Hydrogen Drive - We Made the Battery Obsolete

[amberwolf]

We will definitely run a system on the bench to show it supporting a load without any input power too. We can plug in to store the gas, then unplug and use the gas to run the motor.

So it is just another kind of battery, then--chemical/mechanical, in that it takes the input power and converts it into the gas by electrolyzing water, then the gas is used in a way akin to the old steam locomotive mechanism, but not with steam, directly; rather recombining the hydrogen and oxygen in a spark-ignition explosion, to create mechanical work.

That's interesting about the ASI controller usage.

ASI doesn't have a very good rep around here, because they don't seem to reply / support anyone that didn't buy directly from them, and people who bought controllers from dealers (most often ERT) have been "screwed over" because they don't have their own login for the programming/setup app (just the dealer sharing their own), and the ones from the dealers can stop working, and the dealers stop responding to them, and ASI apparently won't help them or provide them with their own setup login. So then they can't use their controller anymore, because of a simple setting they need to change.... ( I don't understand why it should even require such a login, but that's apparently a thing with a number of controller manufacturers. )

 

[AngryBob]

So, you are gonna have a large, pressurized, metal can full of hydrogen, mounted on a bicycle, and you somehow think this is a good idea? BTW, it's been done, and did not sell; SFAIK, it did not get past the mock-up stage.

Somebody involved in this attended, and graduated from, an actual accredited engineering school?

Can't put it on a bike rack on a city bus.

Can't sell this to anyone who has ever heard the phrase "Oh, the humanity!".

As a static, non-mobile excess-generation storage medium, perhaps functional.

On a bike, I think you are pissing up a rope.

 

[sandshifter]

Sorry for necro-ing, but having come across this discussion I can't help but feel that the efficiency criticism missed the point of a system of this kind, viz. that it's possibly the only way for electric vehicles to be ecological on a mass scale, whether or not this specific example is a mature technology. Although an improvement over hydrocarbons, the embodied energy in disposable batteries still makes them an environmental disaster on a world scale, not to mention that for them to be remotely economical the child-slave operated mines that poison their surrounding communities are more or less a necessity. Wasted energy is a problem insofar as the grid is still largely reliant on hydrocarbons, but this is a criticism that can be levied at electric vehicles in general. If you're only thinking about how much raw power you can extract on your commute you're missing the point of electrification, currently artificially cheap considering all its externalities

 

[neptronix]

 

[sandshifter]

I'm stating facts, the world can no more support 3 billion electric vehicles with batteries replaced every decade than it can 3 billion ICE cars. of course this doesn't mean that hydrogen is necessarily the solution

 

[stan.distortion]

Hadn't seen this thread... still reading but I really hope there's some sort of gas separation going on because so far it seems to be browns gas all the way through, ie. fxing terrifying.
Brief note on crypto, the OPs comment on them was pretty much the same thing Henry Ford suggested as an ideal economy, a unit of currency is a unit of energy (not centrally managed, just "is", joules are money).

 

[sandshifter]

as much of a Hitler-loving antisemite Ford was, I'm generous enough to believe he was a slightly less braindead Nazi than modern-day crypto hawkers and meant it in the sense of a rational energy accounting system, not literally burning energy to create fake money

 

[raylo32]

It would take some new kind of magic to make electrolysis actually output more energy in H2 than it takes to make the H2. Good luck with that.

 

[sandshifter]

That's disingenuous, the idea here isn't perpetual energy but a durable solution to the world turning into a battery junkyard. With a non-fossil fuel grid the lost energy would be acceptable externality-wise

 

[neptronix]

So you're here on an electric vehicle website to tell everyone they're wrong about the core topic today?

 

[sandshifter]

Do people here really think it's controversial to say that the current EV paradigm is almost as much of a planetary Ponzi scheme as fossil fuels? that's surprising, I would've expected this place to be more disposed towards thinking beyond what merely exists

 

[stan.distortion]

Not sure about the hydrogen-electric cycle, electrolosys and fuel cells sound like a near perfect cycle but I'm guessing there are major efficiency losses somewhere. As far as combustion goes it's too obviously perfect to be mere chance, it gives off all the energy and recombines to water. Often wondered if we'll ever find a way to store it in an in-between state, hydrogen and oxygen ready to split but still in a liquid state, something like superchilled totally pure water remaining a liquid but instantly freezing when an impurity is introduced.

 

[neptronix]

Do people here really think it's controversial to say that the current EV paradigm is almost as much of a planetary Ponzi scheme as fossil fuels? that's surprising, I would've expected this place to be more disposed towards thinking beyond what merely exists

Yes, because it's wrong.

We can recycle batteries ( this is happening at a commercial scale right now ) & batteries are getting denser, less toxic, and less reliant on rare minerals ( cobalt free batteries exist and are being used in cars today )

You can't recycle oil or all the natural gas used to produce hydrogen at a net cost 50-100% higher than gasoline on a per mile delivered basis ( doing it with green energy is a lot more expensive BTW )

You're coming to one of the smartest places on EVs telling them they're wrong, when your own set of facts is outdated. It sounds like you're here to troll or join the occasional person who doesn't understand energy economics and thinks compressed air, hydrogen, or something else that's been nonviable commercially for eons is the future.

