Hydrogen availability
Discussion
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Slow and steady, shall we do it one more time.A BEV needs 50 hp to travel at a constant 70 mph.
Of this, 10 hp is for rolling resistance, the rest is for drag and other minor loads.
Rolling resistance is directly proportional to weight.
So let’s decrease the weight by a massive 25% (say 500 kg!).
We now need 7.5 hp for rolling resistance and we still need 40 hp for everything else.
We have reduced our total power requirement by 2.5 hp or just 5%.
Again, either the figures are wrong (they’re not btw) or weight isn’t that important to constant velocity driving.
Which one is it?
Gary C said:
You say 'the 1%' as if the other 99% never do a long trip when of course its more complex. 99% of trips maybe very short and match EV's perfectly, but I bet the proportion of people doing longer runs every now and again is not 1%
But, yes. Hydrogen isn't going to compete in any realistic short term, so EV's will have the game to itself and people will have to change.
But the future, not so sure.
The future is an improved charging network and more efficient EV technology that reduces the number of people for whom BEV is not suitable. Based on the last 6-9 months there are also far fewer people doing long daily trips as the world has been forced to adopt more remote working practices, further reducing the available market of buyers.But, yes. Hydrogen isn't going to compete in any realistic short term, so EV's will have the game to itself and people will have to change.
But the future, not so sure.
SWoll said:
Gary C said:
You say 'the 1%' as if the other 99% never do a long trip when of course its more complex. 99% of trips maybe very short and match EV's perfectly, but I bet the proportion of people doing longer runs every now and again is not 1%
But, yes. Hydrogen isn't going to compete in any realistic short term, so EV's will have the game to itself and people will have to change.
But the future, not so sure.
The future is an improved charging network and more efficient EV technology that reduces the number of people for whom BEV is not suitable. Based on the last 6-9 months there are also far fewer people doing long daily trips as the world has been forced to adopt more remote working practices, further reducing the available market of buyers.But, yes. Hydrogen isn't going to compete in any realistic short term, so EV's will have the game to itself and people will have to change.
But the future, not so sure.
Surely someone's thought about it and projected some figures?
EU reckons EU will need 3 million PUBLIC charging points for 44 million cars by 2030. That's about another 2.8 million to add! Obviously their report still includes us but the ratio won't be far off!
There are 40 million cars in the UK right now.
So when we get to 100% BEV, if the ratio still applies and ownership doesn't change, the UK might need near that 3 million public charging points.
How many petrol pumps in the UK?
Say 80,000?
Will advancement in EV batteries mitigate that figure?
Better get laying cable, sharpish!
Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 26th October 22:25
Question for you, Voight Kampff?
According to the RAC, it costs between £60 and £90 to fill up a hydrogen powered Hyundai Nexo with a WLTP range of 414 miles.
Nearest EV is the Model S with a WLTP range of 404 miles. Assuming some losses in charging, let's say it needs 120 KWh to charge it.
If I pay 15p a unit, that's £18 to fill it up, cheaper if I supercharge or use off peak with Octopus.
Neither is currently subject to fuel duty, electricity has 5% vat compared to 20% on hydrogen.
What developments do you see happening with hydrogen to bring the cost of driving 400 miles down to between 1/3 and 1/4 of the current price?
I'd say it requires both a massive reduction in production/distribution costs and a huge leap in vehicle efficiency - are either, let alone both, likely to happen in the next 10 years?
According to the RAC, it costs between £60 and £90 to fill up a hydrogen powered Hyundai Nexo with a WLTP range of 414 miles.
Nearest EV is the Model S with a WLTP range of 404 miles. Assuming some losses in charging, let's say it needs 120 KWh to charge it.
If I pay 15p a unit, that's £18 to fill it up, cheaper if I supercharge or use off peak with Octopus.
Neither is currently subject to fuel duty, electricity has 5% vat compared to 20% on hydrogen.
What developments do you see happening with hydrogen to bring the cost of driving 400 miles down to between 1/3 and 1/4 of the current price?
