hydrogen conversion?

[Clan]

Originally Posted by classicswede

Hydrogen has been considered the way forward for a long time. So far there has been no big step forward with it. I think it will come soon but will take time to get going. Many manufactures have been playing with it.


The big problem with electric is the battery. You either need to have a very long extension cable or a better energy storage electric is just not going to work

Yes it is , 4.5 % of the market is already electric 👍

[Whyman]

And most of us will want to charge overnight when the solar is giving nothing.

Where will the charge come from if it is a windless night? Coal? Biofuel? Gas? Or atomic or to combine threads what about hydrogen?

[Clan]

Originally Posted by Whyman

And most of us will want to charge overnight when the solar is giving nothing.

Where will the charge come from if it is a windless night? Coal? Biofuel? Gas? Or atomic or to combine threads what about hydrogen?

Atomic mainly in the future , gas heating is being phased out already in favour of heat pumps ( electricity )

[TonyS9]

Hydrogen has only ever been "considered as the way forward" by hydrogen companies, and currently 97% of Hydrogen comes from fossil fuels, so guess who the best creator of misinformation about batteries is.

BEVs are a fantastic technology, Hydrogen is rubbish.

Stories about battery carbon footprints are out of date, batteries can be made using renewable energy and increasingly are. Battery materials maybe challenging at some point but not for 20yrs or so. The main problem is going to be manufacturing capacity.

Problems with human abuses and environmental damage from minerals mining mainly come for the oil industry and apply to all manufacturing / materials extraction. There are regulations to manage it.

As for tightwads and speed freaks, BEVs are the cheapest fast car you can buy and cost practically nothing to run.

Hydrogen combustion conversions do not exist, firstly you need an exotic tank that weighs the same as a person and cost a small fortune. Then you need sensors, a safety system and passenger explosion protection design. Then there is engine modifications. If you managed to get it together along with the filler, temperature management etc, then you would find it costs around 3x as much to run as a petrol car and you are going to struggle to get 100miles range. Also all tanks are bottle shaped and need to be outside, they mostly seem built around a ladder chassis. This is why a Mirai (2T) is heavier than its BEV (1.7T) competition.
I can never see hydrogen combustion conversions being offered its just not worth it. Battery conversions are offered but still cost typically more than buying a new BEV, still DIY and more used parts should eventually see that come down. Cheap low range BEV conversions can also be done.

Hydrogen cycle energy efficiency is very poor in fuel cells and worse again in combustion engines. A combustion hydrogen conversion will have a running cost 10x of a BEV conversion.

[TonyS9]

Originally Posted by Whyman

And most of us will want to charge overnight when the solar is giving nothing.

Where will the charge come from if it is a windless night? Coal? Biofuel? Gas? Or atomic or to combine threads what about hydrogen?

That's just standard misinformation/oil industry propaganda, the answer is Interconnects, the wind is always blowing somewhere. Trading across borders and storage will allow a 100% renewable grid. So nuclear might help to but it is steam plant and expensive and inflexible.

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by TonyS9

Battery materials maybe challenging at some point but not for 20yrs or so.

With that statement alone Tony you nullified everything you just argued (very well for even though i don't agree with your points but that's another discussion) for as it instantly suggests after 20 years the earth will have no more minerals or whatever to give for battery manufacture.
To me, that is still a short term solution. In 20 years time we will once more be looking for a cheap, viable alternative energy source.

If we could find a way of making hydrogen quickly and cheaply with consistent results, storage tanks wouldn't be needed, let's face it it's the major consituent of water and we have plenty of that just waiting to drop out of the sky on us on any given day. When hydrogen is burned, it oxidises and becomes H2O again, almost certainly as steam due to the heat but what happens to that steam? It rises up and forms clouds again and once more forms as rain.

We only need to find a cost effective viable way of separating the oxygen and hydrogen molecules without the use of massive levels of energy and we have a renewable fuel that burns cleanly.

That is the bug-bear - if we can overcome that then we'll be laughing.

[TonyS9]

Originally Posted by Laird Scooby

With that statement alone Tony you nullified everything you just argued (very well for even though i don't agree with your points but that's another discussion) for as it instantly suggests after 20 years the earth will have no more minerals or whatever to give for battery manufacture.
To me, that is still a short term solution. In 20 years time we will once more be looking for a cheap, viable alternative energy source.

If we could find a way of making hydrogen quickly and cheaply with consistent results, storage tanks wouldn't be needed, let's face it it's the major consituent of water and we have plenty of that just waiting to drop out of the sky on us on any given day. When hydrogen is burned, it oxidises and becomes H2O again, almost certainly as steam due to the heat but what happens to that steam? It rises up and forms clouds again and once more forms as rain.

