Hydrogen vs. Battery

[W.Petefish]

I think though that Robert Llewellyn hit the nail on the head when he said that Hydrogen is the -future-. Emphasis on -future- as in at least 20+ years from now where as BEVs are here today and until efficient hydrogen production from water is developed it is still powered by fossil fuels.

Said video below.

 

[TEG]

...Hydrogen is the -future-. Emphasis on -future- as in at least 20+ years from now...

Always in the future... In 20 years it will be ... 20 years away...

And oldie worth reposting:
http://youtu.be/enpmXZYc5qA?t=1m41s

 

[JRP3]

Plus the fact that hydrogen production is only part of the problem. Transportation and storage, including leakage issues, plus the non existent fueling infrastructure which would be far more costly to roll out than the rapidly expanding charge network. Also the cost and durability of fuel cells. In the meantime EV's are here now and will continue to improve.

 

[vfx]

Always in the future... In 20 years it will be ... 20 years away...
...

Hey, they got the cars down to a million dollars!



How many charge points is that?

 

[Robert.Boston]

The future is point-to-point personal teleportation powered by dilithium crystals! Gene Roddenberry told me so.

 

[VolkerP]

Do you know that hydrogen released into the environment will leave the atmosphere and ascend right into space? Have someone like BP handle the supply of our future hydrogen economy, and all the water will be gone within ten years! :scared:

 

[JRP3]

The future is point-to-point personal teleportation powered by dilithium crystals! Gene Roddenberry told me so.

At least he seems to have gotten the lithium part right :wink:

 

[shark2k]

Saw this article on MSN today: Warehouse workers go green with fuel cells - Technology & science - Innovation - msnbc.com. It's about hydrogen being used for fork lifts in warehouses. Was curious what you guy's thought about this? They talk about lead-acid batteries suffering from a performance drop of as much as 15% as their power drains. Wouldn't other battery chemistries help deal with this? Figured this was relevant to this thread.

-Shark2k

 

[EVNow]

This is hilarious.

 

[JRP3]

Saw this article on MSN today: Warehouse workers go green with fuel cells - Technology & science - Innovation - msnbc.com. It's about hydrogen being used for fork lifts in warehouses. Was curious what you guy's thought about this? They talk about lead-acid batteries suffering from a performance drop of as much as 15% as their power drains. Wouldn't other battery chemistries help deal with this? Figured this was relevant to this thread.

-Shark2k

Forklifts probably run constantly and would probably be cycled heavily and need fast charging to avoid battery swapping. LiTitanate batteries such as Altairnano's are probably the only ones that could hold up to such use and they are the most expensive of the lithium chemistries. Forklifts may actually be a good use of HFC's if you don't want to use battery swapping, and you have easy access to hydrogen.

 

[shark2k]

Forklifts probably run constantly and would probably be cycled heavily and need fast charging to avoid battery swapping. LiTitanate batteries such as Altairnano's are probably the only ones that could hold up to such use and they are the most expensive of the lithium chemistries. Forklifts may actually be a good use of HFC's if you don't want to use battery swapping, and you have easy access to hydrogen.

Thanks for the response. I knew I could rely on someone from here giving more and/or better info than the article did as well as pointing out something I might not have thought about (the cycling of the battery for example). Though, in fairness, the article does mention the expense of battery swapping and the space it takes up and a full time crew to perform.

-Shark2k

 

[doug]

Saw this article on MSN today: Warehouse workers go green with fuel cells - Technology & science - Innovation - msnbc.com. It's about hydrogen being used for fork lifts in warehouses. Was curious what you guy's thought about this? They talk about lead-acid batteries suffering from a performance drop of as much as 15% as their power drains. Wouldn't other battery chemistries help deal with this? Figured this was relevant to this thread.

-Shark2k

We covered this up-thread. See the posts around here.

 

[Todd Burch]

Hydrogen will always be explosive...

 

[JRP3]

Yet for some reason people who seem to be concerned with battery fires never seem to worry about hydrogen, or CNG, or gasoline for that matter.

 

[stopcrazypp]

Forklifts may actually be a good use of HFC's if you don't want to use battery swapping, and you have easy access to hydrogen.

Yep. Any fleet based application where you are always near or have frequent access a hydrogen station is a pretty good application for it. And forklifts don't need much power either (continuous or otherwise).

But for that specific article, I noticed that the forklifts are also paired with a lithium battery. So it's probably a hybrid like all modern HFCVs.

I wonder how lithium batteries will compare in such an application (the hyped Kolibri batteries are used in forklifts), although they still need battery swapping (but would be much less frequent compared to lead acid).

 

[Norbert]

Why Fuel-Cell Vehicles May Replace Battery Vehicles As The Cleantech Poster Boy - Seeking Alpha

The article lists advantages and challenges of fuel cells, but apparently the author is not aware of the inherent inefficiency in using energy (and the resulting inherent cost disadvantage compared to batteries). AFAIK there is no expectation that cost improvements in fuel cells would also improve the energy inefficiency.

 

[doug]

AFAIK there is no expectation that cost improvements in fuel cells would also improve the energy inefficiency.

Nope. Though, I suppose efficiency improvements can translate to cost improvements. Of course, generally speaking, we're often willing to trade both efficiency and cost for convenience.

 

[vfx]

The potential advantage of replacing a 660 pound Leaf battery pack with a 90 lb fuel cell module and 12 lbs of hydrogen (plus the tank) is quite attractive.

There goes yer trunk.

[Damlier] has a claimed operating range of 400 kilometers and the power rating of a two-liter gasoline engine.

What happens when you drive 400 kilometers and you need to fill up?

As mentioned, fuel cell vehicles have the potential to be quite light. With less mass to push around, the cars have a built-in efficiency, and possibly public safety advantage.

boom

A hydrogen-based car can be filled at a filling station in 2 or 3 minutes,

Is that true?

 

[Doug_G]

Fully topping up a hydrogen tank almost certainly takes longer than a liquid fuel, because the pressure has to equalize. The more that's in the tank, the slower it will fill.

 

[Norbert]

Nope. Though, I suppose efficiency improvements can translate to cost improvements. Of course, generally speaking, we're often willing to trade both efficiency and cost for convenience.

With batteries, we might have a rare possibility to establish something that is very efficient.