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Tesla Co-Founder Says Hydrogen Fuel Cells Are a 'Scam' (electrek.co)

Posted by msmash on from the the-future-of-transportation dept.

Marc Tarpenning, co-founder of Tesla, believes hydrogen fuel cells are a "scam". Tarpenning, who is not with Tesla anymore appeared on Internet History Podcast last week to outline a number of issues with hydrogen fuel cells. He said (via Electrek blog): If your goal is to reduce energy consumption, petrol or whatever resource, you want to use it as efficiently as possible. You don't want to pick something that consumes a lot for whatever reason, and hydrogen is uniquely bad. There's a saying in the auto industry that hydrogen is the future of transportation and always will be. It's a scam as far as I can tell because the energy equation is terrible. People will say that hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, but it's abundant out there in the universe not here. We live on a planet where hydrogen is super reactive -- it's bound up into everything. It's bound up into water, wood and everything else. They only way that you get hydrogen requires you to pour energy into it to break it from the chemical bonds. Electrolysis is the most common method. You put electricity in water and it separates it, but you are pouring energy in order to make hydrogen, and then you have to compress it and that takes energy, and then you have to transport it to wherever you actually need it, which is really difficult because hydrogen is much harder to work with than gasoline or even natural gas -- and natural gas is not that easy. And then you ultimately have to place it into a car where you'll have a very high-pressure vessel which offers its own safety issues -- and that's only to convert it back again to electricity to make the car go because hydrogen fuel cell cars are really electric cars. They just have an extraordinary bad battery.Here's the podcast.

3 of 630 comments (clear)

  1. Hydogen is just a way to store energy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And a poor way at that. Cannot agree more with his assessment. I have been saying things like this for years, could never understand why people thought it was a great idea.

    1. Re:Hydogen is just a way to store energy by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Insightful

      *People* never thought is was a good idea: oil and automotive executives do, because hydrogen maintains a gas station-style distribution network. That's why they try so hard to sell it to you.

      They hate nothing more than people charging up at home, on their own terms, with the electricity provider of their choosing, possibly with their own solar.

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    2. Re:Hydogen is just a way to store energy by rockmuelle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Where are mod points when I need them???

      This. This. This!

      I remember talking with my grandfather years ago about the future of energy for cars. He's a EE who ran a telecom infrastructure company for years and always saw things from the infrastructure perspective. Whatever was least disruptive to the energy ecosystem as a whole was going to win. Given the entrenched players at every stage in the distribution chain, hydrogen made the most sense. Each industry segment would profit greatly from upgrading their infrastructure to support hydrogen while not having to abandon their place in the process.

      Electric cars upend multiple industries - from oil services all the way to convenience stores. Change will be fought tooth-and-nail. I just hope Elon doesn't run out of cash before he's had a chance to force the issue on electric cars.

      -Chris