Why Elon Musk hates Hydrogen fuel cell

TheBeastie

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http://qz.com/186432/why-hydrogen-powered-cars-will-drive-elon-musk-crazy/
The article above is a great read.
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/11/f27/fcto_fuel_cells_fact_sheet.pdf
^General facts on Fuel-cells
I thought this bit was the most interesting
quote "
A conventional combustion-based power
plant typically generates electricity at
efficiencies of 33 to 35%, while fuel cell
systems can generate electricity at efficiencies
up to 60% (and even higher with
cogeneration).
The gasoline engine in today’s typical car
is less than 20% efficient in converting the
chemical energy in gasoline into power that
moves the vehicle, under normal driving
conditions. Fuel cell vehicles, which use
electric motors, are much more energy
efficient. The fuel cell system can use
60% of the fuel’s energy—corresponding
to more than a 50% reduction in fuel
consumption compared to a conventional
vehicle with a gasoline internal combustion
engine. When using hydrogen produced
from natural gas, fuel cell vehicles are expected
to have well-to-wheels greenhouse
gas emissions less than half that of current
gasoline-powered vehicles.

"

Came across this article stating that Toyota will start selling hydrogen fuel cell cars in 2015, less then 6 months away. ( http://www.extremetech.com/tag/hydrogen ) and then thought back to that Elon Musk outburst late last year where Elon said Hydrogen cars are bullshit.

I now understand Elons hate, its basically because most of the major car competitors are taking the easy way for EVs in 2015 via fuel cells while he did all the hard work to make EVs cool and popular in the first place with batteries.
While the major car companies make hydrogen-fueling the EV-car "the government and consumers problem", Elon has long attacked it the hard way by putting huge lithium battery packs in the car. His enemies are going to start eating the EV market pie and profits before Tesla makes some of its biggest profit strides yet.

From the article above I found the last paragraph most interesting and shows an interesting future in home made hydrogen.

Or small-scale. At Honda’s R&D campus, I drive the Clarity up to a gate that opens to reveal a prototype of a solar-powered hydrogen fueling station for the home (see picture above). The electrolyzer is powered by a 5-kilowatt photovoltaic panel array and can produce 30 miles’ worth of hydrogen overnight in your garage, from water. (Honda is still working to bring down the cost of home-brew hydrogen.) The gas can also be used to power residential fuel cells like those being developed by power giant NRG Energy.

No utility or oil company needed. Just drivers.
(and water)
 
Good thread. Back in the day, working for the think tank... If I can recall that far back :p ... we came to the conclusion that there is not enough platinum to support a full conversion to a proton exchange style fuel cell. There were enough basic materials to convert over to solid oxide fuel cells. The SOF however has the heat up problem, and wants to "stay on" all the time.

With respect to Honda and the old GX Civic (the natural gas one), I would sure like to understand why it was pulled along with the home/garage natural gas refueling station "PHIL" Again, IIRC, this happened 5 or so years ago, just as it was being speculated that we were on the edge of being awash in natural gas.

I have not followed the Honda/PHIL saga of late, so may be out of date.
 
TheBeastie said:
From the article above I found the last paragraph most interesting and shows an interesting future in home made hydrogen.

Or small-scale. At Honda’s R&D campus, I drive the Clarity up to a gate that opens to reveal a prototype of a solar-powered hydrogen fueling station for the home (see picture above). The electrolyzer is powered by a 5-kilowatt photovoltaic panel array and can produce 30 miles’ worth of hydrogen overnight in your garage, from water. (Honda is still working to bring down the cost of home-brew hydrogen.) The gas can also be used to power residential fuel cells like those being developed by power giant NRG Energy.

No utility or oil company needed. Just drivers.
(and water)

So a 5kw solar panel converts a resource we are running out of (clean water) into 30 miles of range, over night.
So lets see, a 5Kw panel running for 12 hours a day makes 60kw of electricity. That will take a Tesla 230 miles. But if we use it to convert water to fuel, we can get 30 miles.

