Toyota's Hydrogen Engine Instead of EVs

[ZeeOSix]

I specifically asked for harmful effects besides green house effects. Like a true pollutant would have.
Water vapor has a much larger green house effect that CO2, should that be classified as a pollutant?

Sure, it's not going to directly kill people or cause health problems like other "pollutants". But if you look up the definition of "pollutant", in the general sense it can mean anything in the atmosphere that can cause harmful effects. Green house gasses are harmful in the long run. So excessive CO2 emissions could be considered a "pollutant" to the atmosphere.

Is CO2 a pollutant?

<p>While there are direct ways in which CO2 is a pollutant (acidification of the ocean), its primary impact is its greenhouse warming effect. While the greenhouse effect is a natural occurence, too much warming has severe negative impacts on agriculture, health and environment.</p>

skepticalscience.com

 

[Bjornviken]

It's called electrolysis.. it was in Toyota's video. It's interesting how there is a huge amount of wanting to attack something other than electric only powered cars.. And your questions were your own.. nothing that I posted..

and is electrolysis difficult? Nope.. quite simple but don't let that get in your way of a good argument.

Why not attack the lack of an electric grid that is able to handle this "future" of electric charged cars? Wind and Solar are not at that stage to handle the load today.. Oh wait, what happened when it got cold and no wind? Any real plans (not hyperbole) of building more capacity to the electric grid in the US? All I see is closing of electric supply, can't really charge a car is there's no electricity.. But sure, attack hydrogen with a simple process to obtain it from water via electrolysis.. amazing..

Hydrogen is coming to EU as a "green fuel". Here is one company in that business. Did just buy up Finnish Hydre and planing to build a network of filling stations for hydrogen that runs through all the Nordic countries. So i think Toyota knows what they are doing
https://www.norwegianhydrogen.com/

 

[OVERKILL]

Electric is not going to be an immediate answer, the grid can't even power a/c units in the summer! But somehow it can charge all these cars?

And:

It's called electrolysis.. it was in Toyota's video. It's interesting how there is a huge amount of wanting to attack something other than electric only powered cars.. And your questions were your own.. nothing that I posted..

Look at those two statements. Let me know when you see the issue.

 

[researcher]

And:

Look at those two statements. Let me know when you see the issue.

I know @OVERKILL lol.. it hit me later after I typed that! Where's the electricity going to come from for the electrolysis! Thanks for pointing out the obvious..

 

[OVERKILL]

I know @OVERKILL lol.. it hit me later after I typed that! Where's the electricity going to come from for the electrolysis! Thanks for pointing out the obvious..

Yup.

Same problem.

 

[researcher]

Yup.

Same problem.

It's always something in this world, another problem to be solved. But thanks for making me laugh (even if it is at myself, even better)!

 

[finmile]

Enjoy your utopia.
Tell me, since you find it so hilarious, what are the harmful effects to humans, animals or plants it causes, beside being a green house gas?

Yes, the greenhouse gas is the biggest problem. Without that aspect, I wouln’t be too worried yet.

CO2 wasn’t a problem in the same way that CFC wasn’t a problem, until it was. ”CFC is not a pollutant!”

The problems will be indirect. Climate change is the biggest with heat waves and drought, etc.

Some others that comes to my mind:

As ocean absorb more CO2, the pH decreases and the ocean becomes more acidic. This has impacts on the sea life.

Sea level will rise up to 3 feet by 2100, and of course this rise will continue. What will happen to coastal cities?

So far CO2 consentration in air has increased from 280ppm to 420ppm from burning of fossil fuels. Recommended indoor CO2 concentrations are at—or below—1,000 ppm in schools and 800 ppm in offices. If we continue burning fossil fuels this way, eventually we will have that ”bad air” situation even outside

 

[KrisZ]

@finmile you are a perfect example of the environmental movement. Worry about CO2 and all the things that could happen, may happen, may not happen. Basically hopes and dreams.

Meanwhile, have you heard of the plastic floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Last time I heard it was the size of Texas, it’s probably larger now.

Have you seen how cruise and cargo ships are being dismantled on Indian shores?

Have you seen the cobalt mines in Congo?

Those are just but few example of environmental devastation that is happening right now, and can be fixed right now, but you and many others like you are wrapped around the CO2 “pollution” and all the bad things that are going to happen. Worrying about melting ice caps, while the environment is literally being destroyed in many parts of the world, you don’t care about that though.

 

[finmile]

@finmile you are a perfect example of the environmental movement. Worry about CO2 and all the things that could happen, may happen, may not happen. Basically hopes and dreams.

