No mames Sparky! The space shuttle used liquid hydrogen fuel? I thought those smoke plumes were just for show...
This thread was about hydrogen fuel cells but got hijacked by battery sales people.
From experience, I'm seeing 200 more fuel cells added to a new DC here, a stone's throw from from I live. They had the choice of battery
but chose to continue with Hydrogen fuel cells. They are getting better. First off, they eliminated the giant battery room that consumed lots of real estate. The maintenance of battery bulls, watering systems, racking, lost time for driver's waiting in line to change batteries at a single spot in the DC. Yes, take in to account the time they have to drive getting there, wait in line, then replace a battery...can be half an hour or more.
Now HFC filling stations are throughout the DC.
Then, there is the damage batteries can cause to trucks. Plugs wear out from constant unhooking, get broken or crushed. Batteries get tired, some worse than others, and it causes driver's to lose time because their battery lasted only 4 hrs. I've seen many batches of new batteries come in, with 25% failing early on. Driver's knew which batteries were duds, and avoided them. batteries caused many failures in electronics by going too low in voltage and too high in current.
Hydrogen fuel cells produce the same voltage throughout their cycle, and have proven to much friendlier to forklift electronics.
Someone mentioned the safety factor....how many battery maintenance people are hurt from fumes, acid, spills, crushed fingers?
You need 3 batteries per 24 shift, just one HFC.
Batteries have not evolved much in a 100 years. If we keep making them, where do they end up?