According to the "Nihon Keizai Shimbun" report, Nissan announced that it will terminate its plan to jointly develop fuel cell vehicles with Daimler and Ford Motor Co., and will concentrate energy and develop electric vehicles. Hydrogen fuel cell technology, which was once popular, has encountered development obstacles in its home country of Japan. Even Toyota is not sure whether hydrogen fuel cells will become popular in the future. Most car companies are focusing on strategic research and trial production to ensure that they do not fall behind in key technology areas. Disadvantages of hydrogen fuel cells
First of all, the storage and transportation of hydrogen is difficult: because hydrogen molecules are the smallest molecules, no matter how sealed the container is, it cannot guarantee that it will not leak slightly, and it can only control the amount of leakage to almost is zero and does not affect the application. But the cost involved is huge. The cost of pressure vessels is not low. I think relevant research materials suggest that high-pressure hydrogen tanks must be at least 35MPa. Toyota uses a 70MPa three-layer structure. In addition to pressure vessels, the requirements for gate valves and pipelines connected to hydrogen tanks are also much higher than those for other fuels. The service life is not clear, but the maintenance cost may be much higher.
Second, the cost of platinum metal catalysts increases: the commonly used metal catalyst raw materials for ternary lithium batteries are mainly nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) or nickel cobalt aluminum (NCA). In fact, the amount of cobalt used is Very few (occupancy rate is about 10), but now the price of cobalt has skyrocketed. The main reason is that the production volume of lithium batteries is huge, so even if the amount of cobalt used in individual batteries is very small, it cannot sustain too many batteries. So everyone is researching in the direction of cobalt-free batteries. In hydrogen fuel cells, I saw that some graduation papers are also studying metal catalysts to replace platinum. After all, platinum is too expensive, much more expensive than cobalt. This may be because the current usage is not large. If hydrogen fuel cells are mass-produced, then the price of platinum will go up.
Third, the cost of electricity is also high: for example, the calorific value of gasoline is 47.3MJ/Kg, the calorific value of natural gas (methane gas) is 78MJ/Kg, and the calorific value of hydrogen is 141.8MJ. /Kg, the current gasoline price is calculated according to 7 yuan per liter, 9.7 yuan per kilogram (calculated according to the relative density of 92 gasoline 0.725Kg/L), the natural gas price is based on the commercial gas price of 4.5 yuan per cubic meter, 6.25 yuan per kilogram (calculated according to Natural gas (calculated as 0.72Kg/m3), the price of hydrogen is 40 yuan per kilogram. Calculated according to the equivalent calorific value, the calorific value of gasoline costs 0.2 yuan per MJ, the calorific value of natural gas costs 0.08 yuan per MJ, and the calorific value of hydrogen per MJ is 0.08 yuan. The cost is 0.28 yuan. Note: Hydrogen fuel cells cannot actually be calculated based on the calorific value of combustion, but for the sake of comparison, the calorific value is taken here.
The advantages of hydrogen energy are basically limited to the fuel cell industry. In other industries, natural gas (CH4) can completely explode hydrogen energy. Producing 1 cubic meter of hydrogen requires 6.7-7.3 kilowatt hours of electricity, and each kilowatt hour of electricity emits about 0.785Kg of carbon emissions according to the standard. That is, the approximate carbon emissions of 1 cubic meter of hydrogen is 5.3Kg, while 1 cubic meter of hydrogen is only 90g. Natural gas is a primary energy source, and the entire process is a chemical change of organic matter. There is no carbon emission. The carbon emission per Kg when ignited is 2.04Kg, that is, the carbon emission per 90g of natural gas is 0.18Kg. The calorific value of 90g hydrogen is 12.8MJ, and the calorific value of 90g natural gas is 7MJ. Then the carbon emissions of hydrogen are 16 times that of natural gas at the same calorific value. Moreover, the temperature of vaporized hydrogen is lower than that of natural gas, and the storage and withdrawal time is shorter than that of natural gas. This means that the storage and transportation cost of hydrogen is higher than that of natural gas
Similarly, Ford also announced on June 13 that its fuel cell joint venture with Daimler in Burnaby, British Columbia, will be shut down in the summer of 2018. However, noisy business is inevitable, and there are busy breaking up. Here, Audi and Hyundai announced a patent cross-licensing document and will cooperate to develop hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Compared with the core technologies of pure electric vehicles, why have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles caused such great controversy internationally? To solve this problem, we must not only understand the technical problems and challenges of hydrogen fuel cells, but also understand the motivations behind the promotion of this technology by governments around the world. In fact, the biggest problem is simply that the main technical flaws and high costs cannot be promoted on a large scale.