I think I maybe understand why Mr Musk feels like we're on the wrong path with fuel cells. :roll:
 
bigmoose said:
With respect to Honda and the old GX Civic (the natural gas one), I would sure like to understand why it was pulled along with the home/garage natural gas refueling station "PHIL" Again, IIRC, this happened 5 or so years ago, just as it was being speculated that we were on the edge of being awash in natural gas.

I have not followed the Honda/PHIL saga of late, so may be out of date.

Me also, though I believe the CNG civic is still available in limited markets ( Cal ?)
http://automobiles.honda.com/civic-natural-gas/price.aspx
I always felt that CNG was a big step forward for a move to cleaner, cheaper energy and simple change for the Auto makers.
Not to mention cutting out a whole layer of fuel retailer profiteering.
But obviously there are people who dont want it to happen ( Its actually illegal in Australia to own a CNG fueled domestic car !)
Also i do believe there is still a big push to convert commercial vehicles ,.. trucks etc, ..to CNG
Actually. Sydney has a fleet of CNG fueled buses !
 
Anything works for cars. You can use electric, hydrogen or woodgas. It is being done now. However, all of the trucks delivering our products, the tractors doing all the farming, trains, airplanes and ships etc are the difficult ones to switch over.
 
Drunkskunk said:
So a 5kw solar panel converts a resource we are running out of (clean water) into 30 miles of range, over night.
So lets see, a 5Kw panel running for 12 hours a day makes 60kw of electricity. That will take a Tesla 230 miles. But if we use it to convert water to fuel, we can get 30 miles.

I think I maybe understand why Mr Musk feels like we're on the wrong path with fuel cells. :roll:
You can't be too sure of how the 5Kw panel numbers are stating etc, for instance when I look up how much kWh of power a 5kw panel can do in Sydney in summer time its 25kWh and in winter its 15kWh .
source: http://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/5kw-solar-system-price-output-return/
So if that was true the Tesla would only get 60miles of charge in winter if that number is correct.
 
Spending the same energy into battery storage yields a wall-to-wheel efficiency where even the crudest DIY home EV build is already beyond the maximum theoretical efficiency limits of using Hydrogen. Why would you not focus the efforts towards the path with the theoretically system efficiency in the ~99% range instead of 65% or whatever for H2?
 
It's entirely about the ability to refill the hydrogen tank. All this talk of quick charging batteries or a refilling chemistry sure hasn't been any more than talk. But hydrogen is no simple matter either.

To some people, waiting around during the recharge is just too far off the beaten path. That's excluding the practical limitations. They don't want to wait even when they have plenty of time.
 
The size of building lots today, you'd be lucky to fit 5 kw solar on the property, let alone the house roof.

Of course the folks who can afford a 5 kw solar panel setup likely have a larger lot.

5kw on my property, I'd run my house on about half of it, run my car or bikes on about another 10%, and sell 40% back to the grid.

Nah, I'd much rather take 100% of it and make enough hydrogen to go 30 miles. :lol:
 
Simply put, fuel cell efficiency grid->H2->tank->electricity->wheels is only 17%. Even with upcoming progress, ablosute theoretical maximum is ~25%.
While electric cars are typical 70-80%. Fuel cell is 4-5 times more expensive to drive. So is bullshit or not? Decision is yours.
 
circuit said:
Simply put, fuel cell efficiency grid->H2->tank->electricity->wheels is only 17%. Even with upcoming progress, ablosute theoretical maximum is ~25%.
While electric cars are typical 70-80%. Fuel cell is 4-5 times more expensive to drive. So is bullshit or not? Decision is yours.
Actually I was thinking there is a secret upside, and that is nuclear power plants using up all the uranium in the world. At the moment a lot of mines have suspended production cos price per pound is so cheap its not worth it due to Japan taking its 40 nuke power stations offline. Japan is spending 6 billion dollars on energy (natural gas) per year more then pre Fukushima.
Actually might be most viable for China since they can run nuclear power plants cheap.
The upside is if we can use up all the Uranium in the world we won't have to worry about MAD/nuclear holocaust any more.
 
