
Germany Turns to Hydrogen in Quest for Clean Energy Economy - ekr
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-02/germany-turns-to-hydrogen-in-quest-for-clean-energy-economy
======
hannob
It is often interesting how things are framed in international media when you
know the local discussion.

To put this in perspective: The role of hydrogen in the German energy system
is extremely small. There are a couple of test plants, but that's about it.
Yeah, lately there have been a few calls for more investments in that area,
some articles discussing a larger role in the future. But it's certainly not
at the center of the debate. The headline seems heavily overblown.

~~~
jillesvangurp
BMW just appointed a new CEO who is supposed to come up with a strategy that
apparently they expect to still involve hydrogen cars. They have been
partnering with Toyota on hydrogen fuel cells. The last CEO kind of failed on
the BEV front after launching the i3 and then failing to follow through with
more/better cars. His failure on this front is widely cited as the key reason
for being replaced as they are feeling the pressure now from other
manufacturers (Tesla, VW, Mercedes, etc.). The new CEO is apparently under a
lot of pressure to start announcing things that are not lame concept cars to
reassure investors that they are still relevant.

I don't see a big hydrogen movement happening in Germany any time soon no
matter what the wishful thinking on that is at BMW and elsewhere. What I do
see is two of the three car manufacturers flooding the market with BEVs in the
next five years. They've been a bit slow to catch up to Tesla but VW and
Mercedes seem to be quite serious about ramping up production.

~~~
kiba
I have no idea why auto companies are still pursuing hydrogen cars when BEV is
just better?

~~~
neals
Because the power grid and city infrastructure do not allow for enough (fast)
charging-points. In some European cities, for government BEV goals to be
achieved, over 700 charging points have to be placed, every single day, for 5
years.

Now imagine a charging point using more electricity than your avarage
household.

The grid is not ready for this and upgrading it might not be the best option.

Also know that there is up to 50% loss of electricity when transporting over
long distances (like from wind-farm to the city).

Last, but not least: charging large vehicles like busses or trucks take a long
time (and a lot of energy) time that is paid for by the company.

Now look at hydrogen: Produced and stored at decentralized locations,
distributed through existing infrastructure, available at existing gas
stations: Less stress on the grid, shorter charging times. Produce it where
and when is most beneficial, store and transport it to when and where it is
required.

I could go on. And probably somebody could go on with a lot of counter points.

However, this just states that 'BEV are just better', as you stated, is just
not as simple as just that.

We are in a mobility and energy transition: Nothing about this is going to be
easy.

Full disclosure: I operate both a corridor of electric car chargers and a
hydrogen fueling station in Europe.

~~~
205guy
Can you explain how you can say "up to 50% loss of electricity when
transporting over long distances"? That seems very high, and in my opinion
disinformation.

The first search result I found [1] says an average of 6% among US states,
broken down as 2% loss in high voltage transmission and 4% loss in local
distribution. The spread among states is from 2.2% total loss to 13%, so even
given that wind farms may not be sited as close or optimally as fossil fuel
plants, your figure of 50% seems implausible.

[1] [http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-
how-...](http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-much-
electricity-disappears-between-a-power-plant-and-your-plug/)

~~~
majewsky
I think the actual number will fall somewhere in the middle. In parallel, we
have a shift ongoing to renewable energy sources which deliver their output
less steadily than coal/gas/nuclear. So the grid will not only need to adapt
for increased car battery charging, it will also need to add grid-level
storage to meet demands when wind turbines and solar panels are not supplying
enough at the moment. Storing energy in grid-level batteries will incur some
additional loss. Most certainly not 50% though.

~~~
205guy
neals clearly said "50% loss of electricity when transporting" which has
nothing to do with intermittent generation and need for storage. He claims to
be an operator of electric charging and hydrogen fueling networks, and I was
hoping to learn something from his experience, but that unqualified statement
undermines his position entirely.

