Will Electric Vehicles Be Viable? When?

[djos]

Let's say that tomorrow we wake up and aliens have installed a comprehensive hydrogen based infrastructure, would we see hydrogen fuel battery hybrids? Say a 20kW/hr battery for ~100km of battery range and maybe a 2-5kg tank of liquid hydrogen or very high pressure tank (700-1000 bar or something). Such a system should be a fair chunk lighter than a 100 kW/hr battery car while having similar range of around 500km. Does the hydrogen fuel cell as a range extender makes sense as an architecture?

From everything I've read and watched - BEV's have a dramatically more efficient energy lifecycle than HEV's.

Two Bit Divici on youtube has a really good video covering the topic as does "Real Engineering":

https://youtu.be/k7JRIUPhSJE

https://youtu.be/f7MzFfuNOtY

Those videos don't really apply to the situation that I have described. Sure with today's hydrogen economy it is a complete non-starter, and I very much doubt that even if the right investment were to start today the hydrogen economy would be in a position in 10 years to compete with BEV's until the complete 'BEV-fication' of new cars. Currently cars exist in a paradigm where consumers where they average <50km a day but want/need a car capable of traversing 500km. A hydrogen fuel cell range extender eliminates that problem while significantly reducing the battery cost and mass. I am unsure how the hydrogen fuel cell paraphernalia adds back into that equation though.

Actually no, they are quite relevant because they show a hydrogen transport economy will be much more expensive than a power grid based transport economy.

[Nonserviam85]

So, basically we'd be at full capacity with your numbers if we all had EV's.

At my residence I am currently only allowed to feed 5kW into the grid. Reason given, 'because the grid can't handle it'.
At my business I am currently only allowed to feed 30kW into the grid. Reason, see above.

There was talk many years ago of shifting Australia from 240v to 230v. I'll give you one guess as to why it couldn't happen.

The reason, 'grid can't handle it' is not saying that the grid cannot handle the MW being thrown at it. All grids need to have a balance and some rotating mass behind it which maintains the frequency. This is normally left to rather large turbines or synchronous condensers. If you have too much of the mix being from, for example, solar which has little to no frequency response capabilities large enough to affect the grid as a whole the grid will become unstable and that is when the bad things like blackouts start happening.

You got it right there mate...

[loner]

errr because they compare what they have now i mean currently .. nowdays
hydrogen is in water and recyclable .. we are very primitive that we can't develop it.

[djos]

errr because they compare what they have now i mean currently .. nowdays
hydrogen is in water and recyclable .. we are very primitive that we can't develop it.

Is not that we can't, it's that the entire hydrogen ecosystem is not very efficient compared to using batteries charged from the existing grid.

[Greg Locock]

Perhaps the hydrogen economy enthusiasts could find out the efficiencies of the following processes, with some justification. My GUESSES are in brackets

(1) electrolysing to get hydrogen (80%)
(2) Storage (96%)
(3)Distribution (90%)
(4)Efficiency of fuel cell (80%)

So that's 55% overall efficiency

note, I don't want your guesses, I want facts.

[djos]

Perhaps the hydrogen economy enthusiasts could find out the efficiencies of the following processes, with some justification. My GUESSES are in brackets

(1) electrolysing to get hydrogen (80%)
(2) Storage (96%)
(3)Distribution (90%)
(4)Efficiency of fuel cell (80%)

So that's 55% overall efficiency

note, I don't want your guesses, I want facts.

Nailed it.

The only reason hydrogen is even discussed is because the existing petroleum giants see it as a viable business model for when flogging dead dinosaur juice creases to be viable.

If BEV's win the battle for consumer driveways, the big petroleum companies are going to be the losers. Which is not a bad thing considering their active undermining of climate change science.

[Tommy Cookers]

.......the big petroleum companies are going to be the losers. Which is not a bad thing considering their active undermining of climate change science.

well the big petroleum companies have just gone up in my estimation

what about a methanol fuel cell ?
btw there's some people going to make super-clean jet fuel from refuse that isn't recycleable (even importing it I guess)

[loner]

i despise and detest petroleum giants those money prophets are nothing but pigs all wars on earth in the last 200 years for their own sake .. kissinger said military men are "dumb stupid animals to be used" as pawns of foreign policy
so iam not pushing any body's agenda and iam not a blind cattle follow the TPTB and their filthy MSM.
but there is nothing compare to hydrogen and if you have a car powered by hydrogen the emission will be Water vapour
which mean hydrogen again .. so how about such economical system ?
or a car powered by a hydrogen nuclear fusion
its that we can't do neither of both processes because we are primitive

If BEV's win the battle for consumer driveways, the big petroleum companies are going to be the losers

companies yes but not the owners because they own every thing on earth and don't be surprised but they are the ones who are pushing to kill the conventional ICE and shifting away from petroleum...
i posted this pic before , iam posting it again ...

[Tommy Cookers]

......but there is nothing compare to hydrogen and if you have a car powered by hydrogen the emission will be Water vapour
which mean hydrogen again .. so how about such economical system ?
or a car powered by a hydrogen nuclear fusion
its that we can't do neither of both processes because we are primitive

burning hydrogen of course produces nasty oxides of hydrogen additional to our friend dihydrogen oxide (aka water)
what's the residue from a hydrogen fuel cell ?

60 years ago we Brits were promised 'electricity too cheap to meter' from our nuclear fusion research
now they tell us it'll be another 60 years
and of course such a plant would require a lot Helium-3 (found on the Moon but not on this planet)

did oil companies stop people developing those enablers of renewable electricity - better batteries and high power electronics ?


as I said - what about a liquid fuel cell ? (ok efficiency is 'poor' - maybe 2-butanol can be 50% efficient)
or a LNG fuel cell

[Greg Locock]

what about a methanol fuel cell ?

