HarveyD,

The only thing that this report will probably confirm is how hard it is to make predictions more that 5-8 years into the future. One of my favorite quotes on this is from Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11 astronaut): "You promised me moon colonies and all I got was FaceBook". There is also Yogi Bera comment: "It is hard to make predictions especially about the future."

Maybe by 2040, we will have almost free electric power from fusion which can be used for high temperature electrolysis although I would not bet on it. I agree with the comments about "Mass Compounding" but that ignores the possibility That we will have batteries other Lithium Ion. The Lithium Sulfur cell that Rice Univ and others developed promised about 4 times the energy density of Lithium Ion and extremely fast charging. Will this research or other similar research make it to the market. I do not know but I would rather bet on fast charging Lithium Sulfur than fuel cells. Maybe by 2040, there will be something completely different that we make us wonder why we ever looked at either batteries or fuel cells (Cold Fusion? :))

I really can't evaluate the claims by the researchers, as it is behind a paywall and without the assumptions used such as the rate of improvements in battery energy and density and analogous stuff for fuel cells and hydrogen production, it is simply a claim, not an argument.

I am reasonably confident that this headline is obfcuse and misleading. Can anyone say from referencing the article that it refers in any way to the cost of operation per KLM?

My best reading is that it refers to the cost of powertrain including storage ank of vehicles with comparable mileage. So it simply states the obvious .

The only clever thing is the way it couches hints and misleading direction to confuse the main topic of interest for nearly everyone. That is the comparative cost of operation.

Why they couldn't just show that a 50klm bev is cheaper to both buy and operate than a 50klm F.C. and that there is a linear relationship to distance?

If you are stupid enough to pay the firewall but smart enough to be embarrassed for doing so assuming that will help you understand you will probably keep mum and the scam will achieve its objective.

It seems like the fake news dept has completely in control in its objective. Tell a lie once its a lie tell a lie a thousand times and it's becomes true.

It's very sad to see the methodical attempts of dumming down the conversation (esp0 in the USA.

" However, the cost of the two **powertrains*** will converge quickly, and by 2040, FCEVs will be less expensive than BEVs per mile in approximately 71-88% of the LDV fleet, according to the analysis. Additionally, FCEVs will offer notable cost advantages within larger vehicle size classes and for long distances.

Note they are talking about single car households.
A much simpler and more immediate solution is to have a short range BEV and access to a second ICE or shared FCEV. Many households have 2 or more cars and there are car sharing schemes, or you could just rent one or borrow / swap one from a friend etc.
Governments could make this happen faster if they made it easier to share cars, especially in terms of insurance.

At the simplest level, all you need is one ICE driver who is prepared to swap cars every so often.
This could be an acquaintance or someone found by an app.

@Dave, I am with you on the 20Kw range extender. IMO, it is all you need for a private car.
In my view, the power source doesn't matter that much as it won't be used that much. It could be a petrol or diesel generator - the problem here is petrol going "stale" and the emissions problems with diesel. Fuel cells are very nice in terms of emissions, but expensive and the H2 usually comes from natural gas (at present).
If the design is modular (in the medium term), then any 20 Kw generator should do.

(But I still like the BEV car swapping idea which is an administrative solution, rather than an engineering one. )

I hope that H2 develops as a safe and affordable low-zero carbon alternative for the percentage of transport or other energy requirements that can't be met currently by known non fossil sources and with enough emphasis on the safety side H2's inevitable hiccups and disasters will be kept minimal.

For cities and air pollution the payoffs are substantial but not enough to future proof without efforts in many other sectors of civics and industry. At least we as a specie have some claim to a good record of identifying the risk areas.
Whether the lever operators get the right instructions is not so clear.

"We see New York Mayor de Blasio has announced that New York will divest its city pension funds from the fossil fuel industry. As if that wasn’t a big enough moment on its own, there’s more. He also announced a lawsuit against some of the biggest oil and gas corporations for the damage caused by climate change."

"For a city as iconic as New York" (among others)"to take a public stand in such a big way shows the tide is beginning to turn."

mahonj:

Hydrogen does not go stale in the tank, and looking at the specifications for acceptable leakage from CF tanks, would take around 30 years to evaporate away!

