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0 pointspkphilip4y ago0 comments

All valid points. A lot of the misconceptions about Hydrogen comes from the following ideas:

1. That it requires something energy consuming like cold-temperature electrolysis.

This is no longer true. We have ways of generating Hydrogen much cheaper from water vapor - which is a very common by product in many industrial processes and which is often simply vented. The new methods also use Nickel instead of the very expensive Platinum electrodes which reduces the cost drastically.

https://www.maritime-executive.com/features/norwegian-team-d...

UNSW Team has demonstrated ways of generating Hydrogen using very cheap metals (Nickel, again) using a catalytic coating which are orders of magniture cheaper than using Platinum electrodes.

https://phys.org/news/2019-12-scientists-cheaper-hydrogen-en...

2. Storage of hydrogen is very complicated and dangerous.

This is also being addressed by various teams - including the storage of Hydrogen in activated carbon etc instead of storing it in very high pressure in tanks.

https://phys.org/news/2011-09-method-inexpensive-carbon-mate...

Hydrogen's energy density gives it a big advantage over EV technologies - and if it is also stored using the newer technologies, it allows for much lighter vehicles.

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nickik4y ago

You are talking about basically research stuff, EV are literally produce in the millions right now. Billions of private funds flow into battery tech and EV technology, while Hydrogen is basically massively government funded. Next generation EV and battery tech is getting closer and closer to beating hydrogen even in the few things it has an advantage.

And most of the costly infrastructure already exists. Its called the grid. Adding charge spots is incredibly cheap compared to adding hydrogen stations everywhere, even if gas stations already exist.

We have yet to see these lighter vehicles. Batteries can be made as a structural part of the car and the weight compared the normal structure we have now is actually pretty damn low. I don't see how hydrogen can beat that.

BEV are currently and the distance between the two technologies will grow, not shrink if you look at all the improvements rolling into BEV over the next years.

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