Posted on 02/21/2024 11:48:59 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
The gas engine is still the most efficient engine by far.
Ford, GM, and now BMW, Blackrock, and the other HUGE investment firm ALL jumping off the train of utter insanity!!!
Bavarian Hendenburg Werken
BMW
So, they’ve found a way to obtain hydrogen without using more energy than they get in hydrogen? Or are they just expecting idiots to pay extra for the thrill of being “first” to have one?
Title doesn’t match the article.
Great! Now we taxpayers are going to have to pay for Hydrogen stations along with charging stations.
The headline is misleading. BMW, like most of the auto companies, is currently pursuing a multi-pronged approach... ICE, EV, plug-in hybrids... and also, in a small way, dipping its toe in alternative fuels.
A plug in hybrid with a lean burn Miller cycle hydrogen combustion engine would be the best of both worlds. Do your daily commute and local run abouts on solar power no need even for the power grid and the feds cannot turn off the Sun unlike oil refineries and the gas grid which is one fedgov whim away from shut off. Unlike gasoline you can make hydrogen at the home level high pressure electrolysis already exist downsizing to home sized wouldn’t be that hard. Water plus electricity = 250bar H2 into aluminum lined carbon fiber tanks. Aluminum is virtually impervious to hydrogen ,doesn’t get brittle with H2 exposure it is the industry standard for hydrogen containment. An industry that uses and stores well over a million tonnes of H2 per year just in oil refineries alone. It’s a myth that hydrogen cannot be stored or pipelined ect.There is at least a hundred miles of 500+psi H2 pipelines on the Gulf Coast in use every day. Hydrogen also burns vertically if a tank vents and burns it burns upwards not pools like gasoline fires do. There is great video of this effect when the USDOT purposely punched a hole in a 250bar tank in the trunk of a sedan and then had a ignition source in the trunk. The mandatory vent hole disk in the trunk roof burst and the flame shot straight up into the sky once the tank was done venting the flames died and the car was not consumed at all unlike a gasoline fire where the flames pool under the vehicle and burn it to the ground. Google the video it’s worth the watch and completely bust the FUD myth of Hindenburg hydrogen lore. The USDOT did the worse case scenario a complete breach of the tank and a ignition source in the trunk right next to the tank. Without an ignition source in the trunk the tank would have busted the vent disk and in a few seconds all the gas would be harmlessly on it’s way to deep space since )2 gas is not bound by earth’s gravity it’s so light it leaves the upper atmosphere via solar winds.
“So, they’ve found a way to obtain hydrogen without using more energy than they get in hydrogen?”
No hydrogen will always be a energy storage medium not a energy source. That excludes recently discovered deposits of gold hydrogen which is geological hydrogen gas trapped underground sourced from the mantle it is believed to be the product of subduction of hydrated minerals in descending plates into the mantel where pressure and temps are high enough to break some of the hydrogen bonds in the minerals releasing pure H2 into the strata that then migrates up dip if it finds a gas tight trap it pools.
Hydrogen can be made with electricity that would be lost otherwise this in the industry is known as curtailment power. This happens when supply exceeds demand such as frequently in Texas where the winds are howling in West Texas in the middle of the night demand is low and 30,000 megawatts of wind turbines are spinning there hearts out currently that power is curtailed or sold at negative rates. The key metric in electrolysis is the capex per kg of H2 per hour. Once that capex gets down to the $200_400 range it becomes economic to run an electrolysis machine with intermittent power sources. Wind turbines in class 4 area’s have a capacity factor over a year of 30% to 35% thats 2000 ish hours per year. The lifetime for PEM electrolysis is 30000_40000 hours before the membranes need to be replaced the other metal hardware is still good. The richest man in India has a personal project to get H2 electrolysis capex to $200 he is already close in the $500 range now. Of course the best way to make H2 from electricity is using nuclear power using the electrolysis banks as load levelers run the nukes flat out and use the H2 to soak up excess power the grid can’t take at any given time. Ask the Canadians to build out 8 pack CANDU reactor pads those put out 2 cent per kWh at the plant edge 24/7 with 90% capacity factors and 60+ year lifetimes being extended to 80 possibly 100. Nukes plus H2 is humanities future the age of oil will end sooner than most people think. Gen Z will see the end of cheap oil for sure.
The gas engine is still the most efficient engine by far.
+++++++++++++++++
The gas engine is not terribly efficient, however, gasoline or diesel is the most efficient method to carry energy in motor vehicle applications.
They had to invent a CO2 pollution to vilify it since it is getting too clean to make people hate it.
Yea, where is the closest hydrogen filling station?
That being said, if we're going to stay on us solar users being mostly on battery power so we can be mostly self-reliant, the question is how to add the hydrogen component to drive long miles through charging deserts? I'm not convinced on the necessity of a true hybrid car, even current hybrids (part gas engine, part electric motor). To me that seems to add to complexity and, therefore, more need for repair. That seems like it wouldn't change if the combustion engine portion was hydrogen instead of gasoline.
