@mxey this argument has some merit when you see it through the eyes of classical power production where you have 100% capacity but never need more - but also have production costs.

It will not work with renewables if you build up only 100% capacity, you likely will have to build up more.

Gladly renewable power is meanwhile cheap to build - cheaper than all other power sources. And it has a nice extra feature which will change power markets - no production costs.

You get a power production that has another feature - very fast regulating speeds. Solar power can be switched on when there's sun instantly. Wind power plants can be switched on in less than a minute - something most classical power production systems can't do. We rely on the rotation momentum of the turbines + generators there.

At the moment we have even the problem that slow nuclear + coal powers press renewables or of there markets as they just can't regulate fast enough. Coal and nuclear plants count in hours in regulating power output in larger jumps.

@mcfly
Honestly, i don't think H2 will play any major role in vehicles. it is to heavy/dangerous for planes, and way to expensive for anything that can be heavier, even ships.

It will have an urgent need in industry and to power high efficient gas plants, and to my information (please update) all the hydrogen facilities planned worldwide can only supply 10 % of germanys demands.

@mxey

@zem @Hypx @mxey Well Hydrogen is complicated and noone has a glass sphere.

I think the first misunderstanding is "green Hydrogen will be expensive as brown hydrogen is expensive"

The Port of Rotterdam plans to go BIG into the green hydrogen production for multiple reasons.

First - we have a lot of unused electricity on the Maasvlakte which we can't get rid of easily.

The Offshore Windparks in the west of the Netherlands land here.
The power lines are too small to get the power East to germany and rest of the Netherlands. The Offshore Wind power is growing faster than the powerlines are growing.

We also have a lot of consumers of Hydrogen. A lot of H2 is used in the Hydrocracking process. There is a Hydrogen Pipeline network in the Port already, there are some hydrogen storage facilities, the chemical industry here would like to have that. (There's also a consumption of O2 which changes the calculation noticable).

So i think (!) the first thing that green hydrogen will replace is brown hydrogen as that stuff is expensive to make.

The idea of the Hydrogen project here aims to replace coal in chemical functions - Steel ovens and cement plants

But there's also the option to use CO2 (wich we also have a pipeline network for here) with hydrogen to form methane.

As said, its a glass sphere and i think noone knows what the future really will bring.

@mcfly
@Hypx @mxey You are absolutely right no one has a glass sphere, but you can make some asumptions.

My main asumption is that green hydrogen will most certainly have a slightly higher price per KW/h than the electricity used to create it. For the electricity prices the investments and maintenance are the key factor for their pricing, especially if you can put each and every, not anymore overproduced, kw/h in hydrogen anyway to meet demands.

@mcfly @Hypx @mxey With this asumption made, you can have a look at efficiency and feasibility, there is a hell lot of it out there, but it all studies show that battery powered cars are at a factor of about 3 times more effective than hydrogen powered ones. Which means 4 times the price.

I would not bet that you can get hold of any hydrogen cheaper than electricity even if it is your own electrolysis plant it will be cheaper to just charge a battery with it!

@Hypx @mcfly @mxey What experts say that? First of all the last FCEVs all had a buffer battery inside, and their ranges where lower than Battery powered cars. Even though a cell can reach 62 % under labor conditions, in the field those cells don't reach 50%. The fireproof storage units are causing additional losses.

The battery powered car, I have ordered, will charge itself full over the period of one week and will have about 70% efficiency from the charger to the wheel.

@zem @mcfly @mxey You're own numbers suggest a gap of 20%, not 3x.

And yes, FCEVs are basically BEVs with a fuel cell range extender. That's why there's not much difference in running cost. They're both EVs. The rest of the anti-hydrogen argument is BEV marketing and it isn't even self-consistent.

@Hypx @mcfly @mxey Don't forget to count in additional losses on the FCEV battery. Then you are at 35%. Of course you also have losses at hydrogen generation, storage and transport that I have not accountedm, but people have done that. All in 10-15%

Current FCEV do not drive as far as those with batterie it would make them too heavy!

If I can drive 20% cheaper with a car that costs me less to buy I would consider waiting 10 minutes longer to charge.

@zem @mcfly @mxey Now you are making shit up. The fuel cell can directly power the wheels. The electrical grid is not 100% efficient either. The real difference in efficiency between BEV and FCEV is small.

FCEVs are lighter than BEVs, especially for long ranges. This is just another example of BEV marketing.

The point is that FCEVs will be much cheaper to manufacture. You won't save that amount of money via driving. BEV companies don't want people to hear about FCEVs, so they lie about them.