The truth about hydrogen fuel cell - a future beyond cars?

[@UndecidedMF]

What do you think about fuel cells? Any use cases I missed? And if you liked this video, be sure to check out "The truth about graphene - what's the hold up?" kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZm0o3qqp8aajsU

[@michaelwurtz6849]

I think this project would have been good to include in the video - www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/orsted-to-power-decarbonization-hub-for-land-sea-and-air-transport

[@jayjohnson3732]

Several year ago I saw an article (don't remember where) about a pilot project somewhere in the Pacific Northwest that was quite compelling. It was grid scale (for a small town) fuel cell plant that ran (or was to run) on methane. The methane was (or was to be) produced more or less on site from the cities sewage. I can't recall if it ever actually went into operation, or was merely planned.

[@NilsR]

@Andreas Berni AFAIK, artificial photosynthesis produces hydrocarbons, just like plants. This process is still clean and carbon neutral, and the end product is much easier to handle than hydrogen. Cost is just one of the problems with using hydrogen; Examples are the high pressure and low temperature needed to store it, the molecule size that makes it leak even through metals, the increased explosion risk. The main problem I have seen with methane is how it's a potent greenhouse gas and should always be converted back into oxygen and carbon-dioxide, not released/leaked into the atmosphere. Other problems I have seen mentioned with both are that they are more costly to transport than electricity, and they both need to use a lot of water.

[@hyric8927]

Hydrogen can replace coal for smelting iron ore into metallic iron for making steel.

[@Obscurai]

Hmm, storing large amounts of explosive fuel at a port will need careful consideration given recent events in Beirut.

[@arrrrr9831]

One of the most refined channels on youtube. Always high quality information and production.

[@TheByErkin]

I'm a researcher on the topic of fuel cell catalysts and can say that you made some nice content! On a side note, platinum catalysts make up most (around 40%) of the FC's production cost, so that's one challenge to be solved.

[@Sedr1s]

I think you might have missed an important factor in why fuel cells may be impactful in certain fields, the energy density of a Hydrogen fuel cell system is 10 times that of a Lithium Ion battery system, which makes Hydrogen Fuel Cells an attractive option for air travel and shipping, where weight and space are the limiting factors preventing those industries from switching to Lithium Ion batteries and electric motors.

[@vincecox8376]

When you learn the center field of a magnetic force you won't be doing it that way. First off you need to use the inductive properties of copper in the water in a saw tooth wave form at the correct frequency, not a sign wave. Once you do this you will be on overload with the output of hydrogen. The center field energy from a magnet and the copper inductive field combine to disconnect the two molecules of water!!

[@colinburfeind6947]

The use case of hydrogen fuel cells on large ships is really interesting. I hadn't thought of it, but that would be awesome. Many ships use some of the dirtiest fuels, this would certainly change things. Awesome video!

[@adamm2716]

i invested in ballard power for this very reason.

[@billwedeking797]

EXACTLY, I agree, but hydrogen fuel cells aren't the answer. There are current projects where the ship draws in seawater as it travels, extracts to CO2 and converts it into Methane (CH4) for direct use in a Solid Oxide Fuel Cell / Micro Turbine at 85% efficiency. Remaining seawater (without the CO2) flows back into the ocean.

[@colinburfeind6947]

@@billwedeking797 where does the energy to power this sabatier process come from? Could that just be used to directly drive the propeller?

[@exchequerguy4037]

Aircraft and locomotives as well.

[@deepinmind83]

As a person who works on H2 Fuel cells you might say I’m biased, but I feel there is so much pushback on H2 from everyone. But I’m watching the efficiency climb closer to 90% every year. No one mentions the green aspect of H2 if we can move away from using natural gas as a source. It’s also much less cost and maintenance overhead than lithium battery storage for practical solar storage. Plug Power just took the biggest investment buy from Morgan Stanley in history to the tune of $1.75B. That’s not a foolish investment I promise you.

[@hyperdrivee7922]

The timing of this video is genius. At the pinnacle of the drama, losses, investigations & law suits, Matt just takes us back to the basics and cleans things up.

[@oisiaa]

I'm 100% in on home solar and EVs. We have a 10kW system and my wife and I both have EVs. Not only is it sustainable, but I LOVE being a part of this revolution and being an example / mentor to my friends & neighbors who may be a few years behind.

[@mdjey2]

Getting energy from the grid is way cheaper unless you are using Russian gas for cooking.

[@BenSullinsOfficial]

Interesting, hadn't considered that use case. The cost is what is an absolute killer for most use cases it seems

[@UndecidedMF]

Definitely.

[@chadlymath]

Right, the lower than petrol or diesel cost not available in 90%+ of North America's the issue.

[@ShuffleSprain]

I'm going to start my master thesis on improving fuel cells electrodes. I hope i can learn a lot but it's kind of depressing seeing that is a technology that never made it up so much and it doesn't seem it's going to be a big improve in the following years.

[@MrSenses33]

The real world application of fuel cells and hydrogen power is not suitable for the commercial market as it stands right now. The infrastructure needed for hydrogen powered cars (Hydrogen gas stations) are so expensive compared to conventional battery charging stations making batteries the more viable option. Nonetheless there are some areas where hydrogen power will have a significant impact, the maritime industry. Being able to theoretically extract hydrogen from the ocean using electric power from say solar cells, a cargo ship could then theoretically run completely self sufficient. The process is very simple, and the technology exists for it already. Check out the EnergyObserver, a prototype ship which is completely self sufficient.

[@chrismuir8403]

@@MrSenses33 electrolyzing salt water produces hydrogen and sodium hypocloride, better known as Chlorine Bleach. That is how bleach is made commercially. So, trying to run a ship that way could be an ecological disaster with all that waste chlorine bleach being dumped.

[@jasgsxr2726]

Batteries are very environmentally damaging to dispose of, are fuel cells able to be recycled or safely disposed of ?

[@bar8665]

I had the same question

[@MenacingPerson]

New environmentally friendly batteries are coming but ppl are too lazy to dispose shit.

[@annekecornee]

Luckily they are not 'just' disposed off, but first reused as stationary storage and then, after many more years, disassembled and the components recycled. Recycling fuel cell parts is also difficult, because it consists of many plates with thin laminates.

[@ccpmustfall6445]

@@annekecornee Engineers problemmm, good thing im not in this field XD It will hurts my head

[@WhiteWolfos]

Once they reach their last life cycle many many years down the road they can be 95% recycled through conventional recycling.

[@hhhotyg]

There's one thing we miss. It is a comparison of the energy and costs used to mine lithium, cobalt for batteries and platinum catalysts for fuel cells.

[@UndecidedMF]

Good point. If you’re looking at LCOE (levelized cost of energy) numbers for this kind of stuff, that’s all included.

[@morosis82]

Those are sort of embedded in LCOE, although what is often missed is the cost of end of life.

[@hhhotyg]

@@UndecidedMF Then, what about the LCOE of battery and hydrogen fuel cell? Which is better in terms of LCOE?

[@acmefixer1]

I think you missed something. The fuel cell is not limited in range, like a battery is. The fuel cell can have greater range without increasing its size. Just add a bigger fuel tank. The fuel cell vehicles can be fueled in a few minutes, not a half hour or more for a battery electric vehicle. This is very important for heavy commercial vehicles which have to be on the road or else lose money, and which could take hours to recharge. One other thing that I'd like to know. Batteries have a limit on the charge/discharge cycles. Do fuel cells have a limitation on their lifetime? As Tesla has shown, batteries have made progress by research and development. Will fuel cell technology also be improved by R & D? Thank you for the balanced, informed viewpoints.

[@teemumiettinen7250]

you mean one fuel cell vehicle can be fueled in minutes, if theres 2 hydrogen vehicles in one station the second vehicle will take attleast 30minutes to fuel.

[@v.e.7236]

Storage was always a question when thinking about hydrogen fuel cells. Unless you can figure out a way to compress the hydrogen on-board, fuel cells would need to be excessively large/bulky. A stationary hyhdrogen fueled engine would be semi-feasible, as large storage tanks wouldn't be so much an issue like on a vehicle. As always, life is the art of compromise.

[@ibrahimesmael]

You spoke about the process of getting hydrogen but didn't speak about the cost of energy to make batteries!!!

