Translation: where it's subsidized.
Hydrogen Neue Klasse EV?
- Thread starter JeffKeryk
- Start date
He did read your post. Very clear that he read your post. So, please, let’s suspend the personal criticism, because the problem isn’t with the reader in this case.
The problem is thermodynamics.
It costs a certain amount of energy to break chemical bonds. That isn’t going to be improved by any technological advance like the design of an airplane, that is a physical property of the hydrogen itself.
The challenge for anyone building a hydrogen infrastructure is: where do you get the energy to liberate the hydrogen?
Right now, that energy is thermal, and it comes from burning fossil fuels, to get the heat, to break the bonds using steam reformation of methane.
Right now, hydrogen is a fossil fuel. It takes fossil fuel to liberate the hydrogen, and the hydrogen itself is liberated from another fossil fuel.
But thermodynamics, like most physics, is inescapable.
You could create hydrogen, from water and not fossil fuels, using electrical energy created by any variety of green sources. But it takes a lot of energy, and that will never change because that is an inextricable property of the element itself.
That, then, becomes the problem for our hypothetical German planner. Do we resurrect nuclear? Because you cannot generate enough electricity, even if you covered the country with wind and solar, to make enough hydrogen via electrolysis, to replace the amount of gasoline now used.
Every single creditable paper I have read says that hydrogen made using "renewable electricity" will be more expensive than that made from steam reforming natural gas.
So when there is no more oil flowing in, and there is no lithium for batteries, do you think the Germans will simply crawl back into a cave?
That is why the German government is funding it. Wasteful possibly. But they have seen this movie before.
So take this From someone with an Engineering degree. It’s not a technical answer. Your answer as to why is geopolitical not thermodynamics, and the answer is about can it be done not about efficiency. You need to look past the trees.
I find all this fascinating. I do not know the physics, nor do I know the technology. I do not know the feasibility.
I do know 2 legendary car companies are spending a ton of money. Probably others as well...
I also live in a place where we work in single digit nanometer semiconductor geometries.
At least for now, battery EVs have won out over hydrogen; the big car companies are rapidly electrifying their lineups.
Fascinating... I'm staying tuned!
I do know 2 legendary car companies are spending a ton of money. Probably others as well...
I also live in a place where we work in single digit nanometer semiconductor geometries.
At least for now, battery EVs have won out over hydrogen; the big car companies are rapidly electrifying their lineups.
Fascinating... I'm staying tuned!
Hydrogen isn't efficient even the Musketeer says that. Hydrogen production takes significantly more energy to produce than gasoline and makes up only .00005 percent of the atmosphere where most of it is not free floating i.e. not bonded to other atoms. About the only way hydrogen would be feasible is if we lived on Jupiter where most of the atmosphere is compromised of free hydrogen.
Battery EV’s have the advantage of being more efficient per kilowatt hour.
Where the hydrogen comes in is greater energy density.
You can store more energy in the form of compressed hydrogen, even liquid hydrogen, just as NASA did with rockets, than you can with a battery.
So, for ground vehicles, a hydrogen “fill up“ is significantly faster than a battery recharge. And for the same amount of weight, although volume is the limiting factor, you get a great deal more stored energy from the hydrogen than you do from the battery.
A battery powered aircraft, for example, is lucky to have a range in the dozens of miles. We might get a little bit better than that with improvements and battery technology, but so far the demonstrators are incredibly short range.
However, there are some hydrogen prototypes, using fuel cells to generate electricity to drive electric motors on the aircraft that potentially could go much much farther - with range in the few hundreds of miles.
The energy density of H2 in this case, wins.
So, with no great breakthroughs and battery technology on the immediate horizon, the superior energy density of hydrogen is an avenue worth exploring.
But there is no escaping the basic physics, it takes a great amount of energy to liberate the hydrogen from the compounds with which it is combined here on this earth. Sure, it’s the most abundant element in the universe, but here on planet earth, it happens to have combined with lots of other things like carbon, and oxygen.
Liberating it from those compounds requires a great deal of energy. That is simply in escapable. So part of the “hydrogen revolution”, then, has to be the identification of source(s) of energy.
Construction of the fuel cell is fairly expensive. It uses some form of catalyst like palladium, and everything must be kept clean, but as production increases, those costs will come down (this is where manufacturing technology will, no doubt, result in greater efficiencies and lower costs). The net result of a fuel cell, combining hydrogen with pure oxygen, is, of course, water. Low tailpipe emissions, then, about the same as the BEV.
But again, we have to look at the environmental impact, of the source of the electricity generation to create the hydrogen.
