Hydrogen

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

Thank you Nigel, that answers my question. I will stick with my waste veg oil powered diesel, fuel cost me 55p per gallon, the odd fuel filter and a bit of work. Noel.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by mgnbuk on 16/01/2023 14:12:13:

Are high power( fast) chargers single or 3Ph and what sort of load do they draw ? Most chargers seem to be 7Kw which hardly seems fast , though some are sold as fast. How far would 1 hour at 7Kw get me in an average EV ?

…

Whether or not a slow charge works for an individual or not depends on the how the vehicle is used. On average in the UK, the average person drives:

• for 289 hours per year.
• as 4334 miles per year over 739 trips.

The average journey is a little under 6 miles, and a typical EV might do 3 miles per kwh, which is less than 30 minutes on a slow charger. As most cars are parked for 8471 hours per year, most motorists will have no trouble keeping them topped up at home or at work most of the time.

Only motorists who do lots of high mileage driving are disadvantaged by EVs. I think the answer to that requirtemeny will be a specialist high mileage vehicle running on oil or Hydrogen. The way things are going low mileage motoring will be cheap, whilst high mileage journeys will be at premium prices. Not as a matter of policy, but because the price of oil is going to sky-rocket over the next 30 years, whilst the price of green electricity drops. As soon as EV motoring is obviously cheaper and suitable for most people, they will abandon IC in droves.

IC motoring will get progressively more expensive as time passes, partly as oil gets dearer, and partly because demand for private car IC vehicles will slump. The future won't be like today. History show us this is only to be expected. Cars made in 1922 are museum exhibits. Our cars today will suffer the same fate. Highly unlikely to be large numbers of the IC type on the road by 2122, no matter what happens.

By the by, the cost of running a diesel on used cooking oil can be expected to rise too. When other people realise it's useful, the price of old cooking oil will rise. Last week the RAF successfully refuelled a fast-jet in flight with jet fuel made from cooling oil. If the RAF want used oil, local chip shops will be pleased to sell it to the highest bidder. Motorists can enjoy driving on cheap chip oil while it lasts, but it won't do for most of the other 30,000,000 UK cars.

Dave

[Paul RhodesParticipant @paulrhodes20292]

SOD an interesting assessment.

I am aware that the average mileage had declined over the last 20 years. Of course more people own cars and are doing these miles ,so arguably more driving overall. Where did you source these numbers and are they Covid artefacts do you think?

Paul.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

There are companies developing flywheel storage systems for fast charging. Constant lower power input intermittent high power output. The idea is also useful in settings like underground electric railways where braking current can be dumped into the flywheel storage and then used to restart the train out of the station.

On a different note, upon a time the nation was crisscrossed with a network of railways serving many small towns as well as the larger centres, supported by an intensive bus service it was possible for the general public to travel widely throughout the country without the need for personal vehicles. If the Victorians could do it why not now?

regards Martin

Edited By Martin Kyte on 16/01/2023 22:03:55

[VicParticipant @vic]

Back to Hydrogen. Another video popped up today.

Hydrogen will not save us

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Dave –

"…. most motorists will have no trouble keeping them topped up at home or at work most of the time. …

Errr, I think you mean "most" motorists are most of those who genuinely can recharge their cars at home or at work. Huge numbers of us genuinely can not and will not be able to do either, even if still working.

I fear you may be right though that i.c. engined cars using petrol, diesel and lpg will become progressively costlier to use over the next few decades, unless some practical alternative come along.

There are flaws in "Now-We-All-ism". No doubt there are who match the supposed "average" weekly driving in which 4 miles to Aldis is a fair trip and 14 to Ikea verging on an expedition. There are also many who do regularly drive much longer distances: 40, 140, even 400. Both types can probably plan for such driving – even if the last distance means doubling potential journey time, no ETA, and extra woolies in Winter.

Those forgotten are those in the middle. The sizeable but uncountable number of people who might pootle around town once a week for months on end but do occasionally choose or might need to travel far from home; but for whom public transport alternatives may not suit, even if they exist.

