Posted on 02/21/2024 11:48:59 AM PST by ChicagoConservative27
yeah, my first thought as well ...
“So, they’ve found a way to obtain hydrogen without using more energy than they get in hydrogen?”
this is a bit more efficient than electrolysis:
“Steam-methane reforming accounts for nearly all commercially produced hydrogen in the United States. Commercial hydrogen producers and petroleum refineries use steam-methane reforming to separate hydrogen atoms from carbon atoms in methane (CH4). In steam-methane reforming, high-temperature steam (1,300°F to 1,800°F) under 3 bar–25 bar pressure (1 bar = 14.5 pounds per square inch) reacts with methane in the presence of a catalyst to produce hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and a relatively small amount of carbon dioxide (CO2). Industrial facilities and petroleum refineries primarily use natural gas as the methane source for hydrogen production.”
but there are two major problems with the above process:
1. it uses fossil fuel methane as the source of hydrogen
2. the carbon in methane is left over after steam extraction, AND is EXACTLY the same amount of carbon one would have released if one had just burned the methane to start with ... (and of course there’s the issue of all the energy wasted to separate the hydrogen from the carbon in methane in the first place)
and then of course there’s the MASSIVE energy cost to compress, transport and store hydrogen, which is EXTREMELY corrosive, EXTREMELY explosive, and EXTREMELY difficult to keep from leaking because H2 is the tiniest molecule in the universe ... explosion-prone and leaking-prone are NOT a good combination for a substance ...
the concept of hydrogen-powered transportation is even more insane than the concept of electric rechargeable battery transportation ...
where’s the diesel-electric vehicles? A diesel powered generator maintaining a battery pack?
Like a locomotive
the only hybrid electric scheme that would seem to make any engineering and economic sense
I sent Elon Musk similar things as these battery cars are ridiculous starting fires, wearing out tires and force people to map recharging station locations while not knowing if those are the fast ones or the far more common tricklers where the driver is stuck for hours and sometimes days when a combustion engine would have gotten them there sanely.
I believe we have the technological ability to not only handle hydrogen safely but refine it out of water (which is it's primary component) and use it to fuel nearly everything for next-to-nothing cost.
But I used to believe America would prevail over it's opponents because of the ocean of oil we sit over, never seeing a criminal regime could gain power and cut off that common sense like they urge deluded kids to get their organs mutilated.
Rope is still cheap and...
Look at GenXPolymath's posts about using hydrogen for combustion engines over my idea for hydrogen fuel cells. I think he's onto something about that being more efficient.
I'm still about the BEV portion of the tech being superior for most of our miles for those of us trying to be electricity self-reliant with solar. I lose at most 25% of my power during charging (converting my DC solar power to AC to run my EV charger, then converting again to DC within the EV's charge controller, then some more loss just in storing to battery). There's currently no way to get anything close to that throughput when creating my own hydrogen at home.
To illustrate how important that concept is for me: we drove our EV 26K miles last year with 16K of those miles charged at home. And 83% of all the power my house consumed (including charging the EV) was provided in house from solar (pulling only 17% of last year's power from the grid). So any future use of hydrogen in a car to satisfy my needs either needs to be created as efficiently as I charge the EV battery, or the hydrogen production be done only after the EV battery is charged and I'm looking for secondary uses of excess solar (i.e. running an electrolyzer to generate hydrogen for some lesser used future feature like filling a hydrogen tank for a future road trip).
For what it's worth, in my case waiting on a charger during a road trip has been an issue only one time. But to be fair I don't live in a cold weather area, and our road trips up north have been during warm periods. We have an ICE pickup as our 2nd car in part for in case a future trip isn't conducive to EV charging.
But that's me talking like it's a free market decision, not like the Dims push it. I wouldn't get an EV if I didn't have a good use case for it.
As far as EV's wearing out tires, I guess it depends. I assumed that the EV would wear out tires 10% faster than the ICE car it replaced because the EV weighs 10% more than the ICE car (but less than the ICE pickup). I also assumed that the 10% increase in tire cost might be offset by less cost in brake repair (because most EV braking is done with regen braking and thus puts less wear on the brake pads). That seems to be correct in the 20 months and 44K miles we put on the EV. We'll see if that holds.
As far as force people to map recharging station locations while not knowing if those are the fast ones or the far more common tricklers where the driver is stuck for hours, I've yet to be surprised that a fast charger turned out to be an hours long charger. Common forum apps like Plugshare turned out to be spot on. But it does require about 15 minutes of charger planning before a long trip (the first trip took an hour, but now we're used to it). If we were ever to just do a random trip going wherever we felt like at the moment, it'd definitely be one to take in the ICE pickup. LOL
But again, I live in an area where it's not an issue finding fast chargers not being used. In the southeast we have a dense enough population to have fast chargers on almost any road trip we'd take, but not so dense that everybody lives in apartments or homes so tightly close together that most EV owners can't charge at home for local driving. In other words, the only time I had to wait in line for charging was on a trip in the northeast (people charging at fast chargers because they lived in apartments and couldn't charge at home for local commutes). Most of my 500 mile round trip getaways near Alabama are in areas where there are only a few people at the chargers (never more cars than chargers) because the only people there are out of towners.
