The Future

[bodhi]

98elise said:

Hydrogen needs 3x the energy to make, and is a bd to store and distribute. It leaks out of everything, and would you be happy with a 10000psi fuel tank in your car?

Hydrogen is a dead end.

See this is something I've never really understood. Hydrogen has some challenges to overcome before it is useful for everyone - however as we've seen from the discussion in this thread, so do EV's. So I really do struggle to see why one is the future and the other a dead end. Especially considering Hydrogen has two key advantages over EV's that the battery equivalents can't ever hope to do:

1 - Fast recharging - whilst 80% charge in 30 minutes might be quite impressive, for people used to current empty to full in 5 minutes, it is still a step down on what we currently have. Sure, this will improve with EV's, but I really don;t see it ever getting to the stage we are now with good old ICE's. Whislt you can plan around recharging times, there will come a point where you need to use the car in an emergency, and if you are low on charge, you will be SOL for the forseeable.

2 - Load on the grid. For me this is Hydrogen's big BIG advantage, is rather than being charged from the house, the fuel cell can be used to power the house instead.

Now personally, I think the best current solution for mass transportation is the one we're using, but also appreciate that oil supplies aren't infinite we should be looking into what comes next. I would just rather wait for a solution that can completely replace the ICE, for all situations, and as is freely admitted by even the biggest EV fanboy, they are not there yet, and it will be a while before they are.

So I'm more than happy to wait and see and let both technologies mature, as if they manage to remove the downsides of each of them, I do think Hydrogen will be the way to go.

In the meantime, I have some dinosaurs to burn

[anonymous-user]

bodhi said:

See this is something I've never really understood.

Every "energy conversion step" has an efficiency associated with it, and that is always less than 100%, ie a loss.

Hydrogen, being a light gas at normal ambient conditions isn't just sat around waiting to be used (unlike coal, coal, gas etc) and whilst it is highly abundant in the universe, its high co valency (it loves to bond with other atoms due to its particular atomic arrangement) mean it's pretty much always tied up with some other element.

So, to "make" hydrogen, we need to either split a water molecule (water being H2O, two atoms of Hydrogen, one of Oxygen) or chemically "crack" some other hydrocarbon molecule. In fact, today around 99% of our hydrogen manufacture is from oil using chemical cracking! In either case, today we have no simple, low cost, low energy method of extracting hydrogen from other compounds. (various lab based methods are proposed, and work at a bench top scale, including bacterial conversion, but none have been developed and proven at an industrial scale. SO we are left with the fact, that today, making hydrogen only really "captures" something like 25 to 35% of the energy put in.

Then you get to storage. Hydrogen can be stored via two mainstream methods (again, other lab based methods have been demonstrated at small scale, but with need BIG scale methods) either cyrogenically at extremely low temperature, or at room temperature but under enormous pressure. Both have significant difficulties and constraints. Added to which, hydrogen is a "small" molecule, it easily seeps out from in between the molecules of materials that are trying to contain it and on the way it can cause unwanted changes to those materials (hydrogen embrittlement etc)


So, once we have used a huge amount of energy making our hydrogen, and storing our hydrogen, we must now convert that hydrogen into useful work. Here at least there is a process that is relatively efficient, but expensive which is hydrogen fuel cells. Here the high co-valency of hydrogen mean it really likes to fuse with oxygen, make a water molecule, and release energy as it does so. That energy can be released as electricity across a diffusion membrane, and that electricity used to power a motor and do useful work.


Therefore, we could go:

Electricity -> hydrogen gas -> hydrogen liquid -> STORAGE -> hydrogen gas -> Electricity - Useful work (from a motor)

but staying as electricity and using a chemical battery we just go:

Electricity -> Chemical Energy -> electricity - Useful work

And this is much more efficient where electricity is a finite resource.


The "savour" for hydrogen is when electricity becomes effectively infinite, and hence has little cost associated. Either from vast renewable sources, or from nuclear Fusion (not fission note!), if electricity is so plentiful and cheap, we can "waste" lots it in order to be able to store energy for peak demands.

