We won't, for the water that we get H2 from, releases O as a pollutant. As the H2 is used up in the energy converting device, it uses that O that was released as a byproduct of disassociating the water, to create water back again.
Posted on 03/11/2024 8:35:41 AM PDT by Red Badger
There’s a reason this country was built on STEAM engines!
What we need is EMOTION!!!
I wonder how many days those will take to recharge.
Let’s look at nuclear to hydrogen for a large class 8 trucks since this whole article is about trucks not cars.
CANDU again why because it’s the most efficient,cheapest and quickest built reactor in the world. Korea can crank them out in 60 months for under $2800kw capex.
One Kg of H2 has a LHV of 33.33 kWh/kg why LHV because we want to burn it not fuel cell it. It takes 55.5kWh currently to make a Kg of hydrogen that’s 60% eff but that also includes compression to 3000+ psi high pressure electrolysis outputs that at psi without the pumping losses.
Candu puts out 2 cents per kWh to the plant gate so a Kg of Hydrogen has a energy cost of $1.11 a PEM electrolysis stack currently costs $500 per Kg of capex and has a 30,000 to 40,000 hour PEM membrane lifespan. This works out to 1.66 cents per Kg in capex over a 30,000 hour life time. Clearly the dominant cost is the energy cost and this is where nuclear if the greens would get out of the way would kill it.
Adding taxes, distribution , wholesale and retail profits would double the costs. This is typical as the wholesale price of diesel is half the retail price with taxes et al.
A typical class 8 averages 7 mpg of diesel which has a lhv of 128,488 Btu/gal. A Kg of H2 has a lhv of 113,718 BTU. Hydrogen burns more completely than diesel with zero particulate matter emissions and zero SOx, NOx is a issue but modern engines can lean burn and use SCR cats with hydrogen being the reductant to activate the cats. Given the 4% better efficiency of H2 combustion vs diesel its fair to say it’s a one for one swap a Kg of H2 = one gallon of number 2 gasoil.
The math then shows that for a class 8 semi its 16245 btu per mile when burning hydrogen. A fuel cell would cut number by 2/3 as fuel cells are 60 to 70% efficient using the HHV not the LHV being electrochemical not combustion changes which law of thermodynamics they must obey.
The max time a driver can drive is 8 hours at a max speed of 75mph and those 75s are not in every state so the max distance before a mandatory 16 hour break is 600 miles. That would require 86kg of hydrogen to cover that distance at the DGE of 7mpg.Hydrogen has a density of 33kg/m3 @ 500 bar a typical commercial tank rating under the DOT max tank at 10000psi. 86kg fits into 2.59 cubic meters there’s 264 freedom units in a cubic meter, so 685 gallons of volume holds 86kg. Side tanks on a semi are up too 150 gal each so half fits in the existing spots. The other half can be stored behind the cab vertically. A 1 foot diameter tank 8 feet tall holds 187 gallons of volume not including the hemispheric end caps. You could fit 6 across the back of the sleeper cab and only use one foot of airspace towards the trailer there’s at least 10 feet space there. So 300 gallons plus 6*187= 1422 gal that’s 5.38 cubic commie units which holds 177.5 Kg of H2 enough for 1242 miles range that’s more miles than a triple person drive team in 24 hour legally could drive at reasonable average speeds. As for refuel this speaks for itself.
“On April 26, 2022, the IHS team exceeded this mass flow rate goal, demonstrating an average mass flow rate of 14 kg/min (21 kg/min peak) with a 40.3 kg fill into a bank of eight hydrogen storage tanks—similar to those used by HD vehicles—in 2.87 minutes.”
Hydrogen is the future its the only energy storage medium that’s plentiful enough for 10 billion people to have heavy truck transport, nonelectrified rail lines, aircraft in liquid H2 form, and ships which could also use ammonia in liquid form same for trucks and rail lines. It’s how do you store the hydrogen as a compressed gas, cryogenic liquid or chemically bonded with nitrogen from the Air.
