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[MostlyBonkers]

I've been looking into hydrogen technologies recently after I stumbled across this article:

http://www.itm-power.com/project/wind-hydrogen-development-platform

I found it inspiring that people are devising solutions to store renewable energy and that serious efforts are being made to provide an infrastructure to enable cars to refuel.  It seems hydrogen highways have been talked about before electric highways.

I can see that billions have been spent in the development of hydrogen fuel cells, storage and production technologies over the last couple of decades. Toyota, the company that bridged the gap between the internal combustion engine and the electric motor, will be releasing their first hydrogen car next year. Other major car manufacturers have invested heavily in hydrogen too.  Why?

I think the answer might be simple.  Twenty years ago nobody was willing to bet that battery technology would be where it is today. They had to start development on an alternative to fossil fuels and they choose hydrogen.

Fast forward ten years and visionaries like Elon Musk could see that pure electric cars running on batteries alone were becoming viable. The big problem was going to be charging times, which he hit with a sledgehammer by producing the roadster with a 200 mile range. He is now driving a steamroller over the remains as the supercharger network gets rolled out. Very soon it's going to be difficult to argue against long distance driving in a Tesla across most of western Europe and north America.  I believe China is covered too. Who doesn't need to stop for at least half an hour every couple of hundred miles?

So why are companies whose purpose is to generate profits backing an inferior solution? I can see some reasons:

1. Energy companies and governments want to retain control of the supply and distribution of automotive fuels. It gives them price control and makes it easy to levy tax.

2. Most of the hydrogen produced comes from natural gas, so energy companies have an interest.

3. They are all betting on range anxiety being so powerful that people will be willing to purchase more expensive vehicles and pay more for fuel. Being able to fill up in five minutes is a big win on the psychological front.

The combination of cheaper solar panels, affordable EVs and off-grid storage like the Powerwall gives people freedom from all that lock-in. I think the establishment hates it.

Hydrogen isn't really an efficient energy storage medium. Electrolysis sounds good, but uses a lot more electrical power than can be garnered from the resulting hydrogen.

What I find rather comical is that hydrogen fuel cells still require a big battery to act as a reservoir. They can't just be switched on and throttled up and down like a petrol engine. The battery provides the power until the fuel cell has had chance to get up to speed and so on.  So you end up with all the engineering required for a battery powered EV plus an expensive fuel cell and all the plumbing and extra safety measures for the hydrogen tank! Bonkers or what?

I  think people keep forgetting about inductive charging too. It won't be too long before you'll get a charge at the traffic lights, when you park at the supermarket and no doubt lots of other places. No plugging in and you won't even have to think about it. It's already happening in Korea.  Well, the south of it at least.

A couple of other interesting facts to finish with:

Hydrogen is mainly used in the refining process of oil. That sounds awfully similar to how vast amounts of electricity are used there too.

There is a safer way to store hydrogen than in high pressure tanks. It is readily absorbed into Lithium-6 deuteride at room temperature and moderate pressure. Unfortunately that substance is also what they use to store hydrogen in a nuclear bomb. You can't buy it.  One guy did manage to make some and use it in his car though:

[Erasmo]

Nice post. Regarding efficiency well to wheel Wikipedia sums it up nicely:



Also I'm not very fond of the idea of 700 bar of extremely flammable gas mere centimetres away from me and my crotch.

[Doug S]

Why would anybody be "bothered" by ongoing research, even into a field that seems to wind up a dead end? For transportation purposes, I'd agree that hydrogen fuelcell technology is at best a longshot....it seems like its only advantage is that it's "refillable" quickly, although "quickly" may be relative when we're talking about 1000+ psi tanks.

But it was great for the Apollo missions, where small amounts of the fuel (hydrogen) and oxidizer (LOX) could be drawn off to generate power for the module, and even create water for the astronauts to drink.

Knowledge is good. For someone, somewhere, all of this research will pay off.

[MostlyBonkers]

Those infograms do a great job. Thanks Erasmo.

By "are we bothered?" I was wondering if anyone had a good argument supporting hydrogen. Or perhaps they might be concerned that hydrogen might become dominant with all the backing it has. The 'we' also inferred this community of motorcyclists and EV enthusiasts. There are lots of applications for hydrogen out there. I should have qualified the topic a little better or thought of a different title. Apologies.

One video I watched covered a brewery that had a few self contained hydrogen generators. They took a feed of natural gas, created the hydrogen and generated electricity from it. They also captured the carbon dioxide and used it in the bottling process.  I guess it must be more efficient than just generating electricity using a gas turbine. 

