AA5B@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Looking forward to the upcoming Toyota announcement that they believe in the future of hydrogen more than ever
They also recently announced an anhydrous ammonia engine.
They really really don’t want to do an electric car. Anhydrous ammonia is insanely toxic. You ever spill a like a few drops of gas at the pump and get it on your pants or shoe? Annoying but not a big deal. Do that with anhydrous ammonia and you’ll be in the hospital.
It can also be used to make methamphetamine.
Erm…so…the need to speed, for speed, by speed precursor?
Going to guess this will not change their goal of 200k hydrogen vehicles by 2030. They currently have about 14k out on roads.
jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 10 months ago
Toyota, and Japan as a whole, are in a tricky situation with their electric grid. It’s been developed separately by nine different companies in each region; the southern regions use 60 Hz supply cycles, where-as the northern regions (including Tokyo Electric) use 50 Hz. Add to this the populations reluctance for nuclear power after Fukushima, and you get a very fragile supply grid with limited capacity. Toyota is gunning hard for Hydrogen because Japan itself can’t support EVs and for some reason it doesn’t want to/can’t manufacture both.
zurohki@aussie.zone 10 months ago
Okay, but if they don’t have the electricity for EVs they definitely don’t have enough electricity to waste 2/3 of it turning it into hydrogen and back.
Geobloke@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Over 75% of Japanese energy is imported under current circumstances and they have a reluctance to use geothermal for social and economic reasons. Wind is another good choice but they’re restricted in where they can deploy it by social and economic concerns
doctorcrimson@lemmy.today 10 months ago
And this is the same country that wanted to mine cobalt off the nearby ocean floor a decade ago. What a strange world.
NoRodent@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I mean yeah, but on the other hand with hydrogen you have much more control over when and where you use the electricity. You can transport it by pipes or by trucks/ships without overwhelming the electric grid.
zurohki@aussie.zone 10 months ago
You can do off-peak charging with EVs too, that’s not a magical hydrogen thing. My hot water system is on its own circuit which can be turned off by the power company whenever they need to cut demand, providers have been doing that sort of thing for decades.
nexusband@lemmy.world 10 months ago
The electricity for Hydrogen isn’t bound to any place. If they put up 10 offshore wind turbines exclusively for Hydrogen, that hydrogen can be shipped around the country as needed and wanted. That’s not possible with Grid power and especially not when they have different systems in place.
zurohki@aussie.zone 10 months ago
Transporting energy isn’t possible with grid power? Really? That’s what grids are for.
Yes, they have the issue of separate incompatible grids, but building complicated interconnects is still going to be easier than building and operating a hydrogen trucking industry.
AA5B@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I’m not sure I buy that. Yes, their electrical grid is a mismatched nightmare, that they should have taken the hit on decades ago. However I see that small chargers for things like phones can adjust to pretty much any electrical grid: why shouldn’t we expect the charger in the car to be equally flexible? Either way, it’s converting to DC
jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 10 months ago
My main point was about capacity, and how the separate grid(s?) hinder attempts to add the capacity needed for EVs. I wasn’t really clear on that though. mb
Brkdncr@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I thought auto ranging power supplies were typically for voltage but not frequency.
AA5B@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Every one I’ve seen gives ranges like 100-240v ac, at 50-60 Hz.
Then electrical grids are large complex systems defined in analog days and subject to variances for weather, usage, distances, etc, so they also need to support that variability