------
scottLobster
At the end of the day it's a matter of infrastructure. BEVs benefit from a
pre-established electric grid, end of story. Sure that grid might need
improvements/hardening/modernization as BEVs become more popular, but the
fundamental infrastructure exists.

Hydrogen needs entirely separate refineries/production facilities, specialized
transport vehicles and fuel stations, all of which must be built entirely from
scratch and negate many of its efficiency benefits. A viable hydrogen vehicle
market would likely need tens if not hundreds of billions in initial capital
just to get off the ground and be self-sustaining; and even if such an effort
was politically feasible why not put that money into BEVs where it will
arguably do more good?

~~~
admax88q
Theoretically you could just electrolyze water on site using power from
existing grid. It wouldn't be that much more difficult infrastructure wise
than building charging facilities for EV. However according to the diagram
included on this article[1] the pipeline from AC power to usable thrust is 3x
more efficient for battery vehicles currently.

EDIT: forgot to link the article but I'm on my phone now. Some clever googling
will find it for you if you're interested.

~~~
Scoundreller
And they’ll have to deal with the pesky fact that hydrogen gas from natural
gas is cheaper than H2 from electricity.

So it’s either:

1) more nuclear plants in Germany (lol)

2) increased German dependence on Russian natural gas (lol)

~~~
the8472
If you buy electricity on the spot market it can be extremely cheap or even
negative-priced. But the downside of that strategy is that you can only
operate your facility for some times of the day.

~~~
ethbro
That's an interesting point, in aggregate.

As we move towards more intermittent renewables, assuming the market remains
intermittent, there's an entire new class of demand that's feasible.

Essentially anything that "only needs power sometime in the next week, can
soak up a semi-arbitrary amount of power, and can start/stop quickly (ideally
grid-controlled)."

~~~
Scoundreller
I also think we haven't fully exploited interrmittent/responsive demand.

I'd have no issues if a household or building's HVAC system, hot water system,
electric car chargers ebbed and flowed their demand in response to supply.

E.g. when I turn on my dishwasher, I don't care if it holds for 2 hours and
then runs because the winds are calm now, but expected to pickup in 2 hours.

I don't care if my hot water heater superheats water now because it's
especially sunny or windy out.

I don't care if my electric car chargers over the course of 8 hours in the
evening, instead of charging quickly now.

I don't care if my AC system makes the building a couple of degrees cooler now
to thermal bank the excess supply before rates increase later.

~~~
ethbro
The issue seems to be that energy markets are a _long_ way from achieving
financial market levels of responsiveness.

You're essentially increasing the number of market participants a couple
orders of magnitude, and the system and existing players semi-understandably
balk.

On the other hand, without exposure to end users, the utility-driven pace of
change is going to be glacial (by which I mean, we won't have glaciers anymore
either).

~~~
Scoundreller
We already have "smart-meters" that enable time-of-day billing. They just need
to monitor usage on a per 5-minute basis (and I suspect they do). They don't
necessarily need to report it every 5 mins (otherwise how does the current
system know how to respond to demand?).

I do feel like we should start billing on per-5-minute increments, then the
responsiveness will come.

I think overnight we'll have a thousand startups selling devices that turn
on/off your HVAC or car charger accordingly and save you money overall.
Possibly even with a warmer home in winter or cooler home in summer, by being
strategic.

~~~
danans
> They don't necessarily need to report it every 5 mins (otherwise how does
> the current system know how to respond to demand?).

Supply is managed at the ISO level (a grid subsection, like the entire
California grid), not the individual consumer level. The ISO monitors the AC
frequency of the grid, which varies with the imbalance of supply and demand.
The ISO contracts with "spinning reserve" generators who supply power to the
grid at low latencies when needed to meet demand, a service known as frequency
regulation.

