Battery Insiders Reflection - Hydrogen VS Batteries

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights in the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. And we are back, back to another Battery Insiders session. And today we're talking about hydrogen versus batteries. One of these topics I feel like people keep asking me about. It's one of these topics. Yes, agreed. Everyone wants to know hydrogen, hydrogen. Okay. Okay. So as you just said, it's going to be a using session. And this week, we're very fortunate to have Marie von Zin, a guard with us, talking about this topic. And, you know, she has so much knowledge on this because she, quick reference, she did her PhD on batteries in Switzerland, then a postdoc in France on batteries. But now she actually leads a hydrogen initiative in Switzerland. So she has seen it from both sides in a fun way. And yeah, interesting enough, I feel most people move from hydrogen to batteries. At least that's my experience, my personal one as well, but also my friends.

1:06But of course, there's also people moving around. And I think we actually discussed maybe what could be some of the reasons people tend to move between both fields. But I don't want to spoil it in this reflection and listen to the full session. And what are your thoughts on hydrogen versus batteries, Fabia? Well, we, yes, first off, absolutely, a thousand percent true. Every time I mention I work in or have an interest even in batteries, someone asks, but what about hydrogen? It is, I wouldn't even say up and coming, you know, people like Marie Francine are working on it. It's an interesting option for electricity. And given the existing pipeline structures that exist, at least here in the U.S., there's been a lot of conversation. I actually recently saw that I think in the state of Mississippi, we're anticipating one of the largest hydrogen plants just simply because the pipeline infrastructure already exists. That's such a huge cost, at least initially. And so, you know, it's coming up as a huge and very like, I mean, if you're talking about competition, I think it's going to, it could give batteries for their money, but that's just my two cents right now.

2:22What do you think? Yeah, I think it's, you know, it's, as you said, it's something which comes up a lot. I think for personal mobility, I think, you know, it's quite clear what's happening. You know, we can see that essentially all OEMs, et cetera, are moving to battery powered. I mean, even hydrogen carbide still has a battery. So I think there's the hydrogen ladder, something I spoke about from Michael Liebreich or something in the session, you know, which shows quite clearly, you know, we want to conserve the hydrogen for the pressures, for the things we cannot essentially electrify. So things like, you know, fertilizers, one of them, you know, like green steel and things like that. But like for personal transportation, I think there's, yeah, it doesn't really make too much sense. And that's for a few reasons, one of the efficiency, you know, you need, if you go from renewable energies back to like through the hydrogen route, through the electric car, essentially, you know, you need three times the renewable energies compared to if you go the battery route, right?

3:18Just battery only. So you need much more renewable energies, about three times. That's a big challenge to already get it done once. But then also, of course, infrastructure problems, how to get the hydrogen everywhere and things like that. And maybe there's some, you know, application for trucks and things like that could be interesting. So I think in this case, you know, it's quite clear where it stands, I feel. But I mean, there's still, you know, big, big applications for it, you know, as I mentioned, green steel, things like that, fertilizers and quite a few more. So there's definitely application. But I think what's important to realize is that, you know, there's a limit to it. Same, there's a limit to batteries, right? You won't use batteries, at least we cannot foresee it in any time soon that you have like long range planes with batteries, right? It wouldn't make sense. So I think that's just important, right, to have an honest conversation. I think one thing also I think is important to realize, you know, who's interested maybe that there's hydrogen versus batteries, but maybe also who's interested there's batteries versus hydrogen, right?

4:17I think there's always different motivation. It can be, you know, if you look at supply chains again, you look at materials, you know, where the material is coming from, if you think about who can benefit from using a fuel, you know, based kind of economy where you need fuel stations, who benefits from that, who benefits from that, all the pipes and all the, you know, the current like gas infrastructure is used. So there's a lot of different like, you know, also interest groups, you can say, and all of them, of course, trying to move it in their favor. And that's, I think, has been a bit of an issue where we have seen some of these discussions have been a bit biased more on the interest group rather than on the science or maybe what makes sense from an environmental standpoint, which is, of course, what we care about in the end. Do you have any more thoughts on this, Mavia? Absolutely. And that's why we have Marie Francine's in the world to help us keep our focus.

5:08Um, yeah, and I think as we see many, like, you know, the Biden administration announced its commitment to going 50% electric by 2050. Um, other companies, other countries have done the same. It, when I hear about these new technologies coming into play, I'm like, okay, where does, what, does this change anything? Are we still focused only on batteries? Is high hydrogen's the next thing? Like, should we be focusing on that instead? Um, I think it's, it becomes then like supply and demand, right? Like buyers will, will drive the kind of drive the market as well. OEMs have an opportunity to do that too. But I hear a lot about hydrogen vehicles, but I don't see, I don't hear as much about like big, big auto really buying into that quite yet. And I feel like they're still figuring out the battery, um, uh, the battery technology for their own cars and, you know, increasing performance. So I think it all just kind of speaks to how fast things are moving in this, in this space.

6:09And, you know, it's just kind of a question of keep up if you can, I don't know. Like it's a bit interesting, uh, to find ourselves here going between hydrogen versus batteries when everybody has some goal of becoming electric in like the next, I don't know, 10 to 20, 30 years. Yeah. But I think at the same time, also it's important to realize, right. I mean, you cannot develop everything, right. I think hydrogen has been tried for, for personal, you know, transport for, for a long time. Um, they have run into challenges and I think it's also important to kind of identify what makes more sense. Um, and I think we have seen, you know, a couple of companies trying to do both. Most of them now fully go into a battery because they realize just from the efficiency standpoint, from a infrastructure point and things like that, it didn't make the sense. So I think it's also important that actually the, the resources are focused, but yeah, who knows, right.

6:56How things are developing. It can also be another technology, right. And it's, it's, you know, it's, it's all possible and things are moving fast, but I think at least from a personal transport standpoint, I'd be very confused if it wouldn't go the way how, how things make sense from a scientific standpoint and from a practical standpoint. Absolutely. Oh, more on batteries next week. As per usual. Sounds good. See you then. Bye-bye. Talk to you then. Bye.