Hydrogen-based Transportation
The video linked here is a promotion for the hydrogen-based Toyota Miria
. Here are a few comments on its claims:
It’s for the philosopher; it’s an ode to living.
Well, maybe it’s for rich philosophers; the cost of fuel cells is still quite high, and the Miria starts at $60,000. But there’s more to this. The problem is that hydrogen, while it does boast zero emissions at the tailpipe, is produced from methane using energy that today comes largely from fossil fuels. Of course, one could argue that hydrogen will become cleaner as renewables offset the burning of coal and natural gas, but once we have all that clean electricity, the argument for electric transportation becomes that much stronger.
It’s what the future looks like. No, it isn’t. The whole “hydrogen economy” isn’t going to happen. We’re not much closer to it now than we were when the term was coined in the early 1970s. In addition to the above, the delivery infrastructure for hydrogen would be prohibitively expense.
🙂
I have to poke a little fun at you here.
I obviously agree with your assessment of the the hydrogen car. It’s a farce.
But you say that it’s not affordable at $60k, even as you have championed Tesla for years as they sell $100k vehicles…
And you correctly state that the hydrogen car isn’t truly carbon neutral because fossil fuels were consumed in order to produce the hydrogen, but you didn’t consider that the same argument is accurately used about EV’s: coal is burned to produce much of the electricity stored in batteries.
😉
I know you understand all that, but I had to have my fun.
🙂
FWIW, I think EV’s are much better than H2 vehicles.
First: cost. Yes EV’s are expensive, but God only knows how much the Miria actually costs. Toyota has the resources to lose a few hundred thousand per vehicle on a small run of a thousand or so vehicles… and it’s likely that this is the case here.
Second: longevity. A fuel cell has very delicate ceramic structures with platinum deposited on the structure. These things don’t stand up well to the vibration of the road, which I guess means that Toyota would have put a lot of emphasis on smoothing the ride… but it means that the fuel cell will not last all that many miles before failing… perhaps a few tens of thousands, if all goes well and the roads are quite well maintained.
Third: The efficiency is truly terrible. Most electric motors at least have the decency to be efficient. You figure ~6% line losses to get to the house, another ~5% or so from the meter to the battery, the battery has a ~15% or so cycle loss (charging and discharging losses combined), and the motor might have ~90% efficiency. So after you burn your coal to generate your electricity, roughly 68.3% of that produced electricity goes into actual torque used to accelerate the vehicle.
With hydrogen, you still have the 6% line losses and the 5% or so post-meter losses. But then you have an electrolyzer. Undoubtedly, this electrolyzer will likely not be high temp, and it will not have some form of temperature recuperation on the produced gasses, so you’ll have to use LHV (lower heat value), which will probably be somewhere around 70-75% efficiency at best. Then the fuel cell would have around 50-55% efficiency. So in this scenario, you would only hope to get at best around 36% or less of the electricity produced by burning coal to dedicate towards accelerating the vehicle.
There are many other problems with H2 transportation, but this is enough to ensure that it will not be competitive with EV’s as EV’s gradually gain a niche market foothold in a broad market where they themselves cannot yet compete.
I saw some of this coming. 🙂
Personally, I don’t care too much about car performance now that I’m getting along in years, and my concerns about the environment outweigh my interest in impressing girls. But those who care about performance, I would think, are comparing the Tesla to a Ferrari, as they are veritable rockets. The Miria does 0 – 60 in about 9 seconds (like my mom’s station wagon that I used to borrow when I got my driver’s license).
You’re absolutely right that the environmental validity of EVs is tied to the cleanliness of the power used to charge their batteries. This is why lots of people put extra solar on their roofs.
Glenn,
You seem to have a very old or incomplete knowledge of HFCV technology. Toyota’s fuel cell technology is very robust and your concerns are completely unfounded.
Frankly, the general public doesn’t give a damn about esoteric arguments concerning EV v HFCV technology efficiency. Neither technology is designed to compete with each other. ( except in the imagination of a handful of fans and enthusiasts ).
Both technologies are designed as replacements for ICE technology. Both have advantages and limitations.
