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I have one. It works. It powers a little light bulb and clock on my windowsill...


How so


Too many efficiency losses. Let's compare a BeV and a hydrogen vehicle. starting with a fully renewable source of electricity. For the BeV, we lose 5-6% over transmission lines, 5% of that converting AC to DC, another 5% on losses charging the battery, then another 10% at the electric motor. That's ~75% efficiency from your starting electricity to your wheels.

With hydrogen, you lose 30% to electrolysis, another ~25% to transportation, 50% converting the hydrogen back to electricity, then 10% at the electric motor. That's a power to road efficiency of 20-25%.

So this big advance is improving the electrolysis efficiency from 70% to 90%. That's a big advance, but it still only improves your overall efficiency from 20% to 30%, well below the BeV level.


Efficiency is important when energy is expensive; I can easily believe that other issues dominate.

Not that any of those other issues mean "and in conclusion: hydrogen, hydrogen, hydrogen!", it's just that people care about sticker price and safety as well.

(On the "wanting safety" front: the memetic destruction of the Hindenburg and the way people conflate chemical and atomic hydrogen bombs is a point against hydrogen fuel).


That’s hardly a “scam” though. The use cases are simply different. Batteries are good. Transportable fuel is also good.


I didn't call it a scam; I just explained why the grandparent comment did.


Explaining the logic of someone else’s claim with no further commentary feels to me like an implicit claim of its legitimacy.




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