Hydrogen fuel

Perhaps it’s time to write to our MPs and ask why we don’t hear more about hydrogen as an alternative fuel option in their visions of the future.

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Im all for hydrogen, been saying it has to be a better alternative for a long time.

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Probably because the oil industry bribes (or ‘lobbies’) govt to not implement electricity too quickly and the Electricity lot ‘lobby’ Govt to make sure they’re the prime replacement method for oil.
That’s my guess anyway…
A lot of the auto industry seems to be experimenting with Hydrogen while producing electric cars.
Just hope it doesn’t end up like VHS and Betamax this time!

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the full report is here

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmsctech/99/summary.html

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I suspected there would be something in existence like this. I only read the summary and in isolation it seems reasonable enough, if a little unambitious. It presents the difficulties with developing a comprehensive hydrogen distribution network but doesn’t position it against the requirements, and challenges, of building the infrastructure for electric vehicles. To be fair, this report is about more than transport but even so, there’s scant reference to what research and industry may develop and how that can solve some of the problems with electric.

In the absence of a cheap, readily available fuel I believe the future will be a combination of fuels and technologies to suit the different purposes. That’s assuming one doesn’t end up being developed to the point where it’s ubiquitous. That may happen, but even today we have both gas and electricity available, with oil/diesel still serving some requirements. I doubt the future will be a binary choice.

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I’ve read a few articles recently from both BMW and Ducati management, both say hydrogen is a non-starter for motorcycles due to on-bike storage issues (weight of high pressure container and/or volume), a consequence of the lower energy density issue.
Also that at present for motocycles electric/battery is only really viable for the commuter sector. Again due to weight vs range and most critically - recharge time.
For more powerful/touring sector they consider efuels to be the only viable and sensible route. This becomes very attractive when properly considering full life pollutants of the new and “scrapped” motorcycles. Environmentally the bonus is that efuels can be used as soon as available in existing vehicles, thus reducing co2 emissions far quicker than waiting (10-20yrs) for the take-up of alternatively powered vehicles.
My feeling is that governments are starting to listen to the argument that EV is not the ONLY solution. (At least in Germany and Italy) :slightly_smiling_face:

HySE are running a hydrogen car in this year’s Dakar. The big Japanese manufacturers don’t seem ready to give up on hydrogen just yet but there are a lot of challenges.
Storage may end up being a problem that pushed the fuel towards bigger vehicles (buses, trucks). It’s good to see all options being explored, though.

eFuels in our existing cars and bikes souds great but meeting supply with demand is going to be another challenge given the efficieny of the manufacturing processes, and if fuel costs suddenly become two or three times what they are now it’s going to be a real problem economically.