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 TH-cam so TH-cam 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.
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%
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 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.
9:47 SAFER?! Does anyone realise how much of a pain in the arse it is to extinguish an electric car fire? It takes ducking AGE'S to put out, uses a stupid amount of water, melts anything it comes and needs to be left alone. I know you can dunk it in a tank n leave it, but you try lifting up a lorry n see how that goes on the side of a road when it's rolled over.
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.
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.
I think hydrogen is the way to go for steel. I can see two other ways, direct electrolysis of the iron oxide (like how aluminium is made) in which case the oxide has to melt which takes a huge amount of energy, the other way is recycling the carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide (like how the Martian rover makes oxygen from carbon dioxide) and use it again to strip oxygen from the iron oxide. Of the three, hydrogen seems like the most efficient and least dangerous method.
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.
@@noncalamari Very droll. How many hydrogen fuel cell cars have been "halted" from driving to the supermarket? Less than a rocket would be my guess. The only problem with all the hydrogen nay sayers is they will insist on giving us a history lesson. Not one of them appears to recognise this R&D thing.
@@t1n4444 - not "droll" -- "relevant". Hydrogen is dangerous stuff that leaks past all but the best seals. It's explosive in air from concentrations as low as 4 percent. The flames are nearly invisible. Having a significant number of cars using hydrogen fuel would be an impossibly stupid disaster. And that's without even getting into the points they made in the video -- namely the losses. Your support of hydrogen for cars seems to be more of a feelings thing than a reality thing. That's fine. Just don't expect me to agree with you, because you're clearly wrong.
@@noncalamari No. As before you merely coming out with history. Research does not remain static. And again, if you believe hydrogen is as dangerous as you believe them clearly you are not really up to date. All you need do is to research the car market in China or Germany to see the policies involved. BMW is now testing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles across the planet, even as we type. VW are in the design process of building their own hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. This is on addition to their continuing research in battery technology of course It's all very well for Robert to wheel on a so called expert on hydrogen, but, there are plenty of experts who would disagree his views especially in China, or Japan. All these costings are now out of date. Alternatives to lithium metal are being researched, continuously. Some car manufacturers no longer use lithium technology. There might be sufficient lithium for "today" but the percentage of EV vehicles is quite low cf ICE. Nobody can say with any certainty if there's enough lithium to sustain a 100% global fleet of road vehicles, "power walls", rail and marine vehicles. We read about lithium batteries being recycled but that's as much for the cobalt as lithium. We should not ignore that the CO2 produced in the abstraction of the "raw" lithium metal is not an insignificant amount. Plus of course a great deal of water is used on some processes for extracting lithium. Arguments exist already that the water used might be better used for agriculture. This is why research on alternatives to battery technology continue. The planet is awash, literally in Hydrogen. Electrolysis generates free hydrogen when "powered" by green electricity or from wind turbines or solar panels. All this guff about electrolysis being expense is slightly disingenuous. You'll note this "fact" is often repeated, even though it's not as relevant as once was. We often hear wind farms "run out of puff, we even see TV footage of stationary turbines blades. Now, why do you suppose wind farms are set up in the littoral regions and further out to sea. Wind turbines now float ( anchored to the sea bed obviously) many miles out to sea away from the sea trade routes. The wind is much more reliable at sea. If it wasn't them ask yourself why would power generating outfits put them there? Research will reveal the enormous amount of marine wind farms across the entire planet. We should not forget the reason for all this green technology is to reduce the rate of global temperature rise.
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.
I was surprised to hear that hydrogen for steelmaking was probably no, since previous guests on the Fully Charged Show said that one of the few legitimate uses of hydrogen was probably going to be for steelmaking, in order to decarbonize steelmaking.
I think that the jury is still out on this one. I read yesterday that steel making could be geographically split, with iron ore being processed into iron via hydrogen reduction at locations with abundant iron ore and renewable electricity (e.g. Australia and Brazil) who would then ship iron (instead of iron ore) to steel making centres around the world
@@redshift3 very interesting That would be a good solution I live in Korea, they have a few steelmaking plants. Only a few actually cook iron ore. Several have electric arc furnaces that melt scrap metal apparently. But they probably have either natural gas or coal burning plants just to make the heat and electricity for that. Recently a steelmaker in Sweden said they have successfully made zero carbon steel. I thought they used hydrogen, but I'm not sure.
