Right. At the moment, hydrogen production is too costly, energy wise. If we could find an easier, better way to make it, that would change the game entirely.
The entire premise of hydrogen is dumb.
We would legitimately be better off combining it with CO2 to make synthetic gasoline and just use it with normal vehicles and infrastructure.
Dude, that produces methane, I think?. The whole point is to avoid combustion engines to prevent greenhouse gasses.
The way hydrogen is being used is to work with hydrogen fuel cells which is electric.
Carbon is what matters, but not in the way the hydrogen-pushers want you to think:
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It doesn’t matter if the fuel has carbon in it, if the carbon is part of the short-term carbon cycle. Biodiesel, for example, releases no net greenhouse gases even though it has lots of carbon in it.
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The dirty secret of hydrogen is that the vast majority of it is made by cracking fossil methane. (My previous comment about combining hydrogen with carbon to make synthetic liquid fuel charitably presupposed it was made the right way, by electrolyzing water with solar power, but most hydrogen production is not like that)
In other words, anybody telling you that hydrogen is better for preventing climate change than biofuels – despite them containing carbon – is trying to hoodwink you.
Ok. Because over here we’ve had a hydrogen station that’s been producing hydrogen at the station itself via electrolysis using electricity from the grid. It’s been working fine so far.
I’m gonna have to look into your claim about cracking methane being the way the majority of the hydrogen is created.
From https://solaredition.com/green-hydrogen-production-paths/ :
Only “green hydrogen” (4%) is actually good. For the other 96%, it would be better to just use the source hydrocarbon as fuel directly.
In other words, for the most part, the entities pushing hydrogen are mostly engaging in greenwashing bullshit.
See also:
Ah ok yeah I see what you mean. Thanks for providing that info.
Yeah for sure if it’s just as dirty, or worst, there’s no point. But, I feel like people forgot what my original comment was. I basically said that if we could find a better way of producing hydrogen, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could potentially be better than EVs for many reasons. The main advantages being that you get better range and you can refuel in a couple of minutes instead of an hour.
Other than that, if we can’t find a way to produce hydrogen in a clean efficient way, of course there’s no point in continuing down that road.
This wasn’t even a debate about which vehicle type is better, or what fuel is better or any of that. It was just a discussion about the pros and cons of EVs and HFCs.
I don’t know why people got so riled up over it. Like you gotta pick a camp and defend it. Are EVs and hydrogen cars that polarising??
I don’t know why people got so riled up over it. Like you gotta pick a camp and defend it. Are EVs and hydrogen cars that polarising??
I think there are two main factors:
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Differences of opinion among people legitimately trying to find the best solution (e.g. because they assign different amounts of importance to tradeoffs between batteries vs hydrogen, such as slow charging vs difficult storage).
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People pushing particular technologies in bad faith because they’re more interested in perpetuating the business model they already have than pivoting to what’s best in the long term (e.g. fossil fuels companies greenwashing with “blue” or “grey” hydrogen, BMW wanting to keep making internal-combustion engines, etc.).
Frankly, hydrogen has enough challenges associated with it that it’s easy to assume anybody advocating for it falls in the latter group.
The main advantages being that you get better range and you can refuel in a couple of minutes instead of an hour.
I still think biofuels or synthetic liquid hydrocarbon fuels burned in normal internal-combustion engines are better at those things than hydrogen ever will be, while also being much more convenient in terms of reusing the infrastructure and vehicles we already have.
The only way in which hydrogen is really superior is that it emits only water vapor, rather than the traditional pollutants like NOx, VOCs, and particulates that ICEs burning even carbon-neutral fuel would continue to emit, but that mostly matters in urban areas where battery EVs beat out hydrogen anyway.
In other words, I just don’t think there’s any niche where hydrogen is the best solution. Long-haul rural trips are better suited to carbon-neutral bio or synthetic liquid fuels (or, you know, trains), and short urban trips are better suited to battery EVs you can just charge at home (or, you know, bicycles).
Long rural trips for cars are fine on electric, as long as there is fast charging on the way. The car takes as long to top up as the human takes to take a break from driving
Trucks, ships, aeroplanes, off roading will need dense fuel. Trains might need fuel, but most of those should be electric
+1 for trains.
I wish governments put more effort in public mass transit than subsidizing private automobile manufacturing.
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People don’t seem to get it. Electricity to hydrogen to electricity to motion is really, really lossy, and hydrogen leaks. It is worse than electricity to hydrogen to methane to power.
Exactly: it makes sense only if you have an excess of clean electricity to electrolyze it from water, and even then the best thing to do would be to immediately (at the point of production) use it to synthesize a liquid hydrocarbon fuel for easier transport and storage (which also has the benefit of letting it be burned in existing ICE cars).
You ever wondered why traditional carmakers are pushing so hard for hydrogen? That’s because they can still reuse those super inefficient combustion engines, which they perfected in the last 50-100 years, and which is serving as a big gatekeeper to newcomers.
And with EV, they need to start from scratch like everyone else and they hate it.
Uh… No. Sorry my friend but we’re talking about hydrogen fuel cell technology. Not hydrogen combustion.
You should look into what hydrogen fuel cells are. Here’s a video that explains it.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Here’s a video that explains it
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Ah, the magical technological advancement that is only possible with hydrogen. While ignoring the advancements with EVs.
At the moment, hydrogen production is too costly, energy wise.
EVs are already way more efficient. You’re repeating things that have been discussed ages ago as something new.
Ok calm down, you don’t need to be condescending.
I know that right now hydrogen production is really not efficient compared to simply recharging a battery. Producing hydrogen takes more electricity to produce from water electrolysis to fuel a car for the same range as it would take to simply charge a battery. This I am aware of. And that’s what I was implying in my previous comment.
However, a small hydrogen cell powered car has at least twice the range of a similar sized EV. And also, it doesn’t take hours to recharge. Only a few minutes to refill the hydrogen tank.
What I hope it that we one day find a way to efficiently produce hydrogen. Because I’d rather have to wait a couple of minutes to refuel on a long trip than having to stop for an hour every time I need to recharge.
We have a more efficient way to produce hydrogen, which is using nagural gas. That’s obviously a bad idea. You can’t change the laws of physics, producing hydrogen from water and electricity just takes that much energy.
Yeah I know that. That’s why initially I was saying it would be great if we found a better more efficient way to produce it. Obviously hinting at the fact that it wasn’t the case right now.
A fuel cell car is an EV.
But it’s an electric car with a much lower efficiency than one that uses batteries
A highly exaggerated claim. Once you factor in all of the challenges of grid energy storage and battery manufacturing, there’s likely to be little to no difference.
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If that was the case, Toyota would never have created the Toyota Mirai.
And have you ever seen what happens when an EV battery is damaged? Many residential buildings with underground parkings don’t allow EVs to park underground due to the fear of the intense fires and how it can cause severe damage.
Have you ever seen what happens when a hydrogen tank ruptures? It’s the Ford Pinto all over again.
Not just costly. Transportation and distribution is a big problem.
With electrical we already have an entire distribution network, it just needs to be significantly (but gradually) upgraded.
Right now there is a hydrogen refueling station in Quebec city that produces it’s own hydrogen on the spot. It takes electricity and uses water electrolysis to create hydrogen.
It’s inefficient, but it works. No need for transportation.
