Toyota Abandonding Fuel Cells

10 Things You Need To Know About Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Cars

 

Actually there are 6 hydrogen stations in Italy and one is in Rome.

 

Seems to be an even split of under $15k and over on Cars.com.

Here's a question, why would a 3 year old car have only 13k miles on it?

 

Some maybe from Corporate.

 

Sister and coworker/friend took a chance on the Mirai since one of the few H2 refueling stations were nearby and giveaway prices to be had. Lots of station downtime problems and had to be given loaner vehicles during that time.

 

And lots of folks have never experienced any fueling problems. So can it happen sure, but the olds are pretty good against it. Plus if live in an area with several locations nearby it’s not a concern. We apps that advise of the status of stations.

 

True, sometimes bad things happened to refueling spots. Back in the wild wild west days of supercharging, one of the primary supercharger locations on the way out to Vegas went down. Of course, it's because vandals broke into the Vault to steal the tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment. Those had to be Pros who knew what they were looking for. I'm guessing it was someone from the hydrogen Lobby trying to level the playing field. (just kidding @orenji)

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not necessarily. When hydrogen dispensing stations catch fire, or explode, the preferred response is shut everything down to make sure sufficient safety parameters for the entire group of stations dispensing hydrogen. That's no big deal, presuming you still have a day or two of fuel left.
Of Greater concern is, whether or not the outrageous cost for hydrogen reformation/ Transportation/dispensing will get even more expensive, not cheaper. Our current low prices turn on the fracking boom to not end, too soon. But fracked wells don't run as long as the mega fields like in Saudi Arabia experience.

Does Anyone Really Know How Long the Shale Gas Boom Will Last?
Some of the fracked sites already die in just 5 years, requiring many many more to be opened up. Once natural gas becomes too expensive, the only cheap thing left for hydrogen reformation will be coal. That will require big dollars for CO2 sequestration .... and then you can do whatever you want with the radioactive coal ash, also. So much for hydrogen clean tech. And as previously noted on PC, switching over to ammonia, methane, etc means tens or 100's of millions already spent on the early hydrogen infrastructure - & it dies in its infancy, being incompatible with newer Tech. Not a pretty Outlook.
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Pretty outlook for Hydrogen is no longer an outlook but a fact.
The Future of Hydrogen May Be Here | Stanford Graduate School of Business

 

better read again what this Finance person is claiming. Nevermind not addressing the inevitable loss of nonrenewable fracked energy, the guy thinks that electrolysis Reformation is it going to bring hydrogen costs down. He says might, which also means might not. Even presuming someday (10 years?) Electrolysis is on par with steam Reformation? Even if prices for electrolysis Reformation are reduce 30%, a Corolla will still be more efficient on gasoline. That hope of someday - might or might not - is not much to hang one's hat on.
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It’s almost a given that costs will drop. The use of hydrogen in a wide use of applications will drive prices down. The price at the pump for fuel cells have already seen a significant drop in costs in 4 years.

 

From one of the actual research papers published, "We apply our model to the current environment in both Germany and Texas and find that renewable hydrogen is already cost competitive in niche applications (€3.23 kg−1), although not yet for industrial-scale supply. This conclusion, however, is projected to change within a decade (€2.50 kg−1) provided recent market trends continue in the coming years."

They are saying that a system properly designed and sized could work out for some uses of hydrogen today, but it (still) be another ten years before renewable hydrogen can compete with steam reformation of natural gas.

Note, those prices are before compressing and transporting for cars.

That's not what they are claiming. They are saying the cost of electrolyzers has come down to the point where a wind or solar electric producer could take up hydrogen production as a side gig. Or a business that uses a lot of hydrogen can make their own while selling electricity on the side.

tl;dr When there is demand for the renewable electricity for the grid, you sell it. When the market prices drop too low, or if the 'power plant' would have to idle because of low demand, you make hydrogen.

Their predictions are for the renewable power plant and hydrogen plant intergated. A separate hydrogen plant can't make the gas as cheaply, as the plant sits idle waiting for the low rates, or the cost to produce the hydrogen goes up with the electricity.

It was over $16 a kg in 2019. How much was it 4 years ago?

 

It is currently $10.00 to $13.00 a kg. which I know is much less than 4 years ago, but I don’t know how much more expensive it was over $16.00 kg you quoted.

 

Four years ago, natural gas was more expensive.
Oct. 2016- $3.06/million btu
Oct. 2020- $1.86/million btu
Natural Gas Prices - Historical Chart | MacroTrends

The fracking boom and cheap natural gas saved hydrogen car federal funding. Before than the high price of compressed and liquid hydrogen made the cars a poor prospect.

For the curious, one million btu's of natural gas is 21.1kg. Steam reforming should yield 63.3kg of hydrogen.

"As of 2020 green hydrogen costs between $2.50-6.80 per kilogram and blue hydrogen $1.40-2.40/kg compared with high-carbon grey hydrogen at $1–1.80/kg." - Hydrogen economy - Wikipedia

Much of the price at the pump is for the transport, compressing, and chilling of the hydrogen.

 

but electrolyzers - has the process achieved such great efficiency? If he's a finance guy, shouldn't he be able to present that data? Isn't that why the finance guy (not chemical engineer, not a physicist) is claiming the process "may" be profitable? Because he's presuming a Rosier Horizon? And even if it were so - why not present a comparison between battery storage & hydrogen storage costs which, as you mentioned, requires much more than simply making the hydrogen .... also needing storage losses & transportation losses factored into any kind of possible profitability.
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First off, this was an article about the research the guy did. Links to the actual research papers were in the first paragraph or two.

I don't see hydrogen beating batteries for grid storage. I think it might happen only if we aren't making enough batteries for vehicles and grid storage. The article, and likely the papers, didn't make a comparison because it was just about hydrogen production. We use hydrogen for other purposes. The GC at work uses it, and it is a feedstock for industrial products. The world gets fed because of the hydrogen used to make ammonia.

If we actually move away from fossil fuels, we are going to need to make hydrogen some other way. Right now, the industries that use hydrogen are located near the refineries and plants making it to keep transport costs low. For the same reason, the electrolyzers will be the near the power generators in an integrated system. The transition will mean businesses moving around. In the mean time, the hydrogen could get injected into a nearby natural gas line, if need be. Most likely, the electrolyzer hydrogen will go to the high purity market. It starts off much cleaner than the reformed gas, and it is already getting shipped around the country.

They looked at electrolyzers because they are a mature technology at this point. It is more efficient running a PEM fuel cell in reverse, but those are still in the development stage. Electrolyzers also are a plus for future upgrades in order to make methanol and methane.