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

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

#211

Post by scojjac »

dalyons wrote: post #209
scojjac wrote: post #161

Battery is silly for buses, IMO. Invest in streetcars (electrified fixed-route buses) and be done with it. Streetcar lines represent continued investment, and are therefore more attractive to developers, unlike bus routes that can be changed on a whim. And they've been around for longer. Cut the red tape on building them and on zoning if you want to see serious results.

The lines are very expensive to install and maintain. You could just buy double or triple the number of “silly” EV buses and be way ahead.

I addressed that. High price is an artificial problem caused primarily by red tape, from tariffs to environmental studies to rolling over to NIMBYs over neverending hearings. We had electric streetcars in small towns in the early 1900s in the US. Small towns in other countries have them today.

Buses suck. People don't like riding them as much as trains and streetcars. Bus lines do not attract the same kind of investment that streetcars can. Attracting denser development along routes improves ridership AND tax base, which helps balance out the cost.

I think we will massively regret BEV as the solution to ICE vehicles. They don't handle temperature extremes well and I believe people are overly optimistic about recycling them.

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

#212

Post by adrianmonk »

bombcar wrote: post #14
rsynnott wrote: post #6

Huh. 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.

Batteries have won this so hard (if you ignore CNG busses, which have existed forever and are "almost as good as hydrogen could be") - because even when they hadn't won it, you just needed more busses. Is it nice if the bus can do a driver's entire shift without a recharge? Sure! But if it can't, you just design the route so that the driver can switch busses and buy another bus. That means the technology problem is n…

> That means the technology problem is now a money problem.

And not even a horrible one. A bus that is driven half as much per day will wear out (about) half as fast. Which means, although you do have to buy twice as many buses up front, the number of buses you have to replace per year won't change.

So in the steady state, the cost of buses isn't actually that much worse.

There is still some penalty for needing more buses, though. For example, you have to pay more to store buses. Also some maintenance is more of a function of time than mileage driven. And you're tying up more capital, which may mean more bonds or opportunity costs.

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

#213

Post by ch4s3 »

retetr wrote: post #197
chrisco255 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

See the EV1, a popular, mass produced electric vehicle that was controversialy "discontinued" in 1999 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_EV1?wprov=sfla1

A sun-compact with a 58 mile range that was only available for lease in 3 states is not exactly what I’d call viable, and I doubt it was popular.

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

#214

Post by sholladay »

They keep falling for it because fixed route busses are the one use case where hydrogen could theoretically make sense. The bus can fill up far faster than it could recharge an equivalent battery. The bus gets lighter and more efficient as it uses fuel. And crucially, it can always fill up at the same place, which really ought to be the central depot where all the buses in that network return to.

But inevitably with these projects, the fueling station is instead where some random gas station used to be or in an industrial park or near a harbor, purely because that’s what made sense to the hydrogen supplier, who is probably hoping other customers will come along, even though they won’t.

And that’s before the high risk of the hydrogen supplier throwing in the towel, at which point the next nearest fueling station might be ridiculously far away.

If hydrogen buses are to have any future, it will have to be more centrally managed from end to end and it would probably still need some public funding to get off the ground. In the end, a lot places won’t bother with all of that when electric buses are “plug and play”.

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

#215

Post by tonyhart7 »

neves wrote: 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…

" Because Oil Companies are lobbying for inefficient hydrogen to delay a green revolution"

well NO, contrary to popular belief. there is no such things because

1. Oil is scarce resource that not every country have

2. since not every country has, they must import it with expensive trade deficit meaning that Oil alternative or replacement is very much needed

since country like china,south korea and japan that has massive economy dependant on oil for their survival, hydrogen tech would come out of necessity but they are not because its not feasible

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

#216

Post by tonyhart7 »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #215
neves wrote: 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…

" Because Oil Companies are lobbying for inefficient hydrogen to delay a green revolution" well NO, contrary to popular belief. there is no such things because 1. Oil is scarce resource that not every country have 2. since not every country has, they must import it with expensive trade deficit meaning that Oil alternative or replacement is very much needed since country like china,south korea and japan that has massi…

that's why china is leading an EV revolution, government seeing that as very much important geopolitic and economic wise

if hydrogen is feasible in mass scale, trust me someone in Asia would already make it

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

#218

Post by Guthur »

dwaltrip wrote: post #198
pjscott wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It'd be reasonable if hydrogen was competitive with electric, but it's not.

Electricity is a by product of some source of energy, it doesn't just materialise unless your taking about capturing lightening in a bottle.

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

#219

Post by jiggawatts »

nyokodo wrote: post #201
xbmcuser wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

You're being downvoted because you're wrong, but sadly about 20-30% of the population shares your views and this needs to be addressed.

The people telling you that green energy "can't happen" are precisely the same group of people that will lose the capital they've invested in non-green energy technologies.

That's it. That's the reason you believe this.

You've been told over and over, by very loud and very well funded people to not even bother trying to replace legacy non-renewable energy sources with renewable energy sources. One hundred percent of the funding for this messaging comes from non-renewable energy companies, their shareholders, employees, and others with vested interests.

None of these people have your personal interests at heart.

Interest such as "having a livable planet" or having... you know... energy that won't run out in like a hundred years because... drumroll... they're literally advocating for energy sources that are NOT renewable. Finite. Expiring. Running dry.

"Oil baron with crushing loan repayments says the remaining drops of crude must be pumped out, no other option for the world. News at 11."

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

#220

Post by loeg »

bobthepanda wrote: post #121
adrian_b wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hills should never reduce the range, because the energy lost during climbing up is recovered when going downhill. This is one of the great advantages of electric vehicles with batteries, when properly designed. Electric buses with batteries are even more suitable for cities with hills than for cities without hills, because they provide greater energy savings over buses with ICEs. While I have never used buses with ba…

The problem is that the hills in Seattle are quite large, so you are going up for a long period of time and possibly not able to regenerate before you run out of batteries. The other problem is that because battery weight is so large, that in itself becomes a limiting factor for hilly operation where it is not really relevant for trolleybuses. And trolleybuses can feed current from uphill buses to downhill buses thro…

> The problem is that the hills in Seattle are quite large, so you are going up for a long period of time and possibly not able to regenerate before you run out of batteries.

Is this deadpan sarcasm? Seattle isn't a mountain pass. The biggest hills are a couple hundred feet bottom to top. The "High Point" neighborhood, which is, uh, the highest point above sea level, is at 522 feet. Every other hill is smaller than that.

Total ascent time is measured in double-digit seconds, discounting lights/stop signs.

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