I'm flattered but it's not my industry, I only am part of it on the advocacy and research side, though I have been accused of being a disgruntled employee by our publicly owned utility OPG, so you aren't the first to assume I work in the industry, lol.
OK, let's dumb this down a bit if you don't mind?
- The hydrogen infrastructure doesn't exist to produce hydrogen, by any means, to power a vehicles at scale. Current methane reformation methods, which run on methane, produce something like 95% of the world's hydrogen, most of which is used BY THE OIL INDUSTRY, as it's a useful and often necessary component for various processes.
- Currently, the lack of hydrogen supply is a BIGGER issue than the lack of electricity. Because we have a massive amount of generation and transmission infrastructure in place already, even if it's not sufficient, at present, to handle millions of EV's, it's already much, MUCH further along than what would be required for hydrogen, which anecdotal examples about there being no hydrogen filling stations, anywhere, in many states as noted earlier in the thread illustrates.
Why?
We use electricity. All of us. We are using it right now. When was the last time you handled pure hydrogen? We don't, people don't handle hydrogen; consumers don't handle hydrogen and the world's supply of hydrogen isn't in any way setup for that to be the case. We don't have sufficient production capacity, transport capacity, handling capacity...etc. There are serious challenges, and, as noted, the whole process is insanely lossy!
There's a massive difference between approving a few big power plants along with Uncle Elon adding some more charging stations vs building DOUBLE the amount of those power plants (see the previous stack of losses as to why), then massive hydrogen production and compression facilities, then you have to transport (truck?) it, and it's far less dense than gasoline/diesel and requires special tanks and it leaks and so you end up with a massive increase in truck traffic trying to move this stuff around, and then you have huge risks with consumers handling THOUSANDS of psi of highly dangerous invisible gas. You can't pump your own propane most locations, how do you think that compares to hydrogen?
These are HUGE challenges and warrant discussion if we are to have any sort of reasonable and balanced dialogue on the matter.
I think you underestimate how convinced the general public is on "climate goals". The line currently being sold is "green" hydrogen, which means electrolysis. Since there isn't any excess methane reformation capacity either, we are starting from scratch regardless of which way this goes but the push right now, is the fantasy that it'll be produced with surplus VRE, which is totally nuts, and introduces more expense because you then have that infrastructure to pay for, lol. And then it's supposed to not impose efficiency challenges running it intermittently? LMAO!! It's a giant joke.
As I've said previously, it's insane to push hydrogen fuel cells running on hydrogen produced from methane, using methane, when you can just run a fuel cell on methane, which is easier to handle, we already have the infrastructure in place for, doesn't require insane levels of compression...etc. But that would make too much sense. With hydrogen, you can claim it isn't a fossil fuel, while hand waving away the fact that it came from one, in a process that was also powered by one
Yes, this is the direct result of moronic political policies and taking control away from the engineers and operators and giving these decisions to politicians, who are then heavily influenced by advocacy groups who are also clueless about what keeps the grid running.
It's certainly interesting to watch. BEV's are "easy" and that has allure to the industry. When you start thinking of cars like laptops, phones and tablets, this starts to make sense.