Whatever the speculated costs, availability, even the possibility of finding a vacant charger that is compatible, in working order and needs no smart-phone for payment; I think huge swathes of the population will have far more restricted lives with far fewer opportunities in future. This will be especially true for those living in areas having poor or no public-transport and a long way from large towns.

So, with many unable sensibly to own a car, or finding they can live without (remember that many people have no particular work, leisure and social need for a car anyway), I forecast a large reduction in the number of people travelling anywhere very much. Also hit by increasing traffic-controls in cities and rising motoring costs for those can still drive; I think all manner of sports, arts, leisure and other cultural activities and events will fade away; especially if not in readily-accessible city-centre venues.

Are we already seeing that in London? We may have lost "our" exhibition at Alexandra Palace but the venue's web-site shows a long list of crafts, arts and sports events; including a model-railway show in March. Its public diary so far extends to September 2023, then the usual big snooker do in Jan. 2024.

However, the Arts Council has embarked on pushing even major artistic institutions out of the capital, and I wonder if this is linked to the traffic restrictions in one way or another.

So whether "we" drive battery-cars, hybrids or some form of hydrogen-powered car in 10 years' time; we might be the lucky ones in the exclusive club of Motorists – but will we have anything other than family visits and the occasional holiday worth motoring anywhere for?

.

The thread is about hydrogen. I think that gas, in one way or another, will have to be the future; leaving batteries to something of a longer version of their Edwardian flowering.

[Anthony KendallParticipant @anthonykendall53479]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 16/01/2023 13:43:58:

I see the internet has mangled the Cartoon. This is the right one! Dave

The right one for you is what you mean I think.

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Re emissions and coal: It has just been reported that China's reduced smog due to Covid lockdowns etc is not blocking the usual amount of sunlight from hitting the Earth and as a result the rate of warming has increased. I kid you not. They stopped burning so much coal and driving so many cars and it made the problem worse. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't, it seems.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Anthony Kendall on 17/01/2023 09:23:28:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 16/01/2023 13:43:58:

I see the internet has mangled the Cartoon. This is the right one! Dave

The right one for you is what you mean I think.

Exactly my point: both cartoons are grossly simplified untrustworthy propaganda.

The original gives the impression that EVs are just as dirty as diesels. As this opinion is naive, misleading, and perhaps politically motivated, no-one should take it seriously. The idea is interesting, but the evidence supporting the notion is weak. All human activity is dirty, but some is much dirtier than others.

My version of the same cartoon chooses to give the impression that diesels are much dirtier than EVs. It also is untrustworthy; designed to create a different impression. Actually I'm not trying to sell EVs: the only value of my version is to underline the unreliability of the original.

Unfortunately the truth is buried in a mass of indigestible figures. And even after information has been extracted from the data, and knowledge from the information, exactly where humanity is going to end up remains unclear because much depends on what the majority decide to do in the future. Their view will not be ours, and change is inevitable! Of course there will always be chaps who insist of driving a Morris Minor, even if they have to drive 50 miles to pay £20 for a litre of petrol, and all the neighbours have long since adapted to new technology.

When inevitable change is approaching the worst thing humanity can do is fight it. It's better to adapt early so as to minimise the pain and to profit from new opportunities.

'TalkingPictures', is a TV channel and streaming service specialising in old films, TV drama, and documentaries. I often watch it. Much of the interest is in the background street-scenes because these clearly show motoring and society changing radically between 1930 and 1970. The lesson is nothing is permanent.

Ignoring change due to fear or lack of imagination results in horrible hard-landings. A better tactic is to predict what's most likely to happen based on available evidence and aim in that general direction. Not a simple process: essential to respond to new information during transition.

Dave

 

 

 

 

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 17/01/2023 10:52:17

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

I watched the programme Vintage Voltage when they converted a Landrover to fully electric. The way that machine bounded up a steep hill – it whizzed up there like a radio controlled battery toy car – showed what a vast improvement it was to have an electric motor – with full torque at low revs – instead of an ICE with a narrow torque band and a gearbox.

I wonder how much of the electric car 'doubting' comes from lobbyists for the fossil fuel industry ?

