Why did we abandon hydrogen cars so quickly?

[dragontamer5788]

Because the best-case efficiency of H20 to H2 is 70% (using expensive catalysts), plus the efficiency of that Fuel Cell is only 50%. Add in the losses to transport H2 from a big electrolysis factory to your local gas station (15% higher losses than just sending it over power lines)

And? The price of electricity swings by like 300% daily. Use the cheap electricity when its available, and then turn off the plants when its expensive.

Having a 40% efficient process but using electricity that's 33% the cost is still a net-winner from a market perspective. There's not enough "storage" or "elastic demand" going on in our power-grids. Such a workload would be a very good thing. H2 Electrolysis could be a "reverse peaker plant", effectively doing the job of energy storage.

Cause you choose to disbelieve reality. Over-and--over again!

You're ignoring the market realities of our utility system and the price of electricity in your analysis. We have an energy storage problem, a rather large and difficult one mind you. H2 provides us the ability to solve two birds with one stone: storing cheap "off-peak" energy in the form of H2, then burning it in our transportation network.

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Hydrogen make sso much more sense then electric for anything heavy- pickup trucks, semi tractors, trains, boats. EV really only makes sense for shorter trips and city cars, where electric charging at home is a royal PITA.

I want to know why we cant go to biodiesel, which we could grow at home rather then importing from the middle east and is carbon neutral.

 

[dragontamer5788]

I want to know why we cant go to biodiesel, which we could grow at home rather then importing from the middle east and is carbon neutral.

Actually, USA has more than enough oil reserves to be independent from the middle east. The main issue is that the middle east has easy-to-use oil reserves, while we in the USA have to do expensive fracking. As such, we can only be energy independent if... the price of oil skyrockets.

Kind of a backwards situation, but... hey, that's how the world politics / resource distribution works. Everything we do to make energy cheaper benefits the Middle East rather than us.

-----------

The reason why we use petroleum is because its extraordinarily cheap. The amount of water you needed to make that biodiesel is just far in excess of the costs needed to stick a metal-straw into the ground and slurp up the diesel that already exists in the earth.

 

[Aquinus]

ICE engines are maybe 30% efficient (taking 30% of the power in gasoline and using it for motion, and then turning 70% of the power into heat). You can notice this by just feeling the hot exhaust on your car.

Toyota has 3 and 4-cylinder engines with a thermal efficiency of closer to 40%+. So we're still seeing improvements on this front.

 

[Bomby569]

Oh, and, Bomby569, you obviously bought the Bull, with a hydrogen-powered concept car that will never again be sold here in the US (that gives it a very small market , with just a few places outside US West Coast and Japan have enough H2 infrastructure to support it)

Toyota Confirms Yaris Sedan, Hatchback Are Dead to U.S.

The 2020 model year will be the last for U.S. sales of the economical subcompacts.

www.caranddriver.com

Face it dude, H2 is dead in cars, and this Yaris concept one will be Japan-only!

get your facts straight there's a lot of investment on it by the EU and especially the German government. I have no idea why you say it will never be a thing. I guess airplanes and ships in the US will be carrying an extra plane or shit along just to carry the batteries

 

[ARF]

No one has abandoned anything. H2 is the future. Just be patient to see the stupid fossil fuels industry steps backwards.

The hydrogen stations in Germany:

H2.LIVE: Hydrogen Stations in Germany & Europe

 

[the54thvoid]

I have an engineer friend who works with energy (all forms except, ironically, renewables). But even he's involved with a hydrogen storage project in the UK. A lot of effort and private investment is being made toward making it a viable option - note - not a replacement. Just part of the slow transition.

 

[thebluebumblebee]

I'll just leave this here (from 1958)

 

[defaultluser]

I have an engineer friend who works with energy (all forms except, ironically, renewables). But even he's involved with a hydrogen storage project in the UK. A lot of effort and private investment is being made toward making it a viable option - note - not a replacement. Just part of the slow transition.

its only happening because none of the big energy companies ever want to give-up their massive petroleum infrastructure

But they have never been capable of "running the numbers: (the entire oil industry has to be subsidized to make it affordable

Subsidies really do matter to the US oil & gas industry -- one in particular

A new analysis measures the concrete impact that US fossil fuel subsidies have on the profitability of US oil & gas projects. One subsidy in particular makes a substantial difference.

www.volts.wtf

They for some crazy reason think these subsidies will magically continue (even after we electrify the truck and train networks for less than the cost of rebuilding all those pipelines to be h2-capable, AND add the cost of all those massive electrolysis factories, new storage containers at eveery locatiopn, al;l with FIVE TIMES the leakage of Methane)

 

[dragontamer5788]

its only happening because none of the big energy companies ever want to give-up their massive petroleum infrastructure

Discover our stories | Air Liquide

Discover our stories

www.airliquide.com

You know that H2 electrolysis exists today, and is ramping up to larger and larger sizes, right? That's water + electricity == Hydrogen, no carbon involved.

even after we electrify the truck

Suuurrrreeeeee. In other news, 2021 is almost over and Pepsi still doesn't have their electric trucks from Tesla. We're also facing a chip shortage, lithium mining shortage, and other hurdles.