HFCV adoption will not happen without a seismic shift in either public demand or political will to ban ICE technology. If this occurred tomorrow, HFCV technology would dominate because of it’s capacity to replace existing ICE technology and infrastructure without any major change in consumer habits or economic dynamics.
EV Technology would still exist, but without a major breakthrough in ESD capacity, would remain a niche product.
However, since such a scenario is most unlikely to occur,( at least in the foreseeable future), Toyota’s HFCV research remains interesting speculation.
OMG. 🙂
I forgot to mention that you make a good point about the actual cost (not price) of the car. I seem to remember that Honda’s Clarity cost them $750K apiece to put on the road.
Craig,
Now you’re just being silly ! Obviously the first prototype of every new model is absurdly expensive until amortized over a production run.
The problem with electric vehicles is WHEN we charge them. Everyone assumes they should be charged at night at home with a round trip of home to work to home. I think they should be charged during the day at work with a round trip of work to home to work. This would help alleviate the “duck curve” everybody keeps whining about by charging these cars during the day when the sun is shining and we are allegedly looking for ways to use that power.
Yes, this is all true. To “drive” your point home further, in the U.S., when you put a predicted incremental load on the grid at night, you’re setting off a chain reaction that means that somewhere, more coal is burned. In the day, it’s natural gas.
Craig,
” No, it isn’t. The whole “hydrogen economy” isn’t going to happen. We’re not much closer to it now than we were when the term was coined in the early 1970s. In addition to the above, the delivery infrastructure for hydrogen would be prohibitively expense.”
I hope you realize your pronouncement on hydrogen is almost word for word exactly the same as pundits claimed for EV technology !
Examining the advantages of HFCV’s requires objectivity and putting aside prejudice.
HFCV specialist vehicles have been built by Toyota for many years with great success. Toyota is well aware of the advantages and disadvantages of HFCV technology.
EV technology and HFCV technology, have much in common. Both were created to satisfy a requirement to produce a practical zero emission vehicle as a replacement for conventional internal combustion engine powered vehicles.
Both were created in an era when “peak oil” was a powerful motivation, and although that threat has disappeared, it’s been replaced by climate change etc.
The development of both vehicle technologies remains dependent on government policies.
Currently, neither technology has made any real inroads into sales of conventional ICE technology. EV technology requires major technical improvements in ESD to move beyond a small market in passenger vehicles, while HFCV vehicles remain experimental due to the dominance of ICE technology and lack of refueling infrastructure.
Both technologies have their advantages and disadvantages, both have problems with adoption. (After all, it took even a staunch environmentalist like you, 20 years after the first Prius Hybrid was released to actually go out and buy one!) 🙂
The basic difference between the two vehicles is simple: With an EV the stored energy is carried in a battery, while in an HFCV the stored energy is carried in a HFCV tank of Hydrogen.
The major difference is the method of refueling, and the amount of stored energy available. The key is convenience and acceptance.
Current EV technology lacks sufficient ESD capacity to operate long distance or heavy vehicles. EV’s (even Tesla) suffer from a range of limitations created by lack of ESD capacity and recharging convenience. Factors like passenger load and gradients are seldom mentioned, but dramatically effect EV performance.
HFCV’s potentially offer the same convenience as ICE, but to become economically viable HFCV technology requires a major commitment to support vehicle adoption with the same infrastructure as exists for ICE.
Production of such infrastructure is technically feasible, and not financially beyond the resources of the stakeholders.
What’s lacking, is the motivation. Conventional sales of ICE are not decreasing while profits are once again on the rise for most automakers. (oil companies are experiencing a glut of oil)
While this continues both technologies will make slow headway, although EV technology, mainly hybrid, is becoming increasingly popular.
I’m an early adopter of EV technology. I enjoy my new BMW i8, but looking ahead when Ford releases the new Mustang hybrid, will I buy a hybrid Mustang despite it’s compromises ? Hell yeah ! You bet !
However, I can also appreciate the environmental and economic argument advanced by Toyota, Shell and Chevron for large scale adoption of HFCV technology.