TheBeastie said:
Actually I was thinking there is a secret upside, and that is nuclear power plants using up all the uranium in the world. At the moment a lot of mines have suspended production cos price per pound is so cheap its not worth it due to Japan taking its 40 nuke power stations offline. Japan is spending 6 billion dollars on energy (natural gas) per year more then pre Fukushima.
Actually might be most viable for China since they can run nuclear power plants cheap.
The upside is if we can use up all the Uranium in the world we won't have to worry about MAD/nuclear holocaust any more.

Natural gas is far, far cheaper than nuclear energy which is by far the most expensive source of electricity for Japan. It's was a ludicrous decision for the Japanese to pick nuclear in the first place given the earthquake-prone nature of the country. They almost lost Tokyo the last time due to incompetence.

The decommissioning costs for all reactors in Japan are estimated to be $100 billion. The figures put forward for decommissioning are always hugely optimistic. Watch that number start to swell. I don't expect it to reach French 20 times inflation but if it was five to ten times higher I still wouldn't be surprised.

Hydrogen completely sucks - its the perpetual motion equivalent of the energy world. You have less than a quarter the efficiency of an EV, have to use an electric battery anyway because the power density of hydrogen is shit, it continuously leaks, there is no refilling infrastructure, and you have to do very careful periodic maintenance unless you wish to tempt your fate and the lives of others. Oh and it costs roughly the same per KW/hr of storage at today's battery prices. If you want to throw away more than 80 per cent of electricity on the world's worst battery then go with hydrogen.

Imagine storing 30, 100 or 200KW/hrs of hydrogen in your home. :shock: I have misgivings about Lipo but that's a bomb that could take out several houses when it goes off. I can't see that been allowed. For the same reason I can't see hydrogen refuelling stations being built anywhere near a populated area.

Suppose you go with hydrogen from natural gas instead of hydrolysis. What you end up with is a car with worse fuel economy than an ICE, greater CO2 pollution, greater maintenance needs, more expensive fuel, something that will need to be continuously topped up as it leaks one per cent per day and you still will have nowhere to refill it.

Or you could just go with a natural gas LPG tank, far safer, much cleaner than even petrol or diesel and much cheaper to run.

Why does Elon Musk Hate hydrogen fuel cells? Simple common sense - if you are going to add all these needless extra processes inefficiencies will mount up. All hydrogen is doing is taking efficient systems - EVs and LPG - adding stupid steps and making them shit. The only way hydrogen is economically viable is for the taxpayers to subsidise everything. Toyota are only building those cars because of CARB which has been infiltrated by hydrogen shills.

Edit: Re-reading this I probably should point out that all the 'you' and 'your' are plural not singular. :lol:
 
A bit off topic:
Actually I run LPG daily on my 1987 Audi Coupe. It is cheaper to run even than most recent hybrids. LPG stations are very popular in my country, can find at least one every 500 meters in cities... And it is very ecologic, almost no hard particles. I believe it is next best thing to lithium batteries.
Best combination would be to have a plug-in hybrid with large battery and engine running on LPG.
 
This write-up goes on to explain 10 myths about fuel cell vehicles and why they are myths and not the real truth.
Seems Toyota is directly firing a shell back at Elon Musk on the matter for debate, I guess a little war is brewing here.
http://revolution-green.com/toyota-10-fuel-cell-myths-debunked/
 
TheBeastie said:
You can't be too sure of how the 5Kw panel numbers are stating etc, for instance when I look up how much kWh of power a 5kw panel can do in Sydney in summer time its 25kWh and in winter its 15kWh .
source: http://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/5kw-solar-system-price-output-return/
So if that was true the Tesla would only get 60miles of charge in winter if that number is correct.
However, the same is also true of the water-breakdown system: it would also get proportionally less work done, and give far less range on the fuel-cell car than it would in summer. ;)

So the difference between summer/winter doesn't really mean anything in the argument except that you'd STILL get much better efficiency out of the Tesla. :p
 
TheBeastie said:
This write-up goes on to explain 10 myths about fuel cell vehicles and why they are myths and not the real truth.
Seems Toyota is directly firing a shell back at Elon Musk on the matter for debate, I guess a little war is brewing here.
http://revolution-green.com/toyota-10-fuel-cell-myths-debunked/
Whole that article is a huge BS. Especially comment on "myth 10".
Overall plant to wheels efficiency is not mentioned anywhere. Clearly that article was pushed in to favor of FC, leaving a lot of important points out.
 
