RE: Toyota and Yamaha partner on hydrogen V8
Discussion
GT9 said:
Mettles lives in New Zealand.
A country that I think is bigger than the UK but only 5 million or so people live there with about 4.5 million cars between them. Despite the far lower population density, I don't think they actually drive any further than we do, on average. So the density of car use is something like 15 times lower than it is here.
They also already have 80%+ renewables, and funnily enough they were even higher 50 years ago at 90%, mainly hydro. Wind power has only reached about 5% of their generation. Because they don't need to wean themselves off natural gas for either heat or electricity, they can utilise the majority of any new renewables installed for decarbonisation of transport, and at a rate that suits them, given it's only a few million cars in such a large country doing fairly meagre mileage.
This is a far cry from the challenges of decarbonisation in the UK. Our passenger car decarbonisation approach is intended to be based predominantly on wind power, mainly offshore, and would need to happen concurrent with decarbonisation of both natural gas electricity generation AND heating.
The sheer number of new wind turbines required makes the maths of using hydrogen for passenger cars in the UK probably 10 times more improbable than it does in NZ. And whilst I realise that weaning ourselves off natural gas, particularly for heating, might not happen quite as fast as that, it still doesn't make any kind of strong case for such a large low efficiency pathway to be hooked up to wind power.
NZ can afford both a longer timeframe (to wait for technology maturity) and a lower efficiency pathway, if they wanted to pursue that for some reason. What I don't know is how many tunnels or underground car parks there are NZ, maybe they can approach the safety side of it from a different angle that alleviates the issue of a large population of cars in an enclosed space.
This is why I regularly clarify that my posting on this topic is specific to the UK, as each country needs to approach their decarbonisation strategy differently.
As an aside, given what's going on at the moment, I wonder how much thought has gone into the ease with which you might be able to bring a country to its knees that is hoping to be so dependent on offshore wind.
You are correct, though the reasoning is not entirely true. With only one large spread out city, the bulk of our commuting is generally pretty short run, but intercity is much further apart than the UK. My nearest city is 440 kms away. Most think their throat has been cut if they are stationary in traffic for more than 5 minutes. Our need to wean ourselves of natural gas will happen far sooner than is necessary by a fairly green minded Govt that is pushing us forward fairly quickly, though that said, our natural gas reserves are starting to run out. There is a proposed date of 2030 to have all our electricity generated by renewables...will it happen...doubtful.A country that I think is bigger than the UK but only 5 million or so people live there with about 4.5 million cars between them. Despite the far lower population density, I don't think they actually drive any further than we do, on average. So the density of car use is something like 15 times lower than it is here.
They also already have 80%+ renewables, and funnily enough they were even higher 50 years ago at 90%, mainly hydro. Wind power has only reached about 5% of their generation. Because they don't need to wean themselves off natural gas for either heat or electricity, they can utilise the majority of any new renewables installed for decarbonisation of transport, and at a rate that suits them, given it's only a few million cars in such a large country doing fairly meagre mileage.
This is a far cry from the challenges of decarbonisation in the UK. Our passenger car decarbonisation approach is intended to be based predominantly on wind power, mainly offshore, and would need to happen concurrent with decarbonisation of both natural gas electricity generation AND heating.
The sheer number of new wind turbines required makes the maths of using hydrogen for passenger cars in the UK probably 10 times more improbable than it does in NZ. And whilst I realise that weaning ourselves off natural gas, particularly for heating, might not happen quite as fast as that, it still doesn't make any kind of strong case for such a large low efficiency pathway to be hooked up to wind power.
NZ can afford both a longer timeframe (to wait for technology maturity) and a lower efficiency pathway, if they wanted to pursue that for some reason. What I don't know is how many tunnels or underground car parks there are NZ, maybe they can approach the safety side of it from a different angle that alleviates the issue of a large population of cars in an enclosed space.
This is why I regularly clarify that my posting on this topic is specific to the UK, as each country needs to approach their decarbonisation strategy differently.
As an aside, given what's going on at the moment, I wonder how much thought has gone into the ease with which you might be able to bring a country to its knees that is hoping to be so dependent on offshore wind.
