Hydrogen vs. Battery

[Michael2000]

Obama cut back fuel cell funding, because he doesn't like a technology that would be hard to ration. Electricity is easy to ration, hence, the rollout of smart meters.

Michael

 

[JRP3]

Don't you have that backwards, since people could generate their own electricity with solar panels, or wind, or micro hydro, but can't easily create their own hydrogen, not to mention compress it and store it. Obama cut funding for fuel cells because he, or at least his scientific advisers, know it's a waste of money.

 

[gameon]

hyundai tucson fuel cell is not prototype anymore but real deal but available in CA only... why all the green are popular in CA only... hate that...

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/...er-first-drive

 

[JRP3]

Probably the only place that has even a few H filling stations.

 

[dpeilow]

Because the Tucson's hydrogen tanks were about two-thirds full already, filling them to 95 percent went more slowly because the fuel had to be compressed to a higher pressure.

Still, we were in and out in the promised 10-minute window.

So 66% to 95% in ten minutes.

One time before I tracked down it took 25 minutes to do a full fill on a hydrogen Equinox.

We'll put aside the question of wells-to-wheels energy use for 1 mile driven on hydrogen versus 1 mile driven on grid electricity.

Why?

 

[Takumi]

http://www.redoxpowersystems.com/products/

Anybody have more info regarding this company/product? Thanks!

 

[Adm]

Donald Sadoway is not a fan of hydrogen:

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Obama cut back fuel cell funding, because he doesn't like a technology that would be hard to ration. Electricity is easy to ration, hence, the rollout of smart meters.

Michael

Please tell me that was irony.

 

[dsm363]

How do smart meters ration energy anyway?

 

[gameon]

link says all CA gov investing $50m for hydrogen station

News Release - California Investing Nearly $50 Million in Hydrogen Refueling Stations

 

[ZsoZso]

I am positively surprised by the distinction of "renewable hydrogen" in the above article, some quotes:

Air Liquide Industrial US LP will receive $2,125,000 to construct a 100% renewable hydrogen refueling station in Palo Alto.

FirstElement Fuel, Inc. will receive $2,902,000 to construct two 100 percent renewable refueling stations in Los Angeles...

HyGen Industries, LLC will receive $5,306,814 to construct three 100 percent renewable hydrogen refueling stations in Orange, Pacific Palisades and Rohnert Park.
...

Hydrogen sold through refueling stations funded by the Energy Commission must be 33 percent renewable. Renewable hydrogen can be produced using biomethane from biomass or landfills, or from water electrolysis using renewable energy sources such as wind or solar power.

 

[derekt75]

I am positively surprised by the distinction of "renewable hydrogen" in the above article, some quotes:

I'm not.
The problem is that right now energy is energy.

If you have 57 kWh of solar energy, and need 1 kg of hydrogen, you could electrolyze water (70% efficiency)
or you could put the 57 kWh of energy onto the electric grid, save 4.75 therms of natural gas (41% efficiency) from being used at your local power plant, use 2 therms of that savings to produce 1 kg of hydrogen (68% efficiency), and have a net savings of 2.75 therms of natural gas.

The former is less efficient, and that's why 99% of hydrogen is produced through reforming fossil fuels rather than through electrolysis. Why oxidize hydrogen to produce electricity and then use the electricity to separate out the hydrogen when you can just directly separate out the hydrogen? Electricity is too valuable to be used to split water.
So why should I be happy that they're using the former approach?


I mean I'm happy that someone is constructing renewable power plants. I just think it's silly to use that power to produce hydrogen when they could be using that power to offset the dirty energy being produced on the grid.

I think we do ourselves a disservice when we conflate the method of energy production with the method of energy consumption. They're independent. My solar panels don't power my car; they power my and my neighbors' appliances. My car doesn't run on solar; it runs off of the PG&E grid after midnight.

Renewable energy production is good.
Using inefficient methods to produce hydrogen is inefficient.

