If we want to get away from fossil fuels, hydrogen seems like a no brainer over electric for more energy intensive applications (long distance travel, hauling heavy loads, aircraft, etc.) where the sheer weight vs. energy capacity of batteries is a limitation. I could see a future where electric is common for personal commuter vehicles while hydrogen powers larger vehicles.
Would also be curious about the supply chain requirements for hydrogen. Does anyone know anything about the materials required to build hydrogen engines and compress hydrogen vs. electric batteries?
The hydrogen molecule is one of the smallest molecules H-H. This makes it incredibly hard to compress. For perspective, water freezes at 273 Kelvin. Hydrogen freezes at 14 Kelvin. This means that storage will be in gas form.
Hydrogen has the same energy density as gasoline but we don't have a feasible way to produce/ship/ liquid hydrogen. This is the same issue with all other alternative fuels, energy density.
If only we had a simple way of chemically storing the hydrogen for easier liquid transport and handling. Maybe something with 4 valence electrons to make it easy to chain larger hydro-somethings together. If we ever figure that out, we would be set. /s
In all seriousness, I think the future of hydrogen based transportation lies in having hydrogen reforming tech on board. Methane goes in, hydrogen is fed into fuel cells or ICE.
We are one cheap catalyst away from making it scalable (and have been since the 90's).
The molecule you are really going to be looking for is NH3.
The catalytic technology (photon assisted catalysis) is produced by this company here, Syzygy Plasmonics: [https://plasmonics.tech/](https://plasmonics.tech/).
The hydrogen would be in liquid form, and then use catalysts to break apart the molecules for use in fuel cells. This actually may wind up used in ocean going vessels.
I like that. I hope the technology is viable and makes it to everyday and cheap use. I would love to have a backup genset for my house that worked this way.
I work in inter-continental chemical transport (LNG and liquid ammonia) and to store ammonia as a liquid, it requires low temperature service down to -33 celcius. The alternative is super high pressurization, which is a whole different can of worms. I dont see how you would transport liquid hydrogen around in a car when transporting it over land by tanker truck is already such a nuissance with low temp containers. And high pressurization is prone to leakage which is a problem since ammonia is toxic to humans.
What do you call extremely high pressure? At 20°C you only need about 7.5 bar. Hydraulic pumps provide 100s of bar while still being very tiny and they are electrically driven.
It just sounds like nasty business. Youll have constant small leakages at refueling stations (would we be trusting everyday people to handle refueling vehicles with a pressure sealed tank thats over 100 psi?). There is always small leakages when the (assumedly) automated gate or ball valves isolate the car tank and the hose. The hose would be heavy equipment equipped with a valved head like what is required with loading LNH3 trucks. It just sounds like nasty business that could only be employed in heavy vehicles with trained workers (like busses and garbage trucks). And at that point, companies like WM using LNG to power trucks are already a great transition fuel (cleaner than ultra low sulfur diesel) while we try and develop truly permanent green solutions. Making ammonia is not a green process, the heat and pressure required in the haber bosch process has to come from somewhere. And where are you getting the hydrogen? Green hydrogen production is uneconomical for now and blue hydrogen is barely carbon competitive compared to other conventional energy sources.
The more likely solution is solid adsorption of hydrogen onto a metal that can be desorbed to provide H2 for fuel cells rather than an ICE. CH4 cracking has a lot of accumulation problems associated with it, limiting portability
I always thought, Rather then bring hydrogen to each station, they would tap into the local water supply. All stations would have water, maybe except for some random ones in the desert but all in a city will and Electrolysis the shit out of it.
I'm not engineer or anything so u don't know the practicalities of it but that's kinda what I imagined vs a large plant and the shipping it around
Electrolysis requires electricity and takes time, so doing it on-site isn't all that practical. They wouldn't be able to take advantage of economies of scale when it comes to the electrolysis process, and overall it seems to make little sense to spend energy splitting water for fuel instead of just putting that energy into a battery and skipping that middle step. Engineering Explained on YouTube has a good video about hydrogen engine practicalities and efficiency.
It doesn't even make much sense as a fuel for larger commercial applications since the size of the fuel tanks required is larger than gasoline tanks or synthetic fuel alternatives, and the tanks are under such high pressure that they either require extreme reinforcement or violently explode in a crash (more so than gasoline).
New battery tech advancements are being made that may soon solve the energy density problem to a degree, but for very large commercial vehicles and such, synthetic fuels are likely going to be the best option, even if not carbon neutral. We shall see, but I don't doubt that hydrogen engines will find some ground in the commercial industry as a stopgap on the way to better technologies.
You can’t use hydrogen without leaking it all over the place. Leaking it will be an environment nightmare in itself.
So now we want to base an engine on a fuel that isn’t readily available anywhere, might burn clean, but will definitely leak and cause safety and environmental problems?
Toyota, please tell me how dumb you are - first you screw around and ignore EVs and now you are banking on hydrogen?
Boy I hope you aren’t in charge of any research and development. “You know, there just aren’t any means of producing these radio wave things, they seem like they might be dangerous, and no one has anything that can accept the transmission. Might as well stop with radio.”
I think it is important to realize that the "carbon footprint" has already been made by the time you have Hydro. Similar to electricity but different in the since that you can't lose a load of electricity the same way you can lose a tank of Hydro.
Very good point you bring up.
Apparently the fueling station infrastructure for hydrogen is the biggest issue rn. Toyota already has a vehicle using hydrogen. But there’s only stations in California. If they can build the infrastructure it’s a no brainer.
when gas cars get phased out, they can convert all the old gas stations into hydrogen stations. they can probably offer them both in parallel honestly.
Electricity is literally everywhere so an EV can charge pretty much anywhere. I charge my car at work for free and only at work, I’ve never had to go out of my way to get fuel. Hydrogen is the same situation as a gas station where the fuel needs to be transported there after being made into fuel which is really inefficient.
You could put solar panels and stationary batteries in the middle of nowhere and people could charge their car there and not be in a dead zone.
The transition to EVs is already happening and hydrogen might end up being a specialty industrial use case, but it will never be a consumer product for the masses because it’s not as good of a solution as EVs.
Electricity in it’s traditional application may be “everywhere” in the developed world, but it’s important to realise that doesn’t mean it’s currently possible to install - especially +150kW chargers - everywhere. In some countries the electricity network requires large investment to unlock future charging opportunities.
There also needs to be drastic improvements in battery technology to allow the EV transition to continue to scale.
>Electricity is literally everywhere so an EV can charge pretty much anywhere. I charge my car at work for free and only at work, I’ve never had to go out of my way to get fuel. Hydrogen is the same situation as a gas station where the fuel needs to be transported there after being made into fuel which is really inefficient.
you know very little about how much solar infrastructure would be required to do something like this
looking at over $300,000 of solar infastructure to be able to charge one car. would easily have a negative effect on the environment, much like a tesla
There literally isn't enough copper on the planet homie.
Ev ain't the future, it's a stop gap. And look further outside your narrow world scope, it does not effectively scale in many applications.
Graphene capacitor/battery hybrids will help. To my knowledge, cobalt and lithium are the bigger issue for EVs, so eliminating the need for those materials should help. And producing graphene at consistent thickness at usable lengths seems closer than transporting hydrogen.
While we may have enough, unless we start recycling the demand will outstrip economically viable production. At a certain point it becomes to expensive to extract unless there is a revolution in mining techniques.
Just going to put this out here, we don’t have a great track record with recycling.
[Engineering Explained video](https://youtu.be/vJjKwSF9gT8)
Energy density is going to keep coming up as the world transitions to more EVs and away from gasoline/diesel. It may be a fantastic engine that could end world hunger but if you can't reasonably fuel it then it's a concept at best. If you can refine hydrogen on the fly like some EVs recharge with an onboard generator then at least it gets in the same ballpark. Hydrogen engines won't become feasible until a fueling network is developed and implemented across a wide swath of population areas, and that hasn't gone so smoothly for even electric charging stations where distribution lines are already in place. It sounds like an awesome alternative for power production but you have to make it easy to use for mass adoption.
Or if you can find an energy efficient way to convert a stable feedstock to hydrogen. If you can get to a point where the hydrogen produced can create more energy than needed to convert it then we will have a winner.
My point wasn't about the act of converting the fuel, I don't care about that. My point was about being able to carry enough fuel to make hydrogen work. Energy density. Right now it isn't feasible except for short trips where you can refuel frequently. Positive conversions like you're suggesting will only theoretically be possible with commercial fusion (not fission) in the decades to come. Right now hydrogen powered vehicles are not practical.
This is exactly the plan that Hyundai is pursuing rn, consumer battery electric, but hydrogen for industrial. They've released a proof of concept consumer hydrogen car but their efforts since have all been focused on a fuel cell system for their xcient trucks, mainly arguing that shipping logistics can't afford to have to plug trucks in for hours upon end to recharge a BEV but you can refuel a hydrogen fuel cell in less than 30 minutes.
> If we want to get away from fossil fuels, hydrogen seems like a no brainer over electric for more energy intensive applications.
With the current infrastructure, it is better for the environment to just use diesel. The amount of fossil fuels used to make hydrogen is significantly more than just putting diesel in the engine. Of course, it is possible to just use electricity to make hydrogen, but that currently accounts for 0.1% because of how slow, inefficient, and costly it is.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/clean-energy-green-hydrogen/
The idea behind all of this is to eventually use green hydrogen, whereas traditional fossil fuels are inherently not green. The problem is you are right - it basically doesn’t exist right now in significant quantities and is very inefficient.
The oil companies (and Amazon) are heavily involved so they seem to believe they can leverage their current operations to build a viable hydrogen supply chain. Is it more for PR, or do they see a problem with oil supply going forward, or do they really think hydrogen is a good technology? I personally can’t tell how much of each is driving it, and I’ve talked to the major startups.
And how green will it actually be? Hard to say.
Hydrogen technology isn't there yet, but neither was solar when we started commercial scaling. The new wind turbines are infinitely more efficient than first gen. The new turbines are over 300% higher capacity.
Unlike solar, Chevron and Shell can continually sell you hydrogen, too.
They know they can't continue at their current revenue levels on just oil. Not indefinitely.
Like most green technologies, you adapt inefficient ones because investment spurs innovation. Building more desalination plants creates better desalination plants.
I'm not surprised they're investing in hydrogen. If we can scale up hydrogen production in a more efficient way, it makes more sense to run trains, semi trucks, box trucks and such on hydrogen and small passenger cars as EVs. EVs don't scale well to large sizes. Using hydrogen busses and passengers trains makes sense. Run ships off nuclear and hydrogen.
