How to Promote the Hydrogen Economy Hoax

Discussion in 'General' started by Pushmi-Pullyu, Jan 7, 2018.

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  1. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    I visited a SuperCharger station at Athens AL and it was empty too. But without SuperChargers, Tesla sales would tank. Part of the Tesla price is building the otherwise non-existing charging network.

    Name a fuel cell vehicle manufacturer who is also building hydrogen fuel stations . . . crickets.

    Bob Wilson
     
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  3. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    And not only that, even if a Chinese driver can wrangle a dedicated parking spot for his car, there is a ridiculous amount of red tape (and bribery) involved in getting the local electric utility to approve the installation of an EV charger for the parking space.

    You've come to the wrong conclusion. At a cost of $1 million per dozen fuel cell cars served per day just to build H2 fueling stations, it would be less expensive to install a L2 charger at every single place that people park cars, in China as well as well as any other industrialized country in the world. If we assume one fill up per week, that means one H2 station would service only 84 FCEV cars per week, at a cost per car just for installing the H2 station of $12,195. The maintenance fee for H2 stations is also ridiculously high, as several entrepreneurs in California have found to their sorrow.

    Of course that estimated $12,195 cost per FCEV is so high partly due to the infrequency of installation, and if there was a national effort to roll that out, the price would come down due to the economy of scale. But the same is true of installing EV charge points; the price of installing those will come down as the number of installations increases exponentially over the next decade or two... in China as well as in every other industrialized nation.

    Even if we ignore the possibility of using PEVs (Plug-in EVs) to replace gasmobiles, H2 still makes no sense. Pick any practical fuel, such as methane or alcohol or synthetic diesel, and the well-to-wheel cost to make and distribute a fully synthetic fuel would be far, far lower than trying to use H2, which really is very nearly the worst possible choice for a fuel in widespread use. I mean, what could possibly be worse? Maybe uric acid or cow pies? It's really hard to think of anything that could be worse that anyone has seriously proposed to replace gasoline and diesel.

    * * * * *

    As is often the case, Elon Musk says it best:

    I don’t want to turn this into a debate on hydrogen fuel cells, because I just think that they’re extremely silly. There’s multiple rebuttals of it online. It’s just very difficult to make hydrogen and store it and use it in a car. Hydrogen is an energy storage mechanism, it’s not a source of energy. So you have to get that hydrogen from somewhere.

    If you get that hydrogen from water, you’re splitting H2O. Electrolysis is extremely inefficient as an energy process. If you took a solar panel and used the energy from that solar panel to just charge a battery pack directly—compared to try to split water, take the hydrogen, dump the oxygen, compress the hydrogen to an extremely high pressure—or liquefy it—and then put it in a car and run a fuel cell... it is about half the efficiency. It’s terrible.

    Why would you do that? It makes no sense. Hydrogen has very low density. It’s a pernicious molecule that likes to get all over the place. If you get hydrogen leaks from invisible gas, you can’t even tell that it’s leaking. But then it’s extremely flammable, when it does, and has an invisible flame.

    If you’re going to pick an energy storage mechanism, hydrogen is an incredibly dumb one to pick. You should just pick methane. That’s much, much easier. Or propane.

    The best case hydrogen fuel cell doesn’t run against the current case batteries. So, then, obviously, it doesn’t make sense. That will become apparent in the next few years. There’s no reason for us to have this debate. I’ve said my piece on this. It will be super-obvious as time goes by.
    --Elon Musk, January 13, 2015

     
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  4. TeslaInvestors

    TeslaInvestors Active Member

    Great comments, altfuelcarguy! Don't read too much into our resident hydrogen FUDster Pushmi's comments. He just likes to annoy people with misinformation like "dozen fuel cell cars served per day" stuff. The Brokaw Rd station is very busy. Eveyr time I go, there is either a car coming in, or just finishing up. So are the other stations. I avoid the Brokaw just for that.
    PP, your math is wrong. It's "12 cars per hour", because it takes roughly 5 mins to fill each car. And yes, it fills ~100% with no worries about tank degradation! How amazing, right? No need to fill up to 80% and leave , because the last 20% charge of the battery pack takes as long and will degrade the battery faster.

    You are also assuming people have time to sit at an L2 station during a busy long road trip. Even if you put a zillion of them, people may simply not have time to park their car to charge, since in some trips you are on the move all the time.

    And please, stop presenting Elon Musk's daydreams as facts. We know what his "3-6 months" looks like.