Meanwhile, have you heard of the plastic floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Last time I heard it was the size of Texas, it’s probably larger now.

Have you seen how cruise and cargo ships are being dismantled on Indian shores?

Have you seen the cobalt mines in Congo?

Those are just but few example of environmental devastation that is happening right now, and can be fixed right now, but you and many others like you are wrapped around the CO2 “pollution” and all the bad things that are going to happen. Worrying about melting ice caps, while the environment is literally being destroyed in many parts of the world, you don’t care about that though.

My answers:
-Interesting that in BITOG I’m seen as some kind of extremist green and at the same time in Europe I’m seen as denianist, as I’m on the boat that says 2050 is enough, and we don’t need to rush to unrealistic 2035. I think I’m really a realistic, as I don’t belong to neither of those extremes, but I’m on the middle of these two extremes.
-Yes I have. The plastic comes mostly from the poor countries which don’t have adequate garbage collection, so they throw their garbage to the sea. Are you on that group who wants to ban plastic straws in westerm countries, as you think this would in some way fix the problem?
-Yes. What’s your suggestion to fix the issue?
-Yes. What’s your suggestion to fix the issue?
-Yes. How would you fix this issue right now?
-Please don’t put your assumptions to my mouth. If I care about the climate change problem, why would that implicate that I wouldn’t care about about anything else. Why would it be like that? Could you please elaborate?

Anyway, you listed many items which needs to be fixed. How would you fix then and could you please elaborate why we couldn’t fix the CO2 problem at the same time? How would they exclude each other?

 

[KrisZ]

How come you’re not asking me how to fix the co2 problem? Could it be that the fixes have been pounded into our consciousness already?

You don’t see this as a weird phenomenon? We have a fix for something not exactly understood, but no fixes for immediate problems. It’s not even discussed or well known to the general public.

 

[supton]

Actually it’s an electromagnetic wave, and for the most part electromagnetic waves move at the speed of light in whatever medium they happen to be in. It’s not really electrons bumping into each other as that would still be too slow. The electric cable forms a wave guide.

I’m a bit rusty on my emag theory but it’s impacted the by the permativity and permability of the medium it is traveling through. Most RF transmission lines that I can think of (coax, twin lead) don’t use high permability materials in the signal path (copper clad steel, like RG6, usually doesn’t count), leaving just the permativity if the material (the inner dieletric). It’s related to the reciprocal of the square root, for coax, signals tend to be around 60-70% the speed of light.

Power transmission lines do have steel towers but I think they constitute a blip in the scheme of things, so it really comes down to the permativity of air, which is darn close to 1. [IIRC the lines are aluminum wrapped around steel? but again, the steel doesn’t count.] But I’m assuming in my mind nice parallel paths here, and matched lines and loads, and at that point I’m outside my field—my background was small signal electronics, not power electronics.

The wavelength of 60Hz is incredibly long in air (3e8/60 meters, or 31 miles), long enough to have transmission line effects on many runs, but all the various loads on the line are going to do something—do the distributed LC loads do something? but I do believe it’s clipping along near the speed of light while going from load to load at the very least.

*

It is kinda wild to think about power sloshing back and forth on these low frequency lines, I flip on a reactive load and now some transmission line effect makes it look like something else at the generator. My house is small fry compared to what is on the line, but man, those switches must see some abuse when they flip on power to a dead line, and every load looks wildly reactive… with high inrush current.

 

[finmile]

How come you’re not asking me how to fix the co2 problem? Could it be that the fixes have been pounded into our consciousness already?

Oh, sorry. How would you fix the CO2 problem, KrisZ?
No, the fixes are not pounded to our heads yet. The technological debate is still ongoing, hence for example this thread ”Toyota's Hydrogen Engine Instead of EVs”. What’s your take on this?

 

[KrisZ]

It was a rhetorical question. The technological path is pretty clear. Solar, wind, lots of natural gas peaker plants, electric cars and ban everything possible that is gas or diesel powered.

Meanwhile, the few other examples I mentioned are not touched, not even by the environmentalists That was my point.

 

[finmile]

I don’t like that ban for gasoline and diesel engines either. I’d like to keep hybrid ICE in the toolbox until electric or hydrogen engines demonstrate that those tecnhiques can replace our current 1.4 billion cars worldwide.

For the other environmental challenges, I’m sure governments around the world are working on them even today. These topics just won’t seem reach the headlines. Too boring topics, I guess?

I was agains wind power about 10-15 years ago, when our government paid fairly big subsidies for those ”futile windmills”. To my surprise, today the wind power here is totally profitable on its own without any subsidies, and there’s a lot of them built every year with private money only. Whoa, didn’t see that coming.

