[akamaka]

This is a very poor analysis, since it doesn’t account for the capital costs. Even if hydrogen is inefficient compared to batteries, it could win if the upfront investment was low enough to offset the additional fuel cost. This is quite obvious, since that’s why diesel trucks are winning today — the upfront cost of a diesel engine is cheap enough that it offsets the higher lifetime fuel costs.

I do think that batteries will win, but the correct argument is one that shows that capital costs of batteries are going down faster than the cost of hydrogen production.

[mikeayles]

Fair point that a full TCO comparison would be more complete, and it's something I'm planning to cover in a later post. But the capital cost argument actually reinforces the conclusion rather than undermining it. Hydrogen fuel cell trucks are currently 2-3x the price of diesel equivalents, roughly comparable to battery electric. The infrastructure CAPEX is dramatically higher for hydrogen (£2-5M per station vs. transformer upgrades for depot charging). And the fuel cost gap means hydrogen has higher opex too. Diesel wins today on upfront cost, yes, but hydrogen doesn't beat BEV on capital or operating costs in any current scenario I've seen. Happy to be shown numbers that say otherwise.

The big thing I haven't covered yet is HVO, which provides the WTT CO₂ saving at a slight fuel cost surcharge, which matters if a fleet is mandated to reduce their CO₂. The TCO assuming a £100k diesel truck and £200k lifetime fuel cost, a 10% HVO surcharge brings the TCO to £320k, versus a £250-350k BEV truck that costs maybe £80k in electricity over the same life. That's £320k with an 80-90% CO₂ reduction from a drop in fuel you can put in your existing trucks tomorrow, versus £280k for battery electric with zero tailpipe. Both of those are available now, with existing infrastructure. Hydrogen is asking you to spend £300k+ on the truck, £150k+ on fuel, and hope someone builds a station within range of your routes.

[akamaka]

It would be a stronger argument if you first tried looking at the cases where hydrogen has an advantage. The port example you brought up, where hydrogen is produced on site, is a good one to analyze. If you can look at cost projections of fuels cells and electrolyzers vs. batteries over the next 20 years and demonstrate that there’s no chance hydrogen will catch up, that would be a very strong argument, since it doesn’t rely on the hand-wavy “fueling infrastructure will never happen” argument.

[schainks]

Show me how the capital costs of rolling out high PSI hydrogen infra will be cheaper than building a power grid. You can even refit and re-use existing natural gas pipelines to move hydrogen if you want to cheat. I am willing to bet the costs per kW will still be crazy, especially at last mile where you are in an area populated by humans.

I don't see a bright future for hydrogen in transport while we keep putting cheap solar, wind, and batteries on the grid / roads.

[ryantgtg]

Yeah. Vehicle costs are pretty much the same (for battery electric and fuel cell electric buses, at least) and are about 2-3x more than ICE. On-site hydrogen infra for fueling/storage is substantially more than charging equipment. H2 fuel is currently $10-20 per kg (the higher end accounts for vapor losses), which is, again, much greater than either diesel or electricity.

[ryantgtg]

Replying to myself. I just read the article. The gray/blue/green H2 fuel costs in the article do not reflect current U.S. fuel costs.

Gray is $8-10 for liquid delivery. This equates to a little over $1 per mile, which - compared to a CNG bus - is double the operating cost (and about 4x more than a battery electric bus per mile... just for fuel/electricity). And yeah, as I mentioned previously, capital costs will be like 1.3x of battery electric.

That said, there are lots of novel ideas out there for creating H2 fuel! Forest waste (with supposedly all carbon captured), methane pyrolysis (with carbon bricks as an output). The promises never end.