Sure, but you appear to have swallowed the dogma and not the reality, the reality is that hydrogen isn't a solution in itself and that's also true for battery electric. The major industrial and aviation applications have no hydrogen or battery electric solutions. Which is the major percentage of the whole "shift to renewables". You can't fly around the world or make things without combustion in some form.
@@toyotaprius79 That is because they own the mainstream tv. They don't own RU-vid so RU-vid is free to publish what it wants within the laws. It still has censorship but certainly not like the mainstream media.
Everyone on this planet should watch these videos and learn what's right and wrong about the reality of energy and take it as a guide for the future generation. thanks, Robert and all the FCS team.
Whilst not strictly inaccurate this show is frequently guilty of oversimplification. For instance in this video they imply that mining is exclusively fueled by Diesel when it isn't. JCB are selling hydrogen-powered kit (we see some in the background) & a lot of the really big mining machines have been electric for many decades simply because it would take more than a day to transfer a day's worth of Diesel into the machine. It's my understanding that quite a lot of underground machinery is electric too because of fumes.
@@alanhat5252 Hmm, fumes, I'm glad you mentioned that ... I once worked as a gold miner for an entire afternoon on the eastern side of Jo'berg. The mine was about a mile deep; the western drives were almost 12000 ft deep. Much to my surprise the mine was full of railways used for materials handling and moving the staff to the faces or "drives", as we used to say in the dark of an afternoon shift, over five thousand feet deep. The locomotives used were all diesel shunter type units running on el cheapo diesel. It was explained the exhaust from the diesel engines were fed into a water tank a bit bigger than a coffin, say. The particulates were trapped in the water and the gases which bubbled off were sucked out of the mine through exhaust vent systems The noise of the ducted air extraction vents in the railway galleries was absolutely deafening. They'd have anyone's wig off in an instant. In fact the only reason we wore hard hats was to keep our partings straight, not a lot of people know that. This was nearly fifty years ago so the South African engineers had probably sorted out the poisonous gas issue years before I started producing gold. Sometimes it's amazing what you learn, five thousand feet below ground.
@@alanhat5252 Good points Alan. I have only just discovered this channel. I guess it depends on the target audience which appears to be those not particularly technically literate or informed but who need, or should have, a basic understanding of the issues. My first impression is that this program makes the various issues very accessible and clear. Should there be suggestions as to where to find other more detailed and technical content? Quite possibly.
Hydrogen will play an important part in the energy mix. Here in Germany, wind turbines are deliberately turned out of the wind because the network at times cannot handle the load. Millions of potential kWh going to waste. Trend increasing. You will see hydrogen as a storage medium on the up. An increase in supply will be a turning point. Supply - not efficiency - is the key.
I think this channel is getting more and more a speaker of the battery electric future. The view and arguments are getting to narrow. He doesn't want to see how much Hydrogen is wasted as it is just a byproduct of our industry. Ok in a deindustrialisiert country like the Uk, that might be not the case anymore. Countries like China producing so much H2 as byproduct, that almost all cars could be fueld from it.
hydrogen is a better way to store energy than batteries imo.. let there be EV, FCEV, or even hydrogen ICE car in the market.. its good for us the consumer to choose which one would suit us more
Nope. Hydrogen factories are very expensive. Running them only when there is too much wind, which is almost never, won't be enough to pay for the factory. In practice these factories will buy dirty electricity to power the hydrogen factory for most of the time, which is very bad.
@@kecikmiao0711 Nope. Hydrogen needs to be cooled to store. It will inevitably heat up when stored for a longer time, which causes it to expand and then the safety valves will release it into the air, because the containers can't hold the expanded gas.
@@drfisheye im afraid you dont understand. The issue is not too much wind, but rather network stability through irregular, renewable sources (wind, solar). It is a major factor. Do your research before you comment.
I’m very happy to see that you did a video on this subject, it’s the right approach to begin talking about where hydrogen does and doesn’t make sense, rather than trying to make it be some kind of a popularity contest. Some things I wanted to hear about and didn’t: (1) liquefied hydrogen; (2) hydrogen in train locomotives; (3) increasing volumetric energy density through the use of metal matrix storage of hydrogen; (4) Japan’s focus on hydrogen, and whether they know something, we don’t; (5) turning hydrogen into a high energy molecule like methanol, and using that to power equipment, including large aircraft; (6) use of electrolyzers versus hydrogen turbines for generation of power from stored hydrogen; (7) possibilities for large improvements in efficiencies of electrolyzers, fuel cells, hydrogen, production (I believe there are one or more amazing new, catalytic methods of hydrogen production), and hydrogen storage media; (8) how long-term storage of large amounts of hydrogen might be accomplished, underground or tanks or? (9) any role for internal combustion hydrogen engines, such as the one Caterpillar made to power one of their pieces of equipment; (11) any other innovations on the horizon for hydrogen? Check out Two-bit Da Vinci’s videos on hydrogen power.
@@JonathanCurro They did! Methanol, or ammonia - which surprised me, given that ammonia can't be nice to handle as a fuel and would be bound to be very problematic for the environment if the ship sinks.
Hydrogen has always been hopelessly inefficient despite 100+ years of research, but BigOil like it because it preserves their control over distribution.
Exactly. They are achingly desperate to hang on to the manufacture, distribution and pricing "thing" they had with petrol and diesel.... Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be going their way.......
I disagree. (respectfully) 🙂 Distribution can be accomplished by anyone. The generation of hydrogen and its distribution is not uniquely held by big oil. Anyone can exploit hydrogen as its not geographic specific. Yes, its not as efficient or even practical, but it is unquestionably an equalizer. Freedom away from holders of the earth minerals dominated by few is at the root of energy distribution problems. A technology available to ALL and the actual resource itself available in every inch around the world is ideal. This potential is even better than possibly even renewables as the wind blows inconsistently and the sun doesn't always shine. Keep pursuing hydrogen improvements that provide freedom and independence to even the smallest of players. In fact Hydrogen could release us from big oil influence and control. It could be a cold winter in Europe this year as OPEC denies production increases. Countries could readily produce their own energy with hydrogen and tell big oil to stick it where the sun don't shine. Oops a bit off topic. Sorry, that was meant light heartedly. 😊 The challenge with the world today is the dominance over many by the powerful few holding people hostage to energy requirements. Hydrogen is potentially a great liberator. 😁
@@sunrisejak2709 big oil will just use their financial muscle to buy up all the green energy sites, as we're already seeing in the UK offshore markets. Hydrogen production is a capital intensive venture. And remember big oil dont control most oil production sites hence numerous conflict zones, corruption and economic embargoes of states who do control oil supply.
@@uniteddreamer Thats my very point. How many countries have oil reserves to exploit? Very few. How many countries have lithium in reasonable quanties to exploit? Very few. How many countries have hydrogen to exploit? Every country on earth. At least it has a chance of a level playing field. And provides an opportunity at self-sufficiency not under the thumb of any single entity that can flex its muscles. Hydrogen allows anyone to challenge or partner with whoever they wish. We should not repeat "big oil". Aiming at finite and geographic specific resources (minerals) will put us right back full circle again. Dominated by those who have it iver those who don't. We should not give up on hydrogen for that very reason of having the worlds precious resources available equally to all.
I do think we need more clarification, especially regarding steel. The big issue for hydrogen here is to strip the oxygen from the iron ore, not heat. Traditionally carbon has been used for this as well as for heat.
Having worked in a cement factory I'm still working out how electricity could perform the "firing" process ? I should add that I worked there in the mid 80's so the process most likely has changed but back then coal dust was pumped though a nozzle in the kiln which looks like a Saturn Rocket laying on its side and slowly rotating. Obviously clinker is tumbling inside but you can walk right up to the kiln door and look through a peepy hole (Cold air is blasting on the door) and it really does look like your looking into what I imagine Hades would be like ! (The "Flame" is further down the tube but it illuminates everything inside).
that statement honestly makes little sense. Hydrogen for heat is a no, but there are different chemical processes and some of them might use hydrogen. Both for iron and for cement. There are generally more of those statements here that I just find confusing. In certain aviation applications hydrogen and its derivatives make a lot of sense. Sure you cannot use traditional aircraft for normal hydrogen but there are alternative air frames that give more space. Hydrogen bound with magnesium or aluminum offers extremely good energy density for a higher production cost. We might just use synthetic fuel which again is a hydrogen derivative. The power station answer should have been a maybe in my books. As for big machines that should be a maybe to instead of a yes. Its only worth in niche cases and I'm not sure they are enough to sustain an industry around it.
@@0utcastAussie Electric heat can always be created by resistive heating. Meaning there is some ceramic where you force electricity through to get it to glow. Just make sure it can get really hot without melting.
