HDT Talks Trucking: David Cebon onThe Darker Side of Hydrogen 

Hydrogen as an energy carrier never made sense to me because of the costs related to compression and storage. However, I do like Methanol, DME and Ammonia. Humans already know how to effectively transport and store the respective chemicals today.

This video does the math in a straightforward way and in so doing, it completely exposes the hype and BS around both hydrogen fuel and carbon sequestration. EVs are not just the future; they're the present as well. Batteries will keep getting better and cheaper. It would be foolish to bet against that trend.

Good video! One other reason the incumbents may like hydrogen is that it looks very much like the petrol business: gas stations, delivery trucks, quick refueling. But it will not work with the truck prices you quote. They can lobby all they want, right up until a company buys a truck. So hydrogen is a non-starter. Move on. A real question might be why is Tesla dragging its feet on their EV semi?

Another thing about hydrogen no one ever talks about: it destroys the ozone layer. Free hydrogen in the atmosphere (which will be inevitable with large scale hydrogen transportation infrastructure where several percent losses are unavoidable) will form ice crystals extremely high in the stratosphere which catalyze the destruction of O3 on their surfaces. See "Potential Environmental Impact of a Hydrogen Economy on the Stratosphere" Science, 2003 by Tromp et al.

Jim , Thanks for a very enlightening discussion . Kind Regards

Nice explanation, thank you.

Excellent video. One of the underlying problems in industry today is that leadership that used to be engineers and technology experts has been replaced by financial and business administration experts. This has caused many industries to prioritize immediate and short term financial gains over technology development and long term productivity improvement including economic, human health/safety, social, and environmental impacts. The ongoing debacle at Boeing is only one of the latest examples of this trend.

Another reason for a push to hydrogen is that most of the hydrogen sold today isn't green. It is made by super heating water and fossil fuels to create hydrogen and CO2. If they capture that CO2, the energy required equals the energy produced, so fossil fuel use doubles, profits go up.

*ENGINEER HERE:* Sorry this is longish but I am qualified in engineering with explosive gases. If you'd like I'd happily come on and explain this from a PRACTICAL perspective. FYI - I started with a degree in aerospace but landed in industrial control systems and automation where I have 35+ years experience. I have been formally trained and certified in BOTH Functional safety (TUV Rhineland) and Electrical Equipment for Hazardous Areas (EEHA). In that context Hazardous Areas means areas where there's a presence of explosive dust or gas *AND YES that includes Hydrogen.* Unlike University professors (and I did several years of post graduate research) I am well versed in practical industrial issues rather than theoretical or hypothetical issues of doing certain things. I am certain of 2 things. 1) Hydrogen will be major part of our energy future for the simple reason there's no other PRACTICAL way do do certain things. The most important one of those is grid stability but that's alonger discussion than is needed here. *2) Hydrogen will NOT BE USED for transportation or at least NOT as hydrogen but it might be as Ammonia or methane.* This could be a discussion on efficiency but that's not the real PRACTICAL issue and I can't stress the PRACTICL enough because once you understand a couple of points then everything else is irrelevant. Hydrogen is simply the hardest gas to deal with when it comes to practical use. This comes form 2 very simple facts. FIRST - being so small of a molecule it leaks from even the tiniest gap. SECOND - its also incredibly reactive and it prefers to explode rather than burn. Once you grasp these 2 very basic facts in the PRACTICAL USE then everything else fades away BECAUSE if you can't handle it and contain it and prevent it reacting SAFELY then nothing else matters. In air all dusts and gases have what are called the Lower Explosive Limit (LEL) and Upper Explosive Limit (UEL). These are given as a percentage of the mix with air. BELOW the LEL there's not enough gas to explode and ABOVE the UEL the mixture is to rich to explode. The problem with gas leaks is that at the leak the gas is 100% and then it starts mixing with the air and the percentage of gas starts falling. *When the gas air mix reaches the UEL it becomes explosive and stays explosive until it mixes with enough air to get below the LEL. For Methane the LEL is 5% and UEL is 15%. For Hydrogen the LEL is 4% but the UEL is 75%. So for each litre of methane you need to mix it with almost 6 litres of air before it becomes explosive. But for each litre of hydrogen it only needs about 1/4 of a litre of air to become explosive. So just for starters Hydrogen not only leaks a lot more than methane but those leaks are far more likely to explode than methane. This is also why your house doesn't explode when you light a gas burner on the stove. The real problem isn't that we can't make cars, trucks & buses that run on hydrogen its the long term maintenance of them. Because with hydrogen less than ideal maintenance means hydrogen leaks. Also things like car accidents become a lot more explosive to put it mildly. There is possibly a place for hydrogen in situations where there's a lot more control of the situation. In Australia Fortescue Mining has been running some of their giant dump trucks on hydrogen. I have worked in Australia's mining sector and even done a project at Fortescue's port facilities. So I know how iron ore mines work. Its totally different to having cars, buses and trucks on everyday roads with hydrogen. These are massive trucks that (for general safety reasons) have their own roads and their own re-fuelling stations. In general they are nowhere near other vehicles and the mechanics are all specially trained to work on them. For normal cars, buses and trucks how do we re-train all the mechanics so they don't blow stuff up and how do we keep the re-fuelling stations safe. Gas stations right now are barely safe for average citizens to use. If people really knew how dangerous it can be to re-fuel a car they be a lot more cautious. What makes it doable is the nature of the fuel we use in cars as in its liquid not gas and YES I KNOW about LPG but that's nothing like hydrogen. That's really the bottom line with Hydrogen in cars, buses and trucks. How do we keep it safe to use? And once you understand that question then all the other discussions of production, efficiency, storage, pumping, pipework,.... don't even get discussed.

