Electric V Hydrogen

[djayz]

Mod's, should this talk of Hydrogen be in this thread Electric V Hydrogen

Agreed, this has absolutely nothing to do with supercharger thread. Please move discussion elsewhere.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Producing Hydrogen from Ammonia????? As I understand it Ammonia is produced by first producing Hydrogen, usually from natural gas or methane and combine it with nitrogen extracted from the air by refrigeration with nitric acid production somewhere as an intermediate step to ultimately becoming ammonia. So now they are saying use a load of energy to produce hydrogen, then use even more energy to produce ammonia from that hydrogen, then use even more energy to split out the hydrogen again and then turn the hydrogen back into energy again. Sounds super efficient. And ammonia leaks aren’t at all hazardous.....or are they?

Yes it’s a way of spending energy to make a high energy thing you can transport.
Then later you can get the energy back out.

It’s basically a way if making energy portable, with the associated inefficiency of making then breaking the chemical bonds that store the energy.

There are losses in each step, but then again there are losses in everything (thanks laws of thermodynamics).

The greenness depends on where you got the energy to make the product.

 

[EcoCloudIT]

Producing Hydrogen from Ammonia????? As I understand it Ammonia is produced by first producing Hydrogen, usually from natural gas or methane and combine it with nitrogen extracted from the air by refrigeration with nitric acid production somewhere as an intermediate step to ultimately becoming ammonia. So now they are saying use a load of energy to produce hydrogen, then use even more energy to produce ammonia from that hydrogen, then use even more energy to split out the hydrogen again and then turn the hydrogen back into energy again. Sounds super efficient. And ammonia leaks aren’t at all hazardous.....or are they?

No, they not...maybe take a full read....my fathers been an environmental scientists well before climate change was on the agenda....he would not or would CSIRO be involved in such wasted energy productions...

 

[Munka]

Why does this race need to have a single winner?

Let's be fair, batteries have limitations. First globally we lack the capacity to make any more batteries or the materials to support more factories.
Secondly we're yet to demonstrate any meaningful recycling. Tesla say they will do it but logistics of getting spent cells to Fremont from Australia mean full recovery is unlikely.

So why not support a good healthy diverse mix of energy sources. That would encourage geopolitical risk mitigation, and sustainability.

If the whole population switched to electric too rapidly that would risk instability on our grid, probably increased coal usage and a rapid increase in spent cells 10 years from now before we know what to do with them.

Why don't all sides of the argument get together and promote a future that is balanced. I think a world with 30% electricity, 30% hydrogen, 20% lpg and 20% petrol/diesel sounds pretty good! Tweak those numbers to suit yourself but don't forget there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

 

[Vostok]

Make no mistake - Hydrogen is a last-ditch, desperate attempt by the fossil fuel industry to remain relevant. It is a classic tactic called “product extension”. Hydrogen, while not necessarily a FF, has all the characteristics of the product they now supply - it requires extraction or processing, storage, distribution, and sale from controlled points of presence. All of which can sustain profit margins and entrenched business interests.

BEVs represent an existential threat to all of this - there is no supply chain for the fuel in the traditional sense, almost no middle men who can profiteer, and the ultimate threat is of course rooftop solar, where individuals produce all their own “fuel” and completely cut out all intermediate sales channels and bypass the entire FF business model. No wonder they are fighting it so hard and using every trick in the book to try to fool councils, governments and the punter in the street.

Hydrogen may have a role to play in certain niches, such as oceanic transport or heavy haulage. But do not be fooled by the forked-tongue of hydrogen spruikers for private transportation.

 

[Blue heaven]

Why does this race need to have a single winner?

Let's be fair, batteries have limitations. First globally we lack the capacity to make any more batteries or the materials to support more factories.
Secondly we're yet to demonstrate any meaningful recycling. Tesla say they will do it but logistics of getting spent cells to Fremont from Australia mean full recovery is unlikely.