You could have emphasized the transporting difficulty of hydrogen - it does like to escape at the slightest opportunity, it makes steel pipes brittle, and you can't 'just plug in' to a hydrogen refill supply (even if there IS one), it requires special gas-tight and scrupulously clean connectors that require training and tools to use, and the incautious user can end up frozen to the refil nozzle, as liquid gas of any sort is VERY cold! Mr Liebreich (I hope I have his name correctly) touched on it with having to replace all appliances, pipework, etc, and micro-leaks.
This is exactly the problem. There is no way hydrogen is going to be the "pull up and fill up in a few minutes" solution. And yet there are those out there who firmly believe it is......
The best example to give the hydrogen heads is the recent issues NASA had with hydrogen containment for the SLS. If freaking NASA has containment issues with hydrogen, do you really think your handyman is going to be able to hookup your new boiler?
@@charliet4678 And hydrogen busses where I live, but you need specialised facilities to fill them up. Less of a problem if they end up in a big bus terminal every end of the day where they have that.
Amazon have used hydrogen-fueled forklifts in their operations since 2016 and has bought some 15000 fuel cell units from Plug Power. Forklift operators easily refuel in 3 minutes. Amazon are also buying vast amounts of green hydrogen annually from Plug and they plan to expand the use of hydrogen in their ecosystem. Thanks to the IRA, green hydrogen is now cheap, at least in the US. Hydrogen will likely get even cheaper when demand grows. I guess some companies are not experiencing the difficulties you are describing.
Great start for understanding the situation relative to hydrogen but I think most important question not answered is what should be the priorities. Clearly there are opportunities in some areas but I think the goal needs to be what are the largest contributors to emissions and what tackle those first. Then, address what energy options exist that should be investigated. Latest data I have been able to obtain are from 2016 and lists aviation as generating 1.9% of emissions while road transport is 11.9% so clearly a larger priority. By comparison, agriculture, forestry and land use generate 18.4% so clearly a much larger opportunity.
Had me going there. Oh, the sarcasm… how very witty. But there’s bigger and bigger machinery capable of being battery driven. Such as 90-ton trucks. Also, battery electric trains are taking ore to ports, charging batteries with regenerative braking, and because they’re lighter on the way back, so the batteries don’t require recharging because there’s enough power from the regeneration on the outbound, downhill trip.
@@JT-zl8yp The train he is referring to doesn't need any external power source. It gets filled up at the mine and weighs lets say 1000tonnes, rolls down a big hill charging the battery, gets to port, unloads to 200tonnes, (numbers made up but you get the idea) can use the energy in battery to power itself to get back up the hill, no charging necessary. It uses the potential energy of the ore being high up to power its complete journey. Its clever but its a very niche case.
Still do it today in parts of QLD, Australia. Makes sense to co-locate the mines and their main customer the coal power plants. Majority of coal is however exported or coking coal.
@@gillo100 Trains cant just roll down a hill....trains cant go down steep hills like cars/trucks because they are much heavy and it would be very difficult for breaks to stop them....even if I agree with your statement....regenrative braking can charge a train to 10 or 15% maybe...but not 100%
The segment about "big transport" is very misleading and clearly he hasn't worked a lot in the logistics related field! Say you're looking at an average northern European driver who drives around 300 miles daily, for starters you'll need a battery that can last you at least 350 because in cold weather it is less efficient. Electric trucks use around 2 kWh per mile therefore you'd need a battery of 700kwh. The weight of batteries is around 5kg per kWh meaning the total weight of the battery will be around 3500kg, add battery housing and an extra 400kg for heavy duty motors and your drivetrain is easily exceeds 4000kg. Current diesel drivetrains with enough fuel for that same 350 miles will weigh around 2000kg. For transporters it's not even so much a question of range as it is loading capacity, since countries use maximum allowed weights that are made up of empty weight of the truck + cargo, having a truck that is 2 tons heavier means 2 tons less cargo and that is what logistics companies mainly look at because carrying 2 tons less on every trip over the life time of a truck will cost companies tons of money.
If you've been paying any attention to the sector you'd know that many places are allowing increased weights for battery electric vehicles to allow for this, especially front axle weights for the prime mover itself.
Where I live our wholesale electricity prices often go negative during the day due to having too much renewable energy! The Government is now investing in electrolysers to turn on during those negative price periods. The hydrogen can then be used to generate power later in peak periods
Or, build a battery system for the same cost as Hydrogen infrastructure, capture ALL the energy and just have it "ready" without having to "generate" power (losing 70% in the process) Logical?
Yeah I think capturing it to use as electricity makes more sense with a battery. Extra past what we need there can be turned into hydrogen for processes that need the hydrogen itself rather than trying to compete with battery, which it will never do.
The "expert" is mostly right but has a couple of slip ups: - The hydrogen tanks indeed will not fit on a current type of airplane (tubular fuselage + discrete wings), but given it's so light the volumetric problem is indeed fixable with different type of airplanes such as flying wings or blended lifting bodies. Those shapes also have efficiency advantages per se. It's not a short term option, but with many questioning how clean drop-in SAFs or syntfuels actually are, it might be the only one. - Showing the image of a long distance articulated lorry and saying "most drive less than 250 miles" is simply ridiculous. Long distance truckers drive up to 11 hours a day. That could be in the ballpark of 700 miles. Unless the ridiculous proposals of megawatt-class DC chargers get trough no trucker would want a BEV. Batteries are indeed viable for delivery vans or smaller trucks that go between warehouses, but for the kind of lorry we all think of as a lorry, not really. Yes, that long distance stuff should be moved as much as possible onto trains, but that's not really the point of this entire argument. - Cement. CO2 storage is honestly highly questionable, might as well used that and reform it together with clean hydrogen to make into synt fuels. - Cars could have niche applications, but it's so minor (emergency rescue vehicles, off road, military vehicles) that you know what, might as well stick to the ICE with perhaps cleaner fuels...such a niche that doesn't really matter if it stays dirty.
Promotion of hydrogen trucking always skips over the 'how will we make it' part and pushing back against the electrical requirements of a battery EV while ignoring the electrical requirements of clean hydrogen production is very common - we are used to not really thinking about how our fuel got made. I don't see why you think megawatt DC chargers are a "ridiculous proposal" - cars charge at 1/4 MW now - as hydrogen is so inefficient you need to feed 3 times the megawatt hours to an electrolyzer to go the same distance as charging a battery does - so what difference does it make where the electricity is dispensed? An electrolyzer making hydrogen at a truck stop (no need to transport it) or straight into a battery in said same trucks? Unless you think the hydrogen should only be produced from methane with CO2 emissions as it currently is, and will be for the foreseeable future. Are you advocating for electrically made hydrogen (3x) while pushing back against electrically charged batteries (1x) ? Something I think about when doing 950 mile / 1500 km EV days from the Bay Area up the I5 to Vancouver, Canada is pantograph charging up steep inclines where the trucks have to shift into a low gear and crawl up the hill. You are right, those trucks just keep going, but that's because US law for safe driving works differently to the EU, where 4 hours is the longest leg before a break - in the EU, the driving pattern fits well with a 1000kWh EV truck and megawatt chargers, you still achieve the same 700 miles per day. A couple of small changes to US trucking law would put EV trucks on a level playing field. Proper carbon taxes would be nice and would make green hydrogen price competitive with grey / black, but it's never going to happen in the US across more than one administration.
Yes! Next question Hydrogen will never work for cars, maybe airplanes, maybe long distance shipping. The overall efficiency is too low, compared to batteries. For homes same problem. You're using electricty to generate hydrogen, when you could just use that same electric with a heat pump.
Aircraft were mentioned - hydrogen needs such large containers there would be no room for the passengers! The same for shipping, the freighter would need to tow a huge ex-oil tanker full of hydrogen to get anywhere!
@@ALMX5DP In terms of Emissions. Overland trucking? Whatever use hydrogen is put to, it still requires 3x (at least) the initial grid supply to move the vehicle the same distance as a "straight" EV (HFCEVs are "EVs") Therefore you must consider the effect and consequence of using that energy. You'll say "Use green energy"? That's 2 extra units of green energy which could have removed fossil fuel generation from the grid. Therefore, the grid resulting from its use is (remains) dirty. . Hydrogen is dirty. All of it.
@@hamshackleton The hydrogen would need to be crygenically cooled to be be in liquid form to be volumetrically Ok, but it could be done. It would cost more than jet fuel though.
Been starting to roll my eyes over this channel ever more in recent years, most ironically because it’s really pushing out some pretty bad FUD which for years Robert has railed against. You have an “expert” here saying Hydrogen isn’t the future of Aviation while Airbus- the actual experts who build airliners, say the opposite. He’d probably also say it was useless for Rockets because the tanks were so big they’d never get to space…
It's telling that Mr Leibrich decided not to mention how big batteries for airliners would need to be. Or what equivalent fuels to today's AvGas would be used instead of Hydrogen? Complaints like these were made about battery driven cars 20 years ago- how well has that aged? There are now powerful players devoted to making sure Hydrogen doesn't work because they've invested in batteries- as well as oil firms promoting Hydrogen. It works both ways and to imagine otherwise is naive.
