@lostatsea What do you think the costs are to setup 1000 hydrogen charging stations? I say a thousand so it is interpreted at scale cost, but how much would each one cost, and how big are they?
@lostatsea Can you expand on what the life cycle of a fuel cell really is , the best of the breed today and any future projections. It looks to me that even if Hydrogen becomes very cheap due to renewables it is likely that only batteries might be able to have a life comparable or possibly exceeding a diesel semi. This by itself make them an attractive proposition even if you need 1 hr charging for every 6 to 7 hours of driving.
@bradley5201 I used to work at an amazon warehouse. There, they had literally 100 fuel cell powered forklifts. According to my ex boss, the forklifts and their fuel cells have easily been in service for 6 years straight. Considering amazon hours, thats at least 40000 ish hours of use
@rocket3 Interesting. Wonder if they saved money at current rates over their lifecycle. Even if not only way to go with scaling of manufacturing and cheaper renewable energy is down.
@rocket3 I've never even been inside an Amazon warehouse, but I think I read somewhere that H2 is used because it does provide a more compact energy source, allowing more use between refuelling/recharging than batteries, and more importantly doesn't emit CO which would kill workers and result in costly delays while the bodies were shoveled into the bio-reactor. The cost of the H2 system alone is not the sole or even most important factor in this particular choice. Also warehouse floors are very smooth (again, reasonable inference, never been in one) so there's none of the wear and tear that bouncing along America's top-notch infrastructure would inflict on a truck. Lastly, no fueling infrastructure issues since they never leave the warehouse.
Ballard says that the FC module has a service life of “more than 30,000 hours”, system efficiency of at least 55 per cent and a weight of 4.4 kilograms per kilowatt-hour.
@resjudicata Thanks, is there a good reversible fuel cell in market that works as electrolyzer as well ? If priced appropriately I am increasingly getting confident that this will help reduce curtailment.
@nealf Excellent post, worth mentioning that Daimler unveiled their new hydrogren truck just a few days ago and they mentioned that for hydrogen to work it will require strong government support to implement an infrastructure since hydrogen is expensive and complex, quite a different tone from Nikola.
@secretagentzach Well now, from all that Nikola hate let's not forget that Daimler are already proven liers and fraudsters. They also could be saying this to receive more corporate welfare to further pursue H2
