Hydrogen Fuel Cells - are they our future? 

Agree with most of the points. Minset change happens pretty fast. People used to go the video store to buy or rent DVDs to watch movie. Now with Netflix they don't do that all. Similar was the case with landline you needed to n in a specific location to be able to talk , cell phone killed that notions. The same is going to happen with cars , once people drive then they will just like the ride experience and convenience of charging at home.

I live in Germany now and I don't have a garage. I don't see any infrastructure any time soon for charging bev other than visiting a power station

@@gautammanivannan5533 Germany is going to get lots of charging station even gas stations will have it. You get close to 10,000 bucks man. Just grab the opportunity.

@@najibyarzerachic at the consumer level, FCEVs can only compete with BEVs for commuter cars because of the free fuel offered by automakers like Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai. Until the price of hydrogen drops significantly, BEVs will have the edge for the long term. Self-sufficient countries like the US have the potential to be mostly BEV societies. However, hydrogen has an advantage with the heavy industries, like trucks, trains, ships, airplanes, and large scale storage. Countries like Japan, which don't have the space for renewable energy production and have chosen to avoid nuclear energy altogether, and countries like Australia, which have excess renewable energy potential, have invested heavily on hydrogen as a means of energy export across markets. For these countries, FCEVs could be a more convenient choice.

@@luodeligesi7238 I know that. I did pass my physics course. Why are you teaching me that.

Expense is the cost over the life of the vehicle, that would be the initial cost of batteries or fuel cells plus the ongoing cost of recharging that capacity.

Batteries had the same problem. This is kind of silly really, if you understand energy or science this makes a lot of sense. Systems tend to resist change. Batteries work around this and fuel cells will do the same. This is actually a fairly straight forward problem. Batteries have number of long term problems if you ask me in terms of cost and infrastructure that most are ignoring. We are exploiting gray areas which are known to be viable. However moving outside those gray areas will be a different story. Fuel cells actually help stabilize the market and system. This is commonly missed. We will need to use different resources for batteries or we will potentially exhaust the entire supply. Remember huge sections of India, China, Africa, South America, Middle East, etc. are not on parity with the West. Look at the amount of resources that would be required per person for batteries...no one can be serious about this model unless there is something else about it. Also no that is false about the cost of hydrogen. Solar is would enable hydrogen production cost to fall. Many were wrong about the future cost of solar. This has created a problem for the EV market too. As they now have more energy than they expected but not at the right time. Which creates a huge problem by itself. Hydrogen is storage with low resource consumption per life span. Storage allows the energy to move across the time boundary, but yes creates entropy. However I could argue it was already there to a degree.

In the early 60s GM had plans to build fuel cell powered charging stations at service centers for their EVs but they kept exploding

Good for rural places without fast charging.

Exactly, Hydrogen is useful as intermediate storage for renewable energy production facilities. Eventually battery costs will start to rise due to material deficiencies which are already starting to be visible on the horizon and Hydrogen production processes will become cheaper. Already the most major cost of hydrogen production which is the electrolysis has a major upgrade in the pipeline, switching to use Carbon composite materials that will not corrode, which also allows the use of sea-water even further reducing cost of electrolysis. You can look for "dry cell" on ebay and look at the ridiculous prices of the plates currently, and when you realize that a similar sized plate (6x6) would cost at most 50USD if they'll use a highly expensive carbon material, and add to that the extreme longevity of carbon compared to steel during electrolysis you will get a MUCH cheaper cost to produce hydrogen.

Thanks Grant. Much appreciated. All the best. Dave

Hydrogen is good for pickup trucks and SUVs, as well as for rural people who need quick refuelling in forecourts which aren't connected to the grid to have high voltage level 3 chargers.

Paul Edel So, is this an insurmountable problem? Example: car exhausts did not always have catalytic converters.

If the temperature is freezing, you can already assume there's ice on the road...

I think you have a picture of Hydrogen cars dumping lake sized water bodies behind them when the travel! Its actually negligible compared to the amount of natural precipitation occurring on a freeing winter day.

Ships are already surrounded by hydrogen

@@ChipmunkRapidsMadMan1869 Yes but due to efficiency losses (thermodynamics) they'll have to carry another energy source if they want to generate hydrogen at sea, which defeats the entire purpose of doing so...

