RE: Alpenglow concept returns as hydrogen-powered Hy4
Discussion
steveb8189 said:
I'm a firm believer we'll see hydrogen fuel cell cars in the future unless wireless charging infrastructure proves to be scalable. Hydrogen combusion cars like this will not make it mass market and will be reserved for people like us who still like the feel and experience of an ICE. They're just too complex, with too many moving parts and have all the downsides of hydrogen without the upsides of fuel cells
While I would see a niche use case for ICE-lovers (I like them too), how is it supposed to be more scalable? Take this as a guideline and add ICE to the equation for the burning of H2 instead of a fuel cell: https://www.elektroauto-news.net/wp-content/upload...You'd end up with 10.4%!!!!!! total system efficiency, worse than a regular ICE. For every mile you drive you need more than 7 times the energy compared to a battery powered vehicle. So the energy infrastructure upgrades for that principe will be insanely huge. Putting cables in the ground and installing charger will be far less of an investment in terms of money, labour, time and complications. I don't see how that would make it a realistic option for mass adaption for the general public. I can see it as an option for the ICE hobby niche though. I really hope something will be found for the ICE-lovers like me.
Edited by _ppan on Saturday 11th May 16:07
Calling it clean, ok, maybe, at least it's not burning diesel.
Calling it green, nah.
UK hydrogen has a huge carbon intensity, there isn't anything green about hydrogen right here, right now.
These H2 pursuits are for countries where renewable electricity is more problematic and they have no choice but to import green hydrogen.
We started decarbonising our electricity 25 years ago, we haven't even started with hydrogen.
Producing hydrogen from natural gas as it is done now, is by splitting it into H2 and CO2.
All three gases leak into the atmosphere in this process, including all the CO2.
And guess which three gases have the highest global warming potential...
All we are going to do now is to try to capture the CO2.
There is big gap in public understanding of where hydrogen comes from and how bad it is for the environment in its current incarnation.
Exactly the same thing in terms of carbon capture (on a per mile basis) can be achieved by sticking with petrol ICEs and sucking carbon out of atmosphere, as per this sort of thing:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
And at fraction of the cost to the consumer.
The biggest problem with doing it via the hydrogen pathway is that methane leakage and hydrogen leakage are a major risk for actually increasing carbon intensity, especially given that methane is 80 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
The second biggest problem is that compressed hydrogen + ICE gives terrible range in a passenger car, far lower than petrol, there just isn't enough real estate for all the tanks.
The third biggest problem is that there isn't enough high grade carbon fibre in the world to scratch the surface when it comes to producing all these ultra-pressure fuel tanks.
And the fourth biggest problem is that hydrogen is banned from tunnels and most likely will also be banned from enclosed spaces such as underground car parks, the safety case for H2 is much worse than petrol.
None of the above has got anything to do with EVs vs hydrogen.
Calling it green, nah.
UK hydrogen has a huge carbon intensity, there isn't anything green about hydrogen right here, right now.
These H2 pursuits are for countries where renewable electricity is more problematic and they have no choice but to import green hydrogen.
We started decarbonising our electricity 25 years ago, we haven't even started with hydrogen.
Producing hydrogen from natural gas as it is done now, is by splitting it into H2 and CO2.
All three gases leak into the atmosphere in this process, including all the CO2.
And guess which three gases have the highest global warming potential...
All we are going to do now is to try to capture the CO2.
There is big gap in public understanding of where hydrogen comes from and how bad it is for the environment in its current incarnation.
Exactly the same thing in terms of carbon capture (on a per mile basis) can be achieved by sticking with petrol ICEs and sucking carbon out of atmosphere, as per this sort of thing:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
And at fraction of the cost to the consumer.
The biggest problem with doing it via the hydrogen pathway is that methane leakage and hydrogen leakage are a major risk for actually increasing carbon intensity, especially given that methane is 80 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
The second biggest problem is that compressed hydrogen + ICE gives terrible range in a passenger car, far lower than petrol, there just isn't enough real estate for all the tanks.
The third biggest problem is that there isn't enough high grade carbon fibre in the world to scratch the surface when it comes to producing all these ultra-pressure fuel tanks.
And the fourth biggest problem is that hydrogen is banned from tunnels and most likely will also be banned from enclosed spaces such as underground car parks, the safety case for H2 is much worse than petrol.
None of the above has got anything to do with EVs vs hydrogen.
Edited by GT9 on Saturday 11th May 18:42
steveb8189 said:
Geoffcapes said:
Any minute now the EV evangelista's will be along to say that hydrogen won't work as a fuel for cars because........
I'm a firm believer we'll see hydrogen fuel cell cars in the futureWhich is marginally more likely to happen than FCVs becoming any more than a niche diversion.
u9ge said:
steveb8189 said:
Geoffcapes said:
Any minute now the EV evangelista's will be along to say that hydrogen won't work as a fuel for cars because........
