Hydrogen - Really? (Man maths & research involved)

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

The efficiency matters, but only for cost.

If tomorrow somebody somehow magically solved all the technological and cost problems that need to be solved for HFCV using grey hydrogen, you'd see a rapid global shift to grey hydrogen because of the massive air pollution problems that diesel and petrol have.

But you'd still see a push for EVs (and green hydrogen), because of the obvious value in renewable electricity and batteries.

The reality is that it's just _really_ hard to make HFCV cheap enough because hydrogen.

 

[Skotty]

Note that while I'm pro-fusion, I'm not against fission either. I think improving fission is also a worthwhile endeavor. We shouldn't have to choose between them. We should pursue both.

Fission has terrible PR right now. It could be great technology, but it has serious issues that need to be addressed if we want it to be an option for future commercial use. We need better reactors, and better disaster control. We should probably be using breeder reactors.

A fun argument I like to make is that nuclear is renewable, or that renewables are not renewable. Stars eventually burn out. So solar power is only renewable if you put a time limit on what counts as renewable. And when you do that, suddenly nuclear can compete to reach that time limit.

 

[roblab]

I have 11 kw of solar plus battery and grid storage. It more than powers both of my cars.

I can't imagine having to travel fifty miles to a hydrogen station, or having the same convenience by having hydrogen brought to my house. This all sounds like a pipe dream from the somnolent brains of the fossil fuel industry. Not too bright.

 

[ACarneiro]

Fission has terrible PR right now. It could be great technology, but it has serious issues that need to be addressed if we want it to be an option for future commercial use.

They would have been addressed by now if all research hadn't effectively been halted for the last 30 years. We could maybe have functioning Thorium-based breeder reactors now or who knows something even better or cheaper

 

[pgkevet]

I have 11 kw of solar plus battery and grid storage. It more than powers both of my cars.

I can't imagine having to travel fifty miles to a hydrogen station, or having the same convenience by having hydrogen brought to my house. This all sounds like a pipe dream from the somnolent brains of the fossil fuel industry. Not too bright.

Obviously you are a man of vision who would have his own H2 generation at home - preferably from your own borehole supply. How far did you have to drive to fill up with petrol? There will be an H2 station convenient to you - or even fill up from your home's Central Heating piped supply? How far will folk have to drive to fill up their car battery when they don't have off-street parking, and sit and wait for it to top off?

 

[Zakalwe]

I have 11 kw of solar plus battery and grid storage. It more than powers both of my cars.

I can't imagine having to travel fifty miles to a hydrogen station, or having the same convenience by having hydrogen brought to my house. This all sounds like a pipe dream from the somnolent brains of the fossil fuel industry. Not too bright.

Bringing H2 into houses is a frankly shocking idea. It leaks through pipes, including metal pipes. It will require a wholesale change of boilers (don't believe that it only needs the burner changing). I've seen a study that shows that using H2 to heat homes may lead to a slightly smaller amount of gas explosions, but the ones that do occur will be much larger.
The FF industry is lobbying HARD as they know that H2 will allow them to continue business as usual. We need a wholesale switch to electricity for heating along with a massive investment to insulate houses. On that note, I'm also not convinced that heatpumps as they currently exist are the answer either. Here's a quality rant on the subject:

 

[Zakalwe]

There will be an H2 station convenient to you - or even fill up from your home's Central Heating piped supply?

No, there won't. Transporting H2 is a bitch. Producing it on-site requires about 300% of the electricity that a charging station requires. You cannot beat physics and the losses involved with H2 are huge compared to EVs.