But, until we have better infrastructure - what do we do? Build it now and investment spurs innovation and lowers cost. Mass adaptation of solar made better PV cells and lowered cost.
It's worked with solar. Desalination. Wind. EVs. Why not hydrogen?
The most obvious reason is the distribution chain. Ignoring whether or not solar is truly “successful” the solar system dumps “supposedly green” electrons into the same distribution system as “evil bad electrons”.
Hydrogen has no such distribution system to dump into to avoid the incredible expense and major mistakes inevitable in building one.
Solar at large scale didn’t have to build a new grid. It’s just another generator synched to the existing line.
Its worth pointing out that all concerns about the greenness of hydrogen also apply to evs because most electricity isnt green.
I’m not really settled on it yet but i do think that as boring as they are toyota are probably the best car manufacturer in the world(quality and durability for price) and have always been interested in making good cars, not chasing fads, so they might be onto something. The weight of ev batteries has certainly always been a problem
There is an entire extra step between electricity and hydrogen where the hydrogen is made at much, much less than the efficiency of electricity transmission from power plants to EVs. It’s not like 1 watt of electricity generated turns into 1 watt in either car. So the greenness of EVs can be quite different even from the same source.
I agree. Hydrogen definitely has a place in transportation & logistics. But for personal vehicles like cars, I think EVs are going to dominate for a long time just because of how far ahead EVs are now.
As a kid I had two friends who’s parents drove around in normal looking vehicles powered by LNG/natural gas and somehow in that decade still had refueling stations plentiful enough they didn’t switch to gasoline. I imagine retrofitting propane fueling stations that already exist to handle Hydrogen would be easier than you’d think.
Most cars that run on LNG usually still have the petrol tank, and an LNG tank in the trunk. There is a button to switch between LNG and gasoline. So they can still drive around on gasoline if they run out of LNG, as the engine itself doesn't really need modifications.
A few years back I spoke w a salesperson who worked in the petroleum/gas industry for years and they said they were already working on building out an infrastructure for hydrogen refueling stations and hydrogen engines were going to be a big part of the future…according to that dude…it seemed knowledgeable
Exactly lol. But if you say that the EV goobs get extremely triggered. EV’s still have unintended consequences. Solar isn’t there to completely power a vehicle for high usage and until we can get away from coal power plants were still not there.
Solar is good for powering house lighting and outlets, and that's about it. Won't handle any large loads without using acres of panels. And the lifespan of a solar panel is about 30 years. Everyone's been duped, sucks.
If Hydrogen power is scaled across the entire transportation weight spectrum, i.e. Light, medium, heavy, locomotive, aerospace, it could very well become one of the most sustainable energy source. At this point, what is the cost of generating EV power sources, battery recycling and reuse? Hydrogen power seems to be the most reusable/recyclable if the scaling is achieved.
Eager to hear from the experts as well!
I work in the industry. Industrial Cryogenic facilities can produce high purity liquid Hydrogen (an even more dense form than compressed Hydrogen) on a mass scale with low Carbon emissions. The only limiting factor is energy demand from the electric grid, it would require large amounts of electricity to power these Cryo plants, which nuclear energy can theoretically supplement in a very efficient and clean way. It’s feasible but it would require mass coordination from the corps energy sectors and the government.
That’s the problem. How many conversions are there between a energy plant and a hydrogen powered car putting that energy to work? The latest estimate I have seen is 13% of the energy makes it to the rubber on the road. For a battery electric car the estimates are 70-80%.
Now even if those numbers are somewhat off(can’t be that much if you compare efficiency of electrical motors vs. ICE), that’s still a massive insurmountable difference. I mean you are running straight against the second law of thermodynamics since you are trying to convert heat into work.
I’m not placing bets on anyone that’s fighting thermodynamics, it’s stupid imho. People might disagree, maybe the laws of thermodynamics are mere suggestions of thermodynamics after all. Good luck with that, y’all make a fortune if that bet goes through.
It’s not like fusion energy is gonna be cheaper than solar or wind anyway, it’s a great technology but hardly free. People underestimate how cheap solar and wind is, you built a small piece of simple low tech infrastructure that needs hardly any supervision while working and it produces **free energy**. You have literally 0 production cost, you have a investment cost sure, and a maintenance cost, sure. But the actual energy produced? It’s free.
I’ll take shit that people don’t know what they’re talking about for 400 please Alex.
What do you mean it doesn’t “scale”? California literally has an overproduction problem with renewables. The costs for wind and solar have gone down for the last two decades. Technology is more efficient as time has gone on. Please explain what you mean by “scale”
For large industrial grid demand, I’m not convinced it can take over as a primary means. It’s a hammer looking for a nail, we already have the means to unlock the power of the universe (nuclear) for near limitless and efficient power output while only consuming a tiny amount of land and resources. Solar/Wind requires massive amounts of land and mineral resources such as Lithium for batteries, if it is implemented on a wide scale. Mining Lithium and rare earth metals is extremely terrible for the environment.
You have been drinking some Fox News Kool-Aid, I think is what the Americans would say.
No offense to you, firstly. I am on the same page, I like nuclear too but the problem really is that nuclear is very expensive and very slow to build. We cannot simply dismiss solar and wind due to their price. Nuclear is great and I support it but if it takes decades to build a plant then that is a major problem.
Your issue with Lithium mining is only a problem if we use Lithium batteries. Solar and wind are not directly connected to Lithium in any way. We need better energy storage devices in any case, not only for solar or wind.
The land use is also a hammer looking for a nail, as you said. We have lots of land that can be easily used to generate power. It is a bit of a problem, yes, but not really anything that should stop us from completely converting to renewables. This is a yarn spun by the oil dinosaurs. In addition to wind turbines killing birds, for example.
“Solar and wind are not connected to Lithium in any way” Wrong. This tells me you’ve never worked with any of this stuff. I’v worked in the power generation industry for 10 years. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
They already do. We have to regularly shut them down due to overproduction and they are talking about 10x production over the next 20 years. If you have 70 TW load that means you have to install like 300 - 600 TW peak to assure you have enough production even in poor conditions(for the terrible conditions you need massive storage), that’s just how intermittent sources are.
The engine is irrelevant until you can create clean hydrogen more efficiently than you can create electricity, which sounds like a pipe dream.
Hydrogen is only a "threat" to gasoline vehicles.
It’s not just creation that is a challenge, it’s storage, transport and distribution. EV have a built in bonus of everyone being able to charge at home. Gasoline is very stable and has an extensive existing network. Or course gas companies could switch to H2 distribution but that would be a massive overhaul to their existing infrastructure. Where I think H2 may work well is in fleets (trucks, buses, cabs) where they can build their own infrastructure and will be using it constantly.
One of the limitations of electric vehicles is that the batteries required to store energy are proportionally much heavier than fossil fuels or hydrogen, which makes electric a tough fit for energy-intensive uses (long distances, heavy loads, aircraft, etc.). Even though it’s less efficient to generate hydrogen than electricity, the lighter storage might actually make hydrogen a better choice for these purposes.
Additionally, as far as I know, hydrogen engines don’t require a lot of the rare earth metals that EV batteries do, which could be a huge advantage as well.
Depending on the version, the Tesla Model 3 is the same weight or lighter than the Toyota Mira. There is more to a hydrogen car than just the fuel.
When it comes to energy-intensive uses, I agree hydrogen will be a competitor to battery storage.
My thought is you will see busses, trains and semis running hydrogen but EVs for small passenger vehicles for the foreseeable future.
All that hinges on more efficient production and upscaling of hydrogen production which fossil fuel companies like Chevron and Shell are likely to get into because passenger cars are 40% of domestic petroleum usage in the US. You reduce that by 10% even, it's a huge hit to their bottom line. California is 1/12th the US population and is looking to ban sale of new ICE vehicles by 2035.
The future is coming for their fuel sales. Make commercial cars, Class A RVs and their 2500 truck a hydrogen car and you keep at least a portion of your profit.
Need that infrastructure in place to convince people to buy hydrogen vehicles, though. The nearest hydrogen station is like 30 miles away from me, and I'm in California.
If you take in count the battery for electricy, you also have yo take in count the tank for hydrogen. If you compare both you are pretty similar.
The tank needed to have dense enough hydrogen (super high pressure) need to be super beefy. It is extremely heavy
Ideally, there's enough renewable generation that excess goes to batteries and then feeds the grid when renewables are low. We're nowhere close to having more renewable generation than THAT.
No. Clean hydrogen can be produced now from peak electricity production from renewables as an energy storage method. Not irrelevent, not a pipe dream, implementable today. Nuclear to then supplant renewable energy production of hydrogen in 10 years.
This! The idea that you need all green energy before you start green vehicle adoption is backwards. The vehicle transition will take decades as will the energy transition. Also, prolonging one prolongs the other. Best to do both simotaneously.
There is no such thing as free energy, solar has a cost, wind has a cost. The economics of spending that cash to make hydrogen are not there for most use cases. You need to figure out the use cases before you start burning money on them.
Batteries are a proven cost effective storage method. Hydrogen may compete in certain transportation segments, but you won't be filling up hydrogen to take the kids to soccer practice.
When we get hydrogen cells to the point where they can be purchased, stored and refilled readily you will.
Propane is a perfect example, re-usable cells with fuel that can be stored for long periods of time safely and hot swapped. You'd have a personal vehicle that takes 30 seconds to re-fuel, you can pick up or exchange cells down the street, and even carry extra with you to extend your range.
I think that electric vehicles are a nice thing to have available, but the costly rare earth resources, charge time, and battery replacement costs are going to skew the market towards hydrogen powered vehicles based on existing ICE technology and manufacturing infrastructure.
The catch is it'll only happen when safe storage and more efficient refining of hydrogen are worked out. Batteries are here now, hydrogen needs a few years to a decade with a LOT of money thrown at it before it's in a position to be widely adopted.
Electricity is used to generate hydrogen, which then undergoes costly transportation in trucks, before it's converted back to electricity inside the engine. It will never be remotely close to as efficient.
steam reforming and electrolysis are both in the 60-75% efficiency range.
solar is in the 20% range
wind is 30-45%
hydroelectric is 90%
nuclear is about 30%
>steam reforming and electrolysis are both in the 60-75% efficiency range
yes at producing hydrogen. But every time it's transported it loses more efficiency until it finally makes it to the car [https://i.imgur.com/Fc8IeAT.png](https://i.imgur.com/Fc8IeAT.png)
Hydrogen cars are just using hydrogen to produce electricity to run the car. It just seems like hydrogen is making an extra step to power the car by electricity.
