How to Promote the Hydrogen Economy Hoax

Perhaps the best approach is to get the hydrogen advocates in a fuel cell car:
https://www.cars.com/for-sale/searchresults.action/?mdId=33385383&mkId=20088&page=1&perPage=20&rd=99999&searchSource=SORT&shippable=false&showMore=true&sort=price-lowest&zc=41230

There are three, used Mirai in California around $25k. Certainly an excellent way for the hydrogen advocates to put their money where their mouth is.

Bob Wilson

 

As pointed out elsewhere, as filling stations exist only in California, comparing FCVs with battery cars is comparing what is sold in one state (for FCVs) with what is sold in ALL states (for battery cars).

If you want a fair idea of the popularity of FCVs, you need to multiply FCV monthly sales (about 250) by 10, for this is the ratio of Americans to Californian Americans. This gives about 2,500 a month, about an eighth of battery car sales.

My bet is that the used Mirais were abandoned by their owners switching to the Clarity FCV which seems to be a better car generally.

 

Batteries support both charge and discharging. Charged, an EV battery car can drive 25-300 miles. But they can also provide emergency house power. Not just me but several Prius owners have installed inverters driven by the traction battery for home power: http://www.priups.com

Both the Honda and Toyota fuel cell vehicles have a CHAdeMO port and Honda has shown a Power Exporter that can provide up to 9kW of house power. This is always one-way from a fuel cell vehicle.

In contrast, the Leaf can charge the battery using the same CHAdeMO because the battery is a bi-directional. So it was interesting to read Tesla's proposal to the Australian Energy Market Commission:
https://www.aemc.gov.au/sites/default/files/2018-05/Tesla Motors Australia.PDF

The existing SGA framework allows a participant to aggregate small generating units and sell the collective output directly into the wholesale energy market. However, as noted in the Directions Paper, in order to manage the requirements on the single financially responsible market participant (FRMP), the current SGA framework requires the small generating units to participate in the wholesale energy markets through a separate connection point or through managing the asset separately as an embedded generator.

This approach is appropriate for larger behind-the-meter assets, but is cost prohibitive for small scale residential and commercial assets looking to participate in virtual power plants (VPPs) or provide aggregated energy market services.​

Tesla is proposing to drive grid power support to the individual home owner and/or micro power grids. These can be powered by battery buffered, home solar roofs. Another Tesla initiative:
https://electrek.co/guides/tesla-solar-roof/


Hydrogen fuel cell advocates appear to insist on always visiting a hydrogen filling station. There is one prototype, home hydrogen generator but it is both expensive to buy and operate.

In contrast, battery-solar systems are self-sufficient. In some places, owners are selling their excess to the grid but that is not really necessary. These are not prototypes but available today.

Bob Wilson

 

Your mains is evidently pretty unreliable. Fortunately, in the UK it has been a good 20 years since we experienced a power cut, which as I recall lasted less than an hour. As it happens, I have a small generator which I bought to provide temporary power in my wife's allotment. I have never had to run it to support my home power.

So as far as I am concerned my choice of car is NOT going to be predicated on worries about power cuts. I am sorry you have to think of such things.

Incidentally, I have never driven out specifically to a filling station in my life. I always call into one en route to or from some other destination. Two or three minutes in a nonurgent journey maybe once every two weeks is hardly as onerous as plugging in the car every time you park it.

 

I've been wondering why fuel cell advocates so strongly advocate for electrolysis generation versus the more affordable, steam-methane method. It turns out fuel cells are sensitive to contaminations that can deactivate them just as sugar in a gas tank can covert the engine into a useless chunk of iron:
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep07450

Low temperature fuel cells such as proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and direct alcohol fuel cells (DAFCs) are promising energy conversion devices and ongoing research projects for electrical vehicles and portable devices, however, carbon monoxide (CO) and sulfur poisoning deactivate the platinum catalyst utilization1,2. CO poisoning, one of the worst catalyst deactivating processes, is a crucial issue especially for platinum group metal catalysts in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs)3,4. During alcohol oxidation, adsorbed CO molecules generated as reaction intermediates hinder the reaction by blocking the active sites. Hence, much effort has been devoted to mitigate CO poisoning. . . .​

Electrolysis electrical power could provide 3x the miles charging battery electric vehicles. But steam-methane drives the price down about 1/3d. The problem is methane carries impurities that can poison a fuel cell. So the only way to justify a fuel cell and not kill them is the miracle of 'free' renewable electricity while ignoring the free market value of that electricity. Of course there is a simple process to solve the methane impurities.