 

[cryo]

I used to work with liquid Hydrogen and the thing that nobody will tell you is it has to be kept at -421 degrees Fahrenheit (31' Kelvin) and at 13 bar. To achieve this storage equilibrium it has to be kept in a liquid nitrogen jacketed tank with the heat in leak absorbed by the liquid nitrogen and resultant gassing off of N2 vented to atmosphere which is a very expensive in lost energy. All movement of Hydrogen incurs a great heat in-leak loss as pipelines have to be cooled and all Hydrogen venting has to be constantly nitrogen purged which is a further energy loss and all this before it ever reaches a hydrogen cell. As to an internal combustion engine yes the by-product will be water vapour but being a very active gas hydrogen atoms are very small but are highly spaced which is why it is lighter than air which in turn means it is very hard if not impossible to make an efficient internal combustion engine using Hydrogen gas. This is without taking into consideration that Hydrogen has a bad habit of pre-igniting under compression leading to complex problems in internal combustion engines. This Hydrogen bandwagon is being promoted by the big oil companies because they have a massive investment in natural gas (used for Hydrogen reforming) and think they can pull the wool over the public's eyes. Hydrogen is the future without a doubt but the distant future when we have unlimited cheap electricity to produce it.

 

[pgkevet]

My dad was in the RAF. As a kid I used to sneak over to RAF Cardington with mates to go see him and then often ended up playing by the railway waggons full of H2 Cylinders by the line sidings. No refrigeration there. Dad told me that at one point he was involved in the logistics of wartime supply for barrage balloons creating H2 cylinder stores strategically around the UK.

 

[Mrklaw]

Bringing H2 into houses is a frankly shocking idea. It leaks through pipes, including metal pipes. It will require a wholesale change of boilers (don't believe that it only needs the burner changing). I've seen a study that shows that using H2 to heat homes may lead to a slightly smaller amount of gas explosions, but the ones that do occur will be much larger.
The FF industry is lobbying HARD as they know that H2 will allow them to continue business as usual. We need a wholesale switch to electricity for heating along with a massive investment to insulate houses. On that note, I'm also not convinced that heatpumps as they currently exist are the answer either. Here's a quality rant on the subject:

What alternative is there? Assuming they want to move away from natural gas then that means electric. Even if air pumps aren’t magically efficient they’re still likely overall more efficient than standard resistive heating?

 

[pgkevet]

What alternative is there? Assuming they want to move away from natural gas then that means electric. Even if air pumps aren’t magically efficient they’re still likely overall more efficient than standard resistive heating?

Again depends on shape and structure of housing stock but before I retired my clinic had a/c units in every room useable for either heat or cooling and a veritable windfarm of 16 compressors on the roof and then just a gas boiler for hot water and undercage heating. It all worked well.

 

[Alex987854]

I heard that its getting closer. Last i heard it was 30 years away

Forty years ago, my physics teacher who had been a fusion researcher said that it was 30 years away.

 

[cryo]

My dad was in the RAF. As a kid I used to sneak over to RAF Cardington with mates to go see him and then often ended up playing by the railway waggons full of H2 Cylinders by the line sidings. No refrigeration there. Dad told me that at one point he was involved in the logistics of wartime supply for barrage balloons creating H2 cylinder stores strategically around the UK.

I see where you are coming from but the difference between blowing wartime barrage balloons up with gas and producing a hydrogen economy are worlds apart. We liquefy natural gas LNG for mass transport as its the only economical way to transport around it the world economically and the same would apply to Hydrogen. Hydrogen transport (liquefied) and storage is a very modern industry and having worked in the cryogenics field I'm well aware it is still in its infancy. The hydrogen economy is being pushed by big oil as it looses gas fired power stations due to CO2 emissions it wants to move into Hydrogen reforming (natural gas feedstock) which emits even more CO2 per Kwh of useful energy generated. Hydrogen production in any form is a very low energy efficiency operation and will not really be viable until we have very cheap unlimited electricity generation.

 

[Mrklaw]

Again depends on shape and structure of housing stock but before I retired my clinic had a/c units in every room useable for either heat or cooling and a veritable windfarm of 16 compressors on the roof and then just a gas boiler for hot water and undercage heating. It all worked well.

AC is same as heat pump so same benefits and limitations regarding efficiency. And hot water I guess has to go back to immersion heating? Possibly options there to use off peak ‘smart charging’ to heat everyone’s water overnight while balancing the grid?

 

[Peter 224]

Talking about Fission Reactors Rolls Royce are pushing their "Small Modular Reactors"

Small modular reactors

Rolls-Royce SMR LTD was established to develop an affordable power plant that generates electricity using a small modular reactor.

www.rolls-royce.com

RR Has been making and developing these for 40 years, they are used in nuclear powered submarines, with great success. They are "sealed for life" and the reactor cell can be removed to Sellafield for decommissioning.

