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Oil sector is lobbying for inefficient hydrogen cars to delay electrification

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

#331

Post by torginus »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #253
torginus wrote: post #178

People who are bullish for EVs I implore you to reconsider - current EVs containing a literal ton of batteries with limited lifespans belong in the green future, especially 80% of that doesn't get used for daily commute. It's obvious to me that considering the full-lifecycle costs (both manufacturing, usage and ownership), some sort of hybrid solution is the greenest, for the current crop of personal cars. But I beli…

Batteries mostly outlast the EVs they are in and are being recycled when they don't. Most EVs produced since they entered the market a bit over a decade ago are actually still driving fine. Most of them even have their original battery. You can get some really nice second hand models at this point. Of course they hold their value pretty well too. That's why manufacturers give eight year warranties on their batteries…

>Batteries mostly outlast the EVs they are in and are being recycled when they don't.

Are they reused in practice? Are they recycled? Can you give me a comprehensive plan on this? Is there an EU mandate on this?

According to this article from MIT they're hard to recycle:

https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/how-well-can-electric-vehicl....

I feel like this is an emotionally and ideologically driven issue with a really complex answers. Like most climate and green activism, action predates thinking, and the costs are only seen in hindsight. And more often than not, the proposed actions seem to be to throw away your already existing and working stuff, to buy more, newer stuff that's supposed to be greener.

And even buying the line that EV total CO2 emissions are less over the life of a vehicle

This makes the whole thing look like the affluent West trading global environmental concerns of CO2 emissions, to much more severe, local ones that strike less fortunate economies.

Issues such as lithium mining:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environmen...

Or battery manufacture:

https://www.greenpeace.org/hungary/environmentally-speaking-...

So once more rich people get to feel good about themselves, while getting new shiny stuff.

And corporations can convince people to buy 10x as much batteries as they actually need, because people think in labels like 'petrol bad'.

I kind of agree that hybrids suck, but most of that is due to manufacturers not putting the R&D and investments in, because the public is against them.

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

#332

Post by dainiusse »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #151
dainiusse wrote: post #59

The problem is simple - EVs are overpriced and battery density is too low. It needs to be at least twice of current ones. EVs are Definitely going to be over hydrogen, but the tech is just not there yet for many markets. 200 kilometers in harsh conditions is wayyto small range

Why? Commuting 100 miles to work each day is ridiculous. For anything less than that, your 300 mile range is going to be plenty. There's an argument to be made that the tech isn't quite there yet for long haul trucking and the like, but 95+% of commuter vehicles could and should be replaced with EVs tomorrow.

I think this implies that a family has multiple cars. It is good enough to be a second car (yet IMO to expensive still and while Tesla gets on the cheap side, its interior is not for everyone).

However, my point is - I don't want 2 cars and EVs don't yet tick all boxes.

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

#333

Post by tcfhgj »

rocqua wrote: post #316
tcfhgj wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Summer to winter isn't a real storage case. If you need more energy in the winter, you build more wind power, not PV to store it an entire year. And episodes of little wind+sun have a duration of less than a month. And there are more storage use cases, e.g. short term grid stabilization (<1 second).

You cannot reasonably dimension wind power to serve the winter heating needs of northern Europe. Once you get halfway there you're summer surpluses get so huge, inefficient seasonal storage becomes a much better solution.

Interestingly, others worry that the seasonal phenomenon of wind power is too large:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/wind-pattern...

Perhaps southern Europe will counteract as well: less need in the winter and energy required for increased cooling with heat pumps in the summer

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

#334

Post by _aavaa_ »

LtWorf wrote: post #208
linkjuice4all wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We (in the US) have very little hydrogen infrastructure but there's high voltage power lines basically everywhere - so it seems like hydrogen has the infrastructure and scaling issues. Batteries are indeed heavy - but so are portable hydrogen storage cell that don't easily explode or require liquid cooling. I agree with you that hydrogen isn't the answer but methane doesn't really seem to be either. Batteries and ele…

There isn't enough infrastructure to power all the eventual electric cars.

But there isn’t any infrastructure for fueling the hydrogen cars.

A move towards hydrogen means 3-5x more energy requirements (which also cost money) as well as a transmission and distribution network for the gas.

At home charging and on street parking charging will be an easier retrofit than the construction of new refueling stations.

