Future Hydrogen H2 or Electric Vehicles ?

[UpStateNY]

Fast forward 20 years are we looking at predominately Hydrogen powered cars and trucks or electric batteries?

I was listening to Bloomberg yesterday. This guy was saying that Europe is investing in Hydrogen fuel cells powered large trucks because electric battery powered trucks just don’t have enough range. The trucks they are targeting for Hydrogen power are the ones that return to the same location everyday where they can refuel on Hydrogen.

Yes obviously Hydrogen is not the energy source. You need electricity and a lot of it to make Hydrogen. Anyone know the kWh cost of making Hydrogen fuel today? Is it cost affective?

 

[SpaceBus]

I would say making hydrogen with renewable electricity is more cost effective than continuing to ruin the planet we have in the name of reduced cost. Other people will likely disagree.

 

[begreen]

I'd much rather they use renewable energy to make hydrogen than the huge amounts of power taken to make bitcoin.

In addition to electrolysis, hydrogen can also be made via thermochemical processes like biomass gasification and by bacteria. There is also a direct solar process that I need to learn more about.

Hydrogen Production Processes

Hydrogen can be produced using a number of different processes: thermochemical, electrolytic, direct solar water splitting, and biological.

www.energy.gov

 

[begreen]

My guess is that we will see a combination of both depending on the national resources, infrastructure, and the required range. The biggest impact will be corporate fleets. These truck typically go less than 200 miles in a day. Think Coke and Pepsi deliveries, Ikea, etc.
(broken link removed to https://www.greenbiz.com/article/how-we-can-stop-missing-boat-big-trucks)

 

[stoveliker]

I always liked this idea: don't pressurize an explosive gas (hydrogen), make it liquid through chemistry (abundant nitrogen in this case). Allows you to ship the hydrogen around using infrastructure similar to what we have now.

Yes it's not healthy, but so is gasoline when you breathe it in.

Science | AAAS

www.sciencemag.org

 

[CaptSpiff]

I was listening to Bloomberg yesterday. This guy was saying that Europe is investing in Hydrogen fuel cells powered large trucks because electric battery powered trucks just don’t have enough range. The trucks they are targeting for Hydrogen power are the ones that return to the same location everyday where they can refuel on Hydrogen.

Hydrogen has an amazingly robust "cheer squad". Unfortunately, like next-gen Nuclear power, they have little build to show and even less momentum. I hope they get traction in the future, but one of the reasons I'm not investing is because "they" keep pointing to disproven infrastructure as underlying support. I'm mainly talking about their "talking points" of using present pipeline systems which will fall into disuse as fossil fuel use decreases.

I have some experience in this area, and the present well maintained NG pipelines have trouble managing leakage of the relatively thick NG product. As time moves forward this infrastructure will see LESS investment, and by the time Hydrogen comes along these pipelines will be rusty husks.

That's only one of several downsides. Bad business models should be pointed out, and not invested in.

 

[peakbagger]

I worked with a firm that was in the hydrogen business during the first "hydrogen" revolution about 20 years ago. 60 minutes had a episode on the technology and Ballard Power System sold a lot of stocks., Our firm Distributed Energy went public and the guys who took it public but it was bankrupt in about 5 years. Our firm built a couple of hydrogen fueling stations in Connecticut. Its a PITA to work with as it loves to leak.

 

[EbS-P]

I could see short haul (150 miles per day or less) fleets trucks going hydrogen. How many went CNG? Single point of refueling makes infrastructure investments minimal. Long haul and general public it’s going to be battery I think. Infrastructure will be much easier to put in place. Second the energy density of H2 just isn’t high enough. We will get battery tech that makes charging faster and increases capacity. Same tech will be deployed at charging stations to make sure grid capacity isn’t an issue.

H2 platforms have been round for decades and never introduced commercially. The idea of being able to fill your “tank” at home is here today and people will not, in my lifetime (I’m 40) have H2 piped to their house.

evan

 

[ABMax24]

Hydrogen didn't make sense 10 years ago for automotive use, and it makes even less sense today, basing this solely on round trip energy efficiency. Lithium-Ion achieves 85%-95% efficiency storing the electricity and then delivering it to the motors of a vehicle. Hydrogen is in the range of 40%-60% depending on how the hydrogen is produced and how efficient the fuel cell is in the automobile, replace that fuel cell with an ICE and we are well under 30% energy return.

There are upgrades coming to the electrical grid to reduce carbon emissions from electrical generation, but for the time being a substantial portion comes from the combustion of fossil fuels. Generating hydrogen from this electricity by electrolysis results in total carbon emissions similar or higher than that of a standard ICE powered vehicle. Pure EV's on the other handle have lower CO2 emissions because they take advantage of the higher thermal efficiency most power plants have over the small engines used in automobiles, and lose very little energy in the charge/discharge cycle of the battery.

Producing hydrogen from natural gas and capturing and storing the CO2 would be one way to make the process less polluting in terms of CO2, and here in the oil patch there are companies betting on this as the future. Personally though I'm not sure the long term economics of this pencil out, I think within a decade the declining cost of renewables would make this process un-economic.

There may be an argument to be made about hydrogen powered semi's, but as already mentioned energy storage and leakage become issues. The most volume efficient method to store hydrogen is as a liquid, but this requires cryogenic temperatures which makes long term storage in an automotive tank troublesome. Either some kind of cooling system would be needed or a small amount of venting of the hydrogen to keep it at cryogenic temperatures.

I occasionally work for a company the produces LNG (liquified natural gas) for use in remote power generation and more recently to replace diesel fuel to power drilling rigs. This company bought a fleet of CNG (compressed natural gas) trucks to operate on their own low cost fuel, all the trucks have now been sold and the company has returned to hauling their LNG by diesel powered semis. Range was a major issue, a driver couldn't drive more than a few hours before refilling, which doesn't work when hauling to remote communities, even in the urban areas there just aren't refilling stations. Power was also an issue, the 400hp CNG engines just didn't cut the mustard pulling fully loaded trailers when compared to their 600hp diesel counterparts. I believe hydrogen would experience the same issues, and even for semis I think electric makes more sense, particularly considering almost everywhere on the continent already has an electric connection to charge them.

Long story short my bet is on EV's, hydrogen may play a role on some level for grid scale energy storage, particularly for seasonal storage, but I don't ever expect to see the hydrogen powered passenger vehicle become common place.

 

[woodgeek]

Part of the issue with H2 for energy storage is poor round-trip efficiency. There is loss both at the electrolyzer, for compression in storage and in the fuel cell. Typical numbers are <50% versus 85-90% for batteries. Fuel cells also are expensive per Watt like batteries, have similar service life, and use a lot of platinum group metals (unlike current batteries).

The advantages of H2 are long-term storage, or where the waste heat from the fuel cell also has value. I think for truck/auto usage H2 is a big loser, but in a future 100% renewable economy you could see H2 made during the sunny season used for space heating, skipping the fuel cell completely.

Pure H2 pipelines have issue with leakage, explosion risk, etc, but mixed with another gas it gets a lot easier. There is already talk about adding in a fraction of renewable H2 into existing nat gas supplies, to reduce their CO2 emissions per BTU. For the record, before fossil natural gas was developed, cities ran for decades on coal gas, which was 50% H2, 35% Methane and 10% carbon monoxide. If the Victorians can run a 50% H2 pipeline system and appliances, we can too!

In mobile apps, storage volume is a premium, requiring higher pressure, lowering round trip efficiency. In stationary seasonal storage, the volume can be a lot larger and lower pressure.