They mentioned converting hydrogen to ammonia for use in ships but what about doing the same process for planes? Can it not solve the issue of the hydrogen taking up too much volume in the plane?
UK firm Reaction Engines which is developing the SABRE hydrogen air breathing rocket for space planes which will burn oxygen in the air upto Mch 5.4 then switch to liquid oxygen for Mach 25 conducted a study with SFTC in 2021 which concluded that ammonia can be used for mid sized Airbus and Boeing airliners including retrofitting existing airliners with STFC catalysers to crack ammonia into hydrogen ( it's easier to burn an ammonia/hydrogen mix than pure ammonia ) however a UK Government funded study FlyZero by ATI ( Aerospace Technology Institute ) 2022 concluded hydrogen is a better fuel than ammonia.
I don't understand him regarding the aviation point, he said hydrogen is 3x more energy dense then said it doesn't work because you'd need a lot of volume of hydrogen in comparison? Energy density is a measure of energy per unit volume, 3x more energy dense means it would need 3x less volume to output the same energy...?
There is volumetric and gravimetric energy density. Hydrogen has a very high gravimetric energy density (33 kWh/kg), but a very low volumetric energy density: ~3 Wh/l at normal pressure and temperature, 1.3 kWh/l at a pressure of 700 bar and 2.4 kWh/l for cryogenic liquid hydrogen. Diesel fuel has ~12 kWh/kg and ~10 kWh/l at normal pressure and temperature.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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 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
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.
Don't forget that each time you transfer any compressed gas between pressurised containers, you have to use quite a bit of energy so this contributes to the overall efficiency losses of the process. A great attempt though to explain a complicated topic and great choice of expert opinion. Thanks for your efforts to educate us all on a topic that none of us know the answer for yet. You should try and get someone on from Warwick Manufacturing Group or the Advanced Propulsion Centre to give you a similarly high-level and rational overview of the possible/viable energy solutions. I can provide names of people to contact if it's useful.
@@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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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).
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 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.
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.
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.
His take on large aircraft seems to contradict what the aircraft industry is saying. Airbus and even the UK Aerospace Technology Institute have proposed large hydrogen aircraft. I cannot quite understand why we should accept this gentleman's viewpoint on that without a very good questioning.
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.
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.
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.
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 ...
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.
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.
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.
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.
Can anyone explain to me why the ships argument (making hydrogen denser and more transportable by converting it to methanol or ammonia) doesn’t work for planes?
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.
Thank you for this video. I do have a question, however. What is the difference in total emissions between using natural gas versus producing and burning hydrogen for steel production?
It depends how you produce the hydrogen. If you electrolyse it from renewable energy (green hydrogen) then it won't produce any emissions at all (with the exception of oxides of nitrogen). If you produce it with natural gas (grey hydrogen) then it will produce lots of carbon emissions (and oxides of nitrogen).
@@JJ-zg1hh Volvo is using green hydrogen in Sweden to make trucks. Yes, it’s more expensive. Steel has 4% carbon anyway, so I’d be interested how much carbon escapes as CO2 when carbonizing the iron to make steel.
@@idjles that carbon content in the steel is added as powder (I think) and captured within the steel. It doesn't leave as an emission to air. The heat needed in the foundry to make the steel normally comes from coal, which does release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. When you say Volvo use hydrogen to make steel do you mean the raw material or do you mean fabricating steel parts? That's an important distinction to make.
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.
I think you have it wrong for long haul trucks, the larger the batteries the less weight you can carry, hydrogen may make sense for the above 200mile 20 tonne plus category. Also for long haul aviation, hydrogen appears the only viable option at the moment, which is why Airbus is investing so heavily. Otherwise I agree and enjoyed the show as always.
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.
Bulb went off when he said “3 times more energy dense, but not volumetrically’ of course it’s Ah per kilo, not per litre!!! Can imagine a tanker pulling a second VERY light tanker filled with hydrogen( might almost float above the water!)…or a truck pulling a second trailer with compressed hydrogen… if only production wasn’t a nightmare.
Lets seeee.... No infrastructure... Same cost if not more as gas.... Extremely dangerous in a crash.... As Expensive as an EV to buy.... Yeah, thats going to be a no for me fam.
