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Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

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Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#451

Post by defrost »

jimnotgym wrote: post #313
defrost wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A billion tonnes per annum is niche ? What's the tonnage the tractor moves per annum?

Yes your example is extremely niche. It only works where you are going to work on one specific application for many years in the same place. It doesn't generalise to building a house, a supermarket or a road. It doesn't generalise to ploughing the Mid-West. Even in your example it only works if you are taking all of the material to one destination, like an ore refinery. If it was road stone, the rock would get loaded…

> Yes your example is extremely niche

No. It isn't.

Mining related excation energy requirements are a major component of the global transport related energy demand.

So much earth is moved on an annual basis that the earth's axis alters from the mass balance change.

Mining excavation and artisinal water extraction are the two primary human activities that account for the bulk of these mass changes.

Simply being unaware of the scale of tonnages moved globally on an annual basis via mining related earth moving equipment doesn't make it niche.

This might interest you: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/campaigns/met... although you can find similar data scattered across other presenters.

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#452

Post by dangus »

chrisco255 wrote: post #340
dangus wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent commenter to you never claimed that electric cars were already viable or mass market, I would say the implication is that it was very obvious to the car industry at the time that EVs would be viable and even affordable extremely soon. The Nissan Leaf was only 7 years away in 2003. In automotive technology terms that's like a single generation's worth of refresh for a typical vehicle. The Chevy Volt also la…

No, the auto industry had been envisioning a switch to hydrogen since the 60s, but particularly in the 90s, tons of concept cars were pitched by various automakers, including Toyota and Honda. Battery technology still sucked in the early 00s and it wasn't obvious yet that lithium ion batteries would lead to the first truly viable mass market all-electric cars. Easy to say in hindsight, but there were still many possi…

This just doesn't make any level of sense. Automobile development cycles are relatively long. Don't forget that the Volt debuted at the 2007 North American International Auto Show.

I have a very hard time believing that in 2003 nobody inside the car industry was thinking that lithium ion-powered cars were a more viable solution than hydrogen.

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#453

Post by timschmidt »

chrisco255 wrote: post #448
timschmidt wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And? I own an EV Pickup which originally ran on lead acid. It was a great truck then, and it's still a great truck today with LiFePo4.

Cool, can you tow a 20K pound trailer with your lead acid truck and let me know how far you get.

You realize the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawler-transporter is a hybrid EV right? Along with most trains and tanks and ships. But I'm not compensating for anything, so a small vehicle that gets me from A to B quickly, quietly, cheaply, safely, and has a 6ft long bed with fold down sides works great for me.

If I needed a big electric truck, I'd be after an https://www.edisonmotors.ca/

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#454

Post by jandrese »

jimnotgym wrote: post #262
jandrese wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm reading that right the Battery Electric busses had the lowest maintenance costs? The need to charge is a potential issue, but at the same time busses do lots of low speed stop and go where battery systems are most efficient. As long as the bus has enough capacity for an entire day and can be recharged overnight it seems like an ideal solution, minus of course the up-front cost of the bus. Lower fuel costs, no…

Lowest short term maintenence cost. Until the battery is destroyed in a couple of years. Charging a fleet of 100 buses overnight looks like a huge infrastructure issue to me. 100 charging ports, huge grid connection, substation etc. That is if the local grid even has capacity. Anyone who has tried to open a factory will know that is not always the case.

EV batteries have been performing much better than dying after just 700 cycles. Also, power is generally cheapest overnight when there is excess grid capacity. People with variable electricity pricing and battery banks make money by charging overnight and releasing power to the grid during peak hours. Commercial vehicles typically get more like 6,000 cycles out of a battery pack.

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#455

Post by jandrese »

dendrite9 wrote: post #446
jandrese wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I'm reading that right the Battery Electric busses had the lowest maintenance costs? The need to charge is a potential issue, but at the same time busses do lots of low speed stop and go where battery systems are most efficient. As long as the bus has enough capacity for an entire day and can be recharged overnight it seems like an ideal solution, minus of course the up-front cost of the bus. Lower fuel costs, no…

I wonder about the added wear on roads that comes with so much added weight. That is the kind of cost that is easy to put in someone else's bucket until it impacts everyone. One of the roads near here was closed for a while putting a large amount of truck traffic on another road. It is impressive how quickly ruts have formed in a relatively short period of time from what I assume is a combination of increased traffic…

A typical diesel or natural gas city bus has a curb weight between 20,000 and 33,000 lbs[1]. An electric bus I found lists a curb weight of 28,000 lbs[2]. It doesn't seem like extra road wear is going to be a major issue.

