Hydrogen vs. Battery

[nwdiver]

I suppose that from an accounting perspective it may be more correct to say that the cost is spread out over the lifetime of the system and with time your cost per kWH decreases.

That's what I mean by 'semantics'. IMHO it's a bit odd to think that the 40kWh I get today made the energy I got 9 years ago cheaper. Not saying the accounting perspective is wrong... just that there's more than one legitimate way to view it...

Then even from an accounting perspective there is an assumed useful life that is often conservative. If the useful life is 20 years what's the cost of energy produced in year 21?

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

That's what I mean by 'semantics'. IMHO it's a bit odd to think that the 40kWh I get today made the energy I got 9 years ago cheaper. Not saying the accounting perspective is wrong... just that there's more than one legitimate way to view it...

Then even from an accounting perspective there is an assumed useful life that is often conservative. If the useful life is 20 years what's the cost of energy produced in year 21?

Depends on the lease agreement.

 

[daniel]

Honestly at my age I look at enjoying life and I do not worry about what it costs, if something make me happy I do it.

And if the thing that would make you happy costs $10,000 and you have $100 in your bank account? I was admiring a gorgeous painting in an art gallery. The price tag was $22,000. The gallery attendant was trying to convince me that if I liked the painting I should not care what the price was. When something costs a small percentage of my income I don't think about the price. I just think about whether I want it or not. But if something costs a major slice of my income I have to consider what else I might do with that money instead.

Part of me regrets not buying that painting. To my eye it could have been painted by Rembrandt. (It wasn't. It was a living artist I'd never heard of. But it was superb.) But I'd have had to worry about theft or damage with something that expensive. And I'd have had to make budget choices I was not willing to make. Instead I have paintings I love but which would be worth nothing to a thief.

You are not hearing me, Daniel.
It is not the time involved that these women are talking about.

If my wife is anyone to go by, these concerns came up

• Fear of electricity
• Fear of doing something dumb and damaging the car
• Fear of forgetting to charge
• Aversion at having to think about charging and SoC
• Aversion at treating the EV as anything but an appliance with two pedals and a steering wheel
• Extreme aversion to hearing about watts and joules and sh1t she does not understand as prerequisites to being the sole operator of the EV.

Truth is, she was won over by time, the EV turning out to being a simple kitchen appliance (from her POV), the lovely ride, and not having to go to filthy petrol stations. But to this day she cannot figure out how long the EV has to charge to be ready for an errand and she has told me that left to her own devices she would buy a PHEV so that petrol was always there to come on if needed. If she can plug-in when she gets home and unplug the next day before she leaves, she thinks EVs are god's gift to women. Add in another wrinkle that is her responsibility and it is not for her.

I still think all those fears are irrational because the risks are greater with gasoline. Gasoline is very dangerous, both toxic and inflammable. And you still need to remember to fill up a gas car. And you don't have to think about watts or joules.

But I'm glad that in the end she realized that it's just a car, that operates like any other car, but is better for the environment.

Depends on the lease agreement.

That's why I bought my solar installation. It's mine and nobody has any say-so over it but me, and in the event I ever need to sell my house, there are no annoying third-party rights or liens.

 

[Tedkidd]

The wonderful thing about all of these "arguments" is they are no longer relevant.

We are crossing the chasm to early majority. Nothing will stop the switch from landlines to cell phones, from film to digital, from tubes to flat screens.
The period of anxiety, that this would be yet another false start, is behind us.

With all the crazy around us, this is one wonderful thing we all get to witness and as early adopters - savor as it occurs!

 

[daniel]

The wonderful thing about all of these "arguments" is they are no longer relevant.

We are crossing the chasm to early majority. Nothing will stop the switch from landlines to cell phones, from film to digital, from tubes to flat screens.
The period of anxiety, that this would be yet another false start, is behind us.

With all the crazy around us, this is one wonderful thing we all get to witness and as early adopters - savor as it occurs!

They are relevant because we still have a very powerful industry lobby pushing (and getting!) government subsidies for hydrogen, and we still have at least one major car maker building and promoting FCEVs. Hydrogen is just one more ploy to keep fossil fuel in cars, and a lot of people simply don't understand that it comes from natural gas.

 

[ohmman]

That's what I mean by 'semantics'. IMHO it's a bit odd to think that the 40kWh I get today made the energy I got 9 years ago cheaper. Not saying the accounting perspective is wrong... just that there's more than one legitimate way to view it...

I think it's more that people use an outside metric (local cost of delivered electricity from their provider) to determine what "cost" makes it eventually free. It makes sense in that if you used that same amount of energy from the local utility, you'd have paid as much as you paid for the panels. But it does mean it's more reasonable to take the lifetime generation of the panels, divide them by the cost of the panels, and figure out at the end how much your electricity cost. Outside metrics are merely for comparative purposes.

That said, @daniel has it right - solar power is free. The collector is not. The grasses and natives around my property are evidence of that.

 

[SageBrush]

But it does mean it's more reasonable to take the lifetime generation of the panels, divide them by the cost of the panels

No no no NO !

