Hydrogen startups are on pace to raise more VC funding in 2023 than in the prior two years combined, according to PitchBook's 2024 Industrial Technology Outlook.
Because it's still just fossil fuels with an extra step in the middle. Electrolysis doesn't generate more hydrogen energy than input, so water is still a net loss source. So you're still getting it from drilling. So not really solving the actual problem at all. And by the time you do figure out an energy positive source that isn't destructive, battery density will make it irrelevant anyways.
"94 million tonnes of grey hydrogen are produced globally using fossil fuels as of 2022, primarily natural gas, and are therefore a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions."
Hydrogen has always been a scam put forth by the oil companies. It's pretending to be green and revolutionary while being the exact same thing as before.
That's just gaslighting by the BEV fanatics. In reality, hydrogen and its derivatives are the only way of powering the majority of transportation. Everything else you hear is total bullshit.
I have an EV that I charge in my garage. You will never get me back in a car where I have to go fill it somewhere. It doesn't matter how good the tech is, the personal convenience of hydrogen is less than BEV, which is all anyone actually cares about.
Um, those are facts. That quote was pulled directly from Wikipedia. It's got numerous sources if you'd like those too. It also lists the tiny percent derived from electrolysis too. So what part of "most hydrogen is a byproduct of fossil fuels and doesn't remove our dependence on them or the climate destruction they caused" was gaslighting? Because again, those are just facts.
Because generation is only one of the many issues with hydrogen.
There still the issues with storage since hydrogen is highly reactive and tends to break down materials making them brittle as heck. That's still not solved.
Combine the fact that storage is a problem that hydrogen is very volatile, able to ignite with only a 4% ratio and very easy to set off.
Hydrogen requires it to be compressed to be stored and it's cold as heck making transport a pain requiring new pipelines to be created and again combine that with the hydrogen being reactive and volatile.
Refueling, it's cold, very cold and that's another problem when you have a reactive, volatile compress gas and most materials don't exactly like constant extreme temperature changes.
Hydrogen still has a lot of problems and generation is still just the top of the iceberg.
The "issues" you list is something companies like Toyota has already dealt with and even if it's small, there is still a growing hydrogen infrastructure in some places in the world like california with people driving these cars.
Yes they are challenging, but we have already overcome and have vehicles and infrastructure in production.
I see many hydrogen critics list how hydrogen is "very volatile, able to ignite, cold as heck, extreme temperature" and etc, well yes, there are challenges, but despite that there are companies out there that have dealt with them and already have products running on the same hydrogen you are talking about.
Not trying to blindly support hydrogen or anything, but in my opinion we are past the point where we debate and claim hydrogen is not possible and has many issues - many of them are no longer an "issue" when its already out there for consumers in some parts of the world, and if these issues were a huge barrier, we won't have vehicles like Toyota mirai selling at all, so these issues are not issues but maybe "tricky", "expensive" and "slow development" would be the right words.
I'll grant you that storage has gotten better since the decade now when I last worked on a hydrogen ICE project and yeah Toyota has made some good advances with their carbon fiber tanks now, heck of a lot better than the carbon fiber tanks that I had the pleasure of working with.
Last I read, the temperature changes were still issues with refilling station where they tended to ice up and with fatigue on the point of connection to the inlet due to temperature changes. If that's been fixed or a solution has been found that's great.
I think the biggest hurdles is still the transport, generation, and infrastructure and yeah, I can agree that tricky, expensive, slow development are all valid here.
And while I still don't think the tech is there yet, I'm glad that progress is still being made and hopefully it'll actually be viable in the future.
In reality, hydrogen is far simpler and more straightforward than any alternative we have right now. Most of the supposed problems have long been solved or never were serious issues. By now, it is entirely a matter of properly funding and scaling up the infrastructure. Nothing else really holds back hydrogen. The naysayers are simply motivated by ulterior motives, such as personal financial gain, to deny this basic fact.