Simply chill the hydrogen to liquid temperatures. At that point all of the ordinary, fuel cell poisons have condensed to solids at the bottom of the tank. Skim off the hydrogen and the problem is solved.

Bob Wilson

 

I think you are assuming the market value of electricity is constant. In fact it is likely to be extremely volatile, depending on the presence of sunlight and wind, and as these technologies become even more pervasive this volatility will increase.

A growing number of European countries are finding they are generating more power than they need with increasing frequency, and are giving it away free or actually paying other countries to take it! The logic of converting it to hydrogen is compelling, as the cost of the equipment - basically little more than electrolysers and tanks - is low, particularly if this can be sold as road fuel or used later to generate power when it is needed at a premium price.

You might be able to store electricity in batteries but you would need truly enormous ones as well as deep pockets to pay for them. Hydrogen tanks, in contrast, offer cheaper storage as their cost rises far slower than the volume they enclose. (square law as opposed to cube law)

A further factor is the carbon cost of using methane. If you tax the discharge of carbon to the atmosphere (as you should and eventually will when your cities start to become inundated) the cost-benefit of electrolysis is here already.

 

The problem is that with batteries you have to junk them and buy new every few years. That makes them a very expensive alternative.

Current high pressure hydrogen tanks are plastic lined and are not subject to the sort of embrittlement that so worries Pushmi. They last indefinitely. Also, they are not given to bursting into flame if something goes wrong and they get overcharged. A simple safety valve sorts the problem. Nor are they full of toxic and rare chemicals, and they work in all temperatures which batteries don't.

I suspect, due to LaPlace's equation, really large high pressure tanks are unlikely to be used. it will probably prove more economic to store it in liquid form above a certain quantity, but we shall see.

However, I don't think those pushing battery cars are hoaxers. They are clearly wrong, but that doesn't make them crooks. I think it's a blind alley into which the industry was directed after the financial crash, by politicians trying to rescue them from collapse and hoping to appear 'green' by subsidising battery cars. One started the movement developed its own momentum. The hoped for order-of-magnitude improvement in energy density has not materialised, however, and I suspect hydrogen cars will make further inroads followed by a big battery car manufacturer either abandoning them, switching to hydrogen or going bust. I have my own opinion as to which will happen, but I will keep it to myself for the time being.

 

Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2018/05/21/tesla-model-3-battery-teardown-tesla-stock-dive-a-tesla-wobbling-wheel/

• 310 miles range
  
• 78.2 kWh - capacity
• 3,838 lbs weight
  • 1,050 lbs - Model 3 battery, long range

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Mirai

• 312 miles range
  
• 83.25 kWh (net)
  • 5 kg
  • 166.5 kWh ~= 33.3 kWh/kg
  • 83.25 kWh (net) ~= 166.5 kWh * 50% efficiency
• 4,075 lbs weight
  • 493 lbs
    • 193 lbs - tank
    • 127 lbs - NiMH buffer battery
    • 123 lbs - fuel cell
    • 50 lbs (est) - power electronics

When we compare the integrated Model 3 battery with electronics to the Toyota Mirai system, the Mirai appears to be 50% lighter. But Toyota added a minimum 237 lbs extra weight to the vehicle. In effect the fuel cell advantage is negated by the overhead and less efficient body construction.

To bring things into perspective, the range extender of BMW i3-REx is reported to be ~263 lbs versus the 237 lbs extra weight of the Mirai over the Model 3.

