Hydrogen availability
Discussion
There was a proposal to liquify air using excess energy, then vaporise and release the stored energy through a turbine or piston engine connected to a generator as a grid backup. It would be the only way to get sufficient energy density but for a car this would be impractical due to the need for a storage tank plus a vaporiser and an atmospheric ones tend to ice up a fair bit.
I see Mr May is getting rid of his Mirai as too much trouble to fill it up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tNutYL0h2M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tNutYL0h2M
SWoll said:
I see Mr May is getting rid of his Mirai as too much trouble to fill it up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tNutYL0h2M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tNutYL0h2M
Well well well.
jjwilde said:
TheRainMaker said:
Surprised he didn’t do it before, only 11 places to fill it up.
That is never going to work.
I know, if only there was some kind of very cheap, very efficient fuel we all already had in our houses that can be generated by numerous means...That is never going to work.
Natural gas powered cars will never catch on
Gary C said:
There was a proposal to liquify air using excess energy, then vaporise and release the stored energy through a turbine or piston engine connected to a generator as a grid backup. It would be the only way to get sufficient energy density but for a car this would be impractical due to the need for a storage tank plus a vaporiser and an atmospheric ones tend to ice up a fair bit.
There's one of these plants being built near Manchester which has an output of up to 50 MW and a capacity of 50 MWh. It's due onstream next year. Imho the concept is another triumph of engineering over common sense:https://highviewpower.com/plants/
All sorts of potential issues come to mind:
~ It takes a lot of energy to get the whole system cooled down to cryogenic temps (-190 degrees +/-) so it doesn't suit start/stop operation. It will have to run continuously at low capacity and/or sacrifice some liquid air to stay cool which won't help the efficiency.
~ The round-trip efficiency is not great, I think I've seen a figure of 50 - 60%.
~ The whole thing will need to be engineered for oxygen in case of separation.
~ Storing liquid air may be a challenge as LOX - liquid oxygen - is about 40% denser than LIN - liquid nitrogen - so there maybe stratification with the potential hazard of drawing off one or the other instead of "air".
~ Energy will be required for vapourisation as ambient exchangers don't have much capacity and are prone to icing up, especially on cold, still, damp evenings. Also the exhaust gas will need to be brought up to at least ambient temperature to avoid "pooling" of cold gas which can cause icing or even fog.
It will be interesting to see how they get on. Looking at their website, it's surprising that there is no mention of any co-operation with one of the industrial gas companies. They have been doing this stuff for decades - over a century for some.
Mikehig said:
Gary C said:
There was a proposal to liquify air using excess energy, then vaporise and release the stored energy through a turbine or piston engine connected to a generator as a grid backup. It would be the only way to get sufficient energy density but for a car this would be impractical due to the need for a storage tank plus a vaporiser and an atmospheric ones tend to ice up a fair bit.
There's one of these plants being built near Manchester which has an output of up to 50 MW and a capacity of 50 MWh. It's due onstream next year. Imho the concept is another triumph of engineering over common sense:https://highviewpower.com/plants/
All sorts of potential issues come to mind:
~ It takes a lot of energy to get the whole system cooled down to cryogenic temps (-190 degrees +/-) so it doesn't suit start/stop operation. It will have to run continuously at low capacity and/or sacrifice some liquid air to stay cool which won't help the efficiency.
~ The round-trip efficiency is not great, I think I've seen a figure of 50 - 60%.
~ The whole thing will need to be engineered for oxygen in case of separation.
~ Storing liquid air may be a challenge as LOX - liquid oxygen - is about 40% denser than LIN - liquid nitrogen - so there maybe stratification with the potential hazard of drawing off one or the other instead of "air".
~ Energy will be required for vapourisation as ambient exchangers don't have much capacity and are prone to icing up, especially on cold, still, damp evenings. Also the exhaust gas will need to be brought up to at least ambient temperature to avoid "pooling" of cold gas which can cause icing or even fog.
It will be interesting to see how they get on. Looking at their website, it's surprising that there is no mention of any co-operation with one of the industrial gas companies. They have been doing this stuff for decades - over a century for some.
We also have several liquid CO2 vaporisers that use steam as the heat source and they are much better but weigh a few tonnes each
It seems like a mad idea to store energy. Would be far easier to store some sort of dense pumpable liquid at height maybe.
Gary C said:
Mikehig said:
Gary C said:
There was a proposal to liquify air using excess energy, then vaporise and release the stored energy through a turbine or piston engine connected to a generator as a grid backup. It would be the only way to get sufficient energy density but for a car this would be impractical due to the need for a storage tank plus a vaporiser and an atmospheric ones tend to ice up a fair bit.
