Damning new report finds nearly all major car companies are actively sabotaging world’s efforts to avoid catastrophic global warming, and Japan companies are the worst.
I don’t know why people got so riled up over it. Like you gotta pick a camp and defend it. Are EVs and hydrogen cars that polarising??
I think there are two main factors:
Differences of opinion among people legitimately trying to find the best solution (e.g. because they assign different amounts of importance to tradeoffs between batteries vs hydrogen, such as slow charging vs difficult storage).
People pushing particular technologies in bad faith because they’re more interested in perpetuating the business model they already have than pivoting to what’s best in the long term (e.g. fossil fuels companies greenwashing with “blue” or “grey” hydrogen, BMW wanting to keep making internal-combustion engines, etc.).
Frankly, hydrogen has enough challenges associated with it that it’s easy to assume anybody advocating for it falls in the latter group.
The main advantages being that you get better range and you can refuel in a couple of minutes instead of an hour.
I still think biofuels or synthetic liquid hydrocarbon fuels burned in normal internal-combustion engines are better at those things than hydrogen ever will be, while also being much more convenient in terms of reusing the infrastructure and vehicles we already have.
The only way in which hydrogen is really superior is that it emits only water vapor, rather than the traditional pollutants like NOx, VOCs, and particulates that ICEs burning even carbon-neutral fuel would continue to emit, but that mostly matters in urban areas where battery EVs beat out hydrogen anyway.
In other words, I just don’t think there’s any niche where hydrogen is the best solution. Long-haul rural trips are better suited to carbon-neutral bio or synthetic liquid fuels (or, you know, trains), and short urban trips are better suited to battery EVs you can just charge at home (or, you know, bicycles).
I think there are two main factors:
Differences of opinion among people legitimately trying to find the best solution (e.g. because they assign different amounts of importance to tradeoffs between batteries vs hydrogen, such as slow charging vs difficult storage).
People pushing particular technologies in bad faith because they’re more interested in perpetuating the business model they already have than pivoting to what’s best in the long term (e.g. fossil fuels companies greenwashing with “blue” or “grey” hydrogen, BMW wanting to keep making internal-combustion engines, etc.).
Frankly, hydrogen has enough challenges associated with it that it’s easy to assume anybody advocating for it falls in the latter group.
I still think biofuels or synthetic liquid hydrocarbon fuels burned in normal internal-combustion engines are better at those things than hydrogen ever will be, while also being much more convenient in terms of reusing the infrastructure and vehicles we already have.
The only way in which hydrogen is really superior is that it emits only water vapor, rather than the traditional pollutants like NOx, VOCs, and particulates that ICEs burning even carbon-neutral fuel would continue to emit, but that mostly matters in urban areas where battery EVs beat out hydrogen anyway.
In other words, I just don’t think there’s any niche where hydrogen is the best solution. Long-haul rural trips are better suited to carbon-neutral bio or synthetic liquid fuels (or, you know, trains), and short urban trips are better suited to battery EVs you can just charge at home (or, you know, bicycles).
+1 for trains.
I wish governments put more effort in public mass transit than subsidizing private automobile manufacturing.