Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check • Hacker News Board

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#191

Post by philjohn » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 9:49 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #188

philjohn wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen that doesn't come from the natural gas industry requires that very same electricity to be extracted from water - so they're operating from the same baseline in my efficiency calculations.

But the electricity is generated by burning natural gas.

Not 100%. A lot in the US, for sure, less in the EU where renewables are a much larger part of the grid, as is Nuclear (thanks to interconnects from France).

And if we work at it that number might go the same way as Coal has within our lifetimes.

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#192

Post by mmooss » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

philjohn wrote: post #189

mmooss wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Hydrogen vehicles have not proven to match or even beat EV's in a lot of key metrics that matter Not yet. That is the nature of technological R&D - if we had the answers, we wouldn't be doing R&D. AI before the last decade or so didn't beat other computer technologies in key metrics; should they have stopped developing it? Fusion power doesn't beat fission and other options in key metrics; solar didn't beat other s…

Toyota have been researching hydrogen cars since the early 90's. Unless you can find a way to double their efficiency, and also get hydrogen down to close to 1:1 energy input to output it's just not an efficienct use of electricity.

EVs were researched for decades before they came to fruition. That's the nature of research.

Re: Hydrogen vs. Battery Buses: A European Transit Reality Check

#193

Post by dornan » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 1:49 AM UTC

ianburrell wrote: post #174

SoftTalker wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So H2 fueled vehicles are just indirectly methane fueled, and not carbon-neutral. Why not electrolyse water? It's not efficient, but if you use solar energy who cares? Set up a plant near the ocean and just let it run. All the inputs are essentially free.

Electrolysis uses a lot of electricity. Solar energy is not free, others pay money for the energy. What are you going to do with the hydrogen? It is better to use the electricity. Green hydrogen only makes sense when everything is electrified and electricity is cheap. It might be needed for things like industrial heat or shipping where need fuel.

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