Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

rechargenews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 387 posts

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#111

Post by beachy »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #58
jacquesm wrote: post #25

I wish them much good luck, but it's a bit like the dinosaurs complaining about those uppity mammals getting underfoot: their days are numbered. BEVs are here to stay, hydrogen is - as far as I can see - a non-starter except when it comes to heavy traffic and possibly rail or air but even there I have my doubts. Meanwhile BEVs are rapidly building momentum and coupled with solar and wind make very good sense. Even th…

I'm not so sure that BEVs will reach anything close to 100% of all cars on the road. My primary reason is this: as long as you "only" have 10%, 20%, even 30% BEVs the electric charging infrastructure is mostly free, we already have it. But after that, BEVs will require expensive infrastructure to be built in the electricity transmission grid. Think "we need to dig up all of the roads". Because it's not just cars goin…

The counter to your "think of the grid" argument is that the fossil fuel network may start to atrophy once there are significantly less people fuelling their gas vehicles.

If filling your gas car involves an unplesant trip to a peeling, cracking and unreliable gas station, then that's one more incentive to go BEV.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#112

Post by ZeroGravitas »

tw04 wrote: post #55
gmane wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, and it's by and large viewed as a complete failure[0]. Is your argument that we should repeat that failure? [0] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/green-tech/a4266501...

No? I'm not sure why you jumped to attack me when I was simply providing a counter-point to your claim that it's all "oil and gas". I drive an EV, I'm quite happy with it. As to the article: they fail to mention that Japan hasn't even begun to throw in the towel. The newest CEO of Toyota is doubling down on hydrogen powered vehicles. https://www.autonews.com/mobility-report/toyotas-bold-us-pla...

Japan has little traditional fossil fuels, but they were making a lot of noise about exploiting the methane hydrate in their seas:

> Methane hydrate is confirmed to exist abundantly in the sea near Japan and is expected to become one of the domestic energy resources of the future

https://www.japex.co.jp/en/technology/research/mh/

So in this case, they're really just a subset of the "oil and gass industry" boosting hydrogen vehicles.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#113

Post by cracrecry »

There is an Oil Sector Lobby and there is an electric sector Lobby too. All Lobbies hate competition.

The electric sector wants to destroy Hydrogen because it competes with them, of course, they want to destroy the seed so no tree comes out of it. Hydrogen disappearing is not going to happen, because it going to be necessary for some things, like heavy transportation.

Just because clean Hydrogen is in the early stages in development(like EV were 15 years ago) does not mean that we should not develop the technology.

I personally believe that NH3 is great for storing energy and energy transportation, and extremely useful for things like growing food.

It is also toxic and difficult to handle, like oil, but in lots of sectors(like heavy industries) it makes lots of sense. In other sectors, electricity and batteries make more sense. Different technologies will coexist together and compete.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#114

Post by mem0r1 »

The argumentation is flawed.

1. Just imagine the required charging infrastructure if all vehicles were suddenly battery powered. Charging electric vehicles requires quite some power. Can the power grid installations sustain that (power lines, Transformer stations...) ? What resources (financial and physical (e.g. Cooper)) are required in order to adapt the infrastructure ? Just an example: A supercharger station which can charge a few cars at "full speed" simultaneously can draw > 1 Megawatt. Furthermore, superchargers are quite complex (and expensive) technology;

2. Batteries are not a suitable large scale energy storage. However, non-dispatchable, fluctuating energy sources such as solar and wind power require huge amounts of storage in order to sustain the power demand.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#115

Post by z_rex »

One thing I never see discussed about why hydrogen is so popular as a replacement for hydrocarbons: You can fairly easily generate hydrogen from natural gas via methane pyrolysis, and the carbon falls out as carbon black, a solid. The waste heat from a single gas turbine can generate enough hydrogen to power about 3 turbines of the same size, so when it's all said and done at a combined cycle plant with a steam turbine on the other 2 units, you're down about 12% on your net energy production, but it's not releasing any carbon into the atmosphere.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#116

Post by meindnoch »

cracrecry wrote: post #113

There is an Oil Sector Lobby and there is an electric sector Lobby too. All Lobbies hate competition. The electric sector wants to destroy Hydrogen because it competes with them, of course, they want to destroy the seed so no tree comes out of it. Hydrogen disappearing is not going to happen, because it going to be necessary for some things, like heavy transportation. Just because clean Hydrogen is in the early stage…

>It is also toxic and difficult to handle, like oil

Except oil is a liquid, while ammonia is a gas. You can put oil in an open container and it won't hurt anyone. Now try doing the same with ammonia...

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#118

Post by [deleted] »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #58
jacquesm wrote: post #25

I wish them much good luck, but it's a bit like the dinosaurs complaining about those uppity mammals getting underfoot: their days are numbered. BEVs are here to stay, hydrogen is - as far as I can see - a non-starter except when it comes to heavy traffic and possibly rail or air but even there I have my doubts. Meanwhile BEVs are rapidly building momentum and coupled with solar and wind make very good sense. Even th…

I'm not so sure that BEVs will reach anything close to 100% of all cars on the road. My primary reason is this: as long as you "only" have 10%, 20%, even 30% BEVs the electric charging infrastructure is mostly free, we already have it. But after that, BEVs will require expensive infrastructure to be built in the electricity transmission grid. Think "we need to dig up all of the roads". Because it's not just cars goin…

[deleted]

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#119

Post by robertlagrant »

parker_mountain wrote: post #63
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting two tons of highly toxic and flammable lithium into a car-shaped object just to commute one person a few dozen miles is quite literally insane from all practical points of view. Our ancestors will never believe that we were nuts enough to not only allow this, but actually legally manndate it. They will think it's an urban legend and no ancient people could have been so short-sighted and egotistical.

Fun fact: per mile driven, there are about 1/10th to 1/5th as many EV fires, as there are gas car fires. Putting ten gallons of highly toxic and flammable fuel into a car-shaped object just to commute one person a few dozen miles is quite literally insane from all practical points of view. Electric tech is marginally less crazy, and also a step forward.

> quite literally insane from all practical points of view

Erm. I don't think that's true.

Re: Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

#120

Post by r87 »

parker_mountain wrote: post #63
otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting two tons of highly toxic and flammable lithium into a car-shaped object just to commute one person a few dozen miles is quite literally insane from all practical points of view. Our ancestors will never believe that we were nuts enough to not only allow this, but actually legally manndate it. They will think it's an urban legend and no ancient people could have been so short-sighted and egotistical.

Fun fact: per mile driven, there are about 1/10th to 1/5th as many EV fires, as there are gas car fires. Putting ten gallons of highly toxic and flammable fuel into a car-shaped object just to commute one person a few dozen miles is quite literally insane from all practical points of view. Electric tech is marginally less crazy, and also a step forward.

I’d expect that, but would have assumed it is due to there being more old gas vehicles on the road. Is that data normalized for age of the cars driven?

I assume that my neighbors 30 year old gas guzzler is more likely to catch fire than my 1 year old PHEV for example (or maybe I’m more likely since I have both a lithium battery and a gas tank).

Post reply on HN