[@morosis82]

They are fundamentally different equations. You build a battery once and use it many times over a decade or more. Every time you travel, you need to make more hydrogen and then turn it back into energy and water. The better comparison would be battery to HFC stack, then compare hydrogen efficiency as an energy carrier vs just using electricity to charge a battery.

[@dm602s3]

@@morosis82 HFC manufacturing has a CO2 footprint much smaller than battery manufacturing. If you divide battery manufacturing CO2 footprint to their life expectancy, somewhere around 200 000Km, you still get about 60g CO2/Km which is bad even when compared to hybrid cars. Grid electricity has it own CO2 footprint, in some countries, BEVs cumulated CO2 footprint can exceed gasoline-hybrid cars CO2 footprint.

[@morosis82]

@@dm602s3 I'd like to see the assumptions for that. A large vehicle battery produces about 5t CO2 equivalent emissions, about 1/3 the total vehicle manufacture emissions. That's for something like a Tesla, not a Leaf. If I divide 5t by 200k km I get more like 25g/km. And that ignores the fact that batteries have been shown to last far longer than 200k km, it's actually been a problem for the recycling industry as they aren't getting near the volume they were hoping for yet, especially as you can reuse them in stationary storage for another decade or so. We still haven't really found those limits for modern battery systems. Tell me, given that clean hydrogen requires 2-3 times the energy than just charging the car directly, what are the lifecycle emissions? You certainly don't want to use existing grid emissions for that calculation, but even the manufacture of wind turbines costs a significant amount, and you need to make many, many more.

[@mdimascio]

Thanks! btw you said fuel cells are more expensive than gas peaker plants as you are showing in the LCOE chart that fuel cells are cheaper ($103-$152 for fc vs $152-$206 for peaker).

[@joeziahbabb]

In the heavy truck industry.... I look at how much money does it cost me to move my truck from point A to point B. But I also take into account how expensive or time consuming it is to maintain my equipment. How reliable is it? A late load can cost me tenfold what the repair itself costs. More than that if it results in a lost contract due to a failure to deliver on time. This is where the simplicity and reliability of electric engines, whether they be battery or hydrogen fuel cell powered, become very appealing. Even if the fuel cell is terribly inefficient compared to batteries, it offers faster refueling and better range vs an equal by mass lithium battery bank. With weight limits imposed on highway vehicles, it really only gives you one choice in long haul applications for on highway vehicles, or long range ships as Matt mentioned in the video.

[@ShieTar_]

I think one big reason why companies keep betting on Hydrogen is the fact that at least in Europe there is already a much better distribution system in place than transporting cylinders: The Natural gas distribution net. A lot of homes and industries use gas from the pipes for heating (and sometimes small-scale power generation), and the pipes are already capable of transporting Hydrogen as well as Natural Gas. As a matter of fact, a lot of regions are already mixing H2 into the Natural Gas Mix whenever it becomes available at reasonable prices. As soon as the generation of hydrogen becomes more commercially viable than natural gas at a large scale (and everybody has heating elements that are capable to run on pure Hydrogen), the whole network can be switched to run purely on H2, and immediately most households have a easy access to Hydrogen in their home. Shouldn't take much effort than to implement a Hydrogen Fueling System. And indeed, there already are a significant number of Hydrogen-Fuel-Stations in Europe (mostly in and near Germany): h2.live/

[@nolan4339]

As another use case, since these cells produce heat as they produce energy, imagine if every household or business then starts using them for combined heat and power. If their primary purpose is used for heat, producing intermittent power as a byproduct, then almost all of that fuel energy is utilized. The efficiency losses don't look so bad then once the heat becomes part of the product, and then we don't have to worry about energy storage and backup as much for heating due to relying on a fuel rather than electricity.

[@Tore_Lund]

There has been field studies in Germany with water heater sized fuel-cell stacks in houses for hot water, heating and power, and they work as intended. But to make the whole system sustainable, you need to have solar generated hydrogen storage in your home, which would be able to save sunshine from summer for winter use. However total system cost is extremely high, so at the time, there were no one considering this economically viable for homes, but it might be in the future.

[@nolan4339]

@@Tore_Lund You don't need your house to be break-even sustainable. Purchase the fuel. Solar installations and a hydrogen/fuel synthesis setup is going to be much more sustainable and economical if done on industrial scale. I even think that directly pairing the two on micro-grids may be the best way to quickly upscale solar development, as we would not need to wait on grid upgrades to be able handle the load. But when we are utilizing both the heat and energy generating capacity of these fuels with on-site heat and power then we are fully utilizing their value with extreme efficiency.

[@Tore_Lund]

@@nolan4339 I just quoted the conclusion of the study then, personally I also believe it is a brilliant idea. I live in a country which had a lot of coal fired distributed heating and electricity generation. 15 years ago there was a switch to biofuels = wood chips and garbage. However as it too has fallen out of favour, the power companies are scrambling to find other tech. Hydrogen is an option, or simpler; surplus wind power, heat pumps and hot water storage. So the future is interesting.

[@Turbo999be]

@@Tore_Lund I don't think H2 will ever be an economically viable solution, It's been decades now that it is reseached. When I see the progress of batteries in one decade H2 will never take the lead in almost any application and I'm not considering safety in the equation.

[@Tore_Lund]

@@Turbo999be IT had been attempted commercialized since the 60'! What makes IT appealing, is using it to store surplus renewable energy, for much longer, than batteries are capable of, not as a first choice for transport.

[@agente180]

The reason why companies continue to develop hydrogen is that they missed the lithium market and are trying to come up with a new profitable fuel. Yet after years of hydrogen fuel development, it had not been feasible to commercialize.

[@dm602s3]

current battery technology cannot power large planes, ships and may not be scalable not even for trucks and agricultural machines but hydrogen can power all these at the cost of green electricity overproduction to compensate the low efficiency of water electrolysis

[@asucrews]

I think there a lot of people selling the potential use cases for fuel cells short. For example there a company called Plug Power using fuel cells to power forklifts. Now I know your thinking batteries can be used, which is very true, however, you have to take in charge time for these batteries into account. With fuel cell refueling takes lest time the charging a battery, so less time refueling means fewer forklifts need to cover the workday and fewer time employees spend waiting around. I do agree the fuel cell is going to take over in sea transportation. I also see it could take in some ground transportation use cases if the battery does not advance to allow greater mileage.

[@greghelton4668]

Jeremy Crews one has to drive the forklift to the hydrogen pump, fill it up, then drive back. You also have to maintain and cool the hydrogen fuel storage unit. Even with today’s batteries it takes only minutes to charge a battery to 80%. Forklifts will use batteries.

[@Tore_Lund]

Whatever happened to Ballard Power Systems? They made pellets which when dropped in water released hydrogen, for safe and space efficient storage?? Their automated system would add pellets by demand from the fuel cell. They also sold building UPS systems based on this.

[@asucrews]

@@Tore_Lund they are doing good, www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ballard-hosts-successful-virtual-investor-and-analyst-day-2020-event-301142376.html

[@samusaran7317]

@@greghelton4668 Many minutes....

[@samusaran7317]

@@greghelton4668 More like an hour to get back considerable amount of range.

[@juanolotgn]

What is the energy density per Litre and per Kilogram of batteries and hydrogen tanks respectively and why is it never brought up in the video?

[@seasong7655]

Not sure but according to google it's 260 Wh/kg or 690Wh/L for lithium-ion batteries, and 39kWh/kg for hydrogen. Although I guess it varies depending on what pressure it uses for the hydrogen, and or whether it's liquid

[@UndecidedMF]

Hydrogen has a dramatically higher energy density, but it comes down to how much of that we can capture/utilize.

[@larswillems9886]

@@UndecidedMF Even If the efficienty of hydrogen fuel cells is lower than that of batteries, hydrogen fuel cells could still be good for trucks because of the higher specific energy (J/kg). This allows them to carry more kilograms of goods, and if the truck is lighter overall then rolling friction will decrease to. So basically I think your statement is a bit onesided. Ofcourse no offence and I'll keep watching your videos.

[@mr88cet]

Just for the record, “Energy Density” is defined as energy per unit volume. “Specific Energy” is energy per unit mass.

[@larswillems9886]

@Andreas Berni Sounds exciting! But what does quantum efficiency mean? I guess, how much of the energy is absorbed at a specific wavelength.