There are very few road tunnels in NZ and while it consumes electricity, it is reasonably easy to vent tunnels and carparks to ensure safety from gas or fume built up. There seems to be a large concern about leakage and explosion with hydrogen...petrol is no safety saint and nor was LPG/LNG when its use was more common. One would hope seals and sealing tech has improved since the LPG/LNG days.
Having spent many decades at sea, I would think it would be very easy to hobble a country reliant on offshore wind. It would be quite hard to provide adequate security to protect a large number of generators, if there was a need. The events of the last week has shown there is a greater need than there was 2 weeks ago.
otolith said:
I have electricity supplied to my house.
Indeed, I'm sure you do, but auto makers produce for a world market and there are many that do not have a power grid that can cope with many BEV chargers. There are multitudes of different scenarios out there, that require differing solutions and not all of them are going to be the most efficient in their energy use. I'm in danger of repeating myself, in that an ICE that can burn something cleaner than the current petrol and diesel will have a place, regardless of its efficiency, for some time to come.I just hope that electricity supplied to your house has no restrictions in the future, now the Russian bear is being a pain in the arse and has control of a lot of the gas that comes to Europe.
fblm said:
And have you seen the state of the vehicles they drive in those countries?
There lies a debate on a different tangent. Globally, what makes sense, the affluent West using its money to replace a local fleet that has a high natural replacement rate of around 5% anyway and an existing fleet that is relatively clean in global terms, or using that money in developing nations to get rid of seriously polluting vehicles that will be retained for decades to come?One could argue that ridding the third world of its millions of old and absolutely filthy two stroke engines would be the smarter move. Working with these countries to replace the millions of old scooters and tuktuks as well as ancient cars would probably be more constructive than just telling them they're bad people, look at our emissions etc.
Spend 5 minutes in a town where tuktuks are running about and you suddenly appreciate just how clean the air is in the centre of any U.K. conurbation!!
Mettles said:
Having spent many decades at sea, I would think it would be very easy to hobble a country reliant on offshore wind. It would be quite hard to provide adequate security to protect a large number of generators, if there was a need. The events of the last week has shown there is a greater need than there was 2 weeks ago.
Flipside is that you are talking 15,000 or so turbines spread around the coastline. Maybe there is safety in numbers.DonkeyApple said:
Spend 5 minutes in a town where tuktuks are running about and you suddenly appreciate just how clean the air is in the centre of any U.K. conurbation!!
But that pollution is only making foreign poor people sick, they’re relatively fuel efficient so they’re not having as high an impact on things that might make our lives uncomfortable.DonkeyApple said:
In fairness no one in their right mind would buy a Tesla when it means a 400 mile round trip everytime you need something fixed.
Also the US system of blocking online sales initially seems bad from our U.K. perspective but it's there to protect, local and family businesses that employ locals, spend locally and keep local money circulating in local communities.
What crap.Also the US system of blocking online sales initially seems bad from our U.K. perspective but it's there to protect, local and family businesses that employ locals, spend locally and keep local money circulating in local communities.
Protecting a monopoly more like it, rather than promoting a free market economy.
Did you know that the direct sale ban also applies to coffins in some States?
Imagine you live next door to a lumber yard, where they take in trees at one end and turn them into finished boards at the other.
You go in, cash in hand and ask to buy some boards. The yard will gladly sell them to you but by law the boards have to be sent to a dealer and only then can the public buy them.
Now tell me how this protects anything other than the dealers monopoly and profits?
DonkeyApple said:
There lies a debate on a different tangent. Globally, what makes sense, the affluent West using its money to replace a local fleet that has a high natural replacement rate of around 5% anyway and an existing fleet that is relatively clean in global terms, or using that money in developing nations to get rid of seriously polluting vehicles that will be retained for decades to come?
One could argue that ridding the third world of its millions of old and absolutely filthy two stroke engines would be the smarter move. Working with these countries to replace the millions of old scooters and tuktuks as well as ancient cars would probably be more constructive than just telling them they're bad people, look at our emissions etc.
Spend 5 minutes in a town where tuktuks are running about and you suddenly appreciate just how clean the air is in the centre of any U.K. conurbation!!