Have you ever noticed how big the rocket is vs the tiny bit that gets into orbit? Think about why that is. And don't be fooled by companies hoovering up free money for research and pumping out PR.
@@hamsterminator Nah, forget batteries for longhaul aviation. The solutions are Sustainable Airline Fuel (ie same fuel as today, but zero carbon) and flying less.
FYI - hydrogen can be blended-in to ALL domestic gas lines at at 10%minimum with ZERO change to anything. So gas heating, cooking etc., using some hydrogen will be a good starting point. However, the main advantage of hydrogen is the opposite of how many in Europe see it. That is, cheap wind and hydro is increasingly built in parts of the world where EXCESS energy can be diverted to hydrogen production. Thus, all present energy CURTAILMENT is negated and instead used to produce hydrogen. Thus, the idea of a lot of expensive energy being needed becomes a redundant notion. Another point relates to the rapidly diminishing cost of electrolysers, which most lay commentators forget is a thing!
@@universeisundernoobligatio3283 That's exactly my point. The thing is, renewables get curtailed from time to time, and in Australia during summer daylight hours, generators get paid ZERO to feed electricity to the grid as there is TOO MUCH.
That was really interesting. The closed cycle fuel cell battery AKA a Hydrogen/Oxygen rechargeable cell was, for a long time, one of my grey areas, given that as far back as the 1960s Apollo programme it was demonstrated to work pretty well. That said the issue of the size of fuel storage needed is indeed a real one. More recently I have been coming to the view that as other battery chemistries improve their efficiency and longevity, they are increasingly gaining the advantage over the dear old fuel cell. So that was a really informative discussion and has helped to further shape my evolving viewpoint on this.
Hydrogen fuel cells for the Apollo program benefited from filling multiple resource applications that simply aren't needed with other terrestrial energy systems. They already had to carry breathing oxygen with them so the compressed O2 tanks were going to be on board anyway. And also the fuel-cell byproduct gave them the drinking water that they were going to need for the trip, too. And since any extra weight prohibitively cut into fuel reserves there was no real downside to making power from the O2 tanks at the same time you make your drinking water, thereby saving weight on both batteries and H2O storage. You just needed the hydrogen tank, but the weight of the hydrogen itself was going to be in their drinking water anyway, one way or another.
Cleary put well done👍. One item were experience of battery electric diggers indicate that the diesel power consumption of diggers can be almost halved as the instant torque of the electric motors gives instant power while the initial hydraulic power from the diesel driven is relatively slow to build. Many more industrial and agricultural machines can benefit greatly (cost , simplicity, etc) from an electric drive clean sheet approach.
that -fuel saving - just shows the energy cost of running the hydraulic pump - electric actuators on a diesel/ammonia - electric system is a great advance, thanks to availability of affordable power transistors. Cost reductions in many industries is tied to patents expiring and profiteering originators getting rolled by competition more so than additional "advances", those are usually incremental - or staged - at best. (btw the idea of instant torque is "pretty much" an EV fanboi myth - a dumped clutch on a stalled-out "2-stepping" dragster is just as "instantaneous", as is an adequately designed, powered and supplied hydraulic system.) (add or subtract battery pack or diesel-electric power unit on any piece of plant (equipment) as needs and grid power availability varies - best to be agnostic and modular not "belief" driven) - cheers, no need to reply, thanks for the moments.
All the heaviest machinery is powered by electric. Such as trains where I can either get its power from a diesel generator, hence diesel electric, or quite easily with overhead powerlines since it’s very easy to ship electricity.
My observations is that a standard diesel digger spends more time in a day engine idling than actually digging. The idling comes in snatches, 10 seconds here, 2 minutes there, rather than all at once, but it adds up, just the same. Simply eliminating the idling should, alone, result in a drastic efficiency improvement, allowing battery powered diggers to stand a chance. Particularly in urban construction sites where tapping into the electricity grid to slowly charge the diggers during the overnight hours is feasible.
@@ab-tf5fl not for the bigger diggers there used hard up until brew time there often on construction site's so even if there is power it not 3 phase then there is weight limits of UK roads batteries bare just practical ( yet ) for the big stuff
The biggest argument against hydrogen (as a replacement for everyday transport) to me is simply the logistics of it. I mean, I'm not expert, but I'm fairly confident in saying I think its easier to store and transport nuclear waste than it is to store and transport liquid hydrogen. I mean it is THE most difficult substance to store, period. There literally isn't any material yet concievable that is able to hold hydrogen for long extended periods of time, like what would be needed for mass storage in transport hubs and fuel pipes. Nevermind the fact that it needs to be highly pressurized and cryogenicly cooled ALWAYS. But next to that, its simply the smallest possible molicule, so it always leaks. No matter what the container is made of. Let alone the amount of hydrogen that is lost when it needs to be pumped from one container into another. I mean just look at the scrapped SLS launches by NASA as an example. These are the people that are the number 1 authority in storing hydrogen, with more experience and knowledge than any other orginisation. And even they, after nearly 70 years of dealing with the stuff, still have major, major issues with it. Issues they simply can't resolve. Now launching rockets is one thing. You don't actually need to be that efficient with they hydrogen if you only need to pump it into an large vessel that you're planning to only use once, and only for a minute or so. But imagine how much hydrogen we'd lose on a daily basis if we would have to builld an expansive infrastructure that spans countries and continents. I don't think that if you were to try to pump hydrogen from one side of California to the other through a pipeline, even if it was the most sophisticated pipeline every built, a single molecule would end up on the other side. Neither if you have to haul it in big trucks from one side to the other. Electricity however, we'll. We started building the infrastructure for that over 100 years ago, and we hardly have to add anything to our excisting grid to make it work for electric vehicles.
@N P Actually the projected increased strain on the power grid with the introduction of EV's isn't much higher than what was predicted if we hadn't had EV's at all. The demand in electricity has been on the rise since the introduction of the light bulb, and has steadily grown ever since, the introduction of EV's has only bumped that increase up slightly. This is mostly because we are already producing much more energy than we consume. And especially when it comes to renewables, there's quite a gap between the demand and generation of electricity. Not just based on the time of day and the season, but also the total amount produced. Hence renewable energy is quickly becoming cheaper. Which is where EV's actually are able to offer up a good solution. If we have more of them, and they spend most time standing still (which most cars do), they can act a s buffer to fill that gap. After all, most of the time for day to day demand you don't need your car's entire range. So the overhead can be used as part of the grid.
There are far more toy JCB's with green wheels than actual JCBs with green wheels. They have a couple of prototypes. Volvo will likely eat their lunch with a battery swap system before hydrogen JCB's are a common sight. It's all PR and marketing.
@@brushlessmotoring Any alternative proposals to electric are put down to hype and marketing ..Its why Tesla is also considering it fo certain situations.
Fantastic episode FCS!! Please make more easy to understand episodes like this (which handle really serious topics) which can be shared with those who are unfamiliar with renewable / green forms of energy. Top marks! 😎👍🏻
Hmm, well, not quite. Only one expert, so not a balanced view. Perhaps two with opposing views. You'll appreciate there are other experts who are bashing on with R&D and may very well be rather more up to date. It would be enlightening to know when Robert's expert was last in a lab and the discipline he was researching. Virtually all his comments were historical and whilst correct at one time certainly aren't quite so relevant today. There again the amount of R&D surrounding hydrogen is absolutely colossal. Were you to Google around then you could be reading for hours, every day. The R&D is not just for powering "stuff" it's mainly to help reduce the rate of global warming. Note that is "rate" of temperature increase ref global warming. It appears this target of limiting the rise to 1.5C is now recognised as more of a leap of faith, never to be achieved. The temperature rise by the end of the century is now recognised as being over 2.5C and possibly higher The crisis which now faces the planet is the rise in sea levels caused by the global temperature melting the ice on the planet. Millions of people will be obliged to move to higher ground. Conjecture is that if all the ice melts the seal level could rise around 70mtrs/200ft. If arsed there are maps freely available online of the projected "new coast lines". Many islands will vanish beneath the waves, never to be seen until the next ice age. Almost every coastal city, town, village on the planet will be on the new seabed. Low lying parts of countries will be underwater too. The coast line of Western Europe will be rather different as countries disappear. The car thing is really a sideshow to the main event. Anyway, I am happy to have cheered you up for the day. Probably a shrewd idea to buy land above 200ft, ref today's sea level ... and buy a boat, not forgetting a good sou'wester ... Hydrogen fuel cell powered of course.