I'd say it requires both a massive reduction in production/distribution costs and a huge leap in vehicle efficiency - are either, let alone both, likely to happen in the next 10 years?
rscott said:
Question for you, Voight Kampff?
According to the RAC, it costs between £60 and £90 to fill up a hydrogen powered Hyundai Nexo with a WLTP range of 414 miles.
Nearest EV is the Model S with a WLTP range of 404 miles. Assuming some losses in charging, let's say it needs 120 KWh to charge it.
If I pay 15p a unit, that's £18 to fill it up, cheaper if I supercharge or use off peak with Octopus.
Neither is currently subject to fuel duty, electricity has 5% vat compared to 20% on hydrogen.
What developments do you see happening with hydrogen to bring the cost of driving 400 miles down to between 1/3 and 1/4 of the current price?
I'd say it requires both a massive reduction in production/distribution costs and a huge leap in vehicle efficiency - are either, let alone both, likely to happen in the next 10 years?
Yes.According to the RAC, it costs between £60 and £90 to fill up a hydrogen powered Hyundai Nexo with a WLTP range of 414 miles.
Nearest EV is the Model S with a WLTP range of 404 miles. Assuming some losses in charging, let's say it needs 120 KWh to charge it.
If I pay 15p a unit, that's £18 to fill it up, cheaper if I supercharge or use off peak with Octopus.
Neither is currently subject to fuel duty, electricity has 5% vat compared to 20% on hydrogen.
What developments do you see happening with hydrogen to bring the cost of driving 400 miles down to between 1/3 and 1/4 of the current price?
I'd say it requires both a massive reduction in production/distribution costs and a huge leap in vehicle efficiency - are either, let alone both, likely to happen in the next 10 years?
There are estimates of between 50% and 80% reduction in the cost of hydrogen by 2030.
The production costs of FCEV vehicles are set to fall greatly, converging with BEV in 2030 and then beneath BEV beyond that.
FCEV cells and tanks will continue to improve in terms of efficiency with people like Garrett working hard to achieve this.
You mentioned taxation. We mustn't forget the power of governments to play with taxation and subsidies to steer developments.
The other factor is the weight of those industries and companies currently involved in fossil fuels and fossil fuel powertrains. These companies are and will continue to be working to secure a future beyond fossil fuels. There's more crossover with their traditional work and hydrogen/FCEV than there is with BEV so they'll be throwing their R&D weight and investment into FCEV.
This thread has gone round and round on the efficiency question without really addressing one key aspect. A hydrogen car requires at least three times as much electrical energy per mile as a BEV. In this country that has a dramatic impact on the car's CO2 footprint with our present mix of generating sources. In the near term that is not going to change much so an FCEV in the UK is probably no better, if not worse, than a conventional ICE car.
Reading back, there are a couple of posts where VK has questioned how charging stations for growing numbers of BEVs will be handled. When I asked the same question for FCEVs his answer was:
"Air Liquide have their hands all over industrial gases like hydrogen. They've been in the business for 40 years.
There's a project called HyBalance that aims to cover the entire supply chain to the end user.
It involves electrolysis, energy storage and grid balancing.
https://www.airliquide.com/magazine/energy-transit...
They've hydrogen filling stations across Europe and they're into Canada now, I believe."
That covers the broad supply of bulk hydrogen but it doesn't address the issue he raised. So how will refuelling numbers of FCEVs be handled? There is very substantial infrastructure required, especially if using the onsite electrolyser route, as in the UK, and the power requirements are relatively huge. (btw, Air Liquide has been in business for over a century).
To try and answer my own question I started by looking at the details of the ITM system as they are the leading supplier of fuelling stations in the UK. It comprises their electrolyser system housed in two containers plus a compression package from Linde/BOC in a third container. That's a fair bit of kit for one refuelling point even without any provision for back-up/peak supply from cylinder packs or tube trailers.
