$2/kg hydrogen coming soon.

  • Thread starter Thread starter JyChevyVolt
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies Replies 56
  • Views Views 20K
Yep lets destroy the planet so we can inefficiently make and use Hydrogen and keep the oil company model. Only an idiot would buy the Hydrogen crap.

Smart money (Japanese) is on solid state batteries that offer both quick charging and longer range.
This will even benefit our our smart phones. Better more efficient technology = yes. Hydrogen = No.
 
TeslaInvestors said:
How is it 2 to 3 times the price of electricity? Check the fast charging rates on evgo or plugshare. $0.59 a KWh plus $2.59 service fee, and the long charge time.
Click to expand...

Why would you be talking about the price for on-the-go charging of PEVs as if that's the normal price? 90-95% of PEV charging is done at home or at work, where normal residential rates apply, or even lower rates for those getting a lower night-time rate.
 
Feed The Trees said:
Not even remotely. They have a method that works, if it's economical is the markets choice.
Click to expand...

Maybe we're just arguing over terms? Whether it's economical is determined by the EROI, which of course favors just about any alternative to H2, even fully synthetic gasoline. The most expensive choice for something in everyday use never wins out in the market.

It shouldn't be hard to grasp that making H2 into a practical everyday fuel is literally impossible, either from the standpoint of basic science or basic economics. This ain't rocket science.

Feed The Trees said:
You seem very passionate about this but sorry, I don't buy that your theory extends to this.
Click to expand...

It's not a "theory". It's a fact which has already been demonstrated by the failure of those promoting the "hydrogen economy" hoax to build out more than a small fraction of the public H2 fueling stations they promised, both in California and in Europe; and by sales of "fool cell" cars being even lower than expected despite very low expectations.

Just look at the title of this thread: "$2/kg coming soon". That's the sort of nonsense which those promoting the "hydrogen economy" have to resort to these days, to artificially prop up hopes that "fool cell" cars might become a practical alternative.
 
Last edited:
The hydrogen that comes out doesnt need to be used by consumer cars, it can stay in say city bus fleets and such where fueling stations are centralized. It's honestly not a bad thing unless you're trying to make it a bad thing.
 
Feed The Trees said:
The hydrogen that comes out doesnt need to be used by consumer cars, it can stay in say city bus fleets and such where fueling stations are centralized. It's honestly not a bad thing unless you're trying to make it a bad thing.
Click to expand...

The market has already chosen gasoline and diesel as the preferred fuels. They are also the practical fuels with the best EROI. Claiming the market is going to "choose" a fuel that has a very high EROI rather than the lowest possible EROI, among practical choices, is like claiming that water might start flowing uphill.

It's instructive to look at the limited situations where there has been widespread use of some fuel other than gasoline or diesel for transportation, in the time after the ICE won out over the steam engine. We can point to, for example, Germany near the end of WW II, when petroleum supplies were running very short, and they started producing synthetic fuel on a large-scale basis. But of course that wasn't because the "market" chose synthetic fuel; that was because they were forced away from petroleum by necessity. Similarly, in Brazil, cars run on ethanol rather than gasoline. According to Wikipedia: "some authors consider that the successful Brazilian ethanol model is sustainable only in Brazil due to its advanced agri-industrial technology and its enormous amount of arable land available..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

A fuel with a very high EROI and pernicious characteristics making it hard to handle, like highly compressed hydrogen, isn't going to be any more attractive or affordable to fleet operators than to gas station owners.

Hydrogen never will have a low EROI, nor will it ever be easy to handle like gasoline and diesel. It's physically impossible. Claiming otherwise is denying the reality of science; it's in the same category as claiming global warming and evolution are fake.
 
Pushmi-Pullyu said:
The market has already chosen gasoline and diesel as the preferred fuels.
Click to expand...

By and large so have consumers, hasnt stopped BEV from gaining ground.

I'm of the opinion that nothing is really ever fully settled, only temporary states that people view as inherently static, but which in actuality really aren't. The more you accept that even "fixed" or "resolved" issues are never really so the more you are change as possible.
 
TeslaInvestors said:
How is it 2 to 3 times the price of electricity? Check the fast charging rates on evgo or plugshare. $0.59 a KWh plus $2.59 service fee, and the long charge time. Don't be fooled by Tesla's subsidized rates. Elon Musk is a big proponent of EV transportation, isn't he? If that's what is a sustainable price, let's see Tesla open up their charging network to all EV drivers. They won't, simply because they are highly subsiding it to promote sales of their own cars. We aren't even talking about electricity from renewable mix, just simple fossil fuel based electricity.

Just placed my order of the Clarity fuel cell. Now I have to wait 10 months to get one. Honda Clarity - the longest range electric car on the planet, with "premium" ALCANTARA in the interiors.
Click to expand...

I trust you are going to lease your car. IIRC your Clarity comes with several years of free fuel, this so you won't think about the high price on H2, but when you go to sell the used car, the next buyer will think twice about purchasing the most expensive fuel on the market for the car. Let the lease people worry about that. If I am wrong about the price of H2, it will only be because of high subsidies paid for by the taxpayer.
 
Roy_H said:
I trust you are going to lease your car. IIRC your Clarity comes with several years of free fuel, this so you won't think about the high price on H2, but when you go to sell the used car, the next buyer will think twice about purchasing the most expensive fuel on the market for the car. Let the lease people worry about that. If I am wrong about the price of H2, it will only be because of high subsidies paid for by the taxpayer.
Click to expand...

Leases don't usually end in selling it unless you think of Toyota as the buyer, but that's already factored in on their end. These cars are more often than not viewed as rolling beta stock that they're not too concerned about making money on.