Ruling out Hydrogen for personal vehicles is naive in my opinion. If every car goes electric, is the expectation that local councils build thousands of electric chargers on every road in every city? Are people going to dangle cables out of flats and across pavements for housing without driveways? Society is built on fueling vehicles in short periods of time. For longer journeys, society doesn't want to wait at a service station for their vehicle to charge - there also simply isn't the space if everyone was to park up and do so. One alternative approach is to significantly fund and improve public transport. Either way if the answer is hydrogen, battery, public transport or a combination there needs to be significant investment into public infrastructure - something that just isn't going to happen.
There are non-shell H2 station still open. Shell closed 3 prototype stations that used out of date equipment. So, not a complete collapse of the retail hydrogen supply. But I note that Shell closed the stations rather than update them with new equipment.
Hydrogen storage is also a terrible idea. The 2 direction conversion plus high requirement for safe storage means batteries or other options are just better all around
I'm definitely not a fan of hydrogen use but the issue here is that we are talking about long term storage. Batteries are great on the grid for balancing supply and for short term storage ... minutes/hours/maybe a day at a push? The sheer quantity and cost of battery storage means that you really can't store all the renewable power that we are going to need only using batteries. You are correct about 2 way conversion losses but unfortunately we have few alternative options. At present much of the wind energy overnight is lost completely and we certainly can't store enough to cover for a couple of weeks when the wind doesn't blow and there's no solar. When our wind capacity is multiple times what we have at the moment it will be useful to build up a long-term storage even if doing it with hydrogen means that we have losses. If you have a better solution for long-term storage I would be genuinely interested to know what it is!
@@Nikoo033 The "being developed" is the key wording here! Useable battery storage that could keep the grid going for a week or more doesn't presently exist... yes, you could do it but with present technology the costs would be prohibitive.
@@MrAdopado With hydrogen storage it's also "easy" to scale storage capacity. The expensive part of a battery is the battery. So if you scale storage it just becomes more expensive. If you are instead storing hydrogen in tanks locally that is easier to scale. And while the tanks are not trivial to build they are simpler than batteries. That said, the energy doesn't necessarily have to be stored in hydrogen. There are also projects for storing in liquid air tanks and storing heat in sand. We'll likely see a lot more innovating ways of storing the excess energy from intermittent sources in the coming years.
Thanks for a simple and cleear presentation on an important topic. I was sorry you did not include hydrogen for railways, as that is now a plan for Canadian railways.
The show inevitably tends to have a UK emphasis. The distances involved in rail travel here make direct electrification very much the "no brainer" approach (and main routes were done years ago). More of a challenge in Canada but though electrification would be expensive for the coast to coast type distances it would still be a better solution in the long run. The challenge is actually quite moderate when you compare it to the pioneering engineers who had to blast routes and lay tracks through the rockies when technology was so rudimentary. "Stringing up some wires" is much less of a problem IMHO!
I think that Michael Liebreich is 100% correct in his probabilities of where Hydrogen can be used using today's technologies. But, no-one is looking to the future were breakthroughs can be made that will improve efficiency in the conversion process by using a currently unknown method; in other words a paradigm shift in thinking that throws out the current way of converting / splitting the hydrogen and oxygen atoms that is close to 99% efficient. This is when it may also solve the losses in the the hydrogen fuel cell to electricity at >90%, making it feasible to either be used directly to power your EV or to have a range extender for the EV. Personally I believe that the future power is going to be the use of all natural (solar, wind, water and geo) power conversions and hydrogen. Leading to pure plasma drives. F The future is unwritten and therefore open for new inventions. EV = all transport modes,; land , air, sea and space.
Great video! It really boils down to energy storage as the lynchpin to any "silver bullet" solution. Currently, we rely on petrochemical energy storage for most of our fuel needs (home heating, electricity generation, and mobility) that must be burned to release its energy. As battery chemistries improve, and costs continue to drop, battery electric becomes more and more viable, even in the niche spaces mentioned in the video. I think that, ultimately, we will discover a replacement technology for conventional batteries (perhaps more like a supercapacitor, perhaps something we can't even conceive of today), but it will, at the end of the day, still be an electricity storage medium. Burning things will go away... it just makes no sense long-term. I'm sure this whole, lengthy comment will seem like a "duh" to everyone here 😀
I don't really think so. If we want a grid dominated by irregular wind and solar, storage capacity is the orders of magnitude most people can't even conceive. We're not talking about smoothing out peaks, we're talking saving up summer sun for the winter kind of scale, if not contingency plans if the next few years aren't as sunny. The amount of batteries required for this is beyond insane, so no matter . Hydrogen on the other other is much easier to scale up and store over long periods of time...just build more tanks and fill them up. This storage can also be moved around, traded and all sort of stuff in case of outages, emergencies etc. Yeah, it's much less efficient than charging up a battery, but it's not like we have alternatives on the scales we're talking about.
@@luca7069 the problem is that hydrogen needs 3 times the energy production. If you build 3 times the renewable capacity in summer to save for winter you could already have enough capacity in winter.
@@luca7069 We don't need that much storage for green energy. If you look at Tony Seba and RethinkX's work, you will see that by combining some overcapacity on the generation side with some storage, we can get a reliable and abundant supply of electricity for a good price.
@@luca7069 as others have pointed out, we really don't need this long-term seasonal storage when you mix renewable generation together, sure solar goes down in winter, but wind goes up, electric cars can be used to soak up cheap excess renewables, and even give back, geothermal is constant, and things like distributed domestic solar, hot water as storage and others can all combine together, with some minor behavioral shifting with time of use pricing. Hydrogen is not at all easy to scale up if made cleanly - sure if it's made from methane, as it will be for the foreseeable future, but scaling up the power requirements of electrolyzers, making large scale storage than can handle the caustic embrittlement of high-pressure hydrogen, or keeping it cold enough to be a liquid for long periods of time all require lots of complex machinery and additional energy. This is not an easy to handle and store liquid like gasoline, or a volumetrically energy dense gas like propane. Overbuild your wind and solar 20% (instead of the 300% you need for hydrogen) and subsidize some home storage of heat and electricity for less $/kWh that a capital project like grid scale hydrogen storage.
Hydrogen, would be good! But we are 30 years to late, we had all that time to develop hydrogen. The development of hydrogen has been stopped by petrol companies and car manufacturers...it is time they pay for the development of the infrastructure needed!
The only thing here, is that you can use hydrogen in minimg trucks. But, in this video the trucks where filling up at the top, and drove down. This is the best use of electric trucks. When you use regenerativ breaking down hill, with lots of gravel. The truck are heavyer, and will get plenty of power to go up again empty.
Great episode, it helps put some context around hydrogen - but I'm not sure it will land with the target audience: people who are sticking with gasoline cars and trucks while waiting for hydrogen to be a cheap, clean, abundant drop-in replacement for their non-negotiable desire for a fast fill vs. a full battery every morning. Great analogy on the car losses, you would have really brought home the visual point by adding two more wind turbines to the table and giving them a little spin, one argument I see for hydrogen is that batteries require lots of resources to make, but so do platinum fuel cells, carbon fibre 10,000 psi tanks and building out 3 times the renewable generation that needs to be added to travel the same distance as a battery EV. Including compression, chilling and venting losses, it requires 52kWh per 100km in a Mirai vs. 16kWh per 100km in a Model 3. Michael Liebreich really knows his stuff, great expert, and people should watch his Hydrogen keynote on Vimeo (761934482) - but - we need the passion of Bobby to combat the insane deluge of fact free promotion of hydrogen as a net zero solution, this has infected all governments who are wasting billions on pointless hydrogen initiatives at the behest of the oil and gas industry, to confuse the public and delay take up of battery EVs. I'm still not convinced on the remote heavy machinery argument - we'll call it the JCB fallacy - as you still have to ship many, many tankers of hydrogen, great distances to the remote site, so why not ship charged batteries? You are going to have to ship the empty hydrogen tanks back anyway, so the logistics are almost the same. If you are going to generate green hydrogen on or near the building or mining site, then you have power, so you either pay for 52kWh for a kg of hydrogen, or 16kWh to charge a battery to do the same work - it's still an electrical motor that runs from the hydrogen fuel cell. I think JCB is doing the UK a disservice by getting hung up on hydrogen - had they gone in the large format battery direction, possibly as a swappable counterweight for 20 Ton excavators, we would be further ahead in the electrification of heavy machinery, and ideally the UK would be a leader alongside Korea, Japan and China in battery production. You normally rent an excavator, so it turns up full charged, and there is a battery swap service provided, you would only 2 batteries a day if they held 200kWh each (same as the Hummer EV battery). Your rental service supplies another one just in time, little disruption to work, and no less time taken than filling a hydrogen tank at 1kg per minute (1kG is 16kWh useable after the fuel cell = 15-minute fill) Keep up the good work Fully Charged, you need to maintain this pressure to bring sanity to the conversation around hydrogen.