I, also, was going to point out that the "smoke" from cooling towers in that cartoon is actually condensation, i.e. water vapour, but then I remembered that water vapour is a very powerful greenhouse gas itself.

Ditto the contrails from airliners, which people assume is smoke, but is actually condensation, (hence the name contrails! ).

When the twin towers in New York were hit by airliners and all aviation was grounded for several days; apparently the daily temperatures became higher AND lower, i.e. the range between max and min increased. The contrails from airliners restricted the range between max and min.

Interesting that we seem to be seeing a lot more extreme weather events around the World in the years following the Covid lock-down; when aviation, and surface transport, was drastically reduced. But that might be confirmation bias !

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

John –

We know the plum from cooling-towers is water-vapour but the cartoonist made it look like smoke; and my point was that journalists like to use it as if it is smoke.

A "greenhouse gas" itself? it maybe but I doubt if the amount we put into the lower atmosphere is significant, compared to what Nature puts there all the time.

Aircraft condensation trails may be a different matter as they are at far higher altitudes, above most of the weather systems.

An interesting test, that LandRover conversion, but I wonder what its range is for practical use? For somewhere like a farm, the original typical home for a proper LandRover, it may not matter because it would not usually be travelling long distances, and it would be easy enough to install a suitable charger in the farm buildings. Nor is hill-climbing speed normally important on a farm!

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

Posted by Vic on 16/01/2023 22:20:34:

Back to Hydrogen. Another video popped up today.

Hydrogen will not save us

I watched that video with some interest and was quite impressed with about the first half which was factually quite correct. Sadly from about halfway it kind of lost its way and whilst still using basic facts unfortunately distorted the message with some biased opinion.

The claims about the cost of Green H2 if using wind and solar are according to one of the largest gas producers in the world unfounded because they are doing it quite successfully a long way from the UK and are shipping it to the UK and selling it competitively. In fact while I do not agree with SOD’s claims that wind and solar power is dirt cheap already and will only get cheaper – it is a lot cheaper than the nice lady was suggesting and in fact Green hydrogen from solar and wind is competitive (in gaseous form). There is a whole load of reasons why solar and wind power is not likely to be as cheap even some way into the future as SOD claims but that is not for this post on hydrogen.

The claim on the weight differential between a fossil fuelled car and a hydrogen fuel cell car is also not entirely correct. A pure electric EV is in fact heavier than a fuel cell vehicle as it requires a large battery pack, the fuel cell can make do with a smaller capacity lighter pack. Fuel cells unfortunately do need to be combined with battery reserve as fuel cells are not good at taking fluctuating or transient loads, so the battery is used as a buffer. Additionally PEM cell technology and membranes have moved on it terms of base resource requirement. Granted they still need some but it’s not as bad as portrayed. Look at Bramble Energy as an example.

True historically that hydrogen tanks have been heavy but that is not true as we go forward, there are light weight solutions coming to market for 350 and 700 bar gas and now even cryo tanks are being made with composites to enable liquid H2 to be used in aviation (as it was on the space vehicles shown in the video!).

I do not necessarily believe H2 is a silver bullet but there are applications in which it is a potentially viable alternative to fossil fuels and it does allow storage of surplus energy from wind and solar, albeit in a pretty inefficient and expensive manner. The picture is however by no means as gloomy as that video try’s to portray! It’s a shame they didn’t stick to the facts all the way through to give a balanced and unbiased opinion, but that is the modern medias for you!

Paul.

[Simon CollierParticipant @simoncollier74340]

Which bits are biased opinion?

I have the highest regard for Sabine and watch all her videos. Her whole purpose is to do the literature review and arrive at the facts, whatever the topic. Further, she certainly is not a climate change skeptic, but correctly does say that the climate predictive models are not good enough, and more money needs to be spent to improve them.

[Anthony KendallParticipant @anthonykendall53479]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 17/01/2023 10:51:28:

Posted by Anthony Kendall on 17/01/2023 09:23:28:

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 16/01/2023 13:43:58:

I see the internet has mangled the Cartoon. This is the right one! Dave

The right one for you is what you mean I think.

