<
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/12/21/another-day-another-hydrogen-transportation-failure-hyzon-edition/>
"The other day I recorded the annual predictions wrap-up with Laurent Segalen
and Gerard Reid of
Redefining Energy. I’d joined the fun last year for the
first time after starting up the
Redefining Energy—Tech sub-channel, judging
their predictions from the previous year and adding predictions of my own. One
of my predictions for 2025 was that there was going to be a bloodbath in
hydrogen for transportation.
It’s not going to help that it’s illegal to call hydrogen trucks, ferries, or
rail zero emissions or even low-emissions in North America, Europe, or
Australia, with both Canada and the EU allowing non-governmental organizations
to bring charges. After all, hydrogen in transportation is actually quite high
emissions. In the best possible case, it’s many multiples of battery or
grid-tied electric, and in average cases close to diesel. In some cases, it’s
worse than diesel.
Why? Well, manufacturing hydrogen, in the best possible scenario, requires
about three times as much green electricity as just using the electricity in
vehicles through batteries, so whatever emissions are related to the
electricity are tripled. Also, hydrogen is a greenhouse gas, albeit indirectly
by preventing the methane in natural gas or burped out of cows from degrading,
with 13 to 37 times the potency of carbon dioxide. And as the smallest or
second smallest molecule — depending on whether you ask chemists or physicists
— and at the pressures required to have enough of it in one place to do
anything useful, it leaks. Every time it moves from container to container or
piece of equipment to piece of equipment, a bit leaks. When it’s liquified for
long-distance trucking, for example, it turns back into a gas on the road and
gets vented.
The combination means that for hydrogen-powered vehicles, an average of 10% of
the hydrogen is likely to be vented from manufacturing to getting into the fuel
cell."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