The power required is about 800 kW. That is enough to feed 5 Tesla superchargers which, aiui, can charge one car at 150 kW or two at 75 - and they need much less space for the kit. "Filling" an FCEV takes about 5 minutes: 12 cars per hour, max. Those 5 superchargers would "fill" 10 cars in the same time for about the same range: not so different.
Dig a bit deeper and a few more wrinkles appear. The electrolyser's max output is 11 kg/hr. The compression system can handle that and more, plus it has built-in high-pressure storage so it can "dispense" at the high rate used for filling - up to 5 kg in as many minutes. However, for reasons unknown, the compressor can only be run for up to 16 hours per day. The electrolyser does not have any buffer storage (output pressure is only 20 bar) so the maximum daily output is 176 kg. That's enough for 44 cars per day - assuming 4 kg each - about the same as one supercharger stand.
The obvious solution is to move up to a bigger electrolyser package. The next one in ITM's range has double the output but, naturally, is physically bigger and requires double the power - and takes an 11kV feed vs 440V for the smaller unit.
Clearly onsite generation is not feasible for any significant throughput.
So, to get anywhere near the equivalent of a large petrol/diesel service station, the hydrogen will have to be trucked in. That will require significant fenced-off space for safety clearances and there will still be considerable kit as well. Compression will be needed for gas supplies as these are too low for FCEV filling, together with purification packages.
Liquid supply is the other option which, again needs space, plus the necessary refrigeration to keep the H2 liquid (it is kept at 20 degrees absolute: -250 degrees C! and it takes a lot of power to liquefy it in the first place). It also needs a high pressure pump and vaporiser package to bring it to the conditions for filling.
The conclusion seems obvious. It will be extremely challenging to build hydrogen refuelling stations for high vehicle throughputs - more so than doing the same for BEVs.
Reading back, there are a couple of posts where VK has questioned how charging stations for growing numbers of BEVs will be handled. When I asked the same question for FCEVs his answer was:
"Air Liquide have their hands all over industrial gases like hydrogen. They've been in the business for 40 years.
There's a project called HyBalance that aims to cover the entire supply chain to the end user.
It involves electrolysis, energy storage and grid balancing.
https://www.airliquide.com/magazine/energy-transit...
They've hydrogen filling stations across Europe and they're into Canada now, I believe."
That covers the broad supply of bulk hydrogen but it doesn't address the issue he raised. So how will refuelling numbers of FCEVs be handled? There is very substantial infrastructure required, especially if using the onsite electrolyser route, as in the UK, and the power requirements are relatively huge. (btw, Air Liquide has been in business for over a century).
To try and answer my own question I started by looking at the details of the ITM system as they are the leading supplier of fuelling stations in the UK. It comprises their electrolyser system housed in two containers plus a compression package from Linde/BOC in a third container. That's a fair bit of kit for one refuelling point even without any provision for back-up/peak supply from cylinder packs or tube trailers.
The power required is about 800 kW. That is enough to feed 5 Tesla superchargers which, aiui, can charge one car at 150 kW or two at 75 - and they need much less space for the kit. "Filling" an FCEV takes about 5 minutes: 12 cars per hour, max. Those 5 superchargers would "fill" 10 cars in the same time for about the same range: not so different.
Dig a bit deeper and a few more wrinkles appear. The electrolyser's max output is 11 kg/hr. The compression system can handle that and more, plus it has built-in high-pressure storage so it can "dispense" at the high rate used for filling - up to 5 kg in as many minutes. However, for reasons unknown, the compressor can only be run for up to 16 hours per day. The electrolyser does not have any buffer storage (output pressure is only 20 bar) so the maximum daily output is 176 kg. That's enough for 44 cars per day - assuming 4 kg each - about the same as one supercharger stand.
The obvious solution is to move up to a bigger electrolyser package. The next one in ITM's range has double the output but, naturally, is physically bigger and requires double the power - and takes an 11kV feed vs 440V for the smaller unit.
Clearly onsite generation is not feasible for any significant throughput.
