Hydrogen powered ferry due in 2027.

[kof]

Hydrogen powered cars are (imo) a really dumb idea. Trucks/trains yes as they can build and store the stuff in bulk nearby. First - where will you fill up? where is the nearest hydrogen station? When you get to where you are going is there also a hydrogen station nearby so you can fill up and get back?

Also making hydrogen usually uses a lot of power (electricity), then you chill and hold at pressure (using electricity), then you ship it to your local region (probably fossil fuel) then store it again (using electricity), then deliver (either fossil or hydrogen trucks) to the nearest hydrogen station , then store it (using electricity) until needed. Then it goes into your car and gets converted back into , you guessed it, electricity.

Electric cars is much more direct and therefore also more efficient. check out The Truth about Hydrogen - YouTube for the pros/cons.

Will look into them - I'd like to update sometime later this year
Thanks
Bob

 

[Concerto]

I just hope the hydrogen cars do not look like the gas power cars from the 1940's.
Gas Bag Vehicles

I agree with RIBW that hydrogen cars are the future over electric. There may be few places at present for hydrogen refills, the same applied for electric vehicles 10 years ago. If the same investment is made in hydrogen cars as electric I feel they are far better for the environment. The damage created in making lithium ion electric car batteries is well known.
Lithium-Ion Battery Production Is Surging, but at What Cost?

 

[Laser310]

With pressures up to 700 bar

wow...

what is the chance of tanks puncturing in collisions?

 

[crewman]

A hydrogen car was crash tested in Germany , I think it was a Toyota Mirai. It passed all the tests without the pressure tank rupturing. The tanks are composite with I think an aluminium inner liner and a carbon fibre outer.
If making hydrogen by electrolysis it can be made at the station and compressed on site so no need to transport it any distance. This is what Aberdeen does with its hydrogen bus fleet.
I was at a meeting about battery vehicles recently the Fire Brigade are very worried about how to make a crashed battery car safe to remove as the battery cannot easily be discharged

 

[JumbleDuck]

If making hydrogen by electrolysis it can be made at the station and compressed on site so no need to transport it any distance. This is what Aberdeen does with its hydrogen bus fleet.

The average filling station sells 4m litres of fuel per year. At 35MJ/litre that's 140TJ going into vehicles. Since electricity-hydrogen-electricity is about 50% efficient and the electric motor 90% efficient that's about 45% overall, but lets be kind and bump it up to 50% for regenerative braking. Since IC engines are about 35% efficient, the average hydrogen station could be expected to need 35/50 x 140TJ = 100TJ, more-or-less, per year in electricity.

Over 31536000 seconds that's an average of 3.2MW, all day all year. which is 170A from a three-phase 11kV distribution line. Or 4.5kA from a 415V supply Quite high, really.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

Hydrogen powered cars are (imo) a really dumb idea. Trucks/trains yes...

The best way to use renewably generated electricity to power a train is to do it directly by electrifying the line, not going via the inefficient hydrogen route.

It's expensive infrastructure to install, but a mature understood technology. There are no technical hurdles to overcome, just the cost. 34% of UK's network is electrified, there's scope for more, & it is slowly increasing.

 

[lustyd]

Haha mature and understood technology ? you don’t live west of London then!
I don’t disagree with the spirit of your post but they’ve made a total shambles of implementing it

 

[RIBW]

I was at a meeting about battery vehicles recently the Fire Brigade are very worried about how to make a crashed battery car safe to remove as the battery cannot easily be discharged

+1
Sorry to harp on about Royal Institution lectures but a few (3 to5ish) years ago they demonstrated how easy it is to 'discharge' a lithium battery - they dropped a metal spike onto one (to simulate what might happen in a crash). The result was spectacular - explosive if I remember correctly.

Every technology has particular issues to do with its global deployment - safely. Both hydrogen and batteries will be made safe for road use.

RIP the Ford Pinto - for those with long memories.

But, as this is ybw.com, I don't anticipate anything other than a diesel donkey in my remaining time afloat.

