... yikes!

I've never been much of a hydrogen booster, seemed like a lot of work to build out a whole new infrastructure and all.

On the other hand, this does sound cool: Bacteria turned into "nanoreactors" to produce 10x more hydrogen fuel

 

it would appear that mirai owners are mostly republican

 

Genetically modifying bacteria is a bad idea.
Scientists may one day open Pandora's box.
It's terrifying to imagine the consequences if these bacteria were to become publicly available and invade the human body, which is 80-90% water.

 

Bacteria aren't NEARLY as scary as viruses......

 

It is a nonpathgenic species, and the conditions for hydrogen production don't exist in the human body. An electric current is needed.
More details here, A green fuels breakthrough: bio-engineering bacteria to become ‘hydrogen nanoreactors’ | University of Oxford
The actual paper, https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2404958121#sec-3

We've been engineering bacteria for ages; it's how we get insulin. The majority of alterations made will be selected away from if the bacteria get into the wild. There is no evolutionary advantage to the above bug making excess hydrogen.

 

Shewanella can be pathogenic in humans so glove up:

Shewanella infection in humans: Epidemiology, clinical features and pathogenicity - PMC

Insulin from genetically engineered bacteria (E. coli) is a huge thing. In 2015, it was one of >400 approved medicines and 1300 others were in clinical development. There is probably a more up-to-date review than
Recombinant pharmaceuticals from microbial cells: a 2015 update - PubMed

==
"who themselves got succored" Typo of the day. Presumably suckered was meant, while succored means received assistance or aid. Not quite opposite in meaning but close enough for amusement.

 

Many things can cause a disease if given a chance. Sounds like the Shewanella marine species, and are the result of interactions with the ocean or seafood. Cut your hand on some barnacles and you might pick up a Shewanella. Worse you could pick up barnacle larvae and end up with them growing on hand tendons.

Shewanella oneidensis is a fresh water species, and I didn't find any cases of it causing an infection. Maybe if someone drank a lab culture...

 

Negotiations towards a ceasefire.

I am disinclined to treat any bacterial genus as without risk in batch culture, standing near. Gloves and mask for me. Sneaky little sonsa b*tches.

E. coli appear to be the workhorses/workbugs for GE-medicines. Yay! Yet some frisky serotypes cause much more human disease than Shewanella could ever 'hope' to. Batch culturing? Gloves and mask for me, and a good wash up after.

We can surely agree that manufacturing H2 this way won't cause notable risks, because staff will suit up.

=
But against a ceasefire
"conditions for hydrogen production don't exist in the human body" Contrary to popular opinion, most fart gas is H2 not CH4. Food digestion in humans is much aided by bacteria 'down there'. But some of our gang only takes the frosting (->H2) without getting into the cake (->CH4).

 

"Bacteria aren't NEARLY as scary as viruses" This is worthy of rumination, even by us non-ruminants. Scan recent publications and see that recent decades' mortality are similar from ∑ bacteria and ∑virus.

So one might wonder why one is scarier and there is reason. Viruses do the deed inside host cells usurping proliferation mechanisms. Really good place for horizontal transfer of genetic material. Bacteria 'go horizontal' as well, but they only make more by 'personal' effort. Bacterial diseases get worse mostly by finding more hosts for sharing. Viral diseases do that, but also change within hosts. That can be scary to any rational and interested ... host.

==
Which will kill more humans in future is down to luck in horizontal transfer of genetic material (sorry to say), and also down to OUR DEDICATION to developing and deploying vaccines. Vaccines being accelerated training for human immune systems, which natively evolved/learned 'well enough' when population densities were much lower than now.

=
But what of all that? We are here to consider the fates of ~12 thousand Mirai owners in US who would pay more for refuelling in future. If they don't 'stay' it will be seen used-car-price websites.

 

It seems like living in elected’s fantasy mind would be enough fantasy without creating more for yourself.