Meanwhile, H2 trucks and busses are full steam ahead.

I'm sure that Tesla will eventually be able to build those Tesla-semis or whatever. But they're far later than expected... H2 (Hyundai) has already delivered first.

 

[ARF]

Well, everything around us is energy. But we use the most inappropriate and dangerous for us (because of the greenhouse effects) fossil fuels energy sources.

Meanwhile, the Sun energy is unlimited, look at the MWh solar energy striking the Earth every day

Worldometer - real time world statistics (worldometers.info)

 

[dragontamer5788]

Well, everything around us is energy. But we use the most inappropriate and dangerous for us (because of the greenhouse effects) fossil fuels energy sources.

Meanwhile, the Sun energy is unlimited, look at the MWh solar energy striking the Earth every day

But H2 can be made from electricity + water, and there are utility scale (10MW plants) today that do this, with 100MW plants being built around the world.

In fact, you can directly turn solar energy into the energy needed to split 2(H2O) into 2(H2) + O2 (https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13237).

 

[Shrek]

If you gonna make hydrogen from Sunlight, might as well make alcohol or synthetic gasoline.

 

[dragontamer5788]

If you gonna make hydrogen from Sunlight, might as well make alcohol or synthetic gasoline.

H2 Electrolysis doesn't require us to use up our precious topsoil.

And yes, topsoil is a precious resource, USA is running low on it. We need to be more careful about our topsoil allocations. IIRC, we've lost like 35% of our topsoil in the past couple of decades.

 

[ARF]

If you gonna make hydrogen from Sunlight, might as well make alcohol or synthetic gasoline.

But the goal of the exercise is to remove and substitute the poisons, not to make them synthetically lol.

Can you imagine what burning of gasoline and coal is? It is like sitting on a chair, eating its legs and hoping that you will stay in your seat

 

[Shrek]

Little confused here; how is synthetic gasoline a poison? if one gets the carbon needed from the air or the flue of a traditional power station.

I'm still for electric vehicles.

 

[ARF]

Little confused here

How is synthetic gasoline a poison? if one gets the carbon needed from the air.

And then what? Release it back in the air after its combustion?

You don't need to release polluters in the air and then do the unnecessary exercise of removing them from there.
Just stop releasing them in the first place.

 

[Shrek]

That's why electric vehicles are the future.

Hydrogen has a storage issue, that is why I suggested synthetic gasoline, and as you point out that also has issues.

The topic is
"Why did we abandon hydrogen cars so quickly?"
seems obvious to me given electric.

 

[ARF]

That's why electric vehicles are the future.

I don't know. With these so low ranges of 200-250 kilometers, you can't really rely on them, at least just yet.

I am not sure as of when they will release an affordable sedan with 800-900 kilometers of range.
An affordable means $25,000 or less.

Hydrogen has a storage issue, that is why I suggested synthetic gasoline, and as you point out that also has issues.

The topic is
"Why did we abandon hydrogen cars so quickly?"
seems obvious to me given electric.

Well, the issue is that we need high quality containers and high quality processes. Everything else is the same as moving and transporting of natural gas..

 

[Shrek]

All good points, but things are developing at an impressive rate.

Recharge rate is also an issue to add to the list.

Then again, swappable batteries solves both range and refuel time issues, but not the cost issue (yet).

 

[Bomby569]

The problem with the sun as most renewable sources of energy is it's unreliability, hydrogen is just a means of dealing with that, you can store it there.

BTW next to me they have planed a hydrogen plant run by solar energy.

 

[Shrek]

I wonder if one day they orbit large reflectors to bring sunlight to select barren areas 24/7

Then again, that would not help a lot with global warming.

 

[dragontamer5788]

I wonder if one day they orbit large reflectors to bring sunlight to select barren areas 24/7

Seems more complicated than its worth. We have these things called transmission wires, which can deliver energy at 90%+ efficiencies across long distances.

Mirror reflectivity isn't perfect, you lose a chunk of energy each time light bounces off a mirror, and then more is lost as it traverses the atmosphere (clouds and whatnot disperse the light). Traveling through more atmosphere, its quite possible that giant mirrors in space is in fact less efficient than a high-voltage copper line on the ground.

Just build more solar, everywhere. If you want to up the benefits of solar, lets start by adding mirrors near-and-around the solar panels, rather than launching mirrors into space.

 

[Steevo]

H2 Electrolysis doesn't require us to use up our precious topsoil.

And yes, topsoil is a precious resource, USA is running low on it. We need to be more careful about our topsoil allocations. IIRC, we've lost like 35% of our topsoil in the past couple of decades.

Most fields are doing better now than in the past 50 years due to better agricultural practices.

They are working on genetic modification to algae to directly create sugars and then yeast and fungi to convert the sugars to ethanol.

Hydrogen cars aren't going to be a thing as hydrocarbon bonds have so much more energy.

 

[ARF]

Well, the whole Sahara desert and the Arabian peninsula, together with large regions of South Europe are all under direct sunlight during the most of the year.

What they need to plan and construct is a global network of such solar panel farms in order to substitute each other during downtimes.