I know that you are totally in love with Hydrogen. But what I really do not get is that some very large companies are still sinking billions in to this "hydrogen economy" infrastructure. Ford, Toyota, Hyundai, and Mercedes to name a few are throwing big money at this. From a purely economic and engineering standpoint, this approach is much more expensive, and much less efficient than just about any other competing technology. Compressed Natural Gas, Hybrids, and Battery EV's are all less expensive to run because of the losses of making and storing the pure hydrogen. You can refill your tank faster than most recharging situations (with current battery technology). Fuel Cell cars have the exact same electric drive train as Battery EVs, they just get their electricity from the Hydrogen storage tank and fuel cell instead of a chemical batter.
And the statements about half of the H2 coming from on-site solar has some big questions. Most Battery Electric Vehicles get about 100miles per 30kilowatt-hours of energy. To make enough energy for one 100mile charge, you would need a full days production from 30 full sized solar panels. (This is more energy than most homes use). Using the solar energy to electrolysis water into hydrogen, and compress it for delivery and turning the hydrogen back into electricity takes even more input energy due to processing losses. So a filling station to deliver the hydrogen which is stored electricity from sunlight would need 3 to 5 thousand solar panels at least to make enough energy for 100 cars getting 100miles worth of energy each day. Most of the photos of these filling stations show less than enough solar panels to fill ONE car per day!
The top photo shows a semi trailer made of long skinny cylinders, and this is how hydrogen is delivered. But in one of my energy classes my students figured that it would take 25 of these semis to deliver the same energy as in ONE gasoline semi tanker. Again, the numbers just do not add up.
The only reason I can guess is that the Hydrogen infrastructure keeps the average driver tethered to the same Big oil people who own the current gasoline infrastructure. You can't gas up you car at home like you can with a Battery Electric Vehicle. I think that it may be also that the effects of global climate change may be so horrible in a decade of so, that we will not care how much more it costs to run a hydrogen car
But you keep putting these fluffy clouds press announcement type articles which have no real numbers. (by the way, Fuel Cell Today which you referenced in the second part of you post stopped adding anything new January a year ago by the way). I would really be interested in any technical resources that shows how this is really suppose to work economically. I am truly baffled why so much money is being put into this.
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