Hydrogen powered cars: Your news and views please

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#2260742 19-Jun-2019 10:19

tdgeek:

gzt: Announced last month. In practice this isn't a change of direction for Toyota. Now they have an $8 bet on hydrogen hybrids and a $2 side bet on pure EV. Have to agree at Toyota's size it's big money!

They have been working on hydrogen since 1992. I checked out the three models the three manufacturers have. Typically they have large tanks, say 150 litres. The fuel costs twice as much as petrol, but it goes twice as far.

If and where there can get renewable manufacturer, its the greenest fuel.

Im surprised they are so hybrid-centric. Most of the models will be PHEV, less than 20% will be BEV

I lost respect on Toyota after watching some of their recent deceptive advertisements. Now they back track and do EV's to get hold on the market.

https://electrek.co/2019/06/18/toyota-push-science-illiteracy-deceptive-anti-ev-ads/

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#2260743 19-Jun-2019 10:20

There are older postings from me, where I have said that I dont want purchase price subsidies to buy EVs. As they are very regressive (benefit rich people more than poor people). And are inefficient, as they are not linked to how much the EV gets driven.

The RUC subsidy is actually a really good subsidy, as those who drive the most get the biggest savings.

People dont mind paying extra money upfront, as long as they get future savings. If they didn't, no one would bother insulating their houses. And no one would spend thousands on getting heatpumps installed, when Bunnings sell plug in electric heaters for less than $20.

Load Management via ripple control solves the so called storage problem in relation to renewable power generation. No need for lots of very expensive grid connected batteries.

What do you mean about not being able to cook or heat using hydro or solar or wind? There are lots of houses in NZ which have electricity as their only energy source. And they can definitely cook and heat using electricity. And myself- I have installed 6 heatpumps in my own house. I no longer use gas as my main source of heating. And that is despite me being a Gasfitter by trade. So if anyone should have gas for heating- it should be myself. And if piped Hydrogen did take off in NZ, it would probably be regulated in a similar way to Natural gas and LPG. Meaning lots more work for me as a Gasfitter. Rather than the current situation, where the government effectively wants my trade eliminated. (flow on effect of the oil drilling ban). How many other people are willing to campaign in favor of something that might affect their personal income? Although I also do plumbing work, so I'm not that worried about my future income.

Still have gas for cooking though. But that is still better for the environment at the moment. As we still have gas, coal, and diesel generated power being fed into the grid. When the grid is 100% renewable, then it would make sense for me to go to electric cooking.

Obraik

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#2260752 19-Jun-2019 10:28

tdgeek:

LOL , no you are not the fanboy here. Your expertise is always welcome and appreciated

Scientists seem happy to push forward on this, and note that H2 for cars isnt the real story, its getting access to H2. They can make the process more efficient they say. Lets say you need x amount of renewable energy to make x amount of H2 energy. Thats converting green energy to a usable green energy. Hydro is not unlimited, especially if we want to use more and more electricity to replace FF. If I need gas, I can't cook or heat with hydro or solar or wind. I can use those though, to convert that green energy to green energy I can use, H2. But off course I can, but we wont have enough hydro for everything. Even if we added more.

I agree that we need more hydro. I would rather we spent money on that rather than give someone $10,000 or more so they can buy a car, that used 20 tonne of CO2 to make the battery, and will cause more FF to be used in electricity generation here.

Me, I don't have a specific interest in Hydrogen. My interest is moving forward in battling climate change. EV has a place, H2 has a place, solar, wind, water, hydro. Or we can just want 10k to save money on our personal EV. Thats the theme here from some, not all. So, many here dont actually have a genuine interest in climate change as they want to be paid for their EV, not a very good investment in $ to save emmissions

Need to point out again, that 20 tonne number is fiction ;)

Also, if an EV is going to cause more FF to be used for electricity generation than hydrogen certainly will be since as posted many times now by many people, it requires a lot more electricity to make enough hydrogen to go the same amount of distance as an EV. I'm also not sure what you mean by "I can't cook or heat with hydro or solar or wind"?