    Bob, мой украинский коллега,
    Check out Trigen by Toyota. No, it isn't the coal powered superchargers we are talking here :)
    ==============
    Toyota of North America announced at the Los Angeles Auto Show on November 30 that it is constructing the world’s first megawatt-scale carbonate fuel cell power generation plant with a hydrogen fueling station in Southern California.

    Called the 'Tri-Gen" facility, locally-sourced agricultural bio-waste will be used to generate water, electricity, and hydrogen. In a press release, Toyota says, Tri-Gen will generate approximately 2.35 megawatts of electricity and 1.2 tons of hydrogen per day — enough to power 2,350 homes and meet the daily driving needs of nearly 1,500 vehicles. When the Tri-Gen facility comes online in 2020, it will be the world's first megawatt-scale carbonate fuel cell power generation plant with a hydrogen fueling station to support its operations at the Port of Long Beach in Southern California.
    [​IMG]
    Hydrogen produced at the new facility will be used to fuel the Toyota Project Portal heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell Class 8 trucks at its Long Beach Port facility.
    Toyota

    Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/technology/toyota-tri-gen-facility-in-southern-calif-to-be-world-s-largest/article/508955#ixzz5HnU0NUog
     
    Last edited: Jun 7, 2018
  5. altfuelcarguy

    altfuelcarguy Member

    Ummm....I think Elon Musk is maybe a little bit biased, don't you think?

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  6. altfuelcarguy

    altfuelcarguy Member

    I really don't understand why fuel cells excite such hatred amongst battery folk. Ok, so you prefer batteries. Fine. Batteries and fuel cells both have their strengths and weaknesses. The important thing is that they are both viable, currently operational, paths to zero tailpipe emissions. Can't we ev proponents unite behind any technology that can propel a vehicle with zero tailpipe emissions? Wouldn't that further our cause better than quarreling over which is better? The goal is to end tailpipe emissions. Let's unite behind that goal.

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  8. altfuelcarguy

    altfuelcarguy Member

    I've driven battery cars since 2012, and still have a Chevy Spark EV. They're great. But fuel cells solve the range and recharging time problems, still with zero tailpipe emissions. Worth pursuing, you'd have to agree.

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  9. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    What fuel cell powered vehicle do you own or lease?

    What fuel cell powered vehicle do you own or lease?

    The "True Zero" located off of E Brokaw Road on the 76 Food Mart and gas station, 2101 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95131?
    https://www.google.com/maps/@37.3731619,-121.9185503,3a,15y,255.24h,87.66t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sFGMBLbNzelGs7jN56hd_qw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en

    So what is the cost of hydrogen at the "True Zero" unit?

    The 2020 operational, "Tri-Gen" demonstration plant is a far cry from a network of hydrogen fuel stations. It doesn't even come close to the ~10,000 Tesla SuperCharger network that is actually becoming worldwide.
    [​IMG]

    The current expansion plans:
    [​IMG]

    Then there is the Fountain Valley plant:
    https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/12/f34/fcto_fountain_valley_success_story.pdf

    The electricity they generate can easily power plug-in vehicles . . . even a SuperCharger (not that I can use one.)

    We may have to modify the cost of a hydrogen station: https://www.petrolplaza.com/news/7677

    $24m to build 12 stations.​

    Bob Wilson
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
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  10. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Sure, a H2 station could in theory fill about one car per 5 minutes -- or actually, real-world average time is reported at 6 minutes, or at least was a couple of years ago. But if it actually did fill one car every 5 minutes, then it would quite soon be out of fuel, as the average station can only generate enough H2 per day to fill 2-3 dozen cars. That's why FCEV drivers often find a station either closed, out of fuel, or restricting customers to only 1/2 a tank.

    Beyond that 2 or 3 dozen per day, a typical H2 fueling station has to depend on being refilled by a commercial H2 tanker truck, using non-renewable "frackogen", or H2 from reformed natural gas. We saw a first-hand report posted to the forum just a few days ago, remember? A report saying that a tanker was delivering H2 to a station on a daily basis. Now, if the station can generate enough renewable H2 on site to service all its customers, then why is it getting daily deliveries from a commercial vendor? Hmmmm?

    No, not amazing at all. Nobody has claimed the tanks and plumbing degrade instantly. It will take a few years, possibly several, before the tanks and plumbing have to be ripped out of the ground and replaced. But in the meantime, station maintenance remains quite expensive, as several H2 station owners in California have found to their sorrow. (You'd think they would have realize that before they opened the station, but sadly wishful thinking seems to be quite commonplace among those promoting the "hydrogen economy" boondoggle.)