That's a very good point. Can't see us buying the 3rd world a few hundred million EV's is going to be a big vote winner though! I guess the best we can hope for is that our relatively clean ICE cars will get exported there when they become worthless here...One could argue that ridding the third world of its millions of old and absolutely filthy two stroke engines would be the smarter move. Working with these countries to replace the millions of old scooters and tuktuks as well as ancient cars would probably be more constructive than just telling them they're bad people, look at our emissions etc.
Spend 5 minutes in a town where tuktuks are running about and you suddenly appreciate just how clean the air is in the centre of any U.K. conurbation!!
otolith said:
DonkeyApple said:
Spend 5 minutes in a town where tuktuks are running about and you suddenly appreciate just how clean the air is in the centre of any U.K. conurbation!!
But that pollution is only making foreign poor people sick, they’re relatively fuel efficient so they’re not having as high an impact on things that might make our lives uncomfortable.fblm said:
Mettles said:
Indeed, I'm sure you do, but auto makers produce for a world market and there are many that do not have a power grid that can cope with many BEV chargers.
And have you seen the state of the vehicles they drive in those countries? otolith said:
Hydrogen from cracking water with electricity is not a solution to not having the smaller generation capacity you would need for BEVs - that’s like saying the solution to not being able to afford bread is to eat cake.
It is a solution if the hydrogen is cracked in a country with a surplus of green electricity and shipped to your country. As oil is an international commodity, so will hydrogen become so in the future. I see an article where Lord Bamford of JCB has signed a multi-billion pound contract with Fortescue in Australia. The main man there has made that much money on iron ore recently he is setting up some green hydrogen plants....it begins...GT9 said:
Mettles said:
Having spent many decades at sea, I would think it would be very easy to hobble a country reliant on offshore wind. It would be quite hard to provide adequate security to protect a large number of generators, if there was a need. The events of the last week has shown there is a greater need than there was 2 weeks ago.
Flipside is that you are talking 15,000 or so turbines spread around the coastline. Maybe there is safety in numbers.DonkeyApple said:
Correct. But you have hit the nail on the head right there. Cleaner combustion very much has a place but where there is a need.
That isn't markers such as the U.K. however, when you look at most markets where there isn't an efficient electricity grid you typically also have the absence of wealth with which to procure combustion fuels created from electricity. The markets that you are referring to are the small number of nations where an efficient grid doesn't exist due to say geography but where there is western levels of wealth.
And even in those markets it is not cut and dry. For examples, if you look at Australia the homes that aren't in cities and towns so are traditionally off grid have been using LPG as the cleanest form of energy but LPG is now being wound down in Aus. It's reached the point that the distributors aren't even renewing their haulage fleets. Why? Because renewable tech has reached the point that these homes can self generate. They have a storage issue but adding an EV actually assists in that regard.
With these remote parts of wealthy nations it's very likely that they will be able to skip the need for efficient, cleaner combustion due to steady advances in domestic production and storage of renewables.
So when you look at the true landscape there aren't many nations where swapping the burning of fossil fuels to the burning of synthetic fuels manufactured from electricity is ever likely to be notably viable. Primarily because they are poor and it is simply far cheaper to use the synthetic fuel raw material of electricity in the first instance rather than lose more than half of it creating fuels that the population cannot afford.
So that leaves grey hydrogen. Hence why it is Japanese firms mostly behind the research into smaller hydrogen combustion engines. A nation that has no natural reserves of anything at all, no land for biofuel production but does have grey hydrogen as a byproduct of industry.
You are in danger of looking at this frim a very UK point of view, In Australia, distance in mind numbingly big and a current BEV that has a range of circa 200 miles is a non-runner in rural Aussie. In my time there in the 1980s, I have driven an 800 mile return trip to get beer for a small outpost that had run dry and the petrol stations were 200 miles apart. there is not the infrastructure or interest to create it currently to support charging and who wants to sit in 35-40 degree heat waiting for your car to charge up. Battery storage will have to improve dramatically for it to even be considered and the hammering rural vehicles get would have me concerned about the ability of a battery to cope with it physically and from a heat perspective too. Solar for home charging will not be an issue though.That isn't markers such as the U.K. however, when you look at most markets where there isn't an efficient electricity grid you typically also have the absence of wealth with which to procure combustion fuels created from electricity. The markets that you are referring to are the small number of nations where an efficient grid doesn't exist due to say geography but where there is western levels of wealth.