 

[stopcrazypp]

The former is less efficient, and that's why 99% of hydrogen is produced through reforming fossil fuels rather than through electrolysis.

I agree that conventional electrolysis sucks even when using renewable sources (and I also dislike the argument that just because it's renewable, efficiency doesn't matter).

What has potential are hybrid solar concentrators (which use both heat and electricity for higher efficiency) for generating hydrogen, but they are far from commercially ready. Biomass/biomethane based renewable hydrogen is also promising (although at this point doesn't appear scale-able).

However, the other problem with renewable hydrogen is that it costs much more than non-renewable (which isn't cheap in the first place).

 

[Doug_G]

Reforming natural gas doesn't make much sense when you could simply fuel the car with it and burn it in an ICE. All this complex technology isn't buying you anything.

 

[Johan]

Hydrogen in these applications is just a poor substitute for a battery. Losses in every stage of energy transfer as opposed to just charging a battery.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Reforming natural gas doesn't make much sense when you could simply fuel the car with it and burn it in an ICE. All this complex technology isn't buying you anything.

Well to be fair, it does mean zero tailpipe emissions, and in the case of localized reforming it still results in less pollutants (talking about air quality) than burning in an ICE (although natural gas burns fairly cleanly in the first place).

And there is a separation of the generation source, similar to electricity (so you can switch to non-fossil fuel sources without having to change the cars, although some stations will have to be changed).

 

[Johan]

Let's do a though experiment: Within a year a brilliant team of researcher solve all the theoretical and practical issues related to fusion and construct a very efficient and inexpensive fusion reactor so that within 5-10 years most of the worlds energy needs will be supplied by these problem free, completely clean reactors that for practical purposes can supply huge amounts of very cheap electricity, generated either locally (small reactors) or centrally (large reactors).

Now, in this scenario, we would all be driving EVs but would they have batteries or hydrogen fuel cells (with hydrogen from electrolysis)?

For me that would come down to some to me unknowns of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, that has to do with their real world suitability:
- How long does it take to refuel?
- How much hydrogen is lost from the tank by leaking gas over time (vampire drain)?
- How safe are FEVs in the real world?

And with infrastructure:
- What will be the cost and problem with building out a hydrogen fueling network as opposed to building out the existing electrical grid?

 

[ElSupreme]

And with infrastructure:
- What will be the cost and problem with building out a hydrogen fueling network as opposed to building out the existing electrical grid?

This is really the only problem with todays BEVs. Gasoline has a hugely expansive and expensive fueling network. Electricity (for charging large auto-scale batteries) not so much.

Whatever replaces gasoline (an something will replace it) will have to build out another network (retrofitting the gasoline network might work partially, but there will have to be a large temporal overlap with both networks operating to allow the slow vehicle transition). And the cost of an electricity network will be dwarfed by any fluid based replacement.

 

[PhilBa]

The Sadoway talk is from 2006. Lots of progress has been made in EV and FCEV are still a pipedream. He predicts the 300 mile range ev. It would be great to get an update from him.

 

[Doug_G]

Well to be fair, it does mean zero tailpipe emissions, and in the case of localized reforming it still results in less pollutants (talking about air quality) than burning in an ICE (although natural gas burns fairly cleanly in the first place).

Zero tailpipe emissions are kinda irrelevant if it burns clean like natural gas does. You're emitting here or emitting there. Big deal. It's probably more efficient to burn in car than reform, pressurize, fuel cell, electronics, then drive motors. Hydrogen is also harder to store, more dangerous, and much harder to find than natural gas. Really not seeing what it's buying you.

And there is a separation of the generation source, similar to electricity (so you can switch to non-fossil fuel sources without having to change the cars, although some stations will have to be changed).

I have a fundamental problem with the efficiency of hydrogen so-called "clean" sources. If you have to build 3x - 4x as much solar or wind generation to create enough hydrogen versus charging an EV, that doesn't sound terribly green to me. You could use that clean energy to offset dirty grid power instead.

I'm sure there are good uses for hydrogen power... I just don't think this is one of them.