Using hydrogen fuel cells to DC Fast charge EVs

A containerized, EV charging solution that generates electricity via hydrogen fuel cells:

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/12/20191231-afc.html

https://www.afcenergy.com/products/hydrox-cell_l/

The Modular AFC Energy H-Power systems will be available in three standard configurations which can provide up to 100 charge points to a single site

Click to expand...

Seems like a much better use of hydrogen fuel cells vs powering cars with hydrogen fuel cells directly.

Since producing hydrogen makes a bunch of CO2 Just use a diesel powered Gen set.
If it makes too much noise use a bigger diesel engine, run it slower and put on a bigger muffler.
They say it fits in the iso container. I guess you get another container for the hydrogen?

They can run their machine on cracked ammonia, so N2 and H2 byproducts. Don't think there's any CO2 produced in that reaction.

This sounds promising too:

https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/ammonia-cracking-to-high-purity-hydrogen-for-pem-fuel-cells-in-denmark/

That's really pointless since hydrogen has to be made from natural gas so ammonia can be made from the hydrogen.
So make hydrogen, turn it into ammonia then turn it back into hydrogen?
Yeah use a diesel engine, assuming electrical or natural gas isn't available in the immediate area.

Didn't realise that's how they make ammonia. Thanks for clarifying. Are you a chemical engineer?

Anyways, out of curiosity, I did some reading on liberating hydrogen cheaply and without CO2 as a byproduct and found this:

https://www.maritime-executive.com/features/norwegian-team-discovers-cheaper-way-to-make-hydrogen-fuel

If this could be made to scale, then it looks like a better method of creating hydrogen gas.

I was always fascinated by chemistry and the oil industry, I actually had to read about it in books. Not only does the petrol chemical industry make all the hydrogen, they make ammonia, the reason why humanity is capable of making so much ammonia today is it sustains modern agriculture with synthetic fertilizer ammonium nitrate or anhydrous ammonia directory injected into the top soil.

The oil industry already possesses the most efficient and cheapest way to Crack hydrogen.
If there was some cheaper, greener, renewable method to make H if the oil industry doesn't invent it, they will scale it up to industrial levels.

Low temperature electrolysis is only viable if you have a huge surplus of electricity that you don't have any use for. This is one thing commercial nuclear power would be good for. Most reactor designs like to be ran at 90% to 100% for months at a time, they do not like to be stopped and restarted or ran at lower power level.

Low temperature electrolysis is only viable if you have a huge surplus of electricity that you don't have any use for. This is one thing commercial nuclear power would be good for

Click to expand...

Or nuclear fusion, when that eventually becomes commercially viable...

Thanks for the discussion and your insights, very interesting!

When I was a lad we were supposed to have commercial nuclear fusion by the year 2000 lol.