EV Physics question

[nctnico]

Energy storage, yes, as a last resort for long term storage.
Transportation, nope.

I hope you are aware that energy is being transported and stored on a large scale already? For the simple reason that there isn't enough energy avalailable in places where the industry / money is. That is not going to change so transportation and storage of energy is not going away.

I wrote it before and I'll write it again: Hydrogen is going to be to new oil that will be hauled and pipelined across the globe. Heck, even the brand new Nord Stream 2 pipeline is designed to transport hydrogen.

Thats still less than the current fossil-gas based power cost, and less than the cost for new nuclear (20ct/kWh based on Hinkley Point C)

Hinkley Point C is not valid to look at cost for nuclear. If you dig into the financials a little bit then you'll see that the French duped the Brittons into signing a very bad deal. A significant part of the cost of Hinkley Point C is formed by interest payments. Nuclear typically sits at around 4 tot 5 eurocent per kWh (including reserving money to dismantle the reactor and deal with the nuclear waste).

[redkitedesign]

Hinkley Point C is not valid to look at cost for nuclear. If you dig into the financials a little bit then you'll see that the French duped the Brittons into signing a very bad deal. A significant part of the cost of Hinkley Point C is formed by interest payments. Nuclear typically sits at around 4 tot 5 eurocent per kWh (including reserving money to dismantle the reactor and deal with the nuclear waste).

Existing NPP might be able to reach 4 to 5 eurocent, but they were build with much laxer safety requirements and tons of government subsidy, especially by not having to pay interest on the construction cost. (Especially the French "resolved" any government debt from the 70'ties (when most of the NPP were build) by devaluating the French Franc. Poof, gone is the debt!)

Hinkley point is arguably the only valid reference point as it is the only one being built on a commercial basis, comparable to how wind power plants are being built (the government selects a location, and guarantees a power price for commercial party that finances, buillds and operates the plant)..

Arguably NPP can be build cheaper than Hinkley point if you were to build multiple of the same design, and let the government finance them as opposed to private parties. However, the latter argument is also valid for Wind Farms, and they are allready at an 6ct/kWh price point. Good luck improving Nuclear to beat that.

[f4eru]

I wrote it before and I'll write it again: Hydrogen is going to be to new oil

Nope.
Hydrogen has absolutely none of the attributes of oil.... Zil. Nada....
1) Oil is a primary energy, Hydrogen is just a storage form.
2) Oil is very  inexpensive on every metric, hydrogen is very expensive, on every metric
3) Oil is easy to transport, has infrastructure, hydrogen is difficult to transport, has no infrastructure at all today...
4) Oil is entranched in every part of our lives to a crazy degree, hydrogen use is a footnote of history.
5) Oil is quite low tech, hydrogen is very demanding on all the chain
6) Oil is relatively safe, at least in the common user forms, hydrogen is absolutely not

It may be used as a very inefficient seasonal storage, but only as a last resort, if we don't find a better alternative....
As soon as we get a cheaper seasonnal storage alteernative, it'll be a dying horse...

[nctnico]

I wrote it before and I'll write it again: Hydrogen is going to be to new oil

Nope.
Hydrogen has absolutely none of the attributes of oil.... Zil. Nada....
1) Oil is a primary energy, Hydrogen is just a storage form.

Buzzzz. Wrong at the first point already.    Oil is stored solar energy. Nothing more, nothing less. Just like hydrogen that will be generated on a mass scale using solar panels. Only the cycle is much shorter time wise.

Maybe read more into the subject and you'll find that the world already knows that when electricity needs to be stored for more than a couple of hours, hydrogen will be cheaper compared to batteries. Why do you think hydrogen conversion, transport and storage infrastructure is being built all around the world? The answer is simple: hydrogen will take over from oil / gas /coal as a universal energy carrier.

[james_s]

I see absolutely no traction of hydrogen so far, what few trial uses we have had in the USA have been limited to the single state of California, to my knowledge there is nothing else planned. I know you are a big advocate of hydrogen but I just don't see it ever being a serious contender. The vast majority of hydrogen that we do use is extracted from fossil fuels. Generating it by using electricity to crack water is inefficient and then once you generate it, you have to expend further energy compressing it into a form that can be reasonably stored. Then you have a very dangerous flammable gas that will burn explosively in almost any ratio with air and that also has additional challenges like embrittlement of metals. Maybe it will achieve some widespread use somewhere but I am extremely skeptical. In the USA it has pretty much been written off already so if it does go somewhere it will be elsewhere in the world.