Calling someone a fanboy because they're arguing facts that you don't agree with isn't very constructive. So let's go over the facts again:

The majority of hydrogen fuel is produced from natural gas, which is a high carbon emission process. This is not green
Making hydrogen in a purely green way requires using electrolysis but this is rather inefficient and uses a lot of electricity
The electricity used in electrolysis to power one hydrogen vehicle would power many more electric vehicles the same distance. It would power many more heat pumps. It would power many more electric cook tops. No matter the scenario, you're always better off using the electricity to power the electric version than making the hydrogen to do that task with a hydrogen option. So why would you want to use hydrogen knowing this?
Hydrogen has been "almost ready for mass use" for nearly 20-30 years now. I'm all for developing new technologies and better ways of doing things but given the amount of time this has been in development and the lack of any significant progress over that time why should we believe that it really is "almost ready" now?

These bullet points are the 4 main reasons why I (and plenty of scientists) think investing in hydrogen as a replacement energy source is a waste of time and money at this point.

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#2260757 19-Jun-2019 10:33

shk292:

tdgeek:

Ok, got you now. A litre of petrol costs $2-30 It takes me a few km. Then its gone. How much energy was used to find it, drill for it, store it, transport it to a ship, sail it to NZ, store it, refine it, transport it to my gas station? Then it takes me maybe 10km and its gone, and it sent emissions into the atmosphere.

Answer to how much energy - "some, but significantly less than it produces on burning". Otherwise, there would be no point in extracting it. Oil and all FFs are a net energy source. H2 production and use is a net energy drain - there is no escaping that.

I cant find anything to support that. We cant use oil. We mine it so we can change it, then use it, then sell it. The energy cost used is a huge amount cheaper than the energy cost we pay for at the pump. It doesnt really come down to energy used and energy at the pump. It comes down to money. If its energy inefficient to mine oil, we will still do it as we need it, the inefficiency is covered by the selling price "making" it efficient, as in worth it. Worth it as in worth the time and worth the return

tdgeek

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#2260766 19-Jun-2019 10:47

Obraik:

tdgeek:

LOL , no you are not the fanboy here. Your expertise is always welcome and appreciated

Scientists seem happy to push forward on this, and note that H2 for cars isnt the real story, its getting access to H2. They can make the process more efficient they say. Lets say you need x amount of renewable energy to make x amount of H2 energy. Thats converting green energy to a usable green energy. Hydro is not unlimited, especially if we want to use more and more electricity to replace FF. If I need gas, I can't cook or heat with hydro or solar or wind. I can use those though, to convert that green energy to green energy I can use, H2. But off course I can, but we wont have enough hydro for everything. Even if we added more.

I agree that we need more hydro. I would rather we spent money on that rather than give someone $10,000 or more so they can buy a car, that used 20 tonne of CO2 to make the battery, and will cause more FF to be used in electricity generation here.

Me, I don't have a specific interest in Hydrogen. My interest is moving forward in battling climate change. EV has a place, H2 has a place, solar, wind, water, hydro. Or we can just want 10k to save money on our personal EV. Thats the theme here from some, not all. So, many here dont actually have a genuine interest in climate change as they want to be paid for their EV, not a very good investment in $ to save emmissions

Need to point out again, that 20 tonne number is fiction ;)

Also, if an EV is going to cause more FF to be used for electricity generation than hydrogen certainly will be since as posted many times now by many people, it requires a lot more electricity to make enough hydrogen to go the same amount of distance as an EV. I'm also not sure what you mean by "I can't cook or heat with hydro or solar or wind"?

Calling someone a fanboy because they're arguing facts that you don't agree with isn't very constructive. So let's go over the facts again:

The majority of hydrogen fuel is produced from natural gas, which is a high carbon emission process. This is not green
Making hydrogen in a purely green way requires using electrolysis but this is rather inefficient and uses a lot of electricity
The electricity used in electrolysis to power one hydrogen vehicle would power many more electric vehicles the same distance. It would power many more heat pumps. It would power many more electric cook tops. No matter the scenario, you're always better off using the electricity to power the electric version than making the hydrogen to do that task with a hydrogen option. So why would you want to use hydrogen knowing this?
Hydrogen has been "almost ready for mass use" for nearly 20-30 years now. I'm all for developing new technologies and better ways of doing things but given the amount of time this has been in development and the lack of any significant progress over that time why should we believe that it really is "almost ready" now?
These bullet points are the 4 main reasons why I (and plenty of scientists) think investing in hydrogen as a replacement energy source is a waste of time and money at this point.