IOW, get back to me when we have enough nuclear power to release hydrogen from water. So what do we do when we run out of water? We now burn corn for fuel, then we want to burn water for fuel? Why don’t we just burn coal, oil to fuel and go on with life like we know we can? CO 2 levels mean NOTHING having to do with climate. NOTHING. The cheapest and best way is superior.
Ammonia makes great sense for large engines as it can be kept liquid under propane like pressures at anything under 120F = 225psi saturation pressures at that temp ammonia is ~560kg per cubic commie unit er... meter. One lb of ammonia holds 7,987 BTU/lb that’s also 17,603.348/Kg this is where it gets interesting one cubic meter of 500bar H2 holds 33kg and 3,752,694 btu. One cubic meter of ammonia holds 560Kg at 15bar that 560kg of NH3 holds 9,857,680 btu like I said a few posts back three times as much as H2 gas at realistic pressures.
This means for a given tank volume you can go 3X as far. Ammonia is not for Joe sixpack but truckers, rail conductors and ship workers can and are trained to handle it safely and do so with millions of pounds per day all over the world. Ammonia is one of the most used chemicals.
Ammonia can be made from water and thin air anywhere you have those two raw materials and electricity. From scidirect “10.3 kWh of renewable electricity per kg NH3” that’s 50% electricity to NH3 on a LHV basis not too bad if you are going lose that energy due to curtailment anyways. With nuclear power it would make sense during the ducks back to soak up all the extra power the grid cannot take at that point in a nuclear heavy grid. Nukes are fueled on a schedule regardless of how many actual EFPD(effective full power days) they run at so it makes the most fiscal sense to run them flat out 100% 24/7 and dump the power to somewhere at even a minimal profit or break even for the fuel cost its use it or lose it.
Ethanol can also be made with nothing but water and co2 into an electrolytic cell using copper nano catalysts at 93% elections to carbon product it’s very high eff you need a source of co2 such as power plant captured gas or better yet the Air itself.
” Commercial co2 capture is $58.30 per metric ton of CO2, according to a DOE”
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Ethanol synthesis needs 5.76Kg co2 per gallon. At $59 per 1000 Kg it works out to 34cents per gallon of co2 raw materials cost. Ethanol has HHV 84,530 Btu/gal for E100 that’s 24.7kWh and at 93% faraday efficiency of electricity to final product it’s 26.50 kWh to the gallon. Here again no need for on peak power. Run the Ecells with off peak, curtailment or sit them next to a nuclear park like Bruce in Canada and run them flat out using the duck’s back trough of the demand curve to load those nukes up to 100% power all day all night. 2 cent power at the plant gate is 53 cents per gallon of ethanol in energy costs. This again showing how nuclear power is the key to synthetic ffuels on a mass scale. Nuclear plus desert solar and probably offshore winds in the northern latitudes are the only energy sources with the magnitudes to put 8 billion people at somewhat middle class levels of consumption. Liquid hydrocarbons cannot nor can natural gas. Coal could for a generation at most but 8 billion presently living would rip through the coal in a generation.
“So what do we do when we run out of water? We now burn corn for fuel, then we want to burn water for fuel? “
We will never run out of water this planet is 75% covered by water all of it is usable for hydrogen you don’t need fresh water to make hydrogen. You don’t burn water you turn it into hydrogen and oxygen then you burn the hydrogen back water you never lose the water only a small percentage would be lost to leaks of the h2 much like methane leaks the volume of water is so great on this planet humans couldn’t peak enough hydrogen to make a meaningful mass balance loss.
“Why don’t we just burn coal, oil to fuel and go on with life like we know we can”
This is an easy answer. There is not enough remaining reserves of any of those three to power the current population of 8+ billion and growing every year at anything close to European middle class levels of consumption. I have spend 20 years in the energy industry most of that studying ,exploring and drilling total hydrocarbon systems. 6 billion people live in energy poverty and demand access to resources. CO2 is a what the Marxists grabbed on to take the means of production.
That has nothing to do with the very real resource management problem humans face on a vastly over populated worlds. Simply put humans have burnt 400 million years worth of fossil sunshine in just under 200 that clearly is not going to be a forever energy supply.