 

Mirai owners deciding 'keep or sell?' might notice

Future costs of hydrogen: a quantitative review - Sustainable Energy & Fuels (RSC Publishing) DOI:10.1039/D4SE00137K.

Figure 2 or

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14786451.2024.2422915#d1e1174

Figure 7, before quickly selling.

Posting these does not indicate I think hydrogen cars are a great idea, Electric cars are much better in terms of infrastructure outbuilding, and with paths for their batteries to be made denser.

 

Yep, be safe when working with any bacteria. Wear gloves and don't lick the plates.

My previous assertions were in regards to not over blowing the risks of bioengineering a bacteria to make more hydrogen.

But our little Shewanella hydrogen reactor needs graphene oxide, iron sulfide, and an electric current to produce the higher levels of hydrogen. The gene tinkering isn't going to make it a greater risk to a person than the original strain. If either gets inside a body, hydrogen production may happen if there is enough heavy metals around.

Cheaper green hydrogen is good for several reasons. It won't help much for hydrogen car fuel prices. Plenty of California's hydrogen for cars is coming from natural gas, so is already on the cheap side. It's the costs for shipping it around to stations, and then compressing and chilling it for those almost gasoline like refill times adding onto the to the final price that is the issue.

Also doesn't help when one of a limited number of hydrogen supplies goes off line.

 

I concur that BEVs are en-route to being commercially AND environmentally viable.
Hydrogen HAS a use case, but presently it has more of the disadvantages of a BEV in terms of infostructure deficiencies AND they are not exactly 'green.'
There IS a use case for H, perhaps in larger scale transportation or as a fixed power source - but as personal transportation?

-nope!
My company had a dalliance with huffing gas a few years back when dot.gov was paying them big bucks to do it.
Technicians universally loathed these cars as being difficult to fuel and very short-legged.

Disclosures:
I've never actually seen a company branded vehicle in the wild.
I think I saw ONE Mirai once upon a time - about 3-4 years ago.
When my CFO asked 'What the heck is THAT?!' in a tone that every husband, everywhere understands - I told her that I believed it was a $60,000 Toyota Camry with a botched exterior, half the tank range and almost no place to refuel - BUT..... if you DID find a place to get....um....'gas' it would only take about half as long to re-fuel as it would to charge an electric car.

She didn't believe me.

One trusted technician told me, in confidence, that she regularly 'down-checked' hers in lieu of being paid $0.575 a mile (2020 pricing) to drive her Tahoe instead, essentially turning it into a hangar queen that was quickly sold off.

My mileage.
AMMV

 

I agree but not at the expense of PHEVs and HEVs. They both have their environmental places and are much more affordable and have longer practical range than BEVs.

 

+1!

 

Where are BEVs actually being pushed at the expense of PHEVs and HEVs?

• Proposed 'EV mandates' will still allow PHEVs. Their implementation is not hard set. They could be delayed or allow hybrids. China's policy allows mild hybrids.
• PHEVs aren't excluded from the US federal incentives. The Prius PHV gets the full $7500 when bought for commercial use. Europe cancelled some incentives for PHEVs because the cars weren't being charged, resulting in higher carbon emissions than the ICE model replaced. HEVs are now at the point that they don't need incentives; general fuel efficiency standards will help them.
• HEVs might get hit by fees to cover lost fuel taxes from ignorant or spiteful officials. Those also hit the PHEVs and BEVs, and are likely higher for them.

The concern over PHEVs and HEVs does not seem grounded in reality.

 

EV rebates are just for BEVs. For quite a few years, HEVs paid the EV registration fee in Virginia as EVs, supposedly to make up gas tax revenues even though HEVs pay gas tax and use no other power.

 

Ev credits are designed to accelerate lower carbon footprint and renewable energy.
Hybrids no longer need the promotion.
As for state registration fees, that is the fault of legislators, not bevs

 

HEVs lower carbon throughput?!?!
Are 'renewable?"
Hmmmm....