USGS estimates there are 200 Tillion tons of natually occuring hydrogen in the ground - which can be extracted in a similar way to natural gas; and also be distributed in the same lines in many cases; requiring little or no new infrastructure. All other alternatives should be put on hold - certainly any government aide for them put on hold until these deposits are confirmed or denied; as investment in solar, wind, nukes etc would be a total waste if natural hydrogen is found in anywhere near these estmated reserves.

11:46 Why is old Steam Methane Reforming being talked about if the point is to reduce the carbon footprint? 13:46 It might be interesting to note that the hydrogen production for the $8 BILLION Baytown project in Texas uses autothermal reforming (ATR) to produce clean hydrogen for agricultural ammonia production. So projects like this will be the driver of the cost per kg of clean hydrogen and are totally separate from the presented “terminological inexactitudes” offered by the esteemed interviewee. Contracted cost of production for green ammonia is less than $4 per equivalent of kg of hydrogen, and that is today. The ATR process is significantly cheaper in production costs. 15:36 The ATR process is being used to avoid these capture inefficiencies! So why does the interviewee persist with the terminological inexactitudes! So now the majority of the “issues” are rendered in a different light. So basically the criticisms have to be discussed along what is actually going to take place. The early prototype fuel cell trucks are very expensive which is why a number of companies are nearing production on HICEs to provide a vehicle that is comparable in cost to an RNG truck which is much cheaper than an EV. Also it should be noted that the hydrogen pressure that is being used for trucks and transit buses is 5000 psi and use very similar tanks to the RNG vehicles (and the cost to compress hydrogen to 5000 psi is comparable to RNG and is not a deal breaker). So all in all, the biggest issues are safety and building a mature hydrogen industry to push the hydrogen cost down to competitive prices. 15:58 Why does he present all these terminological inexactitudes is probably best explained by how he is …

Great video! This should be put out on national TV every day - it might just stop people vacuously parroting "Hydrogen!" every time climate change is mentioned. It's sooo boring. But the great thing is that green solutions are now cheaper than traditional fossil fuel power; certainly for electricity generation, and transport is not far behind. So in this respect the issue of climate change is now kind of irrelevant - simple economics is driving the transition.

