<
https://freedium.cfd/https://medium.com/enrique-dans/physics-wins-hydrogen-cars-lose-475974e343dc>
'How many times have we heard that hydrogen-powered cars are "the future"?
Well, that future has been collapsing like a house of cards for a long time
now. Stellantis, the world's fourth-largest automaker, has just announced that
it is cancelling its entire fuel cell program, citing major drawbacks. In the
first half of 2024, 5,621 hydrogen vehicles were sold, compared to 4.5 million
battery EVs.
And while executives are jumping ship, some angry pioneers are already calling
their lawyers: Toyota Mirai owners in California are suing the brand after
discovering that idyllic hydrogen refueling is instead an odyssey of shut-down
pumps and abusive prices, leaving them with unsellable vehicles.
It's not like they weren't warned: in 2021, I explained that blue hydrogen was
the oil industry's latest big (and disgusting) lie; in 2022, I said that
hydrogen in automotive applications made no sense; and last summer, I went so
far as to call it "the great hydrogen scam". Now, time and thermodynamics have
put things in their place, although long-time hydrogen advocates will now
devote themselves to hiding under rocks.
The reason is a simple matter of physics. Converting electricity into hydrogen
is 70% efficient, compressing or liquefying it, transporting it, converting it
back into electricity inside a fuel cell around 60%, and finally, moving the
wheels results in losses of close to 70%, which ultimately gives an overall
efficiency of 45%, with the added detail that hydrogen-powered cars have more
moving parts, making them more expensive to maintain than EVs, and unlike them,
cannot be charged at home.
The prestigious Fraunhofer Institute quantified these losses and concluded that
hydrogen was not even any good for powering heavy trucks. Obviously, it is much
better than the appalling inefficiency of a combustion engine vehicle if we
consider the entire process from the oil field to the road, which is between
17% and 21%, but compared to batteries that convert more than 90% of the energy
from the grid into motion, the debate is simply settled. As we said, it's a
simple matter of physics, and specifically thermodynamics.'
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
