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KennyBlanken | 8 days ago
Efficiency pumping your excess solar into the EV itself is more like 80-85%, most of which is loss in the electronics, not the battery - those typically have a coulombic efficiency of over 95%.
Hydrogen a boondoggle. It's not nearly as stupid as making ethanol from corn (which is an energy-negative process) but it's close.
Also, "gas fitter and metal fabrication" experience isn't worth anything unless it was hydrogen-specific. It is far leakier than natural gas/propane. One of the biggest hassles of a hydrogen fuel chain is that the stuff leaks through everything.
Ray20|7 days ago
In fact, even this level of efficiency may be sufficient. Solar panels are so cheap that if we had affordable, long-term energy storage options, even with such efficiency, we would have completely abandoned fossil fuels. But, unfortunately, storing hydrogen is difficult and dangerous. It is not like natural gas.
> It's not nearly as stupid as making ethanol from corn (which is an energy-negative process) but it's close.
Ethanol is produced from corn not for energy purposes, but for food security. It's like a placeholder for real corn so that if there's a crop failure for a couple of years, the low-iq idiots who think it's stupid to make ethanol from corn don't starve to death.
marcosdumay|7 days ago
Meat usually does that stabilizing. Fuel consumption not even is almost completely inelastic, but corn ethanol on the US is subsidized on every stage to the point that market forces become meaningless.
mrks_hy|7 days ago
Source? First time I read this, might make sense. Although I don't see how this corn should be unaffected by crop failure if all other corn harvests failed.
crote|7 days ago
No, it's done to subsidize (bribe) farmers. Food security is merely the excuse used to sell it to the non-farmer voters.