But that's back to not getting an EV if it's not a good idea for your situation (can't charge at home, or your single and don't need 2 cars so the 2nd car can be an ICE car, or you have lots of road trips in the cold north, or you have lots of road trips in sparsely populated areas with virtually no fast chargers, etc.). Again, free market.
“I believe we have the technological ability to not only handle hydrogen safely “
it’s FUD lore that.hydrogen is the beast that cannot be tamed. Massive as in millions of tonnes per year are used in some of the most dangerous explosive environments on earth. Every day every oil refinery in the USA uses millions of lbs of H2 gas from a vast network of pipelines to take the sulfur out of diesel and gasoline while also cracking long chain hydrocarbons into smaller more valuable chunks.
Every large powerplant uses hydrogen gas to cool it’s electrical generators it’s the only gas that has the thermal conductivity and more importantly the electrical potential insulation value to work at those high voltages and heat fluxes. Humans mastered hydrogen gas and its liquid form in the 1900s I wish people would stop with the luddite fud. Many a lab I habe worked in I have sat right next to a carbon fiber aluminum lined tank of pure H2 used for gas spec or a number of other uses all it did was sit there quietly. It’s didn’t leak or embrittle or corrode it’s just sat there with 3000psi gas aluminum is imperious to hydrogen backed up by a polymer liner then carbon fiber.
Das VHBmw........”The Von Hindenberg Bmw”
I know...this would be much safer using metal hydride storage or some such... I just couldn’t resist.
How about all the high pressure fittings for the H2 nozzles at the filling stations? Is it realistic to think that they could be operated safely by normal people and that they would remain operable and safe with all the wear and tear?
In 2000 they had at least 5 hydrogen powered vehicles here in the US, going coast to coast. I saw those vehicles when they were in Chicago. They stopped in front of the ad agency I worked for at the time, the legendary Leo Burnett Ad Agency.
They looked and drove exactly like gas powered vehicles. You couldn't tell the difference in the driveability.
Tell It Right, thanks for sharing your real-world experience as an electric vehicle owner, as I wasn’t going to take the government or Miss Captain Marvel’s word for it. Good luck with that...and the astronomical expense of battery replacement...and no one wants a used one, etc. Just saying I wouldn’t get one if I couldn’t afford to lose one.
Polymath, your contributions to civilization’s advancement are appreciated, as well as confirming my suspicion that modern use of hydrogen is far safer than it was in the Hindenburg era. Your mentioning oil refineries reminded me that most are becoming quite old and the government hasn’t allowed new ones to be built in decades. Seems the oil industry may be suffering from not buying politicians - or not paying enough for them.
Hopefully there’s light at the end of the tunnel and it’s not the headlight of a train speeding toward us while we’re stuck on the track.
“How about all the high pressure fittings for the H2 nozzles at the filling stations?”
Those fittings are identical to CNG fittings in use at thousands of CNG fuelling points world wide. Nearly every major Asian city has mandated CNG or Autogas as the only fuel for tuk this ,trikes and mopeds/moto bikes so millions of people per day put 3000+ psi gas into composite tanks every day.
We trust people everyday with dispensing liquid into a metal tank that has more potential energy gram per gram than dynamite where one spark will set off a chain reaction and a complete burn down of the vehicle.
Even if a CNG or H2 fitting leaks it’s outside in open air with gases that are much lighter than air they dispense upwards rapidly. For H2 you need 4% at minimum to sustain a flammable mixture it’s virtually the same as methane’s 5% and people thousands of times per day fuel high pressure methane into small portable tanks. Both gases are so buoyant in open air fueling they rise much to fast to ever get to a flammable mixture even if there was a leak and an ignition source the emergency cut off would stop the flow of gas immediately no gas no flame.
Humans will have to move away from liquid in the ground hydrocarbons sooner than later there simply is too many humans and everyone of them is demanding middle class energy consumption levels. The oceans have enough hydrogen for unlimited hydrogen use everywhere all the time the issue is having the energy to split off the H2 from seawater. The giant thermonuclear reactor in the sky showers us with energy millions of times what humans use in a single hour. 2% of the Sahara could power all of humanity with only 12 hours of daylight it’s a storage and transport problem not energy available at ground level. Humans mastered compressed gas storage in the last century period full stop it’s a nonissue with modern polymers,carbon fiber and seals.
Nearly every city in the USA uses CNG powered busses they refuel multiple times per day with 250bar methane look at the top of busses if they have the hump up top those are where the fiberglass pressure tanks are. CNG is half the cost of diesel and it doubles the lifespan of the engine due to lack of particulates in the oil from combustion.
