Featured Toyota apparently abandons the BEV market for now.

I have no problem with depot hydrogen fuel systems since they can recover the fuel expense by charging their customers. In contrast, BEV simply uses the existing electric grid and exploits the reserve capacity available at night and low use times. But electricity in an age of utility grade, battery storage, makes selling the electricity very attractive. Hydrogen electrolysis and later fuel cells have too many losses.

Bob Wilson

 

Actually 1966. In the meantime, I'm enjoying driving my Spark EV.

 

Renewable hydrogen costs more than that reformed from fossil fuels. Part of the reason for that $16 price tag in California is that a percentage of renewables is mandated.

Yes, there are exciting things happening in the lab for hydrogen production, but there is also exciting things happening there for batteries, renewable ethanol, etc. Perhaps some of it will make it to market; most won't.

The real cost for hydrogen isn't in making it, but in getting it to where you need. Hydrogen's properties means it costs more to transport than natural gas, petroleum products, alcohols, etc. The only sure way of reducing that cost is in lower safety standards. Onsite production is possible, but less efficient and higher cost. Then for vehicles, energy and a money need to be spent compressing and chilling it. If the compressing isn't high enough, the hydrogen car has the range of today's cheaper BEVs. Without the chilling, filling the hydrogen tank will take as long as charging a BEV.

 

Agreed, but we’re discussing personal transportation. There is no evidence that a hydrogen fuel cell is more efficient in any way than a bev.
You’re correct, Toyota isn’t dumb, they play governments for all they’re worth.
It’s the pols that are dumb

 

Established name brand for BEV: advantage Tesla
Established massive network of Superchargers: advantage Tesla
Established dealer network: Toyota (but they don't want the lower service $$)

Mike

 

Last time I checked: Hydrogen economy - Wikipedia

At an electricity cost of $0.06/kWh, as set out in the Department of Energy hydrogen production targets for 2015[37], the hydrogen cost is $3/kg. With the range of natural gas prices from 2016 as shown in the graph (Hydrogen Production Tech Team Roadmap, November 2017) putting the cost of SMR hydrogen at between $1.20 and $1.50, the cost price of hydrogen via electrolysis is still over double 2015 DOE hydrogen target prices.
​

Another hydrogen advocate had asserted that renewable electricity was "free" but couldn't understand that the same electrons put into a BEV would give ~2-3x the number of miles.

Given the retail price in the $13-16/kg at a retail station, we agree that handling the stuff involves significant labor and capital costs.

Bob Wilson

 

You'd think if the manufacturers - whether Toyota or Honda or Hyundai - if they really believed in their hydrogen cars, they would start building infrastructure. Instead - it's, "not my pocketbook". Geee i wonder why ....
Even so, most of the manufacturers see the wisdom in hedging their Bets with longer range electric cars. Most of them.
.

 

Isn't Hydrogen still a negative energy proposition (takes more energy to make H2 than it provides in electricity)? Or did I miss a major development?

 

There may be a place for hydrogen as a longer term solar storage
ICL model predicts lithium-ion batteries most competitive for storage applications by 2030 - Green Car Congress

When sun gives you excess electricity the price goes negative, because you can not store it for latter. In this scenario hydrogen gets its purpose, but so does other synthetic fuels that may be used in current vehicles.

 

Correct! Both electrolysis and fuel cell operation generate significant amounts of waste heat.

Bob Wilson

 

Well, then that's the elephant in fuel cell tech's room, then. If it's a net negative energy proposition, then burning gas is cheaper. In fact steam is better than hydrogen fuel cell tech! I am not sure how the H2 proponents can skirt that issue.

As electrical surplus storage it may work, of course, but so would batteries since there is no energy density constraints on stationary storage.

 

I think Audi still has those pilot plants that make methane and a syncrude with excess renewable electric still running.

There are other possible sources for renewable hydrogen. Panasonic has a photo cell that can directly split water for the gas, and a Cyanbacteria that directly emits it has been discovered.

Material constraints in the future could give hydrogen the edge there. Will we want brand new Li-ion cells going to grid storage when we need them for cars.

 

Battery tech is not standing still either and in the future we just can not be sure if hydrogen will have an edge. It's way behind now and who knows if it will leapfrog batteries. There are lots of smart folks working on battery tech. Also, for stationary energy storage there are many other options like gyros, water pumps, etc. Hydrogen is far from being viable at this point and we have many ready to go solutions already.

 

Sure. Maybe. But you just can't get around those stupid laws of thermodynamics.
Producing H2 via a clean electricity source, compressing and liquefying it, then converting it back into electricity is far less efficient than just storing it in a battery. Thus it will always cost more.
You can also reform NG. You can also produce H2 in a nuclear reactor.
NG loses on CO2.
Nuclear, while I'm an advocate, isn't a solution since you have to figure out how to distribute it to tens of thousands of locations not near the reactors.
We already have a hundred million places to charge EVs...although slowly. Building out fast charging locations for long trips is far easier than building out a H2 infrastructure. Which, by the way, NO ONE is doing. Oh wait...what about that H2 highway in CA?? Tesla has their Superchargers and companies like ChargePoint are building out L2 charging...already tens of thousands of locations.
Of course there are no H2Point refueling stations because there aren't really any H2 fuel cell cars (other than a handful).
And at this stage that is the problem.

Chicken, meet the egg.
Egg, meet the chicken.

Mike

 

Of course, which is why I say hydrogen and fuel cells might work out for renewable energy storage. It may work out without the fuel cell. Some hydrogen can be safely added to existing natural gas lines and display some fossil fuel use.

Hydrogen for cars is a non-starter to me.

When it comes to storing renewable electric during peak production, the losses of hydrogen production may be acceptable over not storing the energy. Compressing and liquidfying hydrogen is only necessary for transporting hydrogen or using it to fuel cars. For grid energy storage, you use larger, cheaper tanks that hold it at a lower pressure; balloons in a warehouse may even be possible. If space is a premium, then heavy metal hydrides can be used. Without the need for heavy compressing, there are savings compared to using it for cars. There will also be less water loss since most of it can be recaptured and reused.

If we are talking using excess renewables for cars, I say add CO2 and make methane, methanol, or diesel instead of hydrogen. After all, there is no guarantee that plug ins will be plugged in to take advantage of excess renewable production. Methanol would probably be the best since it avoids the pollution with diesel, and solid oxide fuel cells can run on it without needing an onboard reformer.

 

Many ideas for stored grid energy. Each has their pros and cons. Pumped water is cheap, but limited on where it works.

 

there already are Behemoth hydrogen systems - used for electricity & heating buildings, only they don't seem to do as well as battery backups, which is why so much of the market goes to Tesla. Large areas of Australia and even the island of Kauai now use Tesla powerwall type battery storage for their solar & wind energy storage.
.

 

Most interesting one was compressing air into cave systems during cold weather

 

I really like idea of a flywheel on (friction-less) magnetic bearings. But I think the point is to have a range of diverse technologies that can work in various situations. Pumping water, compressing air, spinning a flywheel all involve well-known and low(ish) tech concepts, which is a plus, IMO.

Producing H2 with surplus energy seems way more convoluted, less efficient and involves a certain amount of danger (remember the zeppelin!). Producing LiOn batteries for surplus storage is likewise too complicated compared to lower tech methods. Batteries are used more today because we have them today as opposed to other systems that are not yet available in mass production economy of scales.

This is because we are so behind on dealing with our climate crisis. It took two decades just to get powers that be to acknowledge it. We could have had all kinds of progress in storage and production of oil independent energy. But big oil money is strong and is still opposing the progress. Good luck to us all!