Time for fuel cell / hydrogen car?

jpaul said:
as said, those systems aren't yet energy efficient enough, and, we don't yet have surplus renewable/solar electricity to run them, either, which could, make hydrogen more competitive, for consumer use.
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Of course we have a surplus. Haven't you ever seen wind turbines on a windy day doing nothing just because there is no demand on the grid?
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Its mentioned as its based on facts.
What on earth are you on about. Demand would grow quicker than supply, and then for such a 'unlimited' supply you need to build 3 times of what ever you are championing as this energy source.
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Are you satisfied that simple solutions for hydrogen production are already available, because that was one of your arguments? I have already provided you with a link but you haven't replied.

Not sure what your point is about demand growing quicker than supply. So what? Isn't there an alternative?
 
Fusion said:
So- we're going to have ubiquitious renewable energy sources in the future- I get that. Why would we not use them for charging electric vehicles directly via the grid, than have this intermediate stage of producing Hydrogen? What do I gain as an average car user by having Hydrogen as a fuel source over pure electric?

Battery energy density is only going to increase over the coming years, so range will be less of an issue. I can see the value for heavy goods vehicles and the like.
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It all comes down to how sustainable battery production is in the long term and in a large scale if we continue to use rare earth elements for their production.
 
There is no reason why the process will not become more efficient. There is enough capacity to support current demand without worrying about efficiency.

I don't believe the aim is to continue using natural gas to produce hydrogen. Is this what you understand from that report?
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Not even close to 'satisfied';
Yeah its not simple or available!

Its a brilliant link, you seem to have overlooked its a 20ft iso container package that requires 400V 3 phase AC. Therefore fails the simple test of being simple, nor does anyone need 270Kg per day so you are looking at a retail model that requires a sale to a consumer. Its almost poetic just how bad a link it is to reflect your understanding. I dare not go to the point of requesting a quote for such a unit :eek:
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Not available? Already in production and for sale so what do you mean?

As for the simplicity, I am sure you don't have a refinery in your back garden so why would you expect to have an electrolyser?

Do you know of any reason why a petrol station owner for example would not be able to install one of these units?
 
McPhee said:
I agree; the process will become more efficient. But the timescale for this is looking like decades, not years.

The problem is this; hydrogen produced from natural gas is already more expensive than petrol, diesel, or electricity as a vehicle "fuel". Electrolysed hydrogen has 2.3x to 3.3x higher production costs than hydrogen refined from natural gas. If the right investments are made, the IEA believes this could drop to 1.5x to 2.5x by 2030. But that is still far too expensive for HFCVs to be anything more than an experiment. Production costs for electrolysed hydrogen need to be a fraction of the costs of producing hydrogen from natural gas today, otherwise it will simply make driving too expensive.

Also worth noting that while there is some spare renewables potential on the grid, there are a wide array of storage technologies competing to utilise it. So yes, efficiency does matter. If there are technologies which have lower capital costs and higher efficiency than HFC, hydrogen is going to have a hard time competing for that power. This side of the debate isn't just about batteries vs fuel cells, but about a vast number of other competing products.
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I am not sure why you are mentioning natural gas. Why would you want to use natural gas (and increase CO2 emissions) to produce hydrogen? That's completely pointless.

Also these storage technologies competing to utilise renewable energy do not appear to be using that energy surplus otherwise there would be no reason for the wind turbines to work intermittently.
 
But natural gas is NOT going be used as the energy source for hydrogen production because it is cheaper. Building unsafe nuclear reactors and dumping all waste in the nearby river would be even cheaper but that is not the point.
Green energy will be more expensive but the other cheaper options are not sustainable.
 
McPhee said:
"One of these insights is that renewables integration can be divided into a set of six phases dependent partly on the share of variable renewables in the system, but also on other system-dependent factors such as the share of storage hydro and interconnections.

Two countries have already reached Phase 4. Denmark, which has been a leader, has the significant advantage of strong interconnections to handle both surpluses and shortfalls. Ireland has much weaker interconnections and additional measures have been needed to ensure short-term system stability.

No country is yet in Phase 5 (where production can exceed demand) or in Phase 6, where seasonal storage solutions would be needed to match supply and demand."

There is some excess on the grid in the UK. But it isn't much yet and it's very intermittent. Not really enough to be relying on it.
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That's the first step. No wasted energy. You don't jump to phase 6.
 
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