Hydrogen might be the better option in lorries and buses. Even ships perhaps? At that scale it would make sense to store hydrogen in its liquid state. Expensive though. It's a shame nuclear is so hazardous.

[KrazyEd]

The Honda Clarity has been available since 2008 to the general public in California, earlier to fleets. Several years before you could get a Volt or Leaf.
Presently, there are around a dozen Hydrogen filling stations in the United States, vs around 10,000 EVSEs. From a convenience and cost standpoint, probably not a very viable option
While clean at the tail pipe, not so much in the manufacture process. Similar argument is used against EVs and Plug in Hybrids. A possible more cost effective scenario would be
to use "wasted" solar energy that is not now being utilized to perform the Hydrogen splitting, rather than natural gas. Using Solar or Wind power to split the Hydrogen is more
expensive "on paper", but, if excess production were to be funneled into the effort, it may be an overall cleaner, cheaper option.
That being said, we come to the convenience factor. Some people will drive across the city to save a few cents a gallon, even though time, effort, and, energy expended do not justify
the actions, it "feels" right. MOST people want quick and easy. If they had the hydrogen cars plug in when not on hydrogen, that would go a long way in their future, but, at this point,
I think that manufacturers are just milking and extending the research money that is being doled out by governments.
You can't get any more convenient than plugging your car in at night, just like you do your cell phone and then driving away in the morning with a full tank.

[protomech]

Those infograms do a great job. Thanks Erasmo.

By "are we bothered?" I was wondering if anyone had a good argument supporting hydrogen. Or perhaps they might be concerned that hydrogen might become dominant with all the backing it has. The 'we' also inferred this community of motorcyclists and EV enthusiasts. There are lots of applications for hydrogen out there. I should have qualified the topic a little better or thought of a different title. Apologies.

Here are some arguments in support of hydrogen fuel cells. The comparison targets are 200-300 mile battery EVs with 100+ kW DCQC, similar in capability if much cheaper than Model S today.

Quick Refueling Infrastructure

For: A single FCEV can recharge quickly, about as fast as gas. 50+ miles of range added per minute, or 10x as fast as a Tesla Supercharger. This also means a single "refueling" bay can service many more cars per day.

Against: Until home natural gas reforming becomes common and cheap, most people will "fill up" a FCEV at public infrastructure. Tesla Model S owners charge about 10% of their total miles using Superchargers, so you still need roughly the same total number of bays to support a given number of vehicles. 10x as fast per "refill" but need to charge 10x the total number of miles using public infrastructure. Hydrogen has better "surge" capacity, in theory. Imagine thousands of vehicles needing to fill up as people depart a large sports game or other gathering - this may overwhelm the slower charging infrastructure.

Fuel cell filling stations are also expensive to build, relative to DC quick charging. Ballpark figures: 8 bays at a hydrogen filling station cost around $2M, 8 bays at a Tesla DC QC station cost around $200k. Hydrogen filling stations will suffer the same chicken-or-egg problem as DC quick charging - who will build the stations if there are no cars? Who will buy the cars if there are no stations? Maybe state-level actors or natural gas companies will step in to kickstart the refueling network, in the same way that Tesla has done with the Supercharging network.

Producing hydrogen on-site with electrolysis is inefficient, and requires significantly more total grid energy to day from the grid than DC quick charging (though demand can be smoothed and generated using off-peak electricity). DC quick charging can be smoothed as well, using storage batteries ($$$ - 500 kWh of gigafactory cells may add $100k to cost of each SC station).


Cheap Capacity

For: The fuel cell stack is expensive, but increasing the total amount of energy stored is relatively cheap - simply add more or larger tanks. Passenger vehicles have volume limitations, but volume is almost a non-issue for grid storage applications. Even given relatively low round-trip efficiency, it's better than idling wind turbines when renewable generating capacity exceeds demand.

Against: Depending on the ratio of storage capacity to power requirements (typically 3:1 or lower), battery storage may still be less expensive than fuel cells. And if V2G becomes a practical application, storage capacity may be nearly free.

One video I watched covered a brewery that had a few self contained hydrogen generators. They took a feed of natural gas, created the hydrogen and generated electricity from it. They also captured the carbon dioxide and used it in the bottling process.  I guess it must be more efficient than just generating electricity using a gas turbine.

It's not more efficient. If it was more efficient (more energy per kg of natural gas) then we'd use it in generating plants today.

Hydrogen might be the better option in lorries and buses. Even ships perhaps? At that scale it would make sense to store hydrogen in its liquid state. Expensive though. It's a shame nuclear is so hazardous.

Buses, sure. Planes may run into the same volumetric limitations as batteries, though the weight is less of a concern. Ships, maybe?

