Why Do Fuel-Cell Vehicles Make Electric-Car Advocates So Crazy?

The Biogas Rush | Alternative Energy Stocks

(of course where there's methane there's H2)

 

Tesla Model X starts at $120,000! I thought this was going to be a cheaper version of the Type S??

 

Wha? Where are you seeing $120k? Maybe if you get it decked out. Price starts at $70k. Also, it's an SUV/CUV type vehicle, not a more affordable S-type vehicle anyway. That's coming in 2017 in the form of the Model 3 (though they promise it to look sufficiently different than the S).

 

How would it be cheaper? Gull wing door SUV version will be more, $5000 more. That means it starts at $76,200 after destination before tax credits for a nicely equipped rwd 70 kwh unit. Details here
This Week In Tesla News: Model X In Focus
For $142K befoer tax credits you can get the ludicrous signature that has 90kwh pack and upgraded electronics to get you to 60 in 3.2 seconds and all the bells and whistles. Well it doesn't have the massaging back seats of the lexus LS, but if you are paying an extra $68K over base to accerate that fast, odds are you want to be the driver not the chaufer driven passenger.

The model III is planned for 2017 to be about half the price of the S, $35,000 before tax credits. My guess is for the affordable models it will take until 2018, and the price will be slightly higher, but still well bellow the price of any fuel cell vehicle. This will be a midsize sport sedan, probably slightly smaller than the mirai on the outside, but more roomy on the inside with a front and rear trunk able to hold more than a camry, but less than a prius in cargo.

 

Assumption was, "the best way to make hydrogen is electrolysis". Nope, the best way is photocatalyst.

Panasonic moves closer to home energy self-sufficiency with fuel cells | PriusChat

Later, he also said majority of hydrogen is produced from fossil fuel. He failed to mentioned that is also true for electricity!

Cherry picked arguments at best.

 

Is there any photocatalyst hydrogen production systems in commercial use?

 

The best photocatalyst start-up was purchased by lockheed martin recently. Their cost about $7/kg of hydrogen was simply too expensive for the business plan This is much more expensive than SMR or wind electrolysis electricity but cheaper than solar PV electrolysis. As such LM may have some military applications in remote areas, but it is too expensive to put in cars unless they subsidize it much more than other renewable hydrogen. A crazy proposition.

The Panasonic press release linked talks about commercialization in about 5 years, in time for the tokyo olympics. It is doubtful that this technology is cost effective to fill cars either, but who knows. Perhaps in 5 years we will find out. I expect PV solar to electrolysis ++ batteries to be cheaper then as well, and wind to batteries to be much cheaper. Still METI and DOE fund research. Someone may have a breakthrough.

Until then Distributed SMR is much cheaper than any renewable hydrogen for fcv, 10,000 psi refueling. The second best is off peak on-shore wind electrolysis. I'm not sure why anyone would think photocatlyst would be the best, when no one can get it to work better than wind electrolysis. Utilization of wind typically is 35%, Solar around 20%, people like to ignore utilization and pretend peak conversion happens all the time.

 

You could say the same about PV panels not long ago.

Storage angle also has value in it. Not just production.

 

But you really can't criticize a short you tube video for not mentioning photolyzing methods when no hydrogen refueling center of plant uses it. Off peak renewable electric used for electrolysis is probably the best way of making renewable hydrogen at this time.

That may change in the future, and other methods may become commercially feasible, but that may also happen to onboard hydrogen reformers, renewable liquid fuels for ICEs and fuel cells, traction batteries, etc.

That's why some are against this pre-commercial test of FCEVs in California. The supporters use potential advances as reasons for pushing the cars now. These advances may happen, or they may not.

There is work going on with renewable gasoline. It may come to market for a price equal to the petroleum based stuff. It may not, but because it may, let's just stick with the ICE and forget FCEVs and plug ins. It sounds silly, but it is the same argument used by trotting out maybe advances for fuel cells as reason to push them now.

 

And that's just another projection about hydrogen viability. How many of those have we seen over the years?

 

I'm not sure what you think is crazy, topic of this thread. You are claiming that this technology breakthrough (inexpensive catalytic or enzymatic cracking of water using solar energy to drive the reaction) will be established technology in only 10 years. OK 10 years is from most of the historic claims, Panasonic demo commercialization by the Olympics in japan (summer 2020). And you are mad that someone making a video about the claims is wrong because they don't believe that this tech is immanent.

Its like saying in the schrodenger's cat mental experiment, you should go out and buy kitty liter, and cat food just in case the cat is alive. Anyone that doesn't is a crazy cat hater. Yes there may be technical breakthroughs, and we can handle those if they happen, but there is a good probability that A) they don't happen, or B) even if they happen they are not good enough to overthrow existing technology. Wasn't the phil home filling cng kit supposed to make cng cars popular? Now honda has killed their cng civic. Here is a blast from the past talking about techonologies prices, and we have made little progress other than natural gas based SMR is now cheaper than 2006 (costs don't include cost of stations or compression just making the hydrogen). Nuclear, the number one cheap way is just not going to happen in the US, neither is coal, but both might happen in japan where natural gas costs more.
Truth About Hydrogen Power - Hydrogen Energy and Fuel

NREL says with current technology if we roll it out to 15% of cars distributed SMR hydrogen could be sold without subsidies for $5/kg and central off peak wind for $8.50. That's after there are a lot of cars. This photocatalyst stuff would be much more expensive than wind electrolysis to roll out, but hey japan may want to spend more.

Which leads to the common answer, electrolysis is today's best (meaning easiest to roll out, least expensive) method to produce hydrogen fuelling renewably nationwide, but if infrastructure were actually to be built in a commercial (ten thousand stations) way accross the US the vast majority would be fossil fuel based unless the goverment provides very high renewable subsidies, or there are breakthroughs. Der Spiegel thought around 2060 (50 years from the article) off peak wind and electrolysis would start being cheap enough. It is not going to be 2020, it will take longer than that if it happens at all.

 

This goes along with the car.

Hydrogen House Project - Hydrogen House Project: Home

 

lol

If I get the math right 1kw of wind is about 1.5 kw of solar (utilization rates) so 3.5 kw of solar + 1 7kwh power wall should cost about 3.5 x $5000 +$3000 = $20,500 please correct if wrong. That oould go straight into a plug-in car. The jooule station needs a n additional 10,000 psi compressor to fuel a fuel cell vehicle. Economics make this hydrogen house thing look impacticle. Still add more pannels say 10kw and maybe yuo want that battey plus some electrolysis.

 

"The Joule Box is now available for sale and features tracking solar panels with GPS technology and battery back-up power storage."
What is the battery back up for if I got hydrogen generation and a fuel cell? Does the base model not include the fuel cell?

 

You need to register to order, to see what's ncluded. I didn't feel like it, but if you do here is the link
Joule Box Hybrid Generator, the most efficient, off-grid power source!

 

There are way over a hundred do It yourself hydrogen & fuel cell videos on YouTube. Watch any half dozen of them, and you will definitely have an opinion one way or the other.

.

 

Where from, and how much, 'back up hydrogen' do they expect to need?
I thought batteries were no good. Why are they in the chart?

Fuel cell forklifts do make sense for large scale and constant operations. The tanker truck/mobile refueling station probably makes sense in terms of a study; trade efficiency for costs.

 

Silly Prius, you don't need any charging station, you have thousands of fueling stations, and so will your big brother Mirai one day in the near future!