Storage of H2 is a challenge in space and weight constrained devices such as cars. Plus, any well to wheels analysis shows H2 coming up behind the alternatives in efficiency.
There aren't claims, these are physical constraints. For heavy vehicles such as trucks and busses (and trains) there might be a market, provided the H2 is an otherwise unused byproduct of some process and needn't be produced, but for the majority of personal mobility major breakthroughs are required to make it competitive.
We had a hydrogen powered Toyota in our fleet for a while and it was great, but we were also down the road from the National Physics Laboratory at Teddington where they had a hydrogen filling station…
This could be solved by regulation. Just start tracking National Physics Laboratory deserts to ensure that no house in the US is more than 300m from a National Physics Laboratory.
Yet there are 3 separate car manufacturers, with h2 passenger vehicles, all with 500km+ range, all being sold for 1/2 a decade. Seems like it isn't a physical constraint?
The biggest issue is the need to build out an entirely new fueling infrastructure with a highly explosive fuel. EVs can piggyback off of the existing electrical grid.
To replace fossil fuel transport will require an entirely new infrastructure regardless - if it's electric the existing grid will essentially have to be built out by a substantial factor.
A hybrid future is entirely feasible with long established city to city truck transport routes using hydrogen from dedicated planned end points and mid points along with lighter EV vehicles and non standard route EV trucking.
I did some (academic) research in a group working on storage (tanks and metal hydrides), so yeah, I know why it's only 3 and they all did it 20 years ago. Sources for such into aren't private, but I have the feeling you've never looked at them.
It's the same cars, from the same companies, using the same tech (structural use of metal hydrides isnt commercially viable yet).
I'm not anti H2, why would I? I'm not part of any crowd. I just did part of my physics training on the subject.
20 years ago, while there were more H2 vehicles on the road, nobody in the H2 storage fields thought it would last. On a basc level, the physics of getting electrons out of a material is better than getting protons out. And then there is an already preexisting infrastructure for free.
I've seen a very good take that it is the ideal renewable fuel for large machinery such as farming or construction equipment. Batteries wouldn't work due to the cost and charging time (when you're using them you need them for long stretches), but weight (and therefore some of the complex/heavy containment). These places (at least in the UK) have their own diesel logistics infrastructure already.
That doesn’t make any sense at all. The point of storing H2 is to use it as a way to store energy. If you store it as H2O, you’re not storing energy any more, it’s just water.
It’s like saying, “It’s easy to ship fragile glass sculptures. You just smash them into little bits and put the bits in an envelope, I don’t see why people use all that styrofoam.”
>It’s like saying, “It’s easy to ship fragile glass sculptures. You just smash them into little bits and put the bits in an envelope, I don’t see why people use all that styrofoam
And here we go. If the storage problem is an issue, how are all these h2 cars getting refueled? And how is the h2 getting to them? And how is it stored before shipping?
Meanwhile, the presumed "problem" was "preventing adoption", yet my counter point invalidated your statement. H2 is a success. It's stored. It's usable, in consumer driving applications. It's being refueled by consumers, right now, world wide.
I think green methanol is more likely, since that's what global shipping seems to be converging on. Methanol is really just a vector for H2, but you can make it without having to first synthesize H2 (although you can do that too if you want). Depending on the method of production, I've seen efficiency numbers around that of producing LH2, but you get a product that is liquid at STP conditions, which is a huge advantage.
I don't think the US is ready for a compressed gas powered car. Natural gas vehicles are basically gone except for some fleets, and there was already extensive distribution of natural gas. The fuel tanks on compressed gas cars expire, and chances are it won't be economical to replace them; it certainly wasn't economical to replace natural gas tanks when I was looking circa 2016. When cars are lasting longer and longer, having a 15 or 20 year ceiling on the life of a vehicle that's not connected to the amount of use is a problem. EV batteries might wear out over time, but that's more connected to number of charge cycles than how much time has passed.
Maybe it took too long, but we've got a single standard for high powered charging going forward, and I think J1772 is universal for PHEVs and slow charging of EVs. Eventually, people running charging networks will figure out how to keep their machines working and add card readers. My favorite broken charger is the wireless ones --- someone has run off with the cable, but hey the advertising display still works.
Honestly, H2's got a long long way (if viable at all) to go as the future of clean cars. There is not much natural H2. In a way, H2 acts like a battery as well using electricity to produce from H2O, and discharge as electricity to H2O. Producing it cleanly, like with green power, isn't efficient yet – it's only around 70% efficient. Plus, getting H2 from the factory to the customer is way way pricier than just using our current electricity grid for charging stations... Converting it to electricity is only about ~30% efficient(?) It will cost a few times more than electricity in the foreseeable future. It will be definitely much harder than have charging stations everywhere.
Not to mention the technical challenges (assume we can handle) of the low volume density, low temperature..
There's no clean power for cars at all. Every extra joule of energy used by cars, should be considered coming from the dirties of fuels... because the first thing we do, when we have an excess of power generation, is turn off the dirty plants.
But outside of that, these things will improve, although your numbers are a bit out there.
One of the biggest upsides of an EV is that you charge at home. Always start in the morning fully charged. No "Dang, need to go to the station". H2 is definitely not a step in that direction so for me it's DOA.
Indeed, for you this seems to be the case. For many, it's a royal pain to charge an EV. Maybe your apartment doesn't have plugs, for whatever reason. You work from home. You have to go somewhere to charge, and then wait.
For such people, and there's a lot of these people, h2 is less work (quicker fill up) than electric charging.
Right now, electric cars are targeting the wealthy. Wealthy people tend to have houses. That could certainly change, but even if it starts to target those with less fiscal fortitude, many such live in apartments with no charging infrastructure.
That is one of the least efficient solutions possible - making hydrogen gas from water is at best 50% efficiency, and then you get to burn that hydrogen in a thermal engine with 30% efficiency.
This is the problem with the anti-h2 crowd. It's almost all based upon lack of understanding.
One person in this thread, was talking about cars, with no knowledge or understand that 3 separate manufacturers have h2 products on the market. Not 3 cars. 3 manufacturers. Another was discussing things as if it's an insurmountable task, that having h2 in cars is "really hard", yet these cars are being sold and used all over the world, with loads of adoption in Japan.
People make up weird claims about efficiency. About storage. About where h2 comes from. On and on and on. It's so ... absurd.
This isn't a 'my team your team' thing, yet it seems like, especially americans, are wired this way. "It's not thing $x, thus evil! wrong!! We must, absolutely must destroy any hope of this other thing existing.
h2 is the future for many application and usage spaces, and I can see batteries the same way too. It's not either or, and made up claims won't help the green movement at all.
They're a maximum 85% efficiency, with a range of 40-60%, and then you're supplying electricity to a 90% efficiency electric motor. So, overall, you have 90% of 85% of 50% of the generated electricity going into moving your car, so at best around 38.5%.
In contrast, an electric car uses electricity to charge a 99% efficient battery, and discharge to the 90% engine. So, 89% efficiency - much, much better.
