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Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

cleantechnica.com

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Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#181
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason people complain about buses and prefer to drive in so many cases. Operators try to compromise on cheap and end up with service for those who after 5 DWIs can't get their friends to drive them anymore.

Forcing more people to change busses more often for their routes just to fit some 15 minute max route ideal is going to make more people hate the busses.

Making a lot more destinatians available will make people use the bus.

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#182

Back in 2003, President George W. Bush announced the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. At the time, people criticized the effort as an attempt by the oil industry to shift attention away from electric cars. The oil industry knew that hydrogen power wasn't going to be viable anytime soon, while electric cars were already a direct threat to their profits, so they pushed the US government towards hydrogen power. Not to disparag…

In 2003 there were no viable or mass market electric cars at all. What a made up narrative.

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#183

Back in 2003, President George W. Bush announced the Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. At the time, people criticized the effort as an attempt by the oil industry to shift attention away from electric cars. The oil industry knew that hydrogen power wasn't going to be viable anytime soon, while electric cars were already a direct threat to their profits, so they pushed the US government towards hydrogen power. Not to disparag…

It absolutely was. In the event that breakthroughs happened and it became viable faster than expected, the backup plan was to get the hydrogen from fossil fuels to make sure the industry would still get its cut.

You realize you can just as easily (if not more so) produce electricity with fossil fuels, right?

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#184
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool :) but reminds me that all energy storage is scary and an accident waiting to happen. Flows > stocks, overhead wire for the win!

I personally think Battery buses with SAE J3105 'docking' points at key stops (basically, the stops that are used to loiter to set timing, rather than leaving as soon as possible) is a better solution than the cost of stringing OHL through every major road in a city. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_electric_bus#Chargin... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_J3105

Reading about this and matching it up with what I see in some more recent electric truck and ferry charging videos I feel this is almost historic tech.

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

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#185
post #125

Why? Because Oil Companies are lobbying for inefficient hydrogen to delay a green revolution: https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/carbon-notes-5-green-hydrog... > The members of the hydrogen coalition are all obviously incumbent fossil fuel and petrochemical interests looking for a bridge to the new era. If realized, their ambitious hydrogen projects may overload the available supply of green power, for little real bene…

Do you have actual knowledge of their motives? Or is this speculation, confidently stated as fact? Another possible motive, mentioned in the the paragraph you quote, is that the oil companies see an energy transition coming and are trying to get aboard the hydrogen train to diversify their future revenue sources. And that sounds like a reasonable motive; the sort of thing that people who don't see themselves as evil…

Oil companies, vehicle manufacturers, tire companies and other powerful lobbyists have been doing this for decades so it’s an unsurprising theory.

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

It’s why we don’t have rail in the US like you see in Europe. At one point in time we had a ton of rail and streetcar networks but these groups destroyed it all because it was a threat to their business. For oil companies, so is hydrogen.

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#186
post #125

Why? Because Oil Companies are lobbying for inefficient hydrogen to delay a green revolution: https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/carbon-notes-5-green-hydrog... > The members of the hydrogen coalition are all obviously incumbent fossil fuel and petrochemical interests looking for a bridge to the new era. If realized, their ambitious hydrogen projects may overload the available supply of green power, for little real bene…

Do you have actual knowledge of their motives? Or is this speculation, confidently stated as fact? Another possible motive, mentioned in the the paragraph you quote, is that the oil companies see an energy transition coming and are trying to get aboard the hydrogen train to diversify their future revenue sources. And that sounds like a reasonable motive; the sort of thing that people who don't see themselves as evil…

The current US administrations moves against renewables should make you realize how powerful the oil gas lobby is. They got some pushback from local politicians so were slowed down but the way they started they were looking to end all wind and solar for a false promise of nuclear tomorrow.

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#187

AC Transit (eg: East San Francisco Bay) performed a detailed 2 year study (July 2020 - June 2022) comparing newer Hydrogen Fuel Cell & Battery -powered buses to existing Diesel, Fuel Cell, & Hybrid -powered buses, 5 of each type. The key results are the Hydrogen Fuel Cells have significantly more expensive infrastructure, fuel, and maintenance costs than Battery. However, both technologies are still less reliable tha…

I'm not going to dispute your numbers with diesel versus EV reliability, but I have to think the simplicity of an EV drivetrain will win that battle in the next version or two.

Based on personal experience my guess is that the unreliability would be in the battery not the drive train.

Or more precisely put, batteries are a sort of black box they ether work or they don't work but either way you are not going to be able to open one up and find out why. that is, they are a high cost unrepairable item on the vehicle and this is a huge liability.

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#188

How are these buses refueled? Is it just like pouring gasoline into a normal car with a handle from the pump? Or is it an airtight pump like filling a scuba tank?

Scuba tank, the filling process takes several minutes I heard, think 15+ for a car. The tanks in cars are around 800 bar, reinforce carbon fibre with a bladder inside. To fill it the compressor station has to deliver higher pressure, I recall 1200 bar but not sure about it. Also hydrogen has the oddity to produce heat when expanding, which means the filling process needs to be actively cooled.

Considering current CCS and future MCS charging ports and their speed I think the hydrogen lost another advantage if it ever had a refuelling time advantage.

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#189
post #125

Why? Because Oil Companies are lobbying for inefficient hydrogen to delay a green revolution: https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/carbon-notes-5-green-hydrog... > The members of the hydrogen coalition are all obviously incumbent fossil fuel and petrochemical interests looking for a bridge to the new era. If realized, their ambitious hydrogen projects may overload the available supply of green power, for little real bene…

Do you have actual knowledge of their motives? Or is this speculation, confidently stated as fact? Another possible motive, mentioned in the the paragraph you quote, is that the oil companies see an energy transition coming and are trying to get aboard the hydrogen train to diversify their future revenue sources. And that sounds like a reasonable motive; the sort of thing that people who don't see themselves as evil…

This just sounds intentionally naive.

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#190
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to dispute your numbers with diesel versus EV reliability, but I have to think the simplicity of an EV drivetrain will win that battle in the next version or two.

Based on personal experience my guess is that the unreliability would be in the battery not the drive train. Or more precisely put, batteries are a sort of black box they ether work or they don't work but either way you are not going to be able to open one up and find out why. that is, they are a high cost unrepairable item on the vehicle and this is a huge liability.

Batteries aren't unrepairable; you wouldn't open one up in the middle of the road to try fix it but at the bus depot with enough volume of battery electric vehicles, they'll have reason to hire repair technicians that can refurbish and repair batteries.
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