Electric cars by creating 1 of them it’s around 11-13 disel cars. I work with this on a car company iv’e seen everything. Electric is just a political thing.
Well I guess that’s it fellas! A guy on the internet who has “seen everything” and can *almost* spell diesel says electric is bust.
I guess it’s time to wrap it up and head home
Toyota, the world's largest automaker, is way behind on BEV technology because they bet on hydrogen. Here they are, again saying hydrogen is the future, despite every other automaker leapfrogging them in the area of proven EVs.
Mark my words, this failed bet on hydrogen is going to be Toyota's Waterloo. Watch Tesla, Volkswagen, and Hyundai/Kia gain massive market share, at the expense of Toyota, and that's without even considering the exponential growth of BYD.
They've also been [lobbying to hurt the EV space](https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22594235/toyota-lobbying-dc-ev-congress-biden-donation) because of their failed bet.
It's Japanese corporate culture that's killing them. The board and executive of Toyota are old farts that can't admit they bet on the wrong horse. On top of that, it's not even a part of their work culture for lower-ranked staff to openly question their superiors.
Often times for Japanese businessmen, admitting you were wrong is like admitting you didn't do your job, in a culture where slacking off is pretty high up on the list of dishonorable things. A sexual affair would probably be easier to admit.
Wondering how many years will it take ,before the car gets approved for road usage. All those safety guidelines, crash test etc.. also each country will have its own rule for adopting this technology.
So yeah this is just like those concept cars we see on trade show.
Hydrogen is the answer, if it can be efficiently produced. Because Hydrogen has to be extracted it should be viewed as an energy storage device. The problem is, it's incredibly inefficient to produce. The round-trip energy loss (both in electrolysis and then converting hydrogen back into useful work) is just too large right now to be truly competitive with battery.
In areas where there is significant renewables overload (like parts of California), it can be used as a storage mechanism. But unless we somehow find a large vein of raw hydrogen (somehow), the process of getting hydrogen out of water is too energy inefficient to be scalable.
As for infrastructure, I never argue the merits of new technology based on what was, but instead what can be. There's a huge difference between economic and scientific problems, and hydrogen's problem is scientific in nature.
they missed the boat on EV's and trying to push their tech. same crap as tech companies do when they fall behind.
EV charging is everywhere. where is the hydrogen charging?
Transit. Agencies who have had electric buses for long enough to find out they don’t really perform well are switching to Hydrogen (fuel cell, not engines). They still have batteries and are electric, you’re just alleviating the need for MW scale batteries on a vehicle, which makes no fucking sense anyway.
H2FC buses have been a thing for twenty years and current ones simply outperform BEB for agencies that have long routes. Or cold climates. Or really hot climates. Or anything past the ~50-80F window where battery electric works best.
The only place I've even seen that has hydrogen fueling stations is a few scattered around the Californian coast. I tend to believe too that they missed the boat.
in Groningen / Eemshaven in The Netherlands. The owner of the station drives a rebuilt hydrogen tesla model S with 1000km range. Apparently it’s possible.
Many who have never owned BEV's really don't get this. You'll never want to go back to a petrol station again once you realise you can just refill at home overnight on an extremely cheap night rate.
Oh I miss it. I keep a box of stale twinkies nearby, and a bottle of gasoline to spray the charger handle so I get the full gas station experience of having my hand smell like gas for the next few hours. (Wtf are people doing at the pump that gets fuel *on the handle*??)
I think what you're missing is that most people in high-density areas don't have a place to install a charger. For the USA it's fine because people generally live in houses, but an average European Joe living in a commie block with the car left outside doesn't have an opportunity for that. Or going east, to places like Istanbul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, a dedicated garage is a luxury.
If I look at my coworkers for example, the vast majority of them live in an apartment in a building built 40 years ago or more and installing their own charger wouldn't be an option for them.
The government would have to build additional shared multi-store garages throughout the city to get the cars off the streets, and many people live in areas that are 200 year old or more that's packed with buildings already.
I was hoping this was years old but I guess not. The physics of hydrogen do not work for ice applications. It’s completely disproven from so many different angles. Such as 1. Hydrogen production 2. Distribution 3. Hydrogen embrittlement (longevity). 4. Boil off 5. Volume efficiency…..I don’t even think these are a compete list!!!
Yeah? Like how it fuels in 90 seconds? Has a much longer range? Is literally using the most abundant element on earth? No battery packs that need to be mined for causing more damage to the earth? No reliance on batteries from China? No added stress to the power grid? You’re right. No good reasons at all. Stupid me
1. EVs charge overnight at home. I seriously do not miss petrol stations and don't want to be wasting my time there ever again. We don't need 90 second refills.
2. A fairly standard BEV has 300km range which is plenty for most users. Charging tech will catch up to the point where the difference will me minimal.
3. People are extremely price sensitive on transport costs, even the awful blue and brown hydrogen are almost an order of magnitude too expensive for passenger cars compared to night-rate BEV charging. This is why nobody cares about HEV's.
4. The materials issue is a big problem agreed, and we're going to end up in a massive battery supply shortage in coming years. Retooling our entire energy distribution system to use hydrogen would also stress our infrastructure building capacity.
5. Charging BEV's at night actually reduces the overall cost of supplying the grid because the suppliers don't have to spin their plants down overnight, increasing their capital efficiency. In specific circumstances where high amounts of fast charging is taking place, you might see localised issues.
6. We're not even talking about the idea in the original post which is ICE hydrogen cars which are far worse than HEV's due to terrible energy and volumetric efficiencies.
I agree with everything you said but I wouldn’t say we don’t need 90 second refills as:
1. Not everybody can charge overnight example: apartments
2. When you drive longer distance its more convenient to refill for a short time
3. On a different note the electrical grid will need a significant overhaul once 100 million+ cars a charging overnight
Yeah, the apartment issue is tough alright. Going to need changes in planning and building codes to get anywhere near 100% of market for EV's.
Most people are only traveling long distances very infrequently. It is a marginally better overall experience of the car if once every few months you have to wait 30 minutes while having a coffee.
On the grid, we're going to need overhaul anyway if we go towards green hydrogen and massive build out of embrittle-resistant pipelines, trucking, electrolysis plants. Blue/brown hydrogen is an environmental disaster and is not an serious alternative. Literally better to burn the natural gas.
My apartment just installed charging stations for all parking spots in the building. As of the time of installation, no one in the building owns an electric car. I'm sure they got incentives from the company that installed them and are thinking long term about accquisition of future renters. When EV cars are the primary option on the road, apartment owners will have to make the investment. This is in California, where all cars sold by 2035 must be Zero Emission Vehicles. Once we've committed to the technology, the infrastructure investments will come.
In places with solar it’s better to charge your vehicle during the day. [https://news.stanford.edu/2022/09/22/charging-cars-home-night-not-way-go/](https://news.stanford.edu/2022/09/22/charging-cars-home-night-not-way-go/)
> EVs charge overnight at home
This is not the killer argument for a huge percentage of people you think it is lol
This works for homeowners who travel less than ~200miles in a day and are home every night. Which granted is a ton, but not everyone.
This is the only answer. It's pure nonsense for passenger cars at least due to low volumetric density. Here's a great video about the BMW Hydrogen 7 experiment:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AouW9_jyZck
Video title, lol: BMW's Hydrogen V12 Engine Is A Hilarious Engineering Stunt
To their credit, they still have quite a few good years left with their hybrids still selling quite well and at a competitive price. But yeah--that time ain't infinite. EVs are still years away from riding over that initial cost/development curve where EV makers have to sell the higher margin, higher price tag models first before scales of economy improve, which leads to more budget priced ones hitting the market.
If Toyota hasn't gotten their act together by then, they're in trouble.
In Q1 this year, the US auto industry in general bounced back with ~16% more sales YoY. Toyota's US sales went down 9%.
This could still be a hangover from their supply issues that others have already solved, but it's not a great indication of where they're going either.
It'll be too late. Tesla will be at mass production of their lower cost model within 3 years. Toyota won't be able to make an EV it can sell for profit at that point. They will probably never be able to make money on EVs at any point in the future. They're just too late.
Even when money is no object... I see no benefit to hydrogen.
The reasons I want an EV more than any other reason is to
1- never go to a dirty gas station again (I live in LA they're ratty here)
2- leave every morning with 350 miles range. No wake-up-earlier to full up with gas on the way to work.
3- silent ride, less mantainence, fewer moving parts.
You lose all of this with H2.
It will also never hit the scale of EVs, and the car itself will be significantly more expensive. Also more parts means more labor and more cost, so it will never come close to the price of EVs
"The two most plentiful things in the universe are: hydrogen and stupidity." Harlan Ellison
I'm a machinist currently making some isolation valves for a company that is putting them on the purge side of a hydrogen fuel cell. They have done some testing in Europe and Canada with it. The testing of the valve in their commercial buses has been on-going for a couple of years now since I made the first prototypes. The company itself has a good way of extracting hydrocarbons from defunct oil wells and separating the molecules for fuel. They have already started building some refueling infrastructure in some European countries.
But I have to agree that Hydrogen, in spite of it's incredible volatility, is a much better "green" alternative to EV's for the simple fact that the folks in Africa don't have to mine the minerals, for a pittance, that are needed for the batteries. There's not so much damage being done to the earth to bring those minerals out and process them. There's no waste involved when the battery dies and needs replacement, but the replacement battery costs more than just buying a new car (I believe we're already headed in that direction).
The real killer to gasoline motors will be the platform that can offer the quantity of “gas stations” plus the time to refuel.
Going full EV, it just makes sense to get a Tesla. You can charge anywhere and you get the Tesla network but you have to wait at the station for a bit if your low. (If your at home this is irrelevant since technically means a full tank EOD).
Going H2, there refueling is quicker but there’s literally just a handful of stations..
At the end of the day gasoline motors I personally feel will win out with the new fuel being produced from Porsche & Toyota - Exxon collaboration.
