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- cross-posted to:
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Toyota wants hydrogen to succeed so bad it’s paying people to buy the Mirai::Toyota is offering some amazing deals for its hydrogen fuel cell-powered Mirai. That is, if customers can find the hydrogen to power it.
Hydrogen is good when it’s green hydrogen- made via electrolysis. Blue hydrogen is produced by gas companies, so it isn’t clean, unfortunately. There are some other snags, such as designing a really hard gas tank that cannot be punctured, and hydrogen storage is a bit challenging. It’s less dense than gasoline, particularly at normal temps. So it has to be cooled down, which takes additional power and delivery complications, and it’s still less dense even as a liquid, so you don’t get as far of a range vs gasoline or jet fuel.
Hydrogen storage as a battery medium for overproducing wind, solar, even solar towers might make sense. I, for one am excited about the idea of hydrogen blimps coming back for lifting heavy loads to remote places, which Canada is toying with right now.
Hydrogen might make sense for something like container ships, but short term, I think other efuels will be used for things like planes, buses, trucks, maybe cars. Stuff that is more inert or just less expensive to design across a supply chain. It also has potential offworld uses in the further future. It definitely has its uses, it just seems a bit difficult in personal vehicles.