There are efforts underway to provide frequency regulation via demand control
and battery storage instead of spinning reserves, which are typically Nat gas
turbine powered.

~~~
Scoundreller
Right, but why not let my electric car or water heater take part in that
market?

Instead of spinning up a natgas turbine, why not let my water heater or car
charger take a break as a part of the market?

There are some grid level implementations of this (install our thermostat that
we can remotely turn off to get a 5% rebate), but these seem to work around
the primary problem: we pay an average price for electricity, not the actual
price.

And if it all works based on grid frequency, the system could even work
offline: water heater sees frequency drop and takes a random break between 1
and 60 minutes.

Or variable-frequency drive AC drops 10% in intensity, or increases by x% when
frequency is getting a little high.

~~~
danans
> Right, but why not let my electric car or water heater take part in that
> market? Instead of spinning up a natgas turbine, why not let my water heater
> or car charger take a break as a part of the market?

Indeed, that's precisely what I meant by frequency regulation via demand
control and batteries.

~~~
ethbro
(I'm not an electrical engineer)

The problem I was thinking about was demand harmonics.

It's not unreasonable to envision a scenario where a large number of
independent devices, acting in their own self interest, end up oscillating
between on and off together. E.g. by using the same logic.

It seems like you need something approaching a parallelism primative to
coordinate behavior. E.g. bid two steps in advance, find out if your bid was
accepted one step in advance, then act.

Or is bidding in energy markets already complex enough to avoid that outcome?

~~~
danans
You can imagine a system where loads with the ability to vary their draw do so
automatically in response to grid frequency changes, without even needing a
centralized bidding system.

Frequency regulation is, however, a relatively small amount of power, and the
grid itself needing to run at a particular frequency is more the result of
loads that rely on the grid frequency for timing (i.e. A/C electric motors in
fans).

In the future the grid frequency could be allowed to vary much more if loads
become resilient to frequency variations.

The bigger (in terms of total energy) issue is shifting load to match supply,
or vice versa. That can be achieved with appliances that store energy in one
form or another. One of the most interesting examples of this is generating
ice with wind energy at night to be used for cooling during the day.

------
hairytrog
Using renewable electricity to make Hydrogen is bonkers today.

Using high temperature nuclear heat is not. You just need gas-cooled reactors
that can make 900 to 1000 °C steam.

This company is making gas-cooled reactor in Canada and claim they can make
competitive Hydrogen: [https://usnc.com/FCM.html](https://usnc.com/FCM.html)

The processes are different from electrolysis. From
[https://art.inl.gov/NGNP/NEAC%202010/INL_NGNP%20References/R...](https://art.inl.gov/NGNP/NEAC%202010/INL_NGNP%20References/R-6917-00-01%20NGNP%20Hydrogen%20Tech%20-%20IRT%20Eval.pdf)

"1\. SI Process: A thermochemical process that incorporates: (1) endothermic
decomposition of hydrogen iodide (HI) at about 450°C in the presence of a
carbon catalyst to yield hydrogen and I2, (2) recycle of the iodine to a
concurrent or countercurrent column reactor where it reacts exothermically at
about 120°C with sulfur dioxide (SO2) via the Bunsen reaction to form
hydriodic acid (HI) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4), (3) gravimetric separation of
the HI and H2SO4, and (4) thermal/catalytic decomposition of sulfuric acid
(H2SO4) to oxygen and SO2 at high temperature, up to 900°C, with the SO2
recycled back to the Bunsen reaction section. In the SI process, H2SO4 acts as
oxygen carrier and HI as a hydrogen carrier.

2\. HTSE Process: A ceramic electrolyte and electrode electrolysis process
operating at up to 950°C. Water is the only reactant, and high temperatures
allow for some of the energy required to split the steam (water) to be
supplied as heat as opposed to electricity alone, as in LTE cells.

3\. HyS Process: A hybrid process that produces hydrogen and oxygen in a
polymer membrane based electrolysis cell operating at temperatures below
125°C. In the HyS process, SO2 is used to depolarize the cell and allow it to
operate at lower voltages and hence higher efficiencies and current densities
as compared to higher temperature electrolysis cells. Sulfuric acid is
produced along with hydrogen in the cells, with the SO2 recycled from a
sulfuric acid decomposer similar to that used in the SI process."