Methanol is a good way of transporting hydrogen around but the reformulation back to H2 adds another 80% efficient process, and is messy. you'll notice that the Fuel Cell boys seem to have given up on the reformulator approach, it was a bigger project than the fuel cell itself.

[loner]

burning hydrogen of course produces nasty oxides of hydrogen additional to our friend dihydrogen oxide (aka water)
what's the residue from a hydrogen fuel cell ?
60 years ago we Brits were promised 'electricity too cheap to meter' from our nuclear fusion research
now they tell us it'll be another 60 years
and of course such a plant would require a lot Helium-6 (found on the Moon but not on this planet)

i don't want to be repeating my self in a closed circle so i think this my last reply for this debate , iam saying hydrogen is the best way forward but humans didn't reach the technology to exploit and develop it yet (aka clean, green , recyclable , massive power) its like writing on stones then on papers then in microsoft office word file .. this is not hydrogen fault so yeah ofcourse currently its way off.

did oil companies stop people developing those enablers of renewable electricity - better batteries and high power electronics ?

why don't you ask Nicolas Tesla ?!!
companies no but owners ( the money prophets ) hell yes .. after they established their empire ( by their scam fiat currency) they push very hard now to ditch petroleum .. to electrify earth .. its about CONTROL.
again .. Mass surveillance , facial recognition , killing the fiat currencies (which is scam it self created by them lol)
OBEY to live.
this man said it like a BOSS

[Brake Horse Power]

Perhaps the hydrogen economy enthusiasts could find out the efficiencies of the following processes, with some justification. My GUESSES are in brackets

(1) electrolysing to get hydrogen (80%)
(2) Storage (96%)
(3)Distribution (90%)
(4)Efficiency of fuel cell (80%)

So that's 55% overall efficiency

note, I don't want your guesses, I want facts.

Nailed it.

The only reason hydrogen is even discussed is because the existing petroleum giants see it as a viable business model for when flogging dead dinosaur juice creases to be viable.

If BEV's win the battle for consumer driveways, the big petroleum companies are going to be the losers. Which is not a bad thing considering their active undermining of climate change science.

As for the first quote: The efficiencies are lower.

- Electrolyzing is 80% for the highest performing systems.
- Compression 86%
- What is your idea of distribution?
- Fuel cell 55% efficient tops.

As for the second quote, if BEV is the holy grail in all cases, why don't we see a lot of BEV trucks yet?

The system with the highest efficiency isn't always the cheapest system to operate. Otherwise all our road cars would have an mgu-h and mgu-k.

Even though hydrogen is only half as efficient of a BEV it doesn't mean it is more expensive. Electricity infrastructure is very expensive compared to hydrogen pipelines. Refueling is quicker, which means more uptime for the vehicle etc. There are many more reasons which is in favour of the hydrogen business case. All by all this makes hydrogen in a lot of cases competitive or sometimes better than BEV. This has nothing to do with evil oil companies..

[Just_a_fan]

Electricity infrastructure is very expensive compared to hydrogen pipelines.

Really? Pipelines for hydrogen aren't going to be a bit of plastic tube, are they? They'll be special, and hence expensive, pipes. Valves etc also. Hydrogen likes to leak, has very wide flammability limits 4 - 75% (natural gas 4-15%, gasoline 1.4-7.6%) so a leak in any enclosed space is an explosion waiting to happen. Hydrogen has no smell and it seems that chemicals added to give it a smell, to help notify of a leak, affect the fuel cell too so that adds an issue.

Electricity is easy to play with in comparison. Has a well established distribution infrastructure, is easy to make, and can be stored relatively easily and safely.

Hydrogen is not a consumer fuel.

[Just_a_fan]

There are many more reasons which is in favour of the hydrogen business case. All by all this makes hydrogen in a lot of cases competitive or sometimes better than BEV. This has nothing to do with evil oil companies..

What are hydrogen's negatives?

[djos]

As for the first quote: The efficiencies are lower.

- Electrolyzing is 80% for the highest performing systems.
- Compression 86%
- What is your idea of distribution?
- Fuel cell 55% efficient tops.

As for the second quote, if BEV is the holy grail in all cases, why don't we see a lot of BEV trucks yet?

The system with the highest efficiency isn't always the cheapest system to operate. Otherwise all our road cars would have an mgu-h and mgu-k.

Even though hydrogen is only half as efficient of a BEV it doesn't mean it is more expensive. Electricity infrastructure is very expensive compared to hydrogen pipelines. Refueling is quicker, which means more uptime for the vehicle etc. There are many more reasons which is in favour of the hydrogen business case. All by all this makes hydrogen in a lot of cases competitive or sometimes better than BEV. This has nothing to do with evil oil companies..

I'm not saying BEV's are the holy grail, I'm saying they are the most efficient alternative to combustion engines with the path of last resistance (unintentional but retrospectively awesome pun) to consumer adoption.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a petrol head who loves the smell of burning Nitro/petrol and rubber - but the writing is on the wall, our planet is close to irreversible damage from greenhouse gas pollution we're responsible for. BEV's are the tip of the ice berg, BE heavy transport is coming and from a lot more companies than just Tesla.

Battery technology has a lot of development headroom left and there are a ton of big advances in the pipeline that will boost energy density and energy transfer speeds bringing big range boosts and rapid charge times.