I'm a firm believer we'll see hydrogen fuel cell cars in the future unless wireless charging infrastructure proves to be scalable. Hydrogen combusion cars like this will not make it mass market and will be reserved for people like us who still like the feel and experience of an ICE. They're just too complex, with too many moving parts and have all the downsides of hydrogen without the upsides of fuel cellsFaustF said:
An absolute massive Yes! To this and supporting ventures like it, the more R&D the better. Hydrogen in one form or another is the way forward long term over EVs.
Can you counter any of the points I made?I'm not trying to be adversarial, it's just that electric propulsion has been made to jump through so many hoops for literally decades to establish its environmental credibility, and still faces a barrage of disinformation in an attempt to stop the battery onslaught.
Yet high-carbon fossil-fuel hydrogen waltzes in the room and nobody bats an eyelid.
I suppose the question is, do you actually care if it's just another cleverly disguised fossil fuel?
Anyone know what happened to the demo run at Spa? It was supposed to be on along with the H24 car.
From the bar/restaurant atop the pits we heard an almighty backfire from the direction of the Alpine stand where this car was but nothing more and it never appeared. Shame as I was looking forward to hearing it in action!
From the bar/restaurant atop the pits we heard an almighty backfire from the direction of the Alpine stand where this car was but nothing more and it never appeared. Shame as I was looking forward to hearing it in action!
FaustF said:
An absolute massive Yes! To this and supporting ventures like it, the more R&D the better. Hydrogen in one form or another is the way forward long term over EVs.
So why don't you buy one? Plenty of them sitting on autotrader for months...Not a single person answered the thread asking if anyone on here has a hydrogen powered car... quite mysterious considering how many people seem to think they are the answer.
GT9 said:
Can you counter any of the points I made?
I'm not trying to be adversarial, it's just that electric propulsion has been made to jump through so many hoops for literally decades to establish its environmental credibility, and still faces a barrage of disinformation in an attempt to stop the battery onslaught.
Yet high-carbon fossil-fuel hydrogen waltzes in the room and nobody bats an eyelid.
I suppose the question is, do you actually care if it's just another cleverly disguised fossil fuel?
The practical aspects of running a car on hydrogen I agree rule it out almost from the start... But H2 production doesn't need to be high carbon emitting.I'm not trying to be adversarial, it's just that electric propulsion has been made to jump through so many hoops for literally decades to establish its environmental credibility, and still faces a barrage of disinformation in an attempt to stop the battery onslaught.
Yet high-carbon fossil-fuel hydrogen waltzes in the room and nobody bats an eyelid.
I suppose the question is, do you actually care if it's just another cleverly disguised fossil fuel?
There's a UK competition running at the moment to take an HTGR reactor to deployment. These give you very high quality process heat which is perfect for H2 production.
You could also build H2 plants close to big solar or wind farms to make use of over-supply.
Of course, no one wants an H2 in the countryside and HTGR designs are long way off practical deployment.
By which time battery tech and associated infrastructure will have improved.
TGCOTF-dewey said:
The practical aspects of running a car on hydrogen I agree rule it out almost from the start... But H2 production doesn't need to be high carbon emitting.
There's a UK competition running at the moment to take an HTGR reactor to deployment. These give you very high quality process heat which is perfect for H2 production.
You could also build H2 plants close to big solar or wind farms to make use of over-supply.
Of course, no one wants an H2 in the countryside and HTGR designs are long way off practical deployment.
By which time battery tech and associated infrastructure will have improved.
Which is essentially the point I made in my previous post, the window for hydrogen to make a difference for cars in the UK has already closed.There's a UK competition running at the moment to take an HTGR reactor to deployment. These give you very high quality process heat which is perfect for H2 production.
You could also build H2 plants close to big solar or wind farms to make use of over-supply.
Of course, no one wants an H2 in the countryside and HTGR designs are long way off practical deployment.
By which time battery tech and associated infrastructure will have improved.
The decarbonisation should have started decades ago.
There seems to be some kind of assumption that hydrogen will just 'arrive' at some point, ready for an overnight switch.
Electrolyser production cost and energy demands are what they are, cost spiral is causing major problems for just about all green H2 transportation pursuits globally.
And that's just the infrastructure.
The cars are a completely separate and potentially even more challenging matter, both from a production capacity and renewability/recyclability perspective.
The safety case then kicks you in the nuts for good measure.
We already have an absolutely brilliant way to use hydrogen in cars, it's called petrol.
Apart from CO2 of course.
