What Hydrogen Needs is its own Elon Musk? Maybe they found one...

It is my understanding that the majority of hydrogen is still produced from hydrocarbons, which leaves carbon behind. So, there's still a C footprint upstream not at the tail pipe.

One potential advantage of H2 is that you've converted the greenhouse gas emissions from a mobile to a static source. So, capture should be easier.

T

 

Chem majors; help me out here...

So H2 is a byproduct of Cl hydrolysis. OK, that means electricity is needed.
Up to a point, the byproduct H2 is "free". So, what if demand for H2 goes beyond the need for Cl?
Will we be using electrolysis of water as the new source?
Doesn't that mean more electricity is needed to produce H2?
What's the cheapest most available source of electricity currently?
How about in 3rd world countries? Coal?

I think the argument of batteries vs fuel cells all comes back to the way electricity is sourced.
As an aside, consider that we already have the infrastructure (power grid) but not liquid H2.

Discuss.

 

Is anyone building H2 infrastructure ? I haven't seen it. For some reason, many European governments are fixated on hydrogen. Look at the number of charging stations Elon has built worldwide. If Ratcliffe started trying to do the same today at the same scale as is required for commercial vehicle fueling let alone passenger vehicles, he would be broke in a flash.

From wikipedia:

As of November 8, 2020, Tesla operates over 20,000 Superchargers in over 2,016 stations worldwide (an average of 10 chargers per station). There are 1042 stations in North America, 559 in Europe, and 415 in the Asia/Pacific region.

Are you going to start cryogenically cooling hydrogen to ship it in trucks ? If instead, you are going to use local electricity for hydrolysis, the production and storage and fuel cell efficiency makes no sense compared to a battery, which is why you want to build chargers that turn AC into DC and call it done.

 

Most H2 comes from steam reforming of natural gas.

Water electrolysis is the dream, but it's just that at the moment. Likely going to have to be coupled to a solar cell or some such, since water to H2 is far uphill energywise.

Could split water to make H2 using nukes, but I'd hate to see someone try to sell that as green!

T

 

From what I've read, I thought they wanted to store the H2 in a liquid or solid form via a chemical surrogate. Liquifying it would take a lot of energy...T

 

To exist as a liquid, H₂ must be cooled below its critical point of 33 K. Solid hydrogen is achieved by decreasing the temperature below hydrogen's melting point of 14K

 

Natural gas reforming is a red herring because then you have to transport it. You can't build a distributed supply architecture like that.

 

Not sure red herring is the right phrase, but your point is a good one in that transporting gases long distances is a lot less efficient vs. doing the same for liquids. I've talked to people who have proposed developing liquids that can release H2, which can then be "burned" in automobiles, and then the byproduct liquid re-hydrogenated. I've not followed the field closely, so I don't not how practical that might be from an chemical or engineering point of view...T

 

My point is that we already have a grid. Building a new pipe based grid is never going to be economically viable which is why the "hydrogen economy" never took off.

 

Totally agree. Do you think the current electricity grid can handle electrification of a significant % of US cars and trucks? If not, what needs to be done in your opinion to support that? Thanks...T

 

The issue is the grid is one way. It's great for sending power, and it has plenty of capacity since it was built for industry. However, what we need is distributed solar - municipal level bi-directional power for those areas that can take advantage of it. But solar cells need a lot of improvement, and adding a fuel cell to the end of them makes the problem worse.

 

Yes, I have an opinion.
Ratcliffe and Ineos are far from the only ones in the arena.. and competition is often an excellent motivator.

Assuming it's OK in this thread to look beyond roadgoing vehicles - no matter how the hydrogen is manufactured, how it's transported, and in whatever industry it is used - the use of hydrogen *fuel cells* is unquestionably already established, on the rise and not going away..

