I think this link sums up the lack of multi-national support for hydrogen as a vehicle fuel. Just because the Japs have wasted 15 odd billion is no reason to act like a lemming. EVs are far more developed yet are still not competitive. Ammonia as a means of renewable energy storage for applications other than transportation makes more sense.

https://cleantechnica.com/2015/06/26/hydrogen-cars-lost-much-support/

Hasbeen,
It sounds like you've been snorting the fairy dust again :-)

I never ever implied that tractors and the like use no fuel

Seriously though, fairy dust is neither an energy source nor a hallucinogen; it's an audio effect similar to an echo changing pitch.

Tractors use a lot less than the energy value of what they harvest, and I'm amazed you have so much trouble comprehending it that you have to resort to silly supernatural explanations.

I don't know where you got your figures from as wholesale electricity prices, when I checked on Thursday, were high in all states. And the source of the high prices wasn't high generation costs; it was insufficient competition to enable the market to work efficiently. Partly this was because one of the coal fired power stations was closed for scheduled maintenance and another broke down.

We need more peakload capacity, but coal is not a cost effective way to provide that.

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Shadow,
Being lighter than air, hydrogen usually gets out of the way pretty quickly.

Regarding efficiency, please keep in mind two things:
• Scientific and technological improvements are likely to increase the efficiency.
• What's most efficient and what's most cost effective aren't always the same thing. Batteries aren't as cost effective for long term storage.

Aidan, your credibility is not only in shreds, but is now totally nonexistent.

Go fly your fairy dust somewhere else, & do stop smoking that stuff.

Touched a nerve have I, Hasbeen?

FWIW I've never been a smoker.
Am I right in thinking you regard everyone you disagree with as having no credibility?

Aidan,

Firstly, Hydrogen does not disperse as fast as you think and the fact that it can burn at 4% makes any dispersal problematic. (think Hindenburg)

Secondly, efficiency gains cannot break the laws of physics. That compressing hydrogen to the very high pressures required to store it as a gas uses roughly 15% of the chemical energy gained, Electrolysis is inefficient etc makes hydrogen a very poor storage of energy. Lithium batteries are 80% or more efficient compared to hydrogen at 30-40%.

That super high pressure containers are also vastly expensive is another nail in the coffin.

Add to that the fact that the reaction to produce ammonia from a fuel cell proceeds at a small fraction of the rate of the Haber process.

Shorten could better waste a thousand million dollars of taxpayer's money by trying to establish a multi-national collaboration to build a gen four nuclear reactor. Renewable power displacing coal fired power has been a disaster for Australia. Enough!