Hydrogen vs. Battery

[Yggdrasill]

Finland has lot of small hills, but no mountains. Lakes cannot store hydropower for winter. Winter rains typically give hydro power during spring. Even Norway cannot store much hydropower for winter. Currently there is no plan for hydrogen storage. It might be good option in future. It is not so inefficient, if done correctly.

We can definitely store a lot of hydro for winter. We have large hydro dams that are so-called multi-year reservoirs (in case there are dry years). Blåsjø is the biggest, and can store 7.8 TWh.

 

[jkn]

Well I guess you're all screwed. Or get your energy from nearby areas where all that is available.

That's why I support nuclear energy. More local wind energy would also be good.

 

[jkn]

We can definitely store a lot of hydro for winter. We have large hydro dams that are so-called multi-year reservoirs (in case there are dry years). Blåsjø is the biggest, and can store 7.8 TWh.

More than I thought. Height from sea level helps. How much does lake level drop from full to empty? Average depth of lakes in Finland is 6 m.

We need better connections:
http://www.fingrid.fi/SiteCollectionImages/fi-FI/Voimajarjestelma/2015-Map_Northern-Europe_iso.jpg

I keep supporting nuclear:

 

[Yggdrasill]

Blåsjø is regulated between 930 meters above sea level and 1055 meters above sea level, so there's a difference of 125 meters between when it's "empty" and when it's full.

We could probably make more artificial lakes like Blåsjø, but there hasn't been a need to do so. The power is trapped here anyway. With better grid connections, that may change.

(One challenge is that it's not very popular to pump sea water into a fresh water lake. There will be some environmental damage. But if the need was big enough, it would be done.)

 

[dpeilow]

The MIT report which was so cynically twisted by the FT in the past week contains another nugget that seems to have gone over the head of most journalists...

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.est.6b00177

They show the lifecycle CO2 emissions for the Toyota Mirai. It can be seen in the paper that the emissions when using electrolysis on the US grid are actually worse than the fleet average for everything (ICE, HEV, EV etc).

When using steam-reformed methane they are still worse than all US-charged EVs except one - the Toyota RAV4 EV.

Both cases are worse than the Prius.

I did the same excercise using the tool that MIT put online for UK grid data, as our average emissions are about 2.5x lower than the US now. Carboncounter | Cars evaluated against climate targets

Here you can see that all EVs and PHEVs are significantly better than the Mirai, but it still doesn't beat the Prius and other HEVs.

Finally I added in the P100D and an equivalent ICE, the BMW 750i x-Drive. Here you can see the P100D still comprehensively beats the Mirai on emissions.

Furthermore, they show that steam reformed methane can never beat HEV, PHEV or indeed meet long term climate goals. Electrolysed hydrogen could, eventually, if every improvement in grid and car efficiency comes to pass, but BEV gets there much easier.

 

[dpeilow]

By the way, that last chart neatly demonstrates why we're all screwed...

Will there be a 2060 target, or 2070 target?

 

[macpacheco]

We can definitely store a lot of hydro for winter. We have large hydro dams that are so-called multi-year reservoirs (in case there are dry years). Blåsjø is the biggest, and can store 7.8 TWh.

That's massive. Assume one billion EVs with an average 20kWh per car of storage that can charge on demand (using dynamic pricing and a smart grid), that's still just 20TWh, for the entire GLOBE ! And you can store 7.8TWh in one lake alone.
That's why I think stationary large scale batteries will be mostly for eliminating peakers and a little load following, but not for the brunt of daily load following, except in countries where currently electricity comes from diesel and other petroleum derivatives.
For large scale load following we'll need 100TWh or more of stationary storage.
That's one of the few critical reasons I believe that nuclear must play an important role in ridding us of fossil fuels. Today its 1/6th of worldwide electricity production. Install medium/high temp reactors inside large industries that are big process heat consumers, with some surplus capacity and enough turbine capacity to generate 100% of capacity with electricity in periods of large shortfalls in renewable production (like UK had a week long windless spell in the winter and France nuclear saved the day not too long ago).
We keep obsessing about electricity production while the other elephant just as big as the electricity one (industry process heat) is ignored. That's a huge natural gas consumer. We won't avoid climate change if we don't find a real solution for that, and solar isn't the solution for sure.