Hydrogen ICE road cars are a dead end. They just need too much hydrogen to get a decent range/space compromise. If you want very expensive carbon neutral fuel to burn in an ICE, synthetic fuels are far more practical.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars are just inferior EVs which are currently a bit quicker to fuel. There might be a niche for them if there are people willing to pay through the nose for faster refuelling to have something that's not as good as a battery car, but a pervasive refuelling network requires more than niche usage to be economically viable.
Hydrogen fuel cell cars are just inferior EVs which are currently a bit quicker to fuel. There might be a niche for them if there are people willing to pay through the nose for faster refuelling to have something that's not as good as a battery car, but a pervasive refuelling network requires more than niche usage to be economically viable.
GT9 said:
Electrolyser production cost and energy demands are what they are, cost spiral is causing major problems for just about all green H2 transportation pursuits globally.
And that's just the infrastructure.
In fact the exact opposite is happening. Look at relative newcomers to the electrolyser space, Plug, their prices are coming down all the time. And that's just the infrastructure.
Also Siemens, how are generally accepted as brand leaders, are manufacturing electrolyses at much more affordable (investment wise) prices.
As a cost, the expensive part of a Green H2 project is the Green power (ie PV or wind) which is generally twice the cost of the H2 generation bit. .
Geoffcapes said:
In fact the exact opposite is happening. Look at relative newcomers to the electrolyser space, Plug, their prices are coming down all the time.
Also Siemens, how are generally accepted as brand leaders, are manufacturing electrolyses at much more affordable (investment wise) prices.
As a cost, the expensive part of a Green H2 project is the Green power (ie PV or wind) which is generally twice the cost of the H2 generation bit. .
For clarity, that's what I meant by energy demands, renewable electricity being implied.Also Siemens, how are generally accepted as brand leaders, are manufacturing electrolyses at much more affordable (investment wise) prices.
As a cost, the expensive part of a Green H2 project is the Green power (ie PV or wind) which is generally twice the cost of the H2 generation bit. .
I agree that we should definitely push in the direction of green rather than blue.
The relationship to passenger cars is what we are discussing, and just about every fortnight I read another piece of news like this:
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/production/nobody-...
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/shell-to...
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/price-hi...
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/sales-of...
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/cost-of-...
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/no-longe...
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/only-two...
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/analysis/hydrogen-...
The reality of hydrogen cars right here, right now, is that the global direction of travel doesn't indicate any kind of reprieve from the cost spiral and total lack of competitiveness vs traditional ICEs or EVs. Sales are falling and filling stations are closing, its a pretty good ruse if the plan is for a bolt out of the blue that will bring EV crashing to the ground.
I have intentionally excluded buses and trucks, as the competitivity drivers are entirely different to cars.
And for balance, the same website has these two articles about some geographical regions where there might be opportunities for hydrogen-powered cars:
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/locally-...
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/transport/french-h...
The second link above is pertinent to this thread.
Plug Power:
https://www.hydrogeninsight.com/electrolysers/hydr...
Geoffcapes said:
Any minute now the EV evangelista's will be along to say that hydrogen won't work as a fuel for cars because........
If it's not pure electric it has no future we KNOW this with absolute certainty even though the demise of petrol etc is still 11 years away^ 
^nothing will change during this 11 year period either
TX.
Terminator X said:
If it's not pure electric it has no future we KNOW this with absolute certainty even though the demise of petrol etc is still 11 years away^
^nothing will change during this 11 year period either
TX.
You (or anyone else) could always attempt to try to counter the specific points I've made, rather than just endlessly saying 'how can you be certain of anything'?^nothing will change during this 11 year period either
TX.
GT9 said:
Terminator X said:
If it's not pure electric it has no future we KNOW this with absolute certainty even though the demise of petrol etc is still 11 years away^
^nothing will change during this 11 year period either
TX.
You (or anyone else) could always attempt to try to counter the specific points I've made, rather than just endlessly saying 'how can you be certain of anything'?^nothing will change during this 11 year period either
TX.
TGCOTF-dewey said:
You could also build H2 plants close to big solar or wind farms to make use of over-supply.
That sounds like a reasonable idea. Problem though, there aren't many hours where green energy is in surpluss. Consider the following: if a factory runs 1 hour a day it will need 24 times the capacity of a factory that runs 24 hours a day. The other 23 hours that huge factory will be not running. Financially that's a ruinous proposition, apart from logistical stuff like finding personel that has no idea when and how much they can work. And apart from wether the surpluss is enough to produce the h2 we would need. And what happens with surplusses when we got enough storage for the moments when we haven't got enough at the moment. etc etc.Edited by _ppan on Monday 13th May 14:50
GT9 said:
You (or anyone else) could always attempt to try to counter the specific points I've made, rather than just endlessly saying 'how can you be certain of anything'?
It's a bit like standing in front of a car that is closing in at 60mph and just keep standing there instead of trying to get out of the way, because you don't know if it's gonna steer left or right.Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff