Hydrogen vs. Battery

[dgatwood]

I agree we'll need storage... eventually. But currently... in most circumstances... as the MN study shows. It's cheaper to add 1kW of renewables and toss ~5% of it than to buy storage at ~$350/kWh and use it once-in-a-while to capture that 5%.

Maybe, though the Tesla storage experiment in Australia suggests this may not be the case. Either way, at some point, storage will become an unavoidable problem, and at that point, building new solar will suddenly get dramatically more expensive unless companies ramp up construction of storage-capable solar setups (e.g. solar-thermal) now to work out all the kinks and get economies of scale going in their favor.

That sounds reasonable. But I'm going to split hairs and say that stress to one generator isn't stress to the grid per se. It's a potential problem for whoever owns that generator.

It isn't stress on anything, really. They just curtail solar in the short term until they can spin some of the generators down.

On the other hand an HFC isn't really practical for many people today. It's only affordable because certain deep-pocketed automakers subsidize it very heavily. Even so, very few people choose to drive one. HFC is an even less popular choice than low-production BEVs like the GM Bolt, and much less popular than the Model 3. There are good reasons for this. HFC performance is regrettable. Hydrogen refueling stations are much scarcer than EV chargers, and you can't refuel at home. Hydrogen supply is susceptible to supply interruptions: witness what we're seeing right now in northern California.

Plus they go boom once in a while. (Or is that what you meant?)

 

[nwdiver]

Maybe, though the Tesla storage experiment in Australia suggests this may not be the case. Either way, at some point, storage will become an unavoidable problem, and at that point, building new solar will suddenly get dramatically more expensive unless companies ramp up construction of storage-capable solar setups (e.g. solar-thermal) now to work out all the kinks and get economies of scale going in their favor.

Different use case...

Most storage deployed on the grid now is used more for its kW than its kWh. If 200MW is needed for 1 hour a 200MW inverter backed by ~300MWh of storage can be cheaper and quicker to deploy than 200MW of gas turbine.

 

[nwdiver]

LOL....

I'm gonna wait until they're $15k with a $20k fuel card... then figure out how to convert it to a BEV when the fuel card is depleted

 

[RubberToe]

LOL....

I'm gonna wait until they're $15k with a $20k fuel card... then figure out how to convert it to a BEV when the fuel card is depleted

Auto.com shows 80 for sale on that site alone! That's like 5% of all of them sold in the U.S.

RT

 

[nwdiver]

Auto.com shows 80 for sale on that site alone! That's like 5% of all of them sold in the U.S.

RT

It's a Mirai Blow out! Possibility in a literal sense

 

[BluestarE3]

LOL....

I'm gonna wait until they're $15k with a $20k fuel card... then figure out how to convert it to a BEV when the fuel card is depleted

But do you have a hydrogen fueling station nearby?

 

[daniel]

They say you get $15,000 worth of free fuel, but they don't say what they charge for the fuel. How many miles do you get for that $15,000 worth of fuel? If they charge you $100 for enough hydrogen to drive a mile, that "free" fuel card won't go very far, and you won't be able to drive the car once the card is used up unless you're Bill Gates.

They want you to think you're getting a $20K car for $5K but offers like that always turn out sour. Of course the lack of filling stations is a big deal. You can't drive that car outside your home area, and you can't even buy it if you don't have a filling station nearby. Which of course means that it has nearly zero re-sale market.

 

[jerry33]

In addition, my understanding is that once a car has filled, it takes 45 minutes for the pump to recharge. Should hydrogen gain any traction--doubtful--the lines will be far worse than the busiest Supercharger on a bad day.

 

[nwdiver]

In addition, my understanding is that once a car has filled, it takes 45 minutes for the pump to recharge. Should hydrogen gain any traction--doubtful--the lines will be far worse than the busiest Supercharger on a bad day.

Yep. Almost funny that even at effectively $5k for a 3 year old car it's far from a 'slam dunk' deal... but fuel cells are 'the future'.... right?

What's frustrating is this could be a great deal if Toyota (as designed) had just added a few kWh to the battery, a plug and made it a PHEV...

 

[daniel]

What's frustrating is this could be a great deal if Toyota (as designed) had just added a few kWh to the battery, a plug and made it a PHEV...

Then you'd have a car with a short battery range and a useless fuel cell.