And even in those markets it is not cut and dry. For examples, if you look at Australia the homes that aren't in cities and towns so are traditionally off grid have been using LPG as the cleanest form of energy but LPG is now being wound down in Aus. It's reached the point that the distributors aren't even renewing their haulage fleets. Why? Because renewable tech has reached the point that these homes can self generate. They have a storage issue but adding an EV actually assists in that regard.
With these remote parts of wealthy nations it's very likely that they will be able to skip the need for efficient, cleaner combustion due to steady advances in domestic production and storage of renewables.
So when you look at the true landscape there aren't many nations where swapping the burning of fossil fuels to the burning of synthetic fuels manufactured from electricity is ever likely to be notably viable. Primarily because they are poor and it is simply far cheaper to use the synthetic fuel raw material of electricity in the first instance rather than lose more than half of it creating fuels that the population cannot afford.
So that leaves grey hydrogen. Hence why it is Japanese firms mostly behind the research into smaller hydrogen combustion engines. A nation that has no natural reserves of anything at all, no land for biofuel production but does have grey hydrogen as a byproduct of industry.
This continuous reference to the lower efficiency of hydrogen compared to directly charging a BEV is also very much a UK state of mind. The average Aussie rural person couldn't give a rats about efficiency as long as he gets to where he's going in his landcruiser or similar machine. Storage will be the concern for him, but there's plenty of room for tanks under a high clearance 4WD. This same person's mindset on vehicles is generally 20-30 years behind many others of us...
Mettles said:
You are in danger of looking at this frim a very UK point of view, In Australia, distance in mind numbingly big and a current BEV that has a range of circa 200 miles is a non-runner in rural Aussie. In my time there in the 1980s, I have driven an 800 mile return trip to get beer for a small outpost that had run dry and the petrol stations were 200 miles apart. there is not the infrastructure or interest to create it currently to support charging and who wants to sit in 35-40 degree heat waiting for your car to charge up. Battery storage will have to improve dramatically for it to even be considered and the hammering rural vehicles get would have me concerned about the ability of a battery to cope with it physically and from a heat perspective too. Solar for home charging will not be an issue though.
This continuous reference to the lower efficiency of hydrogen compared to directly charging a BEV is also very much a UK state of mind. The average Aussie rural person couldn't give a rats about efficiency as long as he gets to where he's going in his landcruiser or similar machine. Storage will be the concern for him, but there's plenty of room for tanks under a high clearance 4WD. This same person's mindset on vehicles is generally 20-30 years behind many others of us...
Your Aussie strawman is statistically irrelevant. And I say that despite multiple desert trips and living rurally for many years.This continuous reference to the lower efficiency of hydrogen compared to directly charging a BEV is also very much a UK state of mind. The average Aussie rural person couldn't give a rats about efficiency as long as he gets to where he's going in his landcruiser or similar machine. Storage will be the concern for him, but there's plenty of room for tanks under a high clearance 4WD. This same person's mindset on vehicles is generally 20-30 years behind many others of us...
Mettles said:
It is a solution if the hydrogen is cracked in a country with a surplus of green electricity and shipped to your country. As oil is an international commodity, so will hydrogen become so in the future. I see an article where Lord Bamford of JCB has signed a multi-billion pound contract with Fortescue in Australia. The main man there has made that much money on iron ore recently he is setting up some green hydrogen plants....it begins...
It is rather important to understand deals like that though. Fortesque is one of the 4 main iron ore exporters to China. Fortesque is by far the dirtiest, it is facing swinging green tax hikes domestically in the future but as of last year it has a bigger problem and that is China. China has implemented taxes based on the carbon content of imported iron ore. Fortesque's mines are iron ore rich with carbon and that means that overnight they can't compete against the less carbon rich, cleaner ore producers.
So what is the solution? The solution is carbon credits. Generate carbon credits with which to offset the tax disadvantages.
And what is the on trend current way of doing that? Investing in green hydrogen. Brilliant. Now how do you get the carbon credit when you sell that hydrogen? By selling it overseas utility firms to convert back to electricity.
