Former President Donald Trump said he opposed green energy Tuesday because hydrogen cars "explode."
During a speech in Savannah, Georgia, Trump lashed out at the green energy industry.
"We have the product for gasoline-powered cars under our feet and Hybrids, and we want to have electric cars,...
Broken clocks and whatnot. Hydrogen cars are trash and completely unfeasible, not because they explode but because of the terrible efficiency and fueling problems
And would need a huge new infrastructure for production and distribution. I’m convinced that most of the push for hydrogen is from oil and gas interests wanting to have essentially the same business they do now.
Clearly one of the advantages of EVs is how cheap and easy the infrastructure is compared to any other alternative (and somehow we’re still finding it difficult)
To add to that the system’s handling them degrade quite quickly if you think maintenance cost for a normal vehicle is difficult you should see one that has to handle high pressure hydrogen
EV infrastructure would be better if it was actually standardized and regulated to be like gas stations.
Right now, we have legacy charging ports and the new, now standard, Tesla port. So you have to make sure the charger will even fit your car. And, because we live in the future, everything is enshitified. Different charging companies have different apps that you need to download to pay for charging, many chargers are down for maintenance, but even with the app, there’s no guarantee you’ll be warned about the charger being down.
Chargers should be like gas pumps. Put in a card, put the plug in your car, and then wait for it to charge. Every plug should fit every car. The system that sprang up without government intervention is clearly insufficient, and needs to be standardized from the ground up.
and the need to build an entire new distribution network, but one that handles cryogenic fuel.
nah, no thanks.
Actually they can retro fit oil and gas infrastructure to work with hydrogen. Guess who is pushing the “huRdUGyun iS thE fuTuRe” narrative. Yeah the people who own the oil and gas infra.
citation requested because this defies literal physics. I’d give you the benefit of the doubt if you suggested propane, but gasoline storage is NOT cryogenic, would not hold large enough volumes of it, and aren’t capable of the pressures involved.
Sure, you can bury a hydrogen tank and support plumbing NEXT to a gasoline storage tank, but you still have to deal with handling cryogenic fuel. Do they really claim that?
So even if that’s an agenda, it’s fucking bent. Green Hydrogen literally ISN’T.
Seems like every solution the petroleum industry pushes is really just another excuse to pump more oil to burn in an already choking atmosphere.
fuuuuuck.
Hydrogen fuel cells actually show quite a bit of promise. Mostly for large trucks. Batteries have a scaling issue. A battery powered 18-wheeler needs a much larger battery for a much shorter range.
Adding more load means you need more battery, and that larger battery is just more load that you need to haul.
This is sort of true with everything, but the important note is that a full battery and empty battery weigh the same.
Anyway. Commercial use is where it makes sense. There are actually a few other technologies that make sense in the commercial transportation space. Like ammonia.
Keeping these rather dangerous fuels commercial also allows for more strict safety standards.
But nobody’s actually taking about subsidising or making them, so there’s no point in ranting about it.
Hydrogen buses were a thing for a while, but it’s probably cheaper to just go with batteries now.
Feels like something that was surpassed before it ever got popular.
I could see hydrogen being useful for some applications where you don’t need the public infrastructure. Buses that refuel at a central depot could be one of those if there’s issues with battery electric being too heavy and stuff like that.
But for ordinary people that can charge their car at home or work without needing to go to a third place it’s hard to beat that convenience.
Hydrogen also has a history of being pushed by fossil fuel companies, probably because initially most hydrogen would be generated using fossil fuels, so it’s not exactly a fast track to reducing emissions.
Yeah, the home and workplace charging has basically won the day for anyone that doesn’t spend most of their life driving.
Slightly sidetracking, I suspect nuclear power is also being pushed by the fossil fuel club as well, after 40 years of going “But Chernobyl!” Simply because it keeps people on gas and coal for about 20-30 years while it all gets built, is enormously expensive, and probably wouldn’t be enough to meet demand anyway. And they can also veto any large green projects with “But the nuclear is on the way!”
Yeah, that’s definitely been the strategy of the liberals/nationals in Australia. In a country that historically has never had nuclear, has a bunch of state and federal bans against nuclear and no infrastructure at all to deal with nuclear waste or fuel, they want to build a nuclear plants (oh , and those will be micro plants which don’t actually exist anywhere!) instead of continuing to build more renewables. And they’re pushing hydrogen as well.
It’s actually disgusting that an industry that knows it has no long term future decided that they should just delay the inevitable for just a few more years/decades at the cost of our only planet. I just can’t fathom being this fucked in the head to make that calculation.