Exactly my point: both cartoons are grossly simplified untrustworthy propaganda.

The original gives the impression that EVs are just as dirty as diesels. As this opinion is naive, misleading, and perhaps politically motivated, no-one should take it seriously. The idea is interesting, but the evidence supporting the notion is weak. All human activity is dirty, but some is much dirtier than others.

My version of the same cartoon chooses to give the impression that diesels are much dirtier than EVs. It also is untrustworthy; designed to create a different impression. Actually I'm not trying to sell EVs: the only value of my version is to underline the unreliability of the original.

Unfortunately the truth is buried in a mass of indigestible figures. And even after information has been extracted from the data, and knowledge from the information, exactly where humanity is going to end up remains unclear because much depends on what the majority decide to do in the future. Their view will not be ours, and change is inevitable! Of course there will always be chaps who insist of driving a Morris Minor, even if they have to drive 50 miles to pay £20 for a litre of petrol, and all the neighbours have long since adapted to new technology.

When inevitable change is approaching the worst thing humanity can do is fight it. It's better to adapt early so as to minimise the pain and to profit from new opportunities.

'TalkingPictures', is a TV channel and streaming service specialising in old films, TV drama, and documentaries. I often watch it. Much of the interest is in the background street-scenes because these clearly show motoring and society changing radically between 1930 and 1970. The lesson is nothing is permanent.

Ignoring change due to fear or lack of imagination results in horrible hard-landings. A better tactic is to predict what's most likely to happen based on available evidence and aim in that general direction. Not a simple process: essential to respond to new information during transition.

Dave

It's just a cartoon – I did say it was unfair.
I hope you feel better now.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

It seems to me that the immidiate benifit of H2 is as a mix with natural gas supplied to domestic homes. 20% can be added without modification to boilers of appliancies. If hypothetically this could be done now it would in effect be removing 1 in every 5 gas boilers from homes (in terms of CO2 emissions). As time is pressing I think this is well worth the effort. It is something of a dead end in terms of zero emissions as 20% is as far as you can go without major infrastructure changes, but as a transition strategy bringing results now it's attractive.

regards Martin

[VicParticipant @vic]

Posted by Paul Kemp on 18/01/2023 01:20:17:

The claim on the weight differential between a fossil fuelled car and a hydrogen fuel cell car is also not entirely correct. A pure electric EV is in fact heavier than a fuel cell vehicle as it requires a large battery pack.

This is an often repeated myth about BEV’s.

A BEV, Toyota’s FCEV and a random ICE. And this is on current vehicles. Batteries for BEV’s are expected to get smaller and lighter over the coming years.

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

Posted by Simon Collier on 18/01/2023 07:34:55:

Which bits are biased opinion?

I have the highest regard for Sabine and watch all her videos. Her whole purpose is to do the literature review and arrive at the facts, whatever the topic. Further, she certainly is not a climate change skeptic, but correctly does say that the climate predictive models are not good enough, and more money needs to be spent to improve them.

As I said, costs of Green Hydrogen, weight of H2 fuel cell v battery and weight of storage tanks. I have been working for over 2 years now with hydrogen producers / suppliers, fuel cell manufacturers and storage producers on maritime hydrogen projects but drawing on automotive solutions where transferable and certifiable in the marine environment and I know the views stated are biased. Weight and volume of equipment is a particular focus for maritime high speed craft. I agree (and I said so) that around the first half of the video was excellent and gave a very good summary of hydrogen, it just went down hill when she discussed the items I flagged and the views were overly negative on those points.

I have worked with academics, manufacturers, regulators, classification societies across Europe and in the States over the period not just on direct hydrogen fuel cell systems but also methanol reformation and direct high temp methanol fuel cells (that is a real can of worms in terms of emissions if you want to look at it) so I do have some knowledge against which to judge.

Vic,

Your comparison is BEV versus ICE, try comparing current BEV to H2 fuel cell of an equivalent power, you need to compare apples with apples. Yes it may well be true that batteries will continue to get lighter or certainly more power dense but that benefits both BEV and fuel cell in comparison to ICE and may give BEV an advantage v fuel cell as the BEV requires a higher capacity battery – but I am talking what is available now rather than what may be available in the future.

