EV minerals, tell me it isn't true

[Catatafish]

There's always the chance for something completely unexpected to pop up from of our diverse research avenues. Historically, predictions have been way off the mark in terms of how tech evolves.

It's somewhat ironic that our technological sophistication, the result of global industrialisation, allows us to precisely measure what is happening around the globe.

Ignoring battery minerals, what happens if crude oil is switched off? Where do all the plastics come from for the new vehicles? I am sure you can build anything 100% recylcled plastic theoretically, but is any manufacturer doing that?

Can I buy an EV with a 100% recycled battery, can you buy anything with an 100% recycled lithium battery?

[Merry]

ingenieur said:

It's just my opinion but if someone asked me the question or wanted me to put a bet on it one way or the other is the future of transportation battery powered or hydrogen powered I would say emphatically hydrogen, like a 1000 times more likely to be hydrogen. I can't for certain say how long it will take for us to stop thinking only about battery powered cars but when we do I believe it'll be because hydrogen is taking over.

Why, when its fundamentally hard to make, store and transport? While some of this can be improved I can't see its inefficiencies compared with BEVs ever being overcome. The only applications where it would be handy is where you need energy density, such as Hgvs, LGVs and perhaps aviation.

I honestly can't see why people still think its viable for cars, or ever will be.

[GT9]

ingenieur said:

Only the last bit is a question really... don't really know what to make of the rest of it.

The inelegance of the battery solution bothers me. It looks like a bit of a problem that you couldn't really build your own electric car unless you purchased at least the battery from some giant corporation and I see that lack of access being inappropriate in developing nations. This thread has dissolved into the 'why you not like EV' question as is inevitable with any EV related thread but it was started with the question of where will the raw materials come from if they're already in limited supply when only 0.4% of the worlds cars are electric now.

As for poo pooing hydrogen because it's an electric car powered by hydrogen fuel cell.... I don't really like those either. I prefer the hydrogen powered combustion engines which are being developed now.

It's just my opinion but if someone asked me the question or wanted me to put a bet on it one way or the other is the future of transportation battery powered or hydrogen powered I would say emphatically hydrogen, like a 1000 times more likely to be hydrogen. I can't for certain say how long it will take for us to stop thinking only about battery powered cars but when we do I believe it'll be because hydrogen is taking over.

I'm posting from a position of having a commercial and technical insight that stems from a career in this field starting from the 1990s, so please excuse the level of detail!

Anyway, I also would like to like the idea of the hydrogen ICE.

There are two or three things standing in its way though.

It's horribly inefficient, especially if there is no braking energy recapture taking place.

And it will still produce NOx without some form of secondary capture.

And of course it still relies on a highly complex engine, with associated maintenance burden.

Lack of maintenance and ageing engines also leads to increased emissions.

And then there's the green hydrogen pathway, which relies on an absolutely colossal amount of new electrical generating plant, hydrogen production plant and hydrogen storage technology.

The size of this 'colossus' is directly related to the inefficiency of the pathway.

This is what I've been trying to say.

Green hydrogen ICEs require, and will always require, at least 3 times as much electricity to fuel them compared to charging an equivalent BEV.

We don't have the wind turbines or equivalent to produce all this electricity.

And we would forever be paying 3 times as much per mile for the source electricity.

So what you are essentially asking for is many hundred of billions of additional money to install equipment to produce electricity, pay for that electricity, produce hydrogen and store it.

To me this makes it an impossibility that hydrogen ICE it is a 'mainstream' option for cars, certainly for the next 50 years or more.

We can't all be the lucky few that get to drive hydrogen ICEs, because the demand for hydrogen will makes its price skyrocket if the amount of available input energy is constrained.

Let's also talk about storage. Sure there are other ideas for pastes and whatnot to store it, but for now, and as far as cars are concerned, your only option is a very high performance carbon fibre composite cylindrical fuel tank, or tanks, depending on how much range you want.

The three tanks on the latest Toyota Mirai weigh nearly 100 kg, that's what you need to store 5 of 6 kg of hydrogen at a ridiculously high pressure of 700 bar. If you don't store it at that pressure, then the volume you require goes up linearly. The room temperature volume of 5 kg of hydrogen is 55,000 litres, the same as a large swimming pool.