------
niftich
As noted in the article, hydrogen is currently unfortunate, because the most
economical way to produce it is through steam reforming of natgas. Germany
already has supply issues with natural gas, not just the pressure to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. Electrolysis of water is another method, but
requires a lot of electricity. Using it in the short term is highly wasteful,
when the source fuels could just be used directly.

Nonetheless, on a longer timescale, hydrogen effectively becomes a roundabout
instrument of space-, time- and demand-shifted energy storage, but potentially
bulk-conveyable using portions of existing gas pipeline infrastructure. This
compares favorably to batteries (which are heavy, solid, contain other
commodities, and are non-bulk-conveyable in a comparable way), and other
energy storage schemes (which are immobile or lack effective the distribution
of work). It's broadly similar to hydrocarbon natgas and syngas, but without
the direct release of carbon during actual combustion.

The hope in this effort to encourage progress and deployment of hydrogen-based
technologies, infrastructure, and business models, and tolerate some short-
term wastefulness to target a more favorable goal in the long term.

~~~
jokoon
Can't hydrogen be used as a mean of energy storage? If nuclear power is used,
wouldn't that make hydrogen much cheaper and viable?

It's true that it's inefficient, but I'm curious as of how much inefficient it
really it, because nuclear energy can be made abundant and cheap if you use
electrolysis close to a nuclear plant.

~~~
fmajid
Storing large volumes of hydrogen is very difficult.

~~~
mavhc
Seems like they're storing it in the gas network, does that not scale?

There's enough energy in the gas network today to power the world for a few
days, seems like a great way to store excess renewable power.

~~~
the8472
They are mixing it into the natural gas in low amounts. High concentrations of
hydrogen tend to diffuse through and embrittle many structural metals used in
gas pipelines.

Salt domes (commonly used to store large amounts of natural gas) might also be
useful for hydrogen storage but would need to have their plumbing replaced.

~~~
mavhc
So you'd need a new method of storage, but the scale seems decent enough. Or
could you use spare electricity to generate larger molecules?

------
pyrale
The "clean" hydrogen story when most hydrogen is generated from gas
decomposition is dubious at best. Hydrogen can be extracted using electricity,
granted, but the costs given are usually those for hydrogen from gas.

------
aurelwu
>Her group is calling for the natural gas system to carry a mandated share of
renewable and decarbonated gases, including biomethane, synthetic methane and
hydrogen, starting at 1% in 2021 and rising to 10% by 2030.

Those are most likely volume percent... methane/natural gas has 3x the energy
density of hydrogen so it pretty much does not have any effect on emissions
but is mostly a publicity stunt.

~~~
alex_duf
That's an interesting point. i just assumed that having a mix 90% methane, 10%
hydrogen would reduce the carbon footprint by 10%.

But what you say makes perfect sense, it all depends on how much energy we
generate from the mix.

Is there any literature or numbers on the subjects I could read somewhere?

~~~
aurelwu
Sure, energy density can be looked up pretty much everywhere but here is a
paper mentioning it, which might be otherwise interesting to you as well:
[https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/hyd_economy_bossel_eliass...](https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/hyd_economy_bossel_eliasson.pdf#page=6)
(middle of the page)

To show that its really by volume they usually talk about, here just 1
example:
[https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f11/blending...](https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f11/blending_h2_nat_gas_pipeline.pdf#page=6)
( first paragraph).

Using volume percent is not directly a dishonest way to talk about it as that
is pretty common way to look at things when it comes to gas and gas
distribution networks, however it conveniently gives the wrong impression to a
lot of people about potential emission savings - originally myself included
;). A 50% hydrogen - 50% methane/natural gas (by volume) mix just reduces the
carbon footprint by ~22% (while requiring lots of investments, for example
into gas turbines which work well with such a gas mix, lots of other end users
also would have trouble with that mix)

------
frankbreetz
I remember going to the science museum as a kid and they had device the split
water into hydrogen and oxygen. I wonder if we could use wind and solar when
the sun is shining to do this and burn these gasses when we renewables aren't
producing.