At 2021 global consumption rates light hydrocarbons run out in 46 years that’s with 6 billion people in energy poverty when those people demand with force access that number drops fast. Natural gas is not far behind 70 years at best at 2021. Coal is unsuitable for transportation use the clean up needed to burn it takes building sized scrubbers.
The math is fairly easy take the current energy consumption in quadrillion btus for the Americans and divide that by recoverable resources at any cost, reserves are much smaller use the largest recoverable number. For each of those three fossil sunshine fuels. Then realise that 900 million people are using more than double what the rest of the 7.1 billion people use combined.
So run the numbers again but with 5 times the yearly consumption that still leaves 2 billion in poverty but hey some have to suffer right so the rest of the world can keep spending our blessings of millions of years of fossil sunshine like drunken sailors.
Run them again at 5 times even coal is gone in a generation at those levels. So what the boomers are saying is leave the rest of the world in energy poverty so we can live the way we want too burning everything in sight in a generation or two.
We should use the blessings we have to as rapidly as technically possible not profit motive possible move to a energy system that will never run out while we have the fossil fuels to bootstrap into that system.
Nuclear will never run out with fast reactors or seawater uranium. Just 3% of one of any desert be it the Sahara, Gobi, desert southwest can power all of humanities energy needs that glorious thermonuclear fireball in the sky showers the earth will millions of times the energy humans could ever use a tiny fraction of the surface area on this planet could power it all at middle class levels of consumption.
So no we can’t just burn oil,gas and coal and expect anything less than mass migrations and global wars for resources. Fortunately the younger generation sees this and regardless of the not in fighting age boomers is not going to fight wars for resources when we can use the tech we have to better our species.
The energy transition is happening even with the older kicking and screaming about it. We will not let y’all burn everything in sight to keep your retirement lifestyles while dooming us youngers to picking up the mess with much less energy capital to build out the system we should have built now. China India Russia and some European Union are going big in nuclear they know it’s the only 24/7 base load for the 21st century and beyond. Solar panels have come down so much in costs that using them for synthetic fuels is nearly on par with light hydrocarbons even only running them at 18% capacity factors. Hydrogen electrolysis is near that point as well using solar, wind and better yet nukes. Even with intermittent power PEM cells can cycle off and on at will being near room temp.
The fiscal world also sees this no new massive fossil fuels projects will be funded like refineries. Humans need liquid hydrocarbons for more important things than burning it to the sky so that a few hundred million can live at triple or 10times the per capital energy use of the other billions. Plastics,lubricants, fertilizers,medications are all more important than burning hundreds of millions of years of blessings to the sky.
Consumers can’t bear any additional costs for ANYTHING
We won't, for the water that we get H2 from, releases O as a pollutant. As the H2 is used up in the energy converting device, it uses that O that was released as a byproduct of disassociating the water, to create water back again.
When the coal and the oil run out, the only things left are wood, wind, wave, sun and nuclear.
Sure they can!
Just wait!
(They’ll merely have to consume less of something else.)
This is interesting. Real world data with real world, experienced drivers 20yrs behind the wheel and real-world loads up to the permit max of 82,000lb
Pepsi Confirms Over 450 Miles of Range for Tesla Semi and Less than 1.7 KWH per Mile
ROUTE 1
Route Type Long-haul transport between 250 and 450 miles per day
Goods Beverages
Payload Range Heavy, up to 82,000 lbs.
https://runonless.com/roled-profiles/pepsico/
1.7kWh per mile is nothing short of amazing. That’s 6.2 megajoule per mile. Going to BTU is 5800 BTU per mile.
Number two diesel is 128,488 Btu/gal typical mpg for a loaded semi is 7mpg.
128,488/7= 18,355 BTU per mile.
Here again first law vs second law machines.
What is even more interesting is that retail power can be had for 8 cents per kWh and commercial power for 5 cents per kWh. 1.7kwh per mile equals 8.5cents per mile in electric costs.
I saw diesel today for 3.99/gal at 7mpg that’s 57 cents per mile in diesel costs.
So let’s go dimensional analysis and figure out what diesel would need to cost to equal 8.5 cents per mile. Easy peasy invert the terms and that’s a bingo. 59.5 cents per gallon at the pump equals 8.5 cents per mile.
