Guy buys hydrogen car but can't buy hydrogen

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Guy buys hydrogen car but can't buy hydrogen

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3122 posts

Uber Geek

#2836251 21-Dec-2021 10:37

MikeAqua:

I've also read an article about some engineers in Scotland who have been trying for three years to cause an explosion with a hydrogen has stove. They can't do it because the gas is so buoyant and so dispersive.

at yet , way back in my school days
my science teacher EASILY had hydrogen explode spraying glass everywhere

Look at all the science demos where they explode a ballon or tube filled with Hydrogen
It does need oxygen to explode but plenty of that around

cant explode In Scotland I guess , too cold .
:-)

SomeoneSomewhere

1802 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#2836293 21-Dec-2021 12:24

That's true, but the batteries aren't going to be any better. Bio-ethanol or a synthetic fuel are other options.

frankv

5680 posts

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#2836307 21-Dec-2021 12:52

SomeoneSomewhere: Aircraft are an obvious use case for hydrogen. Weight is critical, as at short turn around times and energy density.

Energy density of liquid hydrogen = 120 MJ/kg, vs Jet A1 = 34 MJ/kg

Unfortunately, liquid hydrogen is 1/10 the density of Jet A1, so you need ~ 4 x the volume to store the same amount of energy. If you use the hydrogen to run a fuel cell instead of burning it, you could probably gain 30-40% efficiency, so need correspondingly less storage, at the expense of the weight of fuel cells. But you also need some kind of electric propulsion system, and propellors are pretty inefficient when you get close to Mach 1 (long-haul jets cruise at about 0.85 Mach or so).

But liquid hydrogen needs to be at a temperature between about -240C and -260C, and pressure up to 13.3bar. That's going to take a serious cooling system and serious structure (i.e. weight & volume). And, because hydrogen molecules are tiny and very reactive, hydrogen-proof pipes and connectors are difficult and expensive.

https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/docs/documents/1419/Hydrogen%20phase%20diagram.jpg

Add to that that long-haul aircraft are designed to land with most of their fuel burnt, so you can't just replace the existing fuel, tanks and engines on a (say) 787 with the corresponding weight of hydrogen, tanks, (fuel cells), and motors. Because you're going to have to land with all that extra weight.

So you have to redesign the aircraft from the ground up, with a new electric propulsion system, stronger landing gear, and much larger fuel tanks.

Whilst I've centred this on long-haul jet aircraft, the same issues apply to shorter-haul jets. Turbo-props would be the uppermost category where you don't need to invent a new propulsion system.

rjh

57 posts

Master Geek

#2836339 21-Dec-2021 13:41

SomeoneSomewhere: Aircraft are an obvious use case for hydrogen. Weight is critical, as at short turn around times and energy density.

On the other hand, I think trains would probably mostly go BEV. You can recharge on portions of the route that are under the wires, so super far charge times aren't essential. More adhesive weight isn't really an issue in freight, and regent braking can deliver big savings.

Of ALL forms of transport, trains are the last that we need to use batteries to power. Far easier to electrify the rails system itself, we've done a lot of it already (well, what is left of it)...

Regen braking also feeds back into the power supply. Zero need for batteries, and to suggest this is, well, crazy. We need to prioritise battery deployment for most benefit, and this is not it.

MikeAqua

7773 posts

Uber Geek

#2836371 21-Dec-2021 14:41

rjh:

And yet BYD is making and selling tens of thousands of electric buses and trucks and forklifts; I'm not seeing any similar numbers for hydrogen.

Hydrogen really is just a distracting dream; the numbers just don't add up.

Even worse, this is being promoted because it is a way to centralise and more easily control energy distribution. Fuel companies don't want to cede their position to generation and lines companies.

The numbers add up if the true cost of carbon emissions is incurred and for applications that cannot battery power simply cannot deliver. If it isn't hydrogen it will be bio-diesel. Unless we allow civilian fission reactors in vessels.

Hydrogen has a fundamental enthalpy advantage and the advantage of not carrying one of the reagents or the reaction product. The issue is the cost of clean production. That will be resolved (or not) by improvements in technology.

