Quote:
Originally Posted by redpoint5
It doesn't solve any problems because 95% of hydrogen is derived from natural gas. That process is about 80% efficient.
Hydrogen fuel cells are about 50% efficient.
Way more efficient to simply burn the natural gas directly than to do a bunch of energy conversions.
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While you can argue that that's where most of hydrogen comes from today on average in most parts of the world, you can't argue with the possibility of running a hydrogen vehicle off of hydrogen made 100% from renewable sources.
The same argument can be said of battery electric vehicles. Sure, you can go get a generator from Harbor Freight and charge your EV off of that. Or you could install solar panels and charge your EV off of those. Just because in country A 95% of electricity comes from coal and 95% of it's hydrogen comes from natural gas doesn't mean that in country B 95% of it's electricity can't come from wind and solar and 95% of it's hydrogen can't come from wind and solar powered electrolysis. (Again, I'm not trying to start a political debate, I'm just saying it's hypothetically possible.)
On the flip side, fuel for internal combustion engines can also come from renewable sources, (e.g. bio fuels, carbon capture, etc.).
The question is, what would I do if, hypothetically, I as an individual, company owner, city, state, or country, etc., decided I wanted to use up to 100% renewable fuels and move away from fossil fules, granted I have the economical and technological means to do so?
Say I run a fleet of trucks that drive long distances and want to stay away from fossil fuels. Would solar to battery storage to battery electric vehicles make the most sense, seeing how I'd have to charge often for long charging times, and the weight of the batteries would make me have to take along less cargo? Or would solar to electrolysis be better, even though I'd need more solar panels? But at least I wouldn't need to store the electricity in stationary batteries since hydrogen is already a storage medium. The trucks could haul more cargo and drive farther distances between refuels since hydrogen is much lighter than lithum ion batteries and refuelling would be much, much faster. Or would fields of corn to produce bio fuels make the most sense? This is all hypothecially speaking of course.