For or against FCV, come discuss here

Definitely FOR.

It wasn't that many years ago that early hybrid adopters were saying "FUD!" with every other breath.
PHEV's are almost mainstream and BEV's are gaining utility in the real world.

I think that there will be a place for FCVs as well.
Unlike the government, I really do believe in an "ALL of the above" energy development strategy.

Honestly......with the exception of the normal tribalism that's all part of the human experience, I don't get the drama.

 

again?

 

kensiko this is a heated topic with many long threads here. The reason it is a heated topic is that EV fans have serioius issues with FCV

 

It depends widely from the fuel source you start with.

This chart is not accurate. For plugins like PiP, charging loss is about 15% so charger efficiency is 85%. Battery efficiency is listed as 93% but you'll have to consider other losses. BEV is about 85% efficient. Grid-to-motor efficiency becomes 72% instead of 86% on the chart.

FCV efficiency is 59%, not 40% the chart indicates.

The advantage of Hydrogen is, it can be easily (relatively) stored, vs. battery for electricity. Wind power is intermediate and unreliable. Without added reliability of fossil grid, it'll need utility battery pack to store it to charge the BEV. Storage aspect is ignored by BEV proponents.

Hydrogen can be generated from solar with Photocatalytic panels. So, you can do that from your roof top. There is so much to cover, can't do it in one post.

 

Toyota is on this hydrogen thing lately, but that doesn't mean that you're out of luck.
Either get a Toyota hybrid or go with another make for the BEV/PHEV.

Besides.....technology schenology......have you seen what they're doing with their sheet metal lately?!?!
Honestly......I think that they're huffing more than hydrogen over there lately...

 

H2 is made from natural gas+water, so you make quite a lot of H2 with a little bit of natural gas. Also H2 can be made other ways. The main reason FCV comes in the state of California mandates either FCV or BEV. I am happy to see R&D and trial effort to see what H2 can possibly do. H2 has been thought for many years to be an ultimate energy source.

 

I think the bev and fuel cell advocates really screwed us up here with percentage efficiency.

Pick a test, I like epa, but choose the same for all the cars, then pick a price.

Then you can do $/mile, oil/mile, ghg/mile.

Off peak wind is probably the lowest ghg/mile, and gives you very little oil per mile. With the current fuel cell vehicles is 100% subsidized so its $0/mile. NREL says the cheapest way to get wind powered electrolyzed hydrogen to a fast fill 10,000 psi station is to liquify and truck it from a central plant. That means you do have some oil per mile when using diesel hydrogen truck to bring it to the station.

Here is the problem for hydrogen in that scenario. Its not efficiency its cost. NREL thinks you will need a unsubsidized cost of $8.50/kg to produce it this way if volumes of fcv appear. DOE says stations need to average 100 vehicles a day or overhead is too high. California is building stations that produce 100 kg (average of 14 a day, peak of 25) to 300 kg (average of 43 a day), which means the stations are too small for operations and maintenance to be low enough add to the cost. In other words current stations don't have a long useful life, which means costs without breakthroughs will be even higher the way we are building. Let's use the $8.50 and the mirai's 66 miles/kg (epa) = $0.13/mile.

Wind costs about $0.08/kwh in california, but with the utility structure it costs residence about $0.03/kwh more than average electricity. That is majorly screwed up, but if that makes it $0.18/kwh in california lets use that number. New wind customers in texas pay about $0.12/kwh. $0.18/kwh x 33.7kwh/gge = $6.06. in a typical plug-in this will be about $0.06/mile. IMHO cost to the consumer of wind or solar in California will fall, but they may remain expensive in the north east.

Let's assume 150,000 miles that gives an energy price difference of around $10,000 per vehicle. The customer or the state needs to want to pay this difference.

A hybrid Camry gets 41 mpg, a fusion hybrid 42 mpg, lets use 41. Gasoline is around $3.10 /gallon in california, making that camry hybrid $0.076/mile. At today's oil prices and high electricity prices in california, it makes plug-ins not that much cheaper in terms of fuel, and renewable hydrogen more expensive.

Some pretty simple math, but there is that missing piece, the price of non-renewable distributed smr hydrogen is much lower. Yep that is much cheaper than wind hydrogen, and may be cheap enough to get people into fcv without that much of a fuel subsidy. The costs and/or the desirability of the vehicles. I think domestic natural gas based hydrogen is better than opec oil. For that reason I think we should continue to spend public money on fuel cell R&D. Those breakthroughs may come in 10 or 20 years. Oil is low right now, but opec will eventually get its act together, and use it as a weapon again. When that time comes the US should be ready by importing less. Plug-ins are almost commercially viable without subsidies. Fuel cells may be there in 15 or 20 years.

 

How much will you pay for co2 reduction? How much are you willing to give up. Here are 3 vehicles
Compare Side-by-Side
August 2015 YTD U.S. Vehicle Sales Rankings - Top 283 Best-Selling Vehicles In America - Every Vehicle Ranked - GOOD CAR BAD CAR

The F150 is the best selling vehicle in america (495K ytd). It produces 494 g co2/mile. The prius is the best selling low ghg - gasoline vehicle (80K ytd) it produces 218 g co2/mile but that doesn't help its sales all that much. The bmw i3 is the lowest ghg vehicle 110 g in california, 180 g nationwide in 2010, but really lower in both today, sales 6K year to date and its subsidized to get those sales. Put in pv or fill with wind that bmw is much less expensive unsubsidized than the least expensive fcv with even the cheapest hydrogen.

You may care most about co2, but going from 200 g/mile to 0 is very expensive. It is much cheaper in a plug-in than a fcv though. Cost matters. Most americans don't even care enough about co2 to buy a camry hybrid instead of a non-hybrid mid sized car. Why do you think price for reduction doesn't matter?

 

I just don't see hydrogen happening as the fuel for a FCEV in the US.
Fuel cell car, yes; hydrogen no.

 

fcv and hydrogen infrasgtructure will cost you much more than that today

I am not sure about your units of time, co2 reduction for that $35,000 Can (About $26,400 US). That can probably reduce about 1000 metric tons of CO2 if spent in a group to decrease. You probably need to drive about 13 million miles in a mirai using 33% renewable hydrogen versus a prius to get that savings. Its much cheaper to replace coal with ccgt and renewable. Then it only takes 1600 MWh of electricity if coal is replaced with 75% ccgt and 25% renewable.

 

hydro?

 

yes, he said so earlier