10:45 Seriously you need to tell people WHY! The immediate dismissal of this topic as much as those in the know would laugh at it, reaks of trying to convince people without all the facts to hand. Whether that was the intention or not, please never assume people watching are fully ingratiated with the content. You can't fight cherry picked propoganda with more seemingly cherry picked propoganda. Anyone that doesn't notice didnt care, and anyone that did notice cares enough not to be fooled. I love this channel and
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! 😉 👍
Hydrogen combustion engine is the successful solution for sure. This can be used for any vehicle. Currently, hydrogen can be expensive. But this situation will change in the future. EV vehicles are not suitable for long-term planning. EV vehicles will definitely cause headaches for consumers. well done JCB. great work. should be appreciated.!
'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?
I am the same, there are so many who keep harping on about the wonders of Hydrogen yet reach time they fail to understand the physics involved and the difficulties associated with the production, storage and transportation on top of the energy losses involved when using Hydrogen. At first glance Hydrogen seems like the silver bullet option but as soon as you scratch below the surface it becomes obvious that with today's technology Hydrogen is NOT the answer. I put Hydrogen alongside Fusion and something to dream of, something for the future perhaps.
Hydrogen compressed to 10,000 psi has a density of 38 kg/m³ , gasoline is 721 kg/m³. Given that converting hydrogen into electricity through a fuel cell is roughly the same efficiency as a gasoline engine, it would mean that the storage tank in your truck would have to be almost 20 times the volume of the existing gas tank. Not only would the carbon filament tanks add to that volume But the weight of the tanks would be roughly the same as the compressed hydrogen inside them.
@@neilmorgan7737 If we can get rid of the "silver bullet" ambitions, then it all makes more sense IMHO. Many buyers will be super happy to have higher range from a H fuel cell and the comfort of transitioning away from fossil fuel with a smaller change to their habits. So far we've had petrol and diesel co-existing in the mainstream, I don't see why BEV and fuel cells can't do the same. The argument presented that electricity->H2->fuel cell is a wasteful process seems to me a smaller obstacle than what was presented here, as the buyer can simply spend more money for more electricity and collectively we can have a surplus of wind+solar+nuclear generation. The BEV compromise on the other hand, seems to be between having a XL battery for a relatively long range vs. having a still-expensive battery and having many re-charging stops especially in the winter. I can easily imagine business users might favour H2 fuel cell over BEV so they can get the correct number of jobs and trips done over a work day.
@@NunoLima1337 Range is less of an issue now for EVs, the biggest factor is lack of infrastructure for all cars other than Tesla. Most non Tesla chargers only have 2/4 charging bays with only 2 x chargers in most cases. This is the real issue when it comes to range anxiety. It's more like charger anxiety nowadays. Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars simply can't compete with BEVs. Compared to ICE cars Hydrogen could have had a chance but with BEVs taking over so much of the car industry the race is already over. If you look at the BEV uptake against ICE car collapse it is clear where the trend is heading. As for Hydrogen fuel cells they simply don't factor on the global market. I think the numbers are in the region of 1600 cars globally.
@@NunoLima1337 Most recharging is done overnight for BEVs and most cars spend over 90% of their time parked up doing nothing. There will be niche markets for Hydrogen technology as indicated in the video.
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?
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.
"Every airport would need a steady supply of hydrogen to refuel the jets that fly through, just as they must have huge quantities of jet fuel now. Each of those airports would need lots of extra energy-the equivalent of a small nuclear reactor’s worth-to create all that hydrogen." - Steven Barrett, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, director of the MIT Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment, and leader of the MIT Electric Aircraft Initiative. From: Which is more likely: electric airplanes or hydrogen-powered airplanes? on the Ask MIT website
Well thats a surprise. Electric orientated youtube channel thinks hydrogen isn't viable for most applications... Yes its expensive at the moment, but so was battery tech until a short while ago. It doesn't take long to bring costs down. If you have enough renewables then efficiency doesn't really matter that much (ICE engines are not exactly efficient and we've lived with them for a 100 years quite happily). The big issue with everything being battery driven is that we don't have enough available raw materials to actually meet the demand. Not enough lithium mines available and with new ones taking 10+ years to bring online there is a huge crunch coming when demand meets supply constraints, especially when trucks start going that route as they need huge batteries. It's going to be interesting to see what happens when the ban on ICE cars comes in around the 2030 mark and there are just not enough electric cars available for people to buy. I would start hoarding 2nd hand ICE cars as they are going to rocket in value...
