The problem with hydrogen has always been that it solves a really stupid problem - requiring a 1:1 replacement for oil in terms of energy density, refuel/recharge speed etc, you'll never find a...
The problem, as always, was that physics and economics refused to read the press releases. Hydrogen as an energy vector is spectacularly inefficient. Green hydrogen eats up huge volumes of clean electricity, with two-thirds of the energy disappearing between generation and final use.
The problem with hydrogen has always been that it solves a really stupid problem - requiring a 1:1 replacement for oil in terms of energy density, refuel/recharge speed etc, you'll never find a better solution to the status quo than oil because that's why we use oil in the first place. We're oilworld. There's a reason why in engineering/management the first step is always "identify the problem".
The solution to oil is really simple. Ask "if oil had never existed and we'd never built our society around it in the first place, what technology would we be using?" and then go build that.
To be fair, I expect the answer would be horses sticking around way longer than the current timeline (and I don't imagine horse farms coming back in 2025), but small electric vehicles (with approximately 1 horsepower) are fairly cheap and some sort of battery-swapping is quite viable at that scale, in circumstances where we really need it. Except in modern society, modern cars have made horses (organic or electric) illegal due to speed limits also being speed minimums - in a 60KM/h speed zone (~40MPH), you're usually legally prohibited from driving slower than 30KM/h. So we can't incrementally go backwards unless cars lose their primacy.
The problem with hydrogen has always been that it solves a really stupid problem - requiring a 1:1 replacement for oil in terms of energy density, refuel/recharge speed etc, you'll never find a better solution to the status quo than oil because that's why we use oil in the first place. We're oilworld. There's a reason why in engineering/management the first step is always "identify the problem".
The solution to oil is really simple. Ask "if oil had never existed and we'd never built our society around it in the first place, what technology would we be using?" and then go build that.
To be fair, I expect the answer would be horses sticking around way longer than the current timeline (and I don't imagine horse farms coming back in 2025), but small electric vehicles (with approximately 1 horsepower) are fairly cheap and some sort of battery-swapping is quite viable at that scale, in circumstances where we really need it. Except in modern society, modern cars have made horses (organic or electric) illegal due to speed limits also being speed minimums - in a 60KM/h speed zone (~40MPH), you're usually legally prohibited from driving slower than 30KM/h. So we can't incrementally go backwards unless cars lose their primacy.