There's one of these plants being built near Manchester which has an output of up to 50 MW and a capacity of 50 MWh. It's due onstream next year. Imho the concept is another triumph of engineering over common sense:https://highviewpower.com/plants/
All sorts of potential issues come to mind:
~ It takes a lot of energy to get the whole system cooled down to cryogenic temps (-190 degrees +/-) so it doesn't suit start/stop operation. It will have to run continuously at low capacity and/or sacrifice some liquid air to stay cool which won't help the efficiency.
~ The round-trip efficiency is not great, I think I've seen a figure of 50 - 60%.
~ The whole thing will need to be engineered for oxygen in case of separation.
~ Storing liquid air may be a challenge as LOX - liquid oxygen - is about 40% denser than LIN - liquid nitrogen - so there maybe stratification with the potential hazard of drawing off one or the other instead of "air".
~ Energy will be required for vapourisation as ambient exchangers don't have much capacity and are prone to icing up, especially on cold, still, damp evenings. Also the exhaust gas will need to be brought up to at least ambient temperature to avoid "pooling" of cold gas which can cause icing or even fog.
It will be interesting to see how they get on. Looking at their website, it's surprising that there is no mention of any co-operation with one of the industrial gas companies. They have been doing this stuff for decades - over a century for some.
We also have several liquid CO2 vaporisers that use steam as the heat source and they are much better but weigh a few tonnes each
It seems like a mad idea to store energy. Would be far easier to store some sort of dense pumpable liquid at height maybe.
Potential energy storage is always limited by geography. There's been talk of using old mine shafts and the link, but mountains appear to be strictly off limits. Any dense liquid (i.e. not water) comes with a whole host of concerns around pollution.
I'm a big fan of the liquid air concept for storage. Easily sited. Known materials and process. But it's a complete blind spot to me in terms of engineering. I'd quite fancy a site near Port Talbot steel works. Lots of excess heat, good grid connections, and BOC plant nearby.
Evanivitch said:
The air storage was supposed to be co-sited with a thermal plant to use the waste heat to avoid the icing issue when in use.
Potential energy storage is always limited by geography. There's been talk of using old mine shafts and the link, but mountains appear to be strictly off limits. Any dense liquid (i.e. not water) comes with a whole host of concerns around pollution.
I'm a big fan of the liquid air concept for storage. Easily sited. Known materials and process. But it's a complete blind spot to me in terms of engineering. I'd quite fancy a site near Port Talbot steel works. Lots of excess heat, good grid connections, and BOC plant nearby.
Dense liquid, I did actually mean water, but hey maybe we could have a lake of Mercury Potential energy storage is always limited by geography. There's been talk of using old mine shafts and the link, but mountains appear to be strictly off limits. Any dense liquid (i.e. not water) comes with a whole host of concerns around pollution.
I'm a big fan of the liquid air concept for storage. Easily sited. Known materials and process. But it's a complete blind spot to me in terms of engineering. I'd quite fancy a site near Port Talbot steel works. Lots of excess heat, good grid connections, and BOC plant nearby.
It would be an interesting project. Would be interesting to see how it would compare to electrolysis (especially as burning the hydrogen would return the water to the electrolyser) for efficiency and maintenance costs. I imagine a cryogenic compressor needs a fair bit of maintenance (certainly our cryogenic pumps are a right pain and they just raise the pressure of liquid CO2 from 20bar to 50bar)
Gary C said:
Dense liquid, I did actually mean water, but hey maybe we could have a lake of Mercury
I assumed you were talking about this.IMechE said:
The High-Density Hydro systems would be built underground. Its developers said it could offer long-term energy storage at relatively low costs, with high energy efficiency.
Like conventional pumped hydro, it would use excess energy – such as that generated by wind turbines on a windy day with low demand – to pump the liquid uphill from underground storage tanks. After travelling uphill through underground pipes, the liquid would then be released to power downhill turbines when electricity demand is higher.
RheEnergise said it invented the new high-density fluid, known as R-19. Chief executive Stephen Crosher told Professional Engineering that the liquid is a fine-milled suspended solid in water, with low viscosity and low abrasion characteristics. The base material is used in oral medication applications, in a similar way that chalk is used as a bulking agent for pills and tablets. He said the raw materials are common and available, including in the UK, and the fluid could either be manufactured on-site or at a depot
Like conventional pumped hydro, it would use excess energy – such as that generated by wind turbines on a windy day with low demand – to pump the liquid uphill from underground storage tanks. After travelling uphill through underground pipes, the liquid would then be released to power downhill turbines when electricity demand is higher.
