Electric vehicle war, is gas soon to be toast?

[Since1984]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern2814

We could have built a nuclear plant with The $7.5 billion in investment and loan guarantees for Keystone.

They do pay for themselves many times over when their life cycle is done - a modern 3rd generation reactor can last over a century now.

(Oh, and all the nuclear waste ever produced on earth by power stations would fit in a building the size of your average Costco- we can find places to put it)

Edmonton

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Cappy

I am not knowledgeable on hydrogen fuel cells and their efficacy through mass production; but i sometimes think the people/industries pushing hydrogen over EVs are merely a ploy to delay the inevitable move from hydrocarbons.

Like, is Shell pushing hydrogen because they see it as (1) a potential transition for the company to another resource they can control; and (2) is it due to the fact they know hydrogen is a decade or two away so it gives them a chance to keep extracting the reserves they have

It's probably both.

Hydrogen cells make zero sense for the following reasons:

1) Thermodynamics. Creating energy via solar/wind/nuclear, then using that to create hydrogen gas using electrolysis creates some energy loss (5-20%). Then you have to compress the hydrogen which takes a fair bit of energy. Then you have to transport those tanks over ground and store them carefully. Then you lose a lot more in a fuel cell (40%). Per kWh produced, the battery only loses a fraction of that all the way from production to consumption.

2) Convenience. I know what you're thinking, how is it more convenient to have to take so long to charge vs quickly filling a hydrogen tank"? Well, when all your neighbours start each day with a "full tank" because they charge at home, you'll start to get jealous that you have to pay 3-5 times as much per km and have to make trips to the refueling station.

3) Infrastucture. It's much, much easier to put up a few charging stations vs putting in a full refueling station. The infrastructure is mostly there, though some upgrading is going to be needed. One could argue that with electrification, this infrastructure buildout is going to be needed regardless of EV needs (home heating for most countries will be electrified)

4) The race is already pretty much over. Battery Electric vehicles are already here and there's no room for FCEVs

[timun]

There are some legit reasons why hydrogen proliferation is unlikely, so let's not peddle falsehoods like "per kWh produced a battery only loses a fraction of energy from production to consumption". That's a preposterous notion, power plants and the grid are not particularly efficient. And it's a pretty silly premise to base this all off of the electrolysis of water in the first place: hydrogen fuel is mostly made from natural gas.


It seems your entire line of reasoning is based on a fantasy-land belief that we'll all "electrify" with the panacea of "solar/wind/nuclear". Fat chance of that happening any time soon. "Home heating for most countries will be electrified"? Lololol

[zamler]

^^ Who are you responding to? If it's Street Pharmacist I fail to see anything he said as being wrong.

[Fuzz]

4)

"To a certain extent, it is still unclear which technologies will be a clear winner," Ewing said.

Just wanted to open with that...

Most of the big rigs travelling those highways run on diesel. But beginning next year, two of the trucks making that busy Alberta run will be powered by hydrogen — a pilot project that will test the technology against Canadian weather, distances and terrain.

"This is just the natural place to really start to push that envelope and to prove [the] concept," said Chris Nash, president of the Alberta Motor Transport Association, which is leading the $20 million project. "If it works here, it works anywhere."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/can...ogen-1.6073910

I think this is the easiest sector to access and implement for the greatest gains. I just don't see an EV long haul truck making much sense, yet they are a huge source of emissions. Save the EV's for the short trips. Build hydrogen filling stations along the TCH, with one every 500km or so, that's only about 160 stations, and maybe 100 if you stick to the busiest lengths.

[Fuzz]

Also, if hydrogen cells make "zero sense", why are so many major companies spending money on them?

companies including Hyundai Motor, Toyota, engine maker Cummins, Daimler’s tech partner Volvo Trucks and others are rapidly developing plans for heavy-duty hydrogen vehicles.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohn...nikola-uproar/

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

4)I think this is the easiest sector to access and implement for the greatest gains.

What are the gains?

I just don't see an EV long haul truck making much sense, yet they are a huge source of emissions.

Why does a BEV car make sense but doesn't scale up to larger vehicles?

Save the EV's for the short trips. Build hydrogen filling stations along the TCH, with one every 500km or so, that's only about 160 stations, and maybe 100 if you stick to the busiest lengths.

Each station is extremely expensive but that's not the core problem.

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Also, if hydrogen cells make "zero sense", why are so many major companies spending money on them?

How is the Mirai doing? Honda recently cancelled the Clarity.

[Fuzz]

The gains(for society) in reduced emissions and particulates. The transport sector represents 23% of our CO2 commissions. De-carbonizing that is a big incentive.

It doesn't scale because the bigger, more power hungry a vehicle, the more batteries you need to carry, which means more weight, needing more batteries....the same reason an AV small plane might work, but you can't do it for an jetliner. I've already mentioned the challenge of electrifying a truck stop. Shipping delays due to charging time would be unacceptable. You also use a limited commodity like batteries on massive trucks, when it could be put to better use on small delivery vehicles.

