this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
196 points (99.0% liked)

World News

51843 readers
2817 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Nick@mander.xyz 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

In the US at least, I really don't see hydrogen ever taking off. Even in California, there's so few stations that you can't really travel from the top of the state to the bottom without going out of your way. The hydrogen fuel stations that are in place are even more expensive than they were a few years ago, if they're still functioning at all. We're talking like $180 USD for the equivalent of a tank of gas, at stations that aren't as convenient as a gas station or an outlet at home. It's even the subject of a lawsuit, which may or may not be successful.

It seems like hydrogen has already lost the race for the rest of the world, with BEV adoption growing substantially in Europe and China. Personally I wouldn't want my market to rely on solely Japan and a US headed by someone blatantly antagonistic to alternative fuels.

[–] LordMayor@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

My impression is that much of the world is more positive on hydrogen than the USA. Toyota seems to be slow-walking EVs in anticipation of hydrogen breakthroughs. Mist of what you say about fuel stations could have been said about charging infrastructure not that long ago.

[–] Nick@mander.xyz 5 points 1 week ago

I'm definitely open to being wrong about the world's impression of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, but I'm not sure it's borne out in the data. Europe doesn't seem to be adapting it anywhere near the rate at which they've adopted BEVs (I couldn't find a 2025 report in my cursory search, but would love to see one if anyone else finds it), nor does China, which is all in on BEVs. In fact, it seems like California may have more hydrogen fuel cell vehicles alone than all of Europe combined. That's two of the major markets accounted for, but it might be possible to convince the US to adopt hydrogen when they decide they no longer want to be left in the past.

I'm not sure the infrastructure build out for hydrogen is directly comparable to the charging infrastructure for BEVs. At least some segment of the population has access to charging infrastructure just by virtue of having access to an outlet at their homes, which allows for trickle charging, as well as the option to install a dedicated charger at home that allows for much cheaper charging that's also fast enough to charge from 0-100 overnight, so no need to stop at a fuel station at all. This meant that there were people who were willing to adopt the technology through the growing pains. With hydrogen, you run into a bit of a chicken and the egg problem where companies aren't encouraged to expand infrastructure without adoption rates being high enough and consumers aren't itching to purchase a vehicle where fuel is more expensive and less convenient to access. The refuel card incentives were supposed to get consumers over that hump, but it doesn't seem like it was anywhere near enough. I think the conditions were ripe for an emergent technology to eventually replace ICE vehicles, but hydrogen fueled vehicles were on the back foot to begin with.

[–] Arkouda@lemmy.ca -5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The fact that Hydrogen, the most readily available element in the Universe, is not our primary fuel source demonstrates how ignorant the majority of people on the planet are. If everyone knew, they would look at any other energy source as a complete waste of resources and demand better.

[–] Nick@mander.xyz 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hydrogen is a major fuel source, just not in the form that's necessary to power hydrogen fuel cell cars. Regular gas vehicles are powered by hydrogen, since they're a component of gasoline. Any energy generated by liquified natural gas (though I hate the term) is using hydrogen as a fuel source. It's not exactly easy to create, liquify, store, and transport pure elemental hydrogen for use in hydrogen fuel cell cars, let alone the cost to develop all the infrastructure to do so. I don't think it's a collective action problem, and if we were going to rally around a singular transportation issue, I think it'd be far more valuable to demand robust public transit options.