RheEnergise said it invented the new high-density fluid, known as R-19. Chief executive Stephen Crosher told Professional Engineering that the liquid is a fine-milled suspended solid in water, with low viscosity and low abrasion characteristics. The base material is used in oral medication applications, in a similar way that chalk is used as a bulking agent for pills and tablets. He said the raw materials are common and available, including in the UK, and the fluid could either be manufactured on-site or at a depot
Evanivitch said:
Gary C said:
Dense liquid, I did actually mean water, but hey maybe we could have a lake of Mercury
I assumed you were talking about this.IMechE said:
The High-Density Hydro systems would be built underground. Its developers said it could offer long-term energy storage at relatively low costs, with high energy efficiency.
Like conventional pumped hydro, it would use excess energy – such as that generated by wind turbines on a windy day with low demand – to pump the liquid uphill from underground storage tanks. After travelling uphill through underground pipes, the liquid would then be released to power downhill turbines when electricity demand is higher.
RheEnergise said it invented the new high-density fluid, known as R-19. Chief executive Stephen Crosher told Professional Engineering that the liquid is a fine-milled suspended solid in water, with low viscosity and low abrasion characteristics. The base material is used in oral medication applications, in a similar way that chalk is used as a bulking agent for pills and tablets. He said the raw materials are common and available, including in the UK, and the fluid could either be manufactured on-site or at a depot
Like conventional pumped hydro, it would use excess energy – such as that generated by wind turbines on a windy day with low demand – to pump the liquid uphill from underground storage tanks. After travelling uphill through underground pipes, the liquid would then be released to power downhill turbines when electricity demand is higher.
RheEnergise said it invented the new high-density fluid, known as R-19. Chief executive Stephen Crosher told Professional Engineering that the liquid is a fine-milled suspended solid in water, with low viscosity and low abrasion characteristics. The base material is used in oral medication applications, in a similar way that chalk is used as a bulking agent for pills and tablets. He said the raw materials are common and available, including in the UK, and the fluid could either be manufactured on-site or at a depot
Gary C; "I imagine a cryogenic compressor needs a fair bit of maintenance (certainly our cryogenic pumps are a right pain and they just raise the pressure of liquid CO2 from 20bar to 50bar) "
The compressors on these systems are not cryogenic; they just compress ambient air into the front end. The process typically uses turbo-expanders to do the refrigeration work. The kit is pretty reliable - it has to be for customers like steelworks.
You are right about ambient vapourisers icing up. For constant duty it's standard practice to put in duty/standby units and cycle them.
As Evanivitch says, using waste heat would be a good way to go but there's no mention of it on the website, as far as I could see.
The compressors on these systems are not cryogenic; they just compress ambient air into the front end. The process typically uses turbo-expanders to do the refrigeration work. The kit is pretty reliable - it has to be for customers like steelworks.
You are right about ambient vapourisers icing up. For constant duty it's standard practice to put in duty/standby units and cycle them.
As Evanivitch says, using waste heat would be a good way to go but there's no mention of it on the website, as far as I could see.
Edited by Mikehig on Sunday 7th March 23:02
Mikehig said:
Gary C; "I imagine a cryogenic compressor needs a fair bit of maintenance (certainly our cryogenic pumps are a right pain and they just raise the pressure of liquid CO2 from 20bar to 50bar) "
The compressors on these systems are not cryogenic; they just compress ambient air into the front end. The process typically uses turbo-expanders to do the refrigeration work. The kit is pretty reliable - it has to be for customers like steelworks.
You are right about ambient vapourisers icing up. For constant duty it's standard practice to put in duty/standby units and cycle them.
As Evanivitch says, using waste heat would be a good way to go but there's no mention of it on the website, as far as I could see.
So its compressed then liquefied by chilling ? makes sense I suppose The compressors on these systems are not cryogenic; they just compress ambient air into the front end. The process typically uses turbo-expanders to do the refrigeration work. The kit is pretty reliable - it has to be for customers like steelworks.
You are right about ambient vapourisers icing up. For constant duty it's standard practice to put in duty/standby units and cycle them.
As Evanivitch says, using waste heat would be a good way to go but there's no mention of it on the website, as far as I could see.
Edited by Mikehig on Sunday 7th March 23:02
Our liquid nitrogen evaporators do change over automatically but still end up looking like 15 foot high lollipops though they are by definition undersized for their full duty.
One fun thing we have done is making a snowman out of solid CO2
(you need thick gloves on though)Someone left a vent valve open and a passing liquid CO2 valve meant it started blowing dry ice out. After awhile a bank of CO2 Snow built up and tripped one of the fridge units.
A snow bank of CO2 is quite an odd sight.
Gary C said:
We have a couple of nitrogen vaporisers at work that use air to provide the heat and boy do they look like huge lollipops when the demand is high.
We also have several liquid CO2 vaporisers that use steam as the heat source and they are much better but weigh a few tonnes each
It seems like a mad idea to store energy. Would be far easier to store some sort of dense pumpable liquid at height maybe.
