Electric Option ??

[Stubby]

49 minutes ago, Stere said:

Hydrogen  makes alot more sense its a shame it seems not to  have being developed much as it needs more infrastructure spending.

 

Japan were/are all set on hydrogen but  it seems to have being   shelved  globally as electric won out.

 

Sorry hydrogen, electric cars have already won — here's why

INTERESTINGENGINEERING.COM

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Hydrogen fuel cell cars emerged as an alternative to both the electric and combustion engine vehicle in the early 2000s...

 

 

Mistake imo

I agree Hydrogen would be much better for the inviroment . . I am assuming that performance would be similar to petrol ? The only + I can see for electric is electric motors produce , by comparison , loads more torque negating the need for a gearbox . but as you say what do you do with the wanked out batterys .  If I was boss of the world I would have said invest in the infrastructure to deliver hydrogen . 

[Woodworks]

2 hours ago, Stere said:

Hydrogen  makes alot more sense its a shame it seems not to  have being developed much as it needs more infrastructure spending.

 

Japan were/are all set on hydrogen but  it seems to have being   shelved  globally as electric won out.

 

Sorry hydrogen, electric cars have already won — here's why

INTERESTINGENGINEERING.COM

---

Hydrogen fuel cell cars emerged as an alternative to both the electric and combustion engine vehicle in the early 2000s...

 

 

Mistake imo

Toyota hasn't given up but think that 11.3 million of our money down the drain 

Toyota in £11.3m government deal to develop hydrogen pickup trucks

WWW.BBC.CO.UK

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Government funding will help set up a pilot production line to develop clean energy vehicles.

 

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Stubby said:

If I was boss of the world I would have said invest in the infrastructure to deliver hydrogen . 

You would need someone to produce it before you could deliver it, most hydrogen is still made from natural gas and renewables won't be in excess to make it from for a while. First excess electricity would go into storage before they electrolyse water to get hydrogen and that is relatively inefficient.

 

Also some pollution worries about IC engines running on hyrogen

[Woodworks]

2 hours ago, Conor Wright said:

We hear so much "green" speak and "circular economy" stuff yet the reality is just the postponement of pollution unless there is a viable way of fully recycling these cells.

 

Its been done    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpe8HalVXFU&ab_channel=FullyChargedShow

 

Also there are plants set up ready to recycle batteries but they cant get the batteries to recycle because of this https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/08/01/electric-car-batteries-lasting-longer-than-predicted-delays-recycling-programs/

 

Everyone goes on about hydrogen being green but most of what we use currently is made from fossil fuel somewhat defeating the object of the exercise. Sure it can be green if you use renewables electricity to power the  electrolysis but its very inefficient and seems a huge waste when the electricity needed can go straight into batteries with little waste 

 

 

[Dan Maynard]

Interesting idea, hydrogen cars need infrastructure investment to get started. But hydrogen is always going to be difficult dangerous and expensive to handle.

 

Electric cars don't need infrastructure investment to get started, but they sure need investment if we're going to switch over any number of cars. If everything went electric car overnight we don't have enough power stations or grid cable capacity.

 

Synthetic diesel would be really really easy to implement, we just put it in the existing cars.

[openspaceman]

30 minutes ago, Dan Maynard said:

Synthetic diesel would be really really easy to implement, we just put it in the existing cars.

As a lay person, not familiar with the probable drawbacks, this appeals to me.

 

1)We have the infrastructure in place to move liquid fuels long distances overseas efficiently

 

2) There are areas on earth that are both well endowed with insolation and wind and are politically stable

 

3) Di-methyl ether can and is made at scale, currently using fossil energy but can be made from energy and plant carbon

 

4) Diesel engines running on di-methyl ether only require minor modification and do not produce particulates, they do produce NOx but in theory as a soft hybrid they can be kept out of the power range where NOx is produced, even now adblue in a simpler exhaust catalyst will turn most back to nitrogen and water.

 

Compared with a high voltage undersea DC link from Morocco with transmission losses of 15% and worries about security...

[Stere]

1kg of hydrogen stores 100's times more energy than 1 kilogram of lithium-ion batteries.

 

 

So  if you are not carrying tonnes of batteries around  you can haul alot bigger load

 

 

PR piece but claims there Hydrogen fuel cell cars  are not more flammable  than petrol:

 

What Makes Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles Safe? – Hyundai Motor Group TECH

TECH.HYUNDAIMOTORGROUP.COM

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Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEVs) are not hydrogen bombs on wheels. In fact, they are eco-friendly means of...

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark Bolam]

There seems to be some big money at play stopping the development of hydrogen.

 

We all know electric vehicles are not a long term viable solution.

[Haironyourchest]

I thought hydrogen cars are electric? They don't actually burn the hydrogen gas, right? They combine it with air or something to make electricity, and water is the waste product? Or have I got this completely wrong?

 

Cos it wouldn't be a stretch to just  replace the battery packs with hydrogen packs and the associated gizmo's, if hydrogen ever supercedes lithium batteries in economy.

 

Lithium cells are pretty darn good things for longevity really. I've got drill batteries going back over 15 years which are still going strong, maybe they only run half as long they used to, but they still crank out the same amps, charge just as fast etc. 15 years of abuse, winters in a freezing shed, being left empty for months, etc.

 

 

[openspaceman]

31 minutes ago, Haironyourchest said:

I thought hydrogen cars are electric? They don't actually burn the hydrogen gas, right? They combine it with air or something to make electricity, and water is the waste product? Or have I got this completely wrong?

No you are not wrong and most hydrogen buses and cars are fuel cells but there is some hype about hydrogen engine machines, JCB and BMW.

 

The last hydrogen fuel stations for fuel celled cars (I think James May had one??) were shut down this year.