AMPd
Well-Known Member
No, Hydrogen cannot compete with EVs.
At least not at this point, too cost prohibitive for mass market.
At least not at this point, too cost prohibitive for mass market.
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Hydrogen vs. Battery
- Thread starter siry
- Start date
wjhepworth
Member
That is hilarious about the low emissions. I think no emissions is better. I think they also totally wave on the complexity, cost and ecological damage caused in the current manufacturing processes for hydrogen. Oh, and the fact there are no hydrogen stations in 99% of America 
More hydrogen nonsense:
Canada's natural gas future linked to hydrogen innovation: Don Pittis - Business - CBC News
Canada's natural gas future linked to hydrogen innovation: Don Pittis - Business - CBC News
Apparently some people use Hydrogen as an alternative to nitrous oxide: Hydrogen fuel enhancement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia so I think it will have its niche adherents.
But until someone does something like develop a Hydrogen/Electric system to replace a Diesel/Electric system in a train (overcoming all the safety and legislation issues) then Hydrogen will stay in the lab. And even then its no certainty - since refuelling a fleet of trains would require a considerable volume of pressurized/liquified hydrogen on a regular basis, which rules out using present generation renewables.
Tbh, long term, I can only see hydrogen getting licensed for highly controlled transportation environments such as rail networks.
Due to Slow H2 Infrastructure Rollout, Toyota Mirai Dealers Get Portable H2 Fueling Trailers | Transport Evolved
But until someone does something like develop a Hydrogen/Electric system to replace a Diesel/Electric system in a train (overcoming all the safety and legislation issues) then Hydrogen will stay in the lab. And even then its no certainty - since refuelling a fleet of trains would require a considerable volume of pressurized/liquified hydrogen on a regular basis, which rules out using present generation renewables.
Tbh, long term, I can only see hydrogen getting licensed for highly controlled transportation environments such as rail networks.
Due to Slow H2 Infrastructure Rollout, Toyota Mirai Dealers Get Portable H2 Fueling Trailers | Transport Evolved
If one wants greener trains, there are much easier, cheaper, more practical ways. Maintaining a catenary line electrified rail set shouldn't be much more expensive than maintaining the rails themselves already is and while the installation of the catenary won't be cheap, it's still far cheaper than creating all the pieces for the Hydrogen locomotive - with no tendency to blow up at inconvenient moments, and the benefit of feeding energy recaptured from slowing the train back into the grid (or into accelerating the next train.)
Solar panels on the structure supporting the overhead line could even provide green power for the system in part (though I haven't seen that implemented anywhere so far - the rest is well established technology in use in a lot of places today - including the US eastern seaboard lines, mostly electrified during the post depression era public works.)
Walter
Adm
Active Member
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
Read about this last night, completely ridiculous. There is no measure of "green" that places the Mirai above any globally sold BEV. It's a really confusing choice.
The Mirai is only Green because you can't drive it. No refueling infrastructure.
Once you must use commercial H2 to drive it anywhere, it's really a dirty bird. Big 'ol CO2 footprint of reforming natural gas into the H2. Turning natural gas into synthetic diesel is cleaner. Heck, just burn CNG in your car and you're greener.
Once you must use commercial H2 to drive it anywhere, it's really a dirty bird. Big 'ol CO2 footprint of reforming natural gas into the H2. Turning natural gas into synthetic diesel is cleaner. Heck, just burn CNG in your car and you're greener.
Fuel Cells certainly aren't emission free, but I haven't seen any data to suggest it's anywhere near what you're describing here.
Steam reforming is said to be typically 90-95% efficient on an energy basis, and fuel cells are routinely in the 60% range - which would seem to suggest the FCV is turning more than half the energy content of the natural gas into motion - more than can be achieved in any other manner I'm aware of (including a modern combined cycle plant charging a EV over the grid) - certainly more than the ~20% you'll get from burning it in a conventional car.
Do you have data that suggests otherwise?
(Of course, EVs have the potential benefit of charging from sources other than that natural gas...)
Yeah, when I did these calculations in the past, which might be up thread, the well-to-wheels efficiency of a HFCV fueled with hydrogen produced from steam reformed natural gas basically matched the efficiency of an EV charged with grid energy produced by a natural gas turbine power plant.
Of course if you're using renewable energy, EV beats HFCV by a factor of 3 or more. And given alternatives, I don't want public funds spent on a hydrogen fueling infrastructure.
Of course if you're using renewable energy, EV beats HFCV by a factor of 3 or more. And given alternatives, I don't want public funds spent on a hydrogen fueling infrastructure.
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
This.
Also, H2 produced from SMR has to go through another cycle to purify it for use. The well-to-tank efficiency of H2 compressed to 700bar has a projected maximum of ~70%.
It looks something like this, comparing NG produced energy for both the Model S, and MIrai:
FCEV:
1 unit x .70 (highest possible factoring in purity and transport)
.70 x .50 (Mirai fuel cell system eff.)
35% efficiency
BEV:
1 x .60 (current best NG efficiency)
.60 x .94 (actual efficiency of US grid)
.564 x .92 (charging eff. highest is 96%, but the Model S is lower)
.518 x .90 (BEV discharge)
46.7% efficiency
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Point. Not enough to make McRat's argument valid, but you're right I didn't put that into the numbers I was throwing together off the top of my head.
