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We don't have a working fusion reactor. We do have working electrolyzers and fuel cells. This is night and day difference.

Electrolyzer and fuel cells are electrochemical systems and are basically batteries themselves. There is no fundamental downside compared to choosing some other electrochemical system. People are just swallowing the FUD and marketing BS of li-ion battery companies. There simply isn't a big enough difference in efficiency for this to matter to begin with, and even then the gap will shrink away to nothing. For instance, for large installations it is already possible to do heat-recapture and use that heat to drive a turbine. We can see 85% efficiency and above pretty much right now. We are going to see more ideas like that and therefore there won't much of any real difference in efficiency.

The other point is that we are not here to just replace fossil fuels with something just as limited and problematic. The goal is to move all of society to something truly sustainable. In fact, if the goal is to replace every single vehicle on Earth with BEVs, then the goal is already a dead one. It would be both absurdly expensive and environmentally damaging to attempt that feat. As a result, we pretty much have to invest in hydrogen eventually anyways. So we might as well do so now, rather than keep spending everything on what is basically a transitional technology.

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> every single vehicle on Earth with BEVs, then the goal is already a dead one.

We might replace small/personal vehicles with BEV and larger ones with hydrogen.

It’s not a very good fuel source for small vehicles because of how unstable it is. You need significant amounts of energy to stop it from evaporating.

For large commercial vehicles that and distribution would be much easier.

> . We can see 85% efficiency and above pretty much right now

Multiply that by production efficiency and we’re just a bit above the level of ICE.

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You mean something closer to every short-ranged EV with BEVs, and long ranged ones with FCEVs? That could work, although it would be admitting that most cars will be FCEVs. Though honestly, we'd be better off with more mass transit than short-ranged vehicles.

Hydrogen is not unstable for transportation purposes. It is safer than gasoline.

No. Wells to wheels efficiency, at least for large installations, would be not far off from what is possible with batteries. The fact that you even think that FCEVs are even close to ICE on efficiency shows that you've swallowed a lot of BEV propaganda. A fuel cell is 3x the efficiency of a conventional gasoline engine. BEVs simply are not that much efficient, and the gap continuously shrink.

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> you've swallowed a lot of BEV propaganda

Right. That’s my cue to stop.. arguing with people who say stuff like this is always pointless

> a. A fuel cell is 3x the efficiency of a conventional gasoline engine

If you include production efficiency, storage and transportation losses and fuel cell efficiency itself it’s only a bit higher than diesel if not on par.

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Diesel has their own upstream losses. People are constantly using a double standard where they only include upstream losses for hydrogen while ignoring them for everything else. In reality, you are going to get closer to battery-levels of efficiency with fuel cells than with any other currently available idea. It's not even debatable given that fuel cells are far more efficient than ICEs.

Furthermore, given the needs of energy storage, in particular long duration energy storage, there are situations where you will be charging BEVs with hydrogen power. So it is not even a guaranteed that BEVs are more efficient than FCEVs, with the average case likely half-way between commonly claimed numbers. A gap that will shrink over time too, since efficiency of fuel cells can significantly improve.

The reason why I say "BEV propaganda" is because the arguments are totally ridiculous. Between the absurd fearmongering and claims of massive efficiency advantages, all while ignoring any and all limitations of li-ion batteries, it is clearly just a misinformation campaign. After all, since FCEVs are also EVs, why are there so many attacks on them from other EV enthusiasts? It is mostly a defensive strategy of misinformation and FUD. It is because more than anything else, FCEVs represent a disruptive threat to BEVs.