Honestly, this should be on mainstream TV. Really well presented and put together, and educational without being preachy. Great job, team!
Fossil fuels often advertise on mainstream television
More people watch TH-cam than TV, Legacy media
Very few ppl watch mainstream TV these days, personally haven't done it in over 6 months.
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 TH-cam so TH-cam 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.
@@t1n4444 that sounds like a well managed mine.
@@alanhat5252
Indeed, I had very little to do.
Which is why South Africa works so well today.
@@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 visited an Australian coal mine in the 1990s. The really big diggers were running on electricity via huge extension cords.
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.
@@Alrukitaf battery electric trains are stupid...imo....just use an overhead/catenary wire for continuos electricity like a passenger/metro train
@@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%
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.
I thought they did mention methanol to fuel the larger ships, but I could have misheard.
@@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. 😁
Yep. And central banks can use that control to maintain their dominance of financial markets
@@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.
The verdict on steel and cement surprised me too. Perhaps an an episode on this is in order.
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.
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.
Not going to work for FuelCell cars in the UK, since Shell just shut its last hydrogen pump...
Ah right, a total shutdown is it? I wasn't sure if they were scaling back or knocking it in the head completely.......
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.
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.
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?
@@Brian-om2hh There are hydrogen cars on the road in Japan now, and guess what they fill them with hydrogen 😊
@@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.
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.
@@kadmow my forklift doesn't have a 2 stage clutch and the engine has to revup to do work it's quick but not instant
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 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.
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.
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.
Yeah I think it can work well for overland trucking and shipping. Freight transport is a pretty large portion of the overall emissions equation.
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.
If efficiency mattered we wouldn’t drive in cars (which really adds weight - when going from a to b). What matters are cost and practicality.
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.
Get a load of 70+kwh EVs
combustion engine is always inefficient because the energy turns to heat.
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!
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 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.
Saved me a post
@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.
9:47 SAFER?! Does anyone realise how much of a pain in the arse it is to extinguish an electric car fire? It takes ducking AGE'S to put out, uses a stupid amount of water, melts anything it comes and needs to be left alone. I know you can dunk it in a tank n leave it, but you try lifting up a lorry n see how that goes on the side of a road when it's rolled over.
25 EV fires per year.
1000 ICE fires per year
3000 Hybrid fires per year
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 but we're already doing it 🤷♂️
@@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.
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!
Better to use the renewable energy electricty for electric heat before it put into gas lines at 10% far more efficient.
@@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.
I think hydrogen is the way to go for steel. I can see two other ways, direct electrolysis of the iron oxide (like how aluminium is made) in which case the oxide has to melt which takes a huge amount of energy, the other way is recycling the carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide (like how the Martian rover makes oxygen from carbon dioxide) and use it again to strip oxygen from the iron oxide. Of the three, hydrogen seems like the most efficient and least dangerous method.
Could it be the expert didn’t discuss/consider the chemical part of producing steel? If you use H2 for reduction but electricity for energy needed.
@@sssxxxttt It seems that the 'expert' in this video only concern the use of heat to melt the iron part.
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.
Tesla Semi says "hi"
Next week.
My biggest problem with hydrogen is the ease at which it leaks through seams in the tank so easily.
😂😂😂😂
You're talking history.
Why not Google up on the topic prior to posting?
@@t1n4444 - the OP has a point - hydrogen is slippery stuff -- just ask NASA after their recent issues with hydrogen leaks on SLS.
@@noncalamari
Very droll.
How many hydrogen fuel cell cars have been "halted" from driving to the supermarket?
Less than a rocket would be my guess.
The only problem with all the hydrogen nay sayers is they will insist on giving us a history lesson.
Not one of them appears to recognise this R&D thing.
@@t1n4444 - not "droll" -- "relevant". Hydrogen is dangerous stuff that leaks past all but the best seals. It's explosive in air from concentrations as low as 4 percent. The flames are nearly invisible. Having a significant number of cars using hydrogen fuel would be an impossibly stupid disaster. And that's without even getting into the points they made in the video -- namely the losses. Your support of hydrogen for cars seems to be more of a feelings thing than a reality thing. That's fine. Just don't expect me to agree with you, because you're clearly wrong.
@@noncalamari
No.
As before you merely coming out with history.
Research does not remain static.
And again, if you believe hydrogen is as dangerous as you believe them clearly you are not really up to date.