Talk to the many scientists around the world who unlike you, are working on means to combat climate change, and also have an interest to fix that problem, unlike some. You seem to know more than them, but I doubt that. So, given that your "interest" is very very clear, no point being the messenger and passing on

what science is working through.

Have a nice day

tdgeek

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#2260772 19-Jun-2019 10:59

Aredwood: There are older postings from me, where I have said that I dont want purchase price subsidies to buy EVs. As they are very regressive (benefit rich people more than poor people). And are inefficient, as they are not linked to how much the EV gets driven.

The RUC subsidy is actually a really good subsidy, as those who drive the most get the biggest savings.

People dont mind paying extra money upfront, as long as they get future savings. If they didn't, no one would bother insulating their houses. And no one would spend thousands on getting heatpumps installed, when Bunnings sell plug in electric heaters for less than $20.

Load Management via ripple control solves the so called storage problem in relation to renewable power generation. No need for lots of very expensive grid connected batteries.

What do you mean about not being able to cook or heat using hydro or solar or wind? There are lots of houses in NZ which have electricity as their only energy source. And they can definitely cook and heat using electricity. And myself- I have installed 6 heatpumps in my own house. I no longer use gas as my main source of heating. And that is despite me being a Gasfitter by trade. So if anyone should have gas for heating- it should be myself. And if piped Hydrogen did take off in NZ, it would probably be regulated in a similar way to Natural gas and LPG. Meaning lots more work for me as a Gasfitter. Rather than the current situation, where the government effectively wants my trade eliminated. (flow on effect of the oil drilling ban). How many other people are willing to campaign in favor of something that might affect their personal income? Although I also do plumbing work, so I'm not that worried about my future income.

Still have gas for cooking though. But that is still better for the environment at the moment. As we still have gas, coal, and diesel generated power being fed into the grid. When the grid is 100% renewable, then it would make sense for me to go to electric cooking.

I agree, the EV costs more, it saves money, thats the reality. Thats why they are in demand. RUC is worthwhile, and even when that stops, its still saves on running costs

Re cook and heat, I did mention, Off course we can do that...What I meant is twofold. I have gas cooking, I might also have gas heating, I would rather keep those if it was replaced by H2 (yes there is a refit cost due to new piping) They both go in bottles (yes the H2 bottle will be bigger). Secondly, do we want all our energy in NZ to be hydro? Solar and wind add some but not much. If our renewables involved as much Hydro as we can manage, and H2 gas one day that can help spread the load (cooking, heating, some fuel cell EV's, H2 fired power generation) we will not be at the whim of lakes and weather, a more rounded renewable platform

shk292

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#2260774 19-Jun-2019 11:03

tdgeek:

I cant find anything to support that. We cant use oil. We mine it so we can change it, then use it, then sell it. The energy cost used is a huge amount cheaper than the energy cost we pay for at the pump. It doesnt really come down to energy used and energy at the pump. It comes down to money. If its energy inefficient to mine oil, we will still do it as we need it, the inefficiency is covered by the selling price "making" it efficient, as in worth it. Worth it as in worth the time and worth the return

I'm not sure I'm following you. Are you saying it uses more energy to extract, process and transport FF than is produced burning them? If so, where does that energy come from?

Whatever way you look at it, we pull X joules of energy out of the ground in the form of FF, and produce Y joules of "end user" energy as a result of that process. If you define efficiency as Y/X, then I don't know what the number is - 10%, 20%, 50%??? But it's still a net energy source - there is no other energy input required to make it all happen.

H2 on the other hand produces no net energy - you take A joules of energy from some source - FF or renewable - and the end user gets B joules of energy from using the hydrogen. But B is always going to be much less than A.

frankv

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#2260791 19-Jun-2019 11:10

tdgeek:

The Wikipedias of the 3 Hydrogen cars gives mpg about double petrol.

mpg for hydrogen fuel is meaningless. A "gallon" of Hydrogen? As a gas (at what pressure?) or as a liquid?

