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Originally Posted by 5.M0NSTER
There, you just summarized my whole problem with EVs. Sure, they don’t make any emissions. But the coal or NG power plants charging them do in spades.
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Those types of energy generation facilities are being gradually replaced with less polluting ones just like combustion vehicles are gradually being replaced with cleaner, more efficient ones. But you're right - we shouldn't single out hydrogen production as non-clean when the same applies to dozens of other processes used to obtain, refine, and deliver raw materials needed to produce and assemble vehicles as well as the various types of energy that power them.
Indeed that's why there are also efforts to create liquid hydrogen using clean energy. This will address much of the hand flailing that currently occurs when hydrogen production is discussed. Sure, that still leaves the fact that it is say (for the sake of argument) only about 1/3 as efficient as using the electricity to power vehicles or homes (or whatever else) directly. But who cares? If I want my windmill farm to waste 2/3 of their potential producing liquid hydrogen instead of powering a city, that's my prerogative. It's exactly this reason that hydrogen cannot be guaranteed to be the dead end that many people believe, and it's also why shorting the entire hydrogen sector on the basis that "But it's not green!" would be a very bad move right now. Hey, maybe the whole thing does go bust eventually. Who knows? But I dare you to bet against it, right?
Why though, in my right mind, would I waste my windmill farm or solar grid on such nonsense, you might be quick to ask? Because somebody somewhere might be willing to pay me three times as much for that hydrogen to offset the difference for the privilege of being able to refuel their trucks or boats or machines in minutes instead of charging them in hours. On the other hand, no sum of money is going to enable you to charge their batteries at comparable speeds, especially at that scale.