So, to get anywhere near the equivalent of a large petrol/diesel service station, the hydrogen will have to be trucked in. That will require significant fenced-off space for safety clearances and there will still be considerable kit as well. Compression will be needed for gas supplies as these are too low for FCEV filling, together with purification packages.
Liquid supply is the other option which, again needs space, plus the necessary refrigeration to keep the H2 liquid (it is kept at 20 degrees absolute: -250 degrees C! and it takes a lot of power to liquefy it in the first place). It also needs a high pressure pump and vaporiser package to bring it to the conditions for filling.
The conclusion seems obvious. It will be extremely challenging to build hydrogen refuelling stations for high vehicle throughputs - more so than doing the same for BEVs.
Mikehig said:
.
The power required is about 800 kW. That is enough to feed 5 Tesla superchargers which, aiui, can charge one car at 150 kW or two at 75 - and they need much less space for the kit. "Filling" an FCEV takes about 5 minutes: 12 cars per hour, max. Those 5 superchargers would "fill" 10 cars in the same time for about the same range: not so different.
Can you quote the ITM system you are referring to? Are you sure it's 800kW?The power required is about 800 kW. That is enough to feed 5 Tesla superchargers which, aiui, can charge one car at 150 kW or two at 75 - and they need much less space for the kit. "Filling" an FCEV takes about 5 minutes: 12 cars per hour, max. Those 5 superchargers would "fill" 10 cars in the same time for about the same range: not so different.
Where do you get the 5 minute FCEV refuelling time from? What I've seen from ITM states 3 minutes.
Can you elaborate on how you've come about your Tesla supercharging times. Are these 10-80% charges or otherwise? What added range does this represent?
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Vehicle production costs are completely irrelevant to my question about the cost of fuelling the vehicle.I can find an article which claims low carbon hydrogen production costs could fall by 2040 to meet the current high carbon costs - https://www.smart-energy.com/renewable-energy/prod... .
However, the IEA say the cost of producing hydrogen from renewable energy could fall by only 30% by 2030 - https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-hydrogen - and that would be partly down to the reducing cost of renewable energy. Something which would also drive down the cost of running an EV.
They seem to think it's vehicular uses will be in trucks and high mileage cars, not the majority of road users. Seems reasonable to me.
Interesting comment from them about the emissions from hydrogen production - at present, worldwide hydrogen production produces the equivalent of Indonesia and the UK combined.
Mikehig said:
The conclusion seems obvious. It will be extremely challenging to build hydrogen refuelling stations for high vehicle throughputs - more so than doing the same for BEVs.
Yes, that’s one of the inconvenient truths that some just can’t seem to get their head around. Last Monday I posted this:
Some technologies come with significant burdens of packaging, safety, complexity, maintenance, design life, etc. to access their benefits. Hydrogen is one of them. Attempting to downsize these technologies and infrastructure is incredibly costly and challenging. If there is no alternative then all well and good, but given that EV is here to stay and has investment of many orders of magnitude greater than hydrogen (for passenger cars), it really isn't that difficult to read the writing on the wall.
I was told by one poster in particular that I was talking rubbish ....
Landcrab_Six said:
Hydrogen doesn't need to come down that much.
What will happen is that electricity will rise in price and they'll meet somewhere in the middle. Why do you think there's a big push for smart metering?
Why electricity prices go up, yet hydrogen will come down? Hydrogen is only an energy store so where is the cheap energy coming from to be transformed into hydrogen?What will happen is that electricity will rise in price and they'll meet somewhere in the middle. Why do you think there's a big push for smart metering?
98elise said:
Why electricity prices go up, yet hydrogen will come down? Hydrogen is only an energy store so where is the cheap energy coming from to be transformed into hydrogen?
You'll understand the answer to that once you understand that at this point this thread is just comedy, morning all 
anonymous said:
[redacted]
But all costs matter. There's no point isolating one cost. You'd fixate yourself on the extremely high purchase cost of a BEV Vs an ICE right now if you were being impartial, which you're not being!It's the TCO that matters. How much it's going to cost you in the long run to buy it, to insure it, to maintain it, to fuel it, to get rid of it.
