Hacker News Reader

Comment by dsl | Hacker News Reader

Electric is a complete non-starter for emergency vehicles. They need to be able to refuel in a grid-down situation, and fill up in minutes instead of hours. Hydrogen isn't as portable as gasoline, but it can be trucked to disaster areas easier than electricity.

If EVs really take off and we start to see gas stations shutting down, it would be nice to have the infrastructure already in place to keep fire trucks and ambulances rolling.

View on HN

Solar + big batteries can provide electricity when the grid is down.

If you need a backup plan, then a regular gas station and perhaps hybrid emergency fire trucks seems to make more sense. Since all the infrastructure is available for that right now.

Realistically, we're not gonna have enough batteries. Passenger vehicle electrification so far has been paid for by optimism and subsidies. Renewables are great but they require batteries, that we won't have enough nuclear to provide a baseline of energy once we decommission all fossil burning plants is a foregone conclusion at this point.

In short we're approaching things from the wrong end IMO, burning more fossil fuels for energy generation and moving things that need power density and quick refueling to slow, heavy batteries.

That is the gotcha. Do you let peoples houses burn down while your fire truck charges? What happens when 50 fire trucks need to be charged at once? Or the giant battery is the thing on fire?

Liquid fuel (hydrogen, gasoline, etc) is essential. So as EVs take over and gas stations shut down, we either need to provide government subsidies to keep some gas stations operational, or invest in a clean alternative.

Or just provide the infrastructure to charge 50 trucks at once, like we already do with massive fuel stations that have a dozen pumps and the driveways to handle the traffic.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com