An observation I’ve made recently is how critics of hydrogen always think that the challenges are insurmountable, or nothing has advanced in the last 20+ years. But in reality, huge advances are being made all the time.
We are constantly getting closer to the widespread adoption of hydrogen and the rise of the hydrogen economy. The more time passes, the more real it becomes. And the critics are increasingly getting more and more delusional as they continue to deny it.
It is great to have positive voices in this space! Can you please clearly explain what these advances are and why they make hydrogen viable given the unfortunate abundance of something like gas, or the low cost of batteries as storage ($100/kWh - I know, kWh is dumb yet here we are)?
Maybe it would help if you clarify the expected use case of hydrogen too?
I am not anti hydrogen, I am anti hype and I am not up to date on this topic.
Just recently, Honda announced that they were able to radically improve the capabilities of their fuel cells: https://carbuzz.com/honda-halves-hydrogen-fuel-cell-cost-triples-power-density/
Honda Just Halved The Cost Of Hydrogen Fuel Cells With Triple The Power Density
Honda is not the only one. It seems that many companies have announced significant improvements in their product lines. This all suggests that we are seeing major breakthroughs in hydrogen related technologies. It also that suggests rapid reductions in price is happening too.
The critics of hydrogen are repeatedly claiming that hydrogen is “not necessary” because batteries are going to be so much better or cheaper. But they are not accounting for the possibility of hydrogen being much better or cheaper. There will come a crossover point, where it becomes time to question the rationale for BEVs and their limitations, once hydrogen vehicles get really good.
Eventually, we will see a day when hydrogen vehicles are fully competitive with gasoline/diesel vehicles, even without subsidies. Something that seems unavoidable if hydrogen technologies keep improving in an exponential way. At which point, society will simply pivot towards hydrogen vehicles as the transportation technology of the future, regardless of what critics think.
Again, this is all great but meaningless without numbers as our world - as sad as it is - is one of economics.
Current hydrogen prices at at around (best case) $2/kg = ~$0.06/kWh for blue H2 (coming from natural gas) or double that for green ( see page 12; link ). Remember this is production (so before transport and storage costs). Compared to (consumer; link ) for natural gas ~ at $0.07/kWh or pure rate (link ) around $0.02/kWh @port.
In parts of the world where sun availability is sufficient, a 300W panel gives about 1kWh per day @$120. This cost is almost unrivalled long term.
In my opinion using gas to produce hydrogen is stupid from an efficiency and climate perspective.
There may be some use cases, but I do not see it for vehicles in the near future as the infrastructure for electricity is already so well established. Also the cost to produce H2 via electrolysis, then to transport, store and pump it will likely never be close to the cost of electricity itself.
There might also be some niche applications, but I remain sceptical of its potential impact.
I do not see much optimism for significantly reducing the cost of H2. But again, I am happy to be wrong here.
The solution would be to use solar power or wind to make hydrogen. If the cost is nearly zero, then so will hydrogen. After all, it is just a combination of electricity and water.
This is what I mean by saying that the critics cannot imagine hydrogen technology getting better. They are stuck believing that it must be made from fossil fuels, but in reality it can be the cheapest way of capturing renewable energy.
It is also cheaper to store and transport hydrogen (or any chemical fuel) than electricity: link. People don’t actually understand how expensive the grid actually is.
Okay, but battery technology is also continuously advancing. ‘We’re making progress’ isn’t a killer arguement when the nuclear energy folks say it, either.
It isn’t that hydrogen technology is stuck in the 90s, it’s that it isn’t advancing fast enough to actually catch up.
In 2050 we’ll have hydrogen tech that would beat 2020’s batteries. But it won’t be up against 2020’s batteries, it’ll be up against 2050’s batteries. And people will still be saying that it’s coming any day now.
Also: “everyone who disagrees with me is delusional” is not an arguement that has ever convinced anybody, ever.
The problem is that at some point, you’re saying the equivalent of “advances in vacuum tube technology will ensure that transistors will never catch on!” Or “it doesn’t matter how good flat panel displays of the future get, they will have to compete with CRTs of the future too!”
If you said the former in the 1950s, or the latter in the 1990s, you could’ve found a significant audience that would’ve believed you. But the problem is that all technologies have limits. Once a technology approaches that limit, it could be replaced by completely new ideas.
And this is the same situation. Li-ion batteries have about 1/100th the energy density of hydrogen. There is no prospect of them ever powering commercial airliners, or transoceanic shipping, or any other long distance forms of transportation. They are also immensely resource intensive, and there are environmental reasons to abandoned them with that argument alone.
And believing that batteries could ever overcome those limits, or that hydrogen doesn’t have fundamental advantages over batteries, is part of that delusional I am talking about. Some people acknowledge that hydrogen has fundamental advantages, but insist that it could never happen, while others pretend that those advantages don’t exist. Either way, its part of the same form of denial.
Like what?
See my other post: https://fedia.io/m/hydrogen/t/1884772/-/comment/9684938
From an environmental standpoint, most of the criticism I’ve seen of hydrogen vehicles isn’t that the technology isn’t there but that the push to keep researching it and marketing it is an attempt by the oil industry to keep itself relevant while stalling the transition to electric alternatives by promising that the hydrogen transition is right around the corner. Hydrogen can definitely be made in a green way but it’s more expensive than traditional drilling, fracking, etc, so even if the entire vehicle and refueling infrastructure rebuilds around hydrogen (and I’ll admit that seems like even more work than an electric charger network but maybe it’s easier than I think) they can still count on prices to keep hydrolysis etc from getting big enough to cause them problems.
I don’t doubt that many of them do think it is a dead end, but the main complaint is generally that even with whatever new progress, it’ll take too long to make any real difference.
That particular argument is just a conspiracy theory. And one that was originally created by the fossil fuel companies. If you actually dig deep into what they’re really saying, they saying that fossil fuels will always be cheaper than green energy. A fully defeatist argument.
If they are BEV advocates, then they have failed to ask why that doesn’t apply to electricity production too. Or why fossil fuel electricity doesn’t just outcompete renewable energy on cost, if they truly believe that. In fact, they have failed to realize that it is the same argument as saying “BEVs will just coaled powered cars!”
In truth, these people are either working for the fossil fuel companies, or people whose egos have gotten in the way of their rational thinking. That they would rather spread a fossil fuel propaganda argument against a competing technology, than to admit that BEVs are not the only possible solution.
