Quote:
Originally Posted by dan321
But if you are going to consider how hydrogen is produced don't you also have to consider how batteries are produced and their useful life?
|
Yes, absolutely. It is a complex problem and often leads to data manipulation by advocates of competing vehicle propulsion technologies such as BEV, FCEV, and even PHEV, in order to claim supremacy over one another.
It is important to recognize that, even if we were to assume for the sake of argument that we had a carbon-neutral raw material acquisition process, manufacturing process, and energy distribution system for both batteries and hydrogen fuel cells (and we further assume that the rest of the parts used in the vehicles employing these two technologies are for all intents and purposes equivalent), there are other factors to consider. For example, lithium mining which is obviously necessary for Li-ion batteries used in today's BEVs, even if it were carbon neutral, has other negative impacts on the environment. Hydrogen storage, on the other hand, which is necessary for near-term FCEV infrastructure, can involve a wide array of toxic chemicals.
It is one more reason that, for the time being anyway, these two types of EV technology can be thought of as complementary. There are valid use cases for both.