101–110 of 426 posts
Hydrogen is not dead, all the hate it has been getting from Musk made people leave the space. If somebody bets on it right now it seems like a better bet compared to say 5 years ago. The whole promotional attitude towards EV will cause an EV winter when the rubber meets the road and things aren't as rosy as advertised. Mark my words. It's already happening .
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Here a few major issues hydrogen would need to solve. * There isn't a fuel distribution system. The reason BEVs work is because everywhere has power, setting up power distribution is generally just plugging into the local grid. * Hydrogen escapes any container it's placed in. That's a pretty hard thing to deal with. Most approaches have looked at chemically binding hydrogen to something in order to keep it from escap…
> Because electrolysis is highly inefficient Actually it's pretty efficient. According to wikipedia, efficiency ranges from 70% for the cheaper method, to 80% with more expensive catalysts. Theoretical efficiency is 94%.
Electrolysis is only a small factor.
It's all of the other required bits that makes Hydrogen so inefficient. Transportation, building up pressure, etc. Hydrogen if you compare things simply is more efficient than gas/diesel. However, gas/diesel is pumped out of the ground. Meaning, a lot of the energy needs for gas/diesel are already there.
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I personally think we'll see charging poles next to most public parking spaces before we see a sufficiently built out network of H2 'gas stations'.
I think this underestimates the massive infrastructure investments those charging poles would need to work. I live in a medium density European town (about 1000 inhabitants/km2, think 4-5 story buildings on average). In residential areas the whole street is lined with parked cars on both sides. To charge these, one would need something like 1MW charging per every 4 cars, which means every 20m of the road, on both sid…
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I personally think we'll see charging poles next to most public parking spaces before we see a sufficiently built out network of H2 'gas stations'.
I think this underestimates the massive infrastructure investments those charging poles would need to work. I live in a medium density European town (about 1000 inhabitants/km2, think 4-5 story buildings on average). In residential areas the whole street is lined with parked cars on both sides. To charge these, one would need something like 1MW charging per every 4 cars, which means every 20m of the road, on both sid…
This is massively overestimated. 250kW per car is great for fast charging on road trips but for overnight charging it would be enough to charge a car 30+ times in a single night. 3 to 7kW is more than enough. The grid for that is already there and the chargers can even coordinate to not exceed maximum power if everyone plugs in at the same time and draws the maximum. Almost no infrastructure in the town will need to be changed, the existing grid that supplies all the houses will be enough. After all those cars are owned by people that have electricity at home and are practically not using it while they sleep.
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Compared to a tank full of gasoline?
Yes. Gasoline has a relatively narrow ignition range, it has much less rigorous sealing requirements, and it burns with a flame that's visible in daylight. The problem is that we can't easily make gasoline with solar panels and water.
Making synthetic gasoline was already possible before WWII and that was used a lot by Germany.
It is true that making hydrogen is easier, because making gasoline requires additional steps and equipment, but due to the large disadvantages of storing and handling hydrogen, making gasoline is nonetheless preferable and it does not require any infrastructure change.
While hydrogen is preferred currently for room-temperature fuel cells, for the moment that seems like a dead end, because the current catalysts are much too expensive.
High-temperature fuel cells can use gasoline, so hydrogen no longer has advantages.
Even if one would not choose gasoline, there are still other much better ways to chemically store solar energy than hydrogen, e.g. ammonia or methanol.
I have an acquaintance who has made a substantial fortune from energy focused startups (including a battery tech one) and is now working on another hard tech startup and they are very critical of hydrogen as a fuel. I’ve had superficial conversations with them about it but could never get a sense of their fundamental arguments. Is hydrogen a non starter or are they just protecting their investments with FUD?
The arguments I’ve seen have specifically been about hydrogen in the context of EVs (specifically almost always as a way to dismiss EVs). - The trade-offs work in favor of EVs, hydrogen has a similar distribution problem to gasoline (fueling stations). - Hydrogen requires production somehow, electricity we already have the grid and people can charge at home - The things hydrogen is good at (lighter weight than batter…
To add: Hydrogen stations are fairly unique. It's really expensive to build such stations (millions). Plus heavy restrictions on where they can be placed. Putting up a charge station is really cheap in comparisons (think it was something like 10k for on a public street with 2 charge ports), plus you can place them pretty much anywhere (way less safety restrictions).
