Risposta aperta a Greg – Hydrogen views
Greg,
(About hydrogen) What has NOT been said so far is the simple fact that people will drive less (less oil, less cars, less km), at slower speed and accelerations and lighter vehicles. Energy to move people and things will be more expensive, even with trains and mass transit.
The personal vehicle fleet will include, internal combustion engines, hybrids, battery and fuel cells, but the use will be different. An important dichotomy will concern the ICE biofuels choice and the electrical one.
I am by no way a pessimist on H2 and FC, but almost 15 years of “active information search” made me an intuitive, down-to-earth hydrogen philosopher, with a quite in-depth knowledge of PEMFC.
So a few facts:
Hydrogen is the perfect, forever fuel, the last stage of purity, carbon-free, the water-cycle, the sun, wind and the renewable path: renewable electricity of waste-biological production. It’s all good and scientific arguments on the supply side.
The demand side (what the hell you do with it) is the needs, and associated goods and services which can satisfy them: hydrogen is useful in fuel cells, if they can be powering new, customer-appealing products, basically the electric engine with a tank of H2.
BUT NOT A 100kW VEHICLE, …rather a 20/40kW (see here).
Liquid H2 at 30% energy loss cannot be an option, apart from space travel or in artic areas.
Trams and trains are the compulsory option to move people and things, together with a cycling, pedestrian network which can commute on railways.
I believe in hydrogen as a Prometheian gift and, as all energy networks, its path will be difficult and uncertain, but conditions seem to converge: the renewable push will help hydrogen production, the clean-efficient applications of the fuel cell will pull demand. We (H2 sponsors) are sort of stuck on the edge of a wish, which is just, but motivated and decided by technological, (geo)political and cultural factors. The very hard core of such a wish concerns the broad domain of personal transportation (of which both in Italy and the US we can see the damages, daily). We are both envisaging a smooth transition to renewable electricity and carbon free hydrogen (with the network and scale economies working on to bring societal benefits and cheap prices), to switch from the fossil-based development.
We do want to. The discussion might go on and beyond the short frame of a “reasonable” post, here. Let me just add, that my personal feeling is that hydrogen and fuel cell will be an expensive choice for electricity and mobility in cities, but will soon be good where delocalization takes place.
Ciao
Sincerely,
next,
Giancarlo