I also would like to see the system to wheel efficiency, but we have a large mix to deal with here. Some are reforming existing raw fuels. Some are pressurizing storage systems at different levels, but I still think any thing that reduces co and co2 while bettering ICE dirty running situation is worth exploring.

Ge announced last month they are getting over 90% system efficiency from their latest stationary large scale solid oxide fuel cell test plant. I take it with some salt, but??? Musk better start getting some better range/cost or he will be seeing some serious challenges soon. Competition is good!

http://www.gereports.com/post/92454271755/the-new-power-generation-this-fuel-cell-startup-could
http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com...us-solid-oxide-fuel-cell-manufacturing-plant/
 
Joseph C. said:
Hydrogen completely sucks - its the perpetual motion equivalent of the energy world.


Ha ha love it! Thats going in my sig . . .
 
speedmd said:
Some are pressurizing storage systems at different levels, but I still think any thing that reduces co and co2 while bettering ICE dirty running situation is worth exploring.

But they don't produce less CO2 than ICE. It's not possible. All they are doing is tapping into the oil production process and adding extra steps. There is no getting around that. If you add extra processes you increase energy input and increase CO2 emissions.

And let's say the grid becomes fully green, which would involve battery storage and renewables completely replacing all non-renewable energy (about two to three decades from now), there would be no point in using hydrogen as there would be no need to burn oil. Fossil-fuel derived hydrogen would be completely redundant due to its huge downsides and inefficiencies.

Ge announced last month they are getting over 90% system efficiency from their latest stationary large scale solid oxide fuel cell test plant. I take it with some salt, but??? Musk better start getting some better range/cost or he will be seeing some serious challenges soon. Competition is good!

That's great. So going the clean hydrolysis route now instead of it being 15 per cent efficient it will be 25 per cent efficient (being very generous). Electric cars are 85 per cent efficient and they don't need added infrastructure.

The electrical grid is all around us. Despite that fact that there are so few electric cars in Ireland there is scarcely a small town that doesn't have a charging station. That's the same throughout Europe. No inefficient expensive deliveries are required, no lorries to pollute the road, drivers to be paid, expensive insurance etc.

I worked out the CO2 figures for the Irish ESB grid, which is one of the dirtiest in Europe (produces twice as much CO2 as the European average 579 grams of CO2 per KW/hr versus 302 grams of CO2 per KM/hr), and even here electric cars produce less CO2 than ICE cars.

The most economical and clean car on the Irish market is the Fiat Rio 1.1 which produces 150 grams of CO2 per KM. An electric comparable car is the Mitsubishi i-MiEV which produces 125 grams per CO2.

The Mercedes C Class AMG Edition 507 works out at 480 grams of CO2 per KM (one of the very few five door cars with 2WD that is capable of zero-to-100 KM in 4.2 seconds). The Tesla Model S P85 works out at 230 grams of CO2 per KM.

There is just no comparison between electric and petrol cars. And that's in Ireland, in Europe the i-MiEV would be just over 60 grams per KM while the Tesla would be over 115 grams (actual number is about 7 to 8 per cent higher).

Those grid figures include transmission losses and charger losses.

The ICE figures includes CO2 produced by the electricity used to generate petrol which is highly energy intense. Something which car manufacturers conveniently leave out.

It also works out in the petrol cars favour as it doesn't include the CO2 used to pump the petrol onto ships, the CO2 to ship it, the CO2 to pump it onto storage facilities, the CO2 to pump it into lorries, the CO2 to transport it to petrol stations, the CO2 to pump it into the petrol station and finally the CO2 used to pump it into people's cars.