[nctnico]

I see absolutely no traction of hydrogen so far, what few trial uses we have had in the USA have been limited to the single state of California, to my knowledge there is nothing else planned. I know you are a big advocate of hydrogen but I just don't see it ever being a serious contender. The vast majority of hydrogen that we do use is extracted from fossil fuels. Generating it by using electricity to crack water is inefficient and then once you generate it, you have to expend further energy compressing it into a form that can be reasonably stored. Then you have a very dangerous flammable gas that will burn explosively in almost any ratio with air and that also has additional challenges like embrittlement of metals. Maybe it will achieve some widespread use somewhere but I am extremely skeptical. In the USA it has pretty much been written off already so if it does go somewhere it will be elsewhere in the world.

I'm not advocating anything. I just look at the big picture that is laid out in front of me.
 
You are just looking at one single 'experiment' in California to test the technology. The uptake of hydrogen is slower because a lot needs to be done including sourcing hydrogen from renewable sources. If you look at the hydrogen projects and projections on a world wide scale, you can not come to another conclusion that hydrogen is going to play a major part in the energy transition. On top of that all reports on transitioning towards renewable energy sources will tell you hydrogen plays a major part at least where it comes to transport and storage of energy. Sourcing hydrogen from renewable sources is a first step that needs to be taken. World wide there are hundreds of projects planned, under construction with several already finished to make that happen. It simply makes no sense to claim hydrogen is a dead end at this moment. I guess Trump made the US lag behind but I'd be surprised if the US is not going to have hydrogen projects -at least announced- in the next 5 years. From what I can find in reasonably recent information, the US already has a strategy for renewable energy that includes hydrogen as part of the plans.

[themadhippy]

I see absolutely no traction of hydrogen so far, what few trial uses we have had in the USA have been limited to the single state of California, to my knowledge there is nothing else planned

it failed in america so it wont work,sorry but there's a big world outside your borders,and as much as you'd like to think so, you aint the be all and end all

Generating it by using electricity to crack water is inefficient and then once you generate it, you have to expend further energy compressing it into a form that can be reasonably stored

If you've access to unlimited free  green  electricity who cares about efficiency.Iceland could become the next saudi if they play there cards right

[bdunham7]

it failed in america so it wont work,sorry but there's a big world outside your borders,and as much as you'd like to think so, you aint the be all and end all

Can you give us a specific example where hydrogen is currently being used cost effectively?

Due to subsidies and sheer determination there are a small number of Mirai and Clarity fuel-cell vehicles roaming the California highways, as well as a few specialized stations for fueling them.  I believe that the cars have been or will be discontinued and the result of the experiment is that hydrogen is not practically competitive even in an optimum environment. There have previously been a very limited number of hydrogen-powered buses as well, although I'm not sure if any are still running here as I think they reached the same conclusion.  The only example I know of where hydrogen has been anywhere near what you'd call a success has been indoor forklifts in large warehouses. 

As for being the 'be all and end all', when it comes to alternative energy we just might be.  The only thing I can think of that isn't done here is tidal power.

[james_s]

it failed in america so it wont work,sorry but there's a big world outside your borders,and as much as you'd like to think so, you aint the be all and end all

That isn't what I said, but can you point out somewhere in the world where hydrogen has achieved greater success than it did in the USA? As far as I know, California is one of the first and most ambitious places in the world where it was tried, and it failed. Maybe it will succeed elsewhere but as I said, I have seen no evidence of this. If it is out there I would be interested in seeing it.

[coppice]

The only thing I can think of that isn't done here is tidal power.

Where are you? Tidal power is only viable where it gets concentrated, either by a continental shelf, or a funnel like configuration between land masses. There aren't many places which are a good match. The global tide away from those places is only about half a metre, so the energy is so spread out you would need a vast system to gather very much. This is unfortunate, as the total energy in the tides is really big.

[nctnico]

it failed in america so it wont work,sorry but there's a big world outside your borders,and as much as you'd like to think so, you aint the be all and end all

Can you give us a specific example where hydrogen is currently being used cost effectively?

Due to subsidies and sheer determination there are a small number of Mirai and Clarity fuel-cell vehicles roaming the California highways, as well as a few specialized stations for fueling them.  I believe that the cars have been or will be discontinued

You may believe that but Toyota is still releasing model updates for the Mirai. They would not do that for an obsolete model. Additionally, in 2023 Toyota is planning to launch a hydrogen powered version of their very succesfull Prius and Corolla models.