What I find rather comical is that hydrogen fuel cells still require a big battery to act as a reservoir. They can't just be switched on and throttled up and down like a petrol engine. The battery provides the power until the fuel cell has had chance to get up to speed and so on.  So you end up with all the engineering required for a battery powered EV plus an expensive fuel cell and all the plumbing and extra safety measures for the hydrogen tank! Bonkers or what?

Not necessarily. Some early FCEVs had large battery packs due to low power density / output of the fuel cell stack. Most recent FCEVs have small batteries - the Toyota Mirai has a 1.6 kWh onboard battery for example, similar in size to the closed-loop Prius (and like the standard Prius, provides no way to charge the battery from the grid).

I think the more likely practical FCEV will actually be an EREV. A moderate-sized onboard battery (10-20 kWh should be relatively cheap soon) paired with a small fuel cell stack (30-50 kW) and large hydrogen tanks, not unlike the BMW i3 REX. This gives the convenience of home-charging as with a traditional EV, but also the reduced infrastructure demands and increased charging speeds of hydrogen and petrol filling stations for trips.

 final end-state will be an extended range EV: a moderate-sized onboard battery (15-30 kWh) providing 50-100 miles of "everyday" range, and then a small fuel cell stack (30 kW)

[MostlyBonkers]

Really good points there promo, thanks.

I can't help feeling that a lot of today's EV's are over-engineered. They are practical hybrid solutions to combat range anxiety and provide convenient re-energizing.  I like the relatively simple approach of having one storage mechanism and powertrain.  It will be interesting to see how successful Tesla are with this strategy when they go mass-market in a couple of years with their model 3.

Ultimately, I hope that the development of supercapacitors moves on in leaps and bounds. How's about a hybrid Li-ion/Supercapacitor solution? That would give a super fast recharge, possibly via induction at traffic lights. The supercapacitors would then provide power and recharge the battery pack for longer term and dense storage. All solid state too!

[Richard230]

News reports last week said that California is moving forward along the "hydrogen highway" by paying for the installation of more hydrogen fueling stations within the greater SF Bay Area.  Apparently this is a chicken and the egg thing and they are laying the egg to see if a chicken comes along and sits on it.   

The interest in electric vehicles by both the public and the government seems to be waning around here.  Almost every week there is a story about how electric vehicles are not selling well, not paying their fair share of road maintenance and are clogging the HOV lanes with slow-moving vehicles.      It almost makes you think that Big Oil is writing the newspaper articles.   

[Ranga]

I'm bothered by hydrogen vehicle supporters because California has promised to build 100 hydrogen stations costing over $1 million a piece for a technology that is neither cleaner nor more efficient than electric vehicles.  They could have installed thousands of fast chargers for that same amount of money.

[protomech]

I gathered numbers recently, it seems in the last year about 15% of total Model S miles have been charged on Superchargers.

That may increase slightly, perhaps as much as 20% when lower-range Model 3 arrives.

There are worse problems to have than selling a lot of Tesla vehicles, but Tesla will need to continue to ramp the Supercharger network over time. The good news is that they can easily remotely manage the charging network, and I expect to see them roll out features like charger bay reservations and directing users to the next nearest charging station with a vacant bay.

As long as Tesla stays revenue-neutral for the Supercharger network, they should be fine. There are approximately 500 Supercharger stations open today, at an estimated cost of $200k per station puts the total spend at about $100M.

Tesla has sold approximately 80k Model S vehicles to date. The vast majority of these cars have SC enabled - if Tesla budgets $2000 per vehicle towards the SC network, then the network is cash-positive already.

10 years of driving @ 15k miles/year with 20% charged on the network @ 350 Wh/mile is 10.5 MWh lifetime consumption, which costs about $1100 at today's national average rates. Tesla may need to increase prices as the network increases in utilization.

[MostlyBonkers]

Big Oil, politics and billions more likely to be invested in an inferior technology just to save face and protect existing revenue streams. It's hard not to be cynical about it all.

As we're creatures of habit and hydrogen technology does pander to that, I've little doubt we'll see it running alongside pure EV solutions for some time. Let it have it's day. Sooner or later people will realise that they can easily work 20-30 minutes of fast charging into their long trips. Better infrastructure and inductive charging will make it something that just happens automatically. No user input required! Filling up at a fuel station will feel like a hassle. Garages could well become a thing of the past. I won't miss them!

Hopefully Tesla will be able to make their superchargers  self sufficient with energy being fed from a nearby solar farm and stored locally in batteries to provide a 24hr supply. We'll all have similar solutions at home too. The taxman will hate it.