Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are Becoming Too Big to Ignore

Yet the same apples to BEVs and charging infrastructure, only the upside is an order of magnitude better.

 

Jesus, the delusion continues...

 

Oh, that's par for the course with the H2 dreamers. Multiply that trouble you articulate by honestly contemplating the buildout of a hydrogen infrastructure that doesn't exist.

 

Ok then lets rewrite the top statement to make sense.
Short run BEVs (2016 leaf 30kwh or lower range) are most affordable for those that can charge at home, and easiest to use for renewables (low greenhouse gas).

If fcv reach high volume cost reduction, and there is a nationwide fueling network of hydrogen stations, with an affordable price, then fcv will be the next lowest cost for those that occastionally or often make long trips. The size of the tanks make these not as desirable in compact and smaller cars.

For today 200+ mile bevs and phevs are better than fcv or short run bevs for long trips. Owners of those vehicles will want to borrow/rent/steal a different vehicle or fly. Long run bevs are not as convenient as phevs because of lack of infrastructure. Both should cost more than fcv if fcv achieve their cost reduction. These may be favored over fcv if there fuel -electricity and gasoline - remains much less expensive than 10,000 psi hydrogen.

Note, even in toyota's slides, they maintained they would sell more phevs than fcv + bevs though 2050. 35 years is not enough time for the US to build hydrogen as convenient as gasoline ;-) They may be able to do it in Japan which is much smaller, with denser fueling needs.

 

You just don't seem to get it.
I don't care what the speed of charging is, and neither does anyone else.
What people really care about is, will the car need me to stop during my trip, to refuel. If so, how much of "my time" will it take?
For PHEVs and BEVs, the answer is about 20 seconds a day IF you drive less than the electric range.

If you drive further than that the answer for PHEVs is no longer than refueling my old gas car used to take.
The answer for BEVs, with current technology ranges from another 20 seconds every 150-200 miles to another minute every 60 miles, to a very long time.

For FCVs the answer ranges from almost twice as long as refueling my old gas car, to, it isn't possible.

If you are looking at what we MIGHT be able to do in the future for FCVs, why are you denying what we CURRENTLY can do with BEVs and PHEVs?

 

OK. Yeah the iphone is really cool as is the go pro. People back then didn't think of those things. Tesla did think about beaming wireless electricity to electric cars.

I'm with you on putting cables underground, but why the hydrogen? Overhead cables are much less expensive, then underground cables, but in a city why not burry them. Hydrogen pipelines are very expensive relatively for unit energy, then the hydrogen often needs to be converted to electricity to be used. Some cities provide district heating (with steam, hot water, or pressurized hot water) or chilled water for cooling, with underground pipes.

I'm not sure how coverting electricity or natural gas to hydrogen, then building a pipeline to homes, then building a home compressor, and fuel cell to make it back to electricity is cost effective.

I believe you may be thinking of a fuel cell that can take natural gas and create hydrogen, heat, and electricity. They are pushing that idea in japan, as the grid is very unstable after shutting down a lot of nuclear power. Here less epensive, and mostly installed natural gas pipelines can be used.

Alternatively you can draw off peak electricity, electrolyze it, then burn it in natural gas appliances, or run it through a fuel cell for on peak electricity. that can help stabilize the Japanese grid, or even work on some stable grids with lots of renewables. I guess if you are doing that you could run a compressor and try to fill up some cars at the same time

Austin is using some of the cheap off peak wind to chill water at night, then down town buildings use the chilled water for their air conditioning. Copenhagen uses off peak wind to create hot water, that they then sell to heat buildings when they need it. Most of the east coast cities don't have excess off-peak electricity or good geothermal to do these things.

 

All it takes is money. you can do it today. I doubt that the utility will remove the wires though.

Electrolyzers are cheap. I believe that guy in the video used propane tanks to store it, which is fine if the pressure is low enough. You can buy a electric generator that will burn the hydrogen instead of gas or diesel (this is cheaper than a fuel cell) or buy some fuel cells. You probably want to add some batteries and more solar panels too for the reduced efficiency of electrolyzing, then turning it to electricity.

