Hydrogen Is Not a Fuel, It’s a Cult

This guy is an automotive journalist and if he or his editors had used "Hydrogen personal cars are a cult," he would have had a point and I would have agreed with him. Literally everything he has said is specifically about hydrogen cars.

"These ideas appear to have been propagated to delay the uptake of battery-electric vehicles. In Europe at least, it doesn’t seem to be working yet, with every month an improvement on the last for EV sales."

Have they been propagated for that purpose? I don't think they have.

"The UK government is also putting a lot of emphasis on hydrogen, with some dramatic numbers about how many jobs could be created and how much the industry could be worth by 2050 (100,000 jobs and £13 billion / $17 billion). The UK has already switched a lot of its generation grid to renewables, particularly wind, which sometimes now supplies over half the country’s electricity. But that still doesn’t mean there will be loads of surplus to be used for producing hydrogen."

By 2035, the UK will have more offshore wind nameplate capacity than the forecast Average Cold Spell consumption peak. When you combine that with onshore wind, and solar PV it actually does mean a lot of instantaneous surplus.

Some of that will go into charging chemical batteries but even after that, there's a lot of MWhs going spare looking for a home. The poor efficiency of electrolysis is a lot less important at that point that electrolyser capex.

If you should wait for a hydrogen car instead of a battery one is indeed questionable. I also think that storing hydrogen will always be difficult. But as a fuel cell it might have its uses.

This isn't about either/or. Far more cultish is the idea that says otherwise.

Also, UK energy source is 73% fossil. Wind/solar will never be able to produce more than a fraction of what we need. And this is not even mentioning the energy and materials demand that such "renewables" require.

"Renewable" technology is simply not renewable because there's a finite amount of resources available on the planet. The high price tag of the technology is also a blocking factor.

If everyone went out and purchased EVs, the power grid would collapse. Plus there is a finite amount of lithium we need to make all the batteries we need. If demand for EV was higher, we'd need to slash and strip far more of the earth's surface than "green" energy activists would admit. Some estimates put our lithium available at 50MM tons, and we'd run out by 2040 if EVs were adopted at the same level as CV.

They may not preclude EV, new battery technology can be developed, but you still need to charge them. Unless there is some major breakthrough, the solution for this is nuclear.

But these facts doesn't stop those pushing the green energy, lobbying for "research" and selling products they know are flash-in-the-pan, with no long term viability.

On the contrary, the "green" energy industry, lobbyists, and talking heads act more like religious zealots than those who engineer and propose practical, affordable, & sustainable solutions.

It's all about the energy density.

Planes might be replaced with blimps. Hydrogen blimps with hydrogen storage on board outperforms any boat in terms of cost to move goods. Going from nyc to los angeles would be much longer, similar to driving across, but what if the blimp is like a resort or night train where you're given a room and beds? Have entertainment options.

Though really what the OP is about. Hydrogen isn't an option for cars. The japanese government made some decisions and now Toyota and Honda are pretty far behind. Even where Toyota in the USA with bzx4. We dont technically know yet but it seems like their battery sucks. They likely intended 150kw single motor and then 300kw dual motor. Yet their abysmal 160kw dual motor signifies their battery is trash. It's also tremendously small. They are targeting lower cost, which is fine, but low cost new platforms? They are going to have a bad time.

If toyota and honda are smart, they'll see their hydrogen call value in other transportation fields like blimps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7CCq4oBgw4

The gist is that a company has found a way to store hydrogen energy using solid storage film that is compact, light, reusable, and durable. So "fueling" the car would be swapping out a small object (rather like a data tape).

For example when people stop refueling: Gas station shops lose customers, fuel transportation companies lose contracts, technicians maintaining the pump systems lose jobs, etc.

Lower maintenance BEVs also mean: Less work for car mechanics, lower sale of ICE maintenance products, like lubricants, less parts in a BEV also means less work for lots of automotive suppliers, etc.

Using hydrogen instead of batteries could save or at least extend the lifetime of a lot of these business models. That's why these companies try to push hydrogen so hard.

Convert off-shore drilling platforms to hydrogen electrolysis, and transport it to land in existing pipelines as paste: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24529-3

My guess is we'll keep researching hydrogen, and eventually get to a point where it's economical, just like wind and solar.

For an example, see this aircraft Hertz talk from ZeroAvia, as well as other posts to HN. https://youtu.be/e6c2Dmh4Sq4

Anyone know of any factual articles about the issue?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas_vehicle

There's a tradeoff of course. What's easier for refueling stations is less convenient for the consumer. But if you're a fleet operator (ex: Delivery trucks or Semi-trucks), suddenly you care more about the cost of refueling stations.

So I dunno, lets have the methodologies compete and may the best tech win? I'm mostly just happy that a variety of alternative fuels are competing now.