wrote: post #76
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.

> 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…

You can make a Hydrogen ICE. BMW even leased 100 of them about 15 years ago. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_Hydrogen_7

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

#84

Post by Retric »

pfdietz wrote: post #23
cbkeller wrote: post #12

I'll go one further: Hydrogen does nothing. It's a bad battery. After following this for more than a decade (starting with a bit of undergrad research on possible alternative fuel cell electrode materials -- albeit not a field that I'm in any way involved with any more), it just feels like there's been very little progress on fuel cells, or on storage and transport. Meanwhile, progress on Li-based batteries has been…

Hydrogen is a battery with very particular uses cases. In particular: hydrogen is bad for use cases with large numbers of charge/discharge cycles, because the "cost of inefficiency" is proportional to the number of such cycles. However, for use cases with small numbers of charge cycles, like seasonal storage or backup against rare grid outages, hydrogen's big advantage -- the low cost of storing it, vs. typical short…

Let’s assume at scale you’re buying seasonal power for 0$ so efficiency doesn’t matter and selling it at 10c/kWh given 1$/kWh and a once a year discharge you might break even in 10 years which looks fine except...

1$/kWh is only storage for already existing hydrogen. For this application you also need equipment to both produce and burn it which adds to these costs. Hydrogen generation can’t depend on 0$ prices for very long each week in the off season so you either need a lot of excess equipment that’s rarely used or be willing to pay more for electricity. Further, nobody building a grid would be willing to depend on seasonal storage running out on the last day it’s needed. So you need a large guaranteed storage surplus alongside redundancy in your generating capacity.

Start running the numbers and the annual ROI doesn’t look to be even enough to pay for the interest on your setup costs let alone profit. It might have some ultra niche applications but the economics don’t seem to work out for large scale deployment.

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

#85

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

toast0 wrote: post #24

Hydrogen powered vehicles are like natural gas vehicles, but worse. Pressurized fuel tanks expire, and your vehicle becomes a pumpkin, because parts+labor to replace the tank on 15-20 year old vehicle doesn't make sense. But hydrogen is even harder to work with than natural gas. And it's yet another fueling network to build.

15-20 year old cars are already worth just a small fraction of new ones. So losing the remaining value after that time is a negligible part of the equation.

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

#86

Post by hnav »

makeitdouble wrote: post #55
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.

I'm curious how far ahead are Toyota's competitors. For instance, how many more EVs are they selling than the Toyota hybrid plugins ? (and I mean that not just in the US or Norway, but globally) To my knowledge the EV field is still a very small and restricted market, and the makers are all about the same advancement technology wise. I mean, Tesla for instance sources its batteries from Panasonic, which isn't much mo…

They’re capable of building electric drivetrains, batteries are sourced from suppliers, IMO if they decided to mass produce and sell an EV lineup it’d probably take less than 5 years to hit full stride.

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

#87

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

We can't give up on hydrogen. A transfer to EV will not be practical for all current fossil fuel vehicles so we need an alternative for them. Hydrogen is not practical now but it has potential. I think electric and hydrogen are the only alternatives to fossil fuels. Are there others?

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

#88

Post by rtpg »

pfdietz wrote: post #23
cbkeller wrote: post #12

I'll go one further: Hydrogen does nothing. It's a bad battery. After following this for more than a decade (starting with a bit of undergrad research on possible alternative fuel cell electrode materials -- albeit not a field that I'm in any way involved with any more), it just feels like there's been very little progress on fuel cells, or on storage and transport. Meanwhile, progress on Li-based batteries has been…

Hydrogen is a battery with very particular uses cases. In particular: hydrogen is bad for use cases with large numbers of charge/discharge cycles, because the "cost of inefficiency" is proportional to the number of such cycles. However, for use cases with small numbers of charge cycles, like seasonal storage or backup against rare grid outages, hydrogen's big advantage -- the low cost of storing it, vs. typical short…

What’s the pricing compared to stored energy like pumping water up a hill? I get that it’s not exactly a universal strategy but not like underground caverns don’t have the same issue

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

#89

Post by [deleted] »

tshaddox wrote: post #74
jojobas wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

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

#90

Post by zdragnar »

gumby wrote: post #61
PakG1 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their various significant investments don't strike me as being committed to keeping the internal combustion engine. Rather, they're simply evolving and the internal combustion engine influences their evolution. But I see no evidence that they're committed to it because they like it in particular. It's just what they've been good at already, and hydrogen interfacing with it may make sense.

Toyoda himself has publicly stated he's an internal combusion fan and is not interested in all-electric vehicles: https://www.autoblog.com/2021/09/21/toyota-toyoda-questions-... https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/how-the-world-s-most-va... https://cleantechnica.com/2021/11/15/toyotas-team-japan-aims... https://www.hotcars.com/why-toyota-is-investing-383-million-...

If you read the articles, his point is that the industry cannot completely switch over to EV production and bans aren't the right solution, considering how rapidly japanese cars have reduced their CO2 emissions.

There simply isn't yet the battery production capability to ban ICE yet. Their hybrids and hydrogen are part of the all-in approach.

Considering that, he claims, cars have cut CO2 by 24% in 20 years, the onus belongs on other industries to catch up, lest you hurt more people for less gain.

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