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[g6anz]

This seems more practical than battery powered cars.  Although the price will have to fall, which it probably will just like battery powered cars.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-9684207/Land-Rover-reveals-hydrogen-fuelled-electric-Defender.html

[Craig T]

Good idea.

I used to work for a company that made Diesel-electric hybrid busses and we were looking into Hydrogen fuels cells at the time.
Only problem at the moment is there are only about 10 filling stations in the UK.... You need to plan your trips very well if you intend to stray away from one of those locations.

Craig.

[g6anz]

If the technology does catch on I can see it being more useable that pure battery power. Get the hydrogen infrastructure in place and it will beat recharging  hands down

[Noddy]

The big obstacle for both electric and hydrogen powered vehicles is producing enough electrical power in the first place. The Chinese cover mountainsides with solar panels we cover food producing agricultural land instead so that we can look at the hillsides. People object to wind turbines down the fen because they spoil the view!

Alec

[Moogling]

Good news!

I honestly believe hydrogen is the way forward over battery.  Fingers crossed  other manufacturers are doing the  same.

[Worf]

Good news.
Battery technology is at best just a stopgap measure and a technological cul-de-sac, and at worst as polluting overall as oil.
Wind turbines at sea can be used to "crack" seawater and hydrogen piped ashore and stored. Proper clean energy, and the technology is already there (albeit expensive at the moment). "Vested interests" may tell you otherwise. (Remember how VHS killed Betamax, despite the latter being the better system)

[genocache]

Good news! sign me up for a Grenadier! I have an arm and a leg to spare

[Dopey]

It's always been the real alternative to petrol

[agg221]

Hydrogen does also have some issues.

You can run it through a fuel cell. This gives you a zero emissions vehicle but it does require quite a lot of platinum. The total available on the planet is insufficient to electrify all vehicles this way and the same technology is sought by trains, ships and planes which are likely to pay more for it.

You can burn hydrogen as an alternative to fossil fuels. The hardware is then cheap and uses abundant materials but whilst it no longer emits carbon dioxide, it does emit NOx so is not zero emissions.

Hydrogen can be made by electrolytically splitting water. This is however not a very efficient process overall. From a wind turbine to a power line to an inverter to a battery to a motor is around 80% efficient. However, from a wind turbine to an electrolyser to a fuel cell is around 40% efficient. From a wind turbine to an electrolyser to an internal combustion engine is around 20% efficient.

Lithium-based batteries are not a good long-term approach but there are other battery types under serious development. Lithium is at around 280Wh/kg at the moment and the rate of improvement is decreasing. It will probably top out at around 400Wh/kg but there are other chemistries capable of up to 1500Wh/kg. For context, that means if you could get these to work commercially then if you did a straight swap in a current generation electric car with a range of 250 miles, you could take that up to over 350miles when lithium batteries are optimised, or up to over 1200 miles with the best batteries anyone has yet achieved.

I am not an advocate for batteries, or for hydrogen, although I have worked on both technologies, but we are going to see a shift from where we are and these two are the front-runners. The situation with coal for heritage railways is a good comparator. The last mine in Britain which produces steam coal is now closing. The heritage steam industry will not be shutting down - it will start by importing coal and is then looking at move on to bio-derived alternatives (OK, so technically coal and oil are bio-derived, but I'm talking about recent rather than fossil). I am not too worried about having options.

Alec

[Tim_Moore]

110% onboard with Hydrogen. ¨ITs really the only option on the market that is scalable for trains, trucks & ships etc.
There were public buses powered by Hydrogen running around Perth (Australia) 10-15 years ago.

The CSIRO has made good steps in developing a way to transport hydrogen (albiet the biggest issue being distribution and storage network)
https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Hydrogen

Couple up what ever variable renewable energy device (Solar, wind, wave, geothermal, etc) power source and split & store the hydrogen.
Would love to see a small 20ft container version available for farmers to plonk on their land, generate hydrogen all year then run farm machinery during the high spots on pure hydorgen as well as sell any excess back to the consumer world.
Will be the new milk truck, just collecting excess hydrogen!

New Holland Tractors a hydrogen powered tractor.
https://agriculture.newholland.com/eu/en-uk/about-us/whats-on/news-events/2011/nh2
Nikolai have been campaigning long haul trucking also.
https://nikolamotor.com/

I wait in eager anticipation...