Also, nobody who is pro EV gets to play the tax payer subsidy card when each EV maker gets $1B.
 
I do believe that PushPull's figures are more or less correct but I think there is a fundamental mistake in his economic calculations .. he is using average cost of gas compared to average cost of hydrogen. The gas or electricity from the power grid is there and you buy it as and when you use it. Fine to compare that with buying cylinders of hydrogen but not to hydrogen produced at home with renewable energy. Once you buy the solar panels or wind turbine or whatever renewable energy source you may wish to invest in - the marginal cost of any energy you produce in excess of your needs when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing is close to zero and that is before taking into account the uncharged cost of any damage you might be doing to the environment. In fact some renewable energy producers may actually pay you to take their excess energy from them on sunny or windy days. If it costs me nothing I am not too interested as to whether I effectively use 25% of it rather than 70% of it. The Germans are using the heat generated by the fuel cells to heat water and to heat homes so are losing less than 50%. Of course I would rather have a more 'efficient' way of using the hydrogen and thank him for his advice...
 
Claud S Cecil Gurney said:
I do believe that PushPull's figures are more or less correct but I think there is a fundamental mistake in his economic calculations .. he is using average cost of gas compared to average cost of hydrogen. . . .
The Germans are using the heat generated by the fuel cells to heat water and to heat homes so are losing less than 50%. Of course I would rather have a more 'efficient' way of using the hydrogen and thank him for his advice...
Click to expand...
First, I have no problem with using natural gas to make hydrogen:
  1. It must be refined to remove the fuel cell toxins and thus is not free of this expensive.
  2. The retail price of hydrogen, $16/kg, has no relationship to the whole sale price of natural gas.
As for using electricity to make hydrogen versus charging EVs, there is is 3-to-1 ratio of cost per mile.

But please, do not let my understanding of physics, chemistry, and economics affect other's opinions of what they should do.

Bob Wilson
 
I agree with all that .. but I am not comparing using hydrogen versus charging EVs. .. nor am I talking about buying hydrogen. nor am I talking about making hydrogen from natural gas.. If I were I would, naturally, agree with your figures.

I am talking simply about making an investment in, say, 100 solar panels at around a cost of $100 each - say $10,000 and each panel produces around 550 Kwh per year giving a total output of 55,000 Kwh per annum. The average Kwh consumption pcm is around Kwh 11,000 pa in the USA varying, of course, a lot between states. So, for an investment of $10,000 I have enough electricity to run 5 'average' houses in the US. Of course $100 is the price ex-factory in China with no shipping and installation. If I 'waste' 1/2 of the energy on a fuel cell (and,one can find ways to recycle/reuse heat?) and I 'waste' 3/4 of the energy on putting it into my car .. it does not really matter? If I use the electricity directly whenever possible to avoid converting it to hydrogen and if I have batteries to store the excess energy to use in the nighttime .. and if I insulate my house and close the windows and switch everything off when I am not there and if and if .. maybe just a good remote monitoring and control system .. then hey ho .. I am moving towards making economic sense? And if I am also keen on monitoring my carbon footprint, and I don't like the smell or noise of diesel or gas generators and if I am off-grid and if I happen to believe in global warming and if I believe that the price of these things will continue to fall and the technology will continue to improve over time .. then I could be on to a winner?

Claud
 
Of course, to revert to my original point, once one has spent the $10,000 on the solar panels or a wind generator or whatever; then the cost of the energy produced when one does not have any use for it is close to zero ?? so whether or not one uses it 'efficiently' becomes irrelevant to the calculations?? The alternative is to throw it away ?
 
I am strongly anti-FCV, but I have to admit that this is the best news I have read about low cost production of H2 because it does not emit CO2 as a by-product. Says this will bring it competitive with gas and diesel, still 2 to 3 times cost of electricity. My main beef remains, that is the taxpayer footing the bill for H2 infrastructure. If it was paid for by the oil companies (no more subsidy than for BEVs) I would applaud this news.
 
Claud S Cecil Gurney said:
I do believe that PushPull's figures are more or less correct but I think there is a fundamental mistake in his economic calculations .. he is using average cost of gas compared to average cost of hydrogen. The gas or electricity from the power grid is there and you buy it as and when you use it. Fine to compare that with buying cylinders of hydrogen but not to hydrogen produced at home with renewable energy.
Click to expand...

H2 produced at home, in a small scale generation/ pressurization/ storage unit, is even less efficient and less affordable than doing it on a large scale. Like all too many advocates for the "hydrogen economy", you are concentrating only on the cost for generating H2, and ignoring the much higher cumulative costs which come further along in the supply chain. You're also ignoring the cost (and needed space) for the additional solar panels, inverters, etc. which would be necessary to power the H2 generation and compression equipment, if done at home. Solar energy is free... but buying, installing, and maintaining a solar power installation is not.

Simple Fuel has an all-in-one H2 generating/ pressurization/ storage unit which has a footprint about the size of a subcompact car, which could in theory be used to fuel your FCEV at home... assuming you're willing to convert your two-car garage into a one-car garage, or that you build an addition to the garage to store that unit. The cost? You can get one for as little as $250,000. Cheap at the cost, right? ;) Of course, do-it-yourselfers might want to look into the cost of making the system themselves. Here's a hint: High pressure pumps are not cheap, and they're not going to be.

There is no clever way around the Laws of Thermodynamics. If there was, then we'd all be using perpetual motion to power our cars, and there would be no need for anything as complicated, impractical, or expensive as using compressed hydrogen to power FCEVs.
​
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top