[@Sailorman6996]

Nice to hear someone that is not hydrogen bashing. At the moment I think hydrogen are not costefficient for cars, even though it works great. I agree about suitable use can be ship's, train's, longhaul truck's, winged flight (not drone) and various off grid and on grid solutions. Longtime energy storage and grid balancing. Also the hydrogen or use of hydrogen is never dirty. The production of hydrogen can be dirty, but it can also be turned 100% clean.

[@dinoanastasopoulos8511]

Awesome video! I am from South Africa and I highly doubt we're close to using fuel cells lol, we currently have ~6 hours a day of no electricity (it's called load shedding)

[@nathanielanderson4898]

We should use use Hydrogen as battery storage for solar and wind systems.

[@DerekVuong7799]

I'm still in the camp of if you don't drive a luxury sport car than bev isn't for you. FCEV is the way to go for most people because its more practical, last longer and its easier and cheaper to replace the fuel cell than the battery. Going BEV on cars will make cars too disposable and will hurt the poor because of high barrier to entry cost and nonexistent used car market for cars over 10 years old due to battery degrading. Plus BEV uses too much rare earth martials and the more people switch to BEV the more those martial will cost but fuel cell is the opposite because it uses common martials and there will be more economy of scale.

[@ram64man]

Completely disagree, on some of your concussions. air, haulage , grid gas supplies, train, shipping, backup all of them will strongly benefit from the swap from fossil even with the increase in density expected in the next 5 years with the move to solid and w per kg you miss the most important elements e.g. cost, in 2018 the us government piloted a hydrogen experimental uav for 6 weeks without refill. The same design uav under battery lasted just 72 hours the amount of usable energy to weight storage is significantly higher than battery, even if the actual end amps are lower and more importantly for trucks etc 1000 mile range is possible in a truck costing 200,000 the same Tesla truck long range is expected to get 500-600 miles, weigh in at 2.6 ton more and take approximately 2 hours to fill, that is assuming 250kw was even available. a truck would take just 15 minutes to fill under hydrogen with fuel weight, typically the same with a diesel powered truck that itself is huge to add 2mw of fuel cells to a grid tied on demand peak load setup can be done with 4 fuel cell stack in a 40ft container, from 600,000 to 1 million depending on install requirements, compared to 1.5 tennis court space on reinforce ground needed for the commercial Tesla packs and cost sprocket 2.5 million. Ships can easily be modified to store in liquid form and power plant can we swapped from the 3 story 40hp single stroke they use to an electric turbine if anything it would increase load storage. The latest government figures show that electrification of the train lines will not be completed till earliest 2060 that still left 20% that was not viable either due to local weather conditions or terrain this is why both in England and Germany hybrid hydrogen and battery locomotives are being trialed whist it sounds like the battery would win it is dependant on 25kv 60hz being available on the wires (e.g high speed lines) alstrom are also experimenting with both, ask anyone who uses just electric to heat or cook with will tell you it cost a bucket compared to gas supplies fitting a 13kw-30kw battery to every house is not viable but feeding a hydrogen blend of 40% with the rest being bio fuel gas is far cheaper than the other alternative and crucially can we liquified and use in lpg installs with minimum changes. I have no doubt that batteries as they pass 600w per kg things may change again but as they stand we are a long way off from that

[@mramk]

The main problem with hydrogen is the weight of the tanks. Hydrogen at 70bar stores 1000 wh/liter. Just a little better than current Liion cells which are getting better. The volumetric inefficiency for batteries is at least tolerable given that we can pack batteries anywhere. Cant do that for hydrogen tanks. Also, given the weight of high pressure tanks, the gravimetric density is also not something to write home about. Possibly 1400 wh/kg. Better than batteries, yes, but adds a lot of complexity and cost. If you want cheap long duration storage and weight is not an issue, you might as well go with liquid air, which can be 50-60% efficient - much better than the 35% round trip efficiency of fuel cells. And all infrastructure for compressing and storing liquid air already exists and are cheap to make at large scales

[@ram64man]

Mahalingam Ramkumar 1 litre of liquified compressed hydrogen gas weights just .8kg 1/3 of gasoline or oil. Unlike exist fuels providing compression a car sized 6 kg still is large due to the nature of gas storage or approx 1.5 of a gas tank size. Liquid air is not an alternative to any of the examples I gave, and have already investigated this for my wind farm modernisation and expansion. however both cost and land requirement (e.g non granite or tectonically active zone a no Go) make the technology only available to multinational companies and first windfarm air storage for peak usage (designated 5 hours nominal or 8 hour emergency at 70%) requires a football size field in storage space compressed down to an area of 1.7 tennis courts). The compressors and holding tanks required exceed hydrogen to 150 bar ruling out most typical storage tanks. the chillers also have to be upgraded to keep the tank below 0f also the energy is only 50% in addition the generators are a multi million investment, so why air? because it is a viable alternative to zones that lack the ability to do electrolysis, geothermal , or water holding lakes. both hydrogen and battery have a significantly less investment cost as well as footprints, if not using electric and additional mains fed using pre determined bulk buying still allows 2/3 profit something that none of the others offer, however for smaller scales below 2mw e.200kw -500kw battery storage is preferred in urban environments, and won’t be long before we see such packs added to local substations such as ev change stations and high density condos, air storage should only be viewed as an alternative to a gas turbine power station that is the cost of investment and scale needed to make a profit not to mention the 2.5gwh -5gwh of power needed to run the place

[@tonystanley5337]

You can't use figures from Nikola for reference, they can't be trusted. Looking at several examples from the last few years H2 power transport achieves a little more than Lithium batteries on range, but maybe constrained on space than weight. The H2 kit for the same kWh 'output' weights a little less, thus the Tesla Semi (with EPA figures) gets 500miles with what appears to be the max load of batteries that don't reduce the haulage load. The difference seems to be about 10-20% more range on Hydrogen but at 5x the cost, that doesn't make commercial sense for road or air. And I simply do not believe the US air force managed to fly a UAV for 6 weeks without refueling...evidence please. The main reason to ignore this is pace and ease of development on batteries, batteries have infinite chemistries and structures to experiment with, whereas Hydrogen has hard stop theoretical limits which means it can never compete with batteries on efficiency (and therefore running cost), there is therefore a big incentive to get batteries energy density up. For example Tesla dev program claims 50% increase in range/kg and 50% lower cost/kWh. That means the Tesla semi will beat any H2 truck within 3 yrs and drive an entire shift on one charge when the driver has to legal stop anyway (

[@tonystanley5337]

@@allgoo1990 Can you imaging fitting 100s of gallons of highly volatile fuel in a pressurised tube with 100s of people? Battery fires are entirely avoidable, any concentrated energy source has a risk if not properly manufactured or installed. Batteries have a lower risk than fuel in theory, accidents are only caused by lack of knowledge or care.

[@tonystanley5337]

@@allgoo1990 yes that was kinda the point of my comment. Over a number of years they work through these problems and add requirements to the standards. I could indeed help them, I am a professional regulatory Engineer, but I'm sure they have solved the problem by now.

[@blueckaym]