So why not support a good healthy diverse mix of energy sources. That would encourage geopolitical risk mitigation, and sustainability.

If the whole population switched to electric too rapidly that would risk instability on our grid, probably increased coal usage and a rapid increase in spent cells 10 years from now before we know what to do with them.

Why don't all sides of the argument get together and promote a future that is balanced. I think a world with 30% electricity, 30% hydrogen, 20% lpg and 20% petrol/diesel sounds pretty good! Tweak those numbers to suit yourself but don't forget there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Why does the race need to have a single winner? It doesn't, but when you have energy giants and car makers looking for public handouts to promote nonsense the foolishness of Hydrogen fuel cell passenger cars has to be called out.
Here's an experiment- take a P100D, remove 95% of the batteries, add all the associated equipment needed for a fuel cell vehicle and you now have an even slower and more boring version of a Toyota Camry. Far less performance, far less interior space, a frunk filled with fuel cell equipment, no more home charging from solar power, the need to fuel from a servo at the price chosen by the energy companies, and all for what? The ability to refuel in 5 minutes?
Then we get on to energy consumption, there is this thought that our grid won't cope with electric vehicles, that's certainly not the case in Western Australia, in fact we have an oversupply, increasing solar installs on roof tops, lower cost wind farm construction, cheap north west gas and a coal mine/ coal power station community in Collie that the state government are trying to appease.
If the energy giants want to use their own money and build a renewable energy powered Hydrogen production facility in the Pilbara and ship to Asia I'm all for but frankly this Hydrogen for cars rubbish is now only being pushed through state and local governments since the arrival of affordable pure electric vehicles.

 

[Munka]

Then we get on to energy consumption, there is this thought that our grid won't cope with electric vehicles, that's certainly not the case in Western Australia, in fact we have an oversupply, increasing solar installs on roof tops, lower cost wind farm construction, cheap north west gas and a coal mine/ coal power station community in Collie that the state government are trying to appease.

I'm not saying that more EVs is unmanageable for the grid. I'm saying too many to fast are a problem. The solution is diversity of energy sources and uses.

Agreed the government needs to stay away with their subsidies. Add a fair price on carbon the then let market pick.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Why does this race need to have a single winner?

It doesn't, but then again limited resources should be prioritised towards the solution most likely to achieve success.
It has always seemed to me that hydrogen is a way for oil companies to continue their current business model, and keep a monopoly on transportation energy.

 

[Shock-On-T]

I'm not saying that more EVs is unmanageable for the grid. I'm saying too many to fast are a problem. The solution is diversity of energy sources and uses.

Agreed the government needs to stay away with their subsidies. Add a fair price on carbon the then let market pick.

Agreed that the best solution is to price carbon and let the market do its stuff.
I do think that EV adoption won't be too fast for the grid to keep up. The grid can add whole new suburbs when it needs to, and general electricity usage per household has been declining for years (I think? I remember reading 2%/yr for a while now?).
There will need to be protocols for staggering charging, to prevent the old "boiling kettle at half-time" problem, although in the far-far-future that would be solved by local grid batteries.

 

[PJF000]

Agreed that the best solution is to price carbon and let the market do its stuff.
I do think that EV adoption won't be too fast for the grid to keep up. The grid can add whole new suburbs when it needs to, and general electricity usage per household has been declining for years (I think? I remember reading 2%/yr for a while now?).
There will need to be protocols for staggering charging, to prevent the old "boiling kettle at half-time" problem, although in the far-far-future that would be solved by local grid batteries.

In the far-far-future, the vehicle will choose when and where to charge according to location, availablility, charge rates, cost, convenience etc etc and man will have no input to worry about.

 

[WA-T3sla]

No, they not...maybe take a full read....my fathers been an environmental scientists well before climate change was on the agenda....he would not or would CSIRO be involved in such wasted energy productions...