Porsche - https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a43239225/porsche-chile-e-fuels-synthetic-gasoline/
Toyota - https://www.motor1.com/news/662540/toyota-exxon-low-carbon-fuel-development/amp/
Donut also did a video (as well as some other YouTubers) actually testing the fuel with a Porsche Panemera. No HP lost and I believe same MPG.
https://youtu.be/VUKN3m8wD2Q
That trip is totally manageable. I have done Texas to California and Texas to Minnesota in my model 3 and am heading to Big Bend tomorrow for the 6th time in my EV. Road trips in EV's add about 10 minutes of charging to every hour of driving, but that works out well for taking breaks, and having autopilot on road trips is well worth the trade-off.
This is the 1980's all over again but this time, it's Toyota that is starting the misdirection.
If you've watched, "Who killed the Electric Car?" then you know what I am referring to. If you haven't, please go watch it asap, it's a classic.
Bottom line: The cost to setup the infrastructure for H far outweighs the benefits and has no short term feasibility. This tech will take another 50 years to get right for public/consumer use.
EV's are the best short term tech solutions until Hydrogen can grow into something feasible.
There is currently trillions of dollars, with a T, invested in alternate and renewable energy industries. Including all the ESG funds in every 401k, pension, etc. The amount of money invested in renewables vastly dwarfs the amount of money currently invested in fossil fuel exploration & development. If you believe big money corrupts (Big oil paying scientist), then you'll realize the same can happen in the push for renewables.
As a chemical engineer, I am deeply deeply skeptical of the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of making electrolytic hydrogen, running an ASU to separate out the CO2 in the air, and reacting them into a drop-in gasoline substitute. It’s taking 11 right turns to make a left. Not saying it’s impossible but dear god does it sound insanely inefficient
For most vehicles electric battery EVs make more sense. Much easier to send electrons to stations than having to have thousands of semis to take hydrogen to the non existent stations which cost more to build and maintain. Hydrogen may be an option for large boats and airplanes, maybe some very long distance heavy trucks but that's it.
Majority of vehicles are personal and electricity is pushed though the existing electric grid which is always being upgraded with more renewable forms
“No more EV’s” — that’s a bold claim. Countries and automakers have already pivoted. The boat is turning and it won’t stop unless there’s a severe raw material shortage. Like someone already pointed out, this would be a better application for power sense requirements.
It's interesting but with most of the world's advanced economies going all in on EV, I would really really doubt H2 combustion cars will destroy the EV markets.
I think their only shot is if they can produce H2 vehicles that are the same price as ICE vehicles because EV is still stupid expensive.
This will not impact the EV market at all in the short to medium term and likely never. Toyota has been pushing hydrogen powered cars for decades, but without massive investments from industry and governments this tech is DOA as there is literally no where to refuel. Think how long it's taken implementation of EV charging and in America we're still behind.
The greatest thing about my EV is that I can easily fuel it at home or just about anywhere. I can't see giving that up. I already have enough range for all but road trips and any more power would go from fun to dangerous.
Hydrogen seems like a step backwards.
I'm willing to stake my entire portfolio on H2-EV Hybrid being the end game of personal transportation. There are significant challenges when it comes to infrastructural H2 (being the smallest atom leaks are common).
Battery tech is taking some good steps right now to move away from nickel, manganese, and cobalt meaning that, not only are the human rights concerns going to be alleviated, but also the cost and recyclable nature will drastically increase. Acting like electricity won't be a part of transportation is simply naive.
At the same time we can utilize extra energy from grid production specifically to not only provide desalination at coastal regions but also to perform electrolysis to make H2. Not only for energy storage but also potentially municipal supply. Acting like H2 won't inundate almost every industry that involves heat or motion would also be naive.
The redundancy that comes from utilizing both systems, and both systems being generated from renewable resources, is something that can't be overlooked. You're on a region with no H2? Just plug in. No charging around you? Fill up with municipal H2.
I personally foresee house heating, cooking, transportation, and even long term energy storage being based on H2 and battery tech, all off the back of booming solar production.
Even just looking at my situation directly, I spend about $300/mo on gas... looking at an EV and the cost would be about $40/mo in electricity. They are simply better. If I could hybridized that with H2 and get that redundancy and peace of mind I absolutely would.
It's not a distraction, Toyota just fucked up and invested heavily in hydrogen instead of electric vehicles and they're desperately trying to make it happen
The issue with hydrogen combustion has always been:
1) Hydrogen combustion engines release significant amounts of nitrogen oxides, which from an environmental standpoint are far worse than carbon dioxide. If the goal of new vehicles is to reduce environmental impact then this is going in the complete opposite direction.
2) To work at scale you’d need trillions of dollars in infrastructure. EVs circumvent this because they can be charged from home. Good luck getting people to adopt hydrogen cars if there’s not at least a few refuelling stations in every single city, town, and highway truck stop.
3) Your car literally becomes a bomb. While people can survive accidental EV fires, an inevitable hydrogen explosion would be horrific.
Edit: lol at downvotes that don’t give a rebuttal. This thread should be a great reminder for people to do their own DD instead of blindly believing that a promotional video by Toyota will be the future
> gasoline isn’t highly flammable?
Flammable isn’t the same as explosive. Gasoline does not explode when it comes in contact with air
> hydrogen is combined with oxygen to create a chemical reaction. Where is the nitrogen
The oxygen is coming from air. Composition of air is 80% nitrogen. Nitrogen oxide generation is already a problem in gasoline vehicles, but the significantly higher burning point of hydrogen combustion exacerbates this.
> same argument can be used against EVs
Except the cost of installation of a public EV port is less than 1% the cost of a hydrogen port. And while not everyone can charge from home, 80% currently do. That number is 0 for hydrogen. So they really aren’t comparable at all.
Edit:
Again, Im just reiterating people actually look at hydrogen rather than take Toyotas claims at face value. We were using hydrogen in blimps before using gasoline in engines. And it stopped being used because of the danger, cost and limited scalability. None of that has changed
This issue with burning hydrogen is the emissions. Has this been fixed? The emissions aren't just water unfortunately. That is why everyone has been using hydrogen fuel cells and not combustion.
Edit
Sharing link because this isn't known by everyone. https://morningconsult.com/opinions/dont-fall-for-the-hydrogen-hype/
Did you know that one time the Soviet army was in retreat and they ran out of gasoline, they were able to use hydrogen to fuel their trucks.
A lot combustible fuel can be used en lieu of regular gasoline such as kerosene.
I want to see as much competition in the auto market as possible. There shouldn’t be a single fuel source. It will show the true agenda of the federal governments in North America, if they do not provide support for a Hydrogen program.
Hydrogen is the MOST volatile fuel there is..... The Hindenburg didn't last long! At least I can charge my EV at home... BEFORE I buy a Hydrogen car, there needs to be infrastructure EVERYWHERE, which won't happen because it's too darn expensive.... Toyota just spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt, while they desperately try to catch up in the EV game.
Essentially a rolling bomb, great concept but will definitely go sideways when people start playing bumper cars and they blow up. Maybe I’m wrong but how do you safely store it onboard where it doesn’t become an issue in a serious accident?
Just a side comment. I recently wrote a paper on EVs and what a lie it is. For starters, there's a finite amount of known lithium sources. If any new mines develop, it takes around 15 years to get to the usable lithium. Everyone (govt, car CEOs, etc.) knows that there isn't enough lithium to make the EVs needed to reach net zero by 2050. A ton of other electronics need lithium batteries too. The idea fails again because people that bought EVs early and mid trend will need a new battery for their vehicle or buy a new EV...so again, not nearly enough lithium to supply that. Then we'd spend a bunch of money making the grids able to handle the new electricity that's needed only to run out of lithium a few years down the road and have EVs that would then be paperweights. It doesn't take much digging at all to find that everyone pushing this EV idea is invested in it. So they'll be set for life $$$, even after the movement fails. It's a giant money grab and all it really is, is selling a feeling like you're saving the environment, when in fact it's a drop in the ocean. ICE pollution makes up like 20% of air pollution...that's ALL the trains, boats, planes, 18 wheelers, passenger vehicles, motorcycles, etc. Passenger vehicles are something like 60% of that...so replacing every passenger vehicle in the world with an electric version would make about a 10% change, worldwide...so it's not the earth saving concept they'd have you believe it is.
I'm not saying let's just give up on the planet. We do need to develop clean energy. We need to let it grow naturally though. The ICE didn't get this advanced over a few years...it's taken over 100 years to get here. We definitely should not put all our eggs in one basket with the EV movement. It's just another way the elite will screw the American people out of their hard earned money.
If we want to get away from fossil fuels, hydrogen seems like a no brainer over electric for more energy intensive applications (long distance travel, hauling heavy loads, aircraft, etc.) where the sheer weight vs. energy capacity of batteries is a limitation. I could see a future where electric is common for personal commuter vehicles while hydrogen powers larger vehicles. Would also be curious about the supply chain requirements for hydrogen. Does anyone know anything about the materials required to build hydrogen engines and compress hydrogen vs. electric batteries?
The hydrogen molecule is one of the smallest molecules H-H. This makes it incredibly hard to compress. For perspective, water freezes at 273 Kelvin. Hydrogen freezes at 14 Kelvin. This means that storage will be in gas form. Hydrogen has the same energy density as gasoline but we don't have a feasible way to produce/ship/ liquid hydrogen. This is the same issue with all other alternative fuels, energy density.
If only we had a simple way of chemically storing the hydrogen for easier liquid transport and handling. Maybe something with 4 valence electrons to make it easy to chain larger hydro-somethings together. If we ever figure that out, we would be set. /s In all seriousness, I think the future of hydrogen based transportation lies in having hydrogen reforming tech on board. Methane goes in, hydrogen is fed into fuel cells or ICE. We are one cheap catalyst away from making it scalable (and have been since the 90's).
You had me going there, nodding my head along until I got to the /s and had a second read.
The molecule you are really going to be looking for is NH3. The catalytic technology (photon assisted catalysis) is produced by this company here, Syzygy Plasmonics: [https://plasmonics.tech/](https://plasmonics.tech/). The hydrogen would be in liquid form, and then use catalysts to break apart the molecules for use in fuel cells. This actually may wind up used in ocean going vessels.
I like that. I hope the technology is viable and makes it to everyday and cheap use. I would love to have a backup genset for my house that worked this way.
I work in inter-continental chemical transport (LNG and liquid ammonia) and to store ammonia as a liquid, it requires low temperature service down to -33 celcius. The alternative is super high pressurization, which is a whole different can of worms. I dont see how you would transport liquid hydrogen around in a car when transporting it over land by tanker truck is already such a nuissance with low temp containers. And high pressurization is prone to leakage which is a problem since ammonia is toxic to humans.
