The wasserstoff revolution

"The further development of the infrastructure in Germany has now taken shape with the establishment of H2MOBILITY, although the idea of the company in fact goes back to September 2009 and the project “GermanHy”. A study that took into account factors like resource availability, energy efficiency, costs, CO2 reduction potential and import dependence, looked at the prospects of providing hydrogen as a fuel by 2050, and a hydrogen roadmap was produced.

The study provided evidence that the alternative fuel has a vast potential. Hydrogen could cover up to 40% of the demand for energy in Germany’s transport sector by 2050."

OMG they are still quoting this old study and following through on the plan? I read that obsolete plan full of fallacies and predictions that by 2020 BEVs would only be able to serve inner city short distance commutes because they would never have a range greater than 150km, a top speed of 110km/hr and EVcharging stations would cost more for BEVs than for FCVs! This is their justification for installing the H2 highway of the future.

Tesla is installing charge stations by the thousands at no charge to the taxpayer, but the taxpayer is footing the bill of about $1M per H2 pump! The whole report is based on the fallacy that BEVs could never be capable of charging in less than many hours and be totally impractical for long distance driving. Thus leaving FCVs as the only non-polluting option.

 

Martin, you must have missed this one: https://electrek.co/2018/03/05/electric-car-charging-stations-converting-distribution-boxes/

That's 12,000 new charge points in Germany, going in well before this H2 network. Sure it'll be interesting, but plugins have already replaced millions more ICE vehicles than FCEV at this point in time, and that gap is going to widen by millions more over the next 5 years. At which point batteries will be much cheaper, and charge points ubiquitous, and many urban dwellers without charging access will be using autonomous ride sharing anyway. I don't see how H2 vehicles will ever catch up.

 

The hydrogen stations need to be banned. It would mean continuing to use the state dole to finance Petrol's welfare. Petrol would collapse tomorrow if its subsidies were removed. That needs to happen yesterday as its gluttons were paid off long ago by the rest of us. Enough of these parasites. Puthat money in Green energy!

 

If there is charging everywhere then it won't matter that the car is parked longer than charging takes. The point is low power charge points are very cheap, and even lamp post wiring, originally designed for sodium lights now have excess capacity because of change to LED lights.

You keep harping about how H2 pumps can fill so many cars quickly, but you never consider the cost. BEVs and convenient charging everywhere is much cheaper. H2 will always cost at least twice electricity because whatever non-polluting H2 production you can think of can produce electricity as well and usually electricity is produced first and then electricity is use to separate hydrogen from water and electricity is used to compress it etc.

I suppose there are a lot of wealthy people who don't give a damn about price and somehow will think that driving to a hydrogen filling station is more convenient than charging at home, but they will be very much in the minority. Everybody on a budget will choose BEVs and most wealthy will too. The wealthy will have garages, the poor who park on streets will still buy BEVs over FCVs because the fuel is cheaper.

My beef is that the taxpayer is being forced to pay for the hydrogen distribution infrastructure for the sole benefit of the oil companies who will sell the H2 and the small portion of wealthy people who will buy FCVs. If the oil companies would foot the bill, I would have no issue with it.

Several people have pointed out to me the Mirai $369/mth lease including $15k H2 fuel as being such a bargain. It sure is! Typical lease on a $57k car is about $600/mth and no free fuel. Is that fabulous deal somehow magically produced just because it is an FCV? It only exists because it is so heavily subsidized, and yet FCV proponents point to that as "proof" that FCVs are cheaper than BEVs.

/rant

 

Martin has a good point on count of stations. The important part isn't raw count of locations, the important part is throughput capacity of cars served.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

Sorry to see Germany throwing money down the same rathole as California.

Promising 400 H2 filling stations within 5 years? It's the same ol' "hydrogen economy" hoax. Looks like whoever is promoting this copied it from how the California Fuel Cell Partnership has been promoting the hoax.

Here's a reality check:

"How to Promote the Hydrogen Economy Hoax"
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No, Martin does not have a good point. Not a single one of his claims or arguments regarding fool cell cars, electric vehicles, or the "hydrogen economy" hoax, passes a reality check. At best, he's good at sophistry -- at making arguments which appear to be valid but are subtly fallacious. I don't know what Martin's motive is for his campaign of posting EV bashing FUD while promoting the "hydrogen economy" hoax, but one thing is certain: It's not one he's willing to admit to.

Regarding throughput of cars served, here's a reality check regarding cost: Hydrogen fueling stations cost ~$1 million per dozen fool cell cars served per day. Typically, in California, the cost is either $2 million for a station with a capacity of 2 dozen cars or $3 million for a capacity of 3 dozen cars. If we assume every car gets filled once a week, that comes to a cost of ~$11,900 per car just to build the infrastructure to fuel the cars. That's on top of the significantly higher cost for the fuel itself, plus the higher cost of maintaining those expensive stations.