I'm guessing they're somehow converting the hydrogen usage to the equivalent (by some calculation) petrol mpg.

Obraik

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#2260792 19-Jun-2019 11:12

tdgeek:

Talk to the many scientists around the world who unlike you, are working on means to combat climate change, and also have an interest to fix that problem, unlike some. You seem to know more than them, but I doubt that. So, given that your "interest" is very very clear, no point being the messenger and passing on

what science is working through.

Have a nice day

Again, these aren't points I'm making up. These are facts published by people actually working in the field.

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tdgeek

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#2260796 19-Jun-2019 11:17

shk292:

tdgeek:

I cant find anything to support that. We cant use oil. We mine it so we can change it, then use it, then sell it. The energy cost used is a huge amount cheaper than the energy cost we pay for at the pump. It doesnt really come down to energy used and energy at the pump. It comes down to money. If its energy inefficient to mine oil, we will still do it as we need it, the inefficiency is covered by the selling price "making" it efficient, as in worth it. Worth it as in worth the time and worth the return

I'm not sure I'm following you. Are you saying it uses more energy to extract, process and transport FF than is produced burning them? If so, where does that energy come from?

Whatever way you look at it, we pull X joules of energy out of the ground in the form of FF, and produce Y joules of "end user" energy as a result of that process. If you define efficiency as Y/X, then I don't know what the number is - 10%, 20%, 50%??? But it's still a net energy source - there is no other energy input required to make it all happen.

H2 on the other hand produces no net energy - you take A joules of energy from some source - FF or renewable - and the end user gets B joules of energy from using the hydrogen. But B is always going to be much less than A.

I'm saying that I cannot see anything online that states that the energy used to out a litre of petrol at my pump is less than what I get. It may be, it may be similar, it may not be now. Then I am saying that this doesn't matter as our human energy is in fact money. As oil is harder to find, and deeper, and less, that clearly makes it more energy use to obtain, than many many decades ago. Again ,the relationship between energy used and energy obtained is meaningless. We have proven that by continuing to mine oil, no matter what, as we MUST have it. All those inefficiencies get soaked up in oil prices. That makes it work for us.

frankv

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#2260798 19-Jun-2019 11:19

Aredwood: People dont mind paying extra money upfront, as long as they get future savings. If they didn't, no one would bother insulating their houses. And no one would spend thousands on getting heatpumps installed, when Bunnings sell plug in electric heaters for less than $20.

Actually, all of those are regressive (benefits the rich rather than the poor) too, because only the rich have access to the capital to pay extra money upfront.

tdgeek

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#2260799 19-Jun-2019 11:20

frankv:

tdgeek:

The Wikipedias of the 3 Hydrogen cars gives mpg about double petrol.

mpg for hydrogen fuel is meaningless. A "gallon" of Hydrogen? As a gas (at what pressure?) or as a liquid?

I'm guessing they're somehow converting the hydrogen usage to the equivalent (by some calculation) petrol mpg.

They used what they called an equivalent, cant recall what that was. But the end equation was cost. The amount the kg or whatever cost was, was twice petrol. That amount went twice as further as petrol

tdgeek

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#2260800 19-Jun-2019 11:23

frankv:

Aredwood: People dont mind paying extra money upfront, as long as they get future savings. If they didn't, no one would bother insulating their houses. And no one would spend thousands on getting heatpumps installed, when Bunnings sell plug in electric heaters for less than $20.

Actually, all of those are regressive (benefits the rich rather than the poor) too, because only the rich have access to the capital to pay extra money upfront.

Correct. By definition EVERYTHING is regressive, its the context that matters. How many can afford a $3000 heatpump? How many can afford a $146,000 EV so they can tow ?

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#2260819 19-Jun-2019 11:56

tdgeek:

Secondly, do we want all our energy in NZ to be hydro? Solar and wind add some but not much. If our renewables involved as much Hydro as we can manage, and H2 gas one day that can help spread the load (cooking, heating, some fuel cell EV's, H2 fired power generation) we will not be at the whim of lakes and weather, a more rounded renewable platform

You don't seem to be getting it.

You cannot make hydrogen cleanly without electricity.Doing so wastes 30% of the energy.