Reports state that the TCO for FCEV is going to converge with BEV 2030 and beat it beyond then.
You also forget, again, how much government taxation and funding helps. Tesla have been given hundreds of millions each year through credits. Free money! Do you think they'd have survived without that?
You also forget that people buying FCEVs will be transitioning from ICE to FCEV and the fuelling costs will be advantageous.
Again, hydrogen production and delivery is being developed. It's transitioning from fossil to green. It's being ramped up. It's being honed. Why focus on the now instead of on the future potential? If you'd look back at where electric cars started off , few charging points, lower power, slower charging, puny range, higher purchase costs. You'd have judged them the same way. Remember 99.6% of the UK drivers are yet to transition. The case for hydrogen will be made and there is time to make that case. Governments are putting their weight behind it (see China). They're even starting to shift incentive from BEV to FCEV (China). People like ITM are receiving the interest and the investment they need.
98elise said:
Landcrab_Six said:
Hydrogen doesn't need to come down that much.
What will happen is that electricity will rise in price and they'll meet somewhere in the middle. Why do you think there's a big push for smart metering?
Why electricity prices go up, yet hydrogen will come down? Hydrogen is only an energy store so where is the cheap energy coming from to be transformed into hydrogen?What will happen is that electricity will rise in price and they'll meet somewhere in the middle. Why do you think there's a big push for smart metering?
Not applied to it wholesale but directed at the consumer.
Especially considering the nature in which the peaks and troughs of electricity usage will be shifting.
Only a fool would overlook the matter.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
really ? how is your foot ? as i think you have just shot it.you simply cant grasp the cost of making hydrogen can you ? one method for a fuel cell was to use methane, which is a greenhouse gas. the other was to use electrolysis which is a heavy electrical consumer to get the hydrogen. so the watt per mile rate of a hydrogen car when all things considered is simply blown away by the simplicity of a BEV.
I dont know if your trolling or somehow fixated with a personal hydrogen project, or can not see the cold hard reality of hydrogen. it was always the red herring. It has succeded in wasting time and effort that could have been invested into the BEV infrastructure.
I put up the manual for maintenance on a hydrogen fuel cell, that alone gave an idea of the complexities that a fuel cell equipped vehicle has compared to a battery. that hydrogen in the car held under pressure and at a low temperature... even the safety issues with having many cars on the road with those sort of inherant safety risks... explosive gas high presures and cold temperatures. and then a fuel cell that doesnt like starting up at cold temperatures...
the hydrogen car is unviable before its even out on the road.
ruggedscotty said:
You simply cant grasp the cost of making hydrogen can you ? one method for a fuel cell was to use methane, which is a greenhouse gas. the other was to use electrolysis which is a heavy electrical consumer to get the hydrogen. so the watt per mile rate of a hydrogen car when all things considered is simply blown away by the simplicity of a BEV.
What if the hydrogen is made in remote locations with renewable energy, this can be then stored and transported like a fossil fuel.ruggedscotty said:
I put up the manual for maintenance on a hydrogen fuel cell, that alone gave an idea of the complexities that a fuel cell equipped vehicle has compared to a battery. that hydrogen in the car held under pressure and at a low temperature... even the safety issues with having many cars on the road with those sort of inherant safety risks... explosive gas high presures and cold temperatures. and then a fuel cell that doesnt like starting up at cold temperatures...
the hydrogen car is unviable before its even out on the road.
Is lithium super stable then?the hydrogen car is unviable before its even out on the road.
You don't know any better the course of future devleopments than VK
98elise said:
Batteries and Hydrogen are both energy stores. Hydrogen is just much less efficient. Why would the government make the inefficient one cheaper, and tax the efficient one just so that very long journeys by car were slightly faster?
In a world where say the majority of private vehicle users are driving BEV and business use is skewed more toward hydrogen you could imagine them doing something exactly like this.Gassing Station | EV and Alternative Fuels | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff