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Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

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Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#401
post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked in one of the top 5 logistics companies in the world and I can recall them investing in electric trucks and charging infrastructure. Idea was to have strategically placed overhead lines that could recharge trucks without need for them to stop. Can't recall any mentions of hydrogen.

I have seen at least one stretch of highway in Germany that has overhead power lines for trucks. I think it's a very interesting concept: the big downside of batteries is slow charging (compared to diesel) and limited range. Charging while driving on highways would largely solve these downsides.

Cargo trolleybuses? An interesting idea.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd assume because it is complicated. Capturing enough carbon, splitting it, generating enough H2, combining it with the carbon to make long enough chains. That all sounds complicated and expensive and probably needs even more surplus green power that we don't have. It also doesn't solve the problem of local pollution when burning carbon based fuels.

Why go for long synthetic chains? Methane has good energy density, doesn't demand cryogenics or diffuse through steel, burns very cleanly, and can be used in modified gasoline ICEs - without even sacrificing the gasoline fuel capability.

Without cryogenics, methane has such low energy density that a low-pressure fuel tank would still have to be as big as a bus for your compact methane-powered vehicle to go as far as you could on a few gallons of gasoline.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't CO2 it's pulling carbon out of geological deposits. Thus the carbon atoms in synthetic fuel can be considered "green" provided an appropriate energy source was used.

I understand that, but it's a fallacious argument. It's still emitting the same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. You can also bury dead trees in a landfill.

You misunderstand the problem. The act of emitting CO2 into the atmosphere is not a problem.

Significantly increasing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is the problem. This happens when geological sources are used.

Unfortunately, burying dead trees in a landfill doesn't solve the problem because they decompose to methane which escapes. But you're right that geological CO2 production could be balanced by geologic CO2 sequestration, done properly.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What role, if any, did carbonate mineral formation have in sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere?

In the beginning, the oceans were acidic, because they were formed by the condensation of volcanic gases, which consisted of water, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen chloride (i.e. hydrochloric acid) and a few other less abundant acids. In time, the oceans have become less and less acidic, by dissolving from the volcanic silicate rocks the oxides of the alkaline metals and alkali earth met…

I am fairly certain they teach the gist of all of that in even in school-level textbooks on biology/geography.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, that's just verbal sleight of hand. There's no such thing as "green" CO2.

How do you justify exhaling then?

Well, you don't. Everything you do has a carbon footprint, you know, haven't you heard? Everything.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#406
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians are conduits. Someone wanted this to happen. But yea, subsidies. I've been on many a call where "there's govt funding available if we shape this like x" is one of the major selling points.

Politics has a habit of being very insular once elections are finished. There will always be a strong belief in artificially changing market behaviour by simply throwing money at it and hoping it sticks. When the money dries up the public tends to go back to "what's practical and affordable?".

> There will always be a strong belief in artificially changing market behaviour by simply throwing money at it and hoping it sticks.

Well, it can be made to work, you know. Late (in the XX century) industrialization stories are like that: competitive (dis)advantages make any such attempts simply unprofittable for any businessman (or even a group of them), but if the government keeps skewing the market for decades... The Japanese car manufacturing has been heavily subsidized for most of the XX century, even after their several disastrous attempts to enter the US market. But it all worked out in the end.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because regular bullets are actually pretty cold, especially by the time they reach the height of anti-air balloons. But hydrogen itself is SCARY. It has an extremely wide range of ignitable concentrations, and it has very low ignition energy. It also tends to leak through ~everything.

But hydrogen is also so easy to produce on demand that you can design your balloon to be at small positive pressure all the time and always leaks outwards into the open air. If oxygen is allowed to leaked in undetected, yeah that's a death trap. The same if hydrogen leaked into semi contained oxygen enclosures. But leaking through the skin of the balloon to open sky even with decent size holes and a bit of positive p…

> And considering the massive efficiency of lighter-than-air transport

What efficiency? You still need to orient it and propel it in the desired direction, unless you don't mind to simply float around on the wind (in which case, yes, we have weather balloons precisely for that and nothing much else).

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#409
post #266
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no point. EVs go 50% further on the same amount of energy, are easier to charge and are, of course, cheaper.

EVs take forever to charge, rendering long trips unrealistic. They are not cheaper long term, for they rely upon thousands of pounds of heavy batteries. If they go further now, that is not a given down the road. Were you to employ this logic when electric cars first came out, there wouldn't be a single one on the road. It's only through trillions of research dollars, that current battery tech is where it is. But sure…

> But sure, let's not work on multiple paths.

The article is about a sign of failure of one of the multiple paths that was pursued by Japan and Ca State subsidies that was attempted over the last 20 years.

You can work on multiple paths, but to not measure and adjust defeats the purpose.

Re: Toyota’s hydrogen-powered Mirai has experienced rapid depreciation

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the false equivalence between reducing air pollution and not doing hate crimes against Jewish people. I haven’t asked them all individually, but I’m pretty sure my Jewish friends all enjoy breathing clean air.

You’re going to have to explain how you read from what I wrote. From the site guidelines: Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's quite impressive to quote the guidelines to someone when your first post breaks a whole bunch of them.
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