Toyota is attemption to sell us the hydrogen car, a technology that has been called out for being a very stupid idea, primarily because the fuel cell is max 50% efficient and other reasons. But this video makes a mockery out of you, the viewer.
The idea presented is that if you make hydrogen out of manure this is a clean fuel. What the add doesn’t explain is the following:
1. Manure is not the source of the gas/energy
Manure can be used to make biogas, but what is digested in the biogas installation is usually not all manure, it is mainly (in holland legally up to 50%) argicultural waste/overproduction that contains sugars/starches, which are needed to make the gas. Not only gas is made but heat and other gasses. The manure contains very little sugar so it leaves the digester almost the same, minus the sugar.
2. Making hydrogen out of biogas means you emit CO2
The guy glosses over it quickly, but he mentions steam reforming of CH4 (methane) into H2 (Hydrogen). The two step proces goes something like this :
And
- CO + H2O ⇌ CO2 + H2
This leaves you with H2 and a lot of CO2, and a lot of heat. Of course a much better option is to burn the CH4 in the car’s engine, which would save a lot of hassle. Now you just emit CO2 somewhere else and don’t reap the benefits of that heat loss in your car. Rediculous.
This is exacly why hydrogen is being pushed, it is because it allows the natural gas industry to keep selling gas, even if they have to reform it into hydrogen first. Electric cars don’t offer that option.
3. There is hydrogen in manure, but that fact is ignored completely
Manure does in fact contain hydrogen, but it is usually called nitrogen, because it is a hydrogen/nitrogen molecule called ammonia. This fact is ignored by Toyota This molecule, NH3, is a easy to liquify under relatively low pressure diesel like fuel that can be harvested from manure and that can be burned or converted into H2 with only N2 emissions, which are completely harmless.
Ammonia is the ‘other hydrogen’ nobody talks about. The way Toyota envisions it the NH3 evaporates from the manure ponds, into the atmosphere where it is a much stonger greenhouse gas than CO2. Using NH3 for agricultural fuel makes a lot of sense. There is even an infrastructure for it (for farmers) and even though it is usually only made by cows or using natural gas, it can easily be made with solar or wind electricity electricity. We know about a project that did that.
So yes, hydrogen is bullshit to begin with, and hydrogen from bullshit is double bullshit, unless it is clean burning Ammonia, on which almost all Toyotas can run.