RegGuheert wrote:GRA wrote:the contrary, I've corrected your inacccurate statements, and have also pointed out Ed's inaccurate claim, so what exactly am I supposed to apologize for?
You haven't *corrected* anything. You've supported the most damaging vehicle technology on the planet. Ed's claim is accurate, whether you believe it or not.
Ed stated an opinion, and your opinion that he is correct is just that. The expensive and time-consuming efforts taken by government and industry to determine whether or not sustainable H2/FCEVs can be made commercially viable will determine whether or not that is impossible, as opposed to expensive and difficult, just as they've done with BEVs.
RegGuheert wrote:GRA wrote:And as I've pointed out repeatedly, efficiency is rarely the sole or most important metric. If it were, fossil-fueled ICEs wouldn't have defeated BEVs a century ago, and you would be commuting on a 30 lb. bicycle instead of a several thousand pound car. Costs and operational capabilities have outweighed efficiency for powered vehicles for the past 100+ years, and it's entirely possible that they will continue to do so. We'll see. The day that the most energy-efficient transportation technology is also the best in many other important ways is a day we can all hope we'll live to see, but as long as there are important conflicting requirements, that day is likely a long way away.
A bicycle does not have the same utility as a car, so you are again committing a non sequitur fallacy.
On the contrary, you prove my point. You agree that energy efficiency isn't the sole and usually not even the primary consideration when choosing a transportation mode, in fact it's often well down the list of priorities. Don't want a bicycle because it's slow? Ride an electric bike, scooter, or motorcycle. Oh, but you can only carry one other person, you're not weather protected or climate controlled, you're less stable than a 3 or four wheeled vehicle so more prone to accidents, you're not surrounded by a few thousand pounds of material that serves to protect you from those accidents, if you want to carry any substantial amount of cargo you need to haul a trailer etc. Where does energy efficiency fall in this list?
RegGuheert wrote:Low efficiency solutions can ONLY win if there is extra energy sloshing around in the system. But there is NOT extra electricity sloshing around to waste on making H2 gas. We need to conserve every single Wh of it in order to move toward the future. The promotion of H2 as a fuel just ensures that we will continue to be tied to fossil fuels, fossil fuel companies and their fuel pumps for the foreseeable future.
No, there is no virtue to be found in H2 FCVs. We need to stop this ill-conceived effort in its tracks. I have no desire to ever live in the dystopian world which you would choose.
Which is why we need to explore methods of making H2 that don't require electricity. This is being done. Of course, we do have extra electricity sloshing around now when renewables are in excess and have to be curtailed, but if we build enough expensive interties we can avoid most of the problems from that. Even so, we still need some cheap mass energy storage to replace fossil fuels, and unless/until batteries can supply that, we need to explore other options.
As to dystopian, the world we live in now is dystopian; probably they all are.