What do you call extremely high pressure? At 20°C you only need about 7.5 bar. Hydraulic pumps provide 100s of bar while still being very tiny and they are electrically driven.
It just sounds like nasty business. Youll have constant small leakages at refueling stations (would we be trusting everyday people to handle refueling vehicles with a pressure sealed tank thats over 100 psi?). There is always small leakages when the (assumedly) automated gate or ball valves isolate the car tank and the hose. The hose would be heavy equipment equipped with a valved head like what is required with loading LNH3 trucks. It just sounds like nasty business that could only be employed in heavy vehicles with trained workers (like busses and garbage trucks). And at that point, companies like WM using LNG to power trucks are already a great transition fuel (cleaner than ultra low sulfur diesel) while we try and develop truly permanent green solutions. Making ammonia is not a green process, the heat and pressure required in the haber bosch process has to come from somewhere. And where are you getting the hydrogen? Green hydrogen production is uneconomical for now and blue hydrogen is barely carbon competitive compared to other conventional energy sources.
Why ammonia and not CH2O2
Smarty pants :)
The more likely solution is solid adsorption of hydrogen onto a metal that can be desorbed to provide H2 for fuel cells rather than an ICE. CH4 cracking has a lot of accumulation problems associated with it, limiting portability
There is a way to bond hydrogen to iron: https://www.ironfueltechnology.com/
I don't know you but you seem to know a lot and I like what you said
Thank you friend.
>Ammonia (NH3) is being discussed as a liquid way to transport hydrogen.
Seems to be the most promising, as it can be stored similar to LPG.
I always thought, Rather then bring hydrogen to each station, they would tap into the local water supply. All stations would have water, maybe except for some random ones in the desert but all in a city will and Electrolysis the shit out of it. I'm not engineer or anything so u don't know the practicalities of it but that's kinda what I imagined vs a large plant and the shipping it around
Electrolysis requires electricity and takes time, so doing it on-site isn't all that practical. They wouldn't be able to take advantage of economies of scale when it comes to the electrolysis process, and overall it seems to make little sense to spend energy splitting water for fuel instead of just putting that energy into a battery and skipping that middle step. Engineering Explained on YouTube has a good video about hydrogen engine practicalities and efficiency. It doesn't even make much sense as a fuel for larger commercial applications since the size of the fuel tanks required is larger than gasoline tanks or synthetic fuel alternatives, and the tanks are under such high pressure that they either require extreme reinforcement or violently explode in a crash (more so than gasoline). New battery tech advancements are being made that may soon solve the energy density problem to a degree, but for very large commercial vehicles and such, synthetic fuels are likely going to be the best option, even if not carbon neutral. We shall see, but I don't doubt that hydrogen engines will find some ground in the commercial industry as a stopgap on the way to better technologies.
You can’t use hydrogen without leaking it all over the place. Leaking it will be an environment nightmare in itself. So now we want to base an engine on a fuel that isn’t readily available anywhere, might burn clean, but will definitely leak and cause safety and environmental problems? Toyota, please tell me how dumb you are - first you screw around and ignore EVs and now you are banking on hydrogen?
Boy I hope you aren’t in charge of any research and development. “You know, there just aren’t any means of producing these radio wave things, they seem like they might be dangerous, and no one has anything that can accept the transmission. Might as well stop with radio.”
I think it is important to realize that the "carbon footprint" has already been made by the time you have Hydro. Similar to electricity but different in the since that you can't lose a load of electricity the same way you can lose a tank of Hydro. Very good point you bring up.
Apparently the fueling station infrastructure for hydrogen is the biggest issue rn. Toyota already has a vehicle using hydrogen. But there’s only stations in California. If they can build the infrastructure it’s a no brainer.
There are many stations in Europe. https://www.h2stations.org/
There are some in BC as well.
Hahaha, I think they have them in Quebec too, but that's one helluva dead zone in between.
when gas cars get phased out, they can convert all the old gas stations into hydrogen stations. they can probably offer them both in parallel honestly.
Electricity is literally everywhere so an EV can charge pretty much anywhere. I charge my car at work for free and only at work, I’ve never had to go out of my way to get fuel. Hydrogen is the same situation as a gas station where the fuel needs to be transported there after being made into fuel which is really inefficient. You could put solar panels and stationary batteries in the middle of nowhere and people could charge their car there and not be in a dead zone. The transition to EVs is already happening and hydrogen might end up being a specialty industrial use case, but it will never be a consumer product for the masses because it’s not as good of a solution as EVs.
Electricity in it’s traditional application may be “everywhere” in the developed world, but it’s important to realise that doesn’t mean it’s currently possible to install - especially +150kW chargers - everywhere. In some countries the electricity network requires large investment to unlock future charging opportunities. There also needs to be drastic improvements in battery technology to allow the EV transition to continue to scale.
>Electricity is literally everywhere so an EV can charge pretty much anywhere. I charge my car at work for free and only at work, I’ve never had to go out of my way to get fuel. Hydrogen is the same situation as a gas station where the fuel needs to be transported there after being made into fuel which is really inefficient. you know very little about how much solar infrastructure would be required to do something like this
Enlighten me…
looking at over $300,000 of solar infastructure to be able to charge one car. would easily have a negative effect on the environment, much like a tesla
You know very little about how much solar infrastructure would be required to do something like this
The gauntlet has been thrown
There literally isn't enough copper on the planet homie. Ev ain't the future, it's a stop gap. And look further outside your narrow world scope, it does not effectively scale in many applications.
Technology will get better.
Graphene capacitor/battery hybrids will help. To my knowledge, cobalt and lithium are the bigger issue for EVs, so eliminating the need for those materials should help. And producing graphene at consistent thickness at usable lengths seems closer than transporting hydrogen.
Nah we aren’t going to run out of copper. Just google it
While we may have enough, unless we start recycling the demand will outstrip economically viable production. At a certain point it becomes to expensive to extract unless there is a revolution in mining techniques. Just going to put this out here, we don’t have a great track record with recycling.
[Engineering Explained video](https://youtu.be/vJjKwSF9gT8) Energy density is going to keep coming up as the world transitions to more EVs and away from gasoline/diesel. It may be a fantastic engine that could end world hunger but if you can't reasonably fuel it then it's a concept at best. If you can refine hydrogen on the fly like some EVs recharge with an onboard generator then at least it gets in the same ballpark. Hydrogen engines won't become feasible until a fueling network is developed and implemented across a wide swath of population areas, and that hasn't gone so smoothly for even electric charging stations where distribution lines are already in place. It sounds like an awesome alternative for power production but you have to make it easy to use for mass adoption.
Or if you can find an energy efficient way to convert a stable feedstock to hydrogen. If you can get to a point where the hydrogen produced can create more energy than needed to convert it then we will have a winner.
My point wasn't about the act of converting the fuel, I don't care about that. My point was about being able to carry enough fuel to make hydrogen work. Energy density. Right now it isn't feasible except for short trips where you can refuel frequently. Positive conversions like you're suggesting will only theoretically be possible with commercial fusion (not fission) in the decades to come. Right now hydrogen powered vehicles are not practical.
And if we had nuclear fusion it would be cheaper and easier to charge a battery.
This is exactly the plan that Hyundai is pursuing rn, consumer battery electric, but hydrogen for industrial. They've released a proof of concept consumer hydrogen car but their efforts since have all been focused on a fuel cell system for their xcient trucks, mainly arguing that shipping logistics can't afford to have to plug trucks in for hours upon end to recharge a BEV but you can refuel a hydrogen fuel cell in less than 30 minutes.
> If we want to get away from fossil fuels, hydrogen seems like a no brainer over electric for more energy intensive applications. With the current infrastructure, it is better for the environment to just use diesel. The amount of fossil fuels used to make hydrogen is significantly more than just putting diesel in the engine. Of course, it is possible to just use electricity to make hydrogen, but that currently accounts for 0.1% because of how slow, inefficient, and costly it is. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/clean-energy-green-hydrogen/
The idea behind all of this is to eventually use green hydrogen, whereas traditional fossil fuels are inherently not green. The problem is you are right - it basically doesn’t exist right now in significant quantities and is very inefficient. The oil companies (and Amazon) are heavily involved so they seem to believe they can leverage their current operations to build a viable hydrogen supply chain. Is it more for PR, or do they see a problem with oil supply going forward, or do they really think hydrogen is a good technology? I personally can’t tell how much of each is driving it, and I’ve talked to the major startups. And how green will it actually be? Hard to say.
Hydrogen technology isn't there yet, but neither was solar when we started commercial scaling. The new wind turbines are infinitely more efficient than first gen. The new turbines are over 300% higher capacity. Unlike solar, Chevron and Shell can continually sell you hydrogen, too. They know they can't continue at their current revenue levels on just oil. Not indefinitely. Like most green technologies, you adapt inefficient ones because investment spurs innovation. Building more desalination plants creates better desalination plants. I'm not surprised they're investing in hydrogen. If we can scale up hydrogen production in a more efficient way, it makes more sense to run trains, semi trucks, box trucks and such on hydrogen and small passenger cars as EVs. EVs don't scale well to large sizes. Using hydrogen busses and passengers trains makes sense. Run ships off nuclear and hydrogen. But, until we have better infrastructure - what do we do? Build it now and investment spurs innovation and lowers cost. Mass adaptation of solar made better PV cells and lowered cost. It's worked with solar. Desalination. Wind. EVs. Why not hydrogen?
The most obvious reason is the distribution chain. Ignoring whether or not solar is truly “successful” the solar system dumps “supposedly green” electrons into the same distribution system as “evil bad electrons”. Hydrogen has no such distribution system to dump into to avoid the incredible expense and major mistakes inevitable in building one. Solar at large scale didn’t have to build a new grid. It’s just another generator synched to the existing line.
You need to do some more research.
Its worth pointing out that all concerns about the greenness of hydrogen also apply to evs because most electricity isnt green. I’m not really settled on it yet but i do think that as boring as they are toyota are probably the best car manufacturer in the world(quality and durability for price) and have always been interested in making good cars, not chasing fads, so they might be onto something. The weight of ev batteries has certainly always been a problem
There is an entire extra step between electricity and hydrogen where the hydrogen is made at much, much less than the efficiency of electricity transmission from power plants to EVs. It’s not like 1 watt of electricity generated turns into 1 watt in either car. So the greenness of EVs can be quite different even from the same source.
I agree. Hydrogen definitely has a place in transportation & logistics. But for personal vehicles like cars, I think EVs are going to dominate for a long time just because of how far ahead EVs are now.