All you need do is to research the car market in China or Germany to see the policies involved.
BMW is now testing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles across the planet, even as we type.
VW are in the design process of building their own hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. This is on addition to their continuing research in battery technology of course
It's all very well for Robert to wheel on a so called expert on hydrogen, but, there are plenty of experts who would disagree his views especially in China, or Japan.
All these costings are now out of date.
Alternatives to lithium metal are being researched, continuously. Some car manufacturers no longer use lithium technology.
There might be sufficient lithium for "today" but the percentage of EV vehicles is quite low cf ICE.
Nobody can say with any certainty if there's enough lithium to sustain a 100% global fleet of road vehicles, "power walls", rail and marine vehicles.
We read about lithium batteries being recycled but that's as much for the cobalt as lithium.
We should not ignore that the CO2 produced in the abstraction of the "raw" lithium metal is not an insignificant amount. Plus of course a great deal of water is used on some processes for extracting lithium. Arguments exist already that the water used might be better used for agriculture.
This is why research on alternatives to battery technology continue. The planet is awash, literally in Hydrogen. Electrolysis generates free hydrogen when "powered" by green electricity or from wind turbines or solar panels.
All this guff about electrolysis being expense is slightly disingenuous. You'll note this "fact" is often repeated, even though it's not as relevant as once was.
We often hear wind farms "run out of puff, we even see TV footage of stationary turbines blades.
Now, why do you suppose wind farms are set up in the littoral regions and further out to sea.
Wind turbines now float ( anchored to the sea bed obviously) many miles out to sea away from the sea trade routes.
The wind is much more reliable at sea. If it wasn't them ask yourself why would power generating outfits put them there?
Research will reveal the enormous amount of marine wind farms across the entire planet.
We should not forget the reason for all this green technology is to reduce the rate of global temperature rise.
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.
exactly
I was surprised to hear that hydrogen for steelmaking was probably no, since previous guests on the Fully Charged Show said that one of the few legitimate uses of hydrogen was probably going to be for steelmaking, in order to decarbonize steelmaking.
I think that the jury is still out on this one. I read yesterday that steel making could be geographically split, with iron ore being processed into iron via hydrogen reduction at locations with abundant iron ore and renewable electricity (e.g. Australia and Brazil) who would then ship iron (instead of iron ore) to steel making centres around the world
@@redshift3
very interesting
That would be a good solution
I live in Korea, they have a few steelmaking plants. Only a few actually cook iron ore. Several have electric arc furnaces that melt scrap metal apparently.
But they probably have either natural gas or coal burning plants just to make the heat and electricity for that.
Recently a steelmaker in Sweden said they have successfully made zero carbon steel. I thought they used hydrogen, but I'm not sure.
@@AWildBard yes they did. Hybrit I think. I read that their process produces higher quality iron than traditional processes
I work in the sector and there is serious work for doing it. So, I wouldn't call that a "no", like they did in the video.
@@redshift3 hybrit indeed,
They mentioned converting hydrogen to ammonia for use in ships but what about doing the same process for planes? Can it not solve the issue of the hydrogen taking up too much volume in the plane?
UK firm Reaction Engines which is developing the SABRE hydrogen air breathing rocket for space planes which will burn oxygen in the air upto Mch 5.4 then switch to liquid oxygen for Mach 25 conducted a study with SFTC in 2021 which concluded that ammonia can be used for mid sized Airbus and Boeing airliners including retrofitting existing airliners with STFC catalysers to crack ammonia into hydrogen ( it's easier to burn an ammonia/hydrogen mix than pure ammonia ) however a UK Government funded study FlyZero by ATI ( Aerospace Technology Institute ) 2022 concluded hydrogen is a better fuel than ammonia.
A very clear and easy to understand synopsis of a rather complicated subject - thanks!
I don't understand him regarding the aviation point, he said hydrogen is 3x more energy dense then said it doesn't work because you'd need a lot of volume of hydrogen in comparison? Energy density is a measure of energy per unit volume, 3x more energy dense means it would need 3x less volume to output the same energy...?
There is volumetric and gravimetric energy density. Hydrogen has a very high gravimetric energy density (33 kWh/kg), but a very low volumetric energy density: ~3 Wh/l at normal pressure and temperature, 1.3 kWh/l at a pressure of 700 bar and 2.4 kWh/l for cryogenic liquid hydrogen. Diesel fuel has ~12 kWh/kg and ~10 kWh/l at normal pressure and temperature.
