[hamdani yusuf]

Here are some problems facing hydrogen fuel cell.

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/review-2021-toyota-mirai
Of course, there's a catch. Actually, several.

First, hydrogen fuel cells are expensive. They use lots of platinum, titanium, and carbon fiber between the fuel cell and hydrogen storage. Toyota sells this Mirai for $66,000 before government tax incentives knock more than $10,000 off the price.

And Toyota is probably losing money on every single one it sells.

[alancalverd]

If you think that you know better than those companies, it's an opportunity for you to create a start up in producing better hydrogen vehicles.

No need. There are plenty of investment opportunities in companies that are already manufacturing them.

They use lots of platinum, titanium, and carbon fiber

Titanium and platinum are recyclable. Carbon fiber is cheap. Lithium battery technology has had the advantage of mobile phone development to offset the R&D costs but hydrogen cell technology hasn't yet had a mass market.

[wolfekeeper]

Possibly if/when it did, that would change things. It almost certainly won't anytime in the next ten years or so.

[hamdani yusuf]

No need. There are plenty of investment opportunities in companies that are already manufacturing them.

You can file a patent for your advanced hydrogen technology, which is presumably much better than Lithium battery. It's up to you if you want to collect royalty, or give it for free as your contribution for humanity in fighting climate change.

Titanium and platinum are recyclable.

You can't recycle them while being used. More fuel cells being used requires more platinum and titanium.
Lithium is also recyclable, cheaper, and more abundant than platinum.

[alancalverd]

You can file a patent for your advanced hydrogen technology,

No need. It's already well patented and in production. It has been to the moon  a few times and is now running around the streets of Britain.

[wolfekeeper]

LOL! That won't get you very far. After decades, there's still only 14 hydrogen fuel pumps in the whole of the UK! And they're not exactly being installed at an enormous rate.

Meanwhile, every grid-connected 13 amp socket in the whole of the UK is capable of charging an electric car, and there's over 18000 charge points, 555 were added in the last month alone.

https://www.zap-map.com/statistics/#points

Hydrogen fueled cars are ABSOLUTELY a con-job that the fossil fuel and car industry are promoting to try to prevent more electric cars being built.

Just wait for the hydrogen car! You'll be able to refuel in seconds they say! And they've been saying it for decades! Meanwhile there's virtually no hydrogen cars, there's virtually nowhere to refuel them, and even if you could the fuel costs is multiple times that of electricity or even fossil fuels. Just a dead-duck technology.

[alancalverd]

https://www.orkney.com/life/energy/hydrogen

https://www.nextgreencar.com/review/toyota/mirai/82099

might give you a different view of the future - and indeed the present.

[wolfekeeper]

No, not at all. This guy has ranked uses for hydrogen between unavoidable and uncompetitive, and it all seems pretty reasonable. You'll note that passenger FC cars are at the uncompetitive end of the range.

https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1426900737313984514?s=20

[alancalverd]

Reminiscent of  the US Academy of Science telling the Wright Brothers "There is no conceivable military use for the airplane".

passenger FC cars are at the uncompetitive end of the range.

The Toyota Mirai is price-competitive with the nearest Tesla, and a better build quality. It doesn't have the same mindboggling acceleration (yet - the present boost battery is very small) but has twice the range and a tenth of the refuelling time.

Not that either is a serious competitor to the horse, of course. The future is full of dangerous unknowns, and best ignored.

[wolfekeeper]

The Mirai is not really very competitive in fact, not being able to refuel at home is a complete show stopper for most people shopping for a green car:



The Mirai is selling very badly.

[hamdani yusuf]

Reminiscent of  the US Academy of Science telling the Wright Brothers "There is no conceivable military use for the airplane".

Alternatively, someone in the past might have said that Zeppelin has no future. Time will tell which analogy has more resemblance with hydrogen cars.

[wolfekeeper]

Really the market's already spoken. Nobody is buying these cars that are significantly worse in almost every way and more expensive compared to plug in electric cars.

[alancalverd]

Nobody bought petrol cars in 1890. You can refuel a horse in your back garden.

[Bored chemist]

I can refuel an electric car in my garden.
I can refuel a  petrol or diesel car in my garden, as long as I don't mind walking up the road with a jerry can.

Odd as it may seem, I don't have 700 bar hydrogen on tap and I'm quite happy about it.

[wolfekeeper]

Yup, around1890 you could simply buy petroleum products at any local chemist and pour it into your car, and off you go. So until you can get kilograms of hydrogen at your local Boots, or any other large scale distribution center, then hydrogen cars are non goers.

[alancalverd]

Until 1966 I could get 50% hydrogen from a tap in my kitchen. The grid still exists and currently delivers methane but
 https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/01/britain-s-gas-grid-preparing-to-accept-20-per-cent-hydrogen-mix-by-2023
suggests that it will eventually deliver 100% hydrogen at the 100GW required for heating and transport.
85% of UK homes already have a grid gas supply, as do most industrial parks and  business developments, so unlike electricity, the additional infrastructure requirement  will be negligible.
We still have to generate the electricity somehow, but let's ignore the weight of that elephant for the time being. At least gas gives us the option of cheap bulk storage, using technology developed 150 years ago.

[walnutclose]

The engineering problem with aircraft is that hydrogen storage in the wings is inefficient as a wing has a large surface/volume ratio (= significant  heat input)  so you have to rethink the configuration  with the fuel tanks in the fuselage and flat fuel cells in the wings (for dispersal of waste heat) feeding multiple electric motor/propellors. A hydrogen-fuelled jet engine may well be feasible but doesn't seem to have hit the headlines just yet.   

A concise summary of the challenges associated with hydrogen and aviation: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/air-travel/hydrogen-powered-planes-could-handle-a-third-of-passenger-air-travel-study-finds [nofollow]

[alancalverd]

Rolls-Royce are also investigating hydrogen as an aviation fuel. There are a number of "blended wing" bizjet designs on the drawing boards right now, and at least one functional prototype with the right format for conversion to hydrogen power.

[wolfekeeper]

Until 1966 I could get 50% hydrogen from a tap in my kitchen. The grid still exists and currently delivers methane but
 https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2022/01/britain-s-gas-grid-preparing-to-accept-20-per-cent-hydrogen-mix-by-2023
suggests that it will eventually deliver 100% hydrogen at the 100GW required for heating and transport.

'Eventually' is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

That was nearly 50 years ago. NONE of the grid is suitable for 100% hydrogen right now. Maybe if they inspected and modified every appliance, and checked every inch of the pipework, it might be suitable for hydrogen once again. Bit of a big job. It would take years, and in the meantime electric cars will be selling ever more quickly.

They're talking about maybe putting 20 percent of hydrogen in the grid; and even that is seriously challenging not only for distribution, but also production and cost.

[alancalverd]

Maybe if they inspected and modified every appliance,

That's exactly what happened between 1966 and 1969. But the gas supply was nationalised at the time so people were able to think about safety and longterm costs rather than tomorrow's share price.