Hydrogen Fuel Cells are "Fool Cells"

Look, I don't think Elon Musk has a particularly admirable personality. And I don't know his reasons behind making this statement. I don't even know if he genuinely believes in a addressing the global climate problem, or if that is just a PR stunt to help increase his companies positions.

What I do believe however is that hydrogen fuel cells in cars is dumb idea.

As I've said in the past, this isn't to say that hydrogen has no future in the energy pipeline. To the contrary, I think it is a necessary component of phasing out fossil fuels. As a fuel source it has inherent benefits over many renewables in that once you have a source of it you can burn as much as you want whenever you need.

I can't make the sun shine or the wind blow to meet demand. And, while batteries are a major component to solving grid stability, it isn't really feasible or smart to try and make batteries large enough on a commercial scale to store 100% or more of the power we will ever need. It makes sense for renewables and batteries to be able to cover typical demands, but for consumable sources like hydrogen to feed the grid at peak.

Similarly, I don't think fossil fuels will disappear any time soon. However, they only make sense as a fuel source for our vehicles because of all of the existing infrastructure, experience and the cost. And when we started down this path, electric vehicles weren't even remotely feasible.

Now that EVs ARE feasible, creating anything which requires a sole source engine to convert fuel to energy is a waste of time. Perhaps the sole exception would be at commercial scale. We're already seeing that it may be feasible to create EV transport trucks. But, hydrogen for planes or boats may make sense while batteries play catch up. Hydrogen for consumer vehicles is idiotic. 

It is a move which is diverting funds and research away from a tech which is destined to replace it.

It took decades to build up the oil and gas infrastructure that supports ICE vehicles. It is a long and costly process with its own ecological impacts. So, while technology has advanced, it will still take years to produce a hydrogen infrastructure. And, just as with fossil fuels, we are likely to be better able to produce hydrogen at scale more effectively than on an individual level. So, it simply makes more sense to leverage the electrical grid, which is much closer to being able to support EVs than the hydrogren infrastructure is at supporting HFC vehicles.

So, we SHOULD invest tons of money in hydrogen. But, we should invest it in producing large scale hydrogen power plants and integrating those with the grid.

The reason EVs are the dominant option among the current ones in the market is that the infrastructure already exists at some scale basically everywhere and it doesn't tie consumers and the economy to a single fuel source. If your region gets an abundance of sun and has large tracts of unused land you can power vehicles efficiently with solar. But, if you perhaps get more wind, maybe a larger share comes from wind, or geothermal, or nuclear or hydrogen.

If you invest in HFCVs, then you NEED hydrogen fuel. And you NEED it EVERYWHERE. And if we find issues with that fuel source or find something better, we need to throw out all of that infrastructure and start again.

The pains we're seeing in economy in the oil and gas industry is not a risk we should be intentionally exposing ourselves to. We should be developing industry around technologies that make sense, and WHERE they make sense.

The issues with EV batteries are being addressed at a pace of development only rivalled by our quest for a COVID-19 vaccine. In 10 years, any benefit of running a vehicle directly from hydrogen rather than simply having hydrogen supply the grid will be rendered moot. And the infrastructure likely STILL won't be even where the EV infrastructure is today.