Quote:
Originally Posted by SCP440
Yes but the difference is most ICE vehicles could be adapted to run on hydrogen relatively easily and the only reason hydrogen is expensive is because of the amount produced, if ICE cars were converted on the production line to run on Hydrogen and the stuff was produced in the same volumes as petrol and diesel it would cost no more and is carbon neutral if the electricity used to make is from wind farms and the like. We would then get the best of both worlds, clean cars, no extended recharging and the existing infrastructure that distributes petrol could be used with some adaptation.
Part of me worries if getting everybody on the electric bandwagon will be similar to the diesel thing a few years ago. The government wins as they get all the taxes on the new vehicles and the manufacturers win because they sell lots of new cars, the only looser will be us.
I for one will be holding on for as long as possible to my fossil powered vehicle, hopefully by the time I have to replace them all the teething troubles will be sorted and the cost of the electric vehicles will be a lot cheaper.
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You are way off on this.
Hydrogen combustion engines dies shortly after they were tried in the 90’s which is why they switched to try fuel cells which while they can be clean are a bigger issue to the country than going all BEV’s
Hydrogen fuel cells all still need battery packs which still needs the same minerals as BEV but the Fuel cells need a whole new set of rear earths. This adds complexity and cost.
The hydrogen tank and system is massively more costly. The plastic extruded fuel pipes and blow moulded tanks that cost pennies to hold petrol or diesel can’t be used for hydrogen. The engineering for hydrogen and the materials is several levels above what we currently use to stop it leaking out and away that its cost will be vastly increased on what’s in an ICE.
Then you need to look at the fuel and what that needs compared with EV’s.
EV’s are simple, generate electricity as green as possible, send down the lines and store in the car over all the efficiency is a bit over 80%.
The grid level generations for both have the same efficiency the difference is in the transport and end point efficiency.
For hydrogen to be green it’s so much more inefficient.
In reverse order the fuel cell is more efficiency than an ICE engine but has greater losses then BEV.
To fill up at a station the hydrogen needs to store in a liquid form to maintain the density to fill lots of cars. Every filling station is now running a refrigeration system continually. You also have the issue of the above ground tanks of compressed hydrogen located next to homes, not an efficiency issue but the issue of NIMBY is a massive hurdle. The fuel needs trucking to the stations which uses energy again losing out to the BEV approach.
Now we are at the generation stage, electrolysis of water is needed if this is to be green and not just fracking natural gas. Electrolysis is a massively energy intensive and inefficient process. To get enough energy/hydrogen out of this we need to pump in many multiple times of energy in, to cover the losses in every stage of this process. Now to operate commercially a company creating hydrogen won’t operate at the intermittent whims of renewable energy availability so we need over capacity or subsidies to cover any fluctuations.
For BEV we will need less generation capacity overall by a large margin and BEV has several mitigation strategies. Home charging will work for a great many people and with this will come time optimised charging and also home generation and storage.
BEV is just more efficient as a complete energy cycle that it is less of an issue for the country to move to. People may like their ICE but it is directly harming our health and sending the climate to hell.
Hydrogen has a place as a solution but it isn’t for everyone’s cars, planes and boats yes. But for light duty applications the energy wasted is to much, that when you are in regular direct vicinity of a grid connection BEV make
sense.
The overall efficiency of >80% and the ability to time optimise charging for most drivers most of the time make the challenges to BEV far smaller than hydrogen fuel cell drives. Further down the road vehicle to grid is a very useful tool to the country
The greenest approach is to run your existing can in to scrap and then just buy the next cleanest car you can afford. BEV’s, hybrids and hydrogen will just become the second hand cars with time