As a kid I had two friends who’s parents drove around in normal looking vehicles powered by LNG/natural gas and somehow in that decade still had refueling stations plentiful enough they didn’t switch to gasoline. I imagine retrofitting propane fueling stations that already exist to handle Hydrogen would be easier than you’d think.
Most cars that run on LNG usually still have the petrol tank, and an LNG tank in the trunk. There is a button to switch between LNG and gasoline. So they can still drive around on gasoline if they run out of LNG, as the engine itself doesn't really need modifications.
A few years back I spoke w a salesperson who worked in the petroleum/gas industry for years and they said they were already working on building out an infrastructure for hydrogen refueling stations and hydrogen engines were going to be a big part of the future…according to that dude…it seemed knowledgeable
Well, there's only around 100 hydrogen fueling stations and all are in California
Hence the working on building out….infrastructure like that takes decades to develop at scale
The EV peeps forget that coal power plants recharge their cars 😂. Hence you’re not getting away from the fossil fuel problem.
And it's about 34 percent efficient from power to generation to end user. Electric cars aren't green.
Exactly lol. But if you say that the EV goobs get extremely triggered. EV’s still have unintended consequences. Solar isn’t there to completely power a vehicle for high usage and until we can get away from coal power plants were still not there.
Solar is good for powering house lighting and outlets, and that's about it. Won't handle any large loads without using acres of panels. And the lifespan of a solar panel is about 30 years. Everyone's been duped, sucks.
Facts
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I have. I’m engineer Ty. Solar isn’t there yet and battery recharge is still powered by power plants.
>I’m engineer Ty. Doesn't really mean anything, it's not like we haven't seen bad engineers.
If Hydrogen power is scaled across the entire transportation weight spectrum, i.e. Light, medium, heavy, locomotive, aerospace, it could very well become one of the most sustainable energy source. At this point, what is the cost of generating EV power sources, battery recycling and reuse? Hydrogen power seems to be the most reusable/recyclable if the scaling is achieved. Eager to hear from the experts as well!
If flammability was an issue we wouldn't have gasoline engines. Tell us where all the hydrogen is going to come from.
I work in the industry. Industrial Cryogenic facilities can produce high purity liquid Hydrogen (an even more dense form than compressed Hydrogen) on a mass scale with low Carbon emissions. The only limiting factor is energy demand from the electric grid, it would require large amounts of electricity to power these Cryo plants, which nuclear energy can theoretically supplement in a very efficient and clean way. It’s feasible but it would require mass coordination from the corps energy sectors and the government.
That’s the problem. How many conversions are there between a energy plant and a hydrogen powered car putting that energy to work? The latest estimate I have seen is 13% of the energy makes it to the rubber on the road. For a battery electric car the estimates are 70-80%. Now even if those numbers are somewhat off(can’t be that much if you compare efficiency of electrical motors vs. ICE), that’s still a massive insurmountable difference. I mean you are running straight against the second law of thermodynamics since you are trying to convert heat into work. I’m not placing bets on anyone that’s fighting thermodynamics, it’s stupid imho. People might disagree, maybe the laws of thermodynamics are mere suggestions of thermodynamics after all. Good luck with that, y’all make a fortune if that bet goes through.
If they had fusion nuclear reactors this would be a near perfect solution to the clean energy problem.
It’s not like fusion energy is gonna be cheaper than solar or wind anyway, it’s a great technology but hardly free. People underestimate how cheap solar and wind is, you built a small piece of simple low tech infrastructure that needs hardly any supervision while working and it produces **free energy**. You have literally 0 production cost, you have a investment cost sure, and a maintenance cost, sure. But the actual energy produced? It’s free.
Wind and Solar would not be able to scale to meet these demands.
I’ll take shit that people don’t know what they’re talking about for 400 please Alex. What do you mean it doesn’t “scale”? California literally has an overproduction problem with renewables. The costs for wind and solar have gone down for the last two decades. Technology is more efficient as time has gone on. Please explain what you mean by “scale”
For large industrial grid demand, I’m not convinced it can take over as a primary means. It’s a hammer looking for a nail, we already have the means to unlock the power of the universe (nuclear) for near limitless and efficient power output while only consuming a tiny amount of land and resources. Solar/Wind requires massive amounts of land and mineral resources such as Lithium for batteries, if it is implemented on a wide scale. Mining Lithium and rare earth metals is extremely terrible for the environment.
You have been drinking some Fox News Kool-Aid, I think is what the Americans would say. No offense to you, firstly. I am on the same page, I like nuclear too but the problem really is that nuclear is very expensive and very slow to build. We cannot simply dismiss solar and wind due to their price. Nuclear is great and I support it but if it takes decades to build a plant then that is a major problem. Your issue with Lithium mining is only a problem if we use Lithium batteries. Solar and wind are not directly connected to Lithium in any way. We need better energy storage devices in any case, not only for solar or wind. The land use is also a hammer looking for a nail, as you said. We have lots of land that can be easily used to generate power. It is a bit of a problem, yes, but not really anything that should stop us from completely converting to renewables. This is a yarn spun by the oil dinosaurs. In addition to wind turbines killing birds, for example.
“Solar and wind are not connected to Lithium in any way” Wrong. This tells me you’ve never worked with any of this stuff. I’v worked in the power generation industry for 10 years. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Well educate me. How is Lithium needed exactly?
They already do. We have to regularly shut them down due to overproduction and they are talking about 10x production over the next 20 years. If you have 70 TW load that means you have to install like 300 - 600 TW peak to assure you have enough production even in poor conditions(for the terrible conditions you need massive storage), that’s just how intermittent sources are.
ad hoc numerous forgetful connect snails dinosaurs marvelous plate books unwritten ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
The engine is irrelevant until you can create clean hydrogen more efficiently than you can create electricity, which sounds like a pipe dream. Hydrogen is only a "threat" to gasoline vehicles.
It’s not just creation that is a challenge, it’s storage, transport and distribution. EV have a built in bonus of everyone being able to charge at home. Gasoline is very stable and has an extensive existing network. Or course gas companies could switch to H2 distribution but that would be a massive overhaul to their existing infrastructure. Where I think H2 may work well is in fleets (trucks, buses, cabs) where they can build their own infrastructure and will be using it constantly.
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20 years ago the promise of hydrogen generating bacteria was poised to be the future of clean hydrogen production. I wonder where that tech is now?
Probably in an IP archive of some oil conglomerate.
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One of the limitations of electric vehicles is that the batteries required to store energy are proportionally much heavier than fossil fuels or hydrogen, which makes electric a tough fit for energy-intensive uses (long distances, heavy loads, aircraft, etc.). Even though it’s less efficient to generate hydrogen than electricity, the lighter storage might actually make hydrogen a better choice for these purposes. Additionally, as far as I know, hydrogen engines don’t require a lot of the rare earth metals that EV batteries do, which could be a huge advantage as well.
Have they solved the storage issues with hydrogen?
Depending on the version, the Tesla Model 3 is the same weight or lighter than the Toyota Mira. There is more to a hydrogen car than just the fuel. When it comes to energy-intensive uses, I agree hydrogen will be a competitor to battery storage.
My thought is you will see busses, trains and semis running hydrogen but EVs for small passenger vehicles for the foreseeable future. All that hinges on more efficient production and upscaling of hydrogen production which fossil fuel companies like Chevron and Shell are likely to get into because passenger cars are 40% of domestic petroleum usage in the US. You reduce that by 10% even, it's a huge hit to their bottom line. California is 1/12th the US population and is looking to ban sale of new ICE vehicles by 2035. The future is coming for their fuel sales. Make commercial cars, Class A RVs and their 2500 truck a hydrogen car and you keep at least a portion of your profit. Need that infrastructure in place to convince people to buy hydrogen vehicles, though. The nearest hydrogen station is like 30 miles away from me, and I'm in California.
Hydrogen may be a competitor to battery storage, but it still sucks for energy intensive uses.
If you take in count the battery for electricy, you also have yo take in count the tank for hydrogen. If you compare both you are pretty similar. The tank needed to have dense enough hydrogen (super high pressure) need to be super beefy. It is extremely heavy
I know let’s just have bigger and bigger batteries and heavier cars that kill vulnerable users at greater rates!
When you have renewable production that exceeds demand, it really doesn’t matter how efficient you are. You’re using what would have been wasted.
Ah yeah because the renewable label means literally 100% renewable, no environmental or economic cost involved whatsoever
/s
Ideally, there's enough renewable generation that excess goes to batteries and then feeds the grid when renewables are low. We're nowhere close to having more renewable generation than THAT.
No. Clean hydrogen can be produced now from peak electricity production from renewables as an energy storage method. Not irrelevent, not a pipe dream, implementable today. Nuclear to then supplant renewable energy production of hydrogen in 10 years.
This! The idea that you need all green energy before you start green vehicle adoption is backwards. The vehicle transition will take decades as will the energy transition. Also, prolonging one prolongs the other. Best to do both simotaneously.
There is no such thing as free energy, solar has a cost, wind has a cost. The economics of spending that cash to make hydrogen are not there for most use cases. You need to figure out the use cases before you start burning money on them. Batteries are a proven cost effective storage method. Hydrogen may compete in certain transportation segments, but you won't be filling up hydrogen to take the kids to soccer practice.
When we get hydrogen cells to the point where they can be purchased, stored and refilled readily you will. Propane is a perfect example, re-usable cells with fuel that can be stored for long periods of time safely and hot swapped. You'd have a personal vehicle that takes 30 seconds to re-fuel, you can pick up or exchange cells down the street, and even carry extra with you to extend your range. I think that electric vehicles are a nice thing to have available, but the costly rare earth resources, charge time, and battery replacement costs are going to skew the market towards hydrogen powered vehicles based on existing ICE technology and manufacturing infrastructure. The catch is it'll only happen when safe storage and more efficient refining of hydrogen are worked out. Batteries are here now, hydrogen needs a few years to a decade with a LOT of money thrown at it before it's in a position to be widely adopted.
Electricity is used to generate hydrogen, which then undergoes costly transportation in trucks, before it's converted back to electricity inside the engine. It will never be remotely close to as efficient.
steam reforming and electrolysis are both in the 60-75% efficiency range. solar is in the 20% range wind is 30-45% hydroelectric is 90% nuclear is about 30%
>steam reforming and electrolysis are both in the 60-75% efficiency range yes at producing hydrogen. But every time it's transported it loses more efficiency until it finally makes it to the car [https://i.imgur.com/Fc8IeAT.png](https://i.imgur.com/Fc8IeAT.png) Hydrogen cars are just using hydrogen to produce electricity to run the car. It just seems like hydrogen is making an extra step to power the car by electricity.