Honestly, the best way to make transportation of people and goods more sustainable is to replace planes and cargo shipping with trains, as far as possible. For example, a lot of goods leave china, spend a month or so at sea, and end up in Europe. That could be shipped far faster, cheaper and more efficiently - as well as more sustainably - by rail. "Last mile" stuff can be done by battery electric trucks and vans. If Europe and the US were to develop extensive bullet train networks similar to the one in China, a lot of short and medium distance flights would be better served by train - only long haul flights are actually faster than a bullet train when you factor in all the time you have to spend at an airport. Trains are crazy efficient. Even if you were dumb enough to try running them from 100% coal fired power plants, they would still be vastly more sustainable than planes or container ships. Obviously they'd be run on renewable energy where possible, but even in Poland, where they make 70ish percent of their electricity from coal, trains are just *far* more sustainable than trucks, cars, planes. Then for local travel, rely on trams if you can squeeze them in, trollybusses if you cannot. Battery electric busses are a third place option, they don't hold a candle to trollybusses or trams.
Great episode that does a good job of explaining the challenges. However some of what said regarding the price of green hydrogen being expensive today won't be as true in the future where green hydrogen costs are expected to reduce by 60+%. Remember that hydrogen is an energy storage and transfer mechanism rather than an energy source that can help with the evaluation. The BEV car example is only true if the car is plugged in when the renewable is generated. Otherwise the electricity needs to be stored, until needed, so if you factor the efficiency of energy storage the numbers are closer, but still favor the BEV
The Japanese are not giving up on this tech though. Comparing price per energy per kg, filling up with hydrogen is actually more expensive than gasoline or diesel and substantially more than EV. Lmao I remember those Japan promotional videos produced 20 years about FCEVs telling the advantages and disadvantages and they are still the same today. Lmao
You know people said the same about ev cars.... No charging infrastructure ect... Nothink has changed except now its cheaper to run petrol cars than a ev... How many miles do you need to do to make a ev cheaper than a fossil fuel car when you include buying the car yourself.. The only reason ev cars are popular at the moment is tax incentives... As a company car driver you pay virtually nothink in tax which looks very good especially when it's not your money buying the car.. Most car purchases are financially driven and ev cars are still 30% too expensive.
Very interesting, I never appreciated the inefficiencies and pollution associated with the Hydrogen separation process before watching this, My vote is now with EV rather than FC
Another way to look at hydrogen: It's not an energy source, it's just an energy transport medium. You have two choices: You can use the wind / solar to make hydrogen, ship it around in pipes and tanker trucks then turn it back into electricity in an expensive fuel cell. Or, you can take the wind / solar and send it over wires and use it as is. Which would you choose?
If i was a fossil fuel company, already making hydrogen, I would say that hydrogen is a clean fuel at the exhaust pipe, (even though I know it's creation emits copious greenhouse gasses), pretend I could clean it up, and sell the "clean hydrogen economy " idea to gullible governments, and use well-paid lobbyists and scientists to push that agenda. (Since I know that governments will back the most blatantly obvious industrial white elephants, if the fossil fuel industry pushes hard enough.)
What do you do when you generate too much wind / solar? Just turn off the turbines / disconnect the panels to stabilize the grid or turn that energy into something actually useful instead? Construct vast battery parks with resource requirements beyond your wildest imagination, or generate "green" hydrogen? Which would you choose? There's always more than one angle to this issue. Battery fanatics would have you believe there's either no excess or you just dump said excess in batteries, but where do those giga-batteries come from?
Except..... Isn't the point that BETTER USE can be made of excess renewable electricity..!? Isn't this always the point when we discuss hydrogen...!?!?
I agree with 90 percent of what was stated . The only exceptions being long haul trucking, trains and shipping. There are many ways to store H2 including in solid and paste form at ambient pressure and temperature.
For long haul trucking, change of perspective is required. Outrange the driver (possible) Recharge during the mandatory break sufficient to do that to end if shift (possible). Slow charge at end of shift (overnight) . Problem solved.
@@CorwynGC Sorry, but just a little bit above 50% of the rail network in the EU are electrified. In the US it's under 1%. Please get some informations.
@@CorwynGC I am in the US and we are spread out. Trains are Diesel here and run East and West across the Country from Coast To Coast. Trucks do the same thing and travel long distances between cities, towns and Distribution centers. Years ago every little town had a train station or hub. Those days are gone and now the bulk of cargo is transported by truck. Delivery times on produce or refrigerated goods are critical. Refer units also run on fuel. There is a lot of the infrastructure that EV car owners don't consider. Personal cars are only a small portion of the total picture. I agree with cars being EV but other vehicles need other solutions. Just look at farm equipment as one example. When it is time to harvest they run equipment day and night without stopping until it is done. They just put operators in the cab in shifts to keep them going. How are you going to do that with batteries? Combines are trucked out to the fields. How are you going to recharge them? Haul them back? Run a Diesel generator for hours trying to charge them up? Then there is the down time trying to beat the weather changes. You could haul an H2 tanker truck out and refuel them in minutes or under a half hour at least.
For a number of years, Highview Power has been working on cryogenic storage of compressed air, using excess power generated from wind turbines, that subsequently drives electrical generators. It is now scaling up its operation to a 200 MW/2.5 GW/h facility in Yorkshire, the first of 18 UK sites to support the National Grid. From memory, I recall the round cycle efficiency is between 60 and 70% but this technology rarely makes the news.
@@rclarkebeckett603 It's not rubbish. Please show me where in the UK Tidal power could be exploited. You clearly know nothing about it. It's like saying you can have hydro power in a stream
Back in the 2000s Hydrogen was tactically used to slow a green transition, generally speaking of battery electric cars and "intermittent" solar and wind. Hydrogen is like the NFTs, one of its efforts is to justify itself is in its future existence and anticipation of a market for Hydrogen, where hydrogen is a commodity and so the consumption of water will rocket. Maybe that's the problem, everything rests on market forces rather than a concentrated planned economic approach if Hydrogen is supposed to replace natural gas and diesel. Maybe that's the problem of literally everything, from child labour mines, to deforestation, environmental disasters and the propaganda that works to slow everything about fixing it. The market.
I guess the thing is the losses to make the H2 vs just cranking it into an electric furnace or something. Any green hydrogen will be pissing away energy to do electrolysis, compressing, shipping, furtive losses and so on..?
@@--Nath-- sure, it cant beat electricity straight out the grid on efficiency, but most grids wont be able to meet demand. And dont forget that fossil fuels have an increadibly low efficiency and we all know how well that catched on, maybe we shouldnt be reaching for that 100% efficiency. + dont forget that technology will advance and that lower hydrogen efficiency will rise😄
@@guskes8889 If green hydrogen takes 300% more grid electricity to do work than just using the grid electricity directly, then how will the grid meet the greater demand for electrical green hydrogen if you think it can't meet the lesser demand for direct electrification? Green hydrogen needs lots of electricity to be made. "The grid can't manage" is an argument *against* green hydrogen, not for it. It's also not true; the grid is sized to demand, and it can supply both direct electrification and green (electrical) hydrogen - but it will be a lot cheaper to use the electricity directly where possible (e.g. battery EV's and heat pumps) The losses in converting water to hydrogen, and then back to electricity come from physics. There is no real improvement to come, unless you can break the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The high efficiency electrolyzers make that claim by using the heat generated for something else, it implies we are going to heat a block of flats (district heating) by electrolyzing hydrogen in the basement .... I've only seen animations of this, no actual projects, and certainly none at industrial scale.
Great video with great, unbiased info from an expert. Did anyone notice Mr. Liebreich has the same JCB toy tractor that Robert was playing with in this video??? (on the shelf behind him)
@@patreekotime4578 Yup. They have made far more toy hydrogen diggers than actual ones. It's a PR offensive, and it's playing right into the Oil and Gas industries tactic for hydrogen: Distract and delay electrification. Needless to say, the Tory government are fully on board the hydrogen train, wasted grant money for everyone, choo choo! An electrified train would make far more sense ...
11:26. But for steel you need a molecule to take oxygen from the ironore. Old plants use coal(carbon) make co2. But you could use H2 aswell. Its not used used for heating.
If the hydrogen is from methane splitting then it's a con. A lot of these hydrogen claimed things are not green hydrogen but blue (which is bullshit clean coal version 2 for gas.. yet more promise of CCS that will fail utterly)
@@Robert-cu9bm The whole SSAB project (called Hybrit) is a collaboration between SSAB (the steel manufacturer), LKAB (mining) and Vattenfall (electricity provider), where the latter has committed to building and providing green electricity for this steel production. Worth noting is that we still (as of a couple of weeks ago) occasionally have negative electricity prices in Sweden, usually at night in combination with wind. I.e. there's plenty of green electricity available if you have the storage (which they are also building in a mine). Would also appreciate if you could clarify whether you and mr. Liebreich considered the main benefit of hydrogen in steel making, namely reduction of iron ore (as opposed to using coal), and were NOT talking about heating the furnace (which SSAB does by green electricity, not hydrogen, in their "Hybrit"-process).