Give them another 10-15 years, and they will fix also the duck curve, I’m sure. For example with local peaker hydrogen plant (create hydrogen when there’s excess electricity, ’burn’ hydrogen back to electricity when needed).

We’ll get there, just need some time (some decades).

 

[kschachn]

Give them another 10-15 years, and they will fix also the duck curve, I’m sure. For example with local peaker hydrogen plant (create hydrogen when there’s excess electricity, ’burn’ hydrogen back to electricity when needed).

Wait, a peaker plant to electrolyze water? Running on natural gas?

Also how is the hydrogen stored? As a compressed gas?

 

[KrisZ]

I was agains wind power about 10-15 years ago, when our government paid fairly big subsidies for those ”futile windmills”. To my surprise, today the wind power here is totally profitable on its own without any subsidies, and there’s a lot of them built every year with private money only. Whoa, didn’t see that coming.

Give them another 10-15 years, and they will fix also the duck curve, I’m sure. For example with local peaker hydrogen plant (create hydrogen when there’s excess electricity, ’burn’ hydrogen back to electricity when needed).

We’ll get there, just need some time (some decades).

The are profitable not because of technological advancements, but because the energy costs have skyrocketed. I’m glad you’re happy paying very high electricity rates, to keep these projects profitable, but many, including me, are not that willing to be exploited.

 

[finmile]

The technology has advanced, they build the towers higher and use longer blades. And at least so far we haven’t paid any extra for our electricity in Finland due to that unstable electric production of wind and sun, although I acknowledge that the production has been quite modest so far. Until recently (see picture below) the price of electricity has been quite stable at 5c/kWh. Now it’s been all over the place due to the war. But I’d expect the price come down back to under 10c/kWh within a year or so.

Surely if the price will stay permanently above 10c/kWh, and could also be pinpointed to be caused by the unstable wind and sun power output, I would have to say that you were right. I hope I don’t have to.

Luckily we also have quite lot of nuclear power. I count that also as green energy, as there’s no CO2 emissions and hardly any other immediate emissions. Nuclear waste we can bury deep into our own stable bedrock, it’s not going to be a problem.

 

[finmile]

Wait, a peaker plant to electrolyze water? Running on natural gas?

Also how is the hydrogen stored? As a compressed gas?

Running on the wind/solar electricity which is not needed at that time.

A lot of wind => too much electricity => convert H2O to H (and O) using the excess electricity => store H as compressed gas in containers near the wind power farm.
No wind => conver the stored H back to H2O and electricity and serve it to the grid.
I guess you could store the excess electricity with about 25-50% efficiency in this way, when done on big scale?
Heck, you could even pump water to high altitude when it’s windy, and let it drown back down as hydroelectricity when there’s no wind. Obviously if battery technology advances, batteries would be the optimum solution to flatten the peaks.
Anyway, the excess electricity needs to be stored one way or another, to eliminate
the duck curve.
Is it feasible? I hope so. Next ten years will be interesting with big scale inventions.
Although, I would build some hefty nuclear power at the same time, just in case the hydrogen economy wouldn’t fly…

 

[kschachn]

A lot of wind => too much electricity => convert H2O to H (and O) using the excess electricity => store H as gas in containers near the wind power farm.
No wind => conver the stored H back to H2O and electricity.
I guess you could store the excess electricity with about 25-50% efficiency in this way, when done on big scale?
Heck, you could even pump water to high altitude when it’s windy, and let it drown back down as hydroelectricity when there’s no wind. Obviously if battery technology advances, batteries would be the optimum solution to flatten the peaks.
Anyway, the excess electricity needs to be stored one way or another, to eliminate
the duck curve.
Is it feasible? I hope so. Next ten years will be interesting.

I don't know a location on earth that has excess capacity like that, unless it is at the expense of a large baseline overcapacity. Why wouldn't you just use the electricity instead rather than go through the inevitable losses with electrolysis and subsequent storage inefficiencies?

And store as compressed hydrogen? The problem with that is the irreversibility of the compression process, you can't distribute the gas at the storage pressure. This is the problem with any compression scheme and it includes methane. Lots of thermodynamical problems with any sort of gas storage.

All the schemes you mention are very inefficient, you'd only do it if there was some overriding political pressure for implementation. Never for a valid technical reason.

 

[PimTac]

The plastic comes mostly from the poor countries which don’t have adequate garbage collection, so they throw their garbage to the sea.

This has been improving. What is not being told is that there have been two tsunamis that generated vast amounts of waste that ended up in the oceans.