U.S. Hydrogen Economy - A requirement for a sustainable future

[paxmao]

I don´t see safety as an issue. There are much more dangereous petrochemical product being mass produced and there are immensely more dangerous products transported by road everyday. Not to mention the jet fuel in planes.

Around a decade ago, due to my work at that time, I assisted a meeting in which an emergency plan was discussed. The option that was taken in the case of spillage of certain chemical product transported by road (routinely) was to vent it towards the valley north of the installations.That would imply the certain death of around 5k people and that was the least damaging option.

Believe me, hydrogen is not particularly bad in that regard.

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[bluefirecorp_]

I don´t see safety as an issue. There are much more dangereous petrochemical product being mass produced and there are immensely more dangerous products transported by road everyday. Not to mention the jet fuel in planes.

Around a decade ago, due to my work at that time, I assisted a meeting in which an emergency plan was discussed. The option that was taken in the case of spillage of certain chemical product transported by road (routinely) was to vent it towards the valley north of the installations.That would imply the certain death of around 5k people and that was the least damaging option.

Believe me, hydrogen is not particularly bad in that regard.

Pretty much. It can be as dangerous as dihydrogen monoxide to be honest.


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https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/lets-build-a-global-power-grid

That's an interesting reporting building up a power grid using superconductive wires cooled by liquid hydrogen. Effectively delivering both hydrogen and electricity to regions around North America.

Capex would be quite a lot, but it'd revolutionize our entire grid here in North America.

[Spendulus]

....
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/the-smarter-grid/lets-build-a-global-power-grid

That's an interesting reporting building up a power grid using superconductive wires cooled by liquid hydrogen. Effectively delivering both hydrogen and electricity to regions around North America.

Capex would be quite a lot, but it'd revolutionize our entire grid here in North America.

Well, that's crazy weird, complicated and expensive, plus being an obvious terrorist target.

There's no particular reason to focus on H2 at all. H+ is the active agent in most chemical energy transfers, various molecules carry and store the H ions. They have different physical characteristics and advantages/disadvantages.

The point is, we do have a hydrogen economy.

[acarli]

California had a big push on hydrogen fueled cars. IMO I think the reason it never quite took off despite the media's best efforts were two fold. First, the logistics of delivering hydrogen to existing gas stations. They don't have the right equipment, not used to doing it etc. The second and probably the most damning reason is because the range of a hydrogen fuel cell car is very low. At the time they were around 50 miles. That doesn't work.

The best scenario has a central station that converts H to electricity, and send that to electric vehicles.

Here's an article on why hydrogen fuel cell cars can not compete with  electric cars:

https://energypost.eu/hydrogen-fuel-cell-cars-competitive-hydrogen-fuel-cell-expert/

Main points:

• You cannot fill up like you do with gasoline or diesel. It is actually pretty ridiculous how hard it is to fill up a HFC powered car
• You won’t even go 100 miles on current tech hydrogen tanks that are still safe to carry around in a car
• Fuel cells wear out crazy fast and are hard to regenerate
• Hydrogen as a fuel is incredibly hard to make and distribute with acceptably low losses

I was wrong. 100 miles is better than what I estimated. Yup. forget h fuel cell cars. Electric is the dominant tech.

[Spendulus]

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• You won’t even go 100 miles on current tech hydrogen tanks that are still safe to carry around in a car
• Fuel cells wear out crazy fast and are hard to regenerate
• Hydrogen as a fuel is incredibly hard to make and distribute with acceptably low losses

I was wrong. 100 miles is better than what I estimated. Yup. forget h fuel cell cars. Electric is the dominant tech.
[/quote]

That's a function of what you or someone thinks might be a safe size of a h2 pressure tank. You will have a maximum of 4.5 lb/cu ft, compared to 46 lb/cu ft for gasoline.

Go down from the 4.5 (liquid h2) to something real wordish, you have much less than 10% the power density of gasoline in that tank.

Yes modern batteries are much more interesting than that sort of thing.

[bluefirecorp_]

low quality comments

low quality comments

Obviously, cars exist that get over 100 miles range. The example was referenced in the original post.

Well, the battery's way more materials costly (even including the fancy hydrogen tank). Also, it's weight is much heavier for less energy, due to batteries very low energy densities. A Honda clarity and Tesla Model S go about the same distance. A clarity has a curb weight of 1,600 kg, a Tesla has a curb weight of between 2000 kg and 2250 kg, depending on how many batteries you add in.

Posting low quality comments may be acceptable in certain areas, but not really here.

[Spendulus]

low quality comments

low quality comments

Obviously, cars exist that get over 100 miles range. The example was referenced in the original post.

Well, the battery's way more materials costly (even including the fancy hydrogen tank). Also, it's weight is much heavier for less energy, due to batteries very low energy densities. A Honda clarity and Tesla Model S go about the same distance. A clarity has a curb weight of 1,600 kg, a Tesla has a curb weight of between 2000 kg and 2250 kg, depending on how many batteries you add in.

Posting low quality comments may be acceptable in certain areas, but not really here.

I agree. Why do you try to tell people things that are not true? See bolded above; compare to below quote from Toyota. Battery power is far, far cheaper than fuel cell power. And everyone has heard that fuel cells are ridiculously expensive, although they may not know or care about the details.

Toyota says it’s made several advances to hydrogen fuel cells that will make them significantly cheaper, and will allow the company to sell a car using the low-pollution technology in 2015—years before its competitors.

blue sporty hydrogen toyota
Hydrogen concept: Toyota plans to display this new hydrogen fuel-cell concept car at the Tokyo Motor Show.
The car will be expensive: between $50,000 and $100,000. But that’s a big improvement over the million-dollar cost of experimental fuel-cell vehicles in years past.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/521616/how-toyota-will-be-first-with-a-fuel-cell-car/

[bluefirecorp_]

Low quality troll

Ugh. Do you even read? Economies of scales. You're pulling out of date articles from a half of decade ago.

Only a moron would think these articles describe the current ecosystem.

I suppose you also think BTC is $100 still, right?

[Spendulus]

Low quality troll

Ugh. Do you even read? Economies of scales. You're pulling out of date articles from a half of decade ago.

Only a moron would think these articles describe the current ecosystem.

I suppose you also think BTC is $100 still, right?

It looks like the 2018 base price of the Toyota car is right at 60,000, and so plus a few options it is clearly in the mid 70s. That is right in the middle of the range I previously quoted, 50-100k.

So why are you misleading people, and claiming this is cheap, when it is clearly not?

The market simply disagrees with your fantasies?

[bluefirecorp_]

http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/07/innovative-ai-system-could-help-make-fuel-cells-more-efficient

Neat, better fuel cells coming.

Also, global markets are starting to become a thing; https://www.forbes.com/sites/timtreadgold/2019/07/24/japan-and-australia-launch-an-experimental-coal-to-hydrogen-export-industry/#16236bdc7332

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We're going to see hydrogen economy grow and replace oil in the next 30 years.

[bluefirecorp_]

Pretty sure we're making hydrogen cars a thing with the GND.

18.3 trillion dollars towards revamping the future.

[bluefirecorp_]

http://news.utoledo.edu/index.php/08_29_2019/u-s-department-of-energy-awards-utoledo-750000-to-improve-production-of-hydrogen-as-clean-fuel

DOE doing grants. Good... good. Let the hydrogen flow through you.