¢/kWh, NOT kWh/¢

 

[MP3Mike]

Some people are finally doing the math:

Montpellier foregoes hydrogen project for battery-electric buses, for now | electrive.com

www.electrive.com

However, these calculations now appear not to have panned out. Instead, Montpellier is foregoing the purchase of the hydrogen buses in favour of battery buses claiming operating costs for the H2 buses would be more than six times higher than for battery buses. Specifically, the city calculates it would cost them 95 cents per kilometre for the H2 buses versus 15 cents per kilometre for the battery buses.

But haven't totally given up:

However, they do not want to bury the hydrogen bus project completely: “We will do without hydrogen buses for the time being and will see in 2030 whether hydrogen is cheaper then,” added Delafosse.

 

[dgatwood]

I still think all those fears are irrational because the risks are greater with gasoline. Gasoline is very dangerous, both toxic and inflammable.

To be fair, so is almost any high-density energy storage system, whether it's hydrogen, a chemical battery, or a supercapacitor. Even flywheels and pressurized air tanks are dangerous (potentially explosive), albeit not toxic or flammable. Any time you store a lot of energy, there's a huge danger if that energy gets released all at once.

The big difference is that gasoline evaporates easily, and the vapors are highly explosive, so it has somewhat interesting containment-related risks. But that's largely avoidable by using diesel.

Batteries still make more sense for all the other reasons, though, at least in most environments. Not sure about a long-haul bus....

 

[daniel]

To be fair, so is almost any high-density energy storage system, whether it's hydrogen, a chemical battery, or a supercapacitor. Even flywheels and pressurized air tanks are dangerous (potentially explosive), albeit not toxic or flammable. Any time you store a lot of energy, there's a huge danger if that energy gets released all at once.

The big difference is that gasoline evaporates easily, and the vapors are highly explosive, so it has somewhat interesting containment-related risks. But that's largely avoidable by using diesel.

Batteries still make more sense for all the other reasons, though, at least in most environments. Not sure about a long-haul bus....

Some forms of energy storage are more prone to catastrophic release of energy than others. And gasoline stinks. And diesel stinks ten times worse. Diesel should be outlawed for the stink alone.

BTW, back when EEStor was still in existence and promising ultracapacitors of greater energy density, less cost, and far less weight than the then relatively new lithium batteries, I wondered about the danger of an explosive release of energy were the dielectric to be breached. They never showed a prototype capacitor so we'll never know if they gave that much thought. Lithium batteries can burn, but a breached capacitor would explode.

 

[dpeilow]

Reviving this thread as I hadn't seen it posted anywhere else.

Thanks to Twitter user Josh Stringfellow I was made aware yesterday that Motive Fuels, the new name for ITM Power's hydrogen filling station JV, has closed down their M25 Shell Cobham services, Shell Gatwick and Swindon filling stations in the UK. All of these were opened with great fanfare in the press 5 years or less ago, but try to even find this closure story on Google now. The silence from the mainstream and automotive press is deafening.

They claim they are pivoting to refueling for larger vehicles and the existing sites didn't offer enough space. This admission basically confirms the passenger car market is dead, but frankly if they can't find room for a large refueler at a motorway services, what hope do they have?

If you were foolish enough to have a fuel cell car in the South East of England, your only options now south of the Thames are the gated sites at NPL Teddington and Heathrow Hatton Cross, both of which use trucked-in gas. This is back to 2016 levels of accessibility. The pipedream of the M4 "hydrogen highway" is now long gone.

Heads should roll over the millions in public money that were squandered on this obvious cul-de-sac that could have been put to better use fighting the climate crisis.

https://motivefuels.com/news/gatwick-swindon-closure-31-july-2022?s=08

 

[Watts_Up]

They claim they are pivoting to refueling for larger vehicles and the existing sites didn't offer enough space. This admission basically confirms the passenger car market is dead, but frankly if they can't find room for a large refueler at a motorway services, what hope do they have?

Not that I'm in support of H2, but I noticed that the EU seems to be strongly involved into financing Hydrogen projects:

Homepage

Fostering a collaborative eco-system that supports innovative hydrogen technologies

www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu

Green Car Congress

<SPACER TYPE=Vertical SIZE=100> Technologies, issues and policies for sustainable mobility.</SPACER>

www.greencarcongress.com

Fleets of hydrogen taxis are picking up across Europe

Europe's market for hydrogen-powered taxis is becoming increasingly competitive, with French company Hype, which has developed them in Paris since 2015, being among the frontrunners. EURACTIV France reports.

www.euractiv.com

Daimler-backed hydrogen project gets EU approval

The project will cover the generation of hydrogen, fuel cells, storage, transportation and distribution, in particular in the mobility sector.

europe.autonews.com

 

[dpeilow]

Yep - Brexit benefit at last?

The waste in rolling out these stations in Germany is on another level.

 

[alexgr]

Still, the EU seems to be strongly involved into financing Hydrogen projects:

European politicians have been effectively lobbied by and in the pocket of some interest groups who were seeking government money wasted on hydrogen. Mission accomplished - money wasted. Surprisingly, I find the US government resistance to hydrogen hype as a rare example of US policy superiority.