In my view they, plus renewables, are the future until Fusion Reactorss are proven, in about 30 years....

 

[Peter 224]

AC is same as heat pump so same benefits and limitations regarding efficiency. And hot water I guess has to go back to immersion heating? Possibly options there to use off peak ‘smart charging’ to heat everyone’s water overnight while balancing the grid?

We have a heat pump unit in our bedroom, in spring and autumn it avoids turning the CH on, in summer it cools the room! We also have 4kwh of solar power, when we don't consume what we produce it goes to the immersion heater and a 3kwh battery pack. For much of the summer the Smart Meter display shows we buy NO power from the Grid, during the day.

 

[pgkevet]

AC is same as heat pump so same benefits and limitations regarding efficiency. And hot water I guess has to go back to immersion heating? Possibly options there to use off peak ‘smart charging’ to heat everyone’s water overnight while balancing the grid?

The jovial plumber in the video was using air or ground source to heat water (poorly) and then pipe it around the house while admitting the first stage had up to a 3 time advantage over cooking the water with electricity. A/C units blowing warm air directly into each room bypass many of his inefficiencies and installation costs. I've got 2 in the current house - more for summer cooling but we do use to top up warmth for a few weeks autumn before it's worth putting on the CH, and also as a backup for boiler failures. And since I'm rural we also have a wood burner as backup for electricity blackouts - but it’s dusty, messy and hard work cutting and carting timber. The largest a/c unit is supposedly 6KW heat output equivalent but only pulls 3-4 amps.
No cell signal means no smart meter here so no night rate. Gas option would be propane but we chose oil. Electric direct boiler starts getting into whole new area of limitations- say 25-30KW draw on that, 32KW for the car and you have to start worrying about how many other appliances and tools I’d have running with 100A incoming fuse...

 

[Zakalwe]

My dad was in the RAF. As a kid I used to sneak over to RAF Cardington with mates to go see him and then often ended up playing by the railway waggons full of H2 Cylinders by the line sidings. No refrigeration there. Dad told me that at one point he was involved in the logistics of wartime supply for barrage balloons creating H2 cylinder stores strategically around the UK.

And I'm sure that your Dad's anecdote is absolutely true. Yes, you can store H2 in cylinders. Now try filling a car with enough cylinders to travel any sort of meaningful distance. What, you want room for your shopping, your missus and your nippers as well?

H2 is incredibly light and takes a lot of volume. You cannot store meaningful volumes of it unless you condense it into a cryogenic liquid (which means massive pressures and lots of boiling off). You have to store it at huge pressures...think along the lines of 10,000 bar (note, bar not PSI). H2 also seeps into and through steel containers. Hydrogen is the smallest possible atom (one proton, one electron) and it diffuses into and through metal containers. In doing so it causes steel to embrittle and crack.
There's a reason why the Toyota Mirai fuel system is not allowed to be used after 10 years.

2016 Toyota Mirai: "Do Not Refuel After 2029"?

The Toyota Mirai comes with an interesting warning in the US, a Do Not Refuel After message on back of refueling cap

insideevs.com

The last thing that you want to be around is a hydrogen leak. It has the widest stoichiometric ratios which means it can ignite and explode in just about any concentration. The friction caused by hydrogen gas leaking from a pipe has been known to cause it to self-ignite. It is not a substance to be trifled with.

 

[SpareHeadOne]

Funny how people that only want to burn fossil fuels suddenly care about the environment and question where the components of batteries come from and how they are disposed off!

It's also funny how the entire manufacturing and power generation process is important for BEVs, but ICE vehicles and fuel appear out of thin air so only the CO2 produced when they are driven needs to be counted.


As for fusion, it's been five years away since something like the 1950s, makes Elon's promises about FSD look like the work of an amateur. Anyone want to predict which one we'll get first?

 

[12Pack]

In conclusion, with current knowledge, the problems with hydrogen remain that it cannot be produced efficiently (nor in a renewable cycle), and that it cannot be transported efficiently in a renewable manner.