~~~
simonebrunozzi
We can and we've been able for quite some time, but the problem is that doing
that is very inefficient, and you would end up with a very inefficient and
expensive way to store energy.

Can't find a proper reference, but one of the most efficient way to store
energy is pumping water up and storing it there, in which case the efficiency
is close to 90%, and the cost of storing large amounts of energy are low.
Doing what you are proposing should have an efficiency below 50% - or more
than 5 times worse -, without considering much higher energy storage costs.

~~~
EForEndeavour
How is 50% efficiency five times worse than 90%? Isn't that a factor of
roughly two?

90% efficiency: spend 100 joules to get 90 useful joules, wasting 10.

50% efficiency: spend 100 joules to get 50 useful joules, wasting 50.

You could say that 50% efficiency is five times more wasteful than 90%, but
that doesn't strike me as a useful metric. More useful is to observe that
spending 100 units of energy at 90% efficiency gets you roughly twice as much
usable energy compared to 50% efficiency (9/5 = 1.8 times, to be precise).

~~~
simonebrunozzi
10 -> 50 : 5 times worse.

~~~
EForEndeavour
In my opinion, that's the less useful way of measuring efficiency. By that
metric, 99% efficiency is twice as good as 98%, since the former wastes only
1% of input compared to 2%. Isn't it more useful to recognize that 98%
efficiency is almost the same as 99%?

------
nanomonkey
While everyone likes to mention that it's inefficient to split water to
produce hydrogen (~60% efficiency round trip to produce electricity, if memory
serves me), no one seems to take into account that you now also have a source
of pure oxygen. Oxygen is great for producing syngas from carbonaceous
materials like biomass (left over dry plant material). If used in tandem one
could produce two carbon neutral or carbon negative fuel sources.

~~~
zizee
> it's inefficient to split water to produce hydrogen

You also have significant losses when you convert it back electricity/heat
with fuel cells, or burning it.

> Oxygen is great for producing syngas

This is really interesting. I wonder how much this helps offset the losses
mentioned above?

~~~
nanomonkey
Syngas (a.k.a producer gas) is normally made from atmospheric oxygen, and is a
conversion process of the stored fuel in biomass through pyrolysis to produce
tar gas, which is then reduced by the hot charcoal left over. You are
essentially producing fuel from garbage and is worthwhile on it's own. By
using pure oxygen you can produce a more pure gaseous fuel, as the final
product isn't diluted by the mostly inert nitrogen that is in air.

------
llampx
I remember back in the early 2000s BMW made a lot of splash about hydrogen-
powered cars. So Germany has had a love affair with Hydrogen for a while now.

Does anyone think its a worthwhile competitor to BEVs for personal and
commmercial use?

~~~
pilsetnieks
Despite your memories, and even despite the title image Bloomberg has chosen,
this isn't at all about cars, the article is about industrial and energy
supply applications, where it could be much more relevant than in consumer
vehicles.

------
audunw
That’s funny. I’m some debates related to nuclear power very recently, I had
the thought that it’s probably better to focus on using excess power from
renewables to generate synthetic gas and simply use the existing gas pipelines
and power plants.

The world still needs hydrocarbons. They need to be made renewably. That might
only be affordable when wind and solar is overproducing, ie we’re getting
“free” energy. Producing those hydrocarbons solves a lot of problems,
including balancing the power output from those renewable power plants

I’m not so sure about hydrogen specifically. It just doesn’t have great
properties. It’s just that it’s pretty easy to make renewably. Making
synthetic hydrocarbon gases is harder, but it helps capture CO2 (at least
temporarily) and is more energy dense and versatile. We also have better
hydrogen fuel cells, but that could also change with time. Besides, I think
this article was mostly about burning gases.

