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Hydrogen does not only have to be used in fuel cells, it can also be burned directly in gasoline engines. Or you can convert it into ammonia and use it in diesel engines. In principle, this is the safer alternative. Of course, e-cars also work - but they also need the infrastructure, and no one wants to invest in that, and since we here in Germany unfortunately only promote without demanding, nothing will develop sustainably.
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@KleinviehmachtMist Yes, that's all true, too. I'm certainly not a fan of many of the developments going on in Germany, but combustion like this is even more inefficient than the fuel cell. However, almost all car manufacturers have given up on the further development of the combustion engine. I think Deere once had the ambition to develop an ammonia diesel. And yes, the latter is a point that can be observed in probably all industries at the moment. Subsidies up the wazoo but no oriented goal. Ultimately, however, we live in Germany and the EU and have to make the best of the circumstances.
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@KleinviehmachtMist So you want to go even more inefficient ways? The fuel cell is already the best thing you can do with hydrogen, except for nuclear fusion.
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@Cupra The magic word is not efficiency but affordability. But what am I talking about if fuel cells and nuclear fusion are in the same sentence, then in this world of superlatives there is enough money for everything.
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@KleinviehmachtMist Even if it was not directed at me, but ... That is exactly my criticism, which I would like to express with the two contributions. The stock exchange or the investors are foaming at the mouth with dreaming about hydrogen, but nobody sees the reality anymore. Therefore my critical points, why the stock exchange hydrogen acts completely utopian.
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@KleinviehmachtMist Why the world of superlatives? I think both are cheese, but things that are even more inefficient are even more so. Hydrogen might still work as a storage medium.
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@Cupra because fusion power plants will probably not be available until 2070 at the earliest. The non plus ultra at the moment would actually be nuclear power plants if you take into account all the nuclear waste, they are also a dead end - but the reprocessing of the fuel rods produces weapons-grade plutonium, which probably excuses everything. By the way, there was once the idea to use them as an energy source for the car - for me it ranks somewhere just below the level of fuel cells. It is always disturbing that all ideas are not thought through to the end - electric car free of CO2 emission - the future ! Where does the electricity come from ? From the socket ! Who should pay for it ? The sun shines for free and the wind blows for free ! Finished. Of course no one buys it but we can subsidize it and with the solar and the wind we also get it thanks to subsidies. The development will always go as far as it must so that one remains in the profit zone. Hydrogen still has potential, but actually it is already exhausted if it were not for the steel industry and the automotive industry, which still see a chance to keep their hydrogen-based systems alive. The resulting economies of scale help with development. Let's be honest, the most effective variant would be bicycles, where we can even save all the development and follow-up costs. Just like the progress that would be politically efficient again see North Korea. But let's stay with electricity and the brownouts and the blackouts and the controllability of natural disasters yes electricity is of course the way out of all our problems. Fukushima happened, by the way, because ultimately there was no electricity for the cooling pumps. You can think about that even further but the topic is much too complex to explain the point of view.
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@KleinviehmachtMist I fully agree with you about nuclear energy, and it's a shame that no further research was done there. In mobility, there will be no getting around a phase of diversity for the time being, but for me, hydrogen is out of the question in individual transportation. Together with the disadvantages for small vehicles, there is already too much invested elsewhere. Even Toyota is slowly realizing this.
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