Real Engineering
5 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2018–2021
14:58 · 5.7M views · Jul 27, 2018
Real Engineering examines the efficiency of hydrogen as an energy carrier. It follows production, storage and fuel cell conversion losses and compares hydrogen cars with battery electric vehicles.
HN links it in hydrogen threads as a clear breakdown of why compounded inefficiencies make hydrogen a poor fit for cars, though one commenter calls it outdated.
8 comments from Hacker News
I am sorry you are so misinformed. Lithium is a common abundant resource and battery packs are easily recycled but more importantly there is a financial incentive to do so. Manufacturing technology for cells is improving rapidly. Much faster than the pace of innovation in Hydrogen fuel cells. Most are focusing on reducing Cobalt and other techniques to reduce or eliminate chemicals and energy used in wet electrode processes. Hydrogen is pretty much DOA for cars. This is a good video on the subject: this video
Hydrogen is not a good (at the moment at least) source of energy or fuel for cars or industry (chemically speaking, obviously much better together with Deuterium and Tritium for fission, though we are still from such a technology). Steam reforming, which is currently the most common way of hydrogen production, uses natural gas and water and produces plenty of CO2 [1]. Nice summary as for cars fuel application here [2]. [1] [LINK] [2] this video
this video This video gives a good breakdown on how the inefficiencies in hydrogen fuel cell based cars add up. The best case scenario for hydrogen based land transport I can think of is probably in the trucking industry where engine weight, range and refuelling time are important factors
Now I'm curious how Hyundai or the stations actually produce the hydrogen fuel. Edit: this video had a good overview of the various production methods, including on-site at the fuel station this video
Storing energy as hydrogen is much less efficient than storing energy in batteries. The channel Real Engineering explains: this video ; [LINK]