I think this is a good direction for Germany.

------
Zigurd
There inherent inefficiency in making and burning hydrogen is daunting. But
there now is a larger cost gap opening between wind and fossil fuels. If that
gap gets big enough, hydrogen could be a good way to store and transport wrong
energy.

~~~
grenoire
What exactly do you mean by 'wrong energy?'

~~~
alex_duf
I suspect it's a typo for "wind energy"

~~~
Zigurd
It is. Auto-incorrect.

------
8bitsrule
There's "green hydrogen" and then there's "blue hydrogen" a new way of
marketing an ancient technology... coal gasification (ancient tech) along with
pumping the CO2 (safely, forever) into old wells. Devil's in the details.

[https://reneweconomy.com.au/hydrogen-blues-is-this-the-
gas-i...](https://reneweconomy.com.au/hydrogen-blues-is-this-the-gas-industry-
version-of-clean-coal-33772/)

~~~
dilekz
We have busses driving around on Hydrogen. Then people here say like see: ITS
POSSIBLE.

But then they forget we got a huge factory here which has hydrogen as a
byproduct. hahahaha Yeah. So it's wouldn't work somewhere else.

Also they added a small solar field which generates hydrogen for green
hydrogen. It's just waisting so much potential solar energy.. It's sad.

It's just that some local company which sells equipment and gas equipment who
persuaded the local government which have no single knowledge about hydrogen
and just want to create a "GREEN IMAGE".

Hydrogen is NOT a green solution. It's just a myth.

------
Animats
It's like Germany's answer to ethanol in gasoline. Who does this subsidize?
VW, probably, which ought to be a leader in electric cars, but isn't. Although
they're finally bringing out some designed from the ground up electric cars.

------
k__
_" What’s held back hydrogen for decades is the cost and complexity of the
technology"_

My landlord said it was the energy corps that were against it. The tech is so
simple that you could run it at your home with a small solar panel.

Don't know if he was right.

~~~
zizee
I don't think your landlord was right.

From memory, splitting water into Hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis, only
to be converted back to electricity is very lossy. I believe that most
hydrogen generated at industrial scale is derived from fossil fuels.

Storage is also very difficult. Hydrogen is so small it can squeeze through a
lot of gaps, making it hard to contain. You probably have to store it at high
pressure and at cryogenic temperatures.

------
elproxy
Unlike fossil fuels, hydrogen is not a primary energy, so that article starts
very poorly.

~~~
russdill
Hydrogen is most often produced from natural gas, so...yes, it is a "primary
energy"

Granted, using hydrogen produced that way isn't a win over just using natural
gas.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production)

~~~
elproxy
I refer you to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_energy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_energy)

~~~
russdill
Ah, so gasoline is also not a primary energy, but the same as hydrogen
produced from natural gas, a secondary energy. I hear someone say "fossil
fuels" and think of gasoline, diesel, etc. But in the case of primary vs
secondary, a fossil fuel includes what is literally taken out of the ground,
oil, coal, or natural gas.

~~~
elproxy
My point exactly, I refer you to the first sentence of the article, which I
was criticizing: "Hydrogen, overlooked for decades by Germany’s energy
planners, is gaining ground as alternative to fossil fuels as the nation
scrambles to recover lost ground on its climate promises."

------
phkahler
But there is no natural source for hydrogen. It's also rather dangerous, and I
say that having worked in automakers facilities outfitted for dealing with the
hazards.

------
radium3d
Tesla Model 3 owner here. I don't understand why you would ever want a vehicle
that must be refueled / recharged at an uncontrollable third party station
instead of just having a car ready to go at home every day with the option of
solar power. Will they also release cheap at-home hydrogen generators to go
with the cars?

Hydrogen does sound like an interesting option for countries that can't
generate the power needed to generate hydrogen for power plant scale
operations with green options like wind and solar. The hydrogen could be
generated elsewhere and brought into the country or regions I suppose?