We only need to find a cost effective viable way of separating the oxygen and hydrogen molecules without the use of massive levels of energy and we have a renewable fuel that burns cleanly.

That is the bug-bear - if we can overcome that then we'll be laughing.

My 20 yr comment was a way of saying Lithium might eventually get expensive in which case we might need alternate forms of storage, however, Lithium is not the only material that you can make batteries out of. I am certainly not saying Lithium will run out, its the 33rd most common element in the Earths crust.

There is enough accessible Lithium for whatever we need, some is just dilute and expensive to extract. We should simply use up Lithium before wasting electricity on Hydrogen production, handling and use (loses about 2/3s of the energy you put in), mainly because we need to get to carbon neutrality asap and batteries are the way to do it. Hydrogen will make the job much harder. As to how long easy access reserves last for totally depends on how quickly batteries are made. We may well find sufficient Lithium for as much use as we need, and recycle it indefinately.

Hydrogen is simply an energy carrier, it is meanless to compare its atomic abundance unless you comare it with electrons which are even more abundant. To make a hydrogen vehicle/storage/drive-train you also need materials and some, like Platinum, are massivley rarer than Lithium. On the case for recycling catalytic converters you need about 10 combustion cars to make one fuel cell, that isn't a good ratio, and it only increases the price of Platinum putting it in bigger demand.

A Hydrogen combustion engine is one way to avoid the Platinum requirement but unfortunately suffers the energy losses of combustion engines (about 70% loss with ideal conditions). That just compounds the energy loses from making and comrpessing Hydrogen. It also will produce pollution, as burning+compressong anything with air creates NOx.

For each kWh electricity we can go 3x as far in a battery vehicle than we can in a FCEV. Battery vehicles will always be cheaper to run than Hydrogen.

As you know conservation of energy and thermodynamics are always fighting us, and it fights harder in Hydrogen than anything else. The Electrolysis process can be made fairly efficiently, around 80% with exotic catalyst electrodes, however that is still 2x worse than the entire round trip for batteries storage, which is about 90%. Then there are alot of handling and conversions loses yet to come. It has the same pumping losses that combustion engines suffer from, for a 150kw fuel cell you need a 20kW air pump, then it also takes about 15% of the output to comrpress the Hydrogen to 800bar. So you are at a 30% loss on pure physics and enegry requirements for which efficiency cannot be improved meaningfully. Then of course every process has about 20% heat loses.

Hydrogen is a non-starter because of its energy storage efficiency, those who are proposing it wash away the importance of efficiency and come from an industry that deliberately doesn't care about it. It should be kept in the lab until they can find an abundant catalyst and we have wasted renewable we cannot store in high efficiency batteries.

As I said making Hydrogen is not the issue, but funnily enough you can make lots of hydrogen by just mixing Lithium and water (hence there is dissolved Lithium Oxide in seawater. You would still have the pumping loses but Hydrogen could be made real time without compression, and the Lithium recycled, of course if you believe Lithium is too limited then thats a non starter. I'm sure there are other reactions that produce Hydrogen (Potasium?). As to its overall efficiency I'm not sure, but its seems getting Lithium from Lithium Oxide is energy intensive. Again batteries would seem to be a better use of Lithium.

[Othen]

Originally Posted by TonyS9

Hydrogen has only ever been "considered as the way forward" by hydrogen companies, and currently 97% of Hydrogen comes from fossil fuels, so guess who the best creator of misinformation about batteries is.

BEVs are a fantastic technology, Hydrogen is rubbish.

Stories about battery carbon footprints are out of date, batteries can be made using renewable energy and increasingly are. Battery materials maybe challenging at some point but not for 20yrs or so. The main problem is going to be manufacturing capacity.

With respect Tony, you are being rather too dogmatic about this.

It is fine to have a view about liking electric vehicles (which you clearly do) but it is not reasonable to simply rubbish everything else because you don't agree with it.

I have a feeling the batteries for EVs issue may come back to bite us - most are manufactured in China using carbon generated energy (often coal) so using them just moves the environmental problem to someone else's backyard. Also they take a lot of energy to manufacture: I read an estimate in the press at the weekend (Telegraph I think) that said the energy used in their manufacture, supply and disposal may account for 25% of that used in their lifetime. You may well rubbish that, but it is another view that can't be ignored.