Hysata - 95% efficiency with electrolysis now Methane- : Domestic heating for the next 15 years as we transition to heat pumps. Methanol - Ammonia : Ships - Aircraft Methane : PHEV vehicles, 60 miles EV and methane fuel cell range extender, 90% of daily driving would be EV only. People can’t afford £50k for a car, plus the Tories added bonus road and luxury car taxes since all EV’s are luxury cars, plus there will be a shortage of batteries/materials for 10 years or so at least. Don’t know why “green fanatics” (not mentioning names Kryton) have become so obsessed with efficiency, reduced efficiency doesn’t cause cancer or climate change and the efficiency of creating hydrogen, ammonia, methane and methanol is still more efficient than old tech. burning stuff. Sure it’s a future goal, an ideal, but we need to put efficiency and climate change into two boxes, deal with one box at a time and if that means affordable PHEV battery/methane/methanol cars and running our existing domestic boilers on bio-gas for ten years or so because we all can’t afford a £16k heat pump that’s want we have to do. Reducing C02 as quickly as possible is a priority, efficiency of the system is just a nice to have, if that means putting more wind turbines up, more solar farms and more tidal power so be it, lets just get on with it, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
The cynic in me when I heard them say hydrogen would be expensive immediately thought no wonder energy companies are interested in it they are thinking about how much they can charge people for it. The issue with cheaper energy is that companies don't like the idea of dropping prices they much rather they go up which is why I suspect they are not all that enthused by the cheaper wind and solar options
Georgia Power and Florida Light and Power would disagree. Both have invested heavily in Solar. It's kinda a no brainer, spend a million, make money for 20 years.
don't understand your logic. they want something CHEAP to produce that they can sell at HIGH cost, so not hydrogen hence limited interest? Electric for cars including swap out batteries is likely to be in that sell expensive category - just look at cost of public recharging - but linking all energy to every other source is pure extorsion. its a cartel by any other name.
We've been driving a PHEV for 4 years. One of the huge benefits for us is we can charge at home. And we have a solar system capable of 50kW per day. It takes literally less than 10 seconds to plug the car in. The solar system normally supplies about 90% of the electricity needs for hour house and the car. For 2022 it looks like the solar system will actually supply 100% this year. Charging at home (we've never charged anywhere else) means we are more in control of our cost to drive as we are disconnected from the petrol companies. We don't have to go to a filling station, fill the car in the rain or snow or wind. I'm afraid using hydrogen will put us back in the same situation as a petrol car. With hydrogen we will be dependent on the supplier and will have to pay costs based on that market. We wouldn't be able to fill the car at home, and certainly wouldn't be able to charge using our solar system.
Except he's wrong about aviation. Likely increasing biofuel % in the short term, but long term: pure H2 jet engines are very feasible. And 'flying wing' airliners (ok 30 years away) can carry the large cryogenic tanks. Hence why GE, Safran are currently building a pure H2 engine for an Airbus demonstrator.
Your Expert seems to be stuck on old technology. We do need to resolve the hydrogen safe storage issue but I remember Germany producing a very efficient Hydrogen supported and electrically driven Aircraft that we could easily bring into our millennium. Using Excess Wind and Solar to inefficiency create pure hydrogen from water or other hydrogen bearing liquid is better than not using that energy at all. The old Steam trains used to waste a lot of their energy yet could run to a timetable better than the trains that followed them. I think it’s currently a dangerous technology for cars. As for home heat, the actual heat exchanger appliances could live outside next to any building where they served mitigating any risk of hydrogen leakage. You wouldn’t use the old pipe work obviously unless you were looking to refurbish much in the way guy’s electrify Infernal Combustion Engine cars. Many buildings have their heaters and water heaters outside the house in a safe area, be it bricked off or inside a metal shed … personally I like what I see in compressed Air for short run city vehicles and I’m impressed by Tesla and their Chinese competitors looking to cover a wealth of needs rather than just top end and performance users. I’d be happy in a modified Electric Kei Car for around the city running and parking. China seems to already have a good one out …
Hydrogen-powered cars already exist. In operation, they do not differ from cars on the internal combustion engine. Charging is fast. The range of travel on a single charge is large. There is only one problem - the price of green hydrogen. And there are already 2 companies that have electrolyzers with an efficiency of 95%, these are H2pro and Hysata. They promise green hydrogen at a price of $ 1-1.5 per kilogram by 2024-2025.
A possible practical use for hydrogen is burning it directly to produce electricity, without compression or other handling. Some recent solar cells produce not only electrons but some hydrogen. If that is piped to a boiler, it may be worth collecting. Otherwise, hydrogen is too costly to compress and ship.
Methanol is a very interesting fuel. Existing ice cars can run on this with minimal modifications. Around 30 years ago in New Zealand we used to have a plant that produced large volumes of methanol. This was huge news at the time as the NZ plant was among the first in the world to make large volumes of methanol from hydrogen. At this time our government was even considering this as an alternative fuel for vehicles. Way back then I was actually involved with the project to develop the initial conversion kits for a fleet of test vehicles. These conversion kits were simple and inexpensive and they worked very well on the fleet of test vehicles. Methanol was simply poured into the existing petrol tank. They could run on petrol, methanol or any combined blend. Engine life and performance was also better than running on petrol. Emissions were much cleaner too. Only negative was that vehicles consumed 10-20% more running on methanol than they did on petrol which in reality wasn’t a big deal. This methanol produced at the NZ plant was about 1/3 of the cost of petrol so it definitely made sense at the time. Anyway for political reasons (ironically involving NZ trade with Russia) our government decided to run with LPG and CNG as alternative fuels so further NZ development was discontinued. I was told a bit oater on that the entire project was later purchased by Nissan of Japan. Apparently all was packed into shipping containers and sent to Nissan. What a loss! The NZ methanol plant was very successful and it ran for a long time but sadly it is now mothballed. So the lesson here is it’s all been done before and mostly it’s not new. The greatest lesson is politicians have to play the game to help everyone achieve the right outcomes.
California dabbled with incentivizing methanol in the 80s (produced from steam reformation of natural gas). Fellow air board employee told me that it was a difficult fuel for mechanics to work with due to the toxicity.
I honestly haven’t heard this complaint before about methanol. In NZ they had 30 test vehicles and we were told the drivers saw very little difference in the fuels. But now you mention it I also remember that they were worried about fires because straight methanol burns with a clear flame. To solve this problem they can also add a little petrol say 10% to the fuel.
In school chemistry I learned that hydrogen molecules are notoriously difficult to contain because they like to leak through solid objects because the H2 molecules are so tiny they squeeze through the atomic gaps. Wouldn't that also cause an issue with trying to transfer H2 through existing gas pipes?
The fact that this expert thinks it practical to store CO2 underground leaves me questioning his other suggestions for using hydrogen. Subterranean storage of CO2 is one of the big myths proposed by big oil. Their plan is to use this method for the further extraction of hydrocarbons.
I'm just now escaping the requirement to buy liquid fuel like gas and diesel. There is no sense in going back to having to buy something I can't make and have no control over the price of. No. I will not. Go ahead start without me. 😁
The calculus is real simple. First question: Can you somehow manage to use electricity and batteries for it? If so, don't even bother considering alternatives like hydrogen. Only if you have exhausted the first question, you might think about using hydrogen for some specific applications.
No region on Earth is going to require energy storage beyond a few days worth of energy consumption even when that energy is generated entirely from renewables. By overbuilding wind/solar capacity, batteries can completely fulfil the need for any energy storage as well as providing many other grid services.
Thank you so much for this video, reliable and trustworthy information is essential in the midst of the "Misinformation Age". The majority of us do not have the necessary specialised knowledge to reach a valid conclusion on such a wide and complex topic. The "Yes", "No", and "Possibly" approach was a pretty neat idea... it really worked well! Personally I dislike the Hydrogen option, purely on the level of complexity invlolved... nothing in this video makes me want to change my mind. Robert, is it time for a "Junkyard Wars" series where contestants must produce a working Hydrogen-powered vehicle? You could film it from a bunker! 😉 👍
‘Where electrification doesn’t make sense, hydrogen could fill that gap.’ Good point but I think the place where this gets lost in translation is that a lot of people still _don’t know_ where electrification makes sense. Which is how we end up with politicians raving about hydrogen trucks whereas once you start looking at the basics and keep the core knowledge of ‘truck drivers must legally rest every x number of hours to be safe on the road’ then you realise ‘well actually electric trucks do make sense’ also trucks don’t exactly fit in regular parking lots so they are probably going to be parked at a truck stop anyway so once you start electrifying the truck stops along the main highways you’d probably be well on your way to electrifying trucking because that’s where most long distance trucks will be stopping anyway. Meanwhile short distance trucks wouldn’t even need that, only a central hub they can plug into.
