Peri,
You raise good points.
I promised myself that I was going to avoid debating the question of what is
better (except to say that both are), and only correct easily correctable wrong
information.
But I will comment on your concern about hydrogen subsidies creating an
incentive to produce H2 from fossil natural gas. I think that there is
actually no need to worry. But I find the question fascinating.
Sorry for not hitting everything.
I completely agree with you that you want to avoid incentives for using fossil
natural gas, and going further, eliminate subsidies completely.
Last point first. This is something I’ve already addressed in this thread.
Someone else mentioned it would take 10 years for self-sufficiency. That’s
pretty much about the stations. The report I referenced also talked about
self-sufficiency. But I think that we also need a self-sufficiency pathway for
charging infrastructure. That is very important. You need a self-sustaining
charging industry, and as far as I know, there is no pathway from the industry
of how to get there.
Your other point on subsidies. First, and for background, understand that right
now, hydrogen used in transportation is mostly NOT fossil natural gas.
California state law required a minimum 33% renewable content (the only fuel to
have such a requirement) which I think is now 40% , a requirement created when
the grid was about 19% renewable (maybe less). The actual performance was
probably 40-45%, but in recent times, it has been, according to CARB, over 90%.
Some station operators have reported 100%.
But will it happen in the future? And how to hydrogen incentives impact that?
These were your questions as I understand it.
So let’s look at the drivers towards renewable and green hydrogen. One is
customer demand, and how the companies are responding. When I chaired the
California Hydrogen Business Council several years ago, at one of our board
meetings, the OEMs that were present said that they wanted hydrogen to be
“green” because the environmentally oriented customers that were going to buy
their cars demanded it, so they were going to demand it. The IGCs in the
meeting, who I thought would object, were in agreement. Now that and $5 will
give you a cup of coffee. But the industry followed up with a declaration that
their goal was 100% decarbonized hydrogen by 2030, which was *15* years before
the grid would be decarbonized. Okay, that’s intent. But it’s dollars that are
where the rubber meets the road.
In California, there are a number of incentives that drive things towards
renewables versus fossil. I heard one company say that with the incentive
structure, you would be crazy to go in any direction, but renewables.
But putting aside these incentives, and maybe even more to your point -
production. Will subsidies push generation of fossil over renewables and green
hydrogen? Earlier in the thread I partially addressed this. I pointed out that
Plug Power (which *is* a client of mine) were building a number of electrolyzer
hydrogen production plants. This is all public information, and on their
website. Their CEO has said numerous times that at 3¢/kWh they can produce
hydrogen that competes with fossil natural gas-produced hydrogen. They are
building these plants NOW. So given green hydrogen that is cost-competitive
with what you don’t want, what will a buyer choose? Hint: Not the fossil
version. Over the next few years, the cost of production is expected to improve
even more.
Note also that it is widely known that renewables have become the cheapest new
energy, over fossil.
So the cost of producing the green hydrogen *is* coming down, as the cost of
renewables drop AND as the efficiency of electrolyzers increases (which is
happening), and cost of those electrolyzers drop.
That is why I think the incentive is NOT to produce hydrogen from natural gas.
Hope that helps, and thanks for such a interesting question that I’ve never
been asked before.
- Mark
Sent from my Fuel Cell powered iPhone
On Aug 25, 2021, at 8:16 PM, Peri Hartman via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote:
Mark, let me expound on this a bit. First, you have provided some facts and I
thank you. But you are ignoring the elephant in the room, namely the
inefficiency of producing hydrogen.
Let me put it this way. If you have a 1GW solar farm, should you use that
electricity to power homes and battery EVs or waste 50% of it to produce H2,
meanwhile powering those homes from coal- or natural gas-generated electricty ?
Or, let me put it another way. On a small scale, subsidies (whether from
government or from a manufacturer, e.g. Toyota) are fine and an excellent way
to promote and test new technology. However, in large scale, those subsidies
must mostly go away or taxpayers will revolt. In the case of fuel cell EVs, if
many people were to already own one, the incentive to produce H2 from natural
gas would be overwhelming. (There might not be a subsidy on the H2 itself but,
clearly, there are subsidies for the cars and the 3 years of free fuel.)
