Oilpan4 wrote:So just the hydrogen production is less efficient than the lithium ion batteries.
I don't think this existed 13 years ago.
But still have to compress it and have fuel cell losses.
Hydrogen from fuel cell to wheel efficiency in a car is around 60%.
Looks like it takes about 1kwh to compress 1kg of hydrogen to 5,000psi.
(In theory)
1 Kg of hydrogen contains what about 33kwh or so?
Not bad. We can just say compressor losses are insignificant.
So what are we looking at. Take an energy input of 1, turn that into 0.8 making the hydrogen, then run that hydrogen in a 60% efficient machine, end up with about .5 of what you stated with. That's probably optimistic. Better than what I thought it would be, but still really horrible.
It's better than a gasoline powered car, but that's not saying much.
From wikipedia it goes more like this:
Start from 60 kWh electricity
Spend 30% converting to 42 kWh gaseous H2
Spend 7% pressurizing to 39 kWh (I think 5,0000 psi) H2 (1 Kg H2 is 40 kWh
Spend 40% in the fuel cell for 23.4 kWh electricity that is routed to the car motor.
So the source fuel is 2.5x more expensive ... but you still have to pay for the electrolysis plant, the transport to the fueling stations, and the car fueling station. The latter is ~ $3 million a station. If we presume that a hydrogen fueling station can replace a petrol fueling station in terms of throughput and utilization, it will cost $500 Billion to outfit the US. Compare that to the cost of installing an outlet.
And now buy a fuel cell car. One interesting aspect of fuel cell cars that is not widely recognized is that they are actually H2-electric hybrids. This happens because fuel cells capable of delivering peak power desired by consumers is **way** too expensive so they are built as hybrids with a battery supplying some of the power output. All the parts of a BEV in the fuel cell car ... and all the inefficiencies (inverter, converter, battery, motor) on top of the fuel cell inefficiency. And by the way, platinum is the typical catalyst for the fuel cell. Platinum !!
It is said by optimists that electrolysis efficiency will reach 80%, and fuel cells will reach 70% efficiency in the future. I'll wager good money that cell batteries will drop to $50 a kWh for the manufacturer, energy density will double, and charging speeds average over 200 kW long before the hoped for H2 improvements. In fact, way before. Tesla is already at $100 a kWh and my EV averages about 150 kW charging.
In its own way, H2 is no less idiotic than nuclear, and it tends to be hawked politically by the same fools.