[coppice]

You may believe that but Toyota is still releasing model updates for the Mirai. They would not do that for an obsolete model. Additionally, in 2023 Toyota is planning to launch a hydrogen powered version of their very succesfull Prius and Corolla models.

Toyota recently released a completely new Mirai, based on the high end Lexus LS platform. Its a lot cheaper than a Lexus, though, so its pricing doesn't seem to make any sense. It looks like another compliance stunt.
The older Mirai is so unattractive to potential customers in the second hand market that Toyota offers them with basically free hydrogen.

[nctnico]

You may believe that but Toyota is still releasing model updates for the Mirai. They would not do that for an obsolete model. Additionally, in 2023 Toyota is planning to launch a hydrogen powered version of their very succesfull Prius and Corolla models.

Toyota recently released a completely new Mirai, based on the high end Lexus LS platform. Its a lot cheaper than a Lexus, though, so its pricing doesn't seem to make any sense. It looks like another compliance stunt.

Compliance for what? Toyota doesn't need to sell Mirais (or BEVs) to stay withing their CO2 emission qouta. Their hybrids do that just fine by themselves; proving that Toyota's strategy for fuel reduction by a hybrid drive system was the right choice. When Toyota put the Prius on the market everyone was laughing though. Nowadays Toyota is ahead of everyone else with their hydrogen cars. And people are laughing again. I'm taking Toyota more serious this time...

[bdunham7]

You may believe that but Toyota is still releasing model updates for the Mirai. They would not do that for an obsolete model. Additionally, in 2023 Toyota is planning to launch a hydrogen powered version of their very succesfull Prius and Corolla models.

OK, I looked.  The Mirai was redone last year and I think it is due to continue on for a while.  The Clarity FCV was completely discontinued last year.  The numbers of these are still vanishingly small, you are more likely to see a Rolls Royce than a Mirai even in California.  As for the hydrogen Prius, I suppose they'll try anything to meet their alternative energy quotas and subsidy requirements, but I don't think there will be very many sold.  Those are going to be a hydrogen-powered ICE/PHEV, not an FCV.  It is really hard to see what the advantage is going to be over a BEV as the range on hydrogen with an ICE is going to be pretty limited. 

[nctnico]

Hint: lower fuel costs and faster refilling. Running a BEV from public charging is extremely expensive. BTW: just an hour ago I read an article about driving a BEV while towing a caravan. Turns out the car needs charging every 100km (instead of 400km) and the caravan needs to be decoupled because the charging spaces are not suitable for cars with a caravan.

[bdunham7]

Compliance for what? Toyota doesn't need to sell Mirais (or BEVs) to stay withing their CO2 emission qouta.

Compliance with California laws requiring a certain percentage of vehicles sold to be completely EV/FCV or perhaps NGV.  It is a complicated formula, but it drives many of the decisions regarding vehicle type and design.  My Ford is entirely a compliance product, Ford lost a ton of money selling it to me.  Even Tesla's battery exchange stations were compliance driven as they got more points in the formula that they could sell as credits to other manufacturers.

[coppice]

You may believe that but Toyota is still releasing model updates for the Mirai. They would not do that for an obsolete model. Additionally, in 2023 Toyota is planning to launch a hydrogen powered version of their very succesfull Prius and Corolla models.

Toyota recently released a completely new Mirai, based on the high end Lexus LS platform. Its a lot cheaper than a Lexus, though, so its pricing doesn't seem to make any sense. It looks like another compliance stunt.

Compliance for what? Toyota doesn't need to sell Mirais (or BEVs) to stay withing their CO2 emission qouta. Their hybrids do that just fine by themselves.

Specific laws and government run pilots schemes in specific places. California is the main one. Where it doesn't benefit them to sell the Mirai them they don't sell them. They only recently offered them in the UK, but you can't really use one here, unless its for local use around one of a handful of fuel stations. Looking at the Toyota UK web site, they seem to have removed the Mirai. It was shown there for a while, with prices. Hyundai still has their Nexo on their UK web site, and that site shows where the UK's hydrogen stations are. They seem to have removed the pricing, though. They are basically supplying a government run scheme.

