this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
34 points (94.7% liked)

Aotearoa / New Zealand

1658 readers
11 users here now

Kia ora and welcome to !newzealand, a place to share and discuss anything about Aotearoa in general

Rules:

FAQ ~ NZ Community List ~ Join Matrix chatroom

 

Banner image by Bernard Spragg

Got an idea for next month's banner?

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Dave
RaoulDuke
34
Hydrogen trucks are coming (www.nzherald.co.nz)
submitted 7 months ago by rimu@piefed.social to c/newzealand
44 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hiringa, with partners fuel supplier Waitomo Group and Australasia’s largest heavy vehicle fleet owner TR Group, on Tuesday opened three green hydrogen stations, with a fourth under way, within the North Island’s economic “golden triangle” of freight movement.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] absGeekNZ 3 points 7 months ago

This is hydrogens main problem.

It just costs so much more to make it.

There are some places in the world where it can be drilled for, eliminating some of the costs of production, but then you have to store and transport it. Hydrogen can't be stored easily (just big metal tanks), it requires pressure vessels made of exotic composites to reduce leakage, or worse cryogenic tanks that take a constant energy supply to stay cold.

Unlike nitrogen which we store as a liquid easily at industrial scales, hydrogen would be a nightmare to liquefy and store as any kind of scale. Nitrogen is liquid at -77 C, put it into a big metal tank and you are happy. Hydrogen is liquid at 20K (-253 C), metals are (mostly) to brittle at this temperature to be safely used. So exotic composites are required again to make cryogenic storage tanks.

The energy required to liquefy hydrogen is ridiculous, taking something to 20K is difficult and energy intensive.

I could go on, but beyond very specific use-cases hydrogen is a non-starter from a cost perspective.