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Originally Posted by Wormius
Aren’t a portion of the buses in Vancouver running on fuel cells? I think if you’re running large fleets like that which can be refuelled at a single point, it can make logistical sense.
I am just thinking of that show Ice Road Truckers, and I am trying to conceive how lithium batteries work on such long trips in and out of areas with no charging infrastructure? We’re talking about -50 degrees up to Tuktoyaktuk. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the Li solutions where its feasible and other solutions where its not. And maybe it’s still fossil fuels, but at least we’re cutting back by using it for high priority applications and not average Joe running doing errands.
The banging of the ‘Li for everything’ drum just seems fanboyish and unrealistic.
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First off, I 100% agree this shouldn't be a discussion with tribes. Whatever works is great! Second, this entire reasoning is based off the fact that every major government is spending billions trying to get off of fossil fuels, so if we're discussing current hydrogen synthesis from natural gas I'm not sure that's a starter anywhere as it totally defeats the purpose. So we're discussing hydrogen from clean renewable sources vs direct electrification with battery storage.
I think I should flesh out my reasoning for why I believe hydrogen isn't the answer here. I could be wrong, and if it's clean hydrogen and it works, I'll be very happy to be wrong.
The first big one is cost. The electricity starts out the same price. For direct electrification there's just transmission and distribution. On the hydrogen side, you have to build an electrolyzer which isn't particularly cheap, though costs will come down as we're still pretty low on the learning curve. Then you have to compress the hydrogen which is both expensive and uses a bunch more energy. Then you have to transport it which is both expensive and uses a bunch more energy. Then you have to have distribution points which are expensive. You can see why the costs are just not going to be competitive between them.
The second is practicality within the energy transition. It's not just transportation that's being electrified. Timun may have scoffed, but if we aren't navel gazing in Canada, electricity is likely going to be the dominant method of residential and even commercial building heat around the world. In the US it's already almost 40% of residential and with heat pumps getting cheaper and more efficient it's only a matter of time once carbon pricing makes natural gas more costly. Already some states and many cities are banning natural gas hookups for new builds. It's quite literally happening already. Then you have industrial electrification like aluminum smelting becoming electrified. The aluminum industry alone will be using the amount of electricity equal to some small countries! We just won't have extra energy sitting around to make the hydrogen cheap enough in my mind.
For aviation, compressed hydrogen takes up too much volume to be useful for large planes, and liquid hydrogen seems difficult. Batteries are too heavy and too big. I don't know what the solution is here other than maybe crazy expensive green biofuels? I got nothing here, hopefully someone smart figures it out
For shipping, batteries would waaaaaaay to expensive and would take up too much room. Shipping has traditionally used a high sulfur content diesel (bunker fuel) which was what was left when the refinery takes all the stuff that's otherwise useful. There's work being done on using ammonia made from hydrogen as it's more energy dense, but that adds yet another costly step for hydrogen. Analysts have calculated that at the very best cost reductions at the end of the learning curve ammonia would still be 3-5 times more expensive than what they're currently using. Again, I don't have an answer here, but maybe LNG would at least be better?
That's not to say there won't be uses of hydrogen in transportation or other uses. There will be lots of unique situations where battery tech won't cut it, but I don't see it overcoming all the obstacles it would need to for it to be a major part of transportation. Like your example of a truck driving in the arctic, hydrogen may be a better solution than batteries, but that isn't relevant for 95% or more of other transportation energy use in my mind.