Featured Hydrogen Fuel Cell's Dark Side(s)

Hydrogen powered train achieves new distance record (thedriven.io) (article dated April 2024)

Technology breakthroughs are happening daily in different modes of mobility.

Hydrogen is no exception!

For now personal transportation/mobility for individuals with hydrogen needs a breakthrough - tomorrow it may come.

A Big Step Forward: New Breakthrough Could Lead to Cleaner Hydrogen Energy (scitechdaily.com)

We should be encouraging all research into cleaner more efficient transportation through all technologies.

Bosch Mobility Announces A Hydrogen Combustion Engine At The CES 2024 (topspeed.com)
"At the CES 2024, Bosch made a bold move, tossing gasoline and diesel-soaked gloves onto the backburner and unveiling a two-pronged attack on the emissions monster: hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen combustion engines. This strategic shift marks a pivotal moment in the quest for a sustainable future for heavy-duty transportation, a sector notoriously hard to decarbonize."

As business continues to explore and innovate Hydrogen for mobility - personal hydrogen mobility for individual transportation will also benefit from these evolving technologies and breakthroughs.

 

breakthroughs are usually hype. most progress is slow and steady

 

Which is exactly what is happening in the hydrogen sector.

 

exactly. might be the slowest improvement of all technologies

 

Research...yes.
But building a network of hydrogen fueling stations at great cost and still using fossil-based hydrogen...no

Mike

 

How many of the 4 miracles have had techincal breathroughs since 2009?

Challenging Chu on Hydrogen Fuel Cells | MIT Technology Review

In 15 years none of these has happened. The hybrid with a hydrogen ice instead of fuel cells shows even the strongest proponents don't think fuel cells are going to come down in price to competitive levels. Chu was only talking about unlikely in the next decade, but its been a decade and a half. CARBs response back then to pump up hydrogen sounds similar to today's hype.

By The Numbers | Hydrogen Fuel Cell Partnership
Given the huge subsidies you would think hydrogen could have gotten to 50K vehicles in california by now. Instead there are less than 19,000 and the stations are unreliable.

Fuel cells work for fork lifts. It seems now in 2024 hydrogen is even less viable than than it looked in 2009 for personal light vehicles. Maybe it would work in small niches of corporate fleets of delivery vehicles and trucks.

No the technical advances are much less than promised. Flex fuel phevs seem much more likely than hydrogen.

 

The world is a big place and there is room for many, many technology breakthroughs. Ask Elon Musk about what is going on in AI Research.

In our larger world many areas with open minds are readily exploring innovative technology and not letting closed minds, pessimist or naysayers get in the way!
The world doesn't end at the US border.

Spain’s biggest hydrogen generator unveiled; can run on renewables (msn.com)

Europe’s pioneering Green Deal research projects powering the hydrogen revolution | Research and Innovation (europa.eu)

This German Power Plant Signposts Europe's Green Hydrogen Future - Bloomberg

EU awards €720m to green H2 projects in first European Hydrogen Bank auction | Hydrogen Insight

Hydrogen | Invest in Canada (investcanada.ca)

Global Energy Transition 2024 (reutersevents.com)

As this sector evolves it will determine how it will find its place in personal mobility.

The actual movers - vehicles, engines etc. are in place. Technology and Economics are going to determine if it is a desirable fuel for personal transportation - internet posters are contributing mostly nothing and will determine nothing.

Let's see where the future takes us.

Remember - that crazy Toyota Company - Hybrids/Prius - absolutely ridiculous who would ever buy one of those things. Almost as preposterous as thinking motor vehicles would ever take the place of horses - pure nonsense!

 

there's lots of clickbait in every field of endeavor

 

Like...
I guess:
men landing on the moon
Pandemics
AI Research and development
Starlink
Space X
... all just clickbait?

 

Speaking of innovations- article dated less than 30 days ago- 5/30/24

New method makes hydrogen from solar power and agricultural waste (msn.com)
"University of Illinois Chicago engineers have helped design a new method to make hydrogen gas from water using only solar power and agricultural waste, such as manure or husks. The method reduces the energy needed to extract hydrogen from water by 600%, creating new opportunities for sustainable, climate-friendly chemical production."

 

Just saying it doesn't mean it is true or that enough progress is being made compared to BEVs

It has been over 25 years since I was aware of all these announcements of the hydrogen economy coming. EVs were largely associated with golf carts at the time. Just look at EVs now compared to then.
In comparison look at the near complete lack of progress on economical clean hydrogen capacity since then.
Sure, keep doing some research, but at some point you've got to admit defeat in the marketplace and stop pushing the wrong technology for personal cars. We can't really afford two different ways to refuel low carbon/clean cars.