~~~
ascar
ICE car owner here. I don't understand why you would ever want a vehicle that
must be charged for over an hour at uncontrollable wait times for a charging
spot, when you want to travel longer distances, instead of just having a car
fueled in 5 minutes at a gas station, which are everywhere and with zero to
minimal wait times.

Just to rephrase your argument. I actually do understand the benefits of an
EV, but you definitely give up some freedom with it. And charging
infrastructure will most likely never reach the level gasoline infrastructure
is at, simply because charging takes much longer than pumping liquid in a
tank.

Further as mentioned in another answer, I would be legally unable to install a
charger at home (even a non-fast-charging one).

We are years, if not decades, away that the EV charging infrastructure can
compete for long-distance travel and I wouldn't switch before. (yes, I travel
regularly over 500km one way)

~~~
_ph_
First of all, you don't have to charge for over an hour, a Tesla Model 3
charges between 20 and 40 minutes, the 20 with the new superchargers v3. That
is reasonably close to refuel your car and take a bio-break. The wait times
for a "charging spot" are as uncontrollable as the wait times before you get
to the fuel pump. It is just a matter of supply and demand. But Tesla even
shows you the free supercharging spots in the navigation system. I doubt, fuel
stations offer this service. But this only matters on long distance travel
over 4-500km as an electric car can charge from any electric outlet. If you
charge your car over night, you will visit charging stations way less often
than gas stations with a combustion engine car.

~~~
ascar
And I explicitly mentioned that I can't charge at home and regularly travel
over 500km. Also I can't expect there to be a charger at my destination. It
was an answer to the blatantly phrased "i don't understand" of GP

Fueling stations don't have to offer this service. At least in Germany I had
never had to wait more than 5minutes for a spot with over 50.000km on the road
so far. And if a station seemed utterly full, the next one is less than 10km
away. However, friends with a Tesla have complained over fully occupied
charging spots during long distance travel. So your 30min bio break can need
another 30min of waiting. 30min of charging vs 5min of filling up gas, still
needs 6 times more capacity to support the same number of vehicles. Also a
30min breaks invites you to leave the vehicle and go for food/whatever,
causing you to occupy the charging spot longer than needed.

Don't neglect that these Tesla Supercharger 3 stations are also expensive to
build.

Don't get me wrong, I do want to switch to an EV, even just because of the
nicer driving experience, but there are legitimate downsides to it
(currently). Talking those away with optimism is nothing but marketing talk.

~~~
_ph_
Wether you have to wait for a spot to recharge is only a matter of available
stalls. Tesla is quite good there and constantly is expanding their number of
stalls. Currently most locactions have at least 10 charging stalls, so even if
all are occupied, you don't have to way a full charging duration for the next
free spot. If you leave a Tesla at a supercharger longer than needed for
recharging, after 5 minutes you start paying per minute for your stay. So
people are well motivated to return to their car reasonably quick.

And yes, I agree, there are use szenarios where electric cars are not quite as
comfortable as ICE vehicles. On the other side, if you drive a lot, the cost
savings of an electric car could be significant and should be factored into
the buying decision.

------
Causality1
I don't think it's going to pan out, for the same reason it hasn't panned out
in the rest of the world despite decades of pop-sci publications saying we're
five years away from a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen is more like a liquid
battery than it is like gasoline, since you have to first generate the energy
and then turn it into usable hydrogen, whereas petroleum gives you more energy
than you use in obtaining it.

~~~
henearkr
Yep, I've always thought of hydrogen as an energy storage and transport
vector, not a source. Thus not sufficient to base on it the whole economy: it
still has to couple with sturdy solar (or wind, or geothermal, etc.) plants.

~~~
Causality1
Exactly. Considering the technological developments and prices of the last few
years, BEVs just make more sense.

------
mariushn
Germany should turn to safe, modern nuclear plants, eg Molten Salt Reactors.

