A great way to slow down transport electrification is to promote alternatives to stall unification around standards.
Even if hydrogen turns out to be a better technology in the long term, unifying around a single standard for now is the best path to getting off fossil carbon. Not surprising that AB conservatives are promoting distractions.
Plug-in EVs don’t really make sense for people who live in apartments, condos, or renters of any kind (why commit to an expensive car you might not be able to charge at your next house?). Hydrogen EVs will work basically the same as a gasoline car.
I really don’t think this is a nefarious move by the government to keep gas cars on the road, but is just trying to keep the oil industry relevant when we don’t have gas cars.
This message is brought to you in part by: PetroCanada, Suncore, BP and your federal government!
Speaking personally, charging ports are a very high priority for our next apartment. Most places are either already in progress or planning to.
Edit: although we did just give up our car so it’s less of a priority now. Might be in future though.
In my experience renting, I didn’t really get to pick and choose features but was mostly just stuck with whatever crummy apartment I could afford and actually get in a city with <1% vacancy.
Solving the housing crisis would be a huge step in moving forward on plug-in EVs tbh.
Even if hydrogen turns out to be a better technology
Just one frackin’ minute.
Hydrogen will only be a better technology when its storage density is greatly increased. It’ll require an actual breakthrough in chemistry. I hope it happens and I support research funding towards that goal but I don’t think we can plan policy around something like that.
Battery cars were at one point an alternative to diesel or ethanol cars. The problem with green tech is that it is very new and there can be no set standard.
What are you talking about? Not only there can be a standard, there has been a standard for a decade now and automakers are investing hundreds of billions into their BEV roadmaps along with their current production. At this point in time and for the foreseeable future, BEV is the standard.
That is just wishful thinking from people who want a BEV monopoly. In reality, the whole thing is a giant experiment and could fail.
The only way it would fail is if there is a major breakthrough in hydrogen storage technology in which case the existing gas station model would remain viable. Calling the transition to BEVs wishful thinking makes absolutely no sense at this stage of the game.
Headline is a lie. The plan for hydrogen that these people want isn’t made by electric cracking from water, but is made by extracting it from natural gas, which releases CO2. They have a fantasy of being able to carbon-capture it.
You know why you haven’t heard much about this tech?
Because nobody does it. It’s not economical. It’s worthless. It only exists to greenwash the natural gas industry, and so anti-environmentalist petrochemical-industry chuds can claim they don’t hate they environment, they just hate battery tech and the magic technology fairy will make this alternative work with them.
You’re talking about BLUE hydrogen (which is also what the fossil fuel industry is trying to hawk). Blue/grey/brown hydrogen is pointless, but GREEN hydrogen is perfectly emission-free as long as the original source of the energy is emission-free. The reason people don’t hear about it is because of concentrated major media ownership, most likely.
Whenever someone talks about hydrogen fuel cells, it’s best to always check if they’re talking about the green kind, specifically.
For all intents and purposes, green hydrogen basically doesn’t exist.
As of 2021, green hydrogen accounted for less than 0.04% of total hydrogen production.[6] Its cost relative to hydrogen derived from fossil fuels is the main reason green hydrogen is in less demand.[7] For example, hydrogen produced by electrolysis powered by solar power was about 25 times more expensive than that derived from hydrocarbons in 2018.[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_hydrogen
emphasis mine.
