• grue@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Hydrogen (if we must) for everything above 10k, until we have batteries with weight to performance ratios that can support trucking with electric.

    Hydrogen is even dumber than ethanol.

    The better solution is to minimize the number of vehicles that need to be long-range and self-powered in the first place by aggressively improving rail infrastructure (including electrifying it), and then run the bit that’s left on biodiesel sourced from waste feedstocks.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I mean I only begrudgingly support hydrogen, because in theory, it can be produced by renewables and we do need something more energy dense for things that move heavy things.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        The trouble is, hydrogen is really bad at being energy-dense, requiring either cryogenics or dangerously-high pressures to fit enough in an automotive-gas-tank-sized space.

        Frankly, if you want to insist using hydrogen, the best thing to do with it would be to react it with CO2 to make synthetic gasoline and use it in the internal-combustion engines and gas stations we already have.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            Not in a car, you don’t. You’re thinking of proposals to store large amounts of it at rest in former salt mines, but that doesn’t help you actually use it in a vehicle.