New technology is emerging reducing the water consumption dramatically and speed up production: www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/new-lithium-extraction-process-could-revolutionise-energy-storage/

And solar PV cells used to cost $1,000/W not too long ago now $0.4/W so watch the H2 space closely.

@@luigibonadio8938 Hydrogen can never be as cheap as bev because creating hydrogen already costs 3 times as much as just driving a bev. That doesn't include getting the hydrogen into the hydrogen car. That will cost more

@@luigibonadio8938 We are watching it closely since the 1950's and almost nothing happened.. even the Apollo program did not change that... Since my childhood (1970) reading popular science magazines, Hydrogen economy was seen as the future.. It never happened.. The Li-Ion rechargeable battery was invented just about 15-20 years ago, and has improved in price and capacity with about 40% per year and it still does.

the heavy industry is going to go to natural gas. Thats why buffet bought pipeline's

​@@richardt6980 What? I fail to see how that's relevant here. Are you suggesting that future heavy transport vehicles are gonna be filled with natural gas? lmao

No, its not moving ahead, Honda just announced it has binned its Hydorgen fuel cell car project and Hyundai and Toyota also finally winding down on H2... Its going nowhere.. with every battery improvement, range extension, battery price drop.. Hydrogen gets further behind.

@@MarcoNierop Oh, thats just then calm before the storm...

Hi Andy. It is indeed a very interesting concept. And I'm quite sure it is an utterly terrifying concept to the money handlers who currently control the global economy. I imagine that's why they attempt to control the markets in the way you describe. I suspect the future will be a pretty messy fudge of compromise between both operating systems - assuming we buy ourselves enough time to find out!. Thanks for your continued support. All the best. Dave

The inherent flaw is the physics, economics. To refine methane into hydrogen you use 25% of its energy, so without a carbon tax that incentivizes pre combustion carbon extraction aka refining, and the availability of NG fuel cells there is no reason to do it . Carbon capture and synthetic fuels is much worse from a cost POV. That's just a chemical battery. With a nuclear fuel source. But even the methane option requires a carbon tax of x to incentivize the system. People will be forced to work and we need to remove their pensions to do that

Ea Jordan I really do not understand your argument. The question is whether fuel cell vehicles and the hydrogen can be made affordable, and there is good reason to think that they can eventually be made cheaper than what is commonly used today. BEVs are not going anywhere, and small short range cars could be even cheaper, so consumers will have good options. Batteries have plenty of room for improvement still, and will benefit technology throughout the economy. Fuel cells and hydrogen will be better suited for heavier applications, allowing the entire transportation sector to be decarbonized. Nuclear reactors may also find more common application within maritime vessels. I think mobility will generally improve as we decarbonize, and it will be easier for people to travel regardless of where they wish to go. Decades out, we should have advanced hypersonic transport capable of conveying passengers halfway around the world in a fraction of the time it takes today. Maglev trains will be easier to build as the economy improves with fundamentally better energy economics, something that will be possible with advanced nuclear. Actually, the scientific community had good reason to believe that the transition would have happened decades ago, but a series of unfortunate accidents combined with a human tendency for self sabotage derailed efforts. Now, all of this is predicated on whether we can keep the free world from succumbing to fascism and destroying itself once again...WWII led to the deaths of over 50 million. The current trend of reactionary, racist, ignorance could bring about something far worse. One might naively assume that the public would rather focus on fundamentally improving their society instead of destroying it under false pretense. A poor outcome is likely when mendacious charlatans are entrusted to manage common affairs.

@@cbarcus well the argument is affordable is a relative term . To be fair let's compare them against natural gas fuel cells, the fuel has 25% less energy and by definition costs 25% more , considering the cheapest possible way to make hydrogen is by refining natural gas . To say it will ever be economically competitive compared to its base fuel and closest comparable competitor would by definition require a carbon tax / credit

@@cbarcus dont be so quick to condemn fascism... intelligence is a thermal adaption in all mammals, saying white men make the best leaders is just a product of them evolving in a cold climate and being forced on a cellular level to generate more heat , corporations are the only model of fund raising in a free world, and rewarding people for their efforts is much cooler the communists whipping slaves . Religious eugenics has been the problem for 60 years , suppressing nuclear energy and pimping our children under a government boot .