One of the problems with hydrogen production inefficiencies is that it's assumed it should use the existing electric grids and utilities which operate on AC, so as result a lot of energy is lost converting several times between AC and DC. While technically there's no need to use AC for that (no long range electric energy transportation is needed!). So local plants working on DC will reduce efficiency losses, and can deliver produced H2 (and if that's on/near fueling stations no additional transportation is needed) And there's another question about hydrogen fuel cells - it's a matter of perspective and priorities. Currently priorities are still fuels and engines to be cheap (no matter that their prices get quite inflated when they reach the end-customers), and care for the environment is still very low priority! While fuel cells and electric drives can deliver very, very clean vehicles, and the only problem is the inefficiencies that you mentioned ... However, They can easily be offset by higher energy production, and we already have the technologies to do that and to do it cleanly (no coal, no oil, no gas even no nuclear) We just have to harvest the solar energy (duh)! :) But not with photovoltaics! They're too dirty to produce, and too inefficient (which despite being cheaper than ever makes then hard to scale up to needed levels) Using Solar heat energy! Even now if you compare photovoltaics with solar-thermal-panels the efficiencies are respectively: 22% (single junction, but multi-junction are way too expensive and still would get us to about 45% I think) to 70-80% (as long as you use the energy for heating, for example hot water and heating your home). (also solar-thermal panels don't require expensive or dirty production!) But I don't mean to use solar-thermal panels - that was just for comparison. We should use CSP (Concentrated Solar Power). It's much easier to scale up, since you only need mirrors in correct orientation, and mirrors are much cheaper (and clean) than photovoltaics, and you'll need some time of heat-engine (Stirling, Brayton or similar) that operates at high temperatures and high temp. differentials, and some types of heat-storage (especially including cryo-storage!) So obviously during the day you collect solar energy by concentraing it into a heat collector (which would be in contact of the hot-plate of the heat-engine), and during the day the cold-plate would most likely operate at environment temps (ie between -10 and 38 degr.C for most climates & seasons - ie average 15~20C) Now close to half of that energy can be stored directly in high-temp-storages. They don't need to be extreme temps, like 700, 1200, 1414 or 2500C! about 200C will be enough, and if such storage can hold higher temps that would simply increase it's max capacity. The rest of the energy should be converted into cryo temps, reaching -200C which would liquify air. Then store that cold air in tanks you'll need them in the dark hours. Of course the convertion of the solar heat to liquid air will be the least efficient phase, but at least it needs to be done during the day, ie scaling up sunlight collecting mirror should counter this problem. The important thing is that when the Sun goes off, you can switch the heat-engines in reverse cycle. Feed them the -200C liquid air, and the 200+C heat from the hot-storage, and you'll get highly efficient heat-engine with theoretical max of about 85%, which with current techs should be possible to reach efficiency of around 65% (for converting the stored heat differential into electricity). NOTE: Efficiency for heat engines increases a lot when the min. temp is closer to absolute zero! So heat differential of 400, ie -200C to +200C will reach 85% max.theoretical eff. While to reach that with molten salts (15 to 750+C) you'll get about 80% max.theoretical.eff. and you'll spend almost twice the energy to do that. It gets worse for the more extreme heat-storages that operate at 1400C or 2500C (given the cold plate is at around env. temp) So during dark hours when you need to stretch your energy storage, you'll operate at the optimal efficiency, while during the day you won't be max.efficient but you can offset it by scaling up the collecting mirrors. This is not theoretical! There are companies that work using very similar designs, one that comes to mind is Malta inc. (Google-X spin-off). Fortunatelly all you need to scale up sunlight collection is open area (preferably at climates more clear from clouds, and closer to equator to get more direct sunlight - but that goes for any solar tech) These techs are cheap to produce, cheap to scale up, don't depend on rare elements and have no negative effect on the environment (they're just moving heat around), and they have very long operating life. So while it might seem like a expensive project to start up, it'll get really, really cheap with the time. So it can deliver all the energy we need, and then hydrogen can be used just as a clean type of battery for mobile vehicles (that can't be connected to the grid)

[@MajorPickleSwag]

This is a longshot but is there a chance that the use of fuel cells can make dry areas more humid and maybe cause them to have more precipitation throughout the year? I had this idea because of the ongoing wildfires on the west coast, but just from the top of my head it seems that it would take A LOT of people to already be using fuel cells (probably in the millions+) and from the little research I did do, humidity is one of 3 factors that affect precipitation.

[@steventayman4109]

If you ask me hydrogen will in the big scale because it can have cheaper economies of scale. Lithium ion is great for smaller things like cars and maybe home storage but hydrogen can be stored infinitely in tanks while lithium ion loses its charge over time. I think for industrial scale energy storage, hydrogen could become cheaper than lithium ion easily. And if all we cared about was efficiency, remember we wouldn't all have an internal combustion engine sitting in our driveway

[@tonystanley5337]

We should care about efficieny though, oil companies have been very careful over the years to avoid an efficieny war. They could have developed much better engines and hybrids but they chose not to, because the major shareholders in car companies are oil companies. Additionally customers mainly only care about what they can afford and if someone offers something nice at a price they can afford they will buy it. For example laptops, consumer electronics and lighting uses alot of power constantly but the saving for the individual is relatively small, energy is cheap. The market didn't choose more efficient fridges and power adaptors because mfrs didn't 'WANT' to compete on it, gov't had to legislate. After legislation we now have laptop powersupplies that last as long as the laptop, although batteries are still pretty shit, prior to efficiency legislation the waste heat produced killed the components in the adaptor quickly and dead units after a couple of years were common. The design changes needed cost only a few cents more, but with significant reductions in consumption. As a result of legislation UK grid demand has reduced by 1/3 over the last 7 years and still reducing, that around 10GW. Efficiency is a technical issue, and determines how much power we have to put in. Unless a storage technology is exceptionally cheaper to make (and fuel cells are neither cheap nor efficient) efficiency should be the top priority. If we used Hydrogen instead of batteries we need 3x more energy, that means more generation and a longer time before a zero carbon grid. I have not yet seen any examples where large scale hydrogen storage would work better than large scale batteries. A Tesla megapack with 3MWh cost a a few hundred thousand with little install costs and space needed, an equivalent H2 system, components cost around $5M for an equivalent 'power' system, not installed (according to a Australian study in 2016 arena.gov.au/assets/2016/05/Assessment-of-the-cost-of-hydrogen-from-PV.pdf). Installation, planning approvals, saftey systems are likely to be extensive. Even if you have a lower power, long term storage H2 plant it would seem to need to be in the GWh before storage was cheaper than batteries, but limited to MW output. The problem here is the rapidly falling cost of batteries, rapidly invalidating any cost comparisons done in the past and pushing the bar ever high and mroe impossible for Hydrogen to compete, nevermind the efficiency problem affecting payback and running cost.

[@steventayman4109]

@@tonystanley5337 have you ever been to a power plant? Because I have been to a nuclear power plant before and the plant was producing 1200 mw every hour. How long would it take to fill up those tesla batteries? Like 5 minutes. Then they'd be done. But if we put all the excess energy into producing hydrogen then they could store the energy in tanks and either use the hydrogen to produce electricity again or transport it as a fuel. Batteries could be viable but they just ain't there YET. And if it was gonna be battery it would have to be something drastically cheaper than lithium ion

[@tonystanley5337]

@@steventayman4109 I don't need to visit a power plant to understand MWs and MWh, I went to University for that, a long time ago. You don't seem to understand that a Hydrogen 'battery' with the same storage and output would fill up at the same speed. You just buy more, and you can buy alot more Megapacks than you can Hydrogen storage. Its like you don't want to accept batteries are better and cheaper tha Hydrogen, and just repeat Hydrogen sale phrases. In your mind is Hydrogen cheaper storage than Lihtium Ion? In my mind hydrogen is 5-10x more expensive to build, and then batteries are 3x more efficient to run so pay back 3x faster. Hydrogen is not viable for large scale storage anymore, people are not aware how cheap battery storage is.

[@steventayman4109]

@@tonystanley5337 alright I'm not getting into any more debate with you can have your opinions and take your college degree and tesla fanboy shares to go debate with someone else that cares😂

[@tonystanley5337]

@@steventayman4109 Well I'm pleased you have no actual facts to disagree with that other than petty insults. Thanks for your comments that you cared enough about to take the time to write.

[@ScottChasty]

I think what makes it attractive to me is the road trip. In my current car, I can drive for almost eight hours without gassing up. Even then, gassing up is a five minute procedure and then I'm back on my way. Batteries, in their current infrastructure, can only get me about half the distance before I have to stop for 45 minutes to an hour to charge the battery up again. I hope to go with a plug-in hybrid for my next vehicle, but I'm curious, how far could one get on ground transportation with a hydrogen fuel cell? And, do you see batteries evolving as to not need as frequent charging, and possibly quicker charging?

[@vivekkum123]

What is the advantage of storing electricity generated from solar to hydrogen vs. battery for data center use case?

[@r10badboy]

There isn't. He couldn't justify it so just threw in the Microsoft news.

[@srxovmail]

You should have mentioned that weight to power ratio of fuel cells when compared to batteries is through the roof.

[@Libertylute]

And he made no mention of the weight of the hydrogen storage container. Hydrogen may be justified as an energy storage medium in mission-critical stationary applications or in spacecraft where cost is not a consideration, but not in land, air or sea transportation.