Loved watching Robert on SHC as a kid, and now I love watching him do FCS. Great episode and informative!
Robert is going from strength to strength and it's wonderful to see.
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.
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.
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.
Only OK for short term storage, and nothing like enough either. We need hundreds of terawatt hours.
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!
@@MrAdopado new generations of batteries for long term (months scale) seasonal storage of renewable energies are already being developed.
@@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.
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.
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
Oh Robert, you’d love the nonsense I used to hear working for the gas board 🤦♂️ Hydrogen heating for everyone 😂
The best time to give up on hydrogen was 30 years ago. The second best time is now.
I also usually get ranty and angry.
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?
Exactly John.......
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?
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.
Using H2 will create water no?
@@verygoodbrother yes.
Tou basicly take oxgyen from ironore.
@@rubikfan1 so what happens to the water/molten mixture, isn't that a no-no in the iron/steel industry?
@@verygoodbrother well maby. Thats why you need to spend time and money into science.
But most water comes out as steam.
Very clear and important episode. Was a bit shocked that Michael Liebrich thought H2 wouldn't play a role in steel.
Tata Steel is converting there factory to green hydrogen.
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.
@@brushlessmotoring you make the hydrogen next to a wind/solar park so that you dont have to transport that vast amount of electricity acros the grid
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
You forget that there is always an average number of EVs charging at any given moment of the day.
JCB are already using Hydrogen.with great success. Most of the negatives sound just like the early days ideas of going electric.
But where is the hydrogen they use coming from? And how is it produced?
Efficiency losses are a matter of physics.
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.
@@ogriboy that was an April fools joke. Tesla are not considering hydrogen for anything. Reputable links if you have them please.
Don't forget that each time you transfer any compressed gas between pressurised containers, you have to use quite a bit of energy so this contributes to the overall efficiency losses of the process.
A great attempt though to explain a complicated topic and great choice of expert opinion. Thanks for your efforts to educate us all on a topic that none of us know the answer for yet.
You should try and get someone on from Warwick Manufacturing Group or the Advanced Propulsion Centre to give you a similarly high-level and rational overview of the possible/viable energy solutions. I can provide names of people to contact if it's useful.
Robert, an episode on wave and tidal power, never stops 24/7/365
You need a MASSIVE tidal range in height to make tidal worthwhile and wave power generation is pretty terrible.
@@sandersson2813 rubbish
Yep, tidal power has been less then a decade away for 50 years....
@@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
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.
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.
Trains work great on straight electricity, why make it complicated? Long haul trucking works great on trains, why clog the roads with death machines?
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.
@@rogerstarkey5390whenever anyone says 'problem solved' about ANY contentious issue..... you can be CERTAIN of one thing!
IT ISN'T......!!!!
@@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.
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.
Thumbs up just for mentioning Robert's angry rants. IM HERE FOR THEM
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.
Check out Airbus ZEROe project. Their ambition is to develop the world’s first zero-emission commercial aircraft by 2035 with the help of hydrogen.
The format of this episode is absolutely brilliant!
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)
I would like a whole episode on cement/steel. SSAB is planning to bring hydrogen steel into market in 2026.
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)
Yeah, we'll see about that.
They still need green hydrogen which is a problem.
Also cost is a problem.
@@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).
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 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
Got it in one
The incumbents thinking - there must be a way we can capitalise on this. Next minute - they get completely disrupted, and out of business...
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.
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.
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.
His take on large aircraft seems to contradict what the aircraft industry is saying. Airbus and even the UK Aerospace Technology Institute have proposed large hydrogen aircraft. I cannot quite understand why we should accept this gentleman's viewpoint on that without a very good questioning.
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.
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.
What a great treble act - I value Michael’s in depth knowledge & Imogen’s presentation skills + humour from Robert 👏👏
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.
@@sports2hedz542 Exactly. Plenty of opinions but devoid of facts.
@@johnpeters4214 The video had plenty of facts. Detailed numbers are readily available elsewhere.
@@johnpeters4214 well, to be fair, we are talking about the future here so there's no 'facts' per se. He has most right but not all in my *opinion*
I have much respect for Michael. His hydrogen ladder is the best, sensible, illustration for the use of hydrogen.
