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Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

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Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#181

Post by clouddrover »

nickik wrote: post #153
natmaka wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Efficiency is not really a concern if hydrogen is "produced" during peaks of some "sources" (mainly solar, wind): the surplus of energy, which today is a burden, will be used to obtain hydrogen. Producing hydrogen may solve the "intermittence" challenge.

Its a fantasy to believe that anybody would install such and absurd amount of access wind and solar that it could both cover the low production times and enough to export for use in vehicles. That simply not economical. In fact several technologies are more likely to be used then hydrogen for grid storage.

> Its a fantasy to believe that anybody would install such and absurd amount of access wind and solar

Fantasy becomes reality:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190327-the-tiny-islands...

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-56279...

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#182

Post by specialist »

yholio wrote: post #179
specialist wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future has always been H2. Li-ion is a bridge to H2, an enabler. H2 fuel pellets will be passed around like hard candy. H2 production will be just as distributed, decentralized as our future energy generation. Li-ion will peak ~2032, hitting yearly (battery) production of ~8T gw/h, and state of the art attaining a large fraction of theoretical max energy density. Assuming H2 today is ~= Li-ion 2006, peak H2 would…

"H2 pellets" could be the name of a street drug that makes people believe absurd things. But, unless you live on Neptune, it is certainly not an effective form of energy distribution. Hydrogen solidifies at an insanely low 14 Kelvin. Using an ideal Linde liquefaction cycle will waste you 30% of the energy contained in the fuel simply to perform this deep freeze. You get a relatively low density fuel, about 5 times le…

Never:

http://plasmakinetics.com

Double or nothing?

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#183

Post by b112 »

kieranmaine wrote: post #101
b112 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Ontario, 6 successive government of all political stripes, one after another did nothing, leaving the grid burning coal and ng. Plants planned and canceled, one mess up after another, again all political parties the same mess. It is indeed easy, until it is time to execute. And it takes a decade at least, with zoning, environmental checks, just to get a plan planned and construction off the ground. This means that…

The UK has 5 wind farms under construction with a capacity of 5125 MW and 4 proposed wind farms with a capacity of 5454 MW ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_offshore_wind_farms_in... ). There has also been an increase in solar farm applications ( https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/28/solar-farm-... ). On the flipside a number of UK nuclear plants are reaching EOL with only 1 currently under construct…

I think a nuclear plant decommissioning was the start of Ontario's problems.

I hope yours go better, but each government blamed the prior, yet helpfully fixed nothing.

Democracy is the way to go, yet sucks for long term projects. Especially expensive ones. The currwnt government gets all the complaints (new taxes or debt), someone else gets the reward.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#184

Post by aidenn0 »

theluketaylor wrote: post #155
aidenn0 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It definitely takes longer west of the Mississippi river in the US. Mountains with 80MPH (130 km/h) speed limits mean the range is far shorter than typical freeway diving, which makes the fact that you need to stop more often, and for longer (gas cars have a typical 330 mile range, 1 l.6 longer than that Ionic), really add up. [edit] I will soon be diving 1600km. Google suggests the route will take 14h. I expect to m…

1600 km in 15 hr is borderline irresponsible driving. Depending on speed limits as there simply isn't enough rest time to ensure you are focused on driving. The EV cannonball record was set this winter in a Porsche Taycan at 44 hrs 26 minutes and that included some charger trouble and much less than ideal temperatures. Google's estimate for that route is 42 hours without any stops of any kind. Here is a route plan fo…

> 1600 km in 15 hr is borderline irresponsible driving. Depending on speed limits as there simply isn't enough rest time to ensure you are focused on driving.

2 drivers.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#185

Post by mullingitover »

jackthezipper wrote: post #79
dale_glass wrote: post #38

Hydrogen almost certainly won't go anywhere, in my opinion. * The efficiency compared to battery tech is horrendous. * Hydrogen is effectively a storage technology -- we have to generate it and compress it. Which combined with the above means that charging a hydrogen car will always be more expensive than putting the same amount of usable energy into a battery powered car. * Let's not forget that the cheapest way of…

While inefficiency is indeed a problem, I feel like a lot of people overlook the one huge pro hydrogen has over batteries, namely charging time. Of course this might not be important for the daily commute, or 99% of the vehicles' use. But for that remaining 1% it _is_ a huge deal. And most people buy cars to fulfill a 100% of their needs, not 99%. Now I should say, I know basically nothing about battery tech. But unl…

> Of course this might not be important for the daily commute, or 99% of the vehicles' use. But for that remaining 1% it _is_ a huge deal.

That 1% use case should be priced for the externalities.

