What If Highways Were Electric? Germany Is Testing the Idea
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/studie...
Climate change is more of a political problem than anything else.
Trucks and rail need to go long distances and/or need quick refueling to get back on the job, making batteries too heavy and slow. Hydrogen fits the bill perfectly, and since commercial transport is already operating out of central hubs, whether it be train stations, shipping warehouses, factories, etc., so building hydrogen fueling stations is orders of magnitude more feasible than trying to come close to matching the convenience and ubiquity of the gas station or the overnight home charger for personal vehicles. Sure, hydrogen is expensive now, but as we get more and more penetration of solar and wind, we are having larger issues with excess power production with no way to use or store it. Producing hydrogen during times of excess power generation is a perfect solution.
The advantage long term is the hydrogen network gets slowly built out, allowing other uses for hydrogen fuel to become viable, including grid storage.
The solution you're advocating for sounds like a tautology (hydrogen is good because it will force us to build hydrogen infrastructure, which is good because hydrogen is good)
> power source > grid > hydrogen generation > truck > power
And the lifecycle in the article is
> power source > grid > truck > power
There are fewer energy conversions and it's hard to envision a system with fewer losses.
I'm not arguing against hydrogen. Just trying to understand why hydrogen would be considered superior to the article's method.
Option 1 is running 1,000 miles of overhead wire. This option allows EV trucks to drive exactly 1,000 miles between the two cities and that is it. So it is basically trucks acting similar to rail. Adding batteries would give them extremely limited ability to move just off the electrified track.
Option 2 is installing three hydrogen filling stations. One at each endpoint and one at an advantageous point approximately in the middle, say near a city or town. HEV trucks are being developed claiming 600-1,000 mile range [1][2] so I’ll go on the low end and say 550 mile real world range (600 total minus a little in the tank in case of delays or issues). With that, HEV trucks would be able to travel along the 1,000 miles highway, or 275 miles in any direction from any of the three cities with stations, or a combination.
Option 1 gives you a line 1,000 miles long of coverage. Option two gives you an area 550 miles wide and 1,550 miles long of coverage. Option 1 is only useful for long haul transport along that specific highway. Option two gives you the option for long haul along that specific highway, but also gives you short haul anywhere IVO all three stations, and local delivery IVO all three stations.
Option 1 has limited growth potential. To expand, you would have to build line along another specific highway that is directly connected to the first highway line. Option 2 would expand coverage exponentially for any station built within a 550 mile range of any other station.
Option 1 has little to no additional uses. Personal vehicles are not likely to start installing 15-foot-tall antennae to use on the highway and we already have electrical transmission wires. The same as rail, there really isn’t any other use other than for rail. Option 2 gives you locations of a transportable energy dense fuel alternative to fossil fuels. It has the potential for many other uses, both that have been thought of, and that haven’t.
Now, in theory the electric highway is more efficient. However, as I said, excess power generation and grid storage are becoming an issue that is only going to get more difficult to solve. Electric highway trucks will be pulling directly from the grid, and the best time to move cargo will not likely line up with the best time to use large amounts of grid power. With hydrogen, you can generate it specifically during times of excess power (basically grid storage). Considering that grid storage is such a huge concern going forward, that most grid storage solutions are limited by geography (pumped hydro, rail) or availability (building massive banks of batteries), an option that allows it to be used in heavy transport, something notoriously difficult to move away from fossil fuels, seems like a good option. Heavy transport is notoriously difficult to move off fossil fuels because batteries are too heavy to give useful ranges and/or cut too much into hauling capacity. This overhead electric rail gives zero flexibility and has the narrowest of applications. Losing some efficiency by gaining a massive amount of flexibility in application feels like a good tradeoff.
This was definitely more rambling than I planned, but it is what it is.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2020/09/16/daimler-...
[2] https://www.electrive.com/2021/07/13/hyzon-chart-work-on-100...