These tanks are produced from raw materials that are derived from fossil fuels, and the supply chain is controlled predominantly by, you guessed it, China. Japan and the US are also players.

Every time you charge and discharge these tanks to 700 bar, they go through a stress cycle. This causes fatigue in the material, so you can only do this so many times before the safety factor is compromised too far. And trust me, no one want to be around when 5 kg of pressurised hydrogen escapes.
It's willingness to combust is so damn high, and the energy release is so immediate that it will almost exactly mimic a 100 kg TNT explosion. Exactly like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vai5S0mI9u0&t=...

When the tank reaches the end of its service life, you throw it away, there is no recycling option.

On the topic of composites, wind turbine blades are obviously huge and also produced from the same materials, so the overall demand for composites that the green hydrogen option will impose is stupidly high.

So all you are doing by choosing the hydrogen pathway is moving one form of huge raw material burden to another.

Crucially though, EV batteries have two things in their favour, the batteries are almost 100% recyclable (and this will happen once there is enough feedstock to make it commercially viable) AND their energy density is not fixed.

In a decade or so, the amount of materials required to store a certain amount of energy in a battery will almost certainly be a lot lower. Conversely, the size of a hydrogen tank or a wind turbine blade isn't going to change by any meaningful amount.

There is inelegance aplenty in the hydrogen pathway, just as there is in the battery pathway, but I guess you have to be able to look past the obvious to see it.

[D4rez]

ingenieur said:

Only the last bit is a question really... don't really know what to make of the rest of it.

The inelegance of the battery solution bothers me. It looks like a bit of a problem that you couldn't really build your own electric car unless you purchased at least the battery from some giant corporation and I see that lack of access being inappropriate in developing nations. This thread has dissolved into the 'why you not like EV' question as is inevitable with any EV related thread but it was started with the question of where will the raw materials come from if they're already in limited supply when only 0.4% of the worlds cars are electric now.

As for poo pooing hydrogen because it's an electric car powered by hydrogen fuel cell.... I don't really like those either. I prefer the hydrogen powered combustion engines which are being developed now.

It's just my opinion but if someone asked me the question or wanted me to put a bet on it one way or the other is the future of transportation battery powered or hydrogen powered I would say emphatically hydrogen, like a 1000 times more likely to be hydrogen. I can't for certain say how long it will take for us to stop thinking only about battery powered cars but when we do I believe it'll be because hydrogen is taking over.

Yuh, anyone seriously in the industry disagrees with you. BEV has billions in R&D and infrastructure, Hydrogen especially in an engine, is DOA. VW for instance announced last year they will halt investment in new engine development. So in a generation or so not only will the charging/maintenance infrastructure overwhelmingly favour BEVs but nobody will be have the technical know how to make ICE. Engineers with the skillset will have diversified and new graduates won't be skilled or exposed to creating ICEs in their early careers. Finally suppliers who used to make components for OEM ICE production will have shifted focus, re-tooled, stopped R&D themselves.

One Toyota vanity project, testbed prototype does not equal Hydrogen ICE being "developed". Key difference being that "development" would mean serious intent to mass produce, supplier network in place, factories founded, partners for a refuelling network found etc etc. None of which is happening. BMW produced a Hydrogen 7 with a V12 hydrogen ICE about 10 years ago.
Go have a look at their website and see if it's available for sale today.

10 years ago they also launched a BEV R&D with the Mini E and a 1 series ActiveE and 10 years later they have a wide range of BEVs on sale. 10 years ago both had a tiny recharging/refuelling network, were classed as an "alternative" fuel and in the prototype phase. Today BEV sales are doubling annually, meanwhile any form of engine is being phased out for sale in advanced western markets. Hydrogen was a braindead non-starter back then, you really think it's going to make a comeback now?

[ingenieur]

Hydrogen production is going to have to increase though, probably electricity as well. If we're phasing out gas boilers something will have to replace our cooking and heating fuels. The problem with that all being electric is the amount of electricity required to produce heat. So a combustible fuel has the advantage in that use case.

I quite like the idea of, although there might be some major obstacle... of thinking about producing hydrogen from a hot nuclear reaction, it's a by-product in the case of nuclear meltdowns. But if hydrogen production was the actual goal and the plant was designed to run hot specifically to manufacturer hydrogen there might be something in that.

