Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars • Hacker News Board

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#91

Post by panick21_ » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 2:57 AM UTC

_hypx wrote: post #72

panick21_ wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Literally everyone has a massive incentive to make green hydrogen work. There is also the reality that certain company have taken a lot of money for a long time without producing many results. Specially if its fossil fuel companies that rubs people the wrong way. Just as giving money to Ford and GM wasn't the solution to get EV going. So its understandable that many people don't love the promotion of it. I am as an…

These are opinions based on profound ignorance. Many sectors can never reach zero emissions without hydrogen. Things like airplanes and ships. You must invest in the infrastructure no matter what. And how can you have hydrogen for steel production without necessarily reducing the cost to the ballpark of coal or natural gas? If you can grasp that part, you should realize that it must be a cheap fuel in the future. Che…

The waste majority of ships will be battery powered, even cargo ships, as most cargo transport is local and short route. Same goes for planes. For the rest hydrogen is just a in between product, directly turning it into things like methanol or jet fuel.

Steel and other metals can be made with direct Molten Oxide Electrolysis. That is a far better path forward then hydrogen.

> You also need to think seriously about the downside of alternative ideas, and not pretend they are magically perfect.

Given your absurd defense of hydrogen cars, I will just say, look in the mirror.

> Batteries are heavy and expensive, nor are they environmental friendly to produce. If you see hydrogen as a far greener type of energy storage, then you will see there are upsides too.

As a complete engineering solution end to end, batteries are far more environmentally friendly, far more efficient and far cheaper. Let alone if you also include infrastructure cost. Anybody who seriously investigates these things will come to the same conclusions.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#92

Post by _hypx » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:02 AM UTC

ffhhttt wrote: post #85

_hypx wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the same argument said about wind and solar not that long ago. People are repeating history by saying the same thing. In the end, you are making something with just wind, sunlight and water. Since they are practically infinite resources, the cost will trend towards zero.

Now apply the same to fusion and many other technologies that turned our to be duds. For every success story you have 10 (or whatever) failures that nobody remembers. > the cost will trend towards zero. Why not just use batteries then? All processes that can be used to make hydrogen now are very inefficient, so unless energy literally costs zero hydrogen won’t still make much sense for cars.

We don't have a working fusion reactor. We do have working electrolyzers and fuel cells. This is night and day difference.

Electrolyzer and fuel cells are electrochemical systems and are basically batteries themselves. There is no fundamental downside compared to choosing some other electrochemical system. People are just swallowing the FUD and marketing BS of li-ion battery companies. There simply isn't a big enough difference in efficiency for this to matter to begin with, and even then the gap will shrink away to nothing. For instance, for large installations it is already possible to do heat-recapture and use that heat to drive a turbine. We can see 85% efficiency and above pretty much right now. We are going to see more ideas like that and therefore there won't much of any real difference in efficiency.

The other point is that we are not here to just replace fossil fuels with something just as limited and problematic. The goal is to move all of society to something truly sustainable. In fact, if the goal is to replace every single vehicle on Earth with BEVs, then the goal is already a dead one. It would be both absurdly expensive and environmentally damaging to attempt that feat. As a result, we pretty much have to invest in hydrogen eventually anyways. So we might as well do so now, rather than keep spending everything on what is basically a transitional technology.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#93

Post by _hypx » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:16 AM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #91

_hypx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are opinions based on profound ignorance. Many sectors can never reach zero emissions without hydrogen. Things like airplanes and ships. You must invest in the infrastructure no matter what. And how can you have hydrogen for steel production without necessarily reducing the cost to the ballpark of coal or natural gas? If you can grasp that part, you should realize that it must be a cheap fuel in the future. Che…

The waste majority of ships will be battery powered, even cargo ships, as most cargo transport is local and short route. Same goes for planes. For the rest hydrogen is just a in between product, directly turning it into things like methanol or jet fuel. Steel and other metals can be made with direct Molten Oxide Electrolysis. That is a far better path forward then hydrogen. > You also need to think seriously about th…

This is seriously detached from reality. Cargo ships do not travel short routes, and "short-haul" airflight is far beyond the ranges of battery powered airplanes. You are completely ignoring physics here.

