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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?

#321

Post by kergonath »

originalvichy wrote: post #294
belorn wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last decades' worth of German administrations (and EU countries in general) removed nuclear on the promise of a cheap grid made from green hydrogen and renewables. What they delivered was a EU grid dependent on imported natural gas and a record high ~€400 billions energy subsidies. It is hard to see whose promise of a bright future seems most realistic.

Germany is not the same as other countries. They have a culturally different view towards nuclear power.

Italy used to be similar (though they have seemed to be softening their stance recently). Austria is even more anti-nuclear than Germany ever was.

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

#322

Post by kergonath »

calibas wrote: post #196
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.

What about electric cars wasn't "viable" in 2003? That was the year Toyota released their all electric RAV4 in California... Unlike hydrogen, there was already whole highly-developed system for production and distribution of electricity. Also, you're mistaken about my "made up narrative". I'm not claiming electric cars were mass market, I'm strongly implying there were forces at work fighting against that very thing!

> What about electric cars wasn't "viable" in 2003? That was the year Toyota released their all electric RAV4 in California

Musk was very effective in pushing the narrative that there was nothing before Tesla.

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

#323

Post by coldtea »

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…

>to delay a green revolution

There's no "green revolution". Just different compromises and tradeoffs, and practical considerations for roll-out times (including for solar, wind, and batteries - no free lunch.

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

#324

Post by VBprogrammer »

wordofx wrote: post #286
xbmcuser wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people miss the fact that China did not get to electric out of the blue it invested heavily in all these techs Hydrogen, Nuclear, Wind, Solar and batteries the cheapest and easiest to scale turned out to be Solar, Wind and then batteries. Even today China is still building more hydrogen and nuclear plants than most of the world combined but those technologies have not scaled or gotten cheaper at the…

That must be why China is building so much nuclear power.

There really is no accounting for China. They are building everything at an incredible rate, solar, wind, nuclear and coal power!

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

#325

Post by psd1 »

rco8786 wrote: post #194
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #149

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.

It’s hard to imagine it not. And also kudos and crazy respect for all the thousands of engineers that poured their work into making combustion engines as efficient and reliable as they are. A true marvel of humanity, and something to be respected even as we leave it behind.

I see your point, but at best you're getting 40% thermal efficiency with IC. It's not great.

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

#326

Post by Dylan16807 »

Guthur wrote: post #240
Retric wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen is also a byproduct of some source of energy, it doesn’t just materialize. The difference is batteries are vastly more efficient at storage and doing useful work with that stored energy. There’s use cases where that’s fine like rocketry, but efficiency or energy density is usually a dealbreaker.

What the hell are you talking about, a. batteries weren't mentioned and b. hydrogen is on the periodic table and exists as an element, and can actually be found in its pure form.

> a. batteries weren't mentioned

What do you think people mean when they say "electric" in this context? It's batteries.

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

#327

Post by tialaramex »

ajb wrote: post #304
D_Alex wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Blue hydrogen" is commonly used for hydrogen produced from natural gas. If it is produced by steam reforming (most common), then the associated CO2 emissions are worse than if you just burn the natural gas directly. "Green hydrogen" is usually hydrogen produced from water by electrolysis, using electricity from non-CO2 source, e.g. wind or electricity.

Blue hydrogen is supposed to capture the carbon. If its just emitted, then it's grey hydrogen: https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/hydrog...

Right, if you "oops" don't have working capture because it's never been practical you're making "Blue" hydrogen in which your customers can tell everybody they're environmentally friendly but due to a technical hitch you are emitting lots of CO2. Maybe you can agree a token $1B fine, of course offset against the taxes you were already going to pay, and everybody carries on as before. Hooray for your profitable corporation and oops, too bad for the stupid humans who live on the gradually less inhabitable planet you're destroying.

This would only be really dumb if the corporation was owned by humans. Huh.

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

#328

Post by tim333 »

fraserharris wrote: post #119

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 get the impression they've had similar results in London. They've had ~20 hydrogen busses for a while but apparently are expensive like £500k per bus plus you need to find hydrogen.

On the other hand battery seems to be cracking along: "over 1,600 zero-emission buses currently in service, and TfL aims to have a fully zero-emission bus fleet by 2030, accelerating plans with increased government funding."

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

#329

Post by chrisco255 »

calibas wrote: post #196
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.

What about electric cars wasn't "viable" in 2003? That was the year Toyota released their all electric RAV4 in California... Unlike hydrogen, there was already whole highly-developed system for production and distribution of electricity. Also, you're mistaken about my "made up narrative". I'm not claiming electric cars were mass market, I'm strongly implying there were forces at work fighting against that very thing!

Sure, they achieved it in 2003, that's why they signed an agreement in 2010 with Tesla to produce an all-electric RAV4:

https://archive.nytimes.com/wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07...

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

#330

Post by psd1 »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #276
sholladay wrote: post #214

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…

> The bus gets lighter and more efficient as it uses fuel. This argument is weak. To get any kind of reasonable energy density you have to compress hydrogen to 10,000psi. The tanks to contain a gas at that pressure are heavy enough that the weight of gas inside is almost negligible. Especially in ground vehicles which aren't hugely sensitive to weight.

Tell that to Colin Chapman!

Although yes, agreed, a few kilos makes little difference to a bus.

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