Ea Jordan If gasoline costs $3/gallon, and the vehicle using it manages 20 miles a gallon, then a HFCV equivalent using H2 @ $9/kg would be effectively the same because of the greatly increased efficiency. For a sedan that manages around 30 mpg, then a price of $6/kg works out. $4/kg should be possible with the decade, and perhaps under $2/kg sometime in the 2030s. A carbon tax just sweetens the deal, and it would be prudent at some point to encourage the phase out of fossils.

the raw material price is also comparable to current gasoline prices and since there already is large scale excess/unused/free electric energy being produced (he mentioned an exemple in the video -> Island ferry) you could used this "free" power.

1. Fuel cell vehicles are also heavy 2. I dont understand, overproduction of what? and what is the problem? 3. What storage increase? and why would it increase cost, batteries get about 40% cheaper every 2 years, and energy density increases. 4. If the electricity is practically free for hydrogen, that is the same for Batteries, I do not see the advantage for Hydrogen here, as it is much more expensive to make hydrogen then to charge a battery and a lot of energy is wasted. 5. If you think we do not understand some economics, why not try to explain what you mean, this is a hollow statement we must guess what you mean, I really have no idea what you are talking about. 6. Capacity of batteries is increasing leading to longer ranges vehicles rapidly, 1000 mile range will be possible without adding much weight within a few years. 7. Energy companies themselves say that will not be a problem at all. The grid is worked on to get smarter and grids get connected between countries all over Europe to distribute electricity from where is too much to where is a shortage. Because lamps in street light posts are changed to LED almost everywhere now, the capacity of the cables to these light posts is way more then needed, This over capacity is now used to install street side destination chargers (max 11Kw). 8. Actually V2G charging where vehicles connected to two way chargers (V2G, vehicle to grid) will HELP stabelize the grid. Millions of 100Kw car (and home) batteries connected to V2G chargers provide electricity during peak times, making the EV owner earn a few bucks, if played smart you can MAKE money with this... supply energy during expensive peak times, charge during cheap off peak times. Look up "Virtual Power Plant" 10. Charging at night is very practical, no need to visit a fuel station, beside this charging times are decreasing with ever increasing charging capacities and batteries that can handle this. Batteries are here to stay, if not, Tesla, LG-Chem, BYD, CATL, Panasonic, Samsung and what not would not invest hundreds of billions in new factories.. dozens of giga battery factories are under construction now... Hydrogen.. hmm, not really. The grid can handle all this without issue, batteries will help stabelize the grid

Yes, Betamax was a better technology but limited and pricier because of licensing, VHS was good enough but much cheaper and open to market competition. Hydrogen is not better. And it is limited because of efficiency losses, and even at scale it won't compete except in niche markets. Batteries are better, cheaper and open to market competition. Possibly hydrogen will compete in areas without a grid, in heavy shipping and in aircraft. Even then it seems like there will be a mix of hydrogen and batteries/possibly ultracapacitors in the future. Hydrogen could possibly also help in the transition to a non-carbon emitting future while battery manufacturing can not keep up with the demand.

Using Hydrogen from ammonia means you have to transport the Nitrogen. Nitrogen is many times heavier than Hydrogen so For every 3 tonnes of Hydrogen you want to transport you have to transport 14 tonnes of useless nitrogen, Nitrogen that is now required to be pressurised and transported or disposed of. I still think hydrogen has a place as a fuel for long distance logistics. But Hydrogen production and offload would be very close by, like a port or and industrial area.

Compare it to diesel vs petrol, it will fluctuate but chance is high they will coexist. Toyota estimates 30% of the cars in 2050 will be hydrogen powered. And my bet is probably around 20% because of the big head start EV’s are making with all those car brands jumping on the EV hypetrain

Hi Brecht. A very comprehensive and informative commentary. Thanks for taking the time to post it. Much appreciated. All the best. Dave.

This is a great example.

