Would a system like the one in China - with the user of methanol conversion from excess Wind/Solar/Other power gen (even idle coal) making it much more flexible to generate/transport/store rather than trying to buildout gas distribution.
With the added advantage of fuel cell swaps [0] and reload giving the trucks a quicker turnaround time per charge (i think similar op is used for electric trucks as well as some consumer car models)
It certainly solves the problem of recharge points as the infra can be rolled out piecemeal, and since it would be for heavy trucks less disruptive of the rest of the cityscape (can have the outside metroplitan areas etc with maybe emergency stops within)
I think the Edison motors approach will be the most future-proof, using drop-in power supply bricks, one can abstract the power source to the point where it won't matter if it's a fuel cell, natural gas turbine or a new battery technology, to the truck it's just electricity (plus or minus some metadata for things like regen breaking or engine gear)
cjbenedikt 1 days ago [-]
Excellent analysis. Two points: what if 1) only surplus energy from offshore wind would be used for green H2 electrolysis and 2) the price would be at or below £/€/$ 1.50 per Kg?
mikeayles 1 days ago [-]
Thanks. Both good questions, and they come up a lot.
To be clear, I'm fully behind decarbonising freight. It's one of the hardest sectors to clean up and it needs serious attention. But hydrogen for road transport requires jumping in with both feet (due to infrastructure requirements) when there are dozens of smaller, commercially proven steps that get you equivalent results. Better route planning, driver training, aerodynamic retrofits, hybrid and battery electric for shorter routes, even just reducing empty running.
These aren't exciting and they don't get press releases, but they compound. The industry could cut emissions meaningfully with changes that pay for themselves today, without waiting for a national hydrogen infrastructure that doesn't exist yet.
On surplus offshore wind: the economics only work if you assume the electricity is genuinely surplus, meaning there's literally no other use for it. In practice, the UK grid still runs gas plants for roughly 40% of generation. Every MWh of offshore wind that goes into an electrolyser instead of displacing gas is a missed decarbonisation opportunity. "Surplus" renewable electricity is a future state, not a current one, and even when we get there, interconnectors, grid storage, and demand response will compete for those MWh. The electrolyser only makes sense after all of those higher value uses are saturated.
On £1.50/kg: that would genuinely change the fuel cost picture, getting you to roughly 12-15p per mile which is competitive with diesel. But the distribution problem doesn't go away at any price point. You still need compression or liquefaction, transport, and a national network of dispensing stations. The UK has 11 public hydrogen stations. Even free hydrogen doesn't help if there's nowhere to fill up. The grid is already everywhere. Adding a charger to a depot is a transformer upgrade. Adding a hydrogen station is a £2-5M civil engineering project.
The place where cheap green hydrogen gets really exciting is exactly the applications where you can't just plug in: steel, ammonia, seasonal storage, maritime. Those don't need a distributed national refuelling network, they need point to point bulk delivery to industrial sites and ports, which is a much more tractable logistics problem.
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With the added advantage of fuel cell swaps [0] and reload giving the trucks a quicker turnaround time per charge (i think similar op is used for electric trucks as well as some consumer car models)
It certainly solves the problem of recharge points as the infra can be rolled out piecemeal, and since it would be for heavy trucks less disruptive of the rest of the cityscape (can have the outside metroplitan areas etc with maybe emergency stops within)
[0] https://m.chinatrucks.org/news/10750.html
To be clear, I'm fully behind decarbonising freight. It's one of the hardest sectors to clean up and it needs serious attention. But hydrogen for road transport requires jumping in with both feet (due to infrastructure requirements) when there are dozens of smaller, commercially proven steps that get you equivalent results. Better route planning, driver training, aerodynamic retrofits, hybrid and battery electric for shorter routes, even just reducing empty running.
These aren't exciting and they don't get press releases, but they compound. The industry could cut emissions meaningfully with changes that pay for themselves today, without waiting for a national hydrogen infrastructure that doesn't exist yet.
On surplus offshore wind: the economics only work if you assume the electricity is genuinely surplus, meaning there's literally no other use for it. In practice, the UK grid still runs gas plants for roughly 40% of generation. Every MWh of offshore wind that goes into an electrolyser instead of displacing gas is a missed decarbonisation opportunity. "Surplus" renewable electricity is a future state, not a current one, and even when we get there, interconnectors, grid storage, and demand response will compete for those MWh. The electrolyser only makes sense after all of those higher value uses are saturated.
On £1.50/kg: that would genuinely change the fuel cost picture, getting you to roughly 12-15p per mile which is competitive with diesel. But the distribution problem doesn't go away at any price point. You still need compression or liquefaction, transport, and a national network of dispensing stations. The UK has 11 public hydrogen stations. Even free hydrogen doesn't help if there's nowhere to fill up. The grid is already everywhere. Adding a charger to a depot is a transformer upgrade. Adding a hydrogen station is a £2-5M civil engineering project.
The place where cheap green hydrogen gets really exciting is exactly the applications where you can't just plug in: steel, ammonia, seasonal storage, maritime. Those don't need a distributed national refuelling network, they need point to point bulk delivery to industrial sites and ports, which is a much more tractable logistics problem.