    I realize you're not interested in actual facts, just FUD and "alternative facts", but you'd help yourself by learning more about the subject before posting. L2 chargers provide 220-240 volt A/C charging, and nobody "sits" at a L2 charger waiting for a charge. If they're spending time waiting, it's at a DCFC (DC Fast Charge) station.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
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  11. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    No, not at all. If FCEVs were practical, then Elon would have invested in a company building those, instead of joining Tesla Motors as head of investment, before he took over the company.

    It's a pretty obvious indicator, a "red flag", of just how biased the viewpoint of "fool cell fanboys" is, that they seem to think that nobody realized that FCEVs were utterly impractical until Elon Musk invented the term "fool cell" car. Reading some of the comments from fool cell fanboys, you'd think Elon invented the Laws of Physics and Thermodynamics!

    No, I assure you those fundamental principles of science were around long before Elon got his degree in physics. And the horrible inefficiency and utter impracticality of trying to use compressed hydrogen to power a car was well understood long before Tesla Motors started selling cars.

    Just look at the very first Reference cited at the end of post #2 in this thread. It's from the Phys.org cite, dated 2006 -- two years before Tesla started selling its first car, the Roadster.

     
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  13. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Because the claims from those promoting the "hydrogen economy" amount to a hoax. That's the reality. The motive behind promoting that hoax is to further the agenda of Big Oil, in diverting funding and attention away from the tech which really is going to replace gasmobiles -- and that's fully electric cars. The "hydrogen economy and building H2 fueling stations are only funded (and lobbied for) by Big Oil as a boondoggle, as a cynical propaganda ploy to slow the real EV revolution -- that is, the BEV revolution.

    I've read several reports from people who have bought a Mirai or other FCEV. Those people have not bought into the "hydrogen economy" hoax, and they're not practicing fool cell fanboy wishful thinking. Those people are directly involved in either developing or testing FCEVs, and see their participation as an altruistic contribution to science. Essentially, they see supporting the development and manufacture of FCEVs as a giant science experiment, an exploration of the possibilities of the tech, while not ignoring the fundamental reality that FCEVs can never possibly be practical cars.

    I admire such people for their altruism and their dedication to science. I do not, at all, admire those who promote the "hydrogen economy" or FCEVs as a cynical ploy to further the interest of Big Oil, to delay the real EV revolution (which doesn't involve FCEVS) or as a deliberate FUD ploy to attack Tesla Inc.

    Nor do I have any admiration for those diehard fool cell fanboys who are practicing wishful thinking, those who are science denying "useful idiots" parroting the propaganda and FUD put out by by those who do know it's a hoax.

    I realize that there are people who no amount of fact-based evidence or logical arguments will ever reach. I've wasted time on physics forums arguing with people who reject Einstein's Special and General theories of Relativity, claiming they haven't been proven or even claiming they've been disproven. Internet forums unfortunately seem to attract crackpots and cranks. I don't participate in physics forums any more for that reason.

    But I care too deeply about the EV revolution, about ending our dependence on fossil fuels, about ending or at least slowing the horrendous rate at which we are poisoning the Earth and its ecosystem, to give up arguing in favor of PEVs and against the "hydrogen economy" hoax. I understand something you apparently don't, altfuelcarguy: That plug-in EVs can substantially reduce the rate at which we're poisoning the Earth, the rate at which we are essentially "sh*tting in our own nest"... and that fool cell cars don't help much at all with that, because of the massively wasteful (and therefore massively polluting) well-to-wheel supply chain for H2 fuel.

    I don't think I can explain it more fully or more directly than that.

     
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  14. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    This is why I asked our local FCV advocates if they own or lease one. If they do, we can get into the practical problems. Just I've noticed the advocates often speak of FCV in the abstract. Spending actual money on something has a way of improving one's focus on the facts and data. For example, we own two, plug-in hybrids.

    Until May 2016, we owned a Gen-1 and Gen-3 Prius. I replaced our Gen-1 Prius with a used BMW i3-REx and it soon became the vehicle of choice because it cut our driving cost in half. When we had a motor mount bolt break that took out the BMW for two weeks, reverting to the Gen-3 Prius resulted in replacement with a Prius Prime. So I have real world experience with both plug-in hybrids including running benchmarks when there is a question. This is what I would like to explore here IF there are any FCV owners because I notice the 'cut-and-paste' advocacy omits what should be open such as the retail hydrogen cost.

