Why Hydrogen Might Still (Eventually) Make Sense

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Martin Tengler, Tokyo-based lead hydrogen analyst for BloombergNEF, likes to talk about how we’re on the cusp of at least the fourth pro-hydrogen near-frenzy since 1974. That’s the year Road & Track touted“Hydrogen: New & Clean Fuel for the Future” on its March cover. They probably didn’t mean more than 45 years in the future.

The second frenzy came in 2005, when the CEO of Ballard Power Systems, maker of fuel cells, said they’d be selling between 200,000 and 500,000 a year to auto manufacturers by 2010. They did not hit that mark.

And then there was 2009, when multiple auto manufacturers signed a joint letter of intent that by 2014, they would be selling hundreds of thousands of hydrogen-powered cars. That didn't happen, either.

But this next near-frenzy might be different, Tengler believes. Just in the past year, forecast growth, or at least interest, in hydrogen power has grown beyond even recent predictions. While most automakers have announced ambitious electrification plans pegged to plug-in vehicles, Honda recently made sure to include hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles in its goal to phase out gasoline engines in North America by 2040. Daimler Trucks and Volvo have partnered in Europe to try to help cut costs and make hydrogen make financial sense for long-haul trucking.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/why-hydrogen-might-still-eventually-make-sense/ar-BB1gxBit

[Hugh_Lebowski]

1. oh, man ... NNadir sees this there's gonna be hell to pay ...

[VMA131Marine]

2. There's absolutely nothing wrong with hydrogen as an energy carrier

as long as it is made from renewable power. It’s obviously more efficient to use the renewable power directly, storing it in a battery if needed for transportation. However, air travel, at the speed and scale we do it now is unlikely to be fully electrified. Certainly, battery powered electric propulsion is very difficult for intercontinental flights. This is where hydrogen, or biofuels, make sense.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

3. I'm not NNadir ;) nt

[hunter]

8. Biofuels are awful. We've already trashed much of the earth with our agriculture.

The most desolate places on earth are vast fields of corn and soybeans drenched in toxic chemicals and artificial nutrients. These nutrients, in turn, cause huge blooms of prokaryotic organisms, turning the water into a toxic anaerobic stew.

As a fuel, hydrogen itself is a very problematic, mostly because it is very difficult to contain.

If you've got the hydrogen already it's probably best to use it to synthesize more familiar, easily contained fuels. The carbon in these fuels could be derived from atmospheric carbon dioxide, thus making them "carbon neutral."

[VMA131Marine]

9. Hydrogen is not "difficult to contain"

We launch rockets all the time that are half full of cryogenic liquid H2 and it’s even easier to store in gaseous form.

[Finishline42]

10. SpaceX doesn't use Hydrogen

Maybe this is why (considering that they are reusing boosters).

The term hydrogen damage or HE encompasses wide range of the deleterious effects that have been associated with hydrogen on materials. These effects occur in both hydrogen sources, aqueous and gaseous environments, and vary from one material to another, the strength level, microstructure and level of impurities or undesirable phases. Although there is agreement that hydrogen does not affect elastic properties of materials, it is recognized that hydrogen affects mechanical properties of both low- and high-strength materials, and the effect can be characterized by loss in ductility, reduction in strength, reduction in fracture toughness, and enhanced crack growth. Several theories have been proposed to account for these effects, and although there are large degrees of commonality in these models, there still no theories or models that can predict the behavior of materials when exposed to hydrogen. There is consensus among researchers that hydrogen effects depend on wide range of factors among them exposure time, type of environment, temperature, pressure, stress level and state, properties of material, microstructure, hydrogen concentration, surface conditions, diffusion rates, etc., indicating that hydrogen effects are complex and remain elusive despite decades of research that this topic has been studied.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydrogen-damage

[hunter]

11. Diesel fuel is easy to contain. Gasoline is easy to contain.

You can carry these fuels around in a plastic soda bottle. In impoverished places people frequently do. You can buy a two liter bottle of fuel for your stove or motor scooter from a street vendor.

Propane, Butane, Dimethyl Ether (DME) condense to liquid at relatively low pressures and can be transported in ordinary steel bottles.

You can see the condensed butane in a clear plastic lighter. Try that with hydrogen.

w

In comparison, storing useful amounts of hydrogen is incredibly difficult, requiring very high pressures and/or low temperatures, and very specialized materials for containers and plumbing.

The hydrogen molecule is so small it readily diffuses through many materials and leaks rapidly from microscopic flaws.

In the larger picture, this planet probably can't support an automobile for every adult human and frequent air travel for all. There are simply too many of us. Automobile culture itself is the environmental problem, not the particular fuel that powers an automobile.

If we build walkable cities where automobile ownership is unnecessary, and we replace short hop airline routes with high speed electric rail, we can quit fossil fuels without resort to difficult replacements such as hydrogen.

[Miguelito Loveless]

5. Oh dear,

he will subject us to another yet another multi-thousand word fusillade, complete with graphs and charts, which never actually rebut the issue at hand.

I've learned to just ignore him.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

6. Awwww shit ... you throwin down the gauntlet now ...

I'ma just step aside for now if you don't mind

[Miguelito Loveless]

4. H2 MIGHT make sense for heavy trucks

but continued improvement in battery chemistry might make it as irrelevant for Class8 trucks as it is for passenger cars. Shipping and heavy aircraft? Yes, that is promising. Energy storage? Better than no energy storage.

[NBachers]

7. I put N on ignore after his snide, gloating, contemptuous answers to some honest questions I asked.