British Hydrogen

[Mega]

https://uk.motor1.com/news/429176/bu...back-hydrogen/

Mike

[GRG55]

Re: British Hydrogen

https://uk.motor1.com/news/429176/bu...back-hydrogen/

Mike

If the world wants to have truly zero carbon transportation, this is where it has to go.
Batteries are a dead end technology. At some point the true costs are going become too visible to ignore. The hydrocarbons to mine and process the metals, the difficulty to recycle and recover them from increasing numbers of spent batteries, the range and refuelling time limitations, the weight penalties will compound.

This year China has approved building twice the number of coal-fired power stations as last year. The demand for electricity is skyrocketing. Renewables will never keep up. Recharging your battery EV car from a coal power plant isn't the answer either.

Electric propulsion vehicles are here to stay. Using batteries to store the energy to power them is not.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: British Hydrogen

If the world wants to have truly zero carbon transportation, this is where it has to go.
Batteries are a dead end technology. At some point the true costs are going become too visible to ignore. The hydrocarbons to mine and process the metals, the difficulty to recycle and recover them from increasing numbers of spent batteries, the range and refuelling time limitations, the weight penalties will compound.

This year China has approved building twice the number of coal-fired power stations as last year. The demand for electricity is skyrocketing. Renewables will never keep up. Recharging your battery EV car from a coal power plant isn't the answer either.

Electric propulsion vehicles are here to stay. Using batteries to store the energy to power them is not.

Yes, today's battery EV's burn coal indirectly. None the less, batteries in the car to store energy can be fueled by power plants running on cleaner energy, and that may be a smarter way to go. When you look at a whole nation like the US, it's easier to change the 10,000 power plants than it is to change the 17 million cars. At first the cars burn coal, then they run on nat gas, then they run on wind and solar and nuclear. Same cars with the same batteries drawing power from power plants being changed and upgraded.

Installing a national delivery system for hydrogen fuel looks pretty daunting. The US has about 168,000 retail gas stations to change, plus the delivery network for the fuel.

[Mega]

Re: British Hydrogen

................but where are the Fuel Cell cars?

Mike

[jk]

Re: British Hydrogen

Yes, today's battery EV's burn coal indirectly. None the less, batteries in the car to store energy can be fueled by power plants running on cleaner energy, and that may be a smarter way to go. When you look at a whole nation like the US, it's easier to change the 10,000 power plants than it is to change the 17 million cars. At first the cars burn coal, then they run on nat gas, then they run on wind and solar and nuclear. Same cars with the same batteries drawing power from power plants being changed and upgraded.

Installing a national delivery system for hydrogen fuel looks pretty daunting. The US has about 168,000 retail gas stations to change, plus the delivery network for the fuel.

thank you, thank you, thank you for using the "n" word ["nuclear"]. i do not see how we phase out coal, [for starters] without reliable base production of electricity. the only solution there, in the absence of a huge build up in wind and solar AND a new, environmentally friendly and capacious ability to store energy, is nuclear.

[Mega]

Re: British Hydrogen

[jk]

Re: British Hydrogen

wow! some sanity

[GRG55]

Re: British Hydrogen

Yes, today's battery EV's burn coal indirectly. None the less, batteries in the car to store energy can be fueled by power plants running on cleaner energy, and that may be a smarter way to go. When you look at a whole nation like the US, it's easier to change the 10,000 power plants than it is to change the 17 million cars. At first the cars burn coal, then they run on nat gas, then they run on wind and solar and nuclear. Same cars with the same batteries drawing power from power plants being changed and upgraded.

Installing a national delivery system for hydrogen fuel looks pretty daunting. The US has about 168,000 retail gas stations to change, plus the delivery network for the fuel.

Cars in the USA get changed out on average every 8 years. It does not take long to turn over the fleet. Power plants don't turn over nearly as fast.

[shiny!]

Re: British Hydrogen

wow! some sanity

It surprised me, too.

The white showing above the iris of her eyes makes me think 'hyperthyroid.' I've noticed this before. It could help explain a lot of her rage.

[GRG55]

Re: British Hydrogen

................but where are the Fuel Cell cars?

Mike

They are coming Mike. Some day. Just like the next Tesla model.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: British Hydrogen

Cars in the USA get changed out on average every 8 years. It does not take long to turn over the fleet. Power plants don't turn over nearly as fast.

Thats a very good point.

[Mega]

Re: British Hydrogen

[jk]

Re: British Hydrogen

Cars in the USA get changed out on average every 8 years. It does not take long to turn over the fleet. Power plants don't turn over nearly as fast.