I'd like to see electric vehicle purchases heavily subsidized by taxes on fossil fuel vehicles and taxes on gasoline. If you really need to pollute 100% of the time you're operating your vehicle just in case you need that extra 1%, it should be priced in a way that really makes you think hard about that 1% scenario and whether there are really no alternatives.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#186

Post by fomine3 »

Ma8ee wrote: post #10
tut-urut-utut wrote: post #3

There's a lot of discussion about hydrogen as an energy source for cars in Germany. It is generally considered more ecological than electric, because of much lesser environmental footprint than required for producing batteries. Another advantage would be bigger driving range and faster refuelling. However, it looks like that outside of Germany, electric cars just won, and Germany itself will not be able to reverse th…

They are betting on them in Japan, and they are using the olympic village as some kind of proof of concepts with both vehicles, but also residential energy production from hydrogen. And of course the Olympic torch will use hydrogen. Toyota are also betting on hydrogen. This is the reason why, even though they were early with hybrids, they still haven't released any purely electric cars.

For Toyota, the representative company of Japan, it's not easy decision to all in to BEV because of energy situation. Japan is going to be stuck for global decarbonize campaign because the land/grid is too small to make stable distributed renewables, and obviously nuclear is no longer future option. Making BEV (or Li-ON battery) is energy intensive so it won't competitive with other decarbonated countries for future carbon tax era. That's why they must investigating hydrogen, solid state battery, xEV, and so on rather than just BEV. Other companies investigating other techs like co2 collector.

Investigating hydrogen for other uses like truck, ship, storage, emergency generator looks reasonable (Toyota also sell fuel cell system for various use), but still I doubt is they serious for hydrogen car like Mirai, or it's just a demo or for special case.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#187

Post by chanux »

polar wrote: post #31
chanux wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to James May, Only Japan and Germany can support Hydrogen Fuel Cell decently https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XytYTxQEq_Y

Pity he didn't get to drive it properly that day. Follow-up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v99AthjW78U

Ah! Thanks for linking this. I linked to the wrong one.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#188

Post by natmaka »

nickik wrote: post #153
natmaka wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Efficiency is not really a concern if hydrogen is "produced" during peaks of some "sources" (mainly solar, wind): the surplus of energy, which today is a burden, will be used to obtain hydrogen. Producing hydrogen may solve the "intermittence" challenge.

Its a fantasy to believe that anybody would install such and absurd amount of access wind and solar that it could both cover the low production times and enough to export for use in vehicles. That simply not economical. In fact several technologies are more likely to be used then hydrogen for grid storage.

This would indeed be ambitious, however when considering that it is possible (the primary sources potential is adequate), that it will solve problems related to fuel reserves, and also a fair part of challenges related to NIMBY, overcentralization, capital intensity, pollution, waste disposal, decommission... it may (overall) be our best approach.

I was writing about a less ambitious plan, which simply aims at storing the energy produced by solar/wind powerplants during peak production periods.

Re: Hydrogen fuel cell cars (2020)

#190

Post by krzyk »

eptcyka wrote: post #104
krzyk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think the difference between 10 and 15 minutes is enough to cause a huge problem "Charging" with gasoline is like 2 minutes. With electricity AFAIR it is more like 30 minutes (in case of fast charger or longer in case of ordinary one). The time difference is huge (e.g. if you travel with kids, every minute counts). E.g. vacation travel in Poland from south to north (very popular during vacation) takes ~8h (…

I recently made a trip through Poland, and, starting with a full tank of gas, I only needed to refuel the car once. But we still made 3 stops on the way, each being longer than 30 minutes. That's plenty of time to recharge an electric car. I think the issue would be that we'd never make it if all of the cars on the road were electric - a petrol pump can service far more cars hour than a tesla super charger.

OK, it depends on how/why you travel.

E.g. I do cross-Poland travel only to get from the mountains to the sea. And I have two small children -> they best travel when they are asleep -> travel during night.

My car has small tank, so I have to tank twice on the ~700km trip, and in the night it takes literally up to 3 minutes to tank and pay for it.

If I would use an EV (which I would like, very much, but they are prohibitively expensive here, I mean they cost 2-3x normal car) I would probably need to tank every 200-300km, so it would make 2-3 stops that last 30 mins (and that is assuming given gas station has EV charging, if not then I would need to borrow power from someone else and do charging for ~8h from a normal wall socket).

And this is considering that I use teslas superchargers, all other last longer than 30 mins. Not to mention if there is a queue to the chargers (fortunately at night it is not likely), if you have bad luck you would need to wait 30mins for the person before you and 30mins for your own charging - that makes it completely unsable for anyone.

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