Yes, I’m not sure why pumped hydro schemes aren’t being perused more vigorously. It’s an extremely efficient, very high capacity, extremely reliable and durable tech that isn’t particularly expensive either. There’s loads of potential sites in the UK for it. It doesn’t make sense why expansion of this seemingly obvious solution hasn’t formed a key part of the UK’s overall renewables strategy.We also have several liquid CO2 vaporisers that use steam as the heat source and they are much better but weigh a few tonnes each
It seems like a mad idea to store energy. Would be far easier to store some sort of dense pumpable liquid at height maybe.
The completion of the North Sea Link interconnector later this year will certainly help as that opens up Norwegian pumped hydro schemes to the UK, but it’s still a ways off having enough capacity for the job. So a few more homegrown systems would be a wise investment.
Edited by dvs_dave on Monday 8th March 01:46
I see that they are starting up with the hydrogen is a solution thing again...
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/24/101782...
all great and all very dandy but it is based on cheap renewables to be able to electrolise water to produce the hydrogen...
And it admits that currently they have to use steam and natural gas to get hydrogen which isnt very environmentally friendly..
Thing is if they get cheap electricity then investment in electricity to vehicle without losses through a second process to get hydrogen is what is needed. unless they can produce a source of hydrogen that has more energy than what is used to produce it. compared to what is used to charge a battery.
Electricity being used to split water and then to compress that hydrogen transpott it dispense it and then convert it through a fuel cell stack into power to charge the battery in the HFC vehicle to drive the motor. Electricity would have to be extraordinaryly cheap, the process of splitting the water into hydrogen would need to be environmentally compatible that we would not be creating a time bomb.
every mile driven would require a defined amount of hydrogen to be used. Where as a battery plug in vehicle would rely on electricity directly instead of having to jump through hoops to get hydrogen.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/24/101782...
all great and all very dandy but it is based on cheap renewables to be able to electrolise water to produce the hydrogen...
And it admits that currently they have to use steam and natural gas to get hydrogen which isnt very environmentally friendly..
Thing is if they get cheap electricity then investment in electricity to vehicle without losses through a second process to get hydrogen is what is needed. unless they can produce a source of hydrogen that has more energy than what is used to produce it. compared to what is used to charge a battery.
Electricity being used to split water and then to compress that hydrogen transpott it dispense it and then convert it through a fuel cell stack into power to charge the battery in the HFC vehicle to drive the motor. Electricity would have to be extraordinaryly cheap, the process of splitting the water into hydrogen would need to be environmentally compatible that we would not be creating a time bomb.
every mile driven would require a defined amount of hydrogen to be used. Where as a battery plug in vehicle would rely on electricity directly instead of having to jump through hoops to get hydrogen.
Mikehig said:
As Evanivitch says, using waste heat would be a good way to go but there's no mention of it on the website, as far as I could see.
It's in their glossy brochure.Edited by Mikehig on Sunday 7th March 23:02
High View Power said:
The low boiling point of liquefed air means the round trip efciency of the system can be improved with the introducton of above ambient heat. Highview’s standard LAES system captures and stores heat produced during the liquefacton process (stage 1)and integrates this heat to the power recovery process (stage 3). The system can also integrate waste heat from industrial processes such
as thermal power generaton or steel mills.
as thermal power generaton or steel mills.
Evanivitch said:
Mikehig said:
As Evanivitch says, using waste heat would be a good way to go but there's no mention of it on the website, as far as I could see.
It's in their glossy brochure.Edited by Mikehig on Sunday 7th March 23:02
High View Power said:
The low boiling point of liquefed air means the round trip efciency of the system can be improved with the introducton of above ambient heat. Highview’s standard LAES system captures and stores heat produced during the liquefacton process (stage 1)and integrates this heat to the power recovery process (stage 3). The system can also integrate waste heat from industrial processes such
as thermal power generaton or steel mills.
as thermal power generaton or steel mills.
However that's just a bit of energy efficiency, saving some of the energy generated by compression. The site does not use "waste" heat from another process. It's also a little puzzling because modern Air Separation Units are already extremely thermally efficient and they don't use "LAES", if memory serves.
Mikehig said:
OK; got me. So I didn't read very carefully!
However that's just a bit of energy efficiency, saving some of the energy generated by compression. The site does not use "waste" heat from another process. It's also a little puzzling because modern Air Separation Units are already extremely thermally efficient and they don't use "LAES", if memory serves.
The experimental site that has been funded is co-sited with a landfill gas power station...However that's just a bit of energy efficiency, saving some of the energy generated by compression. The site does not use "waste" heat from another process. It's also a little puzzling because modern Air Separation Units are already extremely thermally efficient and they don't use "LAES", if memory serves.
ETA Bury was the concept site with landfill gas, the Telford plant is next to a CCGT.
Edited by Evanivitch on Monday 8th March 09:53
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