For example, a future highway "energy station" could have a large solar array on its roof, and during the day, grab lots of cheap electricity, elecrolyse that to hydrogen, store that hydrogen, and then at night, or during peak demands, "Burn" that hydrogen in fuel cells to make electricity again, which could be fed via chargers to the customers battery electric cars.

As this is really only suitable for larger scale plants, it makes sense to have distributed hydrogen "storage" facilities at positions of high energy demand (like highway energy stations) acting as load levellers.

It makes a lot less sense to put small Hydrogen converters actually in your car, as in much the same way gasoline is refined in bulk from crude oil at a few large scale refineries, rather than refined locally in your car!

[98elise]

ash73 said:

tl;dr hydrogen is more difficult and more scaleable. The question is whether EV is a stepping stone or a diversion that will set us back 50 years.

Hydrogen cars would still be EV's. Hydrogen is just an energy store, its not a fuel. In essence its a really bad battery.

In my mind there is no doubt that all cars will have an electric drivetrain in the future. The only difference will be if they get their electricity from either a battery, hydrogen, or some for of ICE/generator.

Edited by 98elise on Friday 2nd December 07:57

[anonymous-user]

And the answer will be generally, all of the above! HFC cars still have batteries for load leveling, as the HFC cannot be throttled fast enough to provide the dynamic loads required, and because they cannot run in reverse, and so if you want to recapture Kinetic Energy, you need a chemical battery to do that!


Electric traction will dominate in all cases, because of the intrinsic commonality, reversability, and hence efficiency of Electricity and Magnetism.

[rxe]

98elise said:

The average car needs 7kWh per day. That's like running a hob for an hour, or a decent electric shower for 30 minutes.

Now spread that load out over 8 hours and you're drawing less than a 1 bar electric heater, or a kitchen full of halogen spot lights.

The only issue we may have is running a hob and charging a car at full whack. I could design a control system for that in about 10 minutes, and have it working in about a day using a few off the shelf components from Maplins.

Once you take into account the electricity used in O&G refining then the net requirements are even less.

Which is why I deliberately expressed the load in GW. It doesn't matter whether the load is made up of trillions of 1W LEDs, or millions of kettles, you have to find 300+ GW during the course of the day to deliver the energy needed. You either managed to smooth that over the course of the day (15 GW/h needed extra) or cram it into shorter periods. The only way to avoid finding 300 GW is to either drive fewer miles or make electric cars do more than 4mi/kW.

The bit you are talking about is local distribution - which is not a big problem, until people start expecting fast charging. Anyone who expects to have 100 kW chargers in their home is delusional. 100 kW induction chargers anywhere - delusional. A 5kW charger - not a big deal, but that will need to be running for many hours, and having all of those on at the same time in the average street will need material infrastructure.

Certainly when I did my Chem Eng degree, no one in their right mind was using grid electricity to provide heat or compression at oil refineries.... but that was 20 years ago. Most of the heavy power stuff is gas or steam turbine - it has to be, a big compressor can be running at an equivalent of 45MW. They've got loads of waste process heat in a refinery, so raising steam is generally what they do.

[98elise]

rxe said:

98elise said:

The average car needs 7kWh per day. That's like running a hob for an hour, or a decent electric shower for 30 minutes.

Now spread that load out over 8 hours and you're drawing less than a 1 bar electric heater, or a kitchen full of halogen spot lights.

The only issue we may have is running a hob and charging a car at full whack. I could design a control system for that in about 10 minutes, and have it working in about a day using a few off the shelf components from Maplins.

Once you take into account the electricity used in O&G refining then the net requirements are even less.

Which is why I deliberately expressed the load in GW. It doesn't matter whether the load is made up of trillions of 1W LEDs, or millions of kettles, you have to find 300+ GW during the course of the day to deliver the energy needed. You either managed to smooth that over the course of the day (15 GW/h needed extra) or cram it into shorter periods. The only way to avoid finding 300 GW is to either drive fewer miles or make electric cars do more than 4mi/kW.

The bit you are talking about is local distribution - which is not a big problem, until people start expecting fast charging. Anyone who expects to have 100 kW chargers in their home is delusional. 100 kW induction chargers anywhere - delusional. A 5kW charger - not a big deal, but that will need to be running for many hours, and having all of those on at the same time in the average street will need material infrastructure.

