Thread by @EfficiencyLast

On 11/6/17 I attended a seminar: Pursuit & Discovery of Vehicle Electrification Markets presented by Mark Mathias, Director of Fuel Cell R&D at General Motors

https://twitter.com/energysmartohio/status/1421170410566082561

I was really impressed by the guys wisdom and perspective.

At that time it was obvious to him that BEV had won.

The hydrogen exercise had been worthwhile for a number of reasons.

It removed lingering doubt.
It helped create a competitive environment.

Also, a lot of tech had been developed that could be deployed elsewhere.

Etc...

The problem becomes when you create industry dependent on government tit, they have a tendency to do whatever it takes to survive well beyond their experimental usefulness.

In 2017 it was obvious to me ground source heat pumps were a great analog to hydrogen cars.

They are expensive, and it's hard to make the math work even with tremendous government subsidization.

Remove the subsidy and it becomes obvious that they are a parasite on the Energy efficiency in green climate space.

They're complicated to get done right, often done wrong (and the burden of failure falls hard on the shoulders of the consumer and climate)

So the energy saved is nebulous and when it exists, it is very expensive.

solar has reached the point where it is much much more efficient than ground source.

The incremental cost of ground source, if redirected to solar, isn't fractionally better it is whole number factors better.

Like hydrogen, ground source was a worthy exercise because it provides a comparable and creates a horse race.

The ground source horse isn't going to win any races because, like the hydrogen car, it's dead

Unfortunately, there's a welfare dependent ecosystem that has grown around the subsidies, and there are a bunch of idiots who love the concept of ground source, but can't understand simple math.

Most of these idiots are deeply concerned about climate change.

We call them Bob