(mod note: a couple dozen OT posts about Nuclear after this post were moved out of this thread and into the Energy, Environment & Policy forum section — let’s keep it on topic here, thanks in advance)

 

[dpeilow]

A plea for anyone with a Model 3 reading: Care to take a photo of the car next to a hydrogen station and/or if you can get one with a Toyota Mirai that would be awesome...

 

[Kipernicus]

Toyota to build Fuel Cell plant in LA. Using poop. What are the by-products?

Toyota Plans California Fuel Cell Plant to Make Power, Hydrogen
Toyota to build megawatt electric and hydrogen plant fueled by California bio-waste

Toyota Plans California Fuel Cell Plant to Make Power, Hydrogen

The Tri-Gen system from FuelCell Energy Inc. will convert waste materials including manure from California farms into hydrogen, electricity and water. This hydrogen will be used in vehicles including the fuel-cell-powered Class 8 trucks that Toyota is testing now in short-distance fleets that run back and forth between the Long Beach docks and nearby warehouses operated by retailing giants.

 

[mspohr]

Electric cars already cheaper to own and run than petrol or diesel – study

Electric cars already cheaper to own and run than petrol or diesel – study

: Pure electric cars cost less over four years than petrol or diesel cars in the UK, US and Japan, researchers say, but China is set to lead the market

 

[dpeilow]

So when was the last time an EV fire caused homes and businesses to be evacuated for a day?

This is an Air Products tube trailer of the type they used to refuel hydrogen filling stations and often leave in situ to supply the pumps.

 

[dpeilow]

Hyundai Kona EV vs Hyundai Nexo – should I buy an electric or hydrogen fuel cell car?

You'd be crazy to choose the Nexo over the Kona EV right now, assuming you can get hold of either. At around half the projected cost of the more sophisticated and technically superior Nexo, Kona EV lives up to its maker's prediction on range and energy consumption (which says as much about the new WLTP test regime as it does Hyundai's honesty) and in relative terms offers pretty good value for money

 

[mspohr]

Hyundai Kona EV vs Hyundai Nexo – should I buy an electric or hydrogen fuel cell car?

Very thorough and we'll written review of the two cars.
I liked this:
The company also claims that the Nexo cleans the air as its air filtration is so effective, removing particulates down to the level of PM 2.5 but this is the sort of pie-in-the-sky hokum that gives fuel cells a bad name.
. The irony is, however, there's more range anxiety in driving a fuel cell car in the UK than there is in a battery car; in spite of the best efforts of companies like ITM and Shell, there are exactly the same number of hydrogen filling stations in the UK now as there were two years ago (12) which is something of an indictment of the UK Government's hollow words on the subject of hydrogen infrastructure.
Truthfully there are probably more switches on an Airbus A380, but it doesn't seem that way at the wheel, where an expanse of silver-grey rotary controls and push buttons stretches out on the centre console.They're not entirely convincing, with a suspect action which makes them less like an Eighties Hi Fi and more like a cheap electric oven.

 

[WannabeOwner]

"Recharging a 64kWh battery is not for the faint-hearted and, using the standard 7.2kW on-board charger on an AC wall box, the charge time is 9hrs 35mins"

Really? Reads SO much like the journalist has never lived with an EV.

The article says it has [official] range of 310 mile. So I've got to get home plumb-empty to be charging for 9.5 hours and, as is more likely, if I get home half-empty, having driven 150 miles, which is a fair distance for an unusual day's drive in the UK, its less than 5 hours to recharge And less still if I haven;t done 150 miles ...

I get 7 hours each night of half-price Leccy on E7 ... and nights where I sleep for only 5 hours leaving me feeling pretty wretched ... I can't see it being "not for the faint-hearted" at all.

10 minutes a week to fill up an ICE - stand-and-pump and queue-to-pay, along with drive-off-highway and wait-at-busy-supermarket-filling-station is over 8.5 hours a year ... frittering away a life.

Although if this thing does 310 miles out of 64 kWh battery, at motorway speed, I'll eat my hat ...

 

[JohnSnowNW]

Although if this thing does 310 miles out of 64 kWh battery, at motorway speed, I'll eat my hat ...

The official WLTP range for the Kona appears to be 300 miles, based on the infographic. It's important to note that there is a 15% difference between the LEAFs WLTP rating (177 miles) and the EPA rating (151 miles). Assuming there is a similar difference for the Kona, it would end up 255 miles on the EPA cycle. Since the Kona is basically a Bolt, the 255 mile range figure seems considerably more plausible.

