To paraphrase Mean Girls, “stop trying to make hydrogen happen.”
For some years now, detractors of battery electric vehicles have held up hydrogen as a clean fuel panacea. That sometimes refers to hydrogen combustion engines, but more often, it’s hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles, or FCEVs. Both promise motoring with only water emitted from the vehicles’ exhausts. It’s just that hydrogen actually kinda sucks as a fuel, and automaker Stellantis announced today that it is ending the development of its light-, medium- and heavy-duty FCEVs, which were meant to go into production later this year.
Hydrogen’s main selling point is that it’s faster to fill a tank with the stuff than it is to recharge a lithium-ion battery. So it’s a seductive alternative that suggests a driver can keep all the convenience of their gasoline engine with none of the climate change-causing side effects.
But in reality, that’s pretty far from true.
Also it seems to be a good energy storage…for cases where you have irregular energy production. Create hydrogen via electrolysis using the energy surplus from wind, photovoltaic etc.
And if you need the power, you get it back via fuel cells.
I think I saw a documentary about the shetland islands, where they have (or had) a power surplus from wind farms mich grater than they where able to transfer to the main land.
I guess these are the cases which make sense…but creating another supply network to bring the hydrogen fuel everywhere might not be the way to go…