Green Hydrogen progress

A friend of mine knows I have a Grenadier reservation and that their future is planned for Hydrogen. He came across this article and shared it with me so I thought I would pass it along.

For those of you who don't know the difference between Blue Hydrogen and Green Hydrogen you should look into it. The idea of Hydrogen made me weary when I learned more about Blue Hydrogen and the lack of Green Hydrogen. Either way at the moment there are only like 20 hydrogen station in the US and more than half are in California the other in the north east.

Hydrogen isn't going to happen anytime soon. Tesla started its first charging station in 2012. 10 years later and with Electrify America the network of chargers is still limiting. If and when Hydrogen happens it will be another 15-20 years. As Electric charging has already gotten it beat with its network and electric cars being made by every manufacturer. For a company to just say hey lets build a new car like the grenadier not even saying a hydrogen car. Will be at least 5 years of development.  Also alot of money needs to be invested for a basic infrastructure. Then in hopes of other car companies to also build on that technology and utilize it. As well as government subsidies and assistance. So I would say don't think this hydrogen fuel is gonna happen anytime soon. Its just publicity to not feel bad about the gas guzzler that will be the Grenadier. As everyone is buying electric cars right now. They just want you to feel good that when you buy this it will help you in imagining that your helping them to a world where their might be a hydrogen grenadier. oh lets have hydrogen charging stations all over the Sahara and all across Australia.... yea thats not gonna happen. 

I would strongly agree, but Ineos the parent company is investing heavily into hydrogen fuel cell technology; they'd need some kind of flagship demonstrator.  It may not become a consumer option ever, but you'll see a fleet of Ineos Grenadier hydrogen fuel cell vehicles driving around in the near future.

There are some fuel cell cars already out. But the infrastructure is lacking. If they want it to be successful. They need to show people why its better then electric. Cause cost of hydrogen is also expensive. I love for it to happen. I just don't think realistically for hydrogen to be a big thing for at least another 10-15 years. Specially with everyone just getting used to the idea of electric. Specially with Charging for electric cars getting faster and faster. The thing with hydrogen is filling it up like regular gas. So there is little down time. 

@3DDiY That last point - the speed of filling up on hydrogen vs electric charging is a big deal for the trucking industry.  Agree that for short-haul and consumer, plug in electric is far ahead of hydrogen.

A bit of a hurdle for the Hydrogen Grenadier.

The situation with hydrogen stations in UK has actually gone backwards in the last 12 months, with more closing than opening, and there was only a handful in the first place.

I hope Mr Ratcliffe is watching! If the hydrogen Grenadier was inbound with a 6 cylinder British built JCB engine it would tick a lot of boxes. Fascinating viewing.

View: https://youtu.be/jxtxZY45RMM

JOB said:

I hope Mr Ratcliffe is watching! If the hydrogen Grenadier was inbound with a 6 cylinder British built JCB engine it would tick a lot of boxes. Fascinating viewing.

View: https://youtu.be/jxtxZY45RMM

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Great diesel engines but only suitable for off highway vehicles.
Also extremely bulky so you would have a lot of difficulty getting them under the bonnet

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcMOmVbCOIs

Environmentalists in Belgium might be happy. I just read there was a convoy of 2700 tractors in Brussels protesting emissions regulations threatening to kill their farm viability.
Then again , environmentalists are never really happy.

Tazzieman said:

Environmentalists in Belgium might be happy. I just read there was a convoy of 2700 tractors in Brussels protesting emissions regulations threatening to kill their farm viability.
Then again , environmentalists are never really happy.

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Difference between an environmentalist and a terrorist? Most times one can negotiate with a terrorist.. ..

Hydrogen will fuel long haul road transport in the future - I am nearly sure of it. A battery to tow 15-40T haul from Sydney to Brisbane will need to be what - 570kwh... that's a lot of battery to hide somewhere and then to recharge that for the return trip is 2+ hrs at a station holding up that area for a large freighter. Where's all this heading?

DenisM said:

Difference between an environmentalist and a terrorist? Most times one can negotiate with a terrorist.. ..

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They are worried about carbon blah blah. But don't mind the hundreds of thousands of hectares of land being bulldozed for sprawl, in which these activists all live btw!

trobex said:

They are worried about carbon blah blah. But don't mind the hundreds of thousands of hectares of land being bulldozed for sprawl, in which these activists all live btw!

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Aren't you in Perth, @trobex ? Surely just swapping one soulless wasteland for another... (I say that as a sandgroper born and bred)

globalgregors said:

Aren't you in Perth, @trobex ? Surely just swapping one soulless wasteland for another... (I say that as a sandgroper born and bred)

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Haha no QLD... the State hell bent on cutting down every last scrap of native vegetation.

trobex said:

Haha no QLD... the State hell bent on cutting down every last scrap of native vegetation.

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Ah yes, when in doubt begin another canal development.

We should acknowledge this is now getting a bit philosophic / politic. on Hydrogen - I gonna short it to H2.

The problem no matter how it is generated .. - the problem is H2 itself. the molecules are extremely small and "aggressive" - this means the safe storage is quite a challenge.
Not too long ago (june 2019) in Norway there was an exploded H2 fueling station.
So there is some risk on that topic - no matter if blue or green.
Simply I am not sufficiently convinced that a pure H2 is safe enough for general purpose.

A solution like Methanol direct fuel cell (MDFC) - is not as efficient as a H2 FC but the fuel Methanol is somewhat less difficult to handle and a normal petrol station / gas station infrastructure can be used and additional fuel tanks etc etc.. may be far more efficient and in long term feasible. Plant more trees, perhaps hemp or other fast growing materials that can be converted in to methanol (in Brazil alcoholic fuels are quite common) so what? So at the end this should be more feasible than B-EV and H2FC-EV
So instead a MDFC-EV should reduce local emission.. noise and use of biofuel with neutral effect on climate. as the bit of CO2 exhausted is more or less taken from plant and not from natural gas.

Still I question "decarbonization" what is as of now also became somewhat religious. And the effects as such.
The people promoting own and use a lot of private jets ( in EU CO2 tax exempted like super yachts) as if they would emit a different type of CO2
I could ask a lot of nasty question in relation to this - but for the sake of peace I don't.

I was provocative in my company - if the bosses want to abandon their fleet of jets, super yacht to become forerunners and a lighthouse in decarbonization
That would reduce the emission of carbon dioxide quite a lot.. and was significatly disliked.

Perhaps I am now being put on the list. So what.. I am not the only one thinking so.

Yesterday I was requested to participate in a survey on EV as company cars. - And why I am not participating in the BEV hype.
There is also a campaign in the company to promote EV and remove bias.
I wrote that they can shove their EV in their butts.. not because I dislike EV but because the EV does nor work for me. - And EV is not ultimate solution to all travel application.

To me . the internal combustion engine will survive for many years in most parts of the planet and for some applications stay the only feasible solution.
The BEV may be an idea to provide local individual transport solution in dense populated area.
The FC-EV needs more and better infrastructure in refueling - also acceptable cost - / use relation. The pure H2 is for both infrastructure and safety on road not yet a solution..

In Europe we currently have more than 250 Hydrogen stations, of which over 100 are in Germany. Rising trend.

But still a long and hard way to travel!

With the current operational stations, you can already travel from Norway to southern Spain or even Sardinia.

It's not the status quo that's important. It's the trend.

Remember Bertha Benz: She bought her petrol in pharmacies ...