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Hydrogen vs. Battery
- Thread starter siry
- Start date
I recently saw a discussion of how dimethyl ether is produced from biogas sources. If you're not familiar with DME, it's similar to propane and seems to have a lot of promise as a diesel fuel. Biogas apparently has too much CO2 compared to H to do a complete conversion to DME, so a lot of the CO2 goes unused. The proposal was to add more hydrogen to the process to more efficiently use the carbon content of the biogas. It's also possible to convert pure CO2 to DME.
Perhaps the use of hydrogen as a fuel will be to produce DME from CO2 plus hydrogen and use the DME as diesel fuel. While I don't know if DME will be an attractive fuel, it's certainly a lot more practical than hydrogen.
Perhaps the use of hydrogen as a fuel will be to produce DME from CO2 plus hydrogen and use the DME as diesel fuel. While I don't know if DME will be an attractive fuel, it's certainly a lot more practical than hydrogen.
Seven7
Member
I agree with this, if hydrogen were useful as fuel Ballard would have done SOMETHING back in early 2000-2005 but it never went anywhere. I just haven't seen anybody able to do anything with it as far as being able to replace the ICE
Johan
Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
All the big automakers who are "vested" in to hydrogen and fuel cells know it, and have known it for many years, bascially it's just a cover story so they can say they're working on "the next thing" to replace their petrol/diesel cars... that strategy works for a while but as the years go by and they still have more or less nothing to show for it and the breakthrough is still "a few years in to the future" (just like it was 5 or 10 years ago) it becomes ridiculous.
With hydrogen some people who do not really understand science or chemistry love to point out that a car can go 400 miles on 10 kwhr and hydrogen. There was a huge discussion of facebook.
Essentially the hydrogen people were citing a few examples that used sodium borohydride (a high density energy carrier) that they failed to mention and asserted that the hydrogen was made from a water tank in the car.
While true you can go 400 miles with 10 kwhr and a tank full of sodium borohydride it is no different than putting a gasoline into the car; which is another high energy carrier.
Here's some questions to ask hydrogen energy proponents.
1. Where is the hydrogen coming from? (over 90% comes from petrochemicals)
2. What is the efficiency of splitting the hydrogen? (Note water is about 18% efficient in terms of output energy/input energy, isn't it better to use that energy to charge an EV at 90% efficiency?)
3. How much energy is required to compress/store? (compression takes alot of energy, and you will waste alot during the compression)
4. How much is the fueling stations? (500 K to 1 M)
5. How many fueling stations would be needed? (about the 100,000)
6. If you are using the sodium borohydride, as was used to some of those 400 mile hydrogen vehicles, there is borax left, how do you dispose of that?
7. If you want to use some biological source to produce hydrogen, how big would the reactor be to produce enough to go 40 miles/day? (The answer is as big as an small apartment)
8. Any special regulations if using compressed hydrogen? (I'm a paintball/scuba guy so I know compressed tanks must be tested every few years as per DOT regs, if you have a compressed tank in your vehicle, how do you propose to test that and still stay in compliance with the law)
9. What happens when you go on an extended trip? Hydrogen is a very small molecule and tends to leak out of tanks over time, it's the nature of the molecule, it's small.
Essentially the hydrogen people were citing a few examples that used sodium borohydride (a high density energy carrier) that they failed to mention and asserted that the hydrogen was made from a water tank in the car.
While true you can go 400 miles with 10 kwhr and a tank full of sodium borohydride it is no different than putting a gasoline into the car; which is another high energy carrier.
Here's some questions to ask hydrogen energy proponents.
1. Where is the hydrogen coming from? (over 90% comes from petrochemicals)
2. What is the efficiency of splitting the hydrogen? (Note water is about 18% efficient in terms of output energy/input energy, isn't it better to use that energy to charge an EV at 90% efficiency?)
3. How much energy is required to compress/store? (compression takes alot of energy, and you will waste alot during the compression)
4. How much is the fueling stations? (500 K to 1 M)
5. How many fueling stations would be needed? (about the 100,000)
6. If you are using the sodium borohydride, as was used to some of those 400 mile hydrogen vehicles, there is borax left, how do you dispose of that?
7. If you want to use some biological source to produce hydrogen, how big would the reactor be to produce enough to go 40 miles/day? (The answer is as big as an small apartment)
8. Any special regulations if using compressed hydrogen? (I'm a paintball/scuba guy so I know compressed tanks must be tested every few years as per DOT regs, if you have a compressed tank in your vehicle, how do you propose to test that and still stay in compliance with the law)
9. What happens when you go on an extended trip? Hydrogen is a very small molecule and tends to leak out of tanks over time, it's the nature of the molecule, it's small.
Agreed.
Pure hydrogen has such a poor volumetric energy density that on large vehicles like those, I think it would make more sense to use some hydrocarbon fuel with an on-board reformer. In fact, simple methanol at standard temperature and pressure has more hydrogen atoms per unit volume than cryogenic liquid H2.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Anyone know anything about MOF's for hydrogen storage? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal-organic_framework
I've heard they allow increased hydrogen storage density.
I've heard they allow increased hydrogen storage density.
... anytime soon.
For Hydrogen to make sense, you need cheap power and power that's almost completely sourced from renewables.
It's environmentally terrible to
a) burn fossil fuels to spin a turbine
b) use the turbine to make electricity
c) use that electricity to make hydrogen
d) use the hydrogen to make electricity
e) use the electricity to spin your drive shaft
obviously steps (b),(c),(d), and (e) are pretty inefficient compared to just burning fossil fuels to spin your drive shaft.
you can also:
a) take fossil fuels and oxidize the carbon, throwing away that energy and CO2 to leave you with just the Hydrogen
b) take the resulting Hydrogen, which is much harder to transport than the hydrocarbons that you started with, and put that in your car
again, this is laughable compared to just burning the hydrocarbons in your car.