But the big win is that a BEV with a fuel cell RE remains a ZEV, so that for instance city authorities would have no concern that air pollution might go up when the battery reaches its limits.

Also since it is ZEV, it is reasonable to have a smaller battery, which might not cover all the everyday needs some days.

If it is an FCEV, so what?

But if it uses something else, you have to be much more careful about optimising the battery pack to usually cover the daily driving distance.

Hi Arnold.

My own reservations about a high percentage of renewables in the grid have in recent years mainly centred on storage.

Hydrogen in my view can provide enough 'lubrication' in the system to make it far more practical, especially in places with a long dark winter.

I will be as pleased as anyone when far better batteries arrive.

The problem is that we don't know when that will be, and both resource limits in cobalt and the high embodied energy in big batteries represent considerable obstacles.

That plus the fact that it is relatively easy to provide somewhere for a lot of folk to plug in, and darned difficult to provide somewhere for everyone to plug in mean that there is and will be a place for fuel cell vehicles too.

I imagine we are in for an exciting time and will try a lot of things out in the process of optimising the solutions, both as a system and in vehicles, with different balances of fuel cells and batteries.

With autonomous eCabs it could be a moot point, private car ownership could wane saving individuals lots of money.

Davemart, you mention a 30 year evaporation timeframe for H2.I re read because my understanding is @ 30days willgoa long way towards emptying the tank for liquefied H if not cryogenically cooled.

I noticed (i think it was the KenworthFC truck) that the storage tank was twice the capacity required to store the capacity of liquid H. sothe gas was @ twice the volume or presumably 1/2 pressure.
That seems to be the requirement for storage at ambient temperatures.

My other inquiries into storage informed my belief that there is no real option for storage at any useful pressure/volume for transport applications over any useful time frame unless cooling is employed that is to say virtually the entire contents will discharge via over pressure valve or it will autoignite.
That is a no compromise situation as I understand it no amount of insulation or vacuum will extend the storage without cooling beyond days to ~a week..
The only way to realise the full energy content is to utilise the ullage on a continious basis.

This can be verified by comparing the autoignition temp and pressures that can be found on the internet.

I am interested to hear more on the storage tank you mention.

sd said:

'I have little faith in anyone making technology predictions 25 years out.'

Yep. And when I looked at the methodologies employed my fears were confirmed, as in an effort to produce well grounded figures they extend much of current practise in some respects unduly far into the future.

For instance, they use the range of the Mirai as the range in 2040, when the Nexo already greatly exceeds that.

I typically have issues with folk making straight line projections, for instance the energy density of batteries has increased on average by x percent, so extrapolating the into the future (without regard to the underlying technologies) we arrive at such and such a density by 2025 or whatever.

In my view that is a problem for present batteries, as the chemistry is running out of gas, so projections looking at 2025 are often unduly optimistic in my view.

However, extend the time horizon to 2040 and all sorts of other, much higher density technologies may have come into widespread use, and in fact if my reservations about present chemistries prove right, then it is difficult to imagine that we won't manage to crack one or the other of them.

One of the areas they rule out as too complicated to model is all sorts of hybrids.

That includes, for instance, PHEV FCEVs, which I regard as offering the best of most of the component parts.

So if you are using a battery for everyday running around, concerns about the higher cost of hydrogen become moot, and if you are using a fuel cell for longer distances, then fast charging hassles are no more.

The earliest version coming, the Mercedes, is in my view a bit of an unhappy compromise, as the tech at this stage is not really up to cramming everything we need in, but if improvements in batteries are enough to enable fully competitive BEVs without subsidy or tax exemption, then that is likely in itself to have done much of the heavy lifting to enable a PHEV FCEV, as the battery component would reduce a lot in bulk.

I am not concerned about the fuel cell component, as the technology at this stage of the curve is advancing incredibly rapidly, and the bulk of the system as well as the cost will fall big time.

So I disregard this study, as it is projecting current(ish) technology further than is reasonable into the future.

I think both batteries and fuel cells will play a big part, but likely in combination rather than opposition.

I would however have no objection to driving a lithium air battery car using through the road charging if someone turns one out!

Yoatman

Have a look at the specifications for carbon fibre tanks,

The hydrogen in an FCEV on the road right now would take literally years to leak away.