Compare to the cost of installing a L2 EV charger in every parking spot where cars are parked overnight or long-term. With mass installation, the cost would easily be less than $500 per car.

Martin keeps insisting that it's so difficult to install EV chargers at curbside, in areas where people park on the street, that this will never become commonplace. If you look at Martin's arguments on their logical and factual merits, you'll quickly see that every single one of them fails, and fails badly!

As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words:



As the EV revolution progresses, this is a sight which will become more and more commonplace everywhere cars are parked.
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Public outdoor low level charging locations will be mostly inductive. This both for convenience and vandal-proof. Billing and control will be wireless. Yes these stations will be more expensive, but when done in large numbers the cost/station will be low. All EVs will have inductive charging at least as an option.

 

I also think the industry will move toward wireless charging being the standard for L1 or L2 charging. But it's going to take awhile to get there. Currently*, Tesla has a firm no-wireless-charging policy.

As you say, burying the charger under the pavement will make it more convenient and mostly eliminate the danger of being a target for copper thieves.

*Pun intended.
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You're getting ranty and name calling again.

And as seems to be tradition, you totally change the point of my statement and then refute it. Seems you can't help yourself. Here, in this case, I wasn't commenting on anything to do with hydrogen itself, merely location throughput, but you take a post, ignore the context, and go all Pu-Pu about something different.

You wouldn't happen to be Dutch would you, because you sure do love some red herring.

 

Well, Martin, I give you a point. Best argument yet. Around here all roads are asphalt, not concrete and no rebar, quite easy to dig up as I see all the time for road maintenance, replacing in road stop light sensors etc. But I agree even $1500 is a low price for mass installed inductive chargers. You have now set a new target, how to get this down to $500.

 

Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Seems odd for someone calling himself "Feed The Trees" to take the side of an EV basher and a shill for Big Oil's "hydrogen economy" hoax, though.

I thought your point was about throughput of H2 fueling stations vs. EV charging. If that wasn't your point, then please restate it more clearly.

But yes, I certainly did refute it. It's simply not true that it's easier to increase throughput for H2 charging stations. That is factually incorrect, both on the basis of science and economics. This simply isn't in dispute, it's established fact.

Arguing with Martin is like arguing with a climate change denier, or even a flat-earther. It's difficult for me to understand why you would take his side, if your agenda is really pro-environmental as your screen name indicates.

Seems you want to make this an argument about personalities, rather than facts or logic. Also seems like you're picking a side sharply contrary to what your screen name indicates.
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ROTFL!!

We should award you the Golden Scoop Shovel award for all the bull pucky you're shoveling out.

As I have pointed out, a single $3 million H2 fueling station in California will service an estimated (36 x 7 =) 252 fool cell cars. Of course, that's optimal; the actual number served will be less. Your assertion here that a single $3 million H2 fuel station would serve 4000 (!!) fool cell cars, just demonstrates how far away from the truth you have to go to have even a false argument. You've lied by more than an order of magnitude!

I dunno about anybody else, but when a person on one side of an argument consistently lies, and the person on the other side sticks to facts and truth, then the person who's not lying wins... every time.

You mean, the very high efficiency of that as compared to the overall 20-25% energy efficiency of using hydrogen as a fuel for passenger cars.

It's really amazing that you keep bringing up energy efficiency, as that's a loser for your argument every time!

There's this stuff called "asphalt" that they use to pave roads. Doesn't need any rebar. They even use it to patch concrete roads, so wireless charger installers could easily cut a hole in a concrete street, install the charger, and patch it with asphalt.

I guess you never heard of "asphalt", either.
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You can get a wireless charger now, for about $1500 retail (see link below). That doesn't include installation cost, but Google only charged us $300 for installation including laying a fiber optic cable, which involved digging a trench through the yard. So with mass production, wholesale cost, and installation by either a city's utilities (which already deal with digging up streets and patching them) or by a specialty company, it seems pretty easy to show that the average installed cost could be brought down significantly below $1500 per charger.

My earlier estimate of $500 was for installation of curbside EV "hitching posts". That figure might be lowball for wireless chargers buried in the street. But since we're talking about installing something like 100 million chargers to cover every public parking space, then that $500 might actually wind up being an over-estimate for an average price, by the time most of the installations have been completed.

And most importantly, let's not let the EV hater control the debate here. The need for ~100 million wireless EV chargers in public streets is not an expense that must be paid for by taxypayers. It's a new business opportunity in a growth industry! I can easily see the day when an EV owner would pay for wireless charging in the same way we now pay for cell phone service.

From InsideEVs news, July 2015: "Plugless For LEAF Is Now $1540 With Free Shipping Including Canada, Price For Volt Is $1,260"
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