Mike

 

those things have happened...

 

Just a quick look at the first one. So spain now has an electrolyzer that is twice as powerful as the one before (in china). It can produce 10 kg of hydrogen an hour from about 50 kwh of green electricity or brown. How many cars can that fill - hm 2 an hour if they take 5 Kg. Not really a breakthrough instead of using small electrolyzers or more efficient fuel cells. I'm not sure how this reduces cost of hydrogen at a station, unless that green hydrogen has heavy subsidies. The US government is giving it a $3/kg subsidy here, so equivalent of $3/gallon of gasoline by the government. Not sure this is getting us any closer. didn't even read the next one but let us know if it makes green hydrogen cheaper to use as fuel at a station or is simply the government subsidizing a project that they could do long ago.

I pulled up the U of I chicago blurb from there site to see if it was anything. This seems like mainly a retread of toyota pushing that california's hydrogen highway could run on cow manure. Tech is a little different but solar plus a burnable source of carbon is pretty old. Its not green because it produces carbon dioxide. They could capture it but that adds more to the costs. If you need your stations near a sewage plant or a big farm it makes sense, but it won't really provide national refueling at lower costs. It probably costs more than simply locating the electrolyzer near were you want the hydrogen and using the solar where it is abundant and the grid to feed your solar or wind to the electrolyzer. Pretty old tech.

 

Of the links you posted here that actually address hydrogen developments, they were only concerning one of the four required miracles; production. Which is good, cause we need green hydrogen for many things. It just is not enough to make hydrogen viable for transportation.

Fuel cells getting cheaper may just come about we real mass scale production. If hydrogen engines were easy, I think we would have seen someone put out something to get ZEV credits back when hydrogen ICE were eligible. The fuel bi-fuel cars made took a big hit to power or efficiency when using the gas. Hydrogen cars using either aren't going to happen without miracles in transportation and storage.

Transporting hydrogen isn't simple. Up through the space shuttle program, about half the hydrogen NASA bought was lost to leaks and venting. We've gotten better at it since then, but it isn't cheap. That's a big deal when there isn't any infrastructure to begin with. Current research is in using hydrogen carrier molecules.

Green hydrogen is converted into ammonia or methanol. Both are much easier to transport, and infrastructure is already in place. Then the hydrogen is stripped off at the destination. It's an option, except ammonia and methanol can be used as a fuel directly. We could also add a few more steps, and make diesel and gasoline from the hydrogen. Which all address the issue of storage.

If it had an engine, the tanks on the Mirai could hold about 40 gallons of gasoline. It would be even more if it had tanks designed for gasoline in that space instead on ones for high pressure gas. Since they are made for the latter, the tanks weight almost 200 pounds. To hold 11 to 12 pounds of hydrogen. The tanks are the reason why the gen1 Mirai only seated four while being the size of a Camry. The gen2 did better, but still had a back seat like a gen2 Volt. The trunk of both Mirais were the size of a Corolla's, if they were lucky.

Getting the hydrogen to the pressure those tanks could hold requires a lot of energy. Even more to get that fast fill. That energy adds quite a bit to the price per kg at the pump.

 

People with open minds find ways around/solve problems and make things work rather than throw stones or say something can't be done:

The hydrogen-powered bike that can refuel in just 10 seconds (msn.com)
"The hydrogen-powered bike that can refuel in just 10 seconds
A Swiss start-up has developed a system of removable tanks for a range of hydrogen-powered bicycles. The idea is to soon be able to propose fleets of self-service rental bikes that are easy for users to refuel."

"Local manufacturerYouOn has already installed a number of self-service hydrogen bicycle stations in several major Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Changzhou. These fleets are made up of bikes with a range of 70 km.

As with cars, hydrogen is now emerging as an increasingly credible alternative to traditional lithium batteries in the bicycle sector. These bikes can cover long distances without producing the slightest CO2 emissions. In fact, the only output is water.


What's next?

 

My rule of thumb, "Have the right tool for the right job."

Hydrogen has uses but personal cars and SUVs, no.

Bob Wilson

 

"as with cars, hydrogen is now emerging as an increasingly credible..."

i don't see the 'as with cars' connection, unless they are trying to pull the wool over someones eyes

 

Personal/individual mobility

Honda Reveals New Details on 2024 CR-V Powered by Hydrogen (caranddriver.com)

Honda Advances Hydrogen Strategy with Production Launch of Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle in Ohio | Honda Global Corporate Website

It will be made right here in America at the Marysville Ohio Plant

Honda's hydrogen car meant changes at its bespoke Marysville plant - Columbus Business First (bizjournals.com)