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Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _hypx on Monday July 31, 2023 @12:53PM (#36945432)
It will make sense for nearly all transportation that can’t be directly electrified. The problem with batteries is that it is a massive resource hog, and one that is fundamentally unsustainable. It will have be abandoned. The only alternatives are ideas like synfuels or ammonia, but those require green hydrogen production anyways.
Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _aavaa_ on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:04PM (#36945625)
They are not the only alternative.

Ammonia (a toxic gas) as a fuel is an insane idea and will lead to needless deaths.

Efuels are incredibly inefficient. Hard to justify paying 10x the price.

Ammonia or synfuels are not the only alternative. The elephant in the room, the one fuel that is being used today is biofuel.

Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _hypx on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:30PM (#36946017)
BTW: Biofuels are ludicrously inefficient. Something like 1% of the solar energy actually ends up being usable at the end of the process. That’s not include all the other inputs like fertilizers or pesticides and the like. It is pretty resource intensive in reality. Which is why serious environmentalists reject them entirely.
Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _aavaa_ on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:31PM (#36946038)
Ah yes, No true environmentalist(TM).
Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _hypx on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:37PM (#36946115)
This is not the true Scotsman fallacy. Biofuels are an environmental disaster, full stop. Anyone who promotes biofuels is aggressively undermining environmental policy.
Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _hypx on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:07PM (#36945657)
Biofuels are not green. It is purely greenwashing since the production of biofuels is very carbon intensive. It is also very environmentally destructive since it takes a lot of farmland to produce.
Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _aavaa_ on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:10PM (#36945721)
Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _hypx on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:17PM (#36945823)
When they actually start producing that in any significant quantities, wake up me.
Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _aavaa_ on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:22PM (#36945895)
They will produce it as soon as it's economically viable to do so. Until then, (government subsidised) corn it is. Which some will call simply farming.
Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _hypx on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:24PM (#36945928)
Imagine thinking corn ethanol is even remotely a good idea…
Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _aavaa_ on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:29PM (#36946012)
I'd appreciate if you at least tried to keep a non-condescending tone.

I was merely stating why cellulosic ethanol is not the major source of biofuel; because corn is heavily subsidized and produces a cheaper product, hence nobody wants to buy the more expensive product.

That's not a technical problem, it's an economic one. And the subsidies where to change we would see less from corn and more from other sources.

Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _hypx on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:34PM (#36946079)
Government subsidized corn ethanol is an environmental disaster. If you hear it being brought up, you automatically assume the person is either confused or working for the corn lobby.

Cellulosic ethanol is any idea brought up as an alternative to the problems of corn ethanol. Ironically, by the George W. Bush administration. Unfortunately, nothing has materialized in any meaningful quantity.

And FYI, they’d be subsidizing it heavily if any meaningful quantity of cellulosic ethanol could be produced. So bringing up that part doesn’t mean much. But cellulosic ethanol production never happened and so far there is no reason to believe it is possible.

Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _aavaa_ on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:52PM (#36946332)
> And FYI, they’d be subsidizing it heavily if any meaningful quantity of cellulosic ethanol could be produced.

I'm not so sure. That would introduce competition for the corn ethanol, and there's a fairly large constituency (those having their corn production subsidised) that would oppose this kind of measure.

Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by _hypx on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:54PM (#36946362)
The corn lobby are huge advocates for cellulosic ethanol because it means corn stover could also be made into ethanol.
Re:BHP says battery electric cheaper than hydrogen as it dum... by SoftTalker on Monday July 31, 2023 @01:29PM (#36946009)
It probably sounds like a great idea if you are a senator or congressman from a midwestern state.