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Originally Posted by ssiguy
I have no crystal ball in making predictions about hydrogen any more than you do about batteries. These are simply my opinions no different from yours.
I simply don't see how oil companies will work and spend money to rush themselves towards bankruptcy and ditto for the car makers. You cannot compare the small camera sectors to the massive auto & oil sectors.
Remember a lot of hydrogen infrastructure is going to have to be built regardless of EVs. There is no way, in hell, that freight, cargo ships, long distance passenger rail, agricultural equipment, heavy industry, mining, and air travel is going to go battery. It is going hydrogen regardless of what the cars do.
I don't have some hydrogen fetish nor do I have any stocks or monetary benefits from hydrogen. My next car {which won't be for a while as I have 2019} won't be hydrogen or battery but rather a hybrid so neither makes any difference to me.
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Oil and gas companies will still have industrial markets for their products. The demand for transportation use will fall as alternatives become cheaper, more convenient and have less maintenance costs.
All the major truck builders have an electric truck already on the road. The Tesla semi goes into mass production next year, and the charging infrastructure is already being developed. There are already 70 in full operation, and Pepsi drove one of their trucks
over 1,000 miles in a single day. The company like them enough to order over 100 more this year. There are newer batteries and faster charging also being developed.
In Australia, where they have limited rail infrastructure and rely on road trains, Janus have introduced
battery swap and charging stations for truck fleets, and those are already operational. They only use renewable energy for charging, and can also use charged batteries to top up the grid if there's demand, or excess electricity production.
Agriculture is already going electric, especially in Japan, apparently. Here, New Holland already have
an electric tractor on sale.
John Deere have several models, both hybid and 100% battery in development, for both agricultural and construction vehicles.
Edison Motors, in Merritt, already have an electric logging truck, and can also convert existing trucks.
Caterpillar already sell
an elctric mining truck. So do Hitachi, and other equipment manufacturers. Goldcorp's
Borden Gold Mine in Ontario has had 100% electric vehicles for four years.
Copper Mountain Mine near Princeton in BC is expected to be net zero by 2035, using all electric mining trucks operating on an overhead wire system. The regenerative braking taking the full trucks downhill to the crusher produces almost as much power as the empty trucks need to return uphill.
Brucejack Mine in BC has switched to 100% electric underground vehicles too.
It's possible air travel might adopt hydrogen, but for local flights
Helijet have an electric aircaft on order, and Harbour Air still hope to operate their entire 40+ fleet as electric planes as soon as they're permitted, but are having delays with government certification.