Hi Wendy. Welcome to the channel and many thanks for joining us. I think your comment is very valid. From what I've seen so far I also think it's unlikely to take hold for car transport. I do think it has real potential for fleet vehicles like delivery vans, buses and trains all of which have set travel distances and can be refuelled at central depots. Shipping and flying could be the other two winners. Of course what it also does, in our capitalist market driven world, is push the battery developers to work even harder and faster to stay ahead in the race. And that has to be good for climate change mitigation and also good for the consumer. We shall see. Thanks again. All the best. Dave

@- Ivan Husqaberg My situation is also the same as yours, so I understand that. But I still think even for us, EV would still be the eventual viable option. First, we already have the infrastructure for electricity, it's our grid. If we have electricity nearby, then it's just a matter of connecting to the grid and make it easier to distribute the electricity. For example, in malls you can see there are charging/parking space for EV emerges. Also if you have offices/hotel/restaurant/public space, depending on the state atm, you can request to build charging station at your parking spaces. From that, I'm sure those people would think how to make it even easier to distribute for people like us. And that's the thing, we have grid as infrastructure, we just need to connect to it, it's much more easier and cheaper, than to build an actual fueling station. EV's charging station is not that hard to built because they have charging modules that they only need to connect to the grid, it's like putting plug in extension, except it's bigger. That's why new EV charging station keep popping up pretty quickly. Second, Hydrogen vehicles face up against 2 types of vehicles, non H2 ICE cars and EV, which themselves are at each other's throat right now. It's really easy to make compelling arguments for both non H2 ICE and EV, like how non H2 ICE is really easy to filled up, non H2 ICE is generally cheaper than EV, and it's perfect for people that spend most of their time in their car traveling for a really long distance almost non stop. While for EV, you could save tons of money because you don't need to worry much about maintenance cost unlike non H2 ICE because there's a lot less moving parts in EV, you need to worry about your wiper fluid before you need to worry about anything else in EV, EV also has better energy and power efficiency compared than non H2 ICE, you spent less energy because of that, and also EV has instant power and torque the moment you put your foot to the pedal. As a bonus EV is also much greener than non H2 ICE, even if the grid's 100% dirty, which is not, EV is still greener than non H2 ICE. H2 cars need the same infrastructure as non H2 ICE cars to make, but because the scarcity of consumers, there are not the same number of fueling stations which drives the prices way up. So even just comparing it to non H2 ICE, H2 already facing though competition, throw EV into the competition, H2 get more swiped to the sideline in terms of car industry. The point is EV has a chance to go up against the OG ICE cars because they have compelling arguments and they are arguably objectively a better car than ICE cars even now, and as a bonus they are better for environment. The only thing that EV's not quite strong yet is how long it takes for EV to fuel up. You can't really make the same arguments for H2, especially now that EV is here. If H2 car only competition is only normal ICE cars, then I would say they have a chance, mainly just because H2 has a bit more energy density compared to gasoline and cleaner for environment. But now that EV is here, and actually come with compelling car and not to mention it's cleaner, and they have much easier to be built charging station, let's just say H2 is facing serious competition from both normal ICE and EV and H2 need a lot more compelling arguments that rival both non H2 ICE and EV's strong arguments. Third, the technology. non H2 ICE cars' technology is pretty well established by now, and they reached the point of "They need to exert a lot more effort to enhance the product by even 1% in the way that makes sense economically", or in other words, the technology advancement is quite stagnant nowadays. While for EV, the technology is still quite new, so there's a lot more room for improvement, but mainly that's the battery. First thing is the price, battery's price/energy has come down significantly now with better production technique and how EV's influence on market share has increased over the past years. Tesla also able to keep reducing the battery weight over the years to get better power to weight ratio. They also mentioned that the charging station is already able to output more power to help the charging even faster, it's just that if we do it right now, the battery's degradation would be much faster than normal. That tells us, with better battery, speed charging is not the problem. Not to mentioned there's other technology such solid state battery which dyson is pursuing right now, or graphene supercapacitor, which just goes to show EV's technology's ceiling is still high. I think EV's technology will be objectively better that non H2 ICE cars in every single way, much sooner than H2, and by then H2 would not be even considered, since they are more expensive compared to non H2 ICE car. Fourth, the country's interest. The only place where you have a chance to use H2 car reliably is in Japan, where they are actively pursuing H2 technology and keep adding H2 fueling stations. Other than Japan, the interest for H2 is even much more less than EV, for the reasons that I mentioned above. And to make matters worse, China, the most populated country with highest industry power in the world decided to pursue EV and do it in every way that will make sure their people have EV instead of ICE vehicles, be that by tax incentives, EV discount, or just making cheap commuting EV. And once China did that, other old and big auto manufacture will decide to go all electric, since that is a fresh gold mine. I think if we keep going the way it is now, before H2 fueling infrastructure would be well established, the EV's technology would catch up that non H2 ICE vehicles would not be even considered anymore, and if that's the case, H2 vehicles would not stand a chance. I won't hold my breath for H2 vehicles. By no means I think H2 fuel cell would go extinct or anything, I think they would still be around, just not in terms of normal car or bike market.