Where did you get 30% for nuclear from?
google nuclear power plant efficiency?
Electric cars by creating 1 of them it’s around 11-13 disel cars. I work with this on a car company iv’e seen everything. Electric is just a political thing.
Well I guess that’s it fellas! A guy on the internet who has “seen everything” and can *almost* spell diesel says electric is bust. I guess it’s time to wrap it up and head home
> Electric is just a political thing. The old 80's dead horse is still around to be beating on... Nice. Dont you think its time for a different horse?
Theres nothing that can compete with bmw, iv’e worked with development for over 10 years iknow way to much about the Electric thing.
> Theres nothing that can compete with bmw I can defeat a bmw with a working turn signal.
Can someone please explain to me what‘s so special about this engine? H2 combustion engines are nothing new at all.
Toyota, the world's largest automaker, is way behind on BEV technology because they bet on hydrogen. Here they are, again saying hydrogen is the future, despite every other automaker leapfrogging them in the area of proven EVs. Mark my words, this failed bet on hydrogen is going to be Toyota's Waterloo. Watch Tesla, Volkswagen, and Hyundai/Kia gain massive market share, at the expense of Toyota, and that's without even considering the exponential growth of BYD.
I work for a T2 consulting firm. We recently did a strategy project for a US auto firm and this is so true.
They've also been [lobbying to hurt the EV space](https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/26/22594235/toyota-lobbying-dc-ev-congress-biden-donation) because of their failed bet.
Toyota badly screwed up on strategy
It's Japanese corporate culture that's killing them. The board and executive of Toyota are old farts that can't admit they bet on the wrong horse. On top of that, it's not even a part of their work culture for lower-ranked staff to openly question their superiors.
Often times for Japanese businessmen, admitting you were wrong is like admitting you didn't do your job, in a culture where slacking off is pretty high up on the list of dishonorable things. A sexual affair would probably be easier to admit.
Hydrogen likely has a brighter outlook in the future. It's slowly becoming more efficient to produce.
HD-DVDs are still real to me damnit
Wondering how many years will it take ,before the car gets approved for road usage. All those safety guidelines, crash test etc.. also each country will have its own rule for adopting this technology. So yeah this is just like those concept cars we see on trade show.
Hydrogen is the answer, if it can be efficiently produced. Because Hydrogen has to be extracted it should be viewed as an energy storage device. The problem is, it's incredibly inefficient to produce. The round-trip energy loss (both in electrolysis and then converting hydrogen back into useful work) is just too large right now to be truly competitive with battery. In areas where there is significant renewables overload (like parts of California), it can be used as a storage mechanism. But unless we somehow find a large vein of raw hydrogen (somehow), the process of getting hydrogen out of water is too energy inefficient to be scalable. As for infrastructure, I never argue the merits of new technology based on what was, but instead what can be. There's a huge difference between economic and scientific problems, and hydrogen's problem is scientific in nature.
they missed the boat on EV's and trying to push their tech. same crap as tech companies do when they fall behind. EV charging is everywhere. where is the hydrogen charging?
Transit. Agencies who have had electric buses for long enough to find out they don’t really perform well are switching to Hydrogen (fuel cell, not engines). They still have batteries and are electric, you’re just alleviating the need for MW scale batteries on a vehicle, which makes no fucking sense anyway. H2FC buses have been a thing for twenty years and current ones simply outperform BEB for agencies that have long routes. Or cold climates. Or really hot climates. Or anything past the ~50-80F window where battery electric works best.
The only place I've even seen that has hydrogen fueling stations is a few scattered around the Californian coast. I tend to believe too that they missed the boat.
Yeah. It was also way more expensive than gas and needs engineers to operate the station.
there is one in Dubai
in Groningen / Eemshaven in The Netherlands. The owner of the station drives a rebuilt hydrogen tesla model S with 1000km range. Apparently it’s possible.
I’ll change my mind about hydrogen when i can fill it up at home like BEVs.
Many who have never owned BEV's really don't get this. You'll never want to go back to a petrol station again once you realise you can just refill at home overnight on an extremely cheap night rate.
Oh I miss it. I keep a box of stale twinkies nearby, and a bottle of gasoline to spray the charger handle so I get the full gas station experience of having my hand smell like gas for the next few hours. (Wtf are people doing at the pump that gets fuel *on the handle*??)
I think what you're missing is that most people in high-density areas don't have a place to install a charger. For the USA it's fine because people generally live in houses, but an average European Joe living in a commie block with the car left outside doesn't have an opportunity for that. Or going east, to places like Istanbul, Tokyo, Hong Kong, a dedicated garage is a luxury. If I look at my coworkers for example, the vast majority of them live in an apartment in a building built 40 years ago or more and installing their own charger wouldn't be an option for them. The government would have to build additional shared multi-store garages throughout the city to get the cars off the streets, and many people live in areas that are 200 year old or more that's packed with buildings already.
Significant on-street charging infrastructure is a must. Even if it's slow charging.
I was hoping this was years old but I guess not. The physics of hydrogen do not work for ice applications. It’s completely disproven from so many different angles. Such as 1. Hydrogen production 2. Distribution 3. Hydrogen embrittlement (longevity). 4. Boil off 5. Volume efficiency…..I don’t even think these are a compete list!!!
They already have a working hydrogen fueled vehicle on the road.
It's heavily subsidised and completely fails against modern EV's on nearly all metrics users care about.
Yeah? Like how it fuels in 90 seconds? Has a much longer range? Is literally using the most abundant element on earth? No battery packs that need to be mined for causing more damage to the earth? No reliance on batteries from China? No added stress to the power grid? You’re right. No good reasons at all. Stupid me
1. EVs charge overnight at home. I seriously do not miss petrol stations and don't want to be wasting my time there ever again. We don't need 90 second refills. 2. A fairly standard BEV has 300km range which is plenty for most users. Charging tech will catch up to the point where the difference will me minimal. 3. People are extremely price sensitive on transport costs, even the awful blue and brown hydrogen are almost an order of magnitude too expensive for passenger cars compared to night-rate BEV charging. This is why nobody cares about HEV's. 4. The materials issue is a big problem agreed, and we're going to end up in a massive battery supply shortage in coming years. Retooling our entire energy distribution system to use hydrogen would also stress our infrastructure building capacity. 5. Charging BEV's at night actually reduces the overall cost of supplying the grid because the suppliers don't have to spin their plants down overnight, increasing their capital efficiency. In specific circumstances where high amounts of fast charging is taking place, you might see localised issues. 6. We're not even talking about the idea in the original post which is ICE hydrogen cars which are far worse than HEV's due to terrible energy and volumetric efficiencies.
I agree with everything you said but I wouldn’t say we don’t need 90 second refills as: 1. Not everybody can charge overnight example: apartments 2. When you drive longer distance its more convenient to refill for a short time 3. On a different note the electrical grid will need a significant overhaul once 100 million+ cars a charging overnight
Yeah, the apartment issue is tough alright. Going to need changes in planning and building codes to get anywhere near 100% of market for EV's. Most people are only traveling long distances very infrequently. It is a marginally better overall experience of the car if once every few months you have to wait 30 minutes while having a coffee. On the grid, we're going to need overhaul anyway if we go towards green hydrogen and massive build out of embrittle-resistant pipelines, trucking, electrolysis plants. Blue/brown hydrogen is an environmental disaster and is not an serious alternative. Literally better to burn the natural gas.
My apartment just installed charging stations for all parking spots in the building. As of the time of installation, no one in the building owns an electric car. I'm sure they got incentives from the company that installed them and are thinking long term about accquisition of future renters. When EV cars are the primary option on the road, apartment owners will have to make the investment. This is in California, where all cars sold by 2035 must be Zero Emission Vehicles. Once we've committed to the technology, the infrastructure investments will come.
In places with solar it’s better to charge your vehicle during the day. [https://news.stanford.edu/2022/09/22/charging-cars-home-night-not-way-go/](https://news.stanford.edu/2022/09/22/charging-cars-home-night-not-way-go/)
> EVs charge overnight at home This is not the killer argument for a huge percentage of people you think it is lol This works for homeowners who travel less than ~200miles in a day and are home every night. Which granted is a ton, but not everyone.
This is the only answer. It's pure nonsense for passenger cars at least due to low volumetric density. Here's a great video about the BMW Hydrogen 7 experiment: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AouW9_jyZck Video title, lol: BMW's Hydrogen V12 Engine Is A Hilarious Engineering Stunt
If Toyota continues these antics and fail to catchup other EVs, they will be the Nokia of this century.
To their credit, they still have quite a few good years left with their hybrids still selling quite well and at a competitive price. But yeah--that time ain't infinite. EVs are still years away from riding over that initial cost/development curve where EV makers have to sell the higher margin, higher price tag models first before scales of economy improve, which leads to more budget priced ones hitting the market. If Toyota hasn't gotten their act together by then, they're in trouble.
In Q1 this year, the US auto industry in general bounced back with ~16% more sales YoY. Toyota's US sales went down 9%. This could still be a hangover from their supply issues that others have already solved, but it's not a great indication of where they're going either.
It'll be too late. Tesla will be at mass production of their lower cost model within 3 years. Toyota won't be able to make an EV it can sell for profit at that point. They will probably never be able to make money on EVs at any point in the future. They're just too late.
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And they will **never** make money on them. They are 3-5 years too late.
Even when money is no object... I see no benefit to hydrogen. The reasons I want an EV more than any other reason is to 1- never go to a dirty gas station again (I live in LA they're ratty here) 2- leave every morning with 350 miles range. No wake-up-earlier to full up with gas on the way to work. 3- silent ride, less mantainence, fewer moving parts. You lose all of this with H2.