It's shortsighted to look at a relatively undeveloped technology and say "the numbers don't add up" . With that approach many technologies would have been written off in their infancy.

I hydrogen a distraction ... I don't know. It isn't the promise of hydrogen that puts me off buying a BEV. It's that the BEVs I could afford are rubbish cars - Zoe, Leaf etc.

I was lucky enough to attend a webinar on clean tech in the maritime industry last week. Hybrid diesel electric is currently the favoured clean vessel propulsion system in Norway - with 50% govt subsidy of the marginal costs for a hybrid/battery system. There are some pure battery vessels for very short range, slow speed workloads. For long range or high speed there is no battery or hybrid solution and hydrogen is being pursued. They gave an example of two versions of the same high speed recue RIB. The one with a 40nm range was battery powered. Her sister ship with longer operating range was had a hydrogen-fuel-cell-battery power train. They see this as sunrise technology but are still keen to develop.

Mike

lchiu7

6470 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2836816 22-Dec-2021 11:30

Slight OT but if I lived in California I would seriously consider a Toyota Mirai

https://www.toyota.com/configurator/build/step/model/year/2022/series/mirai/

7 years 0% APR financing and 6 years or $15K of free hydrogen.

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

RobDickinson

1524 posts

Uber Geek

#2836819 22-Dec-2021 11:39

Yet still no one buys them.. Why?

because they are worth next to nothing after 3 years

because half the filling stations are faulty

and the other half rarely have fuel.

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MikeAqua

7773 posts

Uber Geek

#2836829 22-Dec-2021 11:58

RobDickinson:

Yet still no one buys them.. Why?

because they are worth next to nothing after 3 years

because half the filling stations are faulty

and the other half rarely have fuel.

Because the technology has been prematurely deployed. Wait a decade.

Mike

RobDickinson

1524 posts

Uber Geek

#2836837 22-Dec-2021 12:11

For what exactly? What will change in 10 years?

MikeAqua

7773 posts

Uber Geek

#2836848 22-Dec-2021 13:08

RobDickinson:

For what exactly? What will change in 10 years?

The technology will improve, the efficiencies of producing hydrogen will improve storage and distribution will improve. Like every other value chain of significance.

And while I'm here: NZ gets its first hydrogen truck (newsroom.co.nz)

Mike

Obraik

2123 posts

Uber Geek

#2836857 22-Dec-2021 13:21

Hydrogen has been said to be "getting better" for the last 20+ years. I remember watching Beyond 2000 on Discovery back in the late 90s that talked about Hydrogen cars being the norm "soon" but it really hasn't progressed that much since then. Compare it to BEV technology which continues to improve year on year, to the point now where basically all of the negatives when compared to hydrogen don't exist anymore.

A single Hydrogen truck or bus really isn't that meaningful, especially when there's little investment on the refilling network and major players are pulling out.

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lchiu7

6470 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2836859 22-Dec-2021 13:30

RobDickinson:

Yet still no one buys them.. Why?

because they are worth next to nothing after 3 years

because half the filling stations are faulty

and the other half rarely have fuel.

Well with a 6 year 0% APR the car is going to be paid off with no interest cost so I would not really care then. Just go finance another car by which time H2 might be mainstream.

H2 availablity does appear to be an issue based on this site

https://h2-ca.com/

But so long as you stay in your area, you will be fine and rent a car for long distance travel :-)

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

Dingbatt

6754 posts

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#2836863 22-Dec-2021 13:33

Obraik: Compare it to BEV technology which continues to improve year on year, to the point now where basically all of the negatives when compared to hydrogen don't exist anymore.

Charging time vs refilling time?

But yes, batteries have and will continue to improve.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

RobDickinson

1524 posts

Uber Geek

#2836864 22-Dec-2021 13:39

lchiu7:

Well with a 6 year 0% APR the car is going to be paid off with no interest cost so I would not really care then

You sunk 60k into a car with no value and you wouldnt care?

The reality of hydrogen cars in cali is nowhere near what you think it is.