I'd wager that motorway driving would be closer to 200 miles.

The bigger issue between choosing the Nexo or the Kona is going to be production, however. Hyundai only plans to build around 3,800/yr Nexo, and almost 10x as many Kona.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

"Recharging a 64kWh battery is not for the faint-hearted and, using the standard 7.2kW on-board charger on an AC wall box, the charge time is 9hrs 35mins"

Really? Reads SO much like the journalist has never lived with an EV.

The article says it has [official] range of 310 mile. So I've got to get home plumb-empty to be charging for 9.5 hours and, as is more likely, if I get home half-empty, having driven 150 miles, which is a fair distance for an unusual day's drive in the UK, its less than 5 hours to recharge And less still if I haven;t done 150 miles ...

I get 7 hours each night of half-price Leccy on E7 ... and nights where I sleep for only 5 hours leaving me feeling pretty wretched ... I can't see it being "not for the faint-hearted" at all.

Aside:
The irony is that, counter-intuitively, the greater the range, the _easier_ it is to live with slow home charging. The battery is a _buffer_. A bigger buffer has more tolerance. As long as you have a regular period during which you (1) can charge more miles than you drive (2) will never cause the battery to empty, it doesn't matter if the charging is slow, because overall your battery will still fill up. The larger buffer also allows greater fault tolerance, with fewer visit to public chargers should home charging be unavailable for while.

10 minutes a week to fill up an ICE - stand-and-pump and queue-to-pay, along with drive-off-highway and wait-at-busy-supermarket-filling-station is over 8.5 hours a year ... frittering away a life.

That time-wasting argument is something I can't use here. If there's a line at a gas station it means that either a pump's broken, or you're in the wrong place during tourist season. But I _can_ say that even my unheated garage at -3*C and zero wind is a much more pleasant place to be than a gas pump in a windy -20*C.

 

[WannabeOwner]

If there's a line at a gas station it means that either a pump's broken, or you're in the wrong place during tourist season

It aint like that in the UK. The Supermarkets sell Gas; usually just a couple of percent cheaper than the Main Brands ... but it seems like a bargain, so people drive out of their way to get there, and there is always a wait. Of course many probably also just did their weekly grocery shop too, so maybe the wait feels OK. I prefer to pay a percent more with no wait ...

But even so pay-with-card, at pump, is not very common here hence queue-to-pay, and (non-supermarket) gas stations have diversified into having up-market food sales inside where an abundance of maps and oil / washer refills used to be shelved ... but the checkout staff are the same, and the arrangement of tills has not changed to accommodate the food baskets etc., so checkout takes longer than "Just pay for Gas" used to ... so the total elapsed time has got worse.

So plugging in at home, whatever the temperature/weather, is a winner

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

It aint like that in the UK. The Supermarkets sell Gas; usually just a couple of percent cheaper than the Main Brands ... but it seems like a bargain, so people drive out of their way to get there, and there is always a wait. Of course many probably also just did their weekly grocery shop too, so maybe the wait feels OK. I prefer to pay a percent more with no wait ...

But even so pay-with-card, at pump, is not very common here hence queue-to-pay, and (non-supermarket) gas stations have diversified into having up-market food sales inside where an abundance of maps and oil / washer refills used to be shelved ... but the checkout staff are the same, and the arrangement of tills has not changed to accommodate the food baskets etc., so checkout takes longer than "Just pay for Gas" used to ... so the total elapsed time has got worse.

So plugging in at home, whatever the temperature/weather, is a winner

Well, I am an expat so I know about (switch to proper English) supermarket petrol stations (#1,#5,#6,#7 in the petrol market).
But I never owned a car in the UK (walk, bike, bus, train) and I've been here over 10 years, so didn't know about the shift in petrol stations shop sales. But, you don't pay at the pump for your petrol? I only go into the shop (not pay at window here), if there's a problem with the card at the pump.

 

[Adm]

Several hydrogen stations in SoCal ran out of hydrogen and are not expected to get any for a week.

Hydrogen fuel shortage in Socal is leaving Honda Clarity and Toyota Mirai owners stranded - Alt Car news

 

[dpeilow]

Yep

Paulo NeccoWafers5Ever Acoba on Twitter