MOE has not actually been invented yet, and there is no evidence it will be either cheap nor scalable. It's currently very expensive and requires plenty of exotic materials to work even as a concept.

No one is claiming hydrogen cars are perfect. But you are making highly delusional claims about batteries. Many of them are totally impossible.

It's pretty obvious that you have never thought about these problems. It's just a serious of assertions from the marketing department of BEV companies designed to shut down critical thinking. The fact is, a hydrogen infrastructure is cheaper than a battery infrastructure. That is simply due to the nature of pipelines versus wire. A pipe is hollow but a wire is not.

So it is 5-10x cheaper to make and move hydrogen around compared to electricity: https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-hydrogen-offshore-wind

Reality doesn't not favor batteries or excessive electrification.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#94

Post by defrost » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:23 AM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #91

_hypx wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are opinions based on profound ignorance. Many sectors can never reach zero emissions without hydrogen. Things like airplanes and ships. You must invest in the infrastructure no matter what. And how can you have hydrogen for steel production without necessarily reducing the cost to the ballpark of coal or natural gas? If you can grasp that part, you should realize that it must be a cheap fuel in the future. Che…

The waste majority of ships will be battery powered, even cargo ships, as most cargo transport is local and short route. Same goes for planes. For the rest hydrogen is just a in between product, directly turning it into things like methanol or jet fuel. Steel and other metals can be made with direct Molten Oxide Electrolysis. That is a far better path forward then hydrogen. > You also need to think seriously about th…

Globally, annually, there is roughly 850 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) worth of containerized goods handled at ports worldwide.

Aside from container shipping there is raw bulk material shipping, eg: Western Australia ships > 800 million tonnes of raw ores to China annually (not local, not light).

Looking at just container shipping and the major major routes; there is

* 42 million TEU's intra asia (within asia, 'local' but not necc. 'short')

* 42 million TEU's 'far east' to Europe + North America.

and then a long tail of lesser volume routes, many quite lengthy (asia -> south americas, north | south americas, etc.)

Point being by "vast majority" are you talking raw ship numbers (there are many small ships) or cargo volumes | weights?

There is a truly vast amount of heavy tonnages being moved long distances and these consume the majority of shipping energy.

If this is your line of argument then it deserves some refining to move past a handwave.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#95

Post by panick21_ » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 6:20 AM UTC

defrost wrote: post #94

panick21_ wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The waste majority of ships will be battery powered, even cargo ships, as most cargo transport is local and short route. Same goes for planes. For the rest hydrogen is just a in between product, directly turning it into things like methanol or jet fuel. Steel and other metals can be made with direct Molten Oxide Electrolysis. That is a far better path forward then hydrogen. > You also need to think seriously about th…

Globally, annually, there is roughly 850 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) worth of containerized goods handled at ports worldwide. Aside from container shipping there is raw bulk material shipping, eg: Western Australia ships > 800 million tonnes of raw ores to China annually (not local, not light). Looking at just container shipping and the major major routes; there is * 42 million TEU's intra asia (within…

Maybe 'vast majority' is an overestimation but there is a quite a lot of it.

People underestimate how many routes can be done with battery powered ships.

> If this is your line of argument then it deserves some refining to move past a handwave.

My argument was not limited to that. I also said there are other solution that are not direct usage of hydrogen.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#96

Post by panick21_ » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 6:32 AM UTC

_hypx wrote: post #93

panick21_ wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The waste majority of ships will be battery powered, even cargo ships, as most cargo transport is local and short route. Same goes for planes. For the rest hydrogen is just a in between product, directly turning it into things like methanol or jet fuel. Steel and other metals can be made with direct Molten Oxide Electrolysis. That is a far better path forward then hydrogen. > You also need to think seriously about th…

This is seriously detached from reality. Cargo ships do not travel short routes, and "short-haul" airflight is far beyond the ranges of battery powered airplanes. You are completely ignoring physics here. MOE has not actually been invented yet, and there is no evidence it will be either cheap nor scalable. It's currently very expensive and requires plenty of exotic materials to work even as a concept. No one is claim…

You are the one making argument for hydrogen powered cars and that's totally detached from actual reality.