And also let's face it those petrol emissions figures aren't real world at all. A German company tested the cars in 2008 and found that cars hadn't improved from the 1980's. Manufacturers just game the system and programme the cars to produce less CO2 at the very specific RPMs they are being tested at. Now things might have improved since but more recent tests have shown that the manufacturer numbers still aren't being achieved in the real world.

As Circuit says if you have to drive a car; can't afford an electric car with sufficient range but would love to help the environment the next best thing is a diesel car that has been converted to burn LPG. Use that in your car, much safer than a fuel cell, won't leak, doesn't need an electric battery and most importantly is far cleaner than ICEs which to begin with are cleaner than Fool Cells.

Economically LPG will save you money. That's the smart, environmentally-friendly solution for the next five or six years until electric cars flood the market with their far superior product.

Edit: Made a mistake and forgot that only petrol cars can be converted to LPG.
 
Noticed you leave out CO in your post. Also, the Natural Gas industry here is now suffering greatly from fugitive emissions from reckless exploration and should be viewed with some caution. Agree that once range and storage issues of batteries reaches range now available in ICE setups, it will be difficult to justify the added complexity issues surrounding the current FC technologies. However, just calling them fool cells is in itself foolish as they are now working relatively well in their infancy, improving steadily and here to stay until the short range/ long charge time battery issues are resolved. I am not suggesting we invest all our treasure in one technology, but there is plenty of room to also grow this and many other technologies going forward. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/fcv_benefits.shtml
fcv-wtw-ghg.gif


http://www.apep.uci.edu/3/Research/...ation/WTW_vehicle_greenhouse_gases_Public.pdf
6a00d8341c4fbe53ef01a3fd1bb648970b-800wi
 
speedmd said:
Noticed you leave out CO in your post. Also, the Natural Gas industry here is now suffering greatly from fugitive emissions from reckless exploration and should be viewed with some caution. Agree that once range and storage issues of batteries reaches range now available in ICE setups, it will be difficult to justify the added complexity issues surrounding the current FC technologies. However, just calling them fool cells is in itself foolish as they are now working relatively well in their infancy, improving steadily and here to stay until the short range/ long charge time battery issues are resolved. I am not suggesting we invest all our treasure in one technology, but there is plenty of room to also grow this and many other technologies going forward.

It's like talking to a brick wall that logic can't seem to penetrate. You show trepidation about natural gas emissions but are in favour of hydrogen fuel cells? Where do you think the hydrogen is coming from? Hint the answer is...natural gas.

I see the nonsensical graph. Explain to me how hydrogen produced from natural gas has got lower CO2 emissions than actual natural gas? To make matters worse this special natural gas uses a distributed grid. :roll: It takes energy to transport gas - which adds more CO2. Jesus Christ. :!:

In what Universe can you take natural gas, add extra energy intensive processes to it (which produces more CO2) and then claim that 'Wait a minute, actually our natural gas-derived hydrogen produces less CO2 than natural gas production.' It's certainly not the Universe I live in. I know I am repeating myself here but this is as bad as the perpetual motion pushers.

P.S.

I didn't leave CO2 out of it. I mentioned it specifically in terms of ICE versus EV which there is proper figures to give some form of comparison even though they are heavily stacked in the ICE's favour. Getting proper working figures for hydrogen fuel cells requires digging as the batshit crazy numbers on your graph is testament to. If CARB is stacked with hydrogen lobbyists you need independent figures which have been given before on this forum. Someone with seemingly inexhaustible patience has broken down everything in detail here.http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=60245#p900526

Here is the key point natural gas in the form of LPG produces about 20 per cent less CO2 emissions than petrol and about ten per cent less than diesel. The process of converting natural gas to hydrogen is 66 per cent efficient. This limitation guarantees that natural gas derived fuel cells will always produce more CO2 than ICE transport. To get an equal amount of energy you need 152 per cent natural gas to get 100 per cent of the energy in hydrogen. Fuels cells are 52 per cent more CO2 polluting than natural gas LPG, 39 per cent more than diesel and 32 per cent more than petrol. Those are the numbers there is no getting away from them.

