Coal power Volt vs. Gas power Prius

The early FCV's didn't have batteries. Toyota is a relative late comer to the FCV scene, Hyundai is too. None of the early designs had batteries... now they all do. The hydrogen plots up there aren't stellar and how realistic is the biomass option? It'd be cheaper to put solar panels on your roof and power your EV that way than buy a FCV. That's as close to zero emissions as you can get.

 

You probably want to move this to anouther thread. That is unless you think we should wait for a hydrogen charging infrastructure before going for phevs and you really think this is pertinent.

hydrogen does have some potential uses
Hydrogen on Track - IEEE Spectrum

We have two plug in FCHV busses in austin mainly for research and education purposes. It serves as a good back drop for politicians to learn about the benefits and draw backs. The last toyota prototype I looked at had a 30 mile battery in it, when all the hydrogen hype dies down we all expect vehicles like that to include a plug. I suspect the plug is not there now to try to pretend that hydrogen is cleaner than electricity so it deserves a larger subsidy. These vehicles are and will continue to be leased and maybe sold at a huge loss to try to build support to build a massively expensive hydrogen infrastructure. I am not against the infrastructure, only the push and timing that removes money from more important projects. CNG for a car will will pump out 2x to 3x the ghg as reformed and used in a fuel cell directly, but less ghg than if the natural gas was used to generate electricity and then it was used to generate hydrogen to power the car.

Like many pretty graphs used to sell CARB and then CARB to sell president Bush on massive investment for hydrogen. The chart is more informative for what it leaves out than what it says.

First is the fact that if hydrogen is created from renewable electricity it takes 4 times the electricity to create and pressurize it as it would to just make the electricity available to a PHEV or BEV. Now 4x0 is still 0, but if the electricity is generatated by other means you must multiply that carbon footprint. The chart does not account for this, and most of us suspect a large portion of a nation wide charging network would be from electricity not natural gas reformation. If only 25% of charging stations are electric then the ghg footprint will be similar for hydrogen and electrified (BEV or PHEV). More of the hydrogen network would make hydrogen correspondingly more dirty and more expensive.

The next item up for bid is reformation. You should not expect that a massive reformation infrastructure should go only to hydrogen refueling stations but electrified cars will not benefit from what is added to the grid. If you add combined cycle natural gas and wind the grid tofuel electrified cars the marginal will be similar to a hydrogen car, but the same dollars will reduce the overall carbon foot print of the country more as this power generation will also be cleaner supplying residential, commercial, and industrial customers with electricity.