Bob Wilson

 

First batteries degrade with use. All of them do it at variable rates. The more you use them the faster they degrade.

Hydrogen in cars only at high pressure in the tank. Most of the rest of the 'plumbing' operates at far lower pressure, so hydrogen embrittlement is not a problem.

Third, the fuel cell reaction is exothermic, so it would reach operating temperature quite quickly even without batteries - maybe 30 seconds or a minute - The usual probem with them is getting rid of excess heat. The function of batteries in these cars is to make this delay imperceptible to the user. Personally, I'd be happy to wait a minute or two. You have to wonder how the batteries themselves cope with the low temperatures too. Perhaps they get heated up with current from the fuel cell...!

I imagine the 'Do not use after...' notice is intended to trigger a pressure retest. The tanks are pressure tested to significantly higher than 700 bar. If they pass they can continue to be used, albeit perhaps with a shorter time before being retested again. They are, anyway, designed to last longer than the car on average, so it's not a problem.

 

Fuel cell FUDsters are in full swing here! Here is AC transit bus, operating on the same stack for more than 20,000 hours! Even with just 25 mph average speed, that's over half million miles! That was 10 years ago. How is it now?

https://insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/how-to-promote-the-hydrogen-economy-hoax.429/page-12

 

"What part of "The fuel cell stack itself develops cracks over time" do you not understand?"

I don't understand why you imagine posting a four-year-old paper about fuel cells designed to run on methanol is in any way relevant to these pure hydrogen ones.

I suspect, too, that you imagine 'cracks' to imply the material falls apart. This is a perfectly understandable idea unless you have taken the trouble to look up what it means. The material's strength is reduced, but you get round that by making it a lot stronger than it needs to be. The concern is about leakage of hydrogen. At low pressures this is extremely small and is not a problem.

You might take into account TeslaInvestors reference to fuel cells lasting 20,000 hours too before launching into more abuse. The golden rule is to check your facts before typing anything. A novel idea for you it seems, but i suggest you try it.

 

Funny you should ask:
Source: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hydrogen-buses-struggle-with-expense/

The ministry refused an offer from the Canadian fuel-cell module provider Ballard Power Systems to run the buses for an additional five years, on account of the cost. The price tag of the completed five-year project was 89.5 million Canadian dollars, provided largely by the federal and provincial governments. The municipality of Whistler supplied CA$16.8 million of the total, which represents the estimated cost of operating 20 diesel buses over the same period.

The hydrogen buses themselves make up a large part of the cost premium. In addition, they require more frequent maintenance than their diesel counterparts. The Whistler program also used renewable hydrogen -- made from the electrolysis of water -- that had to be trucked in from Quebec, about 1,800 miles away.​

Another source:
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/60603.pdf

The challenges and lessons learned so far include bus-related problems and programmatic issues, as well as market developments with manufacturers that affected the availability of parts. Bus- related challenges included issues with the air compressor, motor, and controller for the fuel cell; battery balance issues; and fuel cell balance of plant issues. Overall maintenance costs have been 58% higher for the FCEBs than for conventional diesel buses. Corrective repairs for the propulsion system account for more than half the cost.
​

Then there is this report:
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy14osti/62317.pdf

BC Transit collaborated with the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to evaluate the buses in revenue service. CARB enlisted NREL to conduct a third-party evaluation of the BC Transit fleet to aid in understanding the status of the technology in transit. CARB staff has been gathering data on zero-emission buses to assess the status of the technologies as directed by its Board during the July 2009 hearing. While the BC Transit fleet is located outside of the United States, the operation of transit fleets within Canada is similar to that of fleets in the United States. The bus is designed for the North American market, and future models could be built to meet ‘Buy America’ requirements for U.S. transit agencies. NREL published its first report on the demonstration in February 2014.1 This report is an update to the previous report and covers 3 full years of revenue service data on the buses from April 2011 through March 2014.​

Of course your mileage may vary.

Bob Wilson