[CatalinaWOW]

I see absolutely no traction of hydrogen so far, what few trial uses we have had in the USA have been limited to the single state of California, to my knowledge there is nothing else planned

it failed in america so it wont work,sorry but there's a big world outside your borders,and as much as you'd like to think so, you aint the be all and end all

Generating it by using electricity to crack water is inefficient and then once you generate it, you have to expend further energy compressing it into a form that can be reasonably stored

If you've access to unlimited free  green  electricity who cares about efficiency.Iceland could become the next saudi if they play there cards right

If you have access to unlimited free electricity (green or otherwise) just about anything works.  But Iceland has limits on their thermal and hydro energy sources.  They are large relative to the requirements of the relatively small population but small relative to world energy consumption.  And it isn't free.  Initial purchase and maintenance are real costs, which will never go to zero. 

Hydrogen has a a few fundamental problems that make it tough for use in the energy chain.  Foremost it is difficult to store.  It permeates through almost anything, requiring expensive materials to contain it.  It is the tiniest molecule and slips through the tiniest of cracks so sealing joints and connections is difficult.  These are not insoluble problems, but the solutions are typically not cheap.  But it is urgent to solve them completely because hydrogen is hard to detect and explosive.  Hydrogen, in addition to leaking has nasty effects on what it is around.  Read up on hydrogen embrittlement.  Again solvable problem, but every one of these things adds manufacturing and maintenance costs.  Finally it is low density.  While airlines are looking at hydrogen power they are finding that large tanks with high drag penalties and weight penalties are required for even modest length flight segments.  It isn't obvious that the number of tickets that can be sold will pay for operating hydrogen powered aircraft.  In the automotive world the penalties are not as critical, but range anxiety will definitely be a problem.  And the big concern in the auto world comes back to the first comment.  Can you imagine making these critical highly technical connections to the fueling system using the same public that mistakenly puts diesel in gasoline powered vehicles and visa versa?

None of these says that hydrogen can't be made to work.  But it isn't a slam dunk panacea that substitutes seamlessly at low cost with for existing systems.

[james_s]

OK, I looked.  The Mirai was redone last year and I think it is due to continue on for a while.  The Clarity FCV was completely discontinued last year.  The numbers of these are still vanishingly small, you are more likely to see a Rolls Royce than a Mirai even in California.  As for the hydrogen Prius, I suppose they'll try anything to meet their alternative energy quotas and subsidy requirements, but I don't think there will be very many sold.  Those are going to be a hydrogen-powered ICE/PHEV, not an FCV.  It is really hard to see what the advantage is going to be over a BEV as the range on hydrogen with an ICE is going to be pretty limited.

According to data I can find, there are "up to" 8,000 hydrogen powered cars in California, out of 35 million registered vehicles. I didn't find a breakdown by state but there are up to 15,000 in the entire USA.

That's what, 0.02% of the market in CA and far less than that in the country as a whole? That's statistically insignificant, it may as well be zero and without large subsidies and laws mandating or encouraging use of alternative fuels it would be. Is there anywhere else in the world that has more of them?

[Nusa]

I think the bulk of those are fleet vehicles, where the owner also provides the local fueling facility. The infrastructure isn't there for the general public, in most cases.

[redkitedesign]

Generating it by using electricity to crack water is inefficient and then once you generate it, you have to expend further energy compressing it into a form that can be reasonably stored

If you've access to unlimited free  green  electricity who cares about efficiency.Iceland could become the next saudi if they play there cards right

Hydrogen has a a few fundamental problems that make it tough for use in the energy chain.  Foremost it is difficult to store.  It permeates through almost anything, requiring expensive materials to contain it.  It is the tiniest molecule and slips through the tiniest of cracks so sealing joints and connections is difficult. 

Hydrogen has a very easy, exothermic reaction with CO2. The result is CH4 (and some water), also known as methane, or natural gas
We know very well how to store, transport and use natural gas. The biggest disadvantage of this reaction for the American market is probably that it was discovered by a Frenchman (Sabatier).

And if you use CO2 from the air to produce methane, you inherently compensate for the CO2 released by the use of that methane.

[nctnico]

You may believe that but Toyota is still releasing model updates for the Mirai. They would not do that for an obsolete model. Additionally, in 2023 Toyota is planning to launch a hydrogen powered version of their very succesfull Prius and Corolla models.

Toyota recently released a completely new Mirai, based on the high end Lexus LS platform. Its a lot cheaper than a Lexus, though, so its pricing doesn't seem to make any sense. It looks like another compliance stunt.

Compliance for what? Toyota doesn't need to sell Mirais (or BEVs) to stay withing their CO2 emission qouta. Their hybrids do that just fine by themselves.