[@roygardiner4002]

I had a hydrogen fuel cell company next to mine 20 years ago. They spent a fortune trying to develop a feasible hydrogen system for passenger cars. After numerous attempts over many years they gave it up. When asked why? they explained that the amount of storage required for the tanks (to give a half-decent range) would mean hardly any room for occupants or luggage in a large sedan!. Coupled with the total absence of any practical re-fuelling infratructure, it's easy to see why Elon dismisses the concept, especially as many videos of the HIndenburg disaster are so readily available to exacerbate safety fears, and batteries just continue to get better and cheaper, thanks to Elon.

[@aryapatel7615]

so we can literally burn hydrogen under people asses and not blow em up but we cant make a safer blimp is beyond me you are right about the vehicle though

[@AG-el6vt]

"Thanks to Elon". LOL

[@edkrueger6623]

Fuel cells as a range extender because of battery weight will be used for buses and class 8 trucks.

[@TM-nt9uu]

Great video Why is Toyota and other car OEM are developing small fuel cell cars?

[@mdjey2]

Why is Samsung making phones if it is not very profitable? They profit by offering screens and chips. Sony profits from camera sensors, but not from phones.

[@gkhan753]

Great video. How about the long term storage of battery vs hydrogen.

[@Wtornado]

What I would like to know for cars is how about the available resources for making car batteries vs fuel cells for cars? I know that battery production is very limited and we are dependent on outsourcing for materials .What about fuel cells for cars?

[@angus8223]

35% efficiency is fine if if the energy used to produce is done from renewables

[@ronson-natsarim]

Someone here is a critical thinker. ;)

[@tacitus539]

Add to that that it's 35% efficiency today. When the R&D going into fuel cells matches the amount going into batteries, I wager you will see improvements by leaps and bounds.

[@Lancaster604]

Can't you say the same for batteries

[@angus8223]

@@Lancaster604 no because of the environmental effect of making a battery is very high and batteries have a short life

[@jeffp2935]

Hi Matt, you are doing a great job advocating solar panel energy. Best regards from the Netherlands.

[@JustPeaceLoveAndKindness]

There’s no free lunch. Using the term “green” mostly means that the energy and resource consumption is out of sight of the end users. There’s huge amounts of fossil fuel used for mining, foundries, manufacturing of these “green” systems, not including the hydrogen fuel production. Especially, when we just have it as “backup” to solar, battery, and diesel is not looking at the whole picture. Don’t get me wrong, I value every method of energy production and storage. IMHO, I don’t think that the illusion of being more “green “ should drive the change. It should be efficiency and practicality of the system, not only the warm and fuzzy feeling of “green.”

[@souloftheage]

TESLA proponents just don't consider where the energy to power their batteries comes from. Let alone the carbon burned to mine the rare earth elements needed for battery manufacture.

[@AnalystPrime]

@@souloftheage Actually it has been calculated long ago that even if you charged your EV with electricity 100% produced with coal you would still cause less CO2 emissions and other pollution than driving around burning oil products. As no place uses 100% coal these days the actual emissions are even lower than that. Pollution from mining and steel production have been getting more publicity, but to any intelligent person that just highlights how EVs _still_ cause less pollution than ICEs, which cause pollution bith from mining and oil drilling. Also, mining machines can now be electric and so can the vehicles hauling the ores, while coal in steel production is being replaced by hydrogen. And all these industries are saving money and going green by using renewable power, again proving that trying to discredit competition by questioning how green they really are is going to bite the worse polluter in gluteus maximus.

[@souloftheage]

@@AnalystPrime There are relative pros and cons to both oil drilling and coal e.g. No coal tanker ever left a massive oil spill. But given what I've read on climate change and how we have only managed to decrease the acceleration or green house emmisions(and I even doubt that), these arguments about which fossil fuel is best for the environment is, "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic": They all produce too much greenhouse gases. The only other practical option is nuclear fission. But what the Earth needs is fusion. Or simply to kick humans off. I wish Elon Musk focused on fusion energy and not on traveling to Mars to terraform it.

[@AnalystPrime]

@@souloftheage Except it's not really a comparison between coal and oil, it's a comparison between using a car that simply can't fit good enough filters on its tailpipe to curb the emissions it is farting out right next to people who have to breathe that air, and an EV or alternate fuel vehicle that doesn't release anything. And even if the oil that was going to fuel cars is instead used to run generators that charge those EVs or to produce hydrogen for hydrogen cars, that means all the pollution happens in a plant that can contain and filter it, plus at the very least it is not released in a densely inhabited city. But oil is far more useful as raw material for chemical industries than burning it, and even major coal mining areas are turning to renewables because they are cheaper and cleaner. Pointing fingers at EVs and claiming they cause any notable pollution is just a cover up by those responsible for all the worse crap caused by fossil fuels.

[@souloftheage]

@@AnalystPrime Again, you have no real solution(an engineering plan to limit greenhouse emissions at your "magical plant" to zero) you've just shoved the problem further back, as I mentioned before. You've created this fantasy plant that localizes emissions. And somehow this plant now emits zero emissions, so electric cars are now best. Your plant sounds like a "clean coal" plant, which are laughable.

[@damionfragoso2655]

I still don't understand why regular gas stations don't just install a hydrogen pump. We all know of stations that have the space. Also amazon could easily do it for their fleet.

[@engineeringtheweirdguy2103]

@Wake No. it’s actually because they can’t store hydrogen in the same way LPG is stored. LPG tanks get colder as it gets decompressed. Meaning you have to design it to avoid ice building up, especially when underground. Hydrogen gas a low inversion temperature meaning that it will actually heat the tank up significantly when decompressed. Now you have the design the tank to not get hot enough to damage itself or other systems and seals. Hydrogen also has half the kinetic diameter of LPG, meaning you can’t utilise the same seals and gaskets and even delivery hoses as LPG. As it will result in leakage of the hydrogen which becomes explosive in the presence of air. And lastly, hydrogen has to be compressed to pressures more than 30 times higher than LPG. Meaning the pressure vessels used to contain LPG won’t be sufficient to contain hydrogen at the pressure it needs to be stored at. What this means is the only way normal fuel stations are getting hydrogen, is if it demolished the existing fuel station, buries a hydrogen containment vessel in the ground with coolant systems and associated safety systems. And built the gas station back up on top of it again. Something which would be prohibitively expensive for most stations and not very practical. In comparison EV’s only need electricity which is already being provided to the fuel station. It’s as simple as wiring it in place. But if you want super charging it’s as simple as installing a few relatively small transformers with it, which Will tap into the same power supply already connect to the fuel station. Simple, cheap and practical.

[@dylanstjack]

So why do you need the Hydrogen as the backup when it is the inferior solution? Why not just have more batteries? Feel like I missed something but the first half of the video was saying how batteries are hands down better, but then because Microsoft is having hydrogen as a backup, everywhere should use hydrogen as the backup and primary store of energy? Sorry, just confused.

[@r10badboy]

Exactly. It's like he brought to light all the advantages of batteries and all the disadvantages of hydrogen and then just concludes for grid storage fuel cells may work...while still having all the disadvantages. BUT Microsoft. Usually great analysis, but dropped the ball here.

[@alexjenkins1079]

Imo, there could be a future for Hydrogen Fuel Cells beyond cars, but I don't think they'll be as popular in cars. I'm expecting to see them in large trucks, buses (especially those in suburban and rural areas), and in trains (especially as a replacement for diesel-electric locomotives in places like the Western USA or in Australia)

[@RCdiy]

Keeping fuel cells at 100% don’t damage them unlike lithium ion

[@LoneWolf-wp9dn]

new batteries dont get damaged at 100% either... next complaint please

[@morosis82]

But they do need to be replaced/serviced, are made of expensive materials *and* need a battery to buffer the energy to the motor as well.

[@epsilonalpha2430]

@@LoneWolf-wp9dn wrong

[@bigdraco5008]

Right about to start my internship on fuel cells.

[@revantthakur8495]

me too man. How was it??

[@phillipamerson1672]

Can I use titanium instead of stainless? Would the concept still be as clean or create something other than hydrogen

[@robertmckinley4825]

The one thing I dislike about this (car??) is that it is an "open air" vehicle. I do not like freezing in cold weather!!!!! or getting wet in rainy weather. Are there any fully enclosed models available?

[@philoso377]

If all else are equal, what the energy cost per mile travelled by hydrogen fuel cell and by charge network and lithium ion cell?

[@artistanthony1007]

Are we gonna talk about Alcohol Fuel Cells?