[1] https://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/tcrp/docs/TCRPJ-11Task...

[2] https://www.fotonmobility.com.au/electric-city-bus-12-5m

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#456

Post by calibas »

chrisco255 wrote: post #442
calibas wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The RAV4 nickel-metal hydride plug-in hybrid from 97-03 sold a grand total of 1400 units. FYI, it wasn't a hybrid. And your statement is a bit misleading. 1400 sales sounds pathetic, until you realize that means they completely sold out. 1400 was all they ever made.

It was a plug-in hybrid. Which is why they later consulted with Tesla on an all-electric RAV4 in 2010. 1400 sales over 6 years is worse than pathetic. They didn't run out of materials to produce them. Good lord, this is Toyota we're talking about, they've manufactured hundreds of millions of vehicles. It was an utter flop.

They only made less than 400 available for purchase by the general public, which all sold out, and there was a waiting list for more.

You keep criticizing the sales, yet it was the supply that was the limiting factor. You can't sell more than you make, so of course tiny production runs are going to be "worse than pathetic" for sales!

Almost like they didn't really want it to succeed...

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#457

Post by boozy12345 »

zejn wrote: post #402
kaibee wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the same lie as EVs claiming to be "green" in places where fossil fuel sources dominate electricity production. This is just anti-ev propaganda. First, its kind of a chicken-egg situation: 'its not worth going green for the power grid, all the cars are still ICE' 'oh its not worth building EV cars, the power grid is dirty anyway'. Second, there are lifecycle analyses that show that even if your powergrid is en…

I disagree it's a chicken-egg problem, nor is it not worth buying an EV (aka "going green"). You can charge an EV with electricity made from several different energy sources. You could even charge it with gas or diesel generator, if such a need would arise. You can't really fill an ICE car with home-brewed gas. The real issue a) range and b) if your car use maps well to an EV's need to have it plugged in for several…

I mean, you can run an ICE on home-brewed ethanol.

You can even use solar to distill it.

You're probably going to want a small farm though...

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#458

Post by hollerith »

boozy12345 wrote: post #457
zejn wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree it's a chicken-egg problem, nor is it not worth buying an EV (aka "going green"). You can charge an EV with electricity made from several different energy sources. You could even charge it with gas or diesel generator, if such a need would arise. You can't really fill an ICE car with home-brewed gas. The real issue a) range and b) if your car use maps well to an EV's need to have it plugged in for several…

I mean, you can run an ICE on home-brewed ethanol. You can even use solar to distill it. You're probably going to want a small farm though...

Distillation requires feed stock. Is it even possible to grow the feed stock by using less energy than you get from the ethanol?

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#459

Post by thaumasiotes »

D_Alex wrote: post #289
thaumasiotes wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> natural gas is roughly 75% hydrogen on a molar basis I thought it was methane. Wouldn't that be 80% hydrogen on a molar basis? (Or... 67%, if we're counting moles of molecular hydrogen?) Is the discrepancy coming from impurities, or different types of fuel, or what?

Natural gas is a mixture of methane and heavier hydrocarbons, the composition varies by region, depending largely on how the LPGs (propane and butane) are used. Ethane usually ends up in natural gas, unless there is a petrochemical complex nearby. So, 80% is a theoretical maximum, which is never achieved in practice. 75% hydrogen looks pretty right.

I'm still curious about the measurement "on a molar basis". If you have 20 moles of methane, and you process that to separate out the carbon, you'll end up with 20 moles of some form of carbon and 40 moles of hydrogen gas, right?

Re: Why do transit agencies keep falling for the hydrogen bus myth?

#460

Post by fulafel »

mrWiz wrote: post #429
fulafel wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevant comparison is to an equivalent energy battery, not the tank enclosure vs fuel.

I think the relevant numbers here (to evaluate the statement "The bus gets lighter and more efficient as it uses fuel.") would be the total weight when empty vs when full.

You're right, I had misparsed the comment.
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