Nice coverage. A few other "Darker Side" aspects to using hydrogen. There is not enough platinum or palladium on earth to produce enough fuel cells to replace ICE vehicles. Going with green hydrogen vehicles instead of BEVs would not only cost 3 times as much, but would require 3 times as much green sources of electricity. Which also means 3 times as long to de-carbonize. So it's more than just a financial problem.

The laws of physics/thermodynamics rule. The conversion processes lose 25% or more of the energy

A great video. Other down sides to hydrogen are the necessity to replace various parts exposed to H2 because embritlment (and you better not forget to do that, danger) and electric vehicles have the regen braking abilities that will dramatically lengthen the interval for brake service (hydrogen trucks do have a battery but it's too small to store sufficient regen for downhill runs).

Agree 100%, and Sabine Hossenfelder had a youtube video about this to. The future of road transporting both cars and busses and trucks is by batterys, not by fuel cells, fuel cells are used in space travels fx, and ofcorse some other users to. Thanks for a good video on this topics, it's really needed. SB.

Green hydrogen is perfect to make steel and fertilizer. It makes no sense for transport or heating homes.

Fossil Fuel Engineer: Are you a Fool or a Liar? Answer we explained the issues to management and they decided to let sales and marketing answer for us.

No taxpayer money. No hydrogen

It should absolutely be mentioned that on a hydrogen vehicle you have to change the cell and the tanks every few years... and the filters every few months because the air that goes into the cell has to be squeaky clean

No, liquid hydrogen is not the best way to store hydrogen. Ammonia is the best way to store hydrogen, and you then use a fuel cell to convert the hydrogen in the ammonia into electricity to be used by the truck's eclectic motor. Farmers use liquid ammonia for their farms every day, so using ammonia-powered fuel-cell tractors on farms is probably the first step.

We should first see how “clean” ammonia “economics” go before getting too excited about hydrogen. It really is about the economics of “clean” hydrogen that is used to produce “clean ammonia” that will prove if it makes sense to use hydrogen as a transportation fuel further down the road. The issue is that the world desperately needs clean ammonia for agriculture. So the economics will be proven with ammonia first. Besides the Japanese are massively all in on clean ammonia as a power plant fuel, so they will be a major driver of its use, so let them do that experiment. Notice I said “clean” as that is what is going to drive the economics, not that it takes around 2 times more electricity to provide “green” hydrogen (you can use the EPA ratings on the Honda Clarity to get the real life number that is in the low 2’s). Also the 45V clean hydrogen production tax credit rules were written to effectively kill green hydrogen and has strongly pushed it towards “clean” hydrogen, which is something that should be looked into. It would be very interesting to find out who was responsible for this ( and in my opinion it is a toss-up between the green vs clean groups).

How much efficiency do you need to save the planet. What economic would suite you in order to replace fossil fuels. The reach to be efficient to save the planet is a fools gold. No one bothers to explain that fossil fuel ICE efficiency is not 35 % and you’re creating carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.

There is still a sneaky trick that this video misses: negative energy costs. That 3x fuel cost ratio could actually cause your hydrogen producer to make 3x more money by taking surplus energy from the grid (at certain specific times). I think that hydrogen fails purely based on storage, not economics (citation: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qOntMxYA29U.html - actually, this was a poor choice to reference - the channel has a separate video specifically on storage problems). And that means that yes, it will be bad for trucking, but probably still good for aviation (far fewer and more advanced re-fueling locations and more fuel per trip, fewer refueling events).

More hydrogen negativity. Yes hydrogen foot print , is high now, using current methods. You would make hydrogen using renewables , in locations not near the grid. Its not what you would use for cars, especially in the Europe. Solar panels started very expensive and 8% efficient. Should we have not made them, as they couldn't compete with grid power?