[GT9]

ingenieur said:

problem with that all being electric is the amount of electricity required to produce heat.

Are you aware that a heat pump can 'multiply' the amount of electrical energy it consumes by up to 4 or 5 times in some cases, when you measure its heat output?

If you have hydrogen in your home, it will be a low pressure blend.

Highly pressurised hydrogen tanks should be treated just like any other highly explosive pressurised industrial gas, with a hell of a lot of respect.

I've said this before, but it does worry me how hydrogen is perceived in general, everybody seems to this it's a fluffy, harmless energy utopia that will become man's best friend.

Mistreated, it has the potential to, and has done on many occasions, cause massive destruction and loss of life.

This is why it's just such a bad idea to stick is at 700 bar in millions of passenger cars, we will eventually learn the hard way.

If you are driving a hydrogen car, I hope you are prepared to be turned away from car parks, tunnels, and many sorts of enclosed spaces where the owners don't want to have to pay for the mother of all insurance policies.

[ingenieur]

Carrying huge amounts of energy around with you is a problem for every propulsion technology when you're talking about the burny burny aspect of it. Take your pick from the various options. Petrol tanks and EV batteries are both dangerous if treated incorrectly.

[GT9]

ingenieur said:

Carrying huge amounts of energy around with you is a problem for every propulsion technology when you're talking about the burny burny aspect of it. Take your pick from the various options. Petrol tanks and EV batteries are both dangerous if treated incorrectly.

It's a scale of risk and they each sit at very different positions on this scale, with H2 right at the skyscraper end.

Petrol is stored at ambient pressure, it must vaporise to burn.

Batteries whilst they will definitely burn don't tend to violently explode taking out everything in a 50 metre radius, which your H2 event will almost certainly do.

Hydrogen at 700 bar is both trying to expand to 700 times its volume and release all of its energy instantaneously, assuming a source of ignition is present. It has the lowest ignition energy and widest flammability range of just about any substance. It is also corrosive and has the smallest molecule size, making its ability to find a leakage path second to none.

Did you watch the video I linked earlier?

There is a reason hydrogen is banned from tunnels and a reason why there is a significant amount of work going on to understand a scenario involving multiple vehicles in enclosed environments. The outcome of these studies to date do not look very rosy. Survivability rates are very poor.

It's at this point when the penny might drop as to why EVs are by far the preferred solution for manufacturers, governments and agencies alike. The H2 option is fraught with difficulty.

If you are unaware of all of this going on in the background and don't care, then yes, you will just pigeon hole this issue as 'not relevant'.

Which you seem to be doing with almost every aspect of it that I've pointed out....

[ingenieur]

I think you're forgetting the title of this thread though.

The pressure is on to find a suitable replacement for petrol powered vehicles.

[Dingu]

ingenieur said:

I think you're forgetting the title of this thread though.

The pressure is on to find a suitable replacement for petrol powered vehicles.

We have one, the storage of electrical energy (note this can be achieved in many ways). You just don’t like it, which is your right.

[GT9]

ingenieur said:

I think you're forgetting the title of this thread though.

The pressure is on to find a suitable replacement for petrol powered vehicles.

Fair enough.

You want an elegant solution.

For starters you would be hard pressed to find more elegant way to propel a vehicle than an electric motor.

The electric motor is highly efficient, delivers the exact amount of torque you want, instantly, and with very little noise, vibration and maintenance burden.

Apart from the emotion element, it has no equal.

So we just need something to give it electrons.

Batteries, whilst good enough in their current state, are inelegant due to weight and the challenges around materials and supply chain.

BUT, let's not lose sight of what they do offer, they are highly efficient, can be recycled, and can be significantly improved in terms of energy density.

So that's it, the only thing we need to solve is energy density and supply chain.

Anyone want to take wild guess at what the manufacturers are pouring billions into?

You simply cannot ignore the fact that the most efficient solution has by far the best outcome long term.

Even secondary things like the discussion about safety are hinged upon efficiency.

Notwithstanding the fact that H2 is colourless, odourless and explodes instantly, without any warning, or any time to allow escape, it is made so much worse than the battery fire because you had to carry around 3 times as much stored energy in the first place.

So there's your answer, throw everything you've got at energy density and supply chain.