    Earlier I posted a URL of a street view of a 76 station with a hydrogen fueling station. Google view tells me gas sold for $3.37 a gallon but the estimated ~$16 per kg is not visible from the street. Heck, they even sell propane and it looks like the price is posted.

    Bob Wilson
     
  15. altfuelcarguy

    altfuelcarguy Member

    I lease a Clarity Fuel Cell. What EV do you own or lease?

    Sent from my SM-N910V using Inside EVs mobile app
     
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  16. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    Thanks!
    We own these free and clear:
    • 2014 BMW i3-REx with +31,000 miles - it had 6,000 miles when I bought it, 25,000 miles are mine since May 2016.
      • 29 kWh / 100 mi
        • 72 mi EV
        • $0.10 / kWh
      • 2.6 gal / 100 mi (premium or plus)
        • 78 mi gas range
        • $2.75-$3.00 / gal
      • 700 mi longest vacation trip
    • 2017 Prius Prime with ~11,000 miles - bought new in December 2016.
      • 25 kWh / 100 mi
        • 25 mi EV
        • $0.10 / kWh
      • 1.9 gal / 100 mi regular
        • 615 mi gas range
        • $2.50 / gal
      • 1,200 mi delivery trip home
    Bob Wilson
     
  17. altfuelcarguy

    altfuelcarguy Member

    Hi bWilson. Ok, now were talking! In 2010 we leased a 2010 Prius. Bought it at the end of the lease, still have it. 96,000 miles, 50 mpg. My daughter is going to drive it from California to college in New York in a couple of months. Great car.

    In 2012 we leased a 2012 Nissan LEAF. Liked it so much we leased 2013 LEAF 6 months later. Loved the cars but dismayed by the battery degradation over 3 years. Range was down to 45 miles, about a 50% loss. Returned those at lease end.

    Replaced the LEAFs in 2015 and 2016 with two Chevy Spark EVs. Nearing lease end now with no noticeable loss of battery capacity thanks to the thermal management built into those cars. Still can go 80 miles on a charge. Fun little cars, very well built.

    After attending ride and drive events from Toyota and Honda I decided to try a FCEV. Fueling stations close to home. Leased the Honda July 2017. Been all over the state in it, 12,000 miles so far. Enjoy the car immensely. Financially, it's an amazing deal.

    When the Spark leases end, with the Prius gone, I'm thinking we'll get a Volt. That would be my wife's car. She rarely drives more than 50 miles a day so I think we'd use very little gasoline. But nice to have the backup generator when needed.

    I see you have an iRex. Should I consider that as an alternative to Volt? As you can probably see, cost is a criterion for me. Our Chevy dealer is great and we've been impressed with the quality of the Chevy Sparks.

    I don't have the stats down like you, but I can tell you that all our BEVs have done at least 4 miles per kwh, and the Sparks are closer to 5. Our EV electricity rate is 10 ¢ so charging is very cheap.

    The Clarity gets about 72 miles per kg of H2. The pump price of H2 is $16.54/kg. I wouldn't have the car if I had to pay that (who would?) but the fuel is included with the lease and obviously is subsidized to make it possible for the fueling stations to operate during this low volume developmental period.

    I'm completely committed to zero emissions transportation. I support any and all efforts to get there. There's tremendous governmental and industry support for developing zero emissions transportation and I'm proud to be able to help out by being an early adopter.



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  18. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    We all grew up with all gas stations prominently advertising the price of gasoline on signs easily seen from the street. It never occurred to me to ask myself just why gasoline prices are advertised so prominently, when very few other products are, and pretty much no other product has all stores which sell it advertise the price so prominently.

    It wasn't until a few years ago that I read an article which talked about the subject, and forced me to ask "why?" on a subject which I took for granted. The article argued, persuasively, that it's because selling gasoline is so very competitive. That's also why most gas stations are now co-located with a convenience store, because the convenience store actually makes a respectable percentage of profit, and selling gas doesn't because retail pricing is too competitive.

    Well, H2 filling stations don't need to advertise prices because they're not competing on price. The stations are so rare that anyone who actually needs one is much more likely to be grateful to find one that's actually open and actually selling a full tank of H2, rather than restricting customers to half a tank. He's not going to drive around looking for a better price, as people often do if they see a price at a gas station they think is too high.

    And of course, Mirai customers aren't paying anyway, as Toyota has guaranteed three years of free fuel. Toyota had to do that, because otherwise, who the heck in the U.S. would buy (or even lease) a car that requires a fuel that retails for between $14-16 per kg, and a FCEV needs about half as much kg of H2 as a gasmobile needs gallons of gas? If gasoline cost $7-8 per gallon in the U.S. (as it does, more or less, in Europe), then things would be quite different and the EV revolution would already have progressed much further than it has.