For the Asian megacities CNG eliminates particulate emissions from small spark engines they mandated the end of 2cycle and went to 4 cycle with no gasoline allowed. Anyone who has been to an Asian city can tell you how eye watering the smog is. Liberally everyone is on a tuk tuk, trike or motobike/moped it’s organised madness traffic laws ha suggestions at best.
“Your mentioning oil refineries reminded me that most are becoming quite old and the government hasn’t allowed new ones to be built in decades. Seems the oil industry may be suffering from not buying politicians - or not paying enough for them.”
Refineries are a multibillion dollar investment with decades of lead time to build one or modernize one as well. The industry and the bankers can all see that the age of oil is ending there are too many mouths all wanting a bite. The existing refineries and some new ones being built where that much higher new demand is aka Asia,Africa,India will handle the drawdown of the cheap oil era. China is smart they are liquid hydrocarbon short and coal plenty with high density cities and a huge electric high speed rail network linking those cities. EVs and H2 cars make perfect sense and is the future in Asia megacities that much is certain. Low density areas with low population ddensity like South America,Africa outside the megacities biofuels,synthetic liquids or CNG/H2 make sense. Africa has that huge desert begging for energy harvesting from under the panels it’s shaded and cooler use desal and grow grasses for goats,sheep, and grains for people and livestock.
The Sahara contains more than enough silica to make the panels to blanket it with energy capture. Mine once use many. Polysilica thin film boron/ phosphorus type P/N panels can and should be recycled they contain no cadmium,arsenic,vanadium,or Ga. Boron is so common it’s used as laundry soap ,phosphorus is in every bone on planet. Europe is lucky they are within HVDC cable distance to the Sahara and have some of the most windy places on earth in their back yards. Looking at you Scotland,Ireland and the Midlands UK it’s worse than West Texas winds.
As electrolysis capex drops it becomes a few cents per Kg of H2 to run your electrolysis machines part time using them only when the wind blows or the sun is blazing in the desert sky 300+ days a year but only 14 hours a day. The critical point is somewhere in the $400 to $200 range for large commercial quantities of H2 gas. Compression takes 9% of energy delivered that’s true for methane or H2. You can make liquids out of either at low temps using 15_20% more energy it’s triples the density for transport and you can always use the cold energy at the destination for A.C. Or other cooling needs.
If you are using intermittent sources that would be curtailed if connected to the grid it’s irrelevant that 9_20% compression or cryocool consumption all that matters is the LCOE at the busbar for the system at a few cents per kWh 20% energy penalty is irrelevant. Only the efficiency nazis will get their panties in a twist but economics reigns supreme ask the Canadians and their horribly inefficient tarsands mining,transport and synthetic oil cracking about that the EROI is negative in some cases when you include the energy in the natural gas to make the steam for drainage,and the dilutant needed to thin and crack the asphalt to liquid synthetic oil. They don’t do it for efficiency it makes economic sense to burn cheap natural gas even at a loss in net energy to make more expensive liquid synthetic oil.
I digress there is plenty of energy to go around our local thermonuclear reactor in the sky ensures that for billions of years it’s a storage and transport problem....well humans are good at transport and storage has been recently figured out. One solution exists for both issues...a Standard 40 foot ISO containers can hold huge amounts of liquid gases for up to 80 days with zero venting they are pressure rates and triple vacuum insulated.
“40ft cryogenic LNG ISO container provides an exceptional 45,000 liters of capacity with a total payload of up to 36,000 kg.”
That’s one standard ISO shipping container that can be handled like any other standard container through the whole supply chain system via trick,ship,barge,rail ect. It needs no special plug in or vents until it hits it’s 45_80 day thermal capacity with drawdown the boiling of the drawdown cools the rest of the payload during the whole drawdown window typically a week or two. Why modular ISO containers the modular part answers that for you. Having Lego block like modularity allows you to distribute and build out in stages a massive project in smaller easy to manage blocks. You build out enough solar panels to run a modular H2 electrolysis plant using brine or seawater as the H2 source you next to that a modular cryocooler and fill ISO boxes for H2 powered truck transport to a railhead or port you then have 80 days to deliver that box to its end point of use no where on earth is more than 30 days or so by sea from another so in theory you could power the world from just the Sahara. But there are deserts on every continent so no need 2% of total desert land area globally powers humanity at 8 billion with EU levels of energy consumption. The energy’s there every day heating up sand grains waiting for humans to use the technology we already have to harvest it and elevate billions out of energy poverty which leads to higher standards of living over all. The shade under the panels begs for drip irrigation and just like that you feed those hungry billions as well. No world wars for.limited resources needed just solid engineering and less corporate/generational greed.
Okay, understood on the fittings. Thanks for explaining that and for the other info and perspective you’ve posted on this thread.
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