[MadBimmeRad]

Food for thought

[Aatish]

I like the diversity we're seeing in the space these days, but I still think EVs and standard ICE are gonna reign supreme for a bit before we see other entrants in the overall market.

Scale and costs is the main issue with Hydrogen & Synthetic fuels imo. It's a nice tech, but the ROIs don't really add up with current methods to produce the fuel + the tech to utilize. Give it some time and we'll get to a point where it's viable for some.

That said, let the Camry's and Sonata's of the world go BEV imo. More ICE juice to go around for the petrol heads

[Space Cadet]

Hydrogen is very likely to be the ‘Next Big Thing’ for automotive tech, but not until the hydrogen manufacture and delivery infrastructure is in place. It will also need safer and lighter ways of storing enough compressed hydrogen on board. Cryogenic storage would be fantastic, but really tricky to make practical for now.

In the UK there are long term plans to introduce hydrogen in place of natural gas - new boilers are already being certified - but again the infrastructure needs serious upgrades along with production facilities.

We’re way behind the curve on public charging for EVs as it is!

‘Mr Fusion’ would be nice, but not in my lifetime!

[sd_dracula]

Originally Posted by Space Cadet

Hydrogen is very likely to be the ‘Next Big Thing’ for automotive tech, but not until the hydrogen manufacture and delivery infrastructure is in place. It will also need safer and lighter ways of storing enough compressed hydrogen on board. Cryogenic storage would be fantastic, but really tricky to make practical for now.

In the UK there are long term plans to introduce hydrogen in place of natural gas - new boilers are already being certified - but again the infrastructure needs serious upgrades along with production facilities.

We’re way behind the curve on public charging for EVs as it is!

‘Mr Fusion’ would be nice, but not in my lifetime!

Fusion is 10 years away.
Sorry couldn't help myself

[techwhiz1]

Originally Posted by sd_dracula

Fusion is 10 years away.
Sorry couldn't help myself

Yep.
Hydrogen is still expensive and until electricity is cheap and clean, hydrogen large scale isn't happening.

Hydrogen does solve the problem of rapid refiling and infrastructure in remote places, but can't be a solution right now.

It also solves the battery weight problem.

I would definitely buy a hydrogen car if they worked out the cost and availability of fuel.

[MadBimmeRad]

In South Australia where I live, we produce close to 100% of our electricity from renewable sources.

After a disastrous storm in 2016 which wiped out much of our electricity network, we invested half a billion dollars in constructing the, then, largest battery in the world (thanks to a tweet from Elon Musk).

Now, we're doing it again with hydrogen. Just a couple of days ago, they announced commencement of a feasibility study to build the largest hydrogen processing and storage plant in the world to be completed within a few years. It will be producing enough electricity to power much of the country.

We even have an Act of Parliament in place for hydrogen (the Hydrogen Act).

Be under no doubt, hydrogen is the way of the future.

If there's a will, there's a way

[sd_dracula]

Well making hydrogen is the easiest thing in the world, take the + and - DC from your solar panels, dip them into water and voila. Storage is problem but you'd be crazy not to make green hydrogen from sunny places that have high solar output all year round.
If I can power my M50 for 7-8 months of the year from solar in one of the worst places for sun then I'm pretty sure Australia should be easily capable to be powered 100% from renewables.

[techwhiz1]

Originally Posted by sd_dracula

Well making hydrogen is the easiest thing in the world, take the + and - DC from your solar panels, dip them into water and voila. Storage is problem but you'd be crazy not to make green hydrogen from sunny places that have high solar output all year round.
If I can power my M50 for 7-8 months of the year from solar in one of the worst places for sun then I'm pretty sure Australia should be easily capable to be powered 100% from renewables.

Actually not so fast.
You actually need the correct electrodes and "clean" water. Therein lies the problem. There are some areas of progress with an acid solution with sea water for direct hydrogen generation.

But the largest issue is you need clean water and lots of electricity. Hydrogen generation is extremely endothermic. Think about it. If you can generate lots of energy combining hydrogen and oxygen and water is extremely stable, you need to put that much energy in and some to strip the atoms.

[sd_dracula]

Originally Posted by techwhiz1

Actually not so fast.
You actually need the correct electrodes and "clean" water. Therein lies the problem. There are some areas of progress with an acid solution with sea water for direct hydrogen generation.

But the largest issue is you need clean water and lots of electricity. Hydrogen generation is extremely endothermic. Think about it. If you can generate lots of energy combining hydrogen and oxygen and water is extremely stable, you need to put that much energy in and some to strip the atoms.

An oversimplification for sure and yes not very efficient however during the solar peak of the day, there is always way more supply than demand, let's say the grid can't take anymore, batteries fully charged etc, all the excess should be put into green hydrogen and efficiency doesn't matter as this energy would be wasted otherwise.

