Given the rapid drop in green hydrogen costs, this argument is itself becoming outdated. We will just switch green sources of ammonia and there will be minimal if not nonexistent increases in cost.
From the other reply's (very green optimistic) source [0]:
> While less than 0.1% of global dedicated hydrogen production today comes from water electrolysis, with declining costs for renewable electricity, in particular from solar PV and wind, there is growing interest in electrolytic hydrogen.
When do you think we'll see >50% of hydrogen produced with green energy via electrolysis?
I'm betting: "not within our lifetime", but enjoy taking long views on these things and being wrong. Just curious when you think that's realistically feasible, and when we'll reach 10% (again, I'll still vote "not within our lifetime")?
I'd be delighted to be wrong on this, but still haven't convinced myself. I would be genuinely interested to see your targets on this and then we can interpolate and come up with some milestone we can agree will be seen in our lifetime if you're correct.
It will happen by around 2030. It might reach 100% shortly afterwards. Also, hydrogen production should increase by well over an order of magnitude in 25-30 years.
I think the Detroit automakers have the same mentality. It's almost like there's this racism belief that the Japanese could never have figured something out that Westerners haven't.
GM proceeded to ignore everything that worked at that plant (and still does, nevermind what that article says). They flat out refused to learn from Toyota even when they saw it upfront.
We live in a racist world. You either accept it or be blind to many of the problems of the world.
Cancer is an additional disease, and not caused by AIDS itself.
It could happen regardless of external factors, so I guess my "vacuum" analogy wasn't perfect. All I mean is that HIV/AIDS itself doesn't kill you by itself.
Not quite. The body would natural develop several types of cancer without an immune system to suppress them. People with AIDS will have short lives even without exposure to any external diseases.
There is no hard limit except 100% efficiency (sorta*). As fuel cells are a type of battery they can eventually match li-ion batteries on efficiency. Combined with their ability to capture curtail power on a very large scale and the economics of hydrogen could easily surpass that of the EV.
* There is a soft limit at 85%, but that is mainly due to the need to turn liquid water into steam over the entire process. This can be ignored if electrolysis is done on steam instead of liquid water. Also, 85% is close enough to li-ion batteries that very few people will care about it.
It looks like you've created this account to argue only about one thing on HN. Agenda-driven accounts and single-purpose accounts are not allowed here, regardless of the agenda/purpose, because it's not in keeping with the values of this site—i.e. intellectual curiosity doesn't work that way. So would you please stop?
Hydrogen has already found those fundamental discoveries, and much of it is the rapid reduction in green hydrogen cost. It's really a matter of time before economics shifts the entire industry towards hydrogen over resource-intensive batteries.
Toyota is not wrong at all. Hydrogen is going to be the future of personal transportation too. EVs are basically unsustainable ideas as they require so much raw materials. Not to mention that we have to have hydrogen to hit zero emissions, but we don't need EVs at all.
I think the efficiency of pure EVs is too good to ignore. I'm not disagreeing that we have to have hydrogen to hit zero emissions, but lots of factors related to personal vehicles where pure EV makes sense. I don't think they will be the only types, possible over time as green hydrogen economics improve we might see more of a mix for sale.
But given how long it will take to build out to 3x renewable generation capacity and then auto makers to change, etc etc I don't think that will be for another 10+ years, but hope I'm wrong.
It's already starting to happen. It won't be something that happens decades in the future. The disruption of EVs by hydrogen technology is likely a current event.
I think its time we start realizing that much of the "efficiency" argument is an exaggeration or a lie. EVs aren't that efficient especially in cold weather, and fuel cell cars aren't really that far off. The other big issue is the inability to capture excess renewable energy. As we keep on building out more renewables, we're finding out that curtailed energy is growing exponentially. Pretty soon the vast majority of renewable energy will just go to waste. Hydrogen allows to use that energy, but batteries won't. Combined with the huge resource requirements of batteries it's clear that this technology is primed for a major stumble.