In fact, there may be new technical products in the new energy fuel market that are not known by everyone. Today I will tell you about a new type of fuel that has a very good effect in the new energy fuel market-higher energy. Gather oil. It is a clean fuel produced from plant and mineral materials without any aldehydes. It is mainly suitable for domestic restaurants, schools, factories, canteen heaters, etc. It has a non-flammable and non-flammable ignition point and is non-flammable. The safety characteristics of dangerous goods are non-toxic, harmless, smokeless and odorless, and the ignition efficiency is comparable to traditional natural gas. Alcoholic fuels also have very good and outstanding types, with a calorific value of 10,000--13,000 calories, and are affordable and competitive. .
At present, due to safety and environmental issues regarding alcoholic fuels and natural gas fuels, my country’s regulatory policies have become increasingly tense, with many places promulgating strict bans and restrictions. Therefore, the brand advantage of new energy alcohol-free fuel is obvious. Now and in the foreseeable future, it will become an important product in the fuel market. Friends who have new energy fuel business plans may wish to learn about this new fuel product. Why doesn’t Japan produce hydrogen fuel cells?
Before and after World War II, without Toyota or Guangzhou Honda, Japan was the eldest son of Japan, and it was very strong. Then around 2000, Toyota and Guangzhou Honda also started to rise, and Japan was on the verge of bankruptcy. When Ghosn took over in 1999, Nissan Motor's operations were lax, inefficient, and poorly managed, with debts of US$17 billion. In contrast, Toyota's sales are not only booming, but the hybrid system THS released by Toyota two years ago also established its credibility.
The Japanese government also sides with Toyota and announced the national automobile industry policy: What Toyota has to do is to strengthen its advantages in hybrid technology, and what other Japanese automobile companies have to do is Learn about Toyota's hybrids. However, Ghosn was not the kind of person who wanted to admit defeat. He asked Nissan Motor to choose to go against the Japanese government: You asked me to learn hybrid power from Toyota, but I didn’t. Then it launched the largest-selling pure electric vehicle in the past: the Nissan LEAF.
In other words: If the number one Toyota vigorously promotes hybrid power, the pursuer Japan will choose another route, that is, pure electric vehicles. If the number one Toyota vigorously promotes hydrogen fuel cells, the pursuer Japan will choose other routes, namely Zero Emission Japanese pure electric, VC-Turbo super variable engine and e-POWER hybrid. It can be seen that Japan's choice to discontinue hydrogen fuel cells is a Japanese corporate strategy that obeys logic:
In terms of competitive strategy: pursuers must choose different core technologies. In terms of the company’s design style: Zero Emission Japanese pure electric, VC-Turbo super variable engine, and e-POWER hybrid power are all “big imagination” technologies; they do not follow the basic road, which is the design style of Japanese cars. , cannot be changed for a while. In terms of resource investment: we have also developed pure electric power, automobile engines, hybrid power, and hydrogen fuel cells, but they are indeed unstoppable. Therefore, Japan's discontinuation of hydrogen fuel cell development is probably a competitive strategy of Japan Automobile and cannot be used as an argument to deny the core technology of hydrogen energy. The hydrogen energy system covers source, grid and load storage
Using it for transportation is only a segmented industry, which does not mean that hydrogen fuel cells cannot be used. It can be said that hydrogen energy is an important component of the new energy system in the future. We cannot independently view the development trend of hydrogen fuel cells from the perspective of hydrogen energy vehicles. We must consider it in the context of the transformation and development of the energy system towards clean, low-carbon, environmentally friendly, safe and efficient development. Hydrogen fuel cells, like electromagnetic energy, belong to secondary energy, but as long as secondary energy is concerned, there will be four industries of "source, network, load and storage" that need to develop together.
Source: How is hydrogen produced? It includes green hydrogen from electrolysis of water and gray hydrogen from energy and chemical industries. Network: hydrogen pipeline network or liquid hydrogen high-pressure gas hydrogen transportation, hydrogenation stations, etc. Dutch: Customers, including hydrogen vehicles, chemical plants, steel metallurgical industry, etc. Storage: gas storage. Among the four industries here, only hydrogen fuel cell vehicles have closer contact with ordinary people, but this does not mean that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are not good and the hydrogen energy management system is not good.
Even hydrogen fuel cells are no longer needed in cars and can be enlarged. They can also be used as mobile power energy stations, combined heating, cooling and power generation, etc. All in all, hydrogen fuel cells are indeed a good direction from a product and technical perspective. As long as the recovery of all things is closely related and interconnected, human society is a large ecosystem of social animals, and the intermediate promotion and development of technology are also affected by the butterfly effect. I hope that this industry chain can be technologically upgraded and established as soon as possible.