As for smaller vehicles, I'm not convinced hydrogen makes sense for them. But in large applications? I think we are far from declaring EV's a winner.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by timun

There are some legit reasons why hydrogen proliferation is unlikely, so let's not peddle falsehoods like "per kWh produced a battery only loses a fraction of energy from production to consumption". That's a preposterous notion, power plants and the grid are not particularly efficient. And it's a pretty silly premise to base this all off of the electrolysis of water in the first place: hydrogen fuel is mostly made from natural gas.


It seems your entire line of reasoning is based on a fantasy-land belief that we'll all "electrify" with the panacea of "solar/wind/nuclear". Fat chance of that happening any time soon. "Home heating for most countries will be electrified"? Lololol

1) "Well to wheel" hydrogen takes 2-3 times the energy (ie. A fraction) to move a km as compared battery if you put in the losses for both. That's not a falsehood, it's been proven over and over

2) If we're not moving on from fossil fuels then hydrogen is even more incredibly stupid and expensive.



As for others wondering why there's still companies putting money into it, it's largely due to sunk costs. O&G companies have assets they can use if we go hydrogen and they can control the fuel. Japanese car makers sunk billions into developing it. But make no mistake, the small hydrogen vehicle market is shrinking when it needs to be expanding exponentially. The war is over

[Wormius]

Does it matter?

Maybe lithium is better for personal vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells are more apt for large and long haul vehicle use. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

I bet people weren’t arguing over whether we should only have diesel or gasoline engines.

[zamler]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

It doesn't scale because the bigger, more power hungry a vehicle, the more batteries you need to carry, which means more weight, needing more batteries....the same reason an AV small plane might work, but you can't do it for an jetliner.

So you claim, where is the math? It's true increasing the size of the H tank doesn't increase overall weight that much. But the entire process of producing, compressing, shipping, compressing again, pumping into vehicle then producing electricity to drive the wheels is at least 2X (energy) worse than charging a battery pack directly. This is for a passenger car.

What is the crossover point where it is better to use hydrogen?

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Does it matter?

Maybe lithium is better for personal vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells are more apt for large and long haul vehicle use. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

I bet people weren’t arguing over whether we should only have diesel or gasoline engines.

I'm totally in this camp. As a matter of prediction though, I don't see hydrogen making it. If it does, great!

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

I'm totally in this camp. As a matter of prediction though, I don't see hydrogen making it. If it does, great!

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.

[Street Pharmacist]

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.

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.

[Street Pharmacist]

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.

I just also re-read you post and thought I should point out that Shenzen in China (pop 12M) already has 16,000 battery electric buses and 22,000 electric taxis and it works great and cheap!

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

I just also re-read you post and thought I should point out that Shenzen in China (pop 12M) already has 16,000 battery electric buses and 22,000 electric taxis and it works great and cheap!

Thanks. It looks like Shenzhen has some really good charging infrastructure built up around the city.

https://www.wri.org/insights/how-did...tric-bus-fleet

[chedder]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

I just also re-read you post and thought I should point out that Shenzen in China (pop 12M) already has 16,000 battery electric buses and 22,000 electric taxis and it works great and cheap!

Coal is cheap. But Shenzen has been having blackouts because they can't get enough coal to keep up. Is it some great thing to have electric vehicles powered by coal? Maybe from a smog standpoint but from a carbon perspective is it any better? I'm genuinely asking.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/05/chin...an-export.html

Something like 78% of electricity in China is produced burning coal.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by chedder

Coal is cheap. But Shenzen has been having blackouts because they can't get enough coal to keep up. Is it some great thing to have electric vehicles powered by coal? Maybe from a smog standpoint but from a carbon perspective is it any better? I'm genuinely asking.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/05/chin...an-export.html

Something like 78% of electricity in China is produced burning coal.

So yes, EVs are still better from a lifecycle GHG perspective regardless of fuel source. The benefits are minimal of course if electricity generation is coal intensive (yes I've seen the study showing the it's worse, but there were serious flaws pointed in loads subsequent studies). Regardless, this is chicken and egg here. There is nowhere on earth installing more renewables than China, as almost half of all new solar installations on the planet are in China.