[@techwithdave]

Would fuel cells be a better alternative over batteries for aircraft?

[@helenlawson8426]

Energy density wise the answer is yes with a few already looking at it, unfortunately with hydrogen the issue is one of space as pressurised containers are bad news in vehicles were room is money. As a pressurised containers are often heavier than a normal fuel tank then again it becomes an issue, something it shares with batteries. There is a lot of research going into creating lightweight unusual shaped pressure tanks so things can change and often do when a demand is created.

[@techwithdave]

@@helenlawson8426 So there is money to be made if someone figures out how to make a light weight yet leak-resistant hydrogen fuel tank.

[@chadlymath]

Doosan (vtol drones) & Toyota (just with their prototype - flying cars) - know & *show it far surpasses BEV tech, for flight time & lift capacity (Skai.co is what Matt briefly shares, for flying taxis). Propeller planes are in there too, but passenger jets are still a hill to ascend (only algae fuel that burns massively cleaner & decarbonizes during growth seems to be the alternative source, I find, except for plasma jet tech just entering the 'lab').

[@techwithdave]

chadlymath 😮

[@MikeAsano]

is no one gonna talk about how cool that desktop wallpaper is?

[@jekbs5319]

I think hydrogen will be firstly an important player concerning the storage of energy from renewables, in the so called bulk storage, which can't be achieved with batteries. Then after technical improvement it can reach also the automotive market, with a particular benefit in the heavy transportation, in which an electrification through batteries is not really feasible.

[@morosis82]

You're thinking of only one kind of battery. Flow batteries would be much better as their efficiency is lots higher. You can then build them with the tanks to hold the emergy capacity you want, and the exchangers to provide the power capacity (how many kW or MW) independently. I have it on good authority from someone that is high level in a flow battery company that if they had Tesla levels of capital to invest they could get down to a cost per kWh of storage somewhere just over $0.05. The vessels are moulded plastic that is fully recyclable and the pumps are serviceable and/or replaceable easily. They can't really compete with lithium power density, per L, but they would certainly make for much better long term storage and large capacity storage as you essentially just add more fluid.

[@reggiebuffat]

Air liquefaction and molten salts seem to be more promising, at least in the medium term.

[@pdd3]

You made no mention of fuel cells for trucking. It's easy to see that batteries might dominate small vehicles like cars and fuel cells large vehicles like ships. Where the shift happens is the really interesting part that should have been explored, especially since you had a Nikola truck in the video intro.

[@michaelto2813]

Is there a case for fuel cell that is there is a higher cost to dispose used battery, in an environmental cost point of view?

[@seasidescott]

Out in the country with lots of solar cells with a grid connected system we have an abundance of power and little way to store it. The efficiency arguments are irrelevant when you can produce more than is useful. No hill nearby for pumped hydro or any of that. But we do have a lot of equipment and vehicles that can be modified to use hydrogen in ICE engines and converting to electric motors as we go. Also we have large shops using compressed air and our water system, irrigation, etc. What I'm getting at is that apart from the fuel cells themselves we are very comfortable with the mechanics of how a gas/fluid system works and tools and parts laying around. The same story for DIYers around the world. These sort of people will never get a PowerWall unless they build it themselves. All that spurs innovation and less corporatization of the whole deal. And we can fill up our cars! Immediate gratification. All this sort of infrastructure doesn't lead to wars around the world or enslavement of lithium or cobalt rich areas or all the other economic and political crap that comes with rare metals, etc. "Efficiency" doesn't account for all that.

[@yunjoonjung7594]

I really thank you for posting videos that explains diverse energy topics.

[@methos1999]

As somebody who's spent some time designing and building fuel cells I have to say this was a great video (as usual). A lot of the hype around fuel cells has always been around cars, but as Matt correctly points out, they may have missed their window of opportunity in that market, but there are still applications where fuel cells make sense.

[@harbeermalik8484]

Yess I totally agree..

[@chadbailey7038]

Well researched and presented. Great video! 👍🏾

[@reclamantul]

What you don’t mention is the quantity and the rarity of resources used to produce batteries and fuel cells. Furthermore, would be interesting to discuss life span and disposal costs of both batteries and fuel cells. When I refer to costs, I include environmental and social costs, all negative externalities.

[@davidkeenan5642]

Vehicle batteries can have an extraordinary long life before they need to be recycled. After 8 to 10 years use in the vehicle, they're still capable of holding 70% of their original charge, at which point they can be repurposed for static energy storage. Most vehicles will be scrapped and recycled before their batteries are. Elon has stated that all the precious minerals in Tesla batteries will be recovered, and the waste environmentally disposed of.

[@lucasprzybyla7084]

I don't understand, as soon as we learned that renewables sometimes produce too much energy and there is nowhere to store it, why everyone didn't immediately opt to install hydrogen production facilities instead of opting to just turn off energy production. I mean, yeah, hydrogen production makes you lose some energy in the process, but whatever you get from hydrogen is way better than getting nothing from having the solar panel or wind turbine switched off. How this wasn't a "DUH!" moment is beyond me.

[@zoltankurti]

Maintaining the fuel cell and hydrogen generator infrastructure has also costs associated with it. Maybe ot's not economic and they would lose money on selling electricity, or would have to raise price.

[@Inventive101]

Well pointed 👍🏼❤️

[@gerardocantu9702]

Fuel cells make sense for trucking because of the reduced weight. There is also the problem of range. Battery powered trucks are great for short range operations; but when a typical over the road truck driver runs well over 600 miles a day, battery power does not work well. There is also the charge time to take into account. Imagine waiting on a charge station to become available because it takes hours to fully charge a battery powered truck, and there very few available. Meanwhile, you may be able to fill up on hydrogen or natural gas in 15 minutes.

[@justincase3342]

In comparison to batteries; how long does it take to recharge, difference in weight, safety, long-term potential for improvement/advancement?

[@engineeringtheweirdguy2103]

Due to the storage requirements of hydrogen, hydrogen cars weigh more than battery cars. They will always also have more expensive fuel which requires more electrical energy to produce per km than it would for a battery to use the same energy to charge. Thermodynamics limitations in entropy mean that the efficiency of a Hydrogen car will always be less than that of a battery car. Finally it takes a battery car without a super charger around 8 hours to charge from 0-100. 20 minutes with one. However this isn’t as much of a disadvantage as you think. The average person will detour 7 minutes each way for fuel and spend 5 minutes filling and paying. And do so once a week. This is a total of 17.5 hours per year wasted to this task. In comparison most people with EV’s will be able to charge when they get home and go to sleep. In addition unless they’re travelling more than 300miles a day they only have to charge what they use, not the whole 8 hours. This takes no time out of their day at all for daily commutes and activities. Meaning it’s actually more time efficient to use a battery car than a hydrogen or ICE car.

[@justincase3342]

@@engineeringtheweirdguy2103 - compared Tesla Model X to Toyota Mirai since dimensions are very similar. Tesla weighs a half a ton more and gets worse mileage per tank. I’m on the road a lot and if Hydrogen fuel stations were readily available, it would be a no-brainer for me due to the quick fill up of hydrogen vs long wait to charge battery. Hydrogen fuel cell would be the way to go. Until then, gotta stick with gas.

[@engineeringtheweirdguy2103]

@@justincase3342 the miria is classed as a midsized sedan whilst the model X is classed as a large SUV. The Tesla model 3 however is a mid sized sedan class and its weight is 1600kg for the two wheel drive variant. Likewise the 2 wheel drive Mirai has a weight of 1850kg. More than the model 3. Sorry but no dice. Incorrect comparisons don’t work on people who know what they’re talking about

[@engineeringtheweirdguy2103]

@@justincase3342 and how many miles do you travel per day for your daily commute?

[@engineeringtheweirdguy2103]

@@justincase3342 well that’s exactly what Dyson said they were going to do until they announced solid state batteries were at current technologically unviable. And at current the leading manufacturer of EV’s, who are about 20 years ahead of their nearest competitor even in the ICE car category and who is the only car company on the planet for the last decade to see increasing sales is Tesla. Which is an American auto manufacturer. So you already got your wish. And hydrogen will only see widespread use as freight, shipping and maybe (big maybe) aviation. For domestic transportation it will 100% be batteries, hydrogen doesn’t even come close in any category what so ever.

