Hydrogen vs. Battery

[daniel]

One problem to solve is the temporary storage of the green energy produced from the sun and the wind.

There are different solutions, like using batteries, pumping water to an elevated lake, moving weights to the top of a tower....

Generating Hydrogen is another alternative.

However the whole process of converting electricity into gas, compressing the gas, and converting back the gas into electricity is not very efficient.

One argument to justify the use of Hydrogen, from Trevor Milton, Nikola CEO,
is that the Hydrogen will be generated from "Free" left over electricity from Green energy, Nuclear energy, burning trash... which would have been lost.

What do you think about this argument, considering that, well, the sun energy, wind energy, hydro energy from lakes or oceans... I believe are free.

Note: Methane is currently the principal way to produce the Hydrogen used for cars and trucks.

As you correctly note, producing H2 from electricity, and then electricity from the H2 is extremely inefficient. Meanwhile, as we all know, electric motors are very efficient. So storing energy by pumping water or by raising weights is vastly more efficient than using H2. And even batteries are far more efficient than e->H2->e.

As nwdiver points out, we should be using electrolysis to produce the H2 that we need for industrial uses, not as storage of excess solar. There is absolutely no excuse for burning any fossil fuel to produce electricity in sunny regions.

 

[mspohr]

Here's a solution:
Something's Up With Floating Solar Panels And Hydropower

Energy developers have begun to pepper hydropower dams with solar panels, and some interesting twists are already beginning to bubble up in that area. In Germany, the company Vattenfall is adding pumped hydro energy storage to the mix. And, if a team of US researchers has their way, rafts of floating solar panels will enable Brazil to avoid building new hydropower dams.

 

[SVMike]

Hey, I remember electric street cars - before GM took them all away.
--

Not "all."

San Francisco has both electric cable cars and electric street cars.

 

[dgpcolorado]

Not "all."

San Francisco has both electric cable cars and electric street cars.

I was wondering about that. I remember electric street cars in SF in the '60s (lived in Tiburon) but haven't been there in decades. Nice to know they still operate.

 

[mspohr]

Not "all."

San Francisco has both electric cable cars and electric street cars.

GM did take them all away. Recently, SF has salvaged street cars from all over, refurbished them with their original city markings and put them back in service. Quite colorful.

Historic Streetcars

 

[miimura]

Not "all."

San Francisco has both electric cable cars and electric street cars.

They also have electric "trolley buses" that run from overhead lines.

Trolleybuses in San Francisco - Wikipedia

 

[MichaelP90DL]

GM did take them all away. Recently, SF has salvaged street cars from all over, refurbished them with their original city markings and put them back in service. Quite colorful.

Historic Streetcars

Exactly! They are too cool for words.

 

[daniel]

I remember when there were trolley cars in L.A. But I don't remember what it was like riding in them. I was too young to remember at this remove. However, I lived for a semester in Guadalajara, Mexico, circa 1997, and there were (IIRC) two electric trolley or trolleybus lines. It was so wonderful. I get motion sick easily and one of the things that makes it worse is the low-frequency vibration of a diesel bus (or even a car) when idling at a stop. An electric trolley, like any other EV, is completely quiet and vibration-free when stopped. And there's no exhaust and virtually no noise.

It was all the more remarkable because of how filthy and polluting most of the busses in Mexico are. In Oaxaca it was so bad when I was there that it seemed as though they had a reverse-pollution law requiring all busses to spew out thick black smoke constantly.

 

[Watts_Up]

Exactly! They are too cool for words.

I can't wait for riding one of the two 1934 'Boat Cars' from the coastal town of Blackpool, England.

 

[MichaelP90DL]

I can't wait for riding one of the two 1934 'Boat Cars' from the coastal town of Blackpool, England.

Oh wow. Delicious!

 

[nwdiver]

IMHO there needs to be a 'handshake' between any FCEV and the filling station. If your 10,000 psi carbon fiber (aka pressure bomb) fuel tank is out of hydro no H2 for you.

Not Hydrogen but CNG is actually a MUCH lower pressure so this would have been much worse if it WAS H2.

 

[MichaelP90DL]

IMHO there needs to be a 'handshake' between any FCEV and the filling station. If your 10,000 psi carbon fiber (aka pressure bomb) fuel tank is out of hydro no H2 for you.

Not Hydrogen but CNG is actually a MUCH lower pressure so this would have been much worse if it WAS H2.

Oh that sucks....

 

[nwdiver]

Oh that sucks....

Technically speaking it blows...

 

[mblakele]

Dr. Jeff Dahn (Dalhousie University) compares hydrogen fuel cell to lithium ion batteries

This is video content, but I didn't use TMC's video integration because it strips out the time marker.

 

[cwerdna]

Another fuel-cell outage hampers Bay Area fuel-cell drivers

 

[alexgr]

Another fuel-cell outage hampers Bay Area fuel-cell drivers

"This only serves to underscore the absurd state of the hydrogen distribution network, which is dependent on trucking liquid hydrogen across the country so that drivers there can run their vehicles without tailpipe emissions. Outlets in California appear to be buying the hydrogen from Air Products, which produces it in Louisiana and Texas, primarily for use by petroleum refineries."

Wow, just wow.

This always reminds me of George Carlin. "The planet is fine, the people are f$$$ed".

 

[Watts_Up]

It seems that Europeans Deputies have been convinced by some (major oil and gas consortium) lobbies
to invest in grey Hydrogen (based on nuclear and natural gas) and later on green Hydrogen (based on wind and solar energy).

Energy utilities prepare to deliver new 2030 climate target

Five EU countries object to EU’s latest hydrogen 'manifesto'

Renewable or 'low-carbon'? EU countries face off over hydrogen​

But no words for making Europeans batteries factories !!!

 

[arg]

But no words for making Europeans batteries factories !!!

That's because battery factories make economic sense and get built for commercial reasons.

Most hydrogen projects on the other hand are heavily dependent on subsidy and won't be built without it.

 

[SageBrush]

That's because battery factories make economic sense and get built for commercial reasons.
Most hydrogen projects on the other hand are heavily dependent on subsidy and won't be built without it.

Musk and friends pointed out during the recent battery day that the materials used in pack production are shipped around the world a couple of times before all is said and done. That was one of the main reasons for now localizing the supply chain. At small scale the supply chain is inefficient and haphazardly located around the world.

So it is not subsidy per se, but scale.

 

[JRP3]

More hype: Powerpaste Stores Hydrogen Energy | State of Clean Hydrogen

Scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM in Dresden made the sludgy gray paste, which heats hydrogen with magnesium and stabilizers so the hydrogen can be stored in cartridges even at room temperature. That's it in the photo above.

What results is a stable medium that its makers say is 10 times more energy-dense than lithium-ion batteries

Sounds good, except for this part:

“When it comes time to release the energy, a plunger mechanism extrudes the paste into a chamber where it reacts with water to release hydrogen at a dynamically controlled rate, which then feeds a fuel cell to create electrical power with which to run an EV powertrain or other device. Part of the paste's impressive energy density comes from the fact that half of the hydrogen released comes from the water it reacts with.”

Yeah, impressive that part of the "energy density" is not contained in the paste