 

[Watts_Up]

Something interesting to look at is how the Hydrogen is produced, and the different names associated with its production:

New Definitions for Blue and Green Hydrogen: The European Commission’s Package on Hydrogen and Decarbonized Gas Markets

Last December, the European Commission published its legislative Package on Hydrogen and Decarbonized Markets (“Package”), which proposes new rules aiming

www.insideenergyandenvironment.com

'EU support for blue hydrogen would make it harder for Europe to wean itself off Russian gas'

Human rights group issues scathing assessment of plans to include H2 from fossil gas in the bloc's Renewable Energy Directive

www.rechargenews.com

Case for ‘blue’ hydrogen suffers in Europe as war rages on

Reliance on natural gas gives its green counterpart the edge but, in the US, the ‘real money’ is still betting on blue

www.ft.com

German government disavows blue hydrogen

The new German government unveiled plans last week to massively increase the ambition of its national hydrogen strategy. There is just one caveat: fossil gas-based hydrogen likely won't be included in subsidy schemes, despite demands from the oil and gas industry.

www.euractiv.com

 

[Watts_Up]

European politicians have been effectively lobbied by and in the pocket of some interest groups who were seeking government money wasted on hydrogen. Mission accomplished - money wasted. Surprisingly, I find the US government resistance to hydrogen hype as a rare example of US policy superiority.

It is clear that the hydrocarbure industry try to survive and convert itself into H2 producer.

And politiciens like to be able to tax energy at the pump, and H2 is great for that.

 

[ecarfan]

Thanks to Twitter user Josh Stringfellow I was made aware yesterday that Motive Fuels, the new name for ITM Power's hydrogen filling station JV, has closed down their M25 Shell Cobham services, Shell Gatwick and Swindon filling stations in the UK. All of these were opened with great fanfare in the press 5 years or less ago, but try to even find this closure story on Google now. The silence from the mainstream and automotive press is deafening.

They claim they are pivoting to refueling for larger vehicles and the existing sites didn't offer enough space. This admission basically confirms the passenger car market is dead

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the US and Canada are also among the walking dead, but Toyota and Hyundai still haven’t gotten the message. By the end of last year, a total of just 12,272 are on the road in the US, primarily in California (and most of those are leased). A laughably tiny number compared to the over 1 million plug-in EVs.

https://insideevs.com/news/565185/us-hydrogen-car-sales-2021/

In Canada, hydrogen fueling stations are only available in Quebec City, Vancouver, and Victoria. I can’t find data on how many have been sold. I’ve seen a few in Vancouver.

In contrast, I see a Tesla every 30 seconds while driving. That’s not an exaggeration. Plus Ford Mustangs, Porsche Taycans, VW IDs, and others.

 

[Guy V]

When I post anything pro-hydrogen that doesn't agree with the shut-it-down consensus I get accused of trolling, but:

Hydrogen fuel cells could provide emission free backup power at datacenters, Microsoft says - Source

Latham, New York – Hydrogen fuel cells packed into a pair of 40-foot-long shipping containers here ramped up on an overcast day early this June as engineers gathered around laptops displaying data on the state, health and power output of the cells in this first-of-a-kind hydrogen generator...

news.microsoft.com

UTSA, SwRI collaborate to make more efficient storage materials for hydrogen fuels

www.utsa.edu

 

[Cosmacelf]

When I post anything pro-hydrogen that doesn't agree with the shut-it-down consensus I get accused of trolling, but:

Hydrogen fuel cells could provide emission free backup power at datacenters, Microsoft says - Source

Latham, New York – Hydrogen fuel cells packed into a pair of 40-foot-long shipping containers here ramped up on an overcast day early this June as engineers gathered around laptops displaying data on the state, health and power output of the cells in this first-of-a-kind hydrogen generator...

news.microsoft.com

UTSA, SwRI collaborate to make more efficient storage materials for hydrogen fuels

www.utsa.edu

The emission free power backup at data centers is such a small use case. Without a larger hydrogen economy, it would be too expensive.

And storage is only one of the problems hydrogen has. The other is the making and transport of it.

 

[tivoboy]

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the US and Canada are also among the walking dead, but Toyota and Hyundai still haven’t gotten the message. By the end of last year, a total of just 12,272 are on the road in the US, primarily in California (and most of those are leased). A laughably tiny number compared to the over 1 million plug-in EVs.

https://insideevs.com/news/565185/us-hydrogen-car-sales-2021/

In Canada, hydrogen fueling stations are only available in Quebec City, Vancouver, and Victoria. I can’t find data on how many have been sold. I’ve seen a few in Vancouver.

In contrast, I see a Tesla every 30 seconds while driving. That’s not an exaggeration. Plus Ford Mustangs, Porsche Taycans, VW IDs, and others.

It’s pretty hard to nail down a number, but the Honda Clarity Fuel Cell is still in service at least (if no longer being produced) in the USA with ~8-10k units, again it’s hard to get actuals for SALES USA.