• Steve@communick.news
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    2 days ago

    I don’t understand how anyone anyone thought or thinks it could be better to use electricity to pull hydrogen from water, then turn it back into water to get electricity again, with energy losses of 40-60%. Not while you could just keep the whole chain as electricity, with losses of ~10%.

    • reddig33@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It’s designed to greenwash natural gas. The petroleum industry threw their weight behind it because you can make hydrogen from methane.

      • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        There is the theoretical advantage of storage.

        Storing HYDROGEN is an advantage? The thing where the atoms are so small, it diffuses through the walls? The thing that needs insanely high pressure containers? THAT should be an advantage? WTF?

            • BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip
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              22 hours ago

              Hydrogen fuel is in a compressed, liquid form that quickly vaporizes if exposed to air.

              Gasoline also vaporizes but much, much slower and isn’t stored.

              There’s a lot more involved with keeping a gas in liquid form than something that’s already liquid at normal atmospheric pressure.

        • Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca
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          2 days ago

          Don’t forget hydrogen embrittlement which means the entire fuel system must be replaced every so many years.

        • Mihies@programming.dev
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          2 days ago

          Did you miss the word theoretical? And yes, AFAIK we are already storing some but certainly not at the scale required if that’s even possible (I wouldn’t want to live anywhere nearby a huge storage of hydrogen). Another related advantage would be the transport of stored hydrogen where transferring electric energy comes at cost when it comes to long distances.

          • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Did you miss the word theoretical?

            No and there is no theoretical nor a practical advantage. Throwing in the word “theoretical” to make a wrong idea sound valid doesn’t work with me.

            Another related advantage would be the transport of stored hydrogen where transferring electric energy comes at cost when it comes to long distances.

            A gasoline range extender makes more sense than hydrogen.

            • Mihies@programming.dev
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              2 days ago

              Gasoline in the EV? That is the worst combination. Also we are storing hydrogen today, so it works to some degree.

              • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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                2 days ago

                Gasoline in the EV? That is the worst combination.

                No true. That’s way more efficient than hydrogen and the gasoline could be substituted by ethanol.

                • Mihies@programming.dev
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                  2 days ago

                  Hybrids are perhaps worse than both ICE and EV. More complex, burns more than the other two, still consumes a shit ton of oil and pollutes a lot. Ethanol has also its problems, like how does one get it in enough quantity. Why do you think we are not driving ethanol cars today?

                  • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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                    23 hours ago

                    Why do you think we are not driving ethanol cars today?

                    because oil, and gas companies pay government to keep you their bitches.

                    Many countries, like Brazil, run cars on pure ethanol, and this makes it a competition to gasoline, which gas companies hate. Over 83% of new car sales in Brazil are flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) capable of running on any blend of ethanol (E100) and gasoline. While the majority of vehicles are capable of using high-percentage ethanol, actual consumption varies, with nearly all gasoline in Brazil currently blended with 27% to 30% anhydrous ethanol.

                    And ethanol engines run cooler, and last longer because they burn much cleaner.

                  • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
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                    2 days ago

                    Yes a hybrid is more complex but less so than hydrogen because the engineering problems of hydrogen haven’t yet been fully solved (storage that doesn’t use more space than battery or tank).

                    It’s an upgraded ice.

                  • woelkchen@lemmy.world
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                    2 days ago

                    Hybrids are perhaps worse than both ICE and EV.

                    EV with range extender is not hybrid. You keep confirming that you don’t really know what you’re talking about.

    • prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Japan’s electrical grid is pretty outdated and has been pushed to it’s limit. It simply cannot support an influx of EVs. That’s why the government has been pushing hydrogen, which can be produced from electricity like you said, but is “better” produced from natural gas or coal, which they have easy access to. It’s a terrible solution to the problem.

      Hydrogen also solves the range anxiety issue by being incredibly energy dense, with the minor downside of occasionally exploding.

    • quick_snail@feddit.nl
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      2 days ago

      You loose ~50% of electricity in transport.

      Hydrogen isn’t great, but synthetic methane is much more efficient to store and transport

        • bountygiver [any]@lemmy.ml
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          21 hours ago

          Also degraded batteries can be reprocessed into fresh batteries again, we will only need to mine a lot of them when growing, once the batteries are made we don’t need to mine as much.