~~~
Doubleslash
Safety is not the only reason German wants to walk away from nuclear energy.
The long-term, safe storage of nuclear waste that will radiate for decades to
come is not something want to leave behind our future generations.

~~~
campl3r
The fear after Fukushima is what lead to Germany moving away from nuclear.

~~~
AnonymousPlanet
No it is not.

The biggest blow of confidence in nuclear power was very likely Chernobyl in
1986. It made the German public realise what effort you have to put in to
contain a nuclear disaster. Have a look a the locations of German reactors.
And now imagine an exclusion zone around them and note the cities that are
affected. It would spell economic disaster for the entire country. On top of
that Germany isn't even remotely capable of commandeering the amount of man
power the Soviets had to.

Now let's look at politics.

The government under Gerhard Schröder decided to phase out nuclear energy. The
next government under Angela Merkel put a stop to the full phase out and
issued an extension for existing plants in 2010 [1]. In 2011 there was a
"moratorium" that consisted of a reevaluation of existing plants with the
possibility to close plants ahead of their extended time [2]. This is the only
political action taken after Fukushima. The ball had been rolling long before
that.

Please don't believe the simplified, sensationalist recounts that are popular
in the American media.

[1]
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laufzeitverl%C3%A4ngerung_deut...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laufzeitverl%C3%A4ngerung_deutscher_Kernkraftwerke)

[2] [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom-
Moratorium](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom-Moratorium)

~~~
majewsky
As a German, I think Fukushima was a turning point because a lot of people
believed the utilities when they insisted that "Our reactors are safe!
Chernobyl was just the result of bad Soviet-era quality/safety standards."
Then Fukushima showed a highly-developed industrialized nation standing in
front of a cataclysmic dumpster fire of a reactor, going through increasingly
desparate attempts at putting out the fire. Sort of like with Deepwater
Horizon, but this one hit closer to home because Germany already had this
collective angst about nuclear reactors in the back of their heads from the
80s, albeit shoved into the subconscious in the meantime.

------
sunkenvicar
Nuclear is needed to generate the energy stored by Hydrogen.

~~~
pfdietz
Since the levelized cost of new nuclear is 3-4x that of renewables, how could
what you write there possibly be true?

Hydrogen, in fact, if made by electrolysis from renewable energy, would be the
final nail in the coffin for nuclear. That's because it would destroy the
last, desperate argument the nuclear fans are making: that renewables cannot
reach 100% due to occasional long windless/cloudy periods, and that batteries
to tide over those periods would be too expensive. Batteries would be too
expensive, but hydrogen burning turbines would not be.

~~~
netjiro
Becuase of the low density of renewables:

[https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_re...](https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables/transcript?language=en)

[edit, better link]:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0W1ZZYIV8o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0W1ZZYIV8o)

~~~
pfdietz
Low density is only a problem for high population density, high latitude
Europe. But if Europe decides "no, we're going with nuclear" then how can they
compete with low latitude solar that's going to be nearly an order of
magnitude cheaper?

Renewables will be fine for Europe once all the heavy industry is gone.

~~~
sunkenvicar
Industry, the backbone of modern civilization, requires cheap unlimited power
24/7\. Renewables in Europe are killing growth and driving jobs overseas.

------
roenxi
Really interesting that with the benefit of hindsight - the German
Energiewende stared circa 2010 and their progress on carbon emissions seems to
have stalled. Ironic that that was the short term effect of transitioning to
use more renewables.

~~~
lispm
> German Energiewende stared circa 2010

If you mean 'started', then the Energiewende started around 2000 in Germany.

Whether the CO2 reduction are stalling for a few years is relatively
unimportant for a project which has a horizon of 50 years.

CO2 reductions in Germany in 2017 were 0.5%. In 2018 around 4.5%...

2019 looks good so far. For electricity production the first half of 2019 has
seen a CO2 reduction of 15% compared to the first half of 2018.