> Cargo ships do not travel short routes

With short I mean not crossing major oceans. Battery powered ships can do a lot of routes.

> MOE has not actually been invented yet, and there is no evidence it will be either cheap nor scalable. It's currently very expensive and requires plenty of exotic materials to work even as a concept.

Both of these claims are just plain false.

> The fact is, a hydrogen infrastructure is cheaper than a battery infrastructure. That is simply due to the nature of pipelines versus wire.

That is such a terrible and utterly idiotic oversimplification.

The reality is, one of these exists and we can make realistic estimate, hydrogen infrastructure simply doesn't exist.

> So it is 5-10x cheaper to make and move hydrogen around compared to electricity: https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-hydrogen-offshore-wind

A bunch of small trial projects supported by governments, that make grand claims.

You like to talk about reality, in reality of the 100s of GW of wind turbines, basically non use hydrogen as an energy transport. And the waste majority of announced new wind projects do not plan to produce hydrogen in the future.

> Reality doesn't not favor batteries or excessive electrification.

And yet in actual reality, you know the one we actually live in, electrification is happening with ever increasing speed and the hydrogen industry barley exists and as far as it does it is almost completely driven by state investments.

Its pretty fucking rich to claim 'in reality' when actual reality is suggesting the exact opposite.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#97

Post by defrost » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 7:15 AM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #95

defrost wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Globally, annually, there is roughly 850 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) worth of containerized goods handled at ports worldwide. Aside from container shipping there is raw bulk material shipping, eg: Western Australia ships > 800 million tonnes of raw ores to China annually (not local, not light). Looking at just container shipping and the major major routes; there is * 42 million TEU's intra asia (within…

Maybe 'vast majority' is an overestimation but there is a quite a lot of it. People underestimate how many routes can be done with battery powered ships. > If this is your line of argument then it deserves some refining to move past a handwave. My argument was not limited to that. I also said there are other solution that are not direct usage of hydrogen.

First up, I'm pro energy transition, so I'm essentially 'on your side'.

I'd still like to see you make better arguments and work on the real world details (if you can be bothered) which will take time if you apply yourself.

eg: batteries

Sure .. somewhere there is the future.

Right now, though, the largest installer of city scale battery parks in the world Neoen has yet to crack 10 GW installed:

   As at 31 December 2021, the company's total capacity was 5.4 GW, made up of 50% solar, 38% wind and 12% battery storage. Neoen aims to attain 10 GW in operation and under construction by 2025.

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

That's total globally after successively installing the three successive "biggest battery parks in the world" each larger than the other.

For a comparison point, Germany (a single mid sized European country) has a lowest overnight baseload minimum draw of 40 GW (all night long .. an then it ramps up).

Realistically batteries must scale to being able to provide 40 GW for an hour (or more!) .. which is provision of power x length of time.

And from there to scale out by a 100 and more locations.

So, there's some way to go here.

As for hydrogen and steel .. before you wave that away it might be worth looking into the concrete plans by the largest raw material providers for the largest steel plants globally.

https://www.fmgl.com.au/in-the-news/media-releases/2021/06/0...

https://www.fmgl.com.au/in-the-news/media-releases/2023/06/1...

These are the concrete plans of those who are committed to climate action, have access to world class engineers, and already provide 100's of millions of tonnes of raw iron ore per year to steel production already.

