Quote:
Originally Posted by ldjessee00
Unless hydrogen or fuel cell technologies become cheaper and much more efficient, I just do not see them competing with the advances coming with batteries. I am not saying that there could not be some advancement that causes fuel cells to become suddenly cheaper or more efficient, just that it does not look that way now.
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In industry, re-fueling infrastructure is already there. High power charging is not.
So a fuel ... like the hydrogen that is somehow stabilized in a glycol of some sort ... that I read about this month ... would be great. The vehicle tank stores enough energy for 12 hours of shift plus a bit of safety factor, the fuel cell stack does it's thing and produces electricity for the big machine, and no one needs to breath exhaust or worry about diesel leaking onto a hot engine and starting a fire in an underground mine.
AND there is no chance of it leaking explosive gases like hydrogen storage tanks ... or releasing as much CO2 as burning natural gas would anyway .. like using natural gas as the feed stock for the fuel cell.
If a fuel cell system like this could be shown .. which should be easy .. to be a lot safer and make the air quality better .. it would be installed as a test case. After being proven in the field, all new equipment would be powered this way. It would still take 20 years to replace all of the equipment, but there would be no question that it was happening, and happening as fast as the capital budget would allow.