Thanks Stan, interesting, and no intention to shoot the messenger. But here are my thoughts on the latest vid.
Started off well, I found the first half interesting. Wasn't sure about the casual way H2 was being talked about, but I'll come back to that. They addressd the NOx issue. I don't pretend to understand it, but the suggestion didn't seem to be managing NOx levels lower, but implied little NOx through appropriate combustion ..... I suspect I was mis-understanding that.
Then we got to the second half, when Lord Bamford (LB) took Harry (and us) for a ride!
First off, did that H2 truck sound noisy, or was it just me, with a BEV bias?
Now onto the fun bits, which I was so shocked at, I'm hoping it's simply because of my lack of knowledge, and others can correct me, and explain where I'm going wrong, as it seemed their chat, and then Harry's later comments were, dare I say, complete and utter garbage.
LB was simply throwing out criticisms of BEV's, with I suggest unreasonable negativity. He talked about BEV cars having a tonne of batts. Well, Lithium ternary batts are now at about 250Wh/kg, so a 60kWh battery would be around 240kg. Obviously there will be more kit, not just batts in the battery pack, but far from his extreme negativity. Most BEV's now are moving to LFP batts, certainly at the smaller range end, where the lower efficiency (volume and energy to mass) is less important, but let's use those figures, so around 150Wh/kg, which for a 60kWh batt would be more like 400kg.
Battery tech is improving, so I'm not convinced that the weight is too bad. It's simply a thing, but not as bad as made out.
But sticking with weight, where exactly do these two guys get the cheek to mention batt weights, without mentioning H2 fuel tank weights. A 4-6kg H2 tank weighs about 100kg. Looking at a relatively short range H2/battery truck (only a smaller rigid, not a max size HGV), it has a 216 kWh battery, a range of 248 miles, but 7 H2 fuel tanks, so they alone weigh around 700kg, or the weight of ~175kWh of Li-ion batts.
Hyundai Hydrogen fuel truck
Then we have the problem that this is HICE not HFCV, so its efficiency will be much lower. Fuel cells can reach about 50% efficiency converting H2 to leccy, but HICE is little more efficient than ICE. So 20-30%. That may be OK for heavy plant, but they were talking about H2 for cars and trucks, and that it's being overlooked .... nope, it hasn't. At HICE efficiency, most of the volume of the car would need to be fuel tanks. Engineering Explained has done an excellent vid on this, in response to news that both Toyota and BMW ICE engines had been converted to HICE, for research.
The Unfortunate Truth About Toyota's Hydrogen V8 Engine
They also talked about the UK, unlike most countries, seemed set against H2. I don't think that's true. The UK like most countries is looking into H2, but (dare I say), like all H2 experts, has concluded that it's a no-no for road transport. Again I'll get back to this. Also in the UK, we have now seen some H2 stations close down.
I may be wrong or conflating issues here, but on another thread I mentioned how Tesla superchargers seem to cost around $45k, whilst I've heard that a H2 fueling station costs about $1m. I suspect that cost is for a station with multiple pumps (4?), rather than for a H2 pump, but the cost is staggering.
Now to the main issue. H2 itself. Throughout the vid they were very relaxed about the green H2 side, seeming to suggest it needed little explanation, and would simply be easily available. That's why I got annoyed. LB did mention that India has loads of sun (PV potential), and JCB have a large production plant there.
Can we make green H2, yes of course. Can we move it, not really. It's an absolute pig to shift. That's why over 90% of H2 consumption in the World takes place where H2 is produced. Pipes are hard, H2 wants to escape. Transporting H2 is tricky as it is not energy dense by volume. To truck the equivalent of a petrol tanker would take 8-12 tube trailers. They can carry about 400-500kg of H2 each, or to put it another way, the weight of the truck and trailer differs little between full or empty. Not only do you have the added expense of needing more trucks/trailers (in ratio to petrol/diesel), but you also have the 8-12x expense of drivers, and the fuel consumption of those trucks, creating a vicious circle.
Will we produce H2 from excess RE, personally I suspect we will, but it will be at the later end, when other more efficient / economic solutions have first been deployed*. H2 (and CAES) offers vast storage potential, into the 10's and 100's of TWh's, but that doesn't mean it's viable for transport, even heavy plant. Producing it on site at a CCGT powerstation makes sense. You use the leccy connection to bring in the excess, then burn the H2 on site for leccy gen. This does not automatically mean that green H2 will be available for road use. Step one is displacing current H2 consumption for fertilizers, with green H2.
They also talk about the expected falling costs in the price of H2, with suggestions it could reach $1/kg and be cost competitive with diesel. Nice plan, but LB later talks about how the idea (and work by Rolls Royce) on SMR's is being missed/wasted, suggesting to me, that he is looking at the possibilities of H2 (and SMR's) rather than the realities.
Even if H2 can be made cheap, that would require extremely cheap green leccy, so any improvements in the cost of HICE, won't be improvements in the cost comparison of HICE v's BEV's. Speaking of which ....
..... how much green leccy will we need for this HICE?
Well, BEV's are about 3x more efficient than a HFCV. That's to say that for a given amount of leccy leaving the powerstation (let's say 1kWh), they will after losses (transmission, charging and mechanical) apply about 75%, or 0.75kWh to driving the wheel.
For a HFCV, you have the same losses, plus the electrolysers, the compression/cooling of the H2, the transportation then pumping of the H2, then the fuel cell itself (~50% efficiency), meaning approximately 25%, or 0.25kWh will drive the wheels.
Now, moving to HICe, we will have the same losses before the engine (fuel cell) of the HFCV, but then we have ICE efficiency of around 25%, thus making it half the efficiency of a HFCV, so roughly 6x less efficient than a BEV.
This is important, since the primary fuel cost of a BEV, and a HICE / HFCV is the same thing, green leccy. So even assuming that the extremely expensive electrolysers are free, you'd still get a fuel cost of ~6x more for a HICE.
I hope I've been fair here, and please correct me on the data, efficiencies, assumptions etc, as LB seems like a very clever guy, so maybe I'm missing something critical. I suspect 'they' believe that the leccy for green H2 will cost almost nothing, being at the end of demand for RE leccy excess, maybe that's the thought?
But I really can't see any justification for the negativity that LB had for BEV's, nor the, dare I say, ignorant comments Harry made towards the end, claiming that BEV's would obviously cost far more than HICE. But BEV costs are falling, and again this seems to ignore, entirely, the cost of the fuel, something ignored/missed throughout the vid ... unless I missed it, and therefore shame on me.
Hope this is fun, it's not really a rant. Good thing to explore all options, but HFCV's and HICEV's, have not been ignored, they have been researched.
*I say H2 production will be at the later end of storage. I don't mean in time, as H2 is already being used as a storage medium. I mean after other simpler and more efficient storage solutions for any given location/scenario have been maxed out.