"changed out" doesn't mean they disappear or are junked, does it? i assume that you're saying the average time of ownership is 8 years, when the car is sold to someone else. i.e. it stays on the road.

quick google comes up with:
The average lifespan of a vehicle is currently 13 -17 years while the average age is 11.5 years. The number of vehicles on the road in the United States has reached a record level of almost 253 million, an increase of more than 3.7 million, or 1.5%, since last year.

re the turnover of power plants- i thought retrofitting coal plants to natural gas was not that difficult. am i wrong?

[GRG55]

Re: British Hydrogen

"changed out" doesn't mean they disappear or are junked, does it? i assume that you're saying the average time of ownership is 8 years, when the car is sold to someone else. i.e. it stays on the road.

quick google comes up with:
The average lifespan of a vehicle is currently 13 -17 years while the average age is 11.5 years. The number of vehicles on the road in the United States has reached a record level of almost 253 million, an increase of more than 3.7 million, or 1.5%, since last year.

re the turnover of power plants- i thought retrofitting coal plants to natural gas was not that difficult. am i wrong?

Regarding vehicles, it is all in the definitions.

The data you cite is for 2016. By 2018 the figure for "number of vehicles on the road" in the USA had risen from 253 million to 273.6 million. These figures are based on vehicle registrations, and include motorcycles, buses, heavy trucks, and every other sort of road going vehicle that must be registered in a State. Passenger vehicles (cars and light trucks) dominate the numbers, but the lifespan figures include vehicles that are routinely kept on the road longer than many passenger cars. For example the US Federal government requires cities to keep their transit buses for at least 12 years in order to qualify for funding subsidies for replacement. School buses are typically expected to be in service 15 years before replacement.

The "changed out" figure I was citing is the average age when a passenger car is replaced with a newly purchased vehicle. That does not mean the older vehicle is immediately taken off the road; the rising number of total registered vehicles is probably evidence of that.

However, as a new technology reaches adoption preference because of a superior value proposition or by legislative requirement it is the "change out" or "replacement with new" interval, not the average age or lifespan that determines how fast the fleet shifts to the new technology. An example is the adoption of catalytic converters requiring unleaded gasoline for passenger cars starting in the mid-1970s. Many, many years before leaded gasoline was finally, belatedly banned in 1996 the overwhelming majority of the US (and Canadian) automobile fleet and retail gasoline stations had long before been changed out to unleaded fuel only.

The math is pretty compelling; once consumers are truly persuaded (or coerced by legislation) it really does not take much more than a decade for newly adopted vehicle technology to dominate in the total private passenger vehicle fleet numbers.

As for retrofitting coal plants to natural gas, I am not very knowledgeable about that. Where I live there are abundant reserves of both coal and natural gas, and we have an extensive natural gas pipeline trunk and distribution network. The coal plants were installed next to the coal mines. The gas-fired replacements are located at the coal plant sites that are being shut down primarily because the big electrical substations to handle the power were built as part of the coal plant infrastructure, and they are still useful. So in our case at least, the coal plants are being mothballed and dismantled, and in some cases brand new combined cycle gas-turbine generators are being installed and hooked up to the existing sub-stations and transmission systems at those sites for power distribution.

I think you are referring to converting coal-fired steam boilers to natural gas fuel? I understand that is done, but don't know what changes need to be made.

[GRG55]

Re: British Hydrogen

...Installing a national delivery system for hydrogen fuel looks pretty daunting. The US has about 168,000 retail gas stations to change, plus the delivery network for the fuel.

It is starting...

https://ngtnews.com/the-fountain-val...News+Headlines

The Fountain Valley Hydrogen Station Officially Opens
July 7, 2020

The Fountain Valley True Zero hydrogen refueling station, developed by FirstElement Fuel, is now open to the public 24/7 on Brookhurst Street in Fountain Valley in Orange County, Calif.

The station capacity is 1,200 kilograms, and it has four fueling positions with a total of five nozzles (four H70 nozzles and one H35 nozzle). It is the first hydrogen station in California serving passenger cars to have four fueling positions and the largest capacity to date. The next-largest station for passenger cars is the True Zero station in Oakland, with more than 800 kilograms. It opened in late 2019.

With four fueling positions, four cars will be able to fuel simultaneously, increasing the number of vehicles served in a shorter time. This and future stations like it will help meet the needs of the growing fuel cell passenger car market in the Orange County area and across California...