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

#335

Post by tim333 »

Certhas wrote: post #325
espadrine wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the same companies that lobby for hydrogen for cars & heating, claiming green benefits there one day, don’t raise a finger to decarbonate hydrogen for fertilizers, which does make it seem like they don’t actually care about reducing CO₂ emissions. The article points out the hypocrisy: > Liebreich gives an example of Shell being happy to spend $12bn on a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) platform, the Pre…

Absolutely. A sane hydrogen strategy can not be left to the lobbyists. Unfortunately, these companies have a lot of money to throw around, and they have no qualms about speaking to peoples "anti-ideological" impulses. In Germany, we have seen this strategy employed a number of times now politically: There is a clear technological winner (EV, battery, heat pumps, etc...), however with enormous transition costs (new in…

A reason I think carbon pricing makes sense. Then you can calculate the most economical solution rather than going with the slickest politicians.

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

#336

Post by oblio »

tremon wrote: post #174
oblio wrote: post #69

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. And ICEs are powered by many thousands of mini explosions per minute with a side effect of producing an odorless gas that can kill us silently. Everything can be scaremongered. And personal transportation, as much as I wish wasn't t…

What happened in 1910? The first automobile dates from 1886, and I'm pretty sure the horse&buggy personal transportation method predates it by several centuries.

Mass manufacturing. Almost everything became widely available, at least in developing and developed countries.

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

#337

Post by Certhas »

tim333 wrote: post #335
Certhas wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. A sane hydrogen strategy can not be left to the lobbyists. Unfortunately, these companies have a lot of money to throw around, and they have no qualms about speaking to peoples "anti-ideological" impulses. In Germany, we have seen this strategy employed a number of times now politically: There is a clear technological winner (EV, battery, heat pumps, etc...), however with enormous transition costs (new in…

A reason I think carbon pricing makes sense. Then you can calculate the most economical solution rather than going with the slickest politicians.

Carbon pricing is great theory, but also is a massive cop-out politically. It moves the pain point into the future. If todays governments can't implement measures that are somewhat uncomfortable, why do you believe that a government in five or ten years will actually be able to implement or sustain a carbon price that is effective?

I will not believe a policy based around future increases in carbon price unless it is implemented at a constitutional level (i.e. hard to reverse), comes with a detailed plan to redistribute the taxes raised in a manner that makes it socially just, and includes detailed information campaigns what the future price means for investments done now.

Having a huge carbon price in 10 years, for example, implies that internal combustion engine cars are worthless then. Just trying to implement a policy to stop selling them in ten years already causes a huge backlash, the idea that there will be the political capital to turn all existing ICE cars into expensive paper weights that only the richest few can afford to drive is wishful thinking.

Carbon prices do have an important role to play, but for those situations where we need to transform large systems in our societies (heat sector, mobility) that are incredibly ingrained in the status quo, relying on market mechanisms that depend on a politically backed price does not seem feasible.

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

#338

Post by alexfromapex »

theshrike79 wrote: post #318
alexfromapex wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hydrogen can be created from water and electricity

It can yes, but the efficiency is laughable. It's only viable when you've got essentially free renewables AND you've filled every battery you can.

Water is quite affordable and so is solar. The efficiency of both solar and electrolysis will likely increase as more research is done.

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

#339

Post by vel0city »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #110
gmane wrote: post #5

Anyone who has followed hydrogen as a fuel for a while sees pretty easily that its a solution in search of a problem. It really doesn't make sense to use renewables to make hydrogen fuel to then burn: batteries are better for storage of energy in most cases (I will grant that there are edge cases where a liquid/gas fuel is a better technical solution than batteries, but I think that options like ethanol are probably…

Batteries go bad over a rather short period of time and are incredibly expensive too. They’re basically currently infeasible as a mode of transport without _a lot_ of trade offs. Compare that to a tank for fuel, which is comparatively minuscule in cost and basically never goes bad. I don’t think electrical is as scalable as liquid fuel and I’m not convinced it ever will be, especially if it’s continued to be made by…

Gas, especially gas with ethanol in it, absolutely goes bad unless stored very well. It'll oxidize, absorb water, and evaporate within months. There's a lot of reasons why people "winterize" their lawn equipment; gas going bad is one big part.

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

#340

Post by vel0city »

tremon wrote: post #174
oblio wrote: post #69

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. And ICEs are powered by many thousands of mini explosions per minute with a side effect of producing an odorless gas that can kill us silently. Everything can be scaremongered. And personal transportation, as much as I wish wasn't t…

What happened in 1910? The first automobile dates from 1886, and I'm pretty sure the horse&buggy personal transportation method predates it by several centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Model_T

Technically 1908, but we can round.

The first automobiles were practically toys for the rich. Cars didn't really become a "mass market" thing until ~1910.

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