[delta0]

It’s completely possible to happen with current technology. However future technology will need to address this.

[anonymous-user]

ingenieur said:

The problem with that all being electric is the amount of electricity required to produce heat.

You are i take it, aware that actually the laws of physics are such that we can turn electricity into heat with 100% efficiency right?


The only issue with pure resistive electric heating right now is cost, mainly due to taxation and supply/demand that puts 1 kWh of gas ( which a gas boiler at best only manges to turn 90% of into useable heat) at a significantly lower price than 1kWh of 'lecy.....

[ruggedscotty]

ingenieur said:

As for poo pooing hydrogen because it's an electric car powered by hydrogen fuel cell.... I don't really like those either. I prefer the hydrogen powered combustion engines which are being developed now.

You may prefer hydrogen combustion... but reality is... buring hydrogen isnt advisable, as unless you are buring it in 100% oxygen you get some rather nasty emissions.. and those emissions are exactly why we are trying to move away from the internal combustion engine.

Hydrogen... more and more car companies are moving away from it. the whole hydrogen model is not that great, it depends on the manufacture of hydrogen

Pump water to hydrogen plant energy
split hydrogen from water lots of energy
compress hydrogen energy
store hydrogen, requires specialist tanks that have a legal obligation to be tested and checked as they are pressure vessles. energy
move that hydrogen in a truck to the hydrogen dispensing location, yes in a vehicle with a specalist tank. energy
pump it into a storage tank energy again
dispense into vehicle...

nah... ill use an elecric vehicle.

google hydrogen combustion emissions

also could this be the next ecological disaster if we start cracking water to hydrogen in massive scale ?

[anonymous-user]

ruggedscotty said:

ingenieur said:

As for poo pooing hydrogen because it's an electric car powered by hydrogen fuel cell.... I don't really like those either. I prefer the hydrogen powered combustion engines which are being developed now.

You may prefer hydrogen combustion... but reality is... buring hydrogen isnt advisable, as unless you are buring it in 100% oxygen you get some rather nasty emissions.. and those emissions are exactly why we are trying to move away from the internal combustion engine.

Hydrogen... more and more car companies are moving away from it. the whole hydrogen model is not that great, it depends on the manufacture of hydrogen

Pump water to hydrogen plant energy
split hydrogen from water lots of energy
compress hydrogen energy
store hydrogen, requires specialist tanks that have a legal obligation to be tested and checked as they are pressure vessles. energy
move that hydrogen in a truck to the hydrogen dispensing location, yes in a vehicle with a specalist tank. energy
pump it into a storage tank energy again
dispense into vehicle...

nah... ill use an elecric vehicle.

google hydrogen combustion emissions

also could this be the next ecological disaster if we start cracking water to hydrogen in massive scale ?

Not to mention that the friction and parastic losses and fundamentally mono-directionality of an ICE make it a total lame duck going forwards. No-one is going to burn their, very expensive, H2 in something that simply wastes around 75% of the H2 you put in it......

[ingenieur]

Max_Torque said:

ingenieur said:

The problem with that all being electric is the amount of electricity required to produce heat.

You are i take it, aware that actually the laws of physics are such that we can turn electricity into heat with 100% efficiency right?


The only issue with pure resistive electric heating right now is cost, mainly due to taxation and supply/demand that puts 1 kWh of gas ( which a gas boiler at best only manges to turn 90% of into useable heat) at a significantly lower price than 1kWh of 'lecy.....

I don't see how what I said contradicts that or rules out the possibility of it being efficient? And I disagree with the only problem being the cost. If everybody switched to 100% electric heating and cooking tomorrow there wouldn't be enough electricity to feed the demand. So the supply is a bigger issue than the cost. i.e. even if it was a cost effective solution we may not be able to get the electricity anyway.

[Dingu]

ingenieur said:

I don't see how what I said contradicts that or rules out the possibility of it being efficient? And I disagree with the only problem being the cost. If everybody switched to 100% electric heating and cooking tomorrow there wouldn't be enough electricity to feed the demand. So the supply is a bigger issue than the cost. i.e. even if it was a cost effective solution we may not be able to get the electricity anyway.

And if the population spontaneously tripled tomorrow we wouldn’t have enough petrol or electricity. As likely as your gibberish.