That is really the issue for a country that has relatively modest energy resources, like Germany. They had a robust nuclear program that was shuttered for political reasons. Using coal to generate electricity is politically untenable, might as well convert it to liquid fuel via Fischer-Tropsch - probably better energy efficiency overall, rather than coal>electricity>electrolysis>fuel cell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer–Tropsch_process
One of the important aspects of hydrogen powered vehicles, is the ability to refuel quickly, with a potential for a “fill up” that is measured in minutes, instead of hours.
So, beyond just the geopolitics of energy, and environment, there is the matter of consumer acceptance of something that feels closer to conventional gasoline/diesel fuel.
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MolaKule
Staff member
I think he gave a thermo-physics explanation and with an engineering degree you should have an appreciation of energy conversion and efficiency.
I think one German solution would be to restart their nuclear power plants and liberate hydrogen from sea water if they want a hydrogen economy.
See this article
https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/04/03/1090603/how-to-reopen-a-nuclear-power-plant/
What is interesting is: "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission oversees nuclear power plants in the US, but the agency doesn't have a specific regulatory framework for restarting operations at a nuclear power plant that has shut down and entered decommissioning, White says. The NRC created a panel that will oversee reopening efforts."
The US's NRC needs to get with the program.
JHZR2
Staff member
The way to use hydrogen is to make it in situations then consume it. Very limited inventory. This allows you to avoid Carnot yet not have the other baggage. Unfortunately that requires a more complex reforming plant, and a fuel as a carrier.
I was a fuel cell system developer for years. At one of the last Fuel Cell Seminar meetings I went to, the opening keynote noted that fuel cells have been five years off for the last 35 years. We can do the stack. The balance of plant is challenging.
I was a fuel cell system developer for years. At one of the last Fuel Cell Seminar meetings I went to, the opening keynote noted that fuel cells have been five years off for the last 35 years. We can do the stack. The balance of plant is challenging.
The NRC moves at tectonic speeds.
JHZR2
Staff member
The answer to making hydrogen is reformation. If you have a source of heat - bottoming cycle on an engine, nuclear, solar concentrator, to some extent you can push steam reformation, which is an endothermic process. Then get some efficiency back through water-gas shift which makes more H2 through the conversion of CO.
Is it the ultra clean approach that greenies dream of? No. But that, like most green tech, is impractical. But some form or variant is doable and could be useful in certain cases. It’s not all bad either…
For anything with mobility or stranded, you need to balance it, so you run autothermal reformation to water gas shift. Yes, indeed, hydrogen is a fossil fuel at this point. But as I said in my other point, you avoid Carnot.
Even if you don’t store it, you need to purify it. Fuel cells are easily poisoned.
Then look at a place like CA with horrendous air quality. The fuel cell cathodes are also possible to be poisoned!
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OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
There are less lossy "green" or "renewable" options than hydrogen that lack all the headaches and employ existing infrastructure and technology. Remember, Germany burns trees for 10% of their electricity because biomass is classified as "green", there's some flexibility here. You mentioned wood alcohol, other options are biodiesel produced from algae, which grows rapidly, or diesel/petrol from plants like soy. Basically, anything you can grow in large quantities and produce a liquid fuel from has numerous advantages over the hydrogen lifecycle.
edyvw
$50 site donor 2025
It is part of emission subsidies program.
Maybe they are getting something out of it re. know-how they can implement elsewhere.
Yes, like all corporations they plan for future POSSIBILITIES and also research. It doesnt mean that because they do that it will happen but the company with the closed mind is the one that eventually fails. Even Bezos reminds his company that they may fail one day.
This was another test, does it mean it will happen tomorrow? No but the technology is there, just like h2 and they will be ready.
Most advanced Humanoid robots in the world.
https://www.bmwgroup.com/en/news/general/2024/humanoid-robots.html
What?
This was the closest topic to carbon sequestration that hadn't been locked.
Okay everyone, point and laugh.
Okay everyone, point and laugh.
Facebook clickbait.
Just remember, at one time in the history of mankind that the world was square and not round.
If you research the subject extensively, there are possibilities and some new generation nuclear plants even make it more possible
I dont think H2 is dead yet. Time will tell, reminds me of the Betamax vs VHS battle. VHS won but the Betamax was better technology. Granted H2 market is a needle in a haystack compared to lithium.
https://topelectricsuv.com/featured/upcoming-hydrogen-fcev-cars/
https://topelectricsuv.com/featured/upcoming-hydrogen-fcev-cars/
Or how little hydrogen the Earth has mostly bonded to other elements very high up in the atmosphere. About the only way hydrogen power would be feasible is if we lived on Jupiter where a large percentage of the atmosphere is free standing hydrogen. You can't defeat the laws of physics.
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