 

[sandshifter]

Commercial viability isn't the standard for whether a technology is sustainable, an electrolysis-fuel cell system has its only inputs as water and electricity, the toxicity of batteries is less the issue than the inevitable toxicity and exploitation surrounding continuous extraction (even for common battery minerals like nickel and iron), and battery recycling is far less "commercially viable" than a somewhat inefficient energy storage system, as the massive electronics and plastic recycling frauds have shown where they just dump the trash to the first comprador 3rd world government willing to take the check in exchange for poisoning their people

 

[neptronix]

Commercial viability isn't the standard for whether a technology is sustainable,

I guess you could have the government subsidize it at the kind of loss that could destroy an economy.

..but you live in a capitalist system like most of us don't you?

 

[neptronix]

I fail to see anything green about an energy source that requires 2-3x more energy in than what's delivered. Great opportunity for nat gas companies to greenwash their product i guess.

Go on, strip mine the earth for solar panels you need so you can make that green hydrogen reality happen.. at least you didn't strip mine the earth for recyclable batteries... that's way better

 

[sandshifter]

That's more applicable to wish-fulfilment battery recycling schemes, you don't need subsidies to make something less efficient viable, you just need to ban the alternatives I do live in the same capitalist system so naturally this will never happen.

 

[sandshifter]

I fail to see anything green about an energy source that requires 2-3x more energy in than what's delivered. Great opportunity for nat gas companies to greenwash their product i guess.

Go on, strip mine the earth for solar panels you need so you can make that green hydrogen reality happen.. at least you didn't strip mine the earth for recyclable batteries... that's way better

Regardless of how efficient vehicles are, the energy grid will have to transformed. The issue isn't gross energy use but rather metabolic rifts in production and consumption leading to the destruction of the natural world. The technology pretty much already exists for this: as we speak China is building closed-cycle ultra-safe thorium nuclear reactors, the solar stuff is more of a stopgap

 

[stan.distortion]

It's a viable storage method for things like wind power, erratic output needing masses of storage and lots of space available, electrolysis can handle huge loads and compresses efficiently. Always wanted to have a play around with it but wasn't willing to do any trial and error with gas separation. Electrolysis from renewable seems to be picking up steadily but what I don't get is why are we dumping the nice, clean oxygen and using dirty oxygen at the other end? As far as I know platinum fuel cells have an infinite lifespan if uncontaminated but that goes down fast when there are impurities.

 

[sandshifter]

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throw these together and you have a full system that weighs 3.3kg. not economical yet but this took a few minutes of searching

 

[stan.distortion]

Less than 30 bar operating pressure, the cost of low pressure tanks and the amount of energy they can store at those pressures doesn't compare well with batteries. It's been about about 15-20 years since I was looking at it but iirc the cost of tanks was higher than the same amount of energy storage with batteries even then.

 

[sandshifter]

ah ok well honestly I know nothing about hydrogen, but the point stands that batteries as such are not a long term solution

 

[stan.distortion]

Just checked that, 1m3 of hydrogen at atmospheric pressure contains 3kw/hr so at 30 bar 1m3 contains 90kw/hr. So I was wrong there, tanks would be a hell of a lot cheaper than the equivalent battery storage. Getting at that energy... infernal combustion only gets 30% efficiency at best, surely fuel cells can do better than that?

Edit: Between 40% and 60% apparently:
"According to the U.S. Department of Energy, fuel cells are generally between 40 and 60% energy efficient. This is higher than some other systems for energy generation. For example, the internal combustion engine of a car can be about 43% energy efficient." (Wikipedia)
Fuel cell efficiency:
"However, current best processes for water electrolysis have an effective electrical efficiency of 70-80%, so that producing 1 kg of hydrogen (which has a specific energy of 143 MJ/kg or about 40 kWh/kg) requires 50–55 kWh of electricity." (Wikipedia)

 

[Hillhater]

"According to the U.S. Department of Energy, fuel cells are generally between 40 and 60% energy efficient. This is higher than some other systems for energy generation. For example, the internal combustion engine of a car can be about 43% energy efficient." (Wikipedia)
Fuel cell efficiency:
"However, current best processes for water electrolysis have an effective electrical efficiency of 70-80%, so that producing 1 kg of hydrogen (which has a specific energy of 143 MJ/kg or about 40 kWh/kg) requires 50–55 kWh of electricity." (Wikipedia)

Yes, so that 50-55 kWh of electricity gives 1 kg H2, which the fuel cell converts back to give 24kWh of power for the motor ?
Thats a near 50% loss of energy compare to a straight electrical (battery) drive train.
Then , if you intend producing H2 using “green” solar power (at 20% CF) , that 50-55kWh of electrical input requires 20+ kW of installed solar generation to make just 1-2 kg of H2 per day !
( and that ignors the power needed to compress or liquify that H2 for practical storage and use )

 

[neptronix]

USA prices:
Gasoline: $3.50/gal - utilized at 25-35% efficiency
Hydrogen gallon equivalent: $6 to $12 - utilized at 40-60% efficiency, then subject to 10-20% loss when turned into motion
Electricity gallon equivalent: $1 to $2 - utilized at 80-95% efficiency

Literally electricity made from fossil fuels is cheaper to put in an all electric car because of how efficient an electric car is.

The gas engine sucks and so does the fuel cell, the hydrogen powered ICE is even worse.

ah ok well honestly I know nothing about hydrogen, but the point stands that batteries as such are not a long term solution

Kudos for being honest!

Here's what owning a hydrogen car is like per mirai reddit:



Can't help but cackle reading this..