[@madgaming3172]

Very nice video. Yeah, fuel cells are over for cars, way too complicated for such small vehicles, especially since you can charge your BEV at home. But for sth like ships with deticated long routes and stationary storage, i think fuel cells are an excellent proposal. I know of someone who build himself a new house off grid, he has a battery system, heat pump and electrolyser, fuel cell and hydrogen tanks in and around his house. His roof his covered in solar panels and even the east and west wall has some panels on top of it. The excess heat of the fuel cell is used to heat to home and warm the water for sth like showering. And during most of the summer time, batteries and solar do the trick, excess solar energy is used to produce hydrogen. Cool concept for very remote places.

[@ravenfeeder1892]

I've been saying for a while that the place for fuel cells is in large scale infrastructure transport like shipping. Nice to see that Samsung are doing things here.

[@greghelton4668]

Ravenfeeder I wish governments would research thorium reactors. We can get close but will probably never reach 100% renewable energy and thorium nuclear reactors will provide a clean source of quasi renewable energy. It can also be used in large scale shipping too. Hydrogen seems to forced to be economically viable and it’s definitely not clean if if hydrocarbons are used to get it.

[@captainswjr]

How does hydrogen electrolysis + fuel cells compare to compressed air storage for storing overproduction from renewables? It seems like compressed air would be a whole lot simpler and more efficient than electrolysis/fuel cells.

[@leewerchau1544]

What is refill time vs recharge time Of fuel cell vs battery. How long do fuel cell last vs battery degradation and what is efficiency of batteries as the degrade. . I never hear these questions answered and they matter.

[@IcyUpNorth]

In the LCOE (@3:18) you say that the "Fuel cell is more expensive than the gas peaker plant", don't you mean cheaper? Or am I missing something about the LCOE?

[@IcyUpNorth]

Otherwise, thanks for a informative video!

[@MBergeron31]

You should have mentioned PLUG POWER, and the materials handling industry since they have created fuel cell powered forklifts amongst other things and have major contracts with Amazon and Walmart.

[@RussellFineArt]

Great vid, Matt! I 100% agree that fuel cells will find their home with large power generation for buildings and heavy equipment and ships but won't have applications in cars, trucks and smaller tools and appliances as li-on batts are a much better option. Either way, the goal should always be to eliminate fossil fuel burning.

[@UndecidedMF]

Thanks! And agree completely ... it's all about finding the right tool (or energy storage) for the job.

[@ericp7667]

It's much faster to refill a truck with hydrogen than to recharge a massive heavy battery stack

[@RussellFineArt]

@@ericp7667 No, it's not. I've worked with H2 Fuel cell vehicles and they refuel very slowly and cost FAR more to refuel than li-on batts and batts are getting faster and faster to charge, with high Voltage. Fuel cells will have their place but primarily with ships, jet planes and other very large engines.

[@ericp7667]

@@RussellFineArt NREL refer to 3 to 5 min to refill with Hydrogen, about the same time as a tank of gasoline with approx 300 mile range. Hydrogen fuel cells are approx twice as efficient as ICEs and the cost of H2 production is falling. The fastest Li ion batteries are nowhere near as fast as this. kzbin.info/www/bejne/lZ-1kHV5mrx-maM See the Toyota Mirai refill here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/emOafZSjeKmAqLs or here kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y6fKenypZah6p9k

[@RussellFineArt]

@@ericp7667 Good to know, H2 refuel time has increased since I paid attention to it last. However, the cost of H2 is still very expensive, far greater than electric with costly refuel stations needed to realize a refueling infrastructure which I don't see happening as virtually everyone has a plug with 120/240V in their home and can refuel every day, as I do with my EV, and for free, if you have solar panels, as I do. Electricity is pretty cheap to produce with hydro, solar and wind, which is where the world is headed for future power generation. So buying a fuel cell car would be no different from buying a gasoline-powered car today as most H2 comes from fossil fuel--nat. gas, is transported, stored in extremely expensive, sub-zero storage tanks, and require people to continually be handcuffed to fuel suppliers. Pretty much all auto mfc's have decided to ditch H2 for these reasons and concentrate their efforts on BEV's.

[@sudarshanravichandranvitta4583]

Hi, I am from South Africa and I can certainly tell you that renewable energy and alternative energy sources in this country is no go zone. Politicians, corporates and labour unions are against all ideas other than coal and nuclear.

[@UndecidedMF]

Let’s hope common sense will prevail.

[@morosis82]

We have a similar situation in Aus, but the industry seems to be starting to ignore them and plow ahead with renewables anyway. Because it's cheaper.

[@anthonybaransky137]

If fuel cells leave a small footprint. Why not use them fulltime instead of just for backup

[@trucksanddirt1506]

I'm confused. On one hand you say fuel cell are not efficient and batteries are better then you list a lot of applications of FC. If batteries were better why not use them there?

[@stevemickler452]

Ammonia has some interesting potential uses in this context. It can be decomposed to release hydrogen for fuel cells, and it can be burned directly in an ICE engine without producing any carbon dioxide. Of course a good catalytic converter would be needed to remove the nitrogen oxides but existing backup generators could merely be modified. Also ammonia can be made from air and water using renewable energy. If I were Ford I'd give this serious thought since catching Tesla seems unlikely. Ammonia plants could be placed in existing gas stations but most likely would be tanker trucks from larger plants. They could make ICE carbon neutral.

[@matthewhejazi6741]

How much electricity do you need to charge batteries for billions of cars? And really how much Lituim-ion can the world produce. Fuel Cells for cars are the future and Jet engines.

[@nolan4339]

Also, just think how much faster it would be to build out a renewable infrastructure if you just directly pair them with industrial chemical plants on micro grids. If you can bypass or delay the infrastructure upgrades needed to deliver the energy from cheap remote/marginal lands by directly pairing it with an industrial consumer, it allows for a much faster and more flexible expansion option for clean energy infrastructure to be built out. Note: this could also be true for next-gen nuclear, especially for cases that require industrial heat as part of the process.

[@patches8291]

Loved the video Matt as always man! Thank you.

[@UndecidedMF]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@stevesmith-sb2df]

Price of wind and solar should include GWhr storage systems to make a complete energy system. You don’t want your power to go off when the sun goes down.

[@mikeep666]

I wouldn't write off fuel cells in cars. Japan and China think there's a future for them.

[@drewwatts7867]

No, cost will drive them into extinction.

[@chadlymath]

I'd say Korea, Japan, Europe, & Australia are a little more focused on it (outside Nikola & GM). China's the biggest go to, for batteries, but they do also have FCEV tech they're furthering.

[@ericp7667]

@@drewwatts7867 do you not think Li cost will rise as demand increases and reserves get depleted?

[@drewwatts7867]

@@ericp7667 No

[@W020-j9o]

A long time ago I read an article that said a high pressure hydrogen line is a far more efficient way to transmit power long distances than high voltage power lines. Is that still true, given new realities of decentralized power generation? (wind, solar, etc.) This is ultimately a question about what "the grid" will become in the future.

[@rexleereid3592]

You had a pic of the Nikola truck but passed over it with no comment. What is your thought on their combo approach to increase range. Looks sound and the stock well has already made me a dime or two.

[@arieksk]

The biggest fuel cell usage would be on the transportation industries.. Trucks that do long distant as it can be refilled like a diesel and folk lifts, the machines that need to be operate indoor..

[@arieksk]

The Hyundai is leading the way..

[@sapelesteve]

Great video Matt! Minus the efficiency differences, I was just wondering what would be the comparable lifespan of similar capacity sized fuel cells vs. batteries? Would that make any discernable difference cost wise over the long haul? Just curious........... Thanks........... 👍👍😉😉

[@Phizzo4real]

You just took the wind out of my cell 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@TheDementiscanis]

More of a question, but would it be energy/cost effective to use a combination of renewable energy and fuel cells as a clean water production system, as compared with other water purification systems?

[@wallyblackler46]

If you had a little extra solar power from your roof could you make a small fuel-cell for back up

[@saumyacow4435]

If we're talking about backup power and starting with hydrogen fuel as a given, there are alternatives to fuel cells - including burning hydrogen in a conventional gas turbine. A more efficient process involves burning hydrogen to drive a supercritical CO2 turbine (~50% efficiency). If you don't need instant start-up (one assumes you already have batteries for that) then fuel cells would struggle to compete on cost. Also, there are other energy storage systems that will work well in the 1-7 day backup range which include liquid air energy storage.