Tesla rates the motors for a million miles and the packs are supposed to be 500,000 mile packs in the semi. So what’s the cost delta one can tolerate?
@3.99gal.vs 5 cents commercial power in Texas today so 57-8.5= 48.5cents per mile cheaper in the Tesla semi on just fuel cost.
Typical semi cost $100,000 new
“Tesla delivered the first consignment of Semi electric trucks to Pepsi’s Frito Lay production facility in Modesto, California on the 1st December 2022. The starting price for the Tesla Semi is US$150,000 for a 300-miles vehicle and $180,000 for 500 miles extended-range version.”
So $80,000 more for Mr Musk’s semi at a delta of 48.5 cents per mile it takes 164,948 miles to break even.
So what about the other miles till the packs die at 500,000 miles? Packs can take 1500 charge cycles and at 485 miles per charge that’s 727,000 miles but let’s leave the last 500 cycles out. Many people have confirmed 1000 cycle life on packs so far.
So 485,000 miles minus break even is 320,000 miles now how much does one save in diesel costs at 48.5 cents per mile different? The answer is $155,200 now that is something to make a finances guy grin. If the packs last the full 1500 cycles then it’s $271,000 in fuel savings.
For regional point to point of under 500 miles one way or regional point to multiple drop points with a total daily range under 500 the Tesla looks to be a resounding winner.
Only truly long haul of the max 600 mile per day single driver or 1200 per day team drivers would need hydrogen, ammonia or synthetic alcohol fuels.
Not so gloom and doom after all once more looks at real-world numbers and not emotional responses.
Where does the Oxygen get the Hydrogen from to make water again? This is a cycle where there is less and less water. Desertification on a massive scale over a few centuries.
I’d rather use oil, coal and NG as it renewable by the very Earth, likely just like water if it is not split into the base parts.
You are confusing this layman. I disbelieve just about every thing that takes Billions in government startup money. It is ALWAYS a scam.
Your posts are fascinating.
“Ammonia can be made from water and thin air anywhere you have those two raw materials and electricity.”
Water and atmospheric nitrogen are the two raw materials ,electricity is the driver of the reaction against Gibbs energy. Electricity is ubiquitous, I have surplus every day from the fireball in the.sky beating down on my roofline. My panels are commercial grade 25 year @10% loss with a hail rating they just survived near golf ball does hail in North Texas this year. They were 18 cents per watt of capacity when I got them wholesale price by the pallet using my LLC. They are not commie made they are from Taiwan our ally.
“The three months that historically average the lowest average solar radiation levels in Dallas (Texas) are December with an average of 4.53 kWh/m2/day, followed by January with an average of 4.85 kWh/m2/day and February at 5.01 kWh/m2/day. [1]”
August is over 6 kWh/m2/day.
Each panel has exactly 2 sq meters of actual solar cell area 120 cells per panel. I have 34 panels across the garage and roofline plus covered deck. Best prepper investment ever.
Panels are so cheap now it is possible to turn curtailment power into something useful like hydrogen or ammonia or ethanol. The ecells need capex low enough to only be used 2000 hours per year or so.
Seems low to me.
The efficiency has never been in question. It’s the batteries that are the problem.
Their storage capacity gradually gets worse and worse until they can only hold half as much.
Current technology has them shorting out from time to time causing fires that can’t be put out.
The weight of the vehicles are twice what a ICE vehicles are, and as such eat tires at twice the rate, a big maintenance cost. Not to mention the wear and tear on our highways and bridges. Some bridges would be made off limits to large trucks due to weight restrictions, necessitating re-routing of shipments.
While fuel savings are a good comparison, it’s not the only variable to take under consideration.
Until batteries can be recharged and/or exchanged in a short amount of time, and practically anywhere on the way, made safer from fires and explosions and replacement costs brought down to ICE levels, the full savings of electric vehicles will continue to be a bean counter’s dream...............................
and then there’s the issue that the weight of electrified 18-wheelers (probably 24 wheels with batteries) would crush california’s highways into dust and destroy their bridges ...
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