Specific laws and government run pilots schemes in specific places. California is the main one. Where it doesn't benefit them to sell the Mirai them they don't sell them. They only recently offered them in the UK, but you can't really use one here, unless its for local use around one of a handful of fuel stations. Looking at the Toyota UK web site, they seem to have removed the Mirai. It was shown there for a while, with prices. Hyundai still has their Nexo on their UK web site, and that site shows where the UK's hydrogen stations are. They seem to have removed the pricing, though. They are basically supplying a government run scheme.

That doesn't make sense. The number of Mirais sold at any place does not make a significant impact anywhere in the world (IIRC Toyota sells about 40k units per year). So there has to be a long term strategy behind their hydrogen cars. Otherwise Toyota would have been selling BEVs like anyone else if they needed to make compliance sales. The only country where Toyota is selling BEVs in large numbers is China.

[richard.cs]

Your numbers are off. P2G2P has a round trip efficiency of 60-70% today, expected to become even more energy efficient in the future. And it's a seasonal storage, unlike any energy storage method, battery or even hydro. Plus, you don't even need to think about the G2P part, because it is well understood and has been working for decades now.

So what technology are you proposing for the G2P part of P2G2P to achieve this 60-70% round trip efficiency? It certainly is not the "well understood and and working for decades now" combined cycle gas turbine. Taking the best current numbers for electricity to hydrogen as 80% and the best current numbers for CCGT fuel gas to electricity as 64%, I get a round trip efficiency of 51% ignoring any further energy losses due to compressing for storage, etc.

You can even just feed in the methane to the gas network, and turn ordinary houses heating system renewable, without any investment of the owner.

You can, although it burning it to convert to heat with an efficiency of perhaps 95% works out worse (by around a factor of two) than converting to electricity at say 60% efficiency and feeding a heat pump with a coefficient of performance of three or more.

Considering that it literally reverses global warming with carbon capture.

It's only global warming reversing carbon capture if you stick the synthetic methane in the ground and never burn it.

[CatalinaWOW]

Generating it by using electricity to crack water is inefficient and then once you generate it, you have to expend further energy compressing it into a form that can be reasonably stored

If you've access to unlimited free  green  electricity who cares about efficiency.Iceland could become the next saudi if they play there cards right

Hydrogen has a a few fundamental problems that make it tough for use in the energy chain.  Foremost it is difficult to store.  It permeates through almost anything, requiring expensive materials to contain it.  It is the tiniest molecule and slips through the tiniest of cracks so sealing joints and connections is difficult. 

Hydrogen has a very easy, exothermic reaction with CO2. The result is CH4 (and some water), also known as methane, or natural gas
We know very well how to store, transport and use natural gas. The biggest disadvantage of this reaction for the American market is probably that it was discovered by a Frenchman (Sabatier).

And if you use CO2 from the air to produce methane, you inherently compensate for the CO2 released by the use of that methane.

I am not an industrial chemist so I can't comment on converting hydrogen to methane.  But I do know that those pushing a hydrogen fuel cycle generally aren't pushing methane as the storage and distribution method.  I agree, natural gas is a well understood technology. 

[bdunham7]

That doesn't make sense. The number of Mirais sold at any place does not make a significant impact anywhere in the world (IIRC Toyota sells about 40k units per year). So there has to be a long term strategy behind their hydrogen cars. Otherwise Toyota would have been selling BEVs like anyone else if they needed to make compliance sales. The only country where Toyota is selling BEVs in large numbers is China.

Toyota hasn't sold 40K Mirais in all of history, it's more like 9-10K in the US (mostly CA), 7K in Japan and 3K in the rest of the world.  The new model from 2021 forward is less odd and more luxurious and they are making/selling a few more than before.  The FCV vs BEV makes sense if you understand the details--they get 7 ZEV credits for every FCV.  And in any case Toyota is a huge company that can afford to have projects that don't make money. 

Mirai sales are very heavily subsidized here, both by Toyota and various government entities.  The new model is a luxury car that costs $70-80K in gasoline hybrid form but is priced at $50K.  Then discounts, rebates and tax credits will drive that price down well under $20K and they throw in three years of free maintenance and fuel.  If I lived near one of the dozen or so available H₂ stations I might get one myself--just pick out a new one every 3 years and throw the old one away. 

An ultra-cheap subsidized luxury commuter car in CA and they still only sell miniscule numbers.  That's tough to pitch as a market success.