Paul.

[Simon CollierParticipant @simoncollier74340]

Thanks for your detailed reply Paul. I’m sure Sabine Hoffenfelder would be happy to be corrected, like any good scientist.

[Clive SteerParticipant @clivesteer55943]

I don't think you can ignore the laws of physics in that the amount of energy in fuels being used daily within the UK by vehicles is enormous. If this is to be replaced by electricity our generation and distribution infrastructure will have have to be upgraded beyond all recognition. Hydrogen and fuel cells may play a part in closing the gap in range that some vehicle users may need and its distribution could similar to what we become accustomed to. For shorter of less frequent journeys current battery vehicles may be more appropriate. However there will never one model that fits all so predicting the future will be like predicting if VHS or Betamax would become the standard and many of use know how that turned out.

Going electric is one step towards improving the efficiency of transportation but trams and railways have had a 100 year head start so there's a lot of catching up to do.

One thing I think is needed, and modern GPS/phone tracking may help with is just what the average and deviation from average is for vehicle journeys. It may make interesting reading.

CS

[Paul KempParticipant @paulkemp46892]

Clive,

Some good points there and the simple fact is whatever the motivation to reduce emissions and replace the internal combustion engine be that climate, health or other there is no simple one size fits all solution and the answer will be a mix of different propulsion methods for different purposes.

I freely admit that I am an emissions hypocrite! In the day job (supposedly semi retired) I am leading on projects to decarbonise marine transport whilst I drive a “dirty old diesel” landrover! Simple reason for that is cost and flexibility. If I have to drive to London to the office including the mayors daily charge it costs me around £35. If I price the journey according to government mileage rates which are supposed to include the other incidentals of insurance, tax etc it would be around £56. If I were to take the train to arrive in London by 09.00 the last time I did it including the tube it cost over £60 and that was before the recent fare rises. So yes the railway has had a big head start but it still can’t compete journey cost wise with the ICE. Add to that the fact that I would need to leave home a good 2 hrs earlier to catch a train to get me there at the same time I can arrive if I drive! That is without considering the return and being packed in on the train / tube.

Yes I could buy a BEV or hybrid that would do that journey but it wouldn’t give the ability to tow 3.5t of steam engine and related equipment at the weekend – something with that capacity would cost me a lot more than I am prepared to spend! Neither would it allow me to do those journeys some of which are 200m or more to a field without stressing over where I could plug in to “fill up” – depending on what I am doing the old clunker will do between 550 and 600m without needing a top up. Converting the vehicle to hydrogen would be little better, as was correctly pointed out in the video I commented on there is a massive premium on the cost of hydrogen kw to kw than diesel, even at the recent high diesel prices and due to the energy density I couldn’t pack sufficient volume in to do the same distance as I can on diesel. Green hydrogen produced in a location with a suitable climate with solar panels feeding directly and solely to an electrolyser is actually pretty cheap to make, transporting it to the point of use adds cost but it’s still easily competitive against other colours but why would a supplier sell it cheaper when capacity is limited.

The average journey would be interesting but would it mean a lot? In my terms although I do a good mix of long and short journeys because I work from home some weeks the vehicle never moves Mon to Fri. So while on an annual basis my mileage is under average my journey profile would definitely look a bit odd. Maybe this is the exception outside the norm but squeezing me into the norm would require a major lifestyle change!

It is a fact that to achieve the targeted or desired carbon reductions a mix of technology will be required, as a very minimum pure electric and some form of hydrogen hybrid (a fuel cell has to be combined with a battery so can be considered a hybrid). The other currently available options such as ammonia, methanol, HVO or other bio fuel are to an extent only smoke and mirrors in terms of true reductions, that’s where net zero come in! It also going to require a massive change in public attitudes and expectations around personal transport. Norman Tebbit (if you remember him) wasn’t far wrong Cost is quite another thing, even the government predictions show electricity prices dropping rapidly, however even without the dreadful situation in Ukraine the cost of raw materials required to increase renewable generation was continuing to rise, SOD gave a nice summary a while back of supply and demand. Even before 2022 electricity was not dropping as predicted – recently over 30% of UK demand was delivered from renewables, the wholesale cost of gas has dropped dramatically but has your bill gone down?