I’d also like adding the round trip efficiencies of Battery storage, liquefied air or CO2 batteries. From those calculations hydrogen is not a good solution for storage either.
What you say is correct and I am a much bigger fan of batteries than hydrogen. However it is sometimes worth taking a hit to the efficiency to be able to store energy over longer periods. Batteries do lose charge over longer periods and large amounts of storage is expensive with them whereas with something like hydrogen the electrolyser is expensive but tanks are cheap. I personally much prefer batteries but if we are going to need large amounts of hydrogen for industrial clusters it could also make sense to use it for longer term storage.
The script your fellows use for those propaganda pieces has to ignore a lot of technologies to arrive at those "conclusions". For example, only generation via electrolysis is considered, which is the most expensive and less efficient method.
That depends on the degree of integration. Obviously waste heat from electrolysis is going to be used for distributed heating. Likewise the places where hydrogen is used for power generation, the heat loss in the fuel cell is also going to be used. so overall that puts it on par with other battery chemistries suitable for large-scale storage, where Li-ion is prohibitively expensive.
@@Tore_Lund And hydrogen by electrolysis only makes barely sense (there are probably other better methods out there) where your source of energy is based on movement (hydropower or wind power, for example), not heat, light, combustible materials, ...
@@vitordelima Efficiency of electrolysis with catalysts is around 52%. There is no way around this unless another way is found to use other energy sources to break the bonds in water as you say. However the waste is heat of significant temperature which can be used for city heating or other process heating needs in industry. So with careful infrastructure planning you can store both heat and Hydrogen for winter and where Hydrogen is used, it supplies additional heat besides the generated electricity. So yes you only recover 25% of the electricity produced by the wind turbine in electricity at the point of use, but the remaining 75% you get as heat. This is better than waiting for the wind to blow and better efficiency than making Ammonia from electricity to use as fuel in engines. So for stationary use Hydrogen is very relevant. Hydrogen can also be used as a substitute for other chemicals in industry, like cement and steel production and even Ammonia for fertilizer and that makes the emission reductions even greater. It then also functions as long term energy storage in a way batteries can't, make Li-ion batteries as some people here suggest for stationary storage, very expensive in comparison. We also need the Li-ion batteries for EVs, not to say idle for days in a field between use.
Outstanding video, thank you! My only comment is regarding aviation, where even though we won't be using hydrogen directly, we will still need it indirectly to produce e-kerosene by combining hydrogen and source of carbon from unavoidable or biogenic sources.
Aviation is a tough one, and I personally would move it from a 'no' to a 'maybe'. For small aircraft, definitely batteries. For transcontinental flights, hydrogen won't cut it and we'll need biofuel or synthetic fuel. There's an in-between tier where hydrogen might work (liquified, to get volumetric energy density up). Think flights between European countries. I'm not an expert on aviation (my PhD's in electronics), but there's a very interesting blogpost series from a chap called Bjorn Fehrm - who *is* an aviation expert - where he not only makes an argument for hydrogen but also walks through a rough design for a hydrogen medium-distance aircraft. I think anyone who's interested in the topic of sustainable aviation would find it a great read.
It is a very real possibility that hydrogen will be used directly to fuel aircraft. It is all about the best tool for the job. There is plenty of shorter distance flying that require much larger aircraft than could be delivered by battery electric aircraft.
As a PhD researcher working in green hydrogen I must say I mostly agree. I do think that hydrogen fuel cell electric aviation should be used where batteries are insufficient. The volumetric energy density of cryogenic hydrogen is actually very high as well as the gravimetric energy density. The benefits of electrification such as reduced noise and zero emissions should definitely be bought to aviation. Even if its technically not that efficient it is much much better than burning kerosene. Steel should definetly be a maybe too, direct electrolysed steel is a very unproven technology and requires way more new infrastructure than dri steel (hydrogen).
Great. Can't get enough of Robert. The only discrepancy is that a different hydrogen expert on the podcast a few weeks ago said that hydrogen in marine transport is unlikely since it is expensive and this sector relies on very cheap fuel.
Nice to see some factual pushback on the oil and gas industry that continues to spread total BS about hydrogen. It is sad that so much money and TIME is wasted that would be better spent on ramping up the electricity option that is the correct answer in most cases including for all roadway transport.
The hype around hydrogen comes from an era before 2010 where it was thought that solar panels, batteries, wind turbines could never be good enough... in the meantime those technologies made huge strides while hydrogen hasnt... concentrated solar power plants are in the same category with hydrogen
I think hydrogen still has a role in certain cases like industrial processes and long-duration storage. CSP doesn’t address seasonal storage, which will be needed. I agree it’s not the silver bullet for everything it’s often made out to be
It's ALL about the INVESTMENT, not the efficiency! The battery research establishments got all the dough, so THEY get all the glory! Put the same investment into a COMBINED STRATEGY, and the solutions will be amazing! (I have one, or more, of my own that need research! Coz my mind works like that!)
@@dhuffman690 Pumped gravity storage is much more efficient. The only real issue is the space to store the water. But water doesn't need pressurized tanks like hydrogen.
@@black8art Admittedly Toyota has made great progress with their Mirai fuel cells (1st gen vs 2nd gen). So, part of it is definitely "pour money into this technology, get results from research". If you force companies to invest in battery tech, you'll obviously see (some) results. Companies got off the hydrogen train with ever more incentives to jump on the battery wagon instead. Ultimately, my bet is also on batteries, but if only we saw more investment in hydrogen, perhaps we'd actually get something truly revolutionary out of it, too.
Toronto to Vancouver via 100% electric _is_ achievable if at least half of the distance has inductive charging embedded into at least one lane of the highway. Better still, self driving vehicles can really take advantage of this by travelling non stop. I have wondered if it was worthwhile to produce hydrogen as a form of short term energy storage during times of excess renewable energy generation. I have mentioned this in the past and idiots have commented on hydrogen's long term storage problems. I call them idiots because I am obviously talking about very short term storage. Like how solar might over produce energy during a day and hydrogen might be used that night.
A minor point is that hydrogen fuel cell cars require a pretty heavy duty battery, as when the car needs to accelerate, a fuel cell has to rebalance its chemistry to meet a "high draw" - this takes time - without a battery a hydrogen fuel cell car will get a lot of honks when the light turns green. :+( Question is: why not just use a battery alone instead of carting along a huge hydrogen tank and fuel cell?
@@rogerstarkey5390 The Tesla Semi is a castle in the sky. Where do you want to charge all of the hundreds of thousands of trucks. Here in Germany alone you will need over 95.000 high speed chargers for all the trucks, that are parked at night beside the Autobahn. This won't work. Welcome to Utopia.
Maybe because you just need a 80kWh batterie for the fuelcell truck, but around 1000kWh for a long range truck!? Instead of 1 truck, you can build 15 cars.
So a ship pulls up at a dock. It's one of 20 large ships in that port. Where does the hydrogen come from? Is it produced in the port? (HUGE amount!) That's going to be "interesting" the first time there's a mistake. . Piped in from a plant outside? "Points of potential failure" with a highly corrosive gas. . Trucked in by tanker? That a lot of infrastructure and potential for danger outside the port. . Then consider, every port that ship visits must have the same infrastructure already in place.
'About 73% of the energy ends up driving the car' Ok, but, why have we been told (previously) that electric cars are 'about 85-90% efficient' ? That's quite a difference, am I missing something?
It’s simple. Keep investing in R&D to work on the big challenges of hydrogen and subsidize using hydrogen in limited scenarios so the budget is not blown. Leave the bulk of the budget for what works today. One scrnario would be manufacturing facilities where hydrogen can be produced with green energy on site and also used on site. It can reduce the use of oil and coal gradually. As the R&D works out solutions they can be tested at these manufacturing facilities. Maybe it takes 10 or 20 years to work out the solutions to make hydrogen work, but the benefits of it would be immense long term. In the short term we can transition off oil, gas and coal to green energy and Advanced Small Modular Reactors which can help achieve the goals many countries have set with the Paris Agreement.
Thank you so much for your content !! That’s a clear and unbiased presentation. We absolutely need these kind of explanations in order to make the transition acceptable. Congratulations.
We absolutely need a replacement for cement. Not only does it, by its very nature, produce green house gases, but it also uses non-renewable resources. (specific kinds of sand)
Of course no mention of nuclear power as a low carbon way of generating hydrogen at a higher efficiency than green hydrogen using high temperature electrolysis or the sulphur iodine cycle in this "super objective" episode.
The expert does not inspire confidence. Hydrogen rockets fly, that's where the biggest requirements are for the energy intensity of fuel, for the weight and size of the aircraft. Why won't planes be able to fly?
