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“Battery EV” vs “Hydrogen Fuel cell EV”
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SiliconWizard:
Fuel cells are an attractive alternative to conventional batteries. But...
One big issue with hydrogen is, as already mentioned, producing, or rather, extracting it is not energy-efficient.
Another issue is possibly safety. It requires extremely sturdy tanks, and potential risks are not all pretty.

As they are now though, EV batteries don't seem like a very sustainable approach. So it's not ideal either.

In either cases (as hydrogen production requires electricity), electricity generation will become a bottleneck, and until we finally have "clean", sustainable and abundant electricity, we are just displacing the pollution.
rstofer:
Rolls Royce (UK) has come up with a small scale nuclear reactor that can get around many of the hurdles of actually building such a thing at the site.  The bits and pieces are manufactured and partially assembled in a factory and transported to the site for final assembly.  A site is just 4 acres.

These plants are about 1/3 the size of a conventional nuke plant so they are more easily sited.

An interesting idea because, among other things, quality control is primarily at the factory.  The design can be preapproved and permitting will be a lot faster.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/rolls-royce-gets-funding-for-small-nuclear-reactors-in-the-uk/

We should learn from the Texas debacle:  Renewables aren't reliables!  Solar and wind can fail in a spectacular way and, lacking a grid intertie, Texas was left without power for up to 17 days:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis
Nusa:

--- Quote from: rstofer on November 12, 2021, 01:15:33 am ---We should learn from the Texas debacle:  Renewables aren't reliables!  Solar and wind can fail in a spectacular way and, lacking a grid intertie, Texas was left without power for up to 17 days:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

--- End quote ---

Yes, although ALL the usual forms of energy failed at the consumer level during that crisis. No natural gas, no electricity, no gasoline (retail pumps require electricity), no charging stations for your EV's (ditto, at least once the local batteries were exhausted). The lucky ones had older houses with functional fireplaces, assuming they could find enough stuff to burn. The even luckier ones actually had proper cold-weather gear to wear.
ejeffrey:

--- Quote from: rstofer on November 12, 2021, 01:15:33 am ---Rolls Royce (UK) has come up with a small scale nuclear reactor that can get around many of the hurdles of actually building such a thing at the site.  The bits and pieces are manufactured and partially assembled in a factory and transported to the site for final assembly.  A site is just 4 acres.

These plants are about 1/3 the size of a conventional nuke plant so they are more easily sited.

An interesting idea because, among other things, quality control is primarily at the factory.  The design can be preapproved and permitting will be a lot faster.

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/rolls-royce-gets-funding-for-small-nuclear-reactors-in-the-uk/

We should learn from the Texas debacle:  Renewables aren't reliables!  Solar and wind can fail in a spectacular way and, lacking a grid intertie, Texas was left without power for up to 17 days:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis

--- End quote ---

All the Texas debacle proved is that if you don't winterize your grid it can be taken down by winter weather, and if you don't interconnect your grid to anyone else you can't get power in a regional emergency.  The "renewables aren't reliable" angle on the Texas emergency is 100% BS and easily shown because the natural gas infrastructure also failed while wind power in Iowa works fine in winter.

That's not too say that there aren't availability problems with renewables but that had nothing to do with what happened in Texas.  That entire story was a PR stunt to distract from the other failures.
Nusa:
Lack of winterization is right, but not entirely BS. Renewable sources also need winterization measures. That's cost-cutting policy and/or operator error, not a technology error.
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