Hydrogen... Jeep, are you paying attention?

[CaJLMetalHead]

I watched this video a few weeks ago. Pretty sure his conclusion is the energy density of hydrogen is too low. In order to have a reasonable range, it would require fuel storage that wouldn't fit in most cars.

(726) The Unfortunate Truth About Toyota's Hydrogen V8 Engine - YouTube

Engineering Explained is a great channel !

The original article posted in this thread is about a truck with fuel cell technology where Hydrogen is used to produce electricity and power electric motors... but the Engineering Explained Youtube video is about a Toyota V8 engine modified to use Hydrogen as fuel instead of Gasoline.. it is hard to know if these technologies are going to be successful as there are so many economic, logistical and practical issues to solve before is economically feasible for use in mass markets.. I imagine these types of technologies being more successful in transportation.. an example is Nikola motors, who are working hard in getting Fuel Cell / Battery trucks to market..

Nikola Energy: Clean Energy Solutions (nikolamotor.com)

Sponsored

 

[1Evil55]

Do you have electricity at home? Then you have the ability to charge an EV. Plus I'm willing to bet that there are high voltage EV charging stations not too far from you, unless you're WAYYYY out in the boonies.

My point being electrical infrastructure is all over the country, but Hydrogen isn't.

30 minutes outside of chicago and we do not have the power grid engineered to manage hundreds of thousands of chargers unless we also want blackouts.

 

[RAMSTEEL]

Stellantis already has hydrogen vehicles in Europe and they are slated to arrived to our market O/A 2025.

https://www.stellantis.com/en/technology/hydrogen-fuel-cell-technology

https://www.stellantis.com/en/news/...ric-and-combustion-engine-commercial-vehicles

 

[Sean L]

30 minutes outside of chicago and we do not have the power grid engineered to manage hundreds of thousands of chargers unless we also want blackouts.

The electrical grid is there... and it will be quicker to expand that than to bring in all new Hydrogen fueling stations being the point I was making. EVs are already mainstream and Hydrogen isn't yet... It will be quite a long time before they are.

 

[1Evil55]

Let's hope a very long time

 

[four low]

That Hydrogen Fueled Engine on Engineering Explained is Transformer Material.

 

[Mudduck]

Do you have electricity at home? Then you have the ability to charge an EV. Plus I'm willing to bet that there are high voltage EV charging stations not too far from you, unless you're WAYYYY out in the boonies.

My point being electrical infrastructure is all over the country, but Hydrogen isn't.

I see thousands of apartment complexes with street only parking…. Has electricity and no way to charge in cities, just for starters. The grid is there, the capacity is not. Lets build more coal and NG plants to make electricity to charge our green cars. Yeah, windmills…… even more funny.

Strip mine the earth, have thousands of lithium leech fields, non disposable batteries and create a car that takes 100,000 miles before it even starts to repay for itself in place of fracking. Sound good. And green.

no gas tax you say? How about a VMT tax. Vehicle
lies Traveled. Charging cost, super chargers aren’t cheap, you’ll end up paying more per mile than a traditional ice vehicle.

its a piss poor trade off at best.

 

[Hercules]

I see thousands of apartment complexes with street only parking…. Has electricity and no way to charge in cities, just for starters. The grid is there, the capacity is not. Lets build more coal and NG plants to make electricity to charge our green cars. Yeah, windmills…… even more funny.

Strip mine the earth, have thousands of lithium leech fields, non disposable batteries and create a car that takes 100,000 miles before it even starts to repay for itself in place of fracking. Sound good. And green.

no gas tax you say? How about a VMT tax. Vehicle
lies Traveled. Charging cost, super chargers aren’t cheap, you’ll end up paying more per mile than a traditional ice vehicle.

its a piss poor trade off at best.

Preech. If only more people recognized the dark side of “green”

 

[ghorsepower]

Look Ford figured this out years ago but "they" don't want you to know that...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

It's our only hope until we figure out how to power our cars by internet forum hyperbole and bombastic political hot air.