It is also far from true that hydrogen is only seen as a the future by hydrogen companies - it is a serious contender and being considered by our government (and many others of course) as part of long term strategies.

I have no axe to grind here; but my view is:

a. I like my petrol and diesel cars and bikes at the moment.
b. I don't think EVs are mature enough for me to consider buying one because their range is too small (even though the government kindly installed an EV charging point in my garage for free (to me, it cost the taxpayer £1339.61). EVs have their place and will become more common, but it is hard to imagine the low energy density of batteries will be sufficient to power trucks, plant machines and so on.
c. I think we are unlikely to improve battery storage much more than we have now (with lithium batteries) - the physics of the problem restrict any likely further large gains (before you rubbish me over that - be aware I am a physics graduate).
d. I think hydrogen will play a significant role in energy storage in the future (within 20 years). It will be a good way of storing the surplus electricity we make from nuclear/solar/wind sources when demand is low and the sun is shining (metaphorically).

I see no point getting into an argument about this when neither you nor I know what is going to happen, but by the same token I don't think it is wise for you to be so dogmatic and rubbish everything that doesn't fit with your own likes.

This has been an interesting thread that has brought out some good points so far.

Best wishes,

Alan

[TonyS9]

Its not about predicting the future, its about deciding. From a technical perspective, IMO, efficiency is the most important factor today, and that continues until we have a plentyfull oversupply of carbon free energy. Part of my work has been related to power efficiency, which has been regulated more and more for the past 15yrs, and now we can see a 1/3 drop in Uk demand over the last 7 yrs and still dropping.

Hydrogen will require the use of fossil power in the short term and result in the building of 3x more supply than we currently have, whereas BEVs can be supplied mostly from off peak generation without capacity increases. BEVs expand in concert with renewables providing storage and generation ultilisation factor improvement. Already we have a lot of curtailed renewables that could be going into BEVs today.

The energy requirement in battery manufacturing has been recognised as a "marketing" issue and battery manufacturers have been working diligently on it for more than a decade. There are reports on it yearly and the CO2 footprint has reduced by 70% in the last 5 yrs alone, by producing their own renewable energy and by reducing the energy requirement, so this is going down rapidly. Dry electode forming is the next step. At the end of the day the embedded caron footprint pays back, and with most countries working towards a renewable grid this will happen faster and faster. It is also not particularly hard to make batteries with renewable energy, so its a matter of will.

As for range, we have 400-500 mile achievable today in any size road transport you need, with Tesla having plans to increase by 50% in 3yrs. So 750 miles by then. That maybe the practical limit for LNCA batteries (or similar high nickle batteries), but the theoretical limted for Lithium Air or Aluminium air batteries is several times that, Lithium air limit is close to diesel energy density. They just don't last very long currently (maybe about 1/3 of diesel density) so the re-manufacturing energy becomes more significant.

Heavy plant and farm equipment is already starting to emerge. There is a Case JCB type vehicle the runs for 8hrs.

Batteries simply have more options than Hydrogen for system energy density, and have physics working for them on efficiency rather than against. Hydrogen simply has more energy requirement to get energy out.

I also like my Petrol cars, this decision is for the masses and climate. I don't expect to use my petrol car practically for much longer.

Hydrogen has indeed been adopted by some gov'ts and even some projects going on in the UK, but I think that has happened only due to misinformation/lack of information. The fossil industry has and will spend alot of money on misinformation campaigns, and battery alternatives are often not considred when embarking on a project, so be very careful what you read that supports Hydrogen. Germany and Japan have invested heavily in fueling networks and Japan even gives a $32,000 subsidy on each $70,000 FECV, yet sale have not met a fraction of target. Looks like Germany spent about EUR10bn on fueling and have only <400 cars sold so far. Japan has been at it for over 6yrs. Watching what happens in these countries will be very telling.

Hydrogen might work for transport someday, but it has little to offer today, in the meantime we should just get on with decarbonising the fastest way we can. I am sure there will be some sales and more projects, and perhaps that will help decarbonise too, even if eventually the buyers realise they were ripped off.

[Jimsiss]

I seem to remember Honda’s hydrogen test facility was powered by a waterfall running through a turbine to create the electricity to split the hydrogen atoms from the water.

The main hydrogen systems are either combustion like our current ICE cars or passed through a device that created electricity to run a motor. Storing the hydrogen was the main concern in the vehicle from what I remember, doesn’t take a lot to combust hydrogen.

Battery technology is coming on in leaps and bounds with new inventions using things like graphene etc. Unfortunately it’s a long time coming until we get to see the benefits of it for anything available to the public.