Depending on the nature (compression/cryogenic, to what pressure,) I've read that in the worst cases it can be as much as 30% of the energy content, I believe?
Normal commercial H2 production creates 10kg of CO2 for every 1kg of H2. Now granted, it's exothermic, but still...
H2 as an automotive fuel is an inefficient method of using the energy stored in natural gas, nor does it have environmental benefits, nor cost benefits.
Julian Cox worked up a thorough analysis of the hydrogen fuel cell scenarios. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the postings he made on this topic to teslamotorsclub.com are not accessible to me. (Permission error?!) So I tracked down this article on cleantechnica.com, which is the result of his effort:
Time To Come Clean About Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles
From a chart in Julian's article, comparing greenhouse gas emissions by using a Lexus GS 350 as the baseline (smaller is better):
100% Lexus GS 350, 306 hp, 3.5L V6, 23 mpg EPA combined @ 484 grams CO2e per mile, well-to-wheel
73.5% 100kW NREL Fuel Cell Vehicle, average case @ 356g CO2e/mile www
[for fun, a Hyundai gas ICE, a Hyundai diesel, a Mercedes gas ICE all are responsible for LESS CO2e per mile than the NREL HFCV average case]
49% 100kW NREL Fuel Cell Vehicle, best case @ 237g CO2e / mile www
46% 100kW Prius HEV
[for fun, a Mercedes Diesel and a Honda Diesel are included in the chart, doing even better for CO2e than the Prius, much less the NREL HFCV best case]
35% 100kW EV using US grid average
14% 100kW EV in CA using PG&E grid, 67g CO2e/mile
I used to think of hydrogen as a potentially very clean container for energy. But it takes 4X as much energy to create hydrogen cleanly by distilling water than it does to perform Steam Methane Reforming, which produces a large amount of CO2 as a byproduct. This quote from Julian Cox is a mind-opener:
It might also help to recognize that a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is basically an electric vehicle (EV) with a hydrogen fuel cell in place of a battery. Julian reports that battery production is now essentially carbon-emissions neutral. So basically, with an HFCV, you're taking grid electricity, using it to do Steam Methane Reforming (and don't forget compression!), stick that result into a tank, and then pipe it into a fuel cell to turn it back into electricity. So it shouldn't be all that surprising that it's more efficient in terms of CO2 (as well as energetically) to take grid electricity and pipe it directly into a battery.
When hydrogen is produced by solar, you've got a much better situation in terms of CO2 emissions. BUT based on current known methods of using solar to crack water to produce hydrogen, you need 4X as much energy as you do for SMR. Using solar to produce electricity to pipe into your EV battery turns out to be more energetically efficient, so you need much less solar (panels, sunlight, whatever) to do the same job.
I no longer see a good case to be made for hydrogen-based transportation.
Hope this helps.
Alan
Skotty
2014 S P85 | 2023 F-150L
Ecological impact of manufacturing should be looked at by those developing the processes and doing the manufacturing, but most of the time I think it's just a red herring that opponents like to pull out of their pocket whenever they want to oppose green technology. I seriously doubt it is significant for EV battery manufacturing (as compared to an ICE vehicle), and likewise I doubt it is significant for HFCVs.
While EVs seem superior for personal transport, I do think there are potential markets for things other than EVs. Perhaps the trucking industry. Can an EV tractor trailer really be viable? How big a battery would that require? How fast would you have to refill that battery? The rate at which you would have to charge would be enormous. Just to think...I did a quick Google, and found a tractor might typically have two 150 gallon gas tanks, compared to a full size car that might have a 20 gallon tank. That's 15 times the fuel capacity. If a Model S can achieve a viable charge time on 120 kW, would a tractor require 1800 kW to refuel in a reasonable time frame? Is that even viable? How big of a charge cord would that require? How much would the batteries cost? If you double the size of the battery, you double it's cost. However, if you double the size of a storage tank, you might be able to do it for -- say -- 25% more cost. Something like HFCVs might be able to fill a transportation segment like this more successfully than straight EVs.
While EVs seem superior for personal transport, I do think there are potential markets for things other than EVs. Perhaps the trucking industry. Can an EV tractor trailer really be viable? How big a battery would that require? How fast would you have to refill that battery? The rate at which you would have to charge would be enormous. Just to think...I did a quick Google, and found a tractor might typically have two 150 gallon gas tanks, compared to a full size car that might have a 20 gallon tank. That's 15 times the fuel capacity. If a Model S can achieve a viable charge time on 120 kW, would a tractor require 1800 kW to refuel in a reasonable time frame? Is that even viable? How big of a charge cord would that require? How much would the batteries cost? If you double the size of the battery, you double it's cost. However, if you double the size of a storage tank, you might be able to do it for -- say -- 25% more cost. Something like HFCVs might be able to fill a transportation segment like this more successfully than straight EVs.
Johan
Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
World car awards is jointly organized by all the big automobile magazines who form a jury of their own journalists to pick the "car of the year", "green car of the year" and so on. Now, what is the main income, i.e. who is paying the salary of the journalists and magazine owners, for auto magazines? It's the advertisements. Who is advertising? Big auto. Who is going to win the awards? That's right, you don't bite off the hand that feeds you.
The Hyundai ix35 FCV is a lot more practical - five seats and everything. And the Honda FCX Clarity has been equally practical for a long time.
The only reason why the Mirai won is because they bought into the Toyota marketing BS.
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