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aquarain t1_iyeiltw wrote

Hydrogen is a fossil fuel. All you're doing with a hydrogen car is hiding the emissions from the driver, and paying an extraordinary cost in danger and inconvenience to do so.

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NormalSociety t1_iyemenv wrote

Ummmn.....

Hydrogen is an element. The second element, in fact.

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aquarain t1_iyep2f0 wrote

It is. And as the lightest gas what sum of it that is released into the atmosphere and doesn't react with other chemicals drifts off into space.

In the US 95% of hydrogen production is through steam reforming natural gas (the fossil fuel I spoke of). https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-production-natural-gas-reforming

Why is it done this way? Because although hydrolysis is cleaner it consumes vast amounts of electricity that would then be produced by fossil fuels, and is otherwise more costly to do. Electrolysis electrodes also are not free. It turns out that the electrodes for hydrogen are quite costly for various reasons.

Now you can say "I would pay more for the green hydrogen". But you can't credibly say that corporations would pay more for an element than they have to - even if they pinky swear that they will. And even if they did, that makes the hydrogen vehicle not cost competitive with the car that stores the electric source energy in lithium batteries rather than in hydrogen gas.

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