I'm no engineer, just a private investor who has watched the steady expansion of the hydrogen fuel cell industry. New actors with new ideas and solutions are coming on line, and the industry continues to grow and mature. For at least the last 5 years, the HFC industry has been seeing large, long-term, supply contracts from customers like Walmart, Amazon, Home Depot, UPS, FedEx and are increasing exports to Europe and China. Granted, the applications are primarily forklifts, which are used differently from road cars, but the market is expanding into delivery trucks so the product line is converging towards passenger vehicles. .

Plug Power, Inc. is a good example... PLUG has gained marketshare with hydrogen fuel cell products that are proven, long-term, cost-effective choices to replace batteries in electric vehicles.

Going back to Ratcliffe and Ineos and Hyundai - the writer acknowledges a few other contenders in the industry, and mentions a target of 1,600 units shipped by 2025. In 2019 PLUG was the world's largest user of liquid hydrogen, was already shipping 28,000 units annually, including a pilot program of DHL delivery trucks in Germany.

While it seems inefficient to forego collaboration with established HFC companies like PLUG to develop cross-over products that serve roadgoing vehicles, Ratcliffe and Hyundai are all professional adults and I know nothing of how they decide such things.

In due time, we shall see how this all pans out - whether an HFC product can be cost-effective and user-friendly at the individual consumer level; whether other emerging technologies displace it in the consumer marketplace..

Cheers,
- Art

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Musk's product is batteries.

Lets see why he would be against a cleaner, rivalling product...

 

Honestly right now you would be much greener just burning natural gas in an ICE than converting natural gas into Hydrogen and releasing the bi-product of C02 into the atmosphere, then using oxygen in the air to turn it into water and electricity in a fuel cell.

That's why hydrogen fuel cells are not the answer. It may be a step but no one seriously believes hydrogen is the answer.

 

Hydrogen requires a technology that doesn't exist yet. Without it, it is a non issue just like electric cars sucked before the advent of lithium batteries. Honda's upcoming hydrogen car will be as cheap to produce than an ICE powered car. On the automotive side, they have it pretty well sussed out.

 

The chemistry exists. Its just not green. There needs to be a green way to produce hydrogen that doesn't need a lot of electricity, extracts it from something like sea water instead of natural gas, and can be transported in a green method-- most likely through pipelines.

I don't have a problem starting to ask the scientific questions but its not a viable source of green power as it exists today.

 

I was referring to fusion. Nail that, and hydrogen power would be feasible. I'm not holding my breath, though.

 

I'm a ICE car guy. I like noise and lots of high reving cubic inches. I do not know what a HFC motor looks like. Gasoline is a liquid turns to an atomized gas and is burned. Hydrogen is a gas that is burned. Is there any material difference really in the ICE principals run on hydrogen? If no, the HFC breaths life into ICE which many say will be banned in as few as 15 years.

If HFC tech is advancing well why do you think big car makers like Benz have halted ICE development for their current powerplants until EV fully takes hold? Doesn't moves like Mercedes move put the nail in ICE and therefore the need for HFC?

 

I'm a physicist and engineer, the math does not add up for hydrogen infrastructure.

 

A hydrogen fuel cell car is an electric vehicle. In the simplest explanation, the hydrogen is converted to electrons by the fuel cell, and the electrons are used to turn one or more electric motors.

 

Burning hydrogen in a heat engine is significantly less efficient than a fuel cell. Storing hydrogen on board is the limiting factor for efficiency and range. Hydrogen combustion also generates NOx. Hydrogen internal combustion is a non-starter.

 

If we had fusion, all discussions we are having now would be irrelevant ! Tokomac reactors (magnetic confinement) are the current leading candidates. Fusion saves the planet through essentially free energy with only the reactor being radioactive and zero radioactive waste.

 

You still need a green source of hydrogen to fuel fusion reactors, no?
T

 

Interestingly, after your post I saw a device with Plug Power on the side of it, north bound on I-35 while driving the F-car. Huge device, so large it needed two pilot cars to escort it. Maybe an HFC? Interestingly, it was in Gainesville, Texas, where there is a large facility for making windmill blades and two solar farms near the highway. Interesting times, for sure...T