I assume you want to be grid free. If its just the wires, some areas let you pay to burry them. Here is one for an example of costs.

https://www.mge.com/images/PDF/Brochures/residential/OverheadToUnderground.pdf
You need to coordinate with all your neighbors though to burry it all. i live on limestone, which makes underground more expensive. I'm fine with the wires, but YMMV.

 

Yup, buried cables is the obvious answer instead of a whole new infrastructure. I dream of one day having buried fiber optics to my curb. Disconnecting from the grid is irresponsible, IMO...that is, until they start penalizing solar consumers in which case all bets are off, which is beginning to happen in some regions unfortunately...

Fortunately, the neighborhood in which I reside is relatively new so they thought ahead. No wire eyesores in the skyline.

 

Why do you feel that disconnecting from the grid is irresponsible?

 

L1 should be around 1.4Kwh & L2 Should be around 9.2Kwh which is over 6x faster.

 

If you are in a remote area then no problem, there is no grid to disconnect from.

If you are adding solar and disconnect, then in most places in the US you are increasing fossil burn versus staying connected to the grid and adding less solar. Often the desire to remove themselves from the grid is done for ideological and not practical reasons. In a few areas of the US, it may make sense to go off grid, but that is because of extremely poor utility regulation. Remember the price of grid management and support for the poor does not go down if you leave the grid. The slack is simply taken up by fewer people. When you are paying more for your off grid system, those remaining on the grid are also paying more. Economically it just doesn't make any sense.

Now if you add X kw of solar, and don't bank it (convert it to hydrogen or store it in batteries) others on the grid will use it and fossil fuel uese will go down. When you need the power, some of it will come from fossil fuels. Being on grid, according to those off grid advocates, mean you are using dirty fossil fuel. Oh my. What they forget is your net impact is lower by being on grid. If the utility is regulated properly then less of that "dirty" fossil fuel is burned, and your solar system is less expensive for you to purchase, its a win win.

You can be grid tied and buy a system that banks the fuel too. In the US, in virtually all cases, power outages do not happen at random. There is normally warning. You can buy the battery or hydrogen back up and use it to peak shave during most of the year on a grid tied system. Then when power may go out, bank the powr, and disconnect if there is an outage.

 

Yup, Austin covered it as usual. It's more of a social responsibility thing and the fact that it contributes to a more renewable grid.

 

It's not covered. There's an assumption being made that is easy to overlook. Calculations of impact don't include an important factor...

POPULATION GROWTH

More people are coming onto the system than those getting off. There's not enough solar being added to offset the increase in demand.

 

I don't quite understand.

If this is grid versus non grid tied, population has nothing to do with it. Grid tied is better. It helps offset fossil. I don't know any sub grid that is better off with solar homes cut off. Net fossil increases if solar homes and offices leave the grid. I don't know one example where it doesn't. Given that solar is subsidized this is a selfish act.

If it is that solar does not keep up with increased demand, or course it doesn't. It is only about 1% of the grid. The big player is wind, that is growing faster than increased demand. Is that what you meant, that you need wind too?

 

The reality is that solar installation has hugely increased at least in some parts of the US in the last several years. This trend will continue for years to come because of the big price reductions in solar panels but more of the growth may be in utility farms than in individual roof tops

 

It's not. You can't just choose to disregard the fact that demand will increase simply due to more people needing electricity. That would be as meritless as the Volt comparisons to Prius that don't take into account the entire fleet. In other words, it's cherry-picking since it doesn't take the big picture into consideration.

There is an obvious benefit from economies-of-scale, but were well beyond those thresholds already anyway.

 

We are talking futures for fuel cells, so why not talk current for phevs.

Yep half the people with volts, surprising to Chevy charge on L1. 53 miles probably takes 13 hours. Of course this is while they are at home or work anyway, so they aren't waiting. Lets call in 1 minutes a day to plug and unplug, if you are really slow. It may take 10 days to go that far so 10 minutes of pluging time, the rest its just there. If that is too much then intall a L2 to charge it most of the time

For long trips or when you forget to plug-in there is gasoline.

How is that worse than fcv. First you can only go to a handful of stations. If you move or change jobs you may have long dirstance to travel. Let's say it is only 3 minutes to go to and leave your hydrogen station and 3 minutes to fill. Is that 6 minutes more convient than plugging in at home. If you want to go on a long trip where is the hydrogen network? For at least a decade this is going to be a lot less convient than a phev.