The "fuel" is lithium You have a phone that doesn't have a fuel cell but I can bet you never let it die I bet you also make sure you have enough gas to leave to were you need to go
Now, the fact is that hydrogen is extremely easy and environmentally friendly to store. So what do you do when there's an overproduction of energy on windy and sunny days. Instead of disconnecting solar panels and grinding windmills to a halt, as happens almost every single dag, why don't we use up this valuable time to use the electricity from overproduction to produce hydrogen. We all know that electric batteries aren't as environmentally friendly to produce or recycle and that hydrogen excells in storage. Besides, recharging a car battery takes up to an hour on a fast charger while refilling a hydrogen tank just a couple minutes...
Very well done. One point for long haul trucking even in winter, if there are designated routes the simple solution is catenary. Such systems already exist. Much like overhead power for trains there is no reason that parts of motorways, autobahns and interstate highways could have stretches of highway with power supplied overhead catenary and transferred to the truck by a pickup. More than likely it would need to be a two sided pickup as trains can use their rails as ground (earth) but electric buses already do this. The ground issue could even perhaps be addressed by putting a conductive ground below where the truck would drop a wheel, shoe or other connector to complete the circuit. As it would be at ground potential it would pose no threat to other crossing it or it could be in a protected slot. Overhead power could supply sufficient energy that the truck could travel while charging its batteries. Not a perfect solution in climates where icing could be a problem but railroads have addressed this for about 100 years so doable.
Hydrogen has a future on trucks, buses, heavy equipment, and ships. The reason it requires a substation to fastcharge them if they're pure EV. Anything smaller than those eg cars, suvs, and pickups are not good as hydrogen vehicles as charging at home or work is enough for those.
Hydrogen for energy storage only makes sense if a few things line up: 1. There are no other better storage mediums, like gravity, heat, battery. My guess is this will be a regionally dependant thing as to what makes the best storage solution. 2. We actually invest largely in grid scale green generation. There is a lot of argument for more endpoint based generation (end users less reliant on monopoly energy providers, businesses reducing costs and getting more from their land use, local redundancy in disasters) where smaller batteries make a lot more sense for storage. Though admittedly grid scale generation looks like the path we are taking because monopolies like being monopolies and there is huge lobby to restrict endpoint generation. 3. We actually have excess green generation broadly around the world. Many regions are a long ways off storage and excess green generation actually being a problem. We gotta tackle that first before we worry too much about storage. 4. We need to make it cheaper than petroleum based hydrogen production so it can actually start to take market share in industries that require commercial hydrogen for their processes. Convincing grid scale green generation companies to invest in storage (and enough generation to actually require storage) would be a lot easier if they have multiple revenue streams for the stored energy like the capacity to sell their hydrogen for profit. 5. New markets for hydrogen actually open up like the industrial construction machines mentioned. 6. Companies abandon the idea of trying to fit hydrogen onto ICE vehicles. They are desperately trying to retain value of their R&D improving ICE so they are trying to stuff in burning hydrogen instead of gasoline so they can justify all the expense when governments ban new gasoline vehicle sales. Financially on paper it makes sense for them, but for the good of the world hydrogen ICE is a terrible waste. Hydrogen fuel cells are so much better than hydrogen ICE, and those are still way worse than EVs so hydrogen ICE is a terrible greenwashing at best. 7. We need to completely abandon the idea of Carbon Capture on petroleum based industries in particular but also for generation facilities. This is all just a massive scam of greenwashing to keep us burning fuels longer. CCS takes so much energy it does not make sense to use on any energy production/generation projects. Particularly petroleum based hydrogen production. If I said to you "We are going to use a massive amount of energy lowering the emissions of our energy generation" or even worse "instead of using wind and solar to power society we are going to use it very inefficiently to reduce some of the emissions on the petroleum energy generation which we are doing to power society" sounds stupid it is because it is stupid. CCS may have some applications in other industries like the mentioned fertilizer production. But it needs to be kept away from any petroleum companies and the electricity generation process.
Ref point 7, now that's an excellent description of cynicism on the part of the oil and gas industry. Something for Robert to get his teeth into, if only to wean the poor old lad off his beloved battery nonsense.
Well this was a very black or white episode. The big problem that has been stated time and time again and is true, is that there is a scarcity of materials to build enough batteries and electric cars to replace the whole fleet of cars around the world. The bigger the battery-pack the worse the problem gets since more materials are required. There simply isnt enough materials to support a large disruptive replacement to electric cars world-wide. This was very well investigated by Department of Energy and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology in a research paper presented on the topic (local_181262.pdf). So how do we deal with that? Well one solution that Volvo and MAN are promoting along with the EU is for hydrogen-electric hybrid cargo haulers. The idea presented in the show that trucks/lorries drive only a limited range then can re-charge over-night is completely false. Most of these transport vehicles travel long distances and stop for a limited time, most often where they have to, not where they want to. Can the charging infrastructure be built to accommodate that?, well in Sweden which is a big country with long distances that idea was given up on a long time ago. Same goes for Germany, France, Spain where freight is shipped for long distances. In that case I think Volvo and MAN are on exactly the right path and hydrogen-hybrids are the solution. We can make the same argument for cars! Most cars drive 40-80 km per day, so why haul a battery-pack that can reach 10x that distance? Perhaps a 120 km battery pack and 5 kg hydrogen tank that allows for the 500 km range needed for longer travels? This would allow for the scarce amount of materials to be use in more cars thus allowing for a larger amount of cars to be replaced and go green! But also at a lower cost since the batteries required are much smaller =)
Again, biogas is being overlooked as long term storage. Biogas plants cost about 5kEUR per kW generation capacity to construct (half of nuclear, 5x large scale solar and onshore wind). It likely has a 90+% capacity factor. If we burn the impure biogas directly in the small CHP generators on site, we get about 35% electrical efficiency. But if we instead scrub the biogas from CO2, H2S and water, we can pipe it into the existing methane storage and transportation network, and store the methane long term, and burn it in existing huge gas peaker plants at at least 50% electrical efficiency (some go as high as 62% today). Yes, the maize feedstock is problematic. But to put that into perspective: in germany about 25% of agriculture produces food for human consumption directly. About 63% is for creating animal feed. The remaining 12ish percent is energy crops, which also includes canola and sugar beets for biodiesel and ethanol. But if we are willing to accept reduced biogas generation, then the energy crop can be reduced or even forgone entirely. Biogas plants can be run completely on waste streams, they just need more and bigger digesters. Anything organic will do: manure, sewage, kitchen scraps, and we could even start washing (and drying) household waste when there is excess electricity available, and make biogas from what is washed off. That cleaner and dry household has a much higher heating value and can then be stored to be burned later, on top of the biogas generated. Biogas is a proven technology and is actually huge. Germany has about 10 thousand biogas plants, which created 100TWh of biogas in 2020. Sadly only 10% of that, 10TWh was converted to biomethane. The rest was burned directly, and provides a large portion of the 24/7 baseload 4.5GW of "biomass" electricity on the german grid. If all of this gas had been converted to biomethane, and piped into the methane grid, which has 270TWh of storage, it could be burned when actually needed, in the most efficient peaker plants, and even provide district heating. 100TWh worth of biomethane with at least 50% electrical efficiency could generate 50TWh, or the equivalent of 33.3 days worth of electricity for the whole of germany (just over 1.5TWh daily in 2020). All that needs to happen is that subsidies for biogas in germany change. Instead of being reimbursed for baseload, biogas producers should be subsidized to create biomethane, and must pipe that into the existing methane network. Apart from the changes needed at the biogas plants, all the other infrastructure already exists. Germany has 270TWh of storage, and 39GW worth of gas peaker plants Biogas makes hydrogen look silly.
the crazy thing is - there are huge demands on hydrogen already which will need huge investment to go green (dedicated renewables attached to fertiliser plants?) or carbon capture for the same. The Hydrogen industry doesn’t need to lobby for cars/trucks/home heating as they already have a mountain to climb
I have an EV. Friends for years have been telling me it's not going to happen and Hydrogen cars are the solution. I just tell them if Hydrogen was to win it would have done so already. We got hydrogen cars at about the same time as EVs. Tesla built superchargers to charge its cars so we could travel long distances, otherwise I just top up at home from our roof solar panels. If Toyota wanted to they could have built a network of hydrogen refueling pumps accross the country. 1 hydrogen pump is about the same installed cost as 4 Tesla superchargers and has about the same throughput (of the pump has enough hydrogen). Toyota use Hydrogen for green washing, and spending grants/subsidies. Hydrogen mass produced cars have been coming soon for over a decade, but still they sell only a handful per year. Hydrogen pumps are getting shut down in the UK not built. I nearly took a lease on a hydrogen car 3 years ago, but the advertised deal didn't actually exist and they wanted about 4 times as much as advertised.