Certainly when I did my Chem Eng degree, no one in their right mind was using grid electricity to provide heat or compression at oil refineries.... but that was 20 years ago. Most of the heavy power stuff is gas or steam turbine - it has to be, a big compressor can be running at an equivalent of 45MW. They've got loads of waste process heat in a refinery, so raising steam is generally what they do.

The majority of people will do fine with slow charging over night. You plug your car in when you get home, you unplug it when you go out the next day. I don't care if its a slow or a fast charge as long as its done in the 12 hours or so that its sat on my drive.

Its cheaper and easier to do it then, and we have plenty of spare energy. The only issue we have at the moment is peak power demands, but that can easily be controlled either by pricing, or smart chargers. I have no doubt when EV's are mass market then there will be more incentives to use charging to smooth loads. If you want to fast charge at 7pm, its going to cost you a whole lot more than spreading it over the night.

[herewego]

ash73 said:

98elise said:

The majority of people will do fine with slow charging over night...

What about people who park on the street, often not outside their own houses? Are you expecting charging points to be installed for every parking space at the kerb? Or is it an "I'm all right Jack" technology for the middle classes?

I don't think every car has to be an EV. Hybrids can run for some miles on batteries.

[98elise]

ash73 said:

98elise said:

The majority of people will do fine with slow charging over night...

What about people who park on the street, often not outside their own houses? Are you expecting charging points to be installed for every parking space at the kerb? Or is it an "I'm all right Jack" technology for the middle classes?

Its would be relatively simple to install street chargers. The capacity is all ready there at a local level.

For those that simply cannot charge at home, then an battery EV is possibly not for you. A PHEV or Hybrid would be better suited to someone who has no access to electricity for charging. I don't have all the answers, but the barriers to EV's that most people throw up are more often than not myths.

What has it to do with "class" anyway? I live in the Medway Towns, which is not exactly "middle class".

[98elise]

ash73 said:

98elise said:

What has it to do with "class" anyway? I live in the Medway Towns, which is not exactly "middle class".

Not having a go at you personally, my point is it's geared towards early adopters with a garage who are happy to spend a few quid to do their bit for the environment, but it won't scale to everyone else. They could spend a fortune installing chargers at the kerb and then suddenly there's a breakthrough with hydrogen and the entire infrastructure becomes a white elephant overnight.

I doubt the storage and distribution problems of hydrogen is going to see a sudden breakthrough. Its very good at getting out of its container, and needs to be stored at 10000 psi. To fix that you're going to need to change physics.

Distribution of electricity is very simple and easy. The main issue we have at the moment is battery capacity, but that's getting better year on year (about 5-10%).

[rxe]

98elise said:

The majority of people will do fine with slow charging over night. You plug your car in when you get home, you unplug it when you go out the next day. I don't care if its a slow or a fast charge as long as its done in the 12 hours or so that its sat on my drive.

Its cheaper and easier to do it then, and we have plenty of spare energy. The only issue we have at the moment is peak power demands, but that can easily be controlled either by pricing, or smart chargers. I have no doubt when EV's are mass market then there will be more incentives to use charging to smooth loads. If you want to fast charge at 7pm, its going to cost you a whole lot more than spreading it over the night.

The reality is that we have about 8 hours overnight with 20 GW of slack. So that 160 GW sorted. The rest has to be added onto the peak load during the day - and there isn't the capacity. If they go ahead with turning off the remaining coal powered stations, then you've only got 12 GW of slack. In the summer you'll probably get away with it - but not in the winter.

But the real problem is the utility of the vehicle. Plugging in at work will have to be very expensive, because if everyone starts doing it, the lights go out. It all starts to look rather unattractive.

[anonymous-user]

98elise said:

Distribution of electricity is very simple and easy. The main issue we have at the moment is battery capacity, but that's getting better year on year (about 5-10%).

And critically, the COST per kWhr is falling at around 100% per year. For example, the i3, has been on sale for just 2 years, and already the latest battery is 50% bigger (same with Leaf / Zoe etc etc) for no extra cost or size!

[mickthemechanic]

Trucks are a problem when it comes to Hybrid/Electric especially long haul stuff. I think trucks will be diesel for a good while yet.