Cheers
Bob

 

[lustyd]

I'm confused, are you saying that Hydrogen gas under immense pressure can be made safe but a battery can not?

 

[kof]

I lived in London (St. Johns Wood) for the last 6 years and only moved back to Ireland in the 18 months (Brexit and all that). Had my Tesla there for many years and never had a problem. Key to making it work for me was a car that had a decent range and mine got me 230-250 miles on a single charge. My commute was 30 miles/day and it meant I only had to charge once a week and I usually did that when doing my weekly shop! Used to take me and hour+ to charge up, today that would only take me 35/40 minutes with the new fast chargers.

It's when an EV has a much smaller range that you need to be thinking about chargers all the time, chargers at home to get you in to work, at work to get you home again. Range is king to making life easier with an EV.

 

[lustyd]

@kof you quoted my post, which was responding to Angus about electrified trains, which have consistently failed between London and the Westcountry since installation. He suggested it's a mature and understood technology, yet one of the failures was a train ripping down the fragile electric supply because the engineers made the weakpoint the electrification rather than the metal stick on the train which collects the juice (sorry I can't think of the word!). The engineers made this metal stick on the train very strong so the train didn't break if things went wrong. This took out a line for over a week.

EVs absolutely work, if it weren't for the cost and the environmental impact of wasting my current vehicle I'd have one already.

 

[kof]

Opps (need coffee!).

Agreed on the trains - that has been a dismal failure. Know what you are saying about the overhead cables - Just need to copy the electric train engineering from other countries as some of them have this problem sorted out years ago. It's should not be a difficult problem to solve. Hydrogen electric trains might be a solution - a train company has the deep pockets to be able to store hydrogen locally and might even be cheaper than putting in miles of overhead cables.

@kof you quoted my post, which was responding to Angus about electrified trains, which have consistently failed between London and the Westcountry since installation. He suggested it's a mature and understood technology, yet one of the failures was a train ripping down the fragile electric supply because the engineers made the weakpoint the electrification rather than the metal stick on the train which collects the juice (sorry I can't think of the word!). The engineers made this metal stick on the train very strong so the train didn't break if things went wrong. This took out a line for over a week.

EVs absolutely work, if it weren't for the cost and the environmental impact of wasting my current vehicle I'd have one already.

 

[crewman]

I'm confused, are you saying that Hydrogen gas under immense pressure can be made safe but a battery can not?

No I am saying that both technologies have hazards - as do petrol and diesel. .The hazards are different, but all need to be managed so as to be acceptably safe for use by the general public.

 

[Stemar]

I can't help wondering if the long-term solution isn't simply less travelling, and public transport when we do. Relatively cheap buses running a fixed route to a "fixed" timetable was the only practicable way before computers, but I wonder if the future isn't some sort of cross between a bus and a multi-use minicab running flexible routes and timetables. Remote working would remove a good percentage of the need to travel, especially at peak hours. The result would be less pollution and congestion.

It isn't a complete solution, we'd still need to get places, sometimes with bulky stuff, but I do think it's better than trying to tweak our private transport, which isn't only a pollution and resource issue with fuel, but also with production and disposal.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I'm confused, are you saying that Hydrogen gas under immense pressure can be made safe but a battery can not?

Hydrogen gas under pressure isn't too bad. It doesn't explode like acetylene does if you heat it too much, it's all gas so no continuous boiling as pressure drops like in a boiler explosion and although it burns it will initially be well above the upper explosive limit and is s small and light that it will soon diffuse away.

Liquid hydrogen would be a different matter - it's the nastiest of all the cryogens - but the gas should be fine.

 

[AngusMcDoon]

.

 

[RIBW]

Now deleted comment concerning the engineering of GWEP.

For those that are interested there was a full RIA report examining the 'failure' of this project. See P4 for the 15 recommendations.
https://www.nsar.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/RIAECC.pdf
Can we discuss boats please?
Cheers
Bob