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)
This episode was probably sponsored by jcb the toy was a jcb vehicle
Its possible theyve flooded everyone who is an energy journalist with them.
@@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 ...
Have they solved the issue of what to do with the water “exhaust” besides spraying on the windshield of the car behind?
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…
Toyota has experts that say Hydrogen is the way for cars as well. Turns out they can't sell them.
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.
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.
What a great snapshot of where we are with hydrogen now! Thanks guys.
Did you see the JCB digger model on the shelf behind Michael Liebreich?
Interesting! Lots of surprises in this episode for me!
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.
It’s been time to give up on hydrogen cars 20 years ago…
Since 2004 when George Bush promoted it as "Freedom Fuel"
@@DSAK55 I remember that little fossil industry piece of propaganda. He probably believed it himself.
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
@@rzpogi And they will die trying.
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.
Can anyone explain to me why the ships argument (making hydrogen denser and more transportable by converting it to methanol or ammonia) doesn’t work for planes?
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!)
When did wind turbines make huge strides. If the wind doesn’t blow.
@@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.
Thank you for this video. I do have a question, however. What is the difference in total emissions between using natural gas versus producing and burning hydrogen for steel production?
It depends how you produce the hydrogen. If you electrolyse it from renewable energy (green hydrogen) then it won't produce any emissions at all (with the exception of oxides of nitrogen). If you produce it with natural gas (grey hydrogen) then it will produce lots of carbon emissions (and oxides of nitrogen).
@@JJ-zg1hh Volvo is using green hydrogen in Sweden to make trucks. Yes, it’s more expensive. Steel has 4% carbon anyway, so I’d be interested how much carbon escapes as CO2 when carbonizing the iron to make steel.
@@idjles that carbon content in the steel is added as powder (I think) and captured within the steel. It doesn't leave as an emission to air.
The heat needed in the foundry to make the steel normally comes from coal, which does release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
When you say Volvo use hydrogen to make steel do you mean the raw material or do you mean fabricating steel parts? That's an important distinction to make.
Good to see the penny has finally dropped on this, and it’s being explicitly and repeatedly explained. Keep it up!
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.
It's always been time to give up on Hydrogen.
I think you have it wrong for long haul trucks, the larger the batteries the less weight you can carry, hydrogen may make sense for the above 200mile 20 tonne plus category. Also for long haul aviation, hydrogen appears the only viable option at the moment, which is why Airbus is investing so heavily. Otherwise I agree and enjoyed the show as always.
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?
You can save much more energy/kg than a battery. That's why it is still viable option for big transport vehicles.
@@thomasfjen
Tesla Semi is going to destroy that myth in 9 days.
@DLWELD
Well said
@@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.
Bulb went off when he said “3 times more energy dense, but not volumetrically’ of course it’s Ah per kilo, not per litre!!! Can imagine a tanker pulling a second VERY light tanker filled with hydrogen( might almost float above the water!)…or a truck pulling a second trailer with compressed hydrogen… if only production wasn’t a nightmare.
Lets seeee.... No infrastructure... Same cost if not more as gas.... Extremely dangerous in a crash.... As Expensive as an EV to buy....
Yeah, thats going to be a no for me fam.
10:45 Seriously you need to tell people WHY! The immediate dismissal of this topic as much as those in the know would laugh at it, reaks of trying to convince people without all the facts to hand. Whether that was the intention or not, please never assume people watching are fully ingratiated with the content. You can't fight cherry picked propoganda with more seemingly cherry picked propoganda. Anyone that doesn't notice didnt care, and anyone that did notice cares enough not to be fooled. I love this channel and
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! 😉 👍
Hydrogen combustion engine is the successful solution for sure. This can be used for any vehicle. Currently, hydrogen can be expensive. But this situation will change in the future. EV vehicles are not suitable for long-term planning. EV vehicles will definitely cause headaches for consumers. well done JCB. great work. should be appreciated.!
What about train? You never talk about trains!
No point, they're always on strike.
'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?
I keep hearing hydrogen, "EV is just a stepping stone" doing my best to share other arguments 😉⚡🌿
I am the same, there are so many who keep harping on about the wonders of Hydrogen yet reach time they fail to understand the physics involved and the difficulties associated with the production, storage and transportation on top of the energy losses involved when using Hydrogen. At first glance Hydrogen seems like the silver bullet option but as soon as you scratch below the surface it becomes obvious that with today's technology Hydrogen is NOT the answer. I put Hydrogen alongside Fusion and something to dream of, something for the future perhaps.