Toyota ended up funding 6 months of leases due to lack of fuel, 3 year old mirai worth $10k or less, Honda crushed its cars once they came off lease.

This despite $300m sunk into the cars and infrastructure , if you are keeping up thats near $40k per car. And it still doesnt work. And the reasons it doesnt work are still here and are not ever going away.

"The state has continued to foster the promise of hydrogen fuel to pry carbon from transportation, California’s biggest source of planet-warming emissions. It has spent more than $300 million in the past 10 years funding rebates for those who buy or lease hydrogen cars, construction of refueling stations and the purchase of transit buses, as well as subsidizing development of hydrogen-driven freight trucks.

And, at the moment, California is the hydrogen market: All but a handful of the 7,800 hydrogen-powered cars in the U.S. are here. For car-centric Californians, there’s much to like: Hydrogen vehicles fuel up in a few minutes — as opposed to hours of charging for most electric vehicles — and their efficiency affords a long driving range. "

https://calmatters.org/environment/2020/01/why-california-hydrogen-cars-2020/

rjh

57 posts

Master Geek

#2836870 22-Dec-2021 13:55

MikeAqua:

The numbers add up if the true cost of carbon emissions is incurred and for applications that cannot battery power simply cannot deliver. If it isn't hydrogen it will be bio-diesel. Unless we allow civilian fission reactors in vessels.

Hydrogen has a fundamental enthalpy advantage and the advantage of not carrying one of the reagents or the reaction product. The issue is the cost of clean production. That will be resolved (or not) by improvements in technology.

It's shortsighted to look at a relatively undeveloped technology and say "the numbers don't add up" . With that approach many technologies would have been written off in their infancy.

I hydrogen a distraction ... I don't know. It isn't the promise of hydrogen that puts me off buying a BEV. It's that the BEVs I could afford are rubbish cars - Zoe, Leaf etc.

I was lucky enough to attend a webinar on clean tech in the maritime industry last week. Hybrid diesel electric is currently the favoured clean vessel propulsion system in Norway - with 50% govt subsidy of the marginal costs for a hybrid/battery system. There are some pure battery vessels for very short range, slow speed workloads. For long range or high speed there is no battery or hybrid solution and hydrogen is being pursued. They gave an example of two versions of the same high speed recue RIB. The one with a 40nm range was battery powered. Her sister ship with longer operating range was had a hydrogen-fuel-cell-battery power train. They see this as sunrise technology but are still keen to develop.

Quite frankly, you are dreaming.

The numbers really don't add up, not because this is "undeveloped technology", because it isn't. The number don't add up because, you know, physics.

It takes a certain amount of energy to generate free hydrogen; it then takes a known amount to energy to compress it - those are fixed numbers, no amount of technical development will change that. Technology will only improve the efficiencies of generation and compression, and even then gains are likely to be minimal in the overall scheme.

Then we have to add in transport (by container and/or pipeline) and losses in that process. Again, we are going to improve some of the efficiencies there, but there isn't significant improvements to be had there either.

Then we have to convert it into electricity - which is one area that we might make decent gains, but not in the near term.

After that, driving a motor may also get some gains in efficiency, but guess what - that applies to BEVs exactly the same, so hydrogen won't creep ahead there anyway.

To do all this, you need energy input, a distribution system, and then each vehicle needs storage, a fuel cell, batteries, and an electric drive train. That is WAY more complicated that just a battery and drive train for an EV, and for zero benefit to the end user. Even if the input energy was free, EVs would still come out ahead.

Because you attended a clean tech maritime webinar I'm sure you'll be aware that Wellington now has an electric ferry (Ika Rere); this was locally designed and built. And guess what - this is a fast ferry (100pax at 22.5kt during trials) - exceeds its design goals in all areas. This can recharge at 1.2MW in 15 minutes - which will allow it to run a normal schedule. Currently charging is at 350KW, due to infrastructure, but Meridian will be upgrading that this year.

Your comment that for high speed maritime use "there is no battery or hybrid solution" is just plain wrong, and demonstrably so. In fact, plans are already underway for another ferry to link the airport to the CBD.

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