by BadBadJellyBean | 2026-02-23 13:26:49+00:00
> What is the precise cost? You don't know. If you research the precise cost, my post discusses "what about the future after research", but this upsets you too.. for, researching things is a waste, you say.

>(Even though you realise h2 is used elsewhere, and any improvements would help those industries?!)

It doesn't upset me but I am struggling to see the killer argument for H2 right now. The cost I am talking about is the cost of researching improvements at this exact moment and the cost of rolling out H2 infrastructure. I can not name them but they are probably not small.

> For power, a real world example is that charging a car, tends to result in ~15% power loss. Some is converted to heat. There is also power loss in keeping the battery warm, when it's cold out (-20C). There is power loss when it is very hot outside, when draining the battery too. There are also transmission costs related to power infrastructure, upwards of 15%. When generating h2, the stored gas is simply transported as is, 30% plus loss of gas seems unlikely.

The 50% I am talking about is a very positive estimate of the "well to wheel" efficiency of H2 in a car right now. From what I read about 30-50% of the power needed to produce the H2 is available to the car. As far as I read the efficiency of BEV is more around 70-85%.

> Batteries also age, and as they do, they are less and less efficient at discharge/charging. They lose range

H2 tanks and fuel cells also degrade over time and that doesn't just mean that they have less capacity that means they have to be replaced because they get very dangerous. Both should hold for the lifetime of the car though. There was study recently that car batteries last longer than we assumed: https://www.dekra.com/en/batteries-of-electric-cars-are-more...

I do cede that very cold or very hot weather will harm range and that a H2 car has more range than a BEV car. I don't think though it is significant enough though (from what I read about 100 miles more). There is though the thing that batteries are getting are getting better. Less harmful and rare materials, better density, less susceptibility to temperature. So there is the distinct possibility that the problems you mentioned might be solved before H2 even gets to the point that it's downsides are addressed. That is what I meant when I was talking about the viability of researching H2 (for cars). It might be too far behind in adoption at this point to catch up to even make sense spending time on it.

It is good to keep in mind that BEV has and had a lot lower barrier of entry. H2 fueling will never work without specialized fueling stations. That means a hassle for the owner of the car and for the potential owner of a fueling station. As a society we went through the hassle of building gas stations everywhere and figuring out how to store and transport the fuel once. It is very unlikely that we have to do that again when there is another solution that doesn't need that. Power infrastructure is already widely available even though some upgrades might be necessary. You can charge your BEV on a normal outlet at home if time is not important.

> You ignored my comments on recycling, by simply saying there aren't many batteries to recycle?! This is an absurd response, absolutely absurd. The point is adoption, and every car requires recycling at end of life. We're comparing car tech side by side, and your response is "well there's only a few of these horribly polluting battery cars!". What? Recycling a horribly polluting tech is just that. It's amazing how the most environmentally conscious among us, simple ignore that electric cars are cesspools of 1000s of pounds of polluting materials.

I didn't mean to ignore what you said but the problem is currently that to build recycling infrastructure you have to have batteries to recycle. Most BEV cars and their batteries are still on the road. Even crashed car batteries often get a second life as home storage. There is development though regarding the recycling.

https://insideevs.com/news/787778/ev-battery-recycling-growt...

> Lastly h2 works perfectly right now. It is useful right now. It has range as long as electric cars.

I'd say we have part of it. We have a way to produce H2, we have a way to create electricity from H2 but we don't have a huge overproduction of H2, we don't have a distribution network and we don't have any widespread interest. From my point of view it only makes sense to even think about H2 in cars when we have enough green energy capacity to satisfy the industries that need H2. The previously mentioned inefficiencies in converting electricity to H2 and back mean that we need to deploy much less renewable energy sources before reaching a net neutral goal.

What BEV has now is moderate momentum and it's why I am asking for the killer feature of H2. Because whatever it is it must be so good that it overcomes the downsides of H2 as well as the momentum of BEV. In the end I do not care about what kind of power storage we use as long as it gets us to not use fossil fuels anymore and that as fast as possible. I am skeptical though if it is a good idea to split investment and research now when time is of the essence.

I don't know if I need to say this but am looking at this from a strictly zero emission standpoint. That means I don't consider H2 from natural gas as relevant.