Hydrogen compressed to 10,000 psi has a density of 38 kg/m³ , gasoline is 721 kg/m³. Given that converting hydrogen into electricity through a fuel cell is roughly the same efficiency as a gasoline engine, it would mean that the storage tank in your truck would have to be almost 20 times the volume of the existing gas tank. Not only would the carbon filament tanks add to that volume But the weight of the tanks would be roughly the same as the compressed hydrogen inside them.
@@neilmorgan7737 If we can get rid of the "silver bullet" ambitions, then it all makes more sense IMHO.
Many buyers will be super happy to have higher range from a H fuel cell and the comfort of transitioning away from fossil fuel with a smaller change to their habits.
So far we've had petrol and diesel co-existing in the mainstream, I don't see why BEV and fuel cells can't do the same.
The argument presented that electricity->H2->fuel cell is a wasteful process seems to me a smaller obstacle than what was presented here, as the buyer can simply spend more money for more electricity and collectively we can have a surplus of wind+solar+nuclear generation.
The BEV compromise on the other hand, seems to be between having a XL battery for a relatively long range vs. having a still-expensive battery and having many re-charging stops especially in the winter. I can easily imagine business users might favour H2 fuel cell over BEV so they can get the correct number of jobs and trips done over a work day.
@@NunoLima1337 Range is less of an issue now for EVs, the biggest factor is lack of infrastructure for all cars other than Tesla. Most non Tesla chargers only have 2/4 charging bays with only 2 x chargers in most cases. This is the real issue when it comes to range anxiety. It's more like charger anxiety nowadays. Hydrogen Fuel Cell cars simply can't compete with BEVs. Compared to ICE cars Hydrogen could have had a chance but with BEVs taking over so much of the car industry the race is already over. If you look at the BEV uptake against ICE car collapse it is clear where the trend is heading. As for Hydrogen fuel cells they simply don't factor on the global market. I think the numbers are in the region of 1600 cars globally.
@@NunoLima1337 Most recharging is done overnight for BEVs and most cars spend over 90% of their time parked up doing nothing. There will be niche markets for Hydrogen technology as indicated in the video.
Thank you for this clear simple clear explanation I will pass it on to whoever will listen !!!!
Always good to hear Michael bring some informed insight. Check out his Cleaning Up channel/podcast for more in depth discussion and interviews.
Airbus is making a hydrogen passenger plane. If you want to debunk that one, gonna need more data.
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?
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.
M. Liebreich unbiased ?
"unbiased presentation" ???? Hahahahah ... best joke of the year!!!
Hydrogen takes a lot of energy - but when you can use free energy, then very expensive of free is not that expensive.
Wonderful Robert playing to your comedy strengths!! Lol
For those of you in the UK, Toronto to Vancouver is more than 4x the length of the entire UK. It's a long distance.
😂 loved the episode! We need more episodes with these 2 people
"Every airport would need a steady supply of hydrogen to refuel the jets that fly through, just as they must have huge quantities of jet fuel now. Each of those airports would need lots of extra energy-the equivalent of a small nuclear reactor’s worth-to create all that hydrogen." - Steven Barrett, Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, director of the MIT Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment, and leader of the MIT Electric Aircraft Initiative. From: Which is more likely: electric airplanes or hydrogen-powered airplanes? on the Ask MIT website
I loved the candy equation! I thought the blue car was inefficient because it had Belgian license plates 😉
Well thats a surprise. Electric orientated youtube channel thinks hydrogen isn't viable for most applications... Yes its expensive at the moment, but so was battery tech until a short while ago. It doesn't take long to bring costs down. If you have enough renewables then efficiency doesn't really matter that much (ICE engines are not exactly efficient and we've lived with them for a 100 years quite happily). The big issue with everything being battery driven is that we don't have enough available raw materials to actually meet the demand. Not enough lithium mines available and with new ones taking 10+ years to bring online there is a huge crunch coming when demand meets supply constraints, especially when trucks start going that route as they need huge batteries. It's going to be interesting to see what happens when the ban on ICE cars comes in around the 2030 mark and there are just not enough electric cars available for people to buy. I would start hoarding 2nd hand ICE cars as they are going to rocket in value...