What most China climate hawks ignore is that China still has quite a ways to go to develop to the same extent we do. Their energy consumption per capita needs to increase to get to the same economic development standards we have (they currently use less than 1/3 per capita of what we do). They need more generation just for their economic growth and they need it soon. It's their stated aim to hit peak GHG before 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050. Therefore, it's a much different hill to climb for them as they're at a significant competitive disadvantage if they don't electrify rapidly and they cannot install enough wind and PV to do it. Secondly, in absolute amounts, coal consumption peaked in 2014 and is falling. As a percentage of generation, it peaked at 80% in 2005 and is at 64% now. They are cleaning their grid albeit slower than developed nations for the reasons mentioned above.

tl/dr: EVs are better regardless of generation fuel but if you don't build the EVs, then your burning petroleum anyways. Their plan is to build out EVs and clean up generation at the same time which is happening

[CASe333]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

1) "Well to wheel" hydrogen takes 2-3 times the energy (ie. A fraction) to move a km as compared battery if you put in the losses for both. That's not a falsehood, it's been proven over and over

2) If we're not moving on from fossil fuels then hydrogen is even more incredibly stupid and expensive.

As for others wondering why there's still companies putting money into it, it's largely due to sunk costs. O&G companies have assets they can use if we go hydrogen and they can control the fuel. Japanese car makers sunk billions into developing it. But make no mistake, the small hydrogen vehicle market is shrinking when it needs to be expanding exponentially. The war is over

I agree with much of your current take on H2 fuel cells vs electric but there are some points contrary that I think you are missing.

Currently there are only ~2-3% EV vehicles stock worldwide so nothing has changed enough to state electric vehicles have won and the war is over. As you have noted O&G companies have an invested stake in the current economy/infrastructure and I think they will be forced too or be incentivized to improve the value of H2 from O&G. They can utilize the fact that pollution is mitigated to one refinery and H2 can replace fuel for cars and many different applications that batteries aren't able to on a large scale. When people talk about moving to electric vehicles completely do they consider how little electricity we still use for fuel purposes in general?

As noted electric energy from coal can be very polluting. When people say
H2 takes 2-3x times the energy to produce electricity note you are using current technologies with no references noted. Things change rapidly especially when $$$ gets put into a sector of research. Pipelines and gas stations can easily be retrofitted for a H2 gas economy. For the masses they could easily transition to a H2 economy and most wouldn't even notice. I don't think we can transition to complete electric as fast without an intermediate.

I'm rambling but point is that things can change fast. From a chemical view photosynthesis is one of the most important natural phenomenons and there is no reason we can't eventually better it on a larger scale.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by CASe333

I agree with much of your current take on H2 fuel cells vs electric but there are some points contrary that I think you are missing.

Currently there are only ~2-3% EV vehicles stock worldwide so nothing has changed enough to state electric vehicles have won and the war is over. As you have noted O&G companies have an invested stake in the current economy/infrastructure and I think they will be forced too or be incentivized to improve the value of H2 from O&G. They can utilize the fact that pollution is mitigated to one refinery and H2 can replace fuel for cars and many different applications that batteries aren't able to on a large scale. When people talk about moving to electric vehicles completely do they consider how little electricity we still use for fuel purposes in general?

As noted electric energy from coal can be very polluting. When people say
H2 takes 2-3x times the energy to produce electricity note you are using current technologies with no references noted. Things change rapidly especially when $$$ gets put into a sector of research. Pipelines and gas stations can easily be retrofitted for a H2 gas economy. For the masses they could easily transition to a H2 economy and most wouldn't even notice. I don't think we can transition to complete electric as fast without an intermediate.

I'm rambling but point is that things can change fast. From a chemical view photosynthesis is one of the most important natural phenomenons and there is no reason we can't eventually better it on a larger scale.

Couple of points.

1) Tesla is the biggest automobile company on the planet by market cap. While that doesn't mean everything, it does mean that the business world has put all their chips into battery electric vehicles. Volkswagen, GM, Volvo, Jaguar, and lots more have stated that they will be battery only soon. Every other automaker has battery electric vehicles announced within their lineup. In Europe there's dozens of different electric vehicles to choose from. In fact, in 2020, 12% of all vehicles sold in Europe were electric vehicles. Currently, only one brand of vehicle has hydrogen vehicles available and the number on the road is maybe a few thousand. As of 2020, there are over 10 million charging stations on the planet for BEVs. Globally there are about 400 hydrogen fueling stations and almost half are in Japan

2) Hydrogen is stored at almost twice the pressure that natural gas is. You cannot use the current infrastructure without replacing our upgrading almost all of it. It's not really a very easy solution.

3) References for efficiency of hydrogen vehicle vs battery electric are quite easy to find. One of the easiest to read is this one by Volkswagen : https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news...question.html#
Or BMW:
https://www.bmw.com/en/innovation/ho...cars-work.html
At the end of the day, the laws of thermodynamics mean that the extra steps plus transportation of the fuel just mean that it's going to be much less efficient. Currently wheel to well it's about 80% for BEVs and 25-30% for FCEVs

4) The whole investment of tens of billions in battery electric vehicles by automakers is because of co2 emissions targets in many countries and the EU. If a vehicle is using hydrogen from methane, then it would completely defeat the purpose.