However, if your fusion reactor is cleanly making lots of cheap electricity and you need some way to cleanly put that energy into your car, Hydrogen might not be terrible.
I think most of us expect that battery technology will have improved at that point to the point where you can get 400 miles of charge in 5 minutes, but if it hasn't, Hydrogen could have a place before this century is over.
Until there's abundant clean energy, however, I agree that Hydrogen is pointless no matter what mode of transportation you're talking about.
Johan
Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
I agree with the fact that it would be correct to add "anytime soon". It's just that by the time hydrogen needs to evolve in to a realistic alternative there will have been so much development in battery tech, electricity generation (solar, other renewables, nuclear, fusion on eart???) that the whole thing is moat. If in 15 years Toyta and Honda announce that they have finally constructed a Hydrogen fuel cell car that can match an EV of today then just thing where EV's will be in 15 years...
MarkH
Member
"Toyota expects FCHVs to reach full mass-market commercialisation during the 2020s, by when it aims to be selling tens of thousands of vehicles each year"
Tesla is already there, with Supercharging infrastructure well on it's way in addition to home charging capability at almost every modern home, TODAY.
It's like they're living in an alternate Universe where Tesla never happened. Just... Weird.
Tesla is already there, with Supercharging infrastructure well on it's way in addition to home charging capability at almost every modern home, TODAY.
It's like they're living in an alternate Universe where Tesla never happened. Just... Weird.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Toyota aims to do that with FCHVs, not EVs. Like many automakers, they say EVs can't achieve what hydrogen cars can while pointing at the sub-100 mile range of most EVs. Of course, they always conveniently leave out Tesla (or say it costs too much while glossing over the fact that the hydrogen cars they are backing cost even more).
gg_got_a_tesla
Model S: VIN 65513, Model 3: VIN 1913
My question would be: is this all a delaying tactic? Just to prolong the ICE era and business as usual?
This seems to be some serious (expensive) R&D work so, it's not a charade for sure. They must seriously believe in this for the long haul?!
This seems to be some serious (expensive) R&D work so, it's not a charade for sure. They must seriously believe in this for the long haul?!
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I'm guessing delaying tactic, with some potential payback in the future. Since the fuel cell cars require a significant battery pack, and use electric motors and inverters, much of their work can translate to EV's. In the meantime they continue to sell the ICE's and hybrids they've already developed, while being able to say they are actively working on something better for the future. At some point they can dump the fuel cell and replace it with a larger battery pack.
In 2012:
Exxon posted a profit of 44.9 billion dollars
Toyota profit 13.3 billion
GM profit was 4.9 billion.
I have no evidence whatsoever, but how many of you would be surprised if an Exxon exec visited GM or Toyota to talk about FCHVs and EVs and a few hundred million dollars fell out of his pocket? Oops.
Exxon posted a profit of 44.9 billion dollars
Toyota profit 13.3 billion
GM profit was 4.9 billion.
I have no evidence whatsoever, but how many of you would be surprised if an Exxon exec visited GM or Toyota to talk about FCHVs and EVs and a few hundred million dollars fell out of his pocket? Oops.
SCW-Greg
Active Member
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Depends on if you ask engineers or corporate. I have no doubt they have engineers that believe in the tech.
They do save a lot of money on the fact that hydrogen cars are hybrids. They are basically taking their existing hybrid drive train and replacing the ICE with a fuel cell (they say that in the article in fact). The FCHV-adv and Toyota's planned "production" model are this way and the Hyundai ix35 FCV is the same.
As for the R&D budget, Toyota is spending $7 billion on hybrids, and most likely a lot less on hydrogen. With hydrogen they have the convenient excuse that the infrastructure doesn't exist (you can't refuel at home easily like EVs), which means they can delay much longer. And they sure as hell won't be spending money to build stations like Tesla is.
To summarize, it's not really that big of a hit on their R&D budget. I think the attitude is that if it turns out to work, then great. If not, it's a great excuse in the mean time to pare back the ZEV mandate (and it worked previously until Tesla came on the scene). Neither EVs nor FCVs will be as profitable as ICE vehicles in the forsee-able future, and FCVs will take longer to get here so it's the "lesser evil" to profit driven companies.
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DuncanWatson
Member
Engineers don't care whether something makes sense. They only care whether they can do it. Yes a car can be powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. That is enough for an engineer. The larger question of who produces the hydrogen and at what cost both in carbon and in dollars is not part of their thinking. This is the reason why I make my money as a system guy. I know all of the inputs and the entire working solution. I can tell another engineer that though you will solve your specified work by implementing X you will break the entire solution if you do it that way.
Hydrogen is that technically possible but really stupid idea. It works in SF books where they are in space and can come up with ideas like scooping gas giants for hydrogen but not on today's Earth.
Hydrogen is that technically possible but really stupid idea. It works in SF books where they are in space and can come up with ideas like scooping gas giants for hydrogen but not on today's Earth.
Nonsense. Actually I find that somewhat offensive.
As a licensed Professional Engineer I am obliged to uphold the PEO Code of Ethics, which says in part:
Engineers absolutely do have a responsibility to protect society as a whole, not just to make a particular gadget work. Responsible engineers must pay attention to the consequences of the work they are doing, and that most certainly includes the impact on the environment.
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