You don't have to agree with them, but they are taking action with several billion in capital backing them, so it pays to understand what they intend.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#98

Post by _hypx » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 9:25 AM UTC

panick21_ wrote: post #96

_hypx wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is seriously detached from reality. Cargo ships do not travel short routes, and "short-haul" airflight is far beyond the ranges of battery powered airplanes. You are completely ignoring physics here. MOE has not actually been invented yet, and there is no evidence it will be either cheap nor scalable. It's currently very expensive and requires plenty of exotic materials to work even as a concept. No one is claim…

You are the one making argument for hydrogen powered cars and that's totally detached from actual reality. > Cargo ships do not travel short routes With short I mean not crossing major oceans. Battery powered ships can do a lot of routes. > MOE has not actually been invented yet, and there is no evidence it will be either cheap nor scalable. It's currently very expensive and requires plenty of exotic materials to wor…

Except the most important routes are about crossing oceans. Asia to Europe or Asia to North America are very important routes. You pretty much hand waved major details here.

Then show me a working MOE system. I'd love to be enlightened about a working system that went beyond lab experiment.

You're the one ignoring actual expertise here. Here more people with expertise making the same claim: https://www.brinknews.com/could-hydrogen-replace-the-need-fo...

> It is about 10 times cheaper to transport energy by a hydrogen pipeline than by an electric cable.

At some point you are simply rejecting evidence without any counterevidence of your own.

The reason why we turn use hydrogen to transport energy right now is because the technology wasn't available until recently. But that is changing: https://www.greencarcongress.com/2023/04/20230411-h2pipeline...

As the technology becomes available, economics will dictate more hydrogen infrastructure.

Your simply misinformed. Hydrogen investment is enormous in its totality: https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/hydrogen-projects-inve...

All you're doing is making wild assertions without evidence.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#99

Post by ffhhttt » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:14 PM UTC

_hypx wrote: post #92

ffhhttt wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now apply the same to fusion and many other technologies that turned our to be duds. For every success story you have 10 (or whatever) failures that nobody remembers. > the cost will trend towards zero. Why not just use batteries then? All processes that can be used to make hydrogen now are very inefficient, so unless energy literally costs zero hydrogen won’t still make much sense for cars.

We don't have a working fusion reactor. We do have working electrolyzers and fuel cells. This is night and day difference. Electrolyzer and fuel cells are electrochemical systems and are basically batteries themselves. There is no fundamental downside compared to choosing some other electrochemical system. People are just swallowing the FUD and marketing BS of li-ion battery companies. There simply isn't a big enough…

> every single vehicle on Earth with BEVs, then the goal is already a dead one.

We might replace small/personal vehicles with BEV and larger ones with hydrogen.

It’s not a very good fuel source for small vehicles because of how unstable it is. You need significant amounts of energy to stop it from evaporating.

For large commercial vehicles that and distribution would be much easier.

> . We can see 85% efficiency and above pretty much right now

Multiply that by production efficiency and we’re just a bit above the level of ICE.

Re: Toyota claims battery breakthrough in potential boost for electric cars

#100

Post by _hypx » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 7:21 PM UTC

ffhhttt wrote: post #99

_hypx wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have a working fusion reactor. We do have working electrolyzers and fuel cells. This is night and day difference. Electrolyzer and fuel cells are electrochemical systems and are basically batteries themselves. There is no fundamental downside compared to choosing some other electrochemical system. People are just swallowing the FUD and marketing BS of li-ion battery companies. There simply isn't a big enough…

> every single vehicle on Earth with BEVs, then the goal is already a dead one. We might replace small/personal vehicles with BEV and larger ones with hydrogen. It’s not a very good fuel source for small vehicles because of how unstable it is. You need significant amounts of energy to stop it from evaporating. For large commercial vehicles that and distribution would be much easier. > . We can see 85% efficiency and…

You mean something closer to every short-ranged EV with BEVs, and long ranged ones with FCEVs? That could work, although it would be admitting that most cars will be FCEVs. Though honestly, we'd be better off with more mass transit than short-ranged vehicles.

Hydrogen is not unstable for transportation purposes. It is safer than gasoline.

No. Wells to wheels efficiency, at least for large installations, would be not far off from what is possible with batteries. The fact that you even think that FCEVs are even close to ICE on efficiency shows that you've swallowed a lot of BEV propaganda. A fuel cell is 3x the efficiency of a conventional gasoline engine. BEVs simply are not that much efficient, and the gap continuously shrink.