Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
cleantechnica.com
Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
1–10 of 503 posts
Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
#2Linked also an interesting read : https://cleantechnica.com/2024/12/22/heat-pumps-for-electric...
Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
#3I have flagged for the 403 - Forbidden - at a site level.
Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
#4The obvious answer is that government incentives and policies are corrupted by fossil fuel interests.
The article only makes this claim via a link to another article:
> the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC), is riddled with conflicts of interest and bias toward hydrogen.
In which they reveal gas pipeline companies and fuel cell manufacturers are members of that org and on its board.
Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
#5Sadly my town of Santa Cruz is going through this right now: https://lookout.co/carmageddon-when-will-santa-cruz-metros-n...
Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
#6Huh. I kind of thought that batteries had comprehensively won in this market, tbh.
I still can't quite get used to the electric buses. A 20 tonne double-decker bus should sound like it might explode at any moment; it is unnatural for them to move around more or less silently.
Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
#7Transit agencies don't have the technical expertise to distinguish truth from lies in cleantech marketing. They aren't the only ones, see the over-inflated valuations of both Nikola and Tesla as two (very different) stories of companies successfully lying to investors and the general public about the magical capabilities of their novel transportation platforms.
Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
#8The electric airplane is another myth. There is no known battery technology, or one on the horizon, that can provide a large enough power/weight to make them practical.
The investors are getting bilked.
Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
#9The electric airplane is another myth. There is no known battery technology, or one on the horizon, that can provide a large enough power/weight to make them practical. The investors are getting bilked.
> to make them practical.
..practical to replace commercial airliners, sure. There have been plenty of slow electric planes.
In the future, net-zero air travel can only be done by producing jet fuel in a carbon neutral way.
Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?
#10The obvious answer is that government incentives and policies are corrupted by fossil fuel interests. The article only makes this claim via a link to another article: > the Canadian Urban Transit Research and Innovation Consortium (CUTRIC), is riddled with conflicts of interest and bias toward hydrogen. In which they reveal gas pipeline companies and fuel cell manufacturers are members of that org and on its board.
The mechanism through which fossil fuel interests work is "grey hydrogen" which is hydrogen produced through processing of fossil sources with no eye towards carbon capture. Grey hydrogen is as polluting as just burning the fossil feedstock but works with an established hydrogen infrastructure.
This lets the producers "green wash" their production pipeline by stating in a lies-through-omission manner that their hydrogen is "clean burning". See no carbon out of the tailpipe! It's clean! It's the same lie as EVs claiming to be "green" in places where fossil fuel sources dominate electricity production. It's just moving the tailpipe somewhere else rather than eliminating it entirely.
There's also "blue" hydrogen that's manufactured with fossil fuels but claims/intends to capture the carbon produced in the process. It can still feed into a hydrogen infrastructure so fossil fuel companies love it due to the same greenwashing.
The only carbon neutral hydrogen is "green" hydrogen which uses a renewable source and electrolysis of water to generate hydrogen. But even that is wildly less efficient on net than just using renewables to charge battery EVs. Electrons are far easier to move long distances than hydrogen or hydrogen feedstocks (including water).