Of course, they could have put in 75kWh of battery and left off the fuel cell, and had a really good car. Toyota has a better reliability record than Tesla, though I admit I really like the performance of my Tesla. Even my LR RWD has torque up the wazoo.

 

[Saghost]

Yep. Almost funny that even at effectively $5k for a 3 year old car it's far from a 'slam dunk' deal... but fuel cells are 'the future'.... right?

What's frustrating is this could be a great deal if Toyota (as designed) had just added a few kWh to the battery, a plug and made it a PHEV...

The fact that not one of the FCEVs offered to the public and only one concept car ever is a PHFCEV is the clearest proof of what the fuel cell cars are here for IMHO.

Because the expensive part of a FCEV is the fuel cell. Giving the car a plug in hybrid sized battery pack would let them reduce the fuel cell to half or a quarter the size, with no negative effects - the user would never know the divergence unless they allow them to charge that battery directly.

Having a 30 or 40 mile electric range would reduce demand on the filling stations by 90%, too.

But they haven't made that car, because they want FCEVs to be seen as an alternative to EVs instead of a subset of EVs.

 

[arnis]

Why drive on steam reformed natural gas if you can drive directly with natural gas.
Total emissions with natural gas vehicle are better.

 

[daniel]

I was once talking to a woman about FCEVs, and I pointed out that H2 is an energy carrier, not an energy source. She said in a haughty and demeaning tone, "Well, you can believe that if you want to!" Fuel-cell promoters love to say that hydrogen is abundant, and the result is that there are people who think that you get H2 from the ground. Or, more likely, they just don't understand that H2O contains no useable energy. "There's hydrogen in water. A fuel cell runs on hydrogen. So all it needs is water." I found that discussion very frustrating.

But I think this might have been the same event where I met a guy who was promoting the Bidini Engine. That's a perpetual motion machine with two batteries and a motor and generator between them. One battery runs a motor which runs a generator which charges the other battery. Then they turn around and run the other way. This guy actually told me that it draws energy from "the quantum vacuum." All those virtual particles that QM says are constantly appearing and disappearing spontaneously.

With this level of science illiteracy, it's no surprise that they found suckers to buy FC cars.

 

[nwdiver]

With this level of science illiteracy, it's no surprise that they found suckers to buy FC cars.

A secretary where I used to work once told me that a prius is better than a volt because you don't have to plug in a prius it charges while you drive..... as if that energy is free...

 

[ohmman]

A secretary where I used to work once told me that a prius is better than a volt because you don't have to plug in a prius it charges while you drive..... as if that energy is free...

She was likely referring to the Prius QV, the quantum vacuum edition.

 

[BluestarE3]

But I think this might have been the same event where I met a guy who was promoting the Bidini Engine. That's a perpetual motion machine with two batteries and a motor and generator between them. One battery runs a motor which runs a generator which charges the other battery. Then they turn around and run the other way. This guy actually told me that it draws energy from "the quantum vacuum." All those virtual particles that QM says are constantly appearing and disappearing spontaneously.

Speaking of perpetual motion, I haven't seen any threads here lately on this subject. I miss those discussions of (on-board) wind turbines, rubber bands and seesaws as sources of "free energy" for propelling vehicles.

 

[Saghost]

A secretary where I used to work once told me that a prius is better than a volt because you don't have to plug in a prius it charges while you drive..... as if that energy is free...

That's just Toyota marketing spin at work. The Self-Charging Hybrid, or some such nonsense

 

[ohmman]

Speaking of perpetual motion, I haven't seen any threads here lately on this subject. I miss those discussions of (on-board) wind turbines, rubber bands and seesaws as sources of "free energy" for propelling vehicles.

You mean like alternators?

 

[Saghost]

Speaking of perpetual motion, I haven't seen any threads here lately on this subject. I miss those discussions of (on-board) wind turbines, rubber bands and seesaws as sources of "free energy" for propelling vehicles.

In principle a wind turbine on a car can be a viable means of propulsion, provided there's more wind than just that of the car's motion...

 

[BluestarE3]

A secretary where I used to work once told me that a prius is better than a volt because you don't have to plug in a prius it charges while you drive..... as if that energy is free...

She must have been reading and believing Toyota's ad copy on this subject. In this case, for their Lexus brand: Lexus Works Hard To Promote Electric Car FUD In Latest Ads

EDIT: @Saghost beat me to it!