 

[Kyanche]

Hydrogen fuel cells are nothing new. There's just ZERO infrastructure outside of small parts of California to support it so it will take much longer to adopt than EVs ever will.

I live in one of those small parts of California and admit, even here you still see Toyota Mirais on tow trucks sometimes lol.

Imagine having range anxiety but you can't just plug in somewhere and spend the night. You're straight up stranded!

 

[dragoneggs]

You can make hydrogen from sea water so we won't have to kowtow to OPEC or anyone else.

And would lower the sea level as well, solving another problem.

 

[FCCinAZ]

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-hydrogen-production-carbon-capture.html

Very interesting concept and solves the blue hydrogen problem. Hydrogen, the most abundant element on Earth, will be the winner here. It actually can get us off the carbon standard. As for infrastructure, seems that gas stations and pipelines can be retrofitted rather easily.

 

[FCCinAZ]

https://plasmakinetics.com/

This technology talks about the ability to swap containers that aren’t pressurized, explosive, or flammable.

 

[alpha1847]

Let's just consider, for a moment, the end-to-end process:

1. Build new renewable power plants that will generate enormous amounts of electricity
2. Use some of that electricity to de-salinize salt water (fresh water already a diminishing resource)
3. Use more electricity to extract hydrogen from water
4. Use more electricity to compress the hydrogen
5. Build an entirely new network of pipelines to connect generating facilities to regional distribution centers
6. Build and deploy a new fleet of hydrogen powered transport trucks to deliver the hydrogen to filling stations.
7. Use more electricity to further compress hydrogen so it's practical to transport to local filling stations using transport trucks
8. Build an entirely new network of filling stations. Since range would be similar to gas vehicles and you cannot refuel at home, it implies a comparable amount of hydrogen filling stations as we have gas stations. Oh, and since you can't just flip a switch, you have to find new land in overcrowded urban areas (can't just replace gas stations overnight).
9. Modify plants to make new fuel-cell powered vehicles at scale (which also require precious metals, by the way)
10. Sell new fuel-cell vehicles to everyone at a cost that is no less than a modern EV
11. Refuel your car at filling stations at market rates (no control)
12. Use the fuel cell to convert the hydrogen back to electricity so an electric motor can power your car.

That's a pretty complicated and unpredictable process just to get the electricity you need to power a car. Enhancing our current electric infrastructure is a far easier and more cost effective path. It's a lot easier to move electrons!

It's not coincidence that that the Big Oil companies are the ones pushing hydrogen fuel cells - it's a way to ensure we continue to be beholden to them for many more decades.

 

[west tex]

https://www.foxnews.com/auto/toyota-hydrogen-powered-pickup-suv

Toyota is ahead of the curve on this one. Rather than oversized battery packs they're introducing a technology that I really feel can replace the ICE vehicles. You don't need to sit waiting for you battery to recharge, just fill up the tanks and go. And yes, hydrogen is explosive....so is gasoline....and from what we've seen lately with Teslas burning up, they're flammable too. I would never buy a battery powered EV like they're offering now but build a fuel cell/electric vehicle and you really have the best of both worlds. I have a friend who works for Iveco in Arizona and they're having very good results with their hydrogen/fuel cell powered trucks. That's the way to go, tell China to pound sand with their rare earth minerals for batteries. You can make hydrogen from sea water so we won't have to kowtow to OPEC or anyone else.

Yes, hydrogen powered vehicles would be nonpolluting and maybe a better option vs EVs.

BUT, I've been hearing about hydrogen fuel cells for more than 25 years. And as of today, they're still nada. No supporting infrastructure, no vehicles available.

Reminds me of nuclear fusion, which has been the clean, nonpolluting "power of the future" that runs on seawater throughout my long lifetime. Back in the 60s when I was in HS, the talk was that fusion powerplants were "50 years in the future."

Now in 2022, fusion power is still "50 years in the future."

The problems are very difficult with these technologies and there haven't been breakthroughs that would allow either hydrogen power of fusion to become practical alternatives.

Maybe someday, but don't hold your breath.

Sponsored