Paul.

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Posted by Martin Kyte on 18/01/2023 10:06:16:

It seems to me that the immidiate benifit of H2 is as a mix with natural gas supplied to domestic homes. 20% can be added without modification to boilers of appliancies. If hypothetically this could be done now it would in effect be removing 1 in every 5 gas boilers from homes (in terms of CO2 emissions). As time is pressing I think this is well worth the effort. It is something of a dead end in terms of zero emissions as 20% is as far as you can go without major infrastructure changes, but as a transition strategy bringing results now it's attractive.

regards Martin

This is a issue I find amusing. IN the UK at least, gas boilers cookers and lightsused to run on a hydrogen mix. Town gas aka coal gas is rooughtly 50% Hydrogen / Carbon Monoxide. They were all converted in the 70's We can convert back.
Switching everyone to electric heating (even heat pumps) is just adding an extra load on a electrical supply infrastructure that was never designed for EV's and all electric heating.

My personal view:
While waiting for practical Fusion power we need a LOT more nuclear reactors, preferably fast neutron types that can "burn" existing stockpiles of part used fuel and depleted Uranium (no mining required). These should run flat-out with the energy in excess of demand being used to electrolyse water and produce hydrogen. This can of course be stored.

Separate note, one thing that I've not seen mentioned re hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. H2 fuel cells are small, about 50% efficent and run at low temperatures. Thistis a problem bcause if you have a 100kW fuel cell you have to get rid of 10kW of heat. This is a lot harder than with an ICE due to no significant energy in the exhaust (for an ICE roughly 50% of waste heat removal is by the exhaust) and low temperature differential to ambient. It's a signficant challenge for a car.

Robert G8RPI.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

I think that the one thing that has not seemed to have sunk in to some in this thread is that we can no longer assume that we can carry on doing all the things we do now. Life is going to have to change dramatically. Less travel, less consumption and less waste.

regards Martin

[JAParticipant @ja]

Posted by Martin Kyte on 19/01/2023 09:15:57:

I think that the one thing that has not seemed to have sunk in to some in this thread is that we can no longer assume that we can carry on doing all the things we do now. Life is going to have to change dramatically. Less travel, less consumption and less waste.

regards Martin

In other words, use less energy. I fully agree with you but I feel that this is so unlikely, about the same likelihood as fusion power becoming a reality within the next 50 years or colonizing Mars.

JA

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by JA on 19/01/2023 09:28:26:

Posted by Martin Kyte on 19/01/2023 09:15:57:

I think that the one thing that has not seemed to have sunk in to some in this thread is that we can no longer assume that we can carry on doing all the things we do now. Life is going to have to change dramatically. Less travel, less consumption and less waste.

regards Martin

In other words, use less energy. I fully agree with you but I feel that this is so unlikely, about the same likelihood as fusion power becoming a reality within the next 50 years or colonizing Mars.

Has anyone else seen Eddie Izzard's sketch about going back in time and 'explaining' how modern stuff works? The answer to how does the magic box that keeps things to a constant temperature that's less than ambient, or produces moving pictures is that it plugs in the wall.

An electrical device is now the universal solution to any problem, even for the instances when the correct answer is don't do it.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Posted by JA on 19/01/2023 09:28:26:

Posted by Martin Kyte on 19/01/2023 09:15:57:

I think that the one thing that has not seemed to have sunk in to some in this thread is that we can no longer assume that we can carry on doing all the things we do now. Life is going to have to change dramatically. Less travel, less consumption and less waste.

regards Martin

In other words, use less energy. I fully agree with you but I feel that this is so unlikely, about the same likelihood as fusion power becoming a reality within the next 50 years or colonizing Mars.

JA

In other words we are unlikely to prevent the extremes of climate change and will have to take the consequences.

Martin

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