I skimmed the links. It spoke of a solid state way to produce ammonia with less energy input than a conventional process. It briefly mentioned a new way to turn ammonia back into hydrogen being developed by CSIRO.
CSIRO themselves quote the round trip net energy efficiency of Ammonia production from renewable sources for use in a FCV of 11-20%.
Yes I can see applications where the concept can make sense. But FCV use isn’t one of those applications.

 

[Mark E]

I skimmed the links. It spoke of a solid state way to produce ammonia with less energy input than a conventional process. It briefly mentioned a new way to turn ammonia back into hydrogen being developed by CSIRO.
CSIRO themselves quote the round trip net energy efficiency of Ammonia production from renewable sources for use in a FCV of 11-20%.
Yes I can see applications where the concept can make sense. But FCV use isn’t one of those applications.

Yep. 11-20% when batteries are around 80%+. That alone will make this 3-4x more expensive to use, and if the capital cost is even, then the whole thing is a failure. As battery production increases and prices come down it will be even cheaper to use batteries. In 20 years when there are lots of second hand batteries around then there will be a large opportunity to repurpose them - reducing the price even more. Imagine a second hand 100kWh battery that has deteriorated to 60kWh - a phenomenal house battery.

 

[raynewman]

That alone will make this 3-4x more expensive to use, and if the capital cost is even, then the whole thing is a failure.

So was VHS.
Depends who is pushing it.

 

[Mark E]

So was VHS.
Depends who is pushing it.

Not really, VHS machines were cheaper than Beta

 

[paulp]

Why does this race need to have a single winner?

Let's be fair, batteries have limitations. First globally we lack the capacity to make any more batteries or the materials to support more factories.
Secondly we're yet to demonstrate any meaningful recycling. Tesla say they will do it but logistics of getting spent cells to Fremont from Australia mean full recovery is unlikely.

So why not support a good healthy diverse mix of energy sources. That would encourage geopolitical risk mitigation, and sustainability.

If the whole population switched to electric too rapidly that would risk instability on our grid, probably increased coal usage and a rapid increase in spent cells 10 years from now before we know what to do with them.

Why don't all sides of the argument get together and promote a future that is balanced. I think a world with 30% electricity, 30% hydrogen, 20% lpg and 20% petrol/diesel sounds pretty good! Tweak those numbers to suit yourself but don't forget there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

Grid instability is solved by batteries. Big batteries. Lots of small batteries work too. You are assuming that everyone will charge at the same moment. That kind of assumption is like building petrol stations with 1000 pumps so everyone can refuel at the same moment. It doesnt happen. The load is spread. Indeed many (like me) dont even use the grid to refuel their electric car, its totally fueled by rooftop solar. There are many days that SA generates way more power than it can use. Its all from renewables. There is now talk of creating a special cheap solar sponge tariff to encourage people to use power when its abundant. Seems to me readily available well placed charge points used at the right time of day is something that will stabilise the grid, not destabilse it. To say we shouldnt buy electric cars because our grid cannot handle it is false. Our grid can handle well managed consumption of power. It actually needs more balanced consumption. Cars can help do that.

 

[Cycle11111]

This article explains the BEV benefit vs Hydrogen. Also note it doesn't even capture the newer 150kw-250kw charging available

Tesla Model 3 vs Toyota Mirai fuel cell vehicle

 

[Techno-phile]

Dear David,
We finally have the OK from Mainroads to make the EV Infrastructure Report
publicly available. There is now a link form the REV home page: The REV Project

Or directly:

http://revproject.com/traffic/report.pdf
Full report

http://revproject.com/traffic/summary.pdf
Exec. Summary

Thank you for initiating the report and for your patience!
Thomas Braunl

 

[Munka]

Nice report, great info. Though as a Tesla owner, I really feel the chargers outside of Perth need to be prioritised by an order of magnitude over the ones within Perth. Also the RAC chargers seem to be frequently down or unreliable and probably need an upgrade if they are going to promote public perception and uptake.