Hi folks. I won't add too much to what's already been discussed but I would highly recommend going to the Fully Charged channel on You Tube where Robert Lewellyn analyses all new EV technologies and developments. All the best. Dave.

@@JustHaveaThink I've actually been following him for quite a while haha :) @- Ivan Husqaberg I hope you don't think I hate Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and dissed you for it, in fact when I was kid, I often fantasizing H2 vehicles because they sounded so magical lol. And I do think they have potential to be used at things like delivery vehicles, ship, or plane, just not so much in mass market normal vehicles. And if I turned out to be wrong, then I'm wrong. The consumers hold the power in this vehicles industry.

Because fossil fuels kill the planet snowflake.

Pickup trucks up to class 6

Hi Bruce, Thanks for your post. That's a new one on me. I'll definitely have a look into this - sounds too good to be true but I'm sure there'll be some scientific theory that can be examined. All the best. Dave

Hi David. Thanks for your feedback. Very useful information. I think there are two or three subjects that I'll need to return to during 2019, and this will most likely be one of them. Thanks for your support. Much appreciated. All the best. Dave

what rare metals? hydrogen can easly be fuel in 200 bar metal cilinders you dont need any fancy rare metals

That volume issue is what makes Hydrogen so expensive, you need to pressurize it to 700 bar and cool it down, to get the energy in a practical sized volume.. But the problem of a pressurized vessel is that it leaks like crazy and the H2 is such a small molecule it causes Hydrogen Corrosion and brittlenes in the materials the H2 gets in contact with... Problems you do not have with pure battery electricity.

Well..it was once. I think it was April 1997 :-)

Gee, you must be fun at a party? Surely you understand what an analogy is?

@@christreadwell Oh yeah, probably almost as much fun as Mr Think. Analogy…sounds like something anal. Not into that.

@@JustHaveaThink To be fair, I found about the 9/11 attacks almost the minute they happened, looking at Yahoo. (And then Yahoo became immediately inaccessible, but obviously that's no strike against them.) Yeah, those were the days.

because it would be so expensive that no one would still want it, hydrogen is not as easy as people that want your money make it sound. so to be serious, you'd have to physically produce the hydrogen which would have to be transported by different means so additional infrastructure is required for both tasks, and all of this for an average of 4 to 1 energy return factor... it's almost not even worth making the windmill spin at that point, go figure making all of the extra effort. on another hand the windmill does a very good job at making electricity and if the windmill is there also the infrastructure to carry the energy is there.... soooo why not just shove it in a battery for a loss of 0.2%? that is a 98% efficient system with things that are not in place. hydrogen is becoming more and more popular only because of coal industry.

In contrast to the likes of you, who AFAIK has no face at all.

For small passenger cars; FCEVs still make sense for HGVs, boats and coaches.

batteries need rare earth metals wich wedont have mutch of. hydrogen doest need that at all. can be stored in metal high presure cylinders

Oh Happy Day! Hydrogen gas in high pressure tanks does not boil.

You got it.

LOL it's funny how you mention that japan is the answer, it's all smoke and mirrors . japan has a multi billion dollar economy with australia for coal and gas, and now guess what's the best next thing? hydrogen, and not to kill that economy? you make it through steam reformation and coal... pretty big win win right? japan looks clean and innovative, australia keeps killing koalas and nothing really changes. here have a few laughs while learning sad facts ru-vid.com

all of your statements confirm that you have not done any math or proper research in any of the things that you talked about... all of your points could be taken down by using google for 5 minutes alone, go figure by an expert in the matter. some things for as much you can feel entitled just are not allowed opinions, this is all math and most of it it's pretty easy too and as we all know, math is not an opinion.

@@J0shT89 /rolls eyes... Oh look, another peeon points to authority as an argument.