H2

Iliade

Iliade

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Shoreham - up the river without a paddle.
www.airworks.co.uk
This Climate change hope for hydrogen fuel got me thinking...

I wonder if we could realistically use similar technology to use any rejected output from our solar and wind generators to run such a device and so reduce/avoid having to purchase gas for cooking? (Patent applied for :0)

After all, we don't actually use much gas per day so it wouldn't need to produce a huge amount and thus would be pretty simple to store and storage losses (It sneaks through pretty much any tank.) could be ignored, so long was you remembered to install the vent in the top of the gas locker!

H2 sounds like a massively safer gas for marine use: no carbon monoxide and no settling in the bilges. I've not worked out the downside yet but it probably includes needing better rubber hoses and different jets and FFDs.
 
I'm all for looking at cleaner energy sources but wouldn't it be better to store the wind generator energy in batteries and do your cooking on an induction hob?

You might be interested in this article
Wind-to-Hydrogen Project
 
coopec said:
I'm all for looking at cleaner energy sources but wouldn't it be better to store the wind generator energy in batteries and do your cooking on an induction hob?

You might be interested in this article
Wind-to-Hydrogen Project
Click to expand...

I doubt very much that self production is going to be a safe and viable method and in any case you couldn't use it as a single source of fuel but mixed with natural gas, Butane or Propane it has benefits.

Climate change hope for hydrogen fuel
 
Fr J Hackett said:
I doubt very much that self production is going to be a safe and viable method and in any case you couldn't use it as a single source of fuel but mixed with natural gas, Butane or Propane it has benefits.

Climate change hope for hydrogen fuel
Click to expand...

The article liade linked to stated it would only be possible to use a mixture of 20% hydrogen gas mixed with NG but that was only because all the piping etc would not have to be changed.

Why couldn't you use 100% hydrogen? In the article Iliade linked to it stated
Worcester Bosch, for instance, has a “hydrogen-ready” design. It can run on natural gas, but it’s capable of converting to 100% hydrogen following a one-hour visit by an engineer.
 
coopec said:
The article liade linked to stated it would only be possible to use a mixture of 20% hydrogen gas mixed with NG but that was only because all the piping etc would not have to be changed.

Why couldn't you use 100% hydrogen? In the article Iliade linked to it stated
Worcester Bosch, for instance, has a “hydrogen-ready” design. It can run on natural gas, but it’s capable of converting to 100% hydrogen following a one-hour visit by an engineer.
Click to expand...

Hydrogen like any fuel has to react with Oxygen when it does so just like when methane burns there are some oxides of nitrogen produced in fact several times as many when burning hydrogen than methane or other hydrocarbons. Nitrogen oxides are harmful to humans and the environment. Transporting 100% nitrogen is difficult and certainly beyond the capability of the current national grid let alone a boat system. A hydrogen flame in normal light is virtually invisible posing a risk of not knowing if it is burning or not. Unless very carefully managed the burning of hydrogen in air is explosive. Hence the most likely use of hydrogen as a fuel particularly in domestic terms is as a diluent / constituent of hydrocarbon gases.
 
AngusMcDoon said:
To store a useful amount, even a small amount for a short while, it will need compressing or liquefying. They are both energy intensive and the kit to do it is £££££££££.
Click to expand...
I see no problem with short term storage:
https://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e888330147e4413c14970b-pi

If you pressurised the whole electrolyser there would be little need for.additional pressurisation to reach regulated supply pressure. A flame-safe HVLP compressor could easily feed in adequate pressure.

Yes, the hydrogen flame is insufficiently luminescent, but something like this would help Google Image Result for https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Carbide_lamp_lit.jpg

Re-jetting really is trivial. You may have to modify ffds as the flame lift may differ.

The reason to limit.to 20% dilution of hydrocarbon is to avoid the two previously mentioned issues.

There is no way that the aerobic combustion products of hydrogen can include anything with nitrogen or carbon in it. However, yes it is possible to generate some of such compounds by heating things, but then pretty much anything at that temperature will do so... The Hydrogen Economy’s Dirty Secret

Discuss.
 
Lucy52 said:
I seem to remember cooking on Hydrogen mix when I was young, came in a pipe from the Gas Board before that newfangled North Sea stuff came along.
Click to expand...
Town gas, made by blowing steam over hot coke:
H2O + C = CO + H2
The carbon monoxide was extremely poisonous; hence the number of suicides caused by people sticking their head into the oven and turning on the gas ...
 
Regardless of all that, it is completely impractical to self-generate Hydrogen from solar, not because of the safety, complexity, storage or anything else .. but simply because you cannot possibly make enough of it to be useful.

Assume that the conversion and storage processes are 100% efficient (they are not, but assume they are) and that you could capture all the energy from a couple of large solar panels and store it as Hydrogen to use as fuel .. well .. its easy to work out the energy input ... plenty of people have measured how many kWh they can actually get from their panels and its nto a lot ... and then remember that 1 horsepower is 746 Watts of output .. but engines are at best 30% to 35% efficient .. so you woudl need to put arounf 2.1 kWh in for every hour of 1 horsepower out ... a typical yacht might need 20 horsepower ... so 40 kWh of electricity in for every hour of cruising under power. I doubt a pair of 240W panels woudl harvest that amount of energy in a month .. maybe not even in 6 months.

In short: it is a non starter. If you want to store the energy from your solar, store it in batteries and use it that way, it is far more efficient than converting it to hydrogen and then using a combustion engine to convert it to motive power. I would add that is equally a non starter unless you are prepared to cover your entire boat in panels and have very, very limited cruising range.
 
rszemeti said:
Regardless of all that, it is completely impractical to self-generate Hydrogen from solar, not because of the safety, complexity, storage or anything else .. but simply because you cannot possibly make enough of it to be useful.
<snip>
In short: it is a non starter. If you want to store the energy from your solar, store it in batteries and use it that way, it is far more efficient than converting it to hydrogen and then using a combustion engine to convert it to motive power. I would add that is equally a non starter unless you are prepared to cover your entire boat in panels and have very, very limited cruising range.
Click to expand...
I'm not thinking about propulsion, but cooking and refridgeration etc. Hydrogen is a lot lighter than the batteries needed to run an electric hob...
 
Iliade said:
I'm not thinking about propulsion, but cooking and refridgeration etc. Hydrogen is a lot lighter than the batteries needed to run an electric hob...
Click to expand...

Creating heat is energy intensive as well. To heat 1 litre of water from 20 C to 100 C would require 10 litres of hydrogen at STP. It's not practical to store that volume, not practical to compress of freeze it on a small scale, and not practical to create it either from solar on a small boat given inefficiencies in the process and generally dreich weather. You'd be better off carrying a sack of coal in the bilges and converting it to town gas.
 
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