Let me put it a third way. If solar panels were so cheap that building out
solar farms for the sole purpose of producing H2 were feasible, why isn't it
also feasible to build out solar farms to replace natural gas and coal
generation of electricity ? It's happening, but at a significant cost
investment.
----------
Here's a few more details on the cost of H2 in california.
According to wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy
a fuel cell can deliver about 33 kWh per kg of H2.
From an earlier post, "the average price of hydrogen in California is $16.51 per
kg." That means electricity from the fuel cell costs $0.50 / kWh. Maybe that's not
too bad, but it's still about 2.5 times the cost of electricity on the grid in California.
Further, that reference
https://cafcp.org/content/cost-refill
doesn't say the source of the "average" hydrogen - solar with hydrolysis or
natural gas with steam ? But, I found that California law mandates that 40% of H2 for
fuel cell EVs be produced from renewables, published recently:
https://www.sierranevadaally.org/2021/05/05/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles-are-building-momentum-in-california/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20consulting%20firm%20Wood%20Mackenzie%2C%20almost%20all%20hydrogen,hydrocarbon%20source%20material%20and%20energy
What is the cost per kWh for the 40% ? That is the only way to understand the
current true cost of kWh / kg of H2. $16.51 per kg is a irrelevant number since
it is including nonrenewables.
---------
Mark, in order for you to gain credibility from me on this topic, you need to
address this issue. I'll readily accept that the cost of fuel cells will come
down and that, maybe, the cost of fueling stations can come down when done at
large scale. But there's nothing that I'm aware of that will significantly
bring down the cost of generating H2. Long term, that's the crucial element
from a customer point of view and, if electricity from H2 is significantly more
expensive than electricity from a battery, it will not gain public acceptance
for large scale usage.
Peri
<< Annoyed by leaf blowers ? https://quietcleanseattle.org/ >>
------ Original Message ------
From: "Alan Brinkman via EV" <ev@lists.evdl.org>
To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <ev@lists.evdl.org>
Cc: "Alan Brinkman" <alanlbrink...@gmail.com>
Sent: 25-Aug-21 13:06:48
Subject: Re: [EVDL] Hydrogen vs Battery Power
Hello EVDL,
The draw of Hydrogen is that using it produces H2O, water. What a great
exhaust product. But the energy to separate Hydrogen out of H2O to produce
it is too great. It is better to use that energy to charge batteries and
drive an EV.
If you want to spend money on researching how to produce Hydrogen using
much less energy, that is a good idea. A catalyst or unique process would
be good.
Just switching from petroleum fuels to Hydrogen at the current time is not
a great benefit. EV's are the tool.
Make it a great day!
Alan
On Wed, Aug 25, 2021, 10:48 AM Willie via EV <ev@lists.evdl.org> wrote:
On 8/25/21 11:10 AM, Robert Bruninga via EV wrote:
>>> ...by Electrify America, they said that they charge 31¢/kWh.
> I have seen rates as low as 3 cents per kW
> for EV charging off-peak for those that sign up for a TOU plan
> (includes much higher peak rates)
>
> "Hydrogen Fool cell" is a reasonable moniker.
>
> Wont this thread ever die?
->I<- think it is time for it to die.
Much discussion back and forth. Little logic. Little promise for the
future. Not a single example of FCEV advantage over BEV. I say at risk
of appearing to gang up on Mark. Even though I have resisted giving
that appearance.
> OOps, forgot. My home solar makes the EV charging free...
> (Well, no, with Grid tie it costs me 14 cents per kWh
> because that is what each kW is worth that I push back
> into the grid so using it to charge an EV is 14cents/kWh lost).
Your utility seems to be giving you a GREAT deal. Though it makes your
charging appear more expensive than with a lesser deal. I buy at
$.10/kwh and sell at $.06/kwh which makes my charging $.06. OTOH, my
utility is willing to buy (pay cash) for as much as I can manage to
produce. Even at only $.06, I think my payback period is in the range
of 6-8 years.
_______________________________________________
Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org
No other addresses in TO and CC fields
UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub
ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/
LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL:
<http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20210825/1fb485a3/attachment.html>
_______________________________________________
Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org
No other addresses in TO and CC fields
UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub
ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/
LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
_______________________________________________
Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org
No other addresses in TO and CC fields
UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub
ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/
LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org