However, if the hydrogen portion was as a fuel cell, then it wouldn't add much to the complexity if the rest of the car was a BEV (battery powered EV). We'd still be talking about a car with an electric motor powered by electricity, only with two power sources (battery and fuel cell). The battery can be used for efficient frequent use charging with homemade solar (or sometimes grid), while the fuel cell portion can be used for adding range for every now and then long distance trips without adding much weight. (Unlike doubling the range of a BEV by adding more heavy battery storage.)
A fuel cell is at least three times as efficient as a spark ignited gasoline engine in moving an equal sized vehicle down the road. 60% efficiency of the fuel cell is king. Very large ship diesels get to 50% the most efficient gas engine in production is in the Toyota hybrids 38% but only at its peak eff point which is not where the engine runs most of the time. One KG of hydrogen has the same HHV as a gallon of gasoline. Why HHV and not LHV a fuel cell is an electrochemical machine where faraday law applies not a thermal machine where Carnot and thermodynamics laws rule. The Toyota Mira gets 80+mpge per Kg H2 vs 30mpg for a similar sized sedan that’s ICE.
The real metric is what would a Kg of H2 cost with $400 capex and 2000hrs per year and a 30000hr PEM lifespan. That’s a capex of 1.3 cents per Kg of H2 with 4 cent power a typical wholesale rate, electricity to H2 is 70-80% plug to gas eff. At 75% it takes 52.52kWh to make a Kg of H2 which at 4c is $2.10 in energy costs plus capex is $2.113kg that’s exactly the DOE target price per Kg. When your car will go 80 miles on a Kg the cost per mile is one third that of a gallon of gas at the equal $2.11.
Toyota also has H2 ICE engines in the pipeline they are lean burn and approach diesels in BSFC levels a sedan would get 50mpge on a Kg of H2 the hybrid version would be in the 70mpge range. With those kinds of hybrid mpge H2 could be in the $5_6 range and not cost more per mile than a conventional ICE. The cost per mile is what matters not the cost per unit sold that’s just an emotional metric.
The last Prius I rented was getting 75mpg in city traffic and 60s on the motorways at 80mph.
Addition to battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), not as a rivalry?
Still not buying, like I could afford any vehicle.
Problem is fuel cells are hideously expensive due to the platinum catalysts needed in the PEM cells. Until someone comes up with either an solid acid catalysts or a transition metal catalyst the cost per kw of a fuel cell is just too high for consumer cars maybe high end luxury vehicles. Toyota subsidizes heavily the Mira it’s a tech demo at best. This is why BMW ,Toyota and Mazda all have H2 lean burn in the pipeline. Lean burn eliminates the NOX issue, particulates have never been an issue not having to use SCR cats is the sole reason for lean burn. I’d love to have a plug in hybrid with 50 miles EV range, a lean burn Miller cycle hydrogen combustion engine just turning a generator at it’s peak eff point. With 5kg of h2 storage would be 300 to 400 more miles on H2. With a single kg per hour of h2 electrolysis from a high pressure electrolysis cell pack 300amp service is code here so the 52kw needed would not max out the breaker panel there is still nearly 100 amps of service for other things. The economics would work is if you can get off peak power for 5 cents kWh and the capex of the H2 stack was under $2000 kg it would be like having an oil refinery in the garage making fuel directly into the cars tank. Even if the economics is not perfect having the ability to make virtually unlimited fuel with just the Sun and water warms a preppers heart. The dotgovs c annoy shut off the Sun with a few clicks of a keyboard like they could the electric grid, gas grid or oil refineries. Any of those three could be shut down in minutes or a few hours by government dictates. No private company will tell the gov no that would lead to nationalization in a flash no board would ever risk that they will turn on the people faster than Brutus did to Cesar.
There’s no reason you couldn’t very cheaply add port liquid fuel injectors to your direct injection H2 engine. An engine with the valve seats hardened to already burn H2 would have zero issues burning any of the liquid alcohols from methanol to butanol the same wide range O2 sensors you need for H2 lean burn can also give you the right air fuel ratio on the fly for alcohols in any mix range even mixing different ones like Texas A&M planed for with a mixed culture fermentation of municipal wastes back in the 1990s. A dual fuel H2 and liquid fermenter made fuels is a prepper dream. Plus if it can take alcohol and the compression ratio is adjustable via the Miller cycle you could always use 87 regular until our better ban it.
Good luck with that BMW
“BMW is ready to say goodbye to electric cars: They are preparing to launch their new hydrogen car”
I guess BMW is going to learn what NASA learned well over 50 years ago, which is that Hydrogen molecules are really, really, small and very hard to keep corralled.
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