So I'm going to dispose of the H2 fired power generation nonsense first; you would use at least 30% (and I think probably over 50%) more electricity to make the H2 than you would get out of your H2 fired generator. If you had a 500MW H2 fired power generator, you would have to use 1000MW of electricity to make the H2 to fire it with. H2 fired power generation is never going to happen.

Moving on to your other suggestion: use hydrogen for cooking, heating, fuel cell EVs. But that hydrogen had to come from electricity, and in the process you lose 30% of the energy. You could use 130MW of electricity directly for cooking and heating, and to charge batteries for BEVs. OR you could use it to make H2 which provides 100MW of energy for cooking, heating, fuel cell EVs.

Maybe sometime there will be a breakthrough in electrolysis or catalysts or something that hugely reduces the electrolysis loss. But probably not soon.

The fact that lots of scientists are working on H2 doesn't actually change that. There's lots of scientists working on cold fusion and solar sails and space elevators and all kinds of potentially useful and neat stuff. I really want them all to succeed.

The fact that the UK is looking at reticulating H2 also doesn't change that either.

Interestingly this article says there are at least 2 hydrogen fuel pumps in the UK, one of which uses electrolysis to make the hydrogen. I don't understand the economics of that, nor do I think it's particularly green, given that the (2014) UK electricity mix was 31% coal, 31% gas, 19% renewable and 18% nuclear. But presumably the electrolysis is done at off-peak times, when the electricity is cheaper, and less FF-sourced.

tdgeek

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#2260827 19-Jun-2019 12:14

frankv:

tdgeek:

Secondly, do we want all our energy in NZ to be hydro? Solar and wind add some but not much. If our renewables involved as much Hydro as we can manage, and H2 gas one day that can help spread the load (cooking, heating, some fuel cell EV's, H2 fired power generation) we will not be at the whim of lakes and weather, a more rounded renewable platform

You don't seem to be getting it.

You cannot make hydrogen cleanly without electricity.Doing so wastes 30% of the energy.

So I'm going to dispose of the H2 fired power generation nonsense first; you would use at least 30% (and I think probably over 50%) more electricity to make the H2 than you would get out of your H2 fired generator. If you had a 500MW H2 fired power generator, you would have to use 1000MW of electricity to make the H2 to fire it with. H2 fired power generation is never going to happen.

Moving on to your other suggestion: use hydrogen for cooking, heating, fuel cell EVs. But that hydrogen had to come from electricity, and in the process you lose 30% of the energy. You could use 130MW of electricity directly for cooking and heating, and to charge batteries for BEVs. OR you could use it to make H2 which provides 100MW of energy for cooking, heating, fuel cell EVs.

Maybe sometime there will be a breakthrough in electrolysis or catalysts or something that hugely reduces the electrolysis loss. But probably not soon.

The fact that lots of scientists are working on H2 doesn't actually change that. There's lots of scientists working on cold fusion and solar sails and space elevators and all kinds of potentially useful and neat stuff. I really want them all to succeed.

The fact that the UK is looking at reticulating H2 also doesn't change that either.

Interestingly this article says there are at least 2 hydrogen fuel pumps in the UK, one of which uses electrolysis to make the hydrogen. I don't understand the economics of that, nor do I think it's particularly green, given that the (2014) UK electricity mix was 31% coal, 31% gas, 19% renewable and 18% nuclear. But presumably the electrolysis is done at off-peak times, when the electricity is cheaper, and less FF-sourced.

As oil gets harder to find, it either will or already has cost to much energy to make. So we stop drilling?

NZ burns FF to make electricity. If we switch off LPG and add EV we will burn more FF. We cant add hydro forever.

Or can we add hydro forever?

Solar is no good as we make it when we dont need it. Hydro is no good as if we have enough and we can generator more electricity but we don't need it. So while we have spare water we use it, efficiently or not, we convert that to energy we can use, as we can with solar. It may not be efficient but its free, as we have the hydro and the running costs anyway, so why not run it at max capacity and use that spare power when it is there, so we can then reduce the electricity needed overall, because in peak times we have another gas that can take care of some heat, some cooking and some cars. And if our peak use is a problem, we can stockpile some of that gas that was made with spare water and spare solar to feed a gas power plant if our hydro in winter is now maxed out

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