[mlanes01]

It's hard to say right, sometimes we build out a ton of infrastructure for solutions that never happen bc of a breakthrough in a new tech. I feel like BEV is the horse most people are backing. I think hydrogen is interesting and makes more sense since you can fill up quick and go further distances, but transport, storage and the energy needed to produce it haven't been figured out. I think if we look at our existing infrastructure battery makes the most sense, however we need to find ways to go 500 miles on a charge. Charge in 10 mins or less and have a capacity fade of less than 5% over 10 years. Which I don't think is that crazy of a goal given our current tech. If we throw the same amount of money Uncle Joe threw at stupid renewables in the infrastructure act at fusion we would likely see that sooner than 10 years, but these idiots want us to think solar and offshore wind will take us to the promised land

[Louis_BE]

Hydrogen makes sense for high power/density needs, but the production/transport and converting its back to electricity is so costly from an energetic point of view, you loose more than half the energy, So yeah I believe Hydrogen is nice in big industrial applications, trucks, boats … But for cars battery is a way better solution, I for one hardly need to charge on the road, I always charge at home or work.

[jpuffmasterpuffpuffpuff69]

Hydrogen is good for some edge use cases, but BEVs are simply superior most of the time, especially once lithium recycling gets going. If efficiency, charging infrastructure, charging speed, and energy density get good enough, we may even see consumers accepting smaller batteries and thus lower costs. We're a few years out from a 1600v system that recharges 150 miles in 5 minutes, but at that point, a 100kwh battery is stupid, and a 40-50 kwh battery will be plenty.

[Pictor]

BMW has been developing Hydrogen vehicles since the Munich Olympics. That's all you need to know for the time being.

I agree that it has potential but there are many obstacles to overcome. I have more faith in Hydrogen as a fuel for heavy vehicles than I do with passenger cars.

Another way to make hydrogen, recycle aluminum. Invest in gallium now because you heard it here first.

[heatmizr]

People tend to look for one silver bullet solution to everything. Perhaps the availability of cheap oil even pushed that to the max, and we ended up leveraging it and building a whole world that relied on it - to a fault! Hydrogen is neat, and could work in a limited industrial / commercial sector where you could build out the needed infrastructure. A truck going from A - B - C then back from C - B - A again, well it only needs to refuel at those destinations.
Ships, great. Trains maybe? I think the current diesel electric hybrids work well for the loads but not sure how much they pollute...

Big trucks might be able to get away with the proper storage tanks. Passenger cars - can you imagine each one carrying around a pressurized/refrigerated tank of hydrogen at -423F ?? They have shown it is doable, but maybe problematic on a billion vehicles... And having retail filling stations on every corner? Nuts. We've seen morons drive away and rip fuel hoses out of pumps - can you imagine that with Hydrogen? Think lowest common denominator.
MAYBE for fleets that always refuel at one central location?

Diff solutions for different problems. I don't want to be a naysayer. I am constantly challenged by ppl who are down on EVs, and their capabilities. They just don't see the incredible progress in a few years, only the negatives. I tell them that if all we had were ppl like them in the 60's, we'd have never landed on the moon.
I agree with the above post that we can achieve whatever we put our minds (and money) to. The trick is to not expect every solution to be Perfect and be THE ONLY solution. In the end there is room for more than one, and anyway everything humans build is temporary. It's just the scale that takes so much time / money to build out, so you do want to be as efficient as you can.

Originally Posted by sd_dracula

Fusion is 10 years away.

LOL so are flying cars!

[Space Cadet]

An article I read shows a real challenge with the cryo-storage of LH2 for cars. BMW have found that the boil-off means the tank is almost empty after 9 days (leaving just 20km usable range). It has to boil-off because it’s either that or kerboom! No car or building!! Parking their hydrogen test vehicles in enclosed spaces is currently forbidden. Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence just yet.

[MadBimmeRad]

Originally Posted by heatmizr

People tend to look for one silver bullet solution to everything. Perhaps the availability of cheap oil even pushed that to the max, and we ended up leveraging it and building a whole world that relied on it - to a fault! Hydrogen is neat, and could work in a limited industrial / commercial sector where you could build out the needed infrastructure. A truck going from A - B - C then back from C - B - A again, well it only needs to refuel at those destinations.
Ships, great. Trains maybe? I think the current diesel electric hybrids work well for the loads but not sure how much they pollute...

Big trucks might be able to get away with the proper storage tanks. Passenger cars - can you imagine each one carrying around a pressurized/refrigerated tank of hydrogen at -423F ?? They have shown it is doable, but maybe problematic on a billion vehicles... And having retail filling stations on every corner? Nuts. We've seen morons drive away and rip fuel hoses out of pumps - can you imagine that with Hydrogen? Think lowest common denominator.
MAYBE for fleets that always refuel at one central location?