[@darhmakarma4838]

Fuel cells for trains would make sense since most locomotives in North America are Diesel Electric, they could convert existing equipment by replacing the diesel powered generator by a fuel cell.

[@darhmakarma4838]

Andreas Berni very interesting. Like I posted. I wonder if they could retrofit existing Diesel -Electric locomotives by replacing the Diesel engine with a fuel cell, it would make sense if it’s possible, instead of scraping them.

[@tompepper4789]

How about a car that uses three power sources? Capacitor, Battery, and a Fuel cell, ultra-short, medium, and long-range.

[@701983]

Might be the most expensive version, but nevertheless interesting. 3 miles with capacitors (100 kg), 30 miles with batteries (50 kg), 300 miles with hydrogen (100 kg tanks, 100 kg fuel cell system)?

[@danchadwick1495]

Hi Matt, I enjoyed the presentation. I would have you consider, though, the power of oscillating systems. Two tanks half full with an air bladder. This point is the neutral or zero point. If you pump the water from one to the other the pressure built up will push back until the zero point as reached. This is an analogue of how pumped hydro works. From here the addition of a flywheel changes things by spinning up the flywheel as the water is returning to neutral. By the time neutral is achieved the flywheel reaches maximum. At maximum the flywheel takes over continuing to drive the water the rest of the way into the other tank. By the time the rest of the water is in the other tank, the flywheel has spun down. In the first tank a small amount of water is left representing the energy losses in the system. This means that eventually the oscillating action will eventually stop. But the system won't stop for many hundred cycles. This effectively multiplies the energy of the pumped hydro system by hundreds of times. This works with springs and masses, hydraulics, pneumatics, and even electricity. With the bulk of the work in the system thus calculated, all that is needed now is a source to compensate for system losses. A battery, and a windmill or solar panel, regenerative breaking, or fuel cell, or windup spring, each could fit here and present virtually unlimited range.

[@kanayadeliz2584]

Wouldn't you just be wasting energy if you used some of the energy to pump it back and forth instead of directly using the energy that was produced?

[@chadlymath]

I just noticed your video description saying Nikola, Toyota, & Honda are doing a "vs" between lithium-ion & fuel cell... smh... They're going in on *both lithium-ion & fuel cell tech (that uses batteries). - Repeating my 'song' that I'm very interested in knowing how feasible it is for a small fuel cell & tank (in vehicle) to charge batteries in motion or not (& plug in not as necessary) with extremely quick fuel options.

[@antonnym214]

The problem with H2 is the same as we have with petroleum, only compounded by lack of stations. We're dependent on big Hydrogen instead of Big Oil. I'd much rather charge up with my plug at home, office and around town for a reasonable rate.

[@LuchoFT]

Now u just depend on Big Battery. How much lithium as a raw resource we have to support batteries in commodity cars?

[@antonnym214]

@@LuchoFT Big battery? Be smart, okay? "Ur" argument is invalid. "U" OWN the battery with the car. It's already paid for. What we're talking about here is the energy that goes in. "Ur" choice is to charge up anywhere you like CHEAPLY or to be stuck with an immature and NOT cheap hydrogen infrastructure. Which translates to massive personal expense at the pump. Has nothing to do with "Big Battery".

[@LuchoFT]

If I read Ur argument correctly we have unlimited supply of raw materials to make the batteries; additionally should not care because we already paid for it on the car. Let me know how it goes when u have to replace it or buy an entire new electric car. BTW Big Battery means all the supply chain above u that makes the battery. Quite sure that they will be suuuuuuper cheap to replace

[@antonnym214]

@@LuchoFT Don't you love how snarky people get when they disagree? The U.S. Geological Survey produced a reserves estimate of lithium in early 2015, concluding that the world has enough known reserves for about 365 years of current global production of about 37,000 tons per year. Even if production increases, I think we can last quite a while as other technologies emerge to replace lithium. I, personally am satisfied to charge up at home while all that happens. All good wishes, bro.

[@LuchoFT]

@@antonnym214 I was just thinking about the same. What is the point of arguing? we just have a different take on it and there is nothing wrong with that.

[@zaphodsbluecar9518]

The problem with Hydrogen, other than the inefficiency of the production, transportation and utilisation, is that the vast majority is produced from petrochemicals. And the argument that 'once H2 fuel cells reach a sufficient market penetration, suppliers will build industrial-scale electrolysis plants' is invalid - as H2 demand increases, the petrochemical companies will simply scale-up petrochemical manufacturing. It's just another way of oil producers shoring-up their market and future-proofing their businesses. At least renewables + battery storage breaks the business model. You'll note that Japan is heavily invested in domestic Hydrogen usage; that's because the 'dirty' production is done offshore and they only import the 'clean' Hydrogen, leaving other countries to deal with the pollution... A superb video as always Matt.

[@UndecidedMF]

Thanks for watching and sharing your take.

[@zaphodsbluecar9518]

@@UndecidedMF Hey Matt - good news! - www.theguardian.com/business/2020/sep/16/scottish-green-hydrogen-scheme-gears-up-to-fuel-ferries-buses-and-trains?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco&fbclid=IwAR3-Brvh3Gz31Wu_fy_J96ewR14HxBLZ3ehmlGx-7hEhilgII-VrBoCqUYs Cheers.

[@itgoose597]

Great video! Hmmmm. OK from an average consumer's point of view, I would think solar/wind energy to create and store hydrogen in pressurized tanks would be better for the environment than batteries because there is not the need for disposal of worn out batteries nor the need to mine rare elements to create the batteries in the first place. If I then take it one step further and acquire enough capacity to generate hydrogen at my home to power both my home and car, that is even better. What do you think would be the unsubsidized cost of each type of system might be and wouldn't the space required for enough batteries to power my home be prohibitive?

[@om617yota8]

Great video. I'd previously just said just a blanket "nope" to fuel cells, due to efficiency and infrastructure reasons, but you've made a good case for the places where fuel cells make sense. Great reminder to me that there's no silver bullet solution to all things, and that I should keep my mind open.

[@easymac79]

6:00 That sounds like a business plan in itself. Just as pumped hydro storage can be profitable. I think the numbers would be interesting on this one.

[@denniss3980]

Did not Doc Brown have a fuel cell conversion done to his Back To The Future Car, anyway all these alternative energies have their place and if you keep government subsidies out of the mix the free market will use the most cost effective fuel

[@Bawdale]

Fuel cells are being taken seriously in Japan and China. Both are building out filling stations across the country. Trams, aircraft, ships, domestic & commercial heating/power and trucking solutions are being developed. They seem to be adopting the hydrogen and fuel cells as an alternative to run in tandem with battery solutions. Not putting their eggs in one basket.

[@kenebanks4226]

You should know that it's more powerful longer lasting than any fuel nowadays Hydrogen fuelled HGV trucks, fork trucks, trains, cars, planes and power stations can use it to generate electricity. In China they've changed from battery powered busses, because they're to heavy and the charge is too short lived, and charging takes a massive amount of time and is extremely less powerful than hydrogen fuel. To make Hydrogen fuel using platinum takes a tiny amount (filament) to speed the reaction. BATTERIES ARE VERY POLLUTING, LACKING LONGEVITY OF CHARGE, TOO HEAVY FOR HGV TRUCKS (which currently run on Hydrogen fuel), TAKE FOREVER TO CHAGE. ESSENTIALLY, THEY'RE WILDLY EXPENSIVE, POLLUTING AND INCAPABLE OF PRACTICALLY POWERING THE PLANT THAT HYDROGEN FUEL ALREADY DOES! Amazon, Walmart Coca-Cola and many others use it and for HGV trucks one big firm (I can't recall it's name) has bought 40 Hydrogen powered HGV's and 2 battery ones. That's telling you something?

[@kenebanks4226]

Comparatively Very, Very cheap and it's al in our atmosphere!

[@shimes424]

My guess at the beginning of the video: It was viable until 10-15 years ago when battery technology and manufacturing improved

[@reggiebuffat]

I don't see a clear replacement long-term for diesel in the shipping industry other than hydrogen.

[@christianhill1468]

I'm confused...considering the energy density of hydrogen compared to fossil fuels why does it matter