I’m sure there were pundits who denied that EVs would ever be “a thing.” Below is a greatly abbreviated list of all kinds of mistakes “pundits” have made. They were wrong.
I’m not wrong about hydrogen-powered transportation.
And there is nothing old or incomplete about Glenn Doty’s understanding of HFCVs. OMG.
—
On Second Thought, Maybe I was Wrong
1.) “The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous.” — Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916
2.) “The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys.” — Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878
3.) “This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us.” – Western Union internal memo, 1876
4.) “Reagan doesn’t have that presidential look.” – United Artists executive after rejecting Reagan as lead in the 1964 film The Best Man
5.) “Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia.” – Dr. Dionysius Lardner, 1830
6.) “The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most.” — IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959
7.) “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” – Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
8.) “X-rays will prove to be a hoax.” – Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883
9.) “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty—a fad.” – -The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903
10.) “When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.” – Oxford professor Erasmus Wilson
11.) A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere.” — New York Times, 1936
12.) “No one will pay good money to get from Berlin to Potsdam in one hour when he can ride his horse there in one day for free.” – King William I of Prussia, on trains, 1864
13.) “There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.” – Albert Einstein, 1932
14.) “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” – -Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), in a talk given to a 1977 World Future Society meeting in Boston
15.) “If excessive smoking actually plays a role in the production of lung cancer, it seems to be a minor one.” – -W.C. Heuper, National Cancer Institute, 1954
16.) “No, it will make war impossible.” – -Hiram Maxim, inventor of the machine gun, in response to the question “Will this gun not make war more terrible?” from Havelock Ellis, an English scientist, 1893
17.) “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?” – -Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in 1921
18.) “There will never be a bigger plane built.” – – A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people
19.) “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” – Decca Recording Company on declining to sign the Beatles, 1962
20.) “How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense.” — Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton’s steamboat, 1800s
21.) “Television won’t last because people will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” – -Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946
22.) “I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea.” — HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901
23.) “It’ll be gone by June.” – Variety Magazine on Rock n’ Roll, 1955
24.) “And for the tourist who really wants to get away from it all, safaris in Vietnam” – -Newsweek, predicting popular holidays for the late 1960s.
25.) “Everyone acquainted with the subject will recognize it as a conspicuous failure.” – -Henry Morton, president of the Stevens Institute of Technology, on Edison’s light bulb, 1880
Craig,
I appreciate the way, you leap to Glenn’s defense with no pertinent facts, but a devastating “OMG”. ( I think you’ve been watching one too many teenage sleepover movies).
Okay, back to a few facts.
It’s not necessary to study all 5,680 fuel cell-related patents which Toyota so generously given free access, to grasp the rapidly changing nature of HFCV technology, or the inaccuracy of Glenn’s assertions.
In 2015 new HFCV models were introduced using 85 % less platinum and with an increase of more than 30 times in catalytic activity while the use of gold anodes was eliminated. Gold-palladium coating, which is less susceptible to poisoning and greatly extends fuel cell lifetime, while lower cost is also at an advanced stage, while R&D into simply using derivatives and compounds of iron and sulfur shows promise.
Oh, and as far as fuel cells be fragile and ” the fuel cell will not last all that many miles before failing” , Hyundai has built several all terrain, 4WD military vehicles, which have racked up over 250,000 miles in some of the roughest terrain and test conditions imaginable, with results of complete reliability and less than 5%. fuel cell deterioration.
Not only is that superior to any battery, but outperforms ICE units !
More new components such as nano-structured carbons, nano-polymers while restructuring the architecture of fuel cell construction, has dramatically advanced hydrogen fuel cell technology in recent years.
Craig, I’m afraid a dismissive “OMG”, isn’t really good enough, it helps to know even just a few facts.
I like to follow the Strunk and White dictum: omit needless words. Seriously, I’ve said everything I care to on this subject.
Craig,
“needless words” . Hmmm…. that’s a little disappointing, what have you actually said ?
You made some unverifiable claims, a few assertions based on prejudice, a couple of snide inferences, then retreated !
Come to think of it, maybe you’re Presidential material,….:)