Why is Bamford on board? Well he has the same problem. He runs a highly polluting global industrial and needs a hefty supply of carbon credits. Like Ineos and VW, JCB are investing as a large forward futures trade to procure a line of essential carbon credits.
It's the same model as HIF where Siemens and Enel have effectively sold access to a potential pool of carbon credits to VW. If HIF failed then VW lose the €20m but that's just a write off against tax, but if HIF is successful then VW get to the front of the queue for the credits.
Despite what Porsche PR says the HIF project has nothing to do with cars. And despite what Bamford says with his testing of the German HICE cylinder head, JCB have allocated a potential investment spend to his good mate Andrew Forrest to get a front run at the carbon credits.
Incidentally, Siemens and Enel are the leading builders of hydrogen based power stations. Hence why the HIF project is all about importing cheap wind energy from Chile, selling it in Europe for a much higher price. The problem is transporting that electricity. The proposed solution is to convert it to hydrogen, pump it into ships, offload it at Genoa and instantly convert it back to electricity for direct distribution.
Mettles said:
otolith said:
Hydrogen from cracking water with electricity is not a solution to not having the smaller generation capacity you would need for BEVs - that’s like saying the solution to not being able to afford bread is to eat cake.
It is a solution if the hydrogen is cracked in a country with a surplus of green electricity and shipped to your country. As oil is an international commodity, so will hydrogen become so in the future. I see an article where Lord Bamford of JCB has signed a multi-billion pound contract with Fortescue in Australia. The main man there has made that much money on iron ore recently he is setting up some green hydrogen plants....it begins...otolith said:
The sensible thing to do with that is to convert to electricity dockside. Certainly not to transport it all round the country and burn it in engines.
The real issue is that this is being looked at based on the low energy density of current batteries. A non issue for countries such as the U.K. but in developing markets you have to consider that hydrogen for burning in cars won't become available until into the 2040s given the current investment rate, if at all as it's not even proven possible yet. Conversely, that's 20 years of development in battery density and pricing that is very likely to render any investment into a hydrogen car fleet and hydrogen retail network redundant. For developing nations, given their lack of financial capability they are more likely to stick with fossil fuels until car batteries have superior energy density and are more affordable as opposed to being able to invest in ultra high cost synthetic hydrocarbon and an all new infrastructure.
DonkeyApple said:
The real issue is that this is being looked at based on the low energy density of current batteries. A non issue for countries such as the U.K. but in developing markets you have to consider that hydrogen for burning in cars won't become available until into the 2040s given the current investment rate, if at all as it's not even proven possible yet. Conversely, that's 20 years of development in battery density and pricing that is very likely to render any investment into a hydrogen car fleet and hydrogen retail network redundant.
For developing nations, given their lack of financial capability they are more likely to stick with fossil fuels until car batteries have superior energy density and are more affordable as opposed to being able to invest in ultra high cost synthetic hydrocarbon and an all new infrastructure.
RE energy density, hydrogen looks great at 120MJ per kg compared to about 45MJ/kg for petrol.For developing nations, given their lack of financial capability they are more likely to stick with fossil fuels until car batteries have superior energy density and are more affordable as opposed to being able to invest in ultra high cost synthetic hydrocarbon and an all new infrastructure.
Two problems there, though - firstly, a kg of compressed hydrogen takes up a lot of space, so the volumetric energy density is crap, secondly a tank to safely contain a relatively small amount of high pressure hydrogen is heavy.
If you look at the Mirai, the first gen one has 5kg of hydrogen in tanks with an internal volume of 120 litres. That gives 5MJ per litre which is somewhat less impressive compared to about 34MJ/l for petrol. Even less impressive if you consider that 120 litres is the internal volume of some pretty thick walled tanks. How thick walled is a petrol tank?
By weight then - the tanks weigh 87.5kg empty, so with 5kg of H in them that's about 6.5MJ per kg. Again, petrol is ~45MJ/kg for the fuel, bit less including the fuel tank, but petrol tanks are light - they certainly don't weigh 18 times what their content does.
TLDR - in the gen1 Mirai, 5kg of hydrogen in use takes up over 120 litres of storage and weighs 92.5kg and is matched in energy by 17 litres (13kg) of petrol plus whatever a 17 litre petrol tank weighs. This is the other reason why hydrogen ICE is a dead end.
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