     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
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  19. altfuelcarguy

    altfuelcarguy Member

    You may not be old enough to remember, but I am, that the prominent posting of gasoline prices began in the early '70s in the wake of the first oil crisis. Gasoline had gotten shockingly expensive (like, nearly a dollar a gallon), and customers became interested in finding the lowest price. (It used to be so cheap that you really didn't care; in 1971 I was driving a big Ford that got about 10 mpg, but at 25 cents a gallon I could drive 200 miles for $5.00). Anyway, legislation was passed mandating the posting of prices. Soon there developed price wars, and customers would line up to save a few pennies per gallon. That's the truth!

    I agree, gasoline is way too cheap here. Unfortunately, our legislators are more concerned about getting re-elected than doing the right thing, so they won't raise the gas tax. Most of the cost of gas in Europe is taxes.
     
  20. Pushmi-Pullyu

    Pushmi-Pullyu Well-Known Member

    Actually, sad to say, you've jumbled history there pretty thoroughly. My memory is very far from reliable, but checking on the history of gas prices in the U.S., apparently my memory of the timeline for this is reasonably correct.

    My memory for most things fades within a few years, but I have a distinct memory of gasoline "price wars"; a visual memory of a couple of guys standing beside a gas station price sign, with giant "3" and "3" numerals sitting on the ground, because they were just waiting for the gas station down the street to change its price to 33¢ and they were gonna change theirs to match. That was likely not long after my family moved to the Kansas City metro area in 1969; I see the national average price for gas was 35¢ that year.

    The shockingly high price of $1.00 for gas didn't happen (at least not as a national average) until some years later; not until 1979-1980, according to the site I linked to, well after gas "price wars" became commonplace. According to that timeline, the OPEC oil crisis of 1973 pushed prices up from 39¢ to 59¢. Shocking at the time, but nothing like the inflation which was caused by three wars in the Mideast starting in 1978, 1979, and 1980.

    I started driving on my grandpa's farm at age 14, in 1969. Started on an old postwar Ford pickup with a sloppy shift lever and worn clutch. That was a great learner's vehicle, because once I could drive that, I could drive practically anything. But I wasn't buying my own gas then, and pretty much didn't have to until I got my own car in 1976. So the price of gas would have been almost purely academic to me until that time.

    * * * * *

    Memories like the corners of my mind
    Memories
    Misty watercolor memories
    Of the way we were
    Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind
    Smiles we gave to one another
    For the way we were
    Oh can it be that it was all so simple then
    Or has time rewritten every line
    And if we had the chance to do it all again
    Tell me
    Would we?
    Could we?


    -- "The Way We Were", Gladys Knight
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
  21. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    I got my driver's license in 1966 in Oklahoma City and have distinct memories of seeing $0.28-$0.31 in those days. Occasionally there would be a 'gas war' and I once bought gas at $0.19 for a Model A Ford that got ~15 MPG.

    Bob Wilson
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
  22. altfuelcarguy

    altfuelcarguy Member

    The legal requirement for posting gas prices in California is contained in California Business & Professions Code section 13531.

    I guess we're all pretty darn old. I remember when they opened I-5 up the California Central Valley, around 1971. There was only one place to get gas, Kettleman City, and my 1962 Ford Thunderbird with a 390 V-8 could only go about 200 miles on its 20 gallon tank. So in order to drive from Los Angeles to the San Francisco Bay Area via I-5 you had to phone ahead to Kettleman City before committing to I-5 to make sure they were open and had gas. Otherwise you stayed on US 99, which had lots of gas stations.
     
  23. TeslaInvestors

    TeslaInvestors Active Member

    I drive a Clarity FCEV since April 15th. Here is the thread I created on that, as FCEV representation was not there before (or I missed).
    https://insideevsforum.com/community/index.php?threads/clarity-fuel-cell.1156/
    I was driving a Spark EV for few years, and still having it for local errands.
    Also have a gas SUV that I used for long trips earlier before I leased the Clarity FCEV.

    See Nikola Motors's plans to create a nationwide network. If it comes to fruition, then it will easily beat any fast charging network.
    https://www.successfuldealer.com/nikola-motor-company-chooses-nationwide-hydrogen-supplier/
    But I rarely venture outside California. Although I think connecting upto Las Vegas and Grand Canyon could be useful for many LA residents.
     
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
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