The order of least CO2 emissions to most:

1. Electric Vehicles

Daylight

2. LPG cars.
3. Diesel cars
4. Petrol cars

5. Natural Gas derived fool cells.

We could repeat the point about renewables and hydrogen but then we get back to cost and inefficiencies...
 
Like it. You pick out a very narrow adaptation of hydrogen sourcing and lump the entire FC technology into it. Where in my my post do I suggest that natural gas is the only source of hydrogen. Where do I suggest that Hydrogen is the only fuel that can be used for fuel cells. Only a fool would narrow this broad topic down to this level. Some run direct on ethanol or waste gasses. Some on reformed diesel. Wood chips, algae and other waste bio matter are also in use and show great promise. What about farm compost and sewage treatment facilities. WIND!!!! What do you do when your batteries are fully charged up and the wind is still blowing. Pump storage? Flywheel? Turn on some lights? You could always make fuel! Sewer water work great.

CO, as in carbon monoxide! Running a cleaner fuel in a piston engine is certainly an improvement, but not a long term solution. It may be that it has passed your understanding of where the technology is at the moment. Not my fight, as I have been able to watch learn and see the development over the last several years with all its flaws and wish it well as I do the pure EV side. I truly wish Musk well, but as the saying goes, "adapt or perish". This goes for the piston engine crowd also. Locking myself into one way of thinking is not something I choose to do here. If that makes me a fool, I am in bliss.

cheers
 
speedmd said:
Like it. You pick out a very narrow adaptation of hydrogen sourcing and lump the entire FC technology into it. Where in my my post do I suggest that natural gas is the only source of hydrogen. Where do I suggest that Hydrogen is the only fuel that can be used for fuel cells. Only a fool would narrow this broad topic down to this level. Some run direct on ethanol or waste gasses. Some on reformed diesel. Wood chips, algae and other waste bio matter are also in use and show great promise. What about farm compost and sewage treatment facilities. WIND!!!! What do you do when your batteries are fully charged up and the wind is still blowing. Pump storage? Flywheel? Turn on some lights? You could always make fuel! Sewer water work great.
cheers

Yes, I picked up on the adoption that is being used. Natural gas is what is being utilised with a bit of methane added.

Once again, as with natural gas, why would you use biofuels and biogas and inefficiently convert them to hydrogen when you could just use them directly as fuels? It's the same scenario as choosing to use electricity for hydrolysis instead of using it to fill a battery. Why would you needlessly add extra steps and inefficiencies when you can utilise the energy directly?

I took it that CO was a typo. I don't know enough about carbon monoxide to draw any opinions. I do know that it's presence is small compared to carbon dioxide and that it plays a role in the formation of the Ozone but that's the exact of my very limited knowledge.

I hate burning fossil fuels but recognise them as a necessary temporary evil. When the day arrives that the world goes fully renewable and battery storage consumer prices go below $100 per KW/hr the reality is that energy will be abundant. People will have all the energy they need. They won't care about harvesting excess power.
 
Agree. I also dislike burning fuels, but in winter it is very warming :p No doubt, if making heat is the goal, going direct/burning is always a better solution. Problem comes in when electricity is what your after and with the price / charge time issues of battery storage at the moment, it is still a bit out of reach to clearly take over. I am hoping also for the low cost / green breakthroughs. What ever form they take.
 
Joseph C. said:
It's like talking to a brick wall that logic can't seem to penetrate.

Any time you try to hammer your own beliefs into someone to knock theirs out in the process, yes, it will be like that. Keep in mind you may not be as logical as you think you are. This is way, WAY unproven how it would turn out, far too early to demand a strict point of view from anyone, since not enough is known to have one yourself. Everyone wants to be an early adopter, but. . . .

But don't people ALWAYS state that they know the 'Right' way? The real origin of this concept is Sweden, where they did a survey on driving. 90% of respondents said they were better drivers than more than half the people on the road. It's possible they did indeed survey mostly better drivers, but not logical to assume. More likely you can expect that people are not as 'Right' about things as they tell themselves. But I'm just guessing.
 
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