Diff solutions for different problems. I don't want to be a naysayer. I am constantly challenged by ppl who are down on EVs, and their capabilities. They just don't see the incredible progress in a few years, only the negatives. I tell them that if all we had were ppl like them in the 60's, we'd have never landed on the moon.
I agree with the above post that we can achieve whatever we put our minds (and money) to. The trick is to not expect every solution to be Perfect and [...]

I did some extensive research on the subject matter last year.

In short, motorised passenger vehicles (not including motor cycles) number just over one billion worldwide and produce under 5% of all fossil fuel pollution globally.

There are just over 21,000 passenger airliners flying around producing several times that in pollution.

Industry and agriculture by far produce the most pollution.

If hydrogen could "safely" be utilised for industry, air travel and transport/cargo (including trains, shipping and trucking) as well as agriculture, we would reduce much of the global pollution footprint producing close to 94% of global fossil fuel pollution.

Passenger cars are not the culprits but we are solely targeting them when they produce less than 5% of the global pollution that's choking the planet.


Edit:

I also just came across this which might add some light to the EV debate.

https://youtu.be/ayw6LwAu1TQ

[Louis_BE]

Originally Posted by MadBimmeRad

I did some extensive research on the subject matter last year.

In short, motorised passenger vehicles (not including motor cycles) number just over one billion worldwide and produce under 5% of all fossil fuel pollution globally.


Passenger cars are not the culprits but we are solely targeting them when they produce less than 5% of the global pollution that's choking the planet.

They are producing 41% of all transportation (plains/boats/rail included) in 2020 … so if we follow that logic we should not do anything related to transportation, as that would have an impact of less than 15%, if so, why do we even bother?

EDIT: one article mentions 1/5 so 20% comes from transportation, so personal cars seem to have an 8% contribution … why would we even bother, it’s not like EV’s have zero emissions, so this whole exercise is to save like 4% at best.

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...ons-breakdown/

[MadBimmeRad]

Originally Posted by Louis_BE

They are producing 41% of all transportation (plains/boats/rail included) in 2020 … so if we follow that logic we should not do anything related to transportation, as that would have an impact of less than 15%, if so, why do we even bother?

We do it because it makes politicians look good and buys them votes; pure and simple.

[footie]

I'm in the fuel business and was speaking with our pump supplier the other day who thinks within the next 5-8 years Hydrogen will be bigger than EV. Nice guy but I take what he is saying with a pinch of salt because in the UK I think there is a total of 20 sites where you can get Hydrogen, bare minimum I reckon you would need this to be one in every town and several in every city.

Synthetic fuels is actually the one which has the quickest upscaling and could be the here now if Governments got on board, the whole infrastructure is already in place.

[jpuffmasterpuffpuffpuff69]

According to the US EPA, transport is 27% of ghg in the US in 2020. That includes all ghg emissions, not just carbon. Carbon is 33% from transportation. There's no solution for carbon or ghg without dealing with transportation. Electric power then moves towards renewables, and 2 birds are killed with 1 stone. Efforts are being made in all areas of ghg emissions, as it should be. I don't know where you guys are getting your rightwing talking points, but it's some terrible math, and you should dump those sources. It's going to take many, many changes to get the US carbon neutral and get ghg emissions to the point where we're making things better, not worse. In the meantime, humanity is going to be royally fucked for at least a couple hundred years.

[Pictor]

Originally Posted by footie

Synthetic fuels is actually the one which has the quickest upscaling and could be the here now if Governments got on board, the whole infrastructure is already in place.

Synthetic fuels have about 10-20 years to prove this out. The last 110 years have not yielded commercial success in this effort. In 1913 the first attempts were to turn coal into petroleum. There have been follow-up efforts during WW2 and ever since.

It seems to me that the petrochemical business has been going back into their same box of tools expecting different results and the world is finally moving on. And I say this as a person who doesn't believe in a one-size-fits-all world.

[Louis_BE]

Originally Posted by jpuffmasterpuffpuffpuff69

According to the US EPA, transport is 27% of ghg in the US in 2020. That includes all ghg emissions, not just carbon. Carbon is 33% from transportation. There's no solution for carbon or ghg without dealing with transportation. Electric power then moves towards renewables, and 2 birds are killed with 1 stone. Efforts are being made in all areas of ghg emissions, as it should be. I don't know where you guys are getting your rightwing talking points, but it's some terrible math, and you should dump those sources. It's going to take many, many changes to get the US carbon neutral and get ghg emissions to the point where we're making things better, not worse. In the meantime, humanity is going to be royally fucked for at least a couple hundred years.

If you would care to click the links you would see that there is no rightwing propaganda involved. Granted the data is worldwide, so yeah it could very well be that the US has a different mix …
I drive an EV and have 36 solar panels, so I do my utmost best to be as green as possible, but I’m not afraid to see that to really tackle CO2 emissions, looking from a WW perspective, personal cars are a relative small part …
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