What I dislike about EVs is how expensive they're to charge if you're not using your own electricity. At least, that's the situation in NL.
What is the appeal of a hydrogen car vs an eletric car? The range appears to be similar, but being able to charge at home is so much more convenient.
It depends on how you define convenient. Hydrogen can be refilled quickly, in minutes, like a conventional liquid fueled car. If there were a network of hydrogen filling stations then driving, especially long distances, would be similar to driving a liquid fueled car.
But the problem is there will never be an equivalent hydrogen network as there is gasoline network because hydrogen fueling stations are far more expensive to install and maintain. Either the station overhead ends up much higher than gasoline or hydrogen is used much more rarely.
Electric car distance records as of 2018 are 1178km in a Model S and 1001km in a Model 3. https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-s-model-3-hypermile-wo...
Model S Plaid+ next year is supposed to have ~50% greater range than the Model S used in that 2018 record. And has a nationwide charging network (and access to other EV charging networks, which themselves are becoming impressive... Lucid Air’s offering is also impressive).
I just don’t see the attraction of hydrogen any more besides niche applications.
The vehicles are much more expensive (Model 3 way cheaper than equivalent range Toyota Mirai), the charging is far less convenient and totally unavailable outside California, they’re slower, and the fuel is vastly more expensive, and they’re fundamentally less energy efficient. Heck, the Model 3 LR actually weighs less and has more range than the Toyota Mirai.
Hydrogen cars are a bonfire of money.
Conventional carmakers insistent on fast fueling capability ought to do plug-in hybrid. Even if you use synthesized fuel for the few trips that go beyond the electric range, the cost per mile (and cost per vehicle) would be way lower than hydrogen and you could use existing gas stations (although we’d need a lot fewer of them), and you still get the logistical benefit of home/work charging for commutes.
You could switch everyone’s car for a plug in hybrid version today and they wouldn’t even know except it’d sound different. We could ban new vehicles without a plug and it wouldn’t ruin anyone’s corner case commute and a lot of people wouldn’t even realize it at first (just like many don’t realize they drive a mild hybrid). This is a far better argument than hydrogen cars’ “liquid fueling like experience! But only in a handful of stations in California at enormous expense...”
Hydrogen fuel is still a fossil fuel byproduct right? I’m not sure what the point of this is. It sure doesn’t seem like a green technology at this point.
It has a similar relationship to fossil fuels as electric cars.
In contrast, the most optimistic estimates I have seen say that we are at least a decade from electrolyzed hydrogen that is as cheap as carbon-spewing current steam methane reformation. And in the interim, hydrogen boosters are pushing a nonexistent large-scale carbon capture and sequestration of steam methane reformation, something that doesn't exist on an industrial scale, with several failed projects over the past decade.
So I would say that hydrogen cars today are like EVs in the mid 90s. The tech chain has a long ways to go.
What is the appeal of a hydrogen car vs an eletric car? The range appears to be similar, but being able to charge at home is so much more convenient.
Same question from me also. Also, hydrogen is highly explosive, so how can that be safely used in cars without detonating a la Hindenburg whenever there's a collision?
As I understand, If you make a hole in hydrogen tank and set it on fire, it will just burn (don't try to do this at home).
Since “tank” isn’t a unit of measure, I suppose anyone could trivially break the record with a larger tank. From the article: > The Nexo consumed 6.27kg of H2 For comparison with the other production H2 cars: Toyota Mirai: 5.6kg Honda Clarity: 5.0kg Seems like a promising technology. My understanding is that the current blocker is infrastructure. It’s hard to pressurize up to 10,000 PSI, so many facilities are only a…
Sounds like you're talking about distribution infrastructure, which is true but in my mind the biggest issue is efficiency. Storing and using H2 isn't very efficient, and current production techniques for H2 emit as much or more carbon as Diesel.