[JumboBeef]

ash73 said:

Interesting timing; earlier today Nikola Motors unveiled its hydrogen fuel cell truck:



http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/95528/nikola...

https://nikolamotor.com/

That'll be good at seeing cyclists when turning left.

[babatunde]

It seems a lot of Petrolheads have JC levels of reasoning when it comes to EVs

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1107584_jeremy...

Like it or not they are are about to drag us screaming into the future You will have to pry my motorbike keys from my cold dead hands though

I keep directing people to http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-chang... if they really want to understand the fundamentals behind electric cars

[BricktopST205]

This will not work in the second or third world which is decades behind the west in terms of car usage. Driving through some parts of eastern Europe felt like being back in the 90's!

Electricity will be taxed to buggery and become super expensive. Petrol is just so flexible in its use that batteries will never manage. The strain on our grid is bad enough as it is, what are we going to use to power this without resorting to nuclear? We closed down our last deep coal mine last year and we import everything else. (In a nutshell we are going to be held to ransom by gas suppliers)

Edited by BricktopST205 on Friday 2nd December 21:49

[98elise]

BricktopST205 said:

This will not work in the second or third world which is decades behind the west in terms of car usage. Driving through some parts of eastern Europe felt like being back in the 90's!

Electricity will be taxed to buggery and become super expensive. Petrol is just so flexible in its use that batteries will never manage. The strain on our grid is bad enough as it is, what are we going to use to power this without resorting to nuclear? We closed down our last deep coal mine last year and we import everything else. (In a nutshell we are going to be held to ransom by gas suppliers)

Edited by BricktopST205 on Friday 2nd December 21:49

How is petrol more flexible than electricity? You can make electricity from any energy source, and it can be simply converted to heat, light, magnetism, movement etc.

[Otispunkmeyer]

mickthemechanic said:

Trucks are a problem when it comes to Hybrid/Electric especially long haul stuff. I think trucks will be diesel for a good while yet.

Yep, last I saw some Roadmaps from research bodies they had heavy duty diesel still being the prime mover of big stuff right out to 2070. A bit Diesel engine is a seriously flexible and powerful bit of kit. That Nikola truck thing has 1000 hp and about 2700 Nm of torque. Ok in power terms that probably bests a lot of 13-16 litre truck engines, but they don't need power, they need torque and 2700 Nm isn't anything to write home about. Our Merceds euro 6 13 litre engine had 2500 Nm on tap. They are ridiculously strong!

A 42t HGV on the M1 pretty much needs all its torque just maintaining speeds on gradients. On a test we were sat at full load for a fair while going up a hill. I think a battery pack would get rinsed in short order. And there is so much kinetic energy to recapture on the downhill they can't actually use it all as it arrives to charge the batteries... they have to dump some of it into some big resistors. Have a look at Mercedes ETruck, it's a 26T rigid with a huge battery HVAC module on one side and what I think is a big module to deal with recouperation of energy (including those resistors to dump the energy into).

https://goo.gl/images/LSWMo1

I think that should work for a light goods delivery vehicle or a bin truck for example.

[chandrew]

I suspect there is a really good argument that hydrogen will be a much better fuel source for commercial vehicles than battery EVs. Much of the issues with infrastructure can probably be countered for commercial operators.

[dlockhart]

ash73 said:

What about people who park on the street, often not outside their own houses? Are you expecting charging points to be installed for every parking space at the kerb? Or is it an "I'm all right Jack" technology for the middle classes?

Nope goto Shepherd's bush - there are already charging meters on the road.

You pay for on street parking and they EV charging in one go. I can see this being more wide spread for those of you who have driveways it will be cheaper.

Reality is different your negative imagination.

[NerveAgent]

ash73 said:

What about people who park on the street, often not outside their own houses? Are you expecting charging points to be installed for every parking space at the kerb? Or is it an "I'm all right Jack" technology for the middle classes?

I just cant think how they would get electricity to the side of the road that isnt outside your house. What with all the big shine poles in the way.

If they manage to overcome this technologically feat, I bet they will even invent some sort plastic identi-magno-magic card you could use when you plug in.


As they say, if you don't immediately succeed. Give up.