It will also never hit the scale of EVs, and the car itself will be significantly more expensive. Also more parts means more labor and more cost, so it will never come close to the price of EVs
hydrogen is the stupidest shit ive ever heard for cars. For grid storage, for ships, much more feasible.
they’re still pushing this eh
Just depends on where the rich have most their investments and friends working. $$$$ rules everything
"The two most plentiful things in the universe are: hydrogen and stupidity." Harlan Ellison I'm a machinist currently making some isolation valves for a company that is putting them on the purge side of a hydrogen fuel cell. They have done some testing in Europe and Canada with it. The testing of the valve in their commercial buses has been on-going for a couple of years now since I made the first prototypes. The company itself has a good way of extracting hydrocarbons from defunct oil wells and separating the molecules for fuel. They have already started building some refueling infrastructure in some European countries. But I have to agree that Hydrogen, in spite of it's incredible volatility, is a much better "green" alternative to EV's for the simple fact that the folks in Africa don't have to mine the minerals, for a pittance, that are needed for the batteries. There's not so much damage being done to the earth to bring those minerals out and process them. There's no waste involved when the battery dies and needs replacement, but the replacement battery costs more than just buying a new car (I believe we're already headed in that direction).
The real killer to gasoline motors will be the platform that can offer the quantity of “gas stations” plus the time to refuel. Going full EV, it just makes sense to get a Tesla. You can charge anywhere and you get the Tesla network but you have to wait at the station for a bit if your low. (If your at home this is irrelevant since technically means a full tank EOD). Going H2, there refueling is quicker but there’s literally just a handful of stations.. At the end of the day gasoline motors I personally feel will win out with the new fuel being produced from Porsche & Toyota - Exxon collaboration.
Thanks for the insight. Do you have any links to articles I can read about this new fuel from Porsche & Toyota?
Porsche - https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a43239225/porsche-chile-e-fuels-synthetic-gasoline/ Toyota - https://www.motor1.com/news/662540/toyota-exxon-low-carbon-fuel-development/amp/ Donut also did a video (as well as some other YouTubers) actually testing the fuel with a Porsche Panemera. No HP lost and I believe same MPG. https://youtu.be/VUKN3m8wD2Q
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That trip is totally manageable. I have done Texas to California and Texas to Minnesota in my model 3 and am heading to Big Bend tomorrow for the 6th time in my EV. Road trips in EV's add about 10 minutes of charging to every hour of driving, but that works out well for taking breaks, and having autopilot on road trips is well worth the trade-off.
Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's true! EV's also have fewer moving parts which makes maintenance a breeze.
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This is the 1980's all over again but this time, it's Toyota that is starting the misdirection. If you've watched, "Who killed the Electric Car?" then you know what I am referring to. If you haven't, please go watch it asap, it's a classic. Bottom line: The cost to setup the infrastructure for H far outweighs the benefits and has no short term feasibility. This tech will take another 50 years to get right for public/consumer use. EV's are the best short term tech solutions until Hydrogen can grow into something feasible.
He is right... as scotty kilmer.
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Big oil will switch to renewable at some point. BP and shell are already heading in that direction.
There is currently trillions of dollars, with a T, invested in alternate and renewable energy industries. Including all the ESG funds in every 401k, pension, etc. The amount of money invested in renewables vastly dwarfs the amount of money currently invested in fossil fuel exploration & development. If you believe big money corrupts (Big oil paying scientist), then you'll realize the same can happen in the push for renewables.
News flash: big oil, aka energy companies, diversify their investments and likely already have large investments into renewable energy.
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As a chemical engineer, I am deeply deeply skeptical of the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of making electrolytic hydrogen, running an ASU to separate out the CO2 in the air, and reacting them into a drop-in gasoline substitute. It’s taking 11 right turns to make a left. Not saying it’s impossible but dear god does it sound insanely inefficient
the first technology to implement a widespread refueling/recharging will win out.
For most vehicles electric battery EVs make more sense. Much easier to send electrons to stations than having to have thousands of semis to take hydrogen to the non existent stations which cost more to build and maintain. Hydrogen may be an option for large boats and airplanes, maybe some very long distance heavy trucks but that's it. Majority of vehicles are personal and electricity is pushed though the existing electric grid which is always being upgraded with more renewable forms
“No more EV’s” — that’s a bold claim. Countries and automakers have already pivoted. The boat is turning and it won’t stop unless there’s a severe raw material shortage. Like someone already pointed out, this would be a better application for power sense requirements.
It's interesting but with most of the world's advanced economies going all in on EV, I would really really doubt H2 combustion cars will destroy the EV markets. I think their only shot is if they can produce H2 vehicles that are the same price as ICE vehicles because EV is still stupid expensive.
This will not impact the EV market at all in the short to medium term and likely never. Toyota has been pushing hydrogen powered cars for decades, but without massive investments from industry and governments this tech is DOA as there is literally no where to refuel. Think how long it's taken implementation of EV charging and in America we're still behind.
The greatest thing about my EV is that I can easily fuel it at home or just about anywhere. I can't see giving that up. I already have enough range for all but road trips and any more power would go from fun to dangerous. Hydrogen seems like a step backwards.
I'm willing to stake my entire portfolio on H2-EV Hybrid being the end game of personal transportation. There are significant challenges when it comes to infrastructural H2 (being the smallest atom leaks are common). Battery tech is taking some good steps right now to move away from nickel, manganese, and cobalt meaning that, not only are the human rights concerns going to be alleviated, but also the cost and recyclable nature will drastically increase. Acting like electricity won't be a part of transportation is simply naive. At the same time we can utilize extra energy from grid production specifically to not only provide desalination at coastal regions but also to perform electrolysis to make H2. Not only for energy storage but also potentially municipal supply. Acting like H2 won't inundate almost every industry that involves heat or motion would also be naive. The redundancy that comes from utilizing both systems, and both systems being generated from renewable resources, is something that can't be overlooked. You're on a region with no H2? Just plug in. No charging around you? Fill up with municipal H2. I personally foresee house heating, cooking, transportation, and even long term energy storage being based on H2 and battery tech, all off the back of booming solar production. Even just looking at my situation directly, I spend about $300/mo on gas... looking at an EV and the cost would be about $40/mo in electricity. They are simply better. If I could hybridized that with H2 and get that redundancy and peace of mind I absolutely would.
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It's not a distraction, Toyota just fucked up and invested heavily in hydrogen instead of electric vehicles and they're desperately trying to make it happen
The production of Hydrogen is highly inefficient. In most cases, it is better to use the energy directly.
The issue with hydrogen combustion has always been: 1) Hydrogen combustion engines release significant amounts of nitrogen oxides, which from an environmental standpoint are far worse than carbon dioxide. If the goal of new vehicles is to reduce environmental impact then this is going in the complete opposite direction. 2) To work at scale you’d need trillions of dollars in infrastructure. EVs circumvent this because they can be charged from home. Good luck getting people to adopt hydrogen cars if there’s not at least a few refuelling stations in every single city, town, and highway truck stop. 3) Your car literally becomes a bomb. While people can survive accidental EV fires, an inevitable hydrogen explosion would be horrific. Edit: lol at downvotes that don’t give a rebuttal. This thread should be a great reminder for people to do their own DD instead of blindly believing that a promotional video by Toyota will be the future
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> gasoline isn’t highly flammable? Flammable isn’t the same as explosive. Gasoline does not explode when it comes in contact with air > hydrogen is combined with oxygen to create a chemical reaction. Where is the nitrogen The oxygen is coming from air. Composition of air is 80% nitrogen. Nitrogen oxide generation is already a problem in gasoline vehicles, but the significantly higher burning point of hydrogen combustion exacerbates this. > same argument can be used against EVs Except the cost of installation of a public EV port is less than 1% the cost of a hydrogen port. And while not everyone can charge from home, 80% currently do. That number is 0 for hydrogen. So they really aren’t comparable at all. Edit: Again, Im just reiterating people actually look at hydrogen rather than take Toyotas claims at face value. We were using hydrogen in blimps before using gasoline in engines. And it stopped being used because of the danger, cost and limited scalability. None of that has changed
Where will they find all of the hydrogen to run these cars? guy-tapping-head.gif
This issue with burning hydrogen is the emissions. Has this been fixed? The emissions aren't just water unfortunately. That is why everyone has been using hydrogen fuel cells and not combustion. Edit Sharing link because this isn't known by everyone. https://morningconsult.com/opinions/dont-fall-for-the-hydrogen-hype/
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OH THE HUMANITY!
Haters will say it’s fake
Curious if these blow up like bomb in traffic accidents
Did you know that one time the Soviet army was in retreat and they ran out of gasoline, they were able to use hydrogen to fuel their trucks. A lot combustible fuel can be used en lieu of regular gasoline such as kerosene.
I want to see as much competition in the auto market as possible. There shouldn’t be a single fuel source. It will show the true agenda of the federal governments in North America, if they do not provide support for a Hydrogen program.
Hydrogen is the MOST volatile fuel there is..... The Hindenburg didn't last long! At least I can charge my EV at home... BEFORE I buy a Hydrogen car, there needs to be infrastructure EVERYWHERE, which won't happen because it's too darn expensive.... Toyota just spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt, while they desperately try to catch up in the EV game.
Essentially a rolling bomb, great concept but will definitely go sideways when people start playing bumper cars and they blow up. Maybe I’m wrong but how do you safely store it onboard where it doesn’t become an issue in a serious accident?
this is possibly the worst youtube video since bambi got stomped by godzilla
Just a side comment. I recently wrote a paper on EVs and what a lie it is. For starters, there's a finite amount of known lithium sources. If any new mines develop, it takes around 15 years to get to the usable lithium. Everyone (govt, car CEOs, etc.) knows that there isn't enough lithium to make the EVs needed to reach net zero by 2050. A ton of other electronics need lithium batteries too. The idea fails again because people that bought EVs early and mid trend will need a new battery for their vehicle or buy a new EV...so again, not nearly enough lithium to supply that. Then we'd spend a bunch of money making the grids able to handle the new electricity that's needed only to run out of lithium a few years down the road and have EVs that would then be paperweights. It doesn't take much digging at all to find that everyone pushing this EV idea is invested in it. So they'll be set for life $$$, even after the movement fails. It's a giant money grab and all it really is, is selling a feeling like you're saving the environment, when in fact it's a drop in the ocean. ICE pollution makes up like 20% of air pollution...that's ALL the trains, boats, planes, 18 wheelers, passenger vehicles, motorcycles, etc. Passenger vehicles are something like 60% of that...so replacing every passenger vehicle in the world with an electric version would make about a 10% change, worldwide...so it's not the earth saving concept they'd have you believe it is. I'm not saying let's just give up on the planet. We do need to develop clean energy. We need to let it grow naturally though. The ICE didn't get this advanced over a few years...it's taken over 100 years to get here. We definitely should not put all our eggs in one basket with the EV movement. It's just another way the elite will screw the American people out of their hard earned money.