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Japan's hydrogen strategy does nothing for decarbonisation: study

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

#181

Post by Karrot_Kream »

danaris wrote: post #130
hajile wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How will you make a battery-powered semi? Tesla claimed to have one then got super-quiet about it. Do the calculation for joules of power to move a fully-loaded tractor-trailer. Do a joule/kg calculation for modern batteries and calculate the series you get due to the rocket fuel problem (it takes a lot of battery to haul your battery). You find that the towing capacity of that semi is miniscule vs an ICE engine. Sam…

"Tesla has failed to produce a battery EV semi truck" is not strong evidence that it is impossible to produce one. Tesla has been having quite a bit of trouble in recent years, as its not-a-founder-but-wants-you-to-think-he-is makes promises reality can't deliver. Now, it may be that you're right—that battery-powered semi trucks are unfeasible to build. But a) this doesn't mean we should go all-in on hydrogen, either…

According to [1] US freight rail already transports 40% of long-haul freight and is the plurality of freight transport.

[1]: https://www.aar.org/facts-figures a biased source probably

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

#182

Post by gary_0 »

gumby wrote: post #62
hammock wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you hate fossil fuels or do you want to save the planet? I feel your words seem prejudiced against allowing fossil fuel companies to help us fight climate change

We need to stop using fossil fuels. Both their extraction and they use are ecologically disastrous. They power they provide is all op ex, rather than cap ex as with solar or wind (or nukes for that matter).

> power they provide is all op ex, rather than cap ex

And hydrogen is the same: producing it, transporting it, getting it to end consumers... lots of op ex. Whereas with pure electric you just need wires and batteries, and there is none of the efficiency loss of converting energy into hydrogen and having to transport it as mass and worry about leakage.

But for rent-seeking old-money megacorps, the inefficiency is a feature, not a bug. They can take a percentage of all that waste and complexity as profit.

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

#183

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#184

Post by hannob »

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. > Hydrogen has a few legitimate use cases, such as iron ore refining and chemical feedstock, but that's about it.

I don't see how these two statements are compatible.

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

#185

Post by hodgesrm »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #181
danaris wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Tesla has failed to produce a battery EV semi truck" is not strong evidence that it is impossible to produce one. Tesla has been having quite a bit of trouble in recent years, as its not-a-founder-but-wants-you-to-think-he-is makes promises reality can't deliver. Now, it may be that you're right—that battery-powered semi trucks are unfeasible to build. But a) this doesn't mean we should go all-in on hydrogen, either…

According to [1] US freight rail already transports 40% of long-haul freight and is the plurality of freight transport. [1]: https://www.aar.org/facts-figures a biased source probably

You really notice the difference when you go to a country like Germany, which uses a lot more trucks to haul freight. The rail percentage is about 19% currently. [0] The Autobahn is packed with trucks. The percentage of rail traffic is lower in other EU countries apparently.

[0] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/travel-logistics-and-inf...

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

#186

Post by MengerSponge »

amluto wrote: post #142
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…

This doesn’t make sense to me. Hydrogen is not an energy source — it’s a way to store energy and make it portable. So Japan could import hydrogen (which is not obviously any better than importing LNG or oil), or Japan could make it from domestic or imported energy sources (nuclear, solar, wind, imported oil, imported LNG, etc). Turning electricity into hydrogen and then into motive power for a car is dramatically les…

> not obviously any better than importing LNG or oil

True, because transporting hydrogen is obviously much worse than transporting LNG or oil. Hydrogen is an impossibly huge pain in the ass, and should be avoided if at all possible, because

Hydrogen

leaks through the smallest gaps.

burns in concentrations ranging from 4 to 74 percent.

burns clear in daylight.

reduces the ductility of metals exposed to it (embrittlement).

has shit energy density to boot.

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

#187

Post by snordgren »

Retric wrote: post #84
pfdietz wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ve…

Here in Europe peak electric prices have been far above $1/kWh, rising to around $7/kWh in the worst-hit regions.

Due to the build-out of wind power we have also had a few nights of negative electricity prices in recent months.

If we had a hydrogen energy storage facility, it could probably have recouped quite a portion of its capital costs this year, depending on its scale. Europe will not be building much base load power in the coming years, so the imbalance of the grid will only continue to rise, allowing for more business opportunities in the energy storage sector.

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

#188

Post by [deleted] »

the-anarchist wrote: post #39
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…

I'm lost, I thought hydrogen is the goat. Many manufacturers (eg Benz) push it no?

[deleted]

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

#189

Post by VintageCool »

amluto wrote: post #142
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…

This doesn’t make sense to me. Hydrogen is not an energy source — it’s a way to store energy and make it portable. So Japan could import hydrogen (which is not obviously any better than importing LNG or oil), or Japan could make it from domestic or imported energy sources (nuclear, solar, wind, imported oil, imported LNG, etc). Turning electricity into hydrogen and then into motive power for a car is dramatically les…

Japan's plan has been to import hydrogen. Probably from Australia.

Nuclear is unpopular since Fukushima, and Japan doesn't have great renewable resources. The country is extremely land constrained -- and although the "renewables require too much land" argument is silly on the American Great Plains, it does hinder Japan.

Additionally, the solar irradiance is mediocre, and their offshore wind would have to be truly floating wind turbines (which are more expensive) because the continental shelf drops away so quickly.

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

#190

Post by jazzyjackson »

ryao wrote: post #104
the-anarchist wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm lost, I thought hydrogen is the goat. Many manufacturers (eg Benz) push it no?

Hydrogen automotive technologies are a research scientist’s dream. Basically, it represents life long employment with no need to produce useful results. Management at many automotive companies likely love it for that reason too, since putting money into it makes it look like they are doing something to change when in reality they are not doing anything at all. Here is a neat fact about